Orestes Pursued by the Furies is an event from Greek mythology that is a recurring theme in art depicting Orestes.
Orestes Pursued by the Furies is an event from Greek mythology that is a recurring theme in art depicting Orestes.
In the Iliad, the king of Argos, Agamemnon, sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis to assure good sailing weather to travel to Troy and fight in the Trojan War. In Agamemnon, the first play of Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, murder Agamemnon upon his return home as revenge for sacrificing Iphigenia. In The Libation Bearers, the second play of the Orestia, Agamemnon's son Orestes returns home to take revenge on his mother for murdering his father. Orestes ultimately does murder his mother, and afterward is tormented and chased offstage by The Furies, beings who personify vengeance. [1]
Orestes being tormented by the Furies has been depicted by a number of artists, including the following:
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae, the son, or grandson, of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra and the father of Iphigenia, Electra, Laodike (Λαοδίκη), Orestes and Chrysothemis. Legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. When Menelaus's wife, Helen, was taken to Troy by Paris, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War.
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Aegisthus was a figure in Greek mythology. Aegisthus is known from two primary sources: the first is Homer's Odyssey, believed to have been first written down by Homer at the end of the 8th century BC, and the second from Aeschylus's Oresteia, written in the 5th century, BC. He also features heavily in the action of Euripides's Electra, although his character remains offstage.
The Erinyes, also known as the Furies, and the Eumenides, were female chthonic deities of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath". Walter Burkert suggests that they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath". They correspond to the Dirae in Roman mythology. The Roman writer Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that they are called "Eumenides" in hell, "Furiae" on Earth, and "Dirae" in heaven.
In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the brother of Electra. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones.
In Greek mythology, Iphigenia was a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and thus a princess of Mycenae.
Electra is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies. She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides. She is also the central figure in plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. She is a vengeful soul in The Libation Bearers, the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy. She plans out an attack with her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra.
In Greek mythology, Pylades was a Phocian prince as the son of King Strophius and Anaxibia who is the daughter of Atreus and sister of Agamemnon and Menelaus. He is mostly known for his relationship with his cousin Orestes, son of Agamemnon.
In Greek mythology, Atreus was a king of Mycenae in the Peloponnese, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae.
In Greek mythology, Aletes was the son of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, the king and queen of Mycenae. He had two sisters: Erigone and Helen.
The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BC, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Erinyes. The trilogy—consisting of Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων), The Libation Bearers (Χοηφόροι), and The Eumenides (Εὐμενίδες)—also shows how the Greek gods interacted with the characters and influenced their decisions pertaining to events and disputes. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theatre trilogy, the Oresteia won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BC. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation. Oresteia originally included a satyr play, Proteus (Πρωτεύς), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of Proteus has been lost.
Euripides' Electra is a play probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely before 413 BC. It is unclear whether it was first produced before or after Sophocles' version of the Electra story.
The Flies is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, produced in 1943. It is an adaptation of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. The play recounts the story of Orestes and his sister Electra in their quest to avenge the death of their father Agamemnon, king of Argos, by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her husband Aegisthus, who had deposed and killed him.
Iphigenia in Tauris is a reworking by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe of the ancient Greek tragedy Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Ταύροις by Euripides. Euripides' title means "Iphigenia among the Taurians", whereas Goethe's title means "Iphigenia in Taurica", the country of the Tauri.
Orestes (408 BCE) is an Ancient Greek play by Euripides that follows the events of Orestes after he had murdered his mother.
Clytemnestra, in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the sister of Helen of Troy. In Aeschylus' Oresteia, she murders Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess Cassandra, whom Agamemnon had taken as a war prize following the sack of Troy; however, in Homer's Odyssey, her role in Agamemnon's death is unclear and her character is significantly more subdued.
Reflections of the Oresteia in the arts and popular culture show the influence of the classic trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus.
Electra is a two-act play written in 1937 by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux. It was the first Giraudoux play to employ the staging of Louis Jouvet. Based on the classic myth of antiquity, Electra has a surprisingly tragic force, without losing the spirit and sparkling humor that made Jean Giraudoux one of the most important playwrights of the mid twentieth century.
Clytemnestra after the Murder is a 1882 oil painting by John Collier. It has been held by the Guildhall Art Gallery since 1893. A second version, c.1914, is held by Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum.
Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus is a 1981 oil on canvas triptych painting by Francis Bacon. It is one of 28 large triptych paintings by Bacon, each comprising three oil on canvas panels which measure 198 cm × 147.5 cm.
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