The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #13 ｜ The Libation Bearers

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome back to Chronicles, where this time we're going to be talking about

00:00:19.720 Aeschylus's libation bearers, the second part of the Oresteia. And so naturally, 0.98

00:00:26.100 I've roped Stelios in, brother Stelios again. Hello, brother Luca. I'm very pleased to be here

00:00:31.520 with you. And I like how you pronounce Aeschylus. It sounded like Arnie. Aeschylus. How should it be?

00:00:41.580 I mean, okay, we call him Aeschylus. It's fun sometimes, you know, when you hear foreign 1.00

00:00:48.760 accents about it. Foreign northern accents trying to pronounce Greek words. That sounded a bit

00:00:55.160 Austrian, to be honest. Oh, gosh. What Aeschylus. Well, and so just so I don't embarrass myself

00:01:02.980 further, in the Greek, this is a, how do you pronounce it? Koifori. Koifori. Yes. Yes. So

00:01:09.920 that's the Greek translation, title, if some people might know it as that. So let's begin talking about

00:01:17.380 it. Because obviously, we sat down before, didn't we? And we covered the first part, part one,

00:01:22.320 Agamemnon. A great play where, very simply just to run through the plot again, Agamemnon returns home

00:01:30.700 after 10 years at war in Troy, and is swiftly killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, with the help of

00:01:40.120 Aeschylus. A very womanly, skulking figure with nobody. Her lover. Yes. And her lover. And her lover. 0.97

00:01:50.060 Yes. And so the whole Agamemnon's realm of Argos falls into tyranny. Agamemnon is killed. And part one

00:02:02.260 ends with this foreboding of the fact that bad things are about to go down in Argos. And will a

00:02:09.020 savior come? Yeah. And bring, restore justice and bring about peace. And yeah, I think it's good to

00:02:18.720 give some extra content on this. So our audience remembers exactly what happened in one, in Agamemnon,

00:02:27.920 but also the context there. Because the interesting thing about myth and the ancient tradition is that

00:02:33.460 almost everyone was talking about the same stories, but in slightly different ways. Yes. And we have the

00:02:40.380 same essential narrative, and everyone is giving their own little interpretation of it. And in some

00:02:47.760 cases, we have completely different interpretations of narratives. Absolutely. Like for instance, with

00:02:53.460 the myth of Prometheus, there are endless interpretations you can make of it. So what

00:02:57.520 happened is that Agamemnon, the first part of the Oresteia, concerns the end of the Trojan War.

00:03:10.320 And after the end of the Trojan War, that was essentially a decade of warfare. It's not just the

00:03:17.680 events detailed in the Iliad. The Iliad is just 51 days towards the end of the war. Sure. It's like

00:03:24.720 talking about D-Day and World War II. The Trojan War was the equivalent World War II. So when it ended,

00:03:30.880 Agamemnon was in a way one of the lucky ones, but also in another one of the most unlucky ones. Yes.

00:03:38.640 I think that the one who was, who overall had it best was Menelos. Yeah, definitely.

00:03:43.680 Who, opposite to, contrary to how he's portrayed in the movie, he didn't die. He took Helen back. And Helen

00:03:50.960 wanted to go back. They were stranded to Cyprus and Egypt for a bit, then they went back. So Agamemnon was

00:03:58.000 one of those who had favourable wins at the time. But what is really important to understand about

00:04:03.760 the context of it, because essentially we're talking about Agamemnon, who was the leader of the

00:04:09.760 Greek kings, the leader of the leaders in that war, for instance, in the Trojan War. His main beef with 0.66

00:04:19.920 his wife was that he had to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, for favourable wins so he could take the

00:04:28.240 army, the fleet of the Achaeans to Troy. And the thing here is that in some cases, in some ways,

00:04:37.040 the narrative is portrayed as he is a monster who was so much interested in glory that he would sacrifice

00:04:45.280 his own daughter. But that's, I think, a bit easy. It's a bit pedantic, because essentially he had

00:04:56.240 committed injustice against, I think it was Artemis, the goddess of hunting. She essentially told him to,

00:05:05.840 you have to sacrifice your daughter in order for me to give you favourable wins. You have to pay for

00:05:11.280 that injustice. Right. Which gives a bit of another spin in the story. Yes. But still, it's something

00:05:19.440 that we, I think it's an absolutely abhorrent act. Oh, undoubtedly. And from our modern sensitivities,

00:05:25.280 just, you know, you just don't do that. And Clytemnestra agrees with you. Yeah. And she,

00:05:31.920 well, it's very interesting as well, of course, just to recount that after Clytemnestra does murder

00:05:37.760 Agamemnon at the end of the first play. She's entirely unrepentant about it. Yeah. She,

00:05:45.920 she speaks to the chorus. They call her a murderer. She says, no, I was merely an instrument of the 0.70

00:05:51.680 gods. I was, I was the weapon of their divine justice. And, and actually her vendetta is entirely

00:06:01.200 against Agamemnon. It's Agamemnon who has the, uh, just genuinely petty tyranny in him where he feels

00:06:10.880 that no, now that I have, uh, taken on the role as like co ruler, along with Clytemnestra, uh,

00:06:18.640 I'm just going to assert my arbitrary will over the people of Argos. And so that's how we find them

00:06:25.360 at the beginning of act two, uh, act two, uh, this play, some time has gone, uh, some time has passed.

00:06:31.920 And unlike in the first play where we begin with a very long part from both the watchman and then

00:06:37.520 the chorus in this were immediately introduced to Arrestes. Yeah. The, the hero, the son of Agamemnon

00:06:45.120 and the, I say hero, the hero of this play, but again, a lot like many of the figures,

00:06:52.000 he's an incredibly morally complex character. He has to do a terrible thing.

00:06:58.240 I mean, one of the interesting things with tragedy is that there are no clear answers.

00:07:03.120 Aristotle was of the opinion that tragedy begins with a mistake in, in one's action or thinking.

00:07:11.760 But, uh, some, some people, I think most scholars are saying that he's a bit,

00:07:16.960 um, he's a bit hasty in interpreting tragedy and that tragedy is far more potent in showing

00:07:26.320 you moral dilemmas as opposed to telling you that there are clear answers. Definitely. Definitely.

00:07:32.160 This is one of the, you know, one of those debates that will never be resolved.

00:07:36.400 Hmm. So Orestes has been in exile, uh, in, uh, focus with, uh, his friend, uh, Pilates. Um,

00:07:46.960 I know I'm pronouncing all these wrong, but they, uh, they, uh, thank you. Uh, but they,

00:07:52.640 they return to Argos, um, because as it is revealed later on, uh, Orestes has been charged

00:08:00.960 charged by Apollo himself to kill his mother. So a lot like with Agamemnon, you can see the history

00:08:08.480 repeating itself. Agamemnon was told by Artemis, uh, that you have to kill your own daughter. 0.98

00:08:15.280 And now Orestes has been told by God, you have to kill your own mother, which puts him, of course, 0.71

00:08:22.160 in an impossible position because to not carry out the murder, the matricide is to leave divine 1.00

00:08:34.480 justice unsettled because that means that Clytemnestra basically gets away with the crime 1.00

00:08:40.480 and there is no justice done for her murder of Agamemnon. However, it is also a crime, obviously,

00:08:47.360 to kill one's own kin. And so Orestes is in this impossible position where he's damned either way,

00:08:55.280 whatever he does. But what is interesting is that according to the play or according to the

00:09:02.000 mentality of both Aeschylus and the ancient Greek mentality, he has to do something.

00:09:07.920 He can't just sit there. Yes. He can't remain in exile. It's one of the most interesting things

00:09:13.440 in tragedy because it's almost like saying that in life you have to actually do something.

00:09:20.320 Even if you're in an impossible situation, you can't just stand by and let the clock burn down.

00:09:26.720 Absolutely. Burn down the clock.

00:09:28.480 And to speak of doing nothing and some more passive characters, characters in this play,

00:09:35.760 we're also introduced to his sister for the first time, Elektra. Yes.

00:09:40.320 And now, Elektra is a great example as a character of exactly what you were saying about

00:09:46.400 different versions. It's played by Jennifer Gardner.

00:09:48.320 Oh, yes. Yes, that one. I've not seen that actually, but I'm sure it has its advantages.

00:09:54.400 The thing with Elektra goes back to what you were saying about different versions

00:10:00.160 of the same story, because there are two Elektra plays where she is the main character,

00:10:05.200 both by Sophocles and Euripides, written some 40, 50 years after Aeschylus has, of course,

00:10:13.280 written his own version of it. And in Euripides' play, she's a much more active presence. And this

00:10:21.840 won't be the last time I mentioned Euripides in this conversation, because he has a thing or two to

00:10:26.960 critique in his own work. I'll just read the first thing that I've bookmarked, and we can begin to

00:10:34.080 talk about some of the action. So Elektra is here with the chorus, right? And the chorus are the

00:10:41.280 libation bearers. They have been ordered to come to Agamemnon's tomb by Clytemnestra herself to pour 0.84

00:10:50.640 out these libations, these offerings, because Clytemnestra feels that Agamemnon's spirit

00:10:58.160 is still restless. She had a nightmare about him. She did. And she thought that she had to do this.

00:11:04.240 Now, what is interesting is that libations weren't offered only to gods. They were also offered to

00:11:11.680 heroes. And in some cases, you know, figures like Agamemnon. I don't know if we would call Agamemnon a hero.

00:11:18.880 Some people may call him a hero, but you would have libations to Heracles, for instance.

00:11:24.400 Yes.

00:11:26.240 So they are essentially giving their offerings to Agamemnon. And as you

00:11:34.480 well remember, Clytemnestra had a bad dream.

00:11:40.080 I think she...

00:11:40.800 I'll read it when we get there in trouble.

00:11:43.840 Okay. Can I say something interesting about Aegisthus? Because it's one of those names that people

00:11:50.560 completely forget. But his example was essentially very symbolic. And you hear about Aegisthus also in

00:11:59.360 the Odyssey, because he's a symbol of injustice. Because one of the main ways in which

00:12:09.600 justice is being... is manifesting is in goodwill. And goodwill, especially in the context of,

00:12:19.760 let's say, of kingdoms, has to do with guests and hosts. When you're a king,

00:12:27.600 you are the host of your... the host of many guests.

00:12:34.320 Right. Of course.

00:12:35.120 And also, you know, what we say about people's

00:12:38.400 houses, that they are their... their castles.

00:12:41.840 Did you say an Englishman's home is his castle?

00:12:44.320 Yes.

00:12:45.120 Yes.

00:12:45.360 Yes.

00:12:45.760 The same would apply for everyone, even for

00:12:50.320 Polyphemus, the Cyclops, with his cape.

00:12:53.120 Yes.

00:12:53.680 So it's an instance of goodwill, and it manifests in hospitality in this case.

00:12:59.920 And one of the first scenes of the Odyssey is when Telemachus walks into the hall of the...

00:13:09.600 of his house. And there are all the suitors there. And there's a bard playing a song about 0.90

00:13:16.800 Orestes and Electra slaying Aegisthus, which sets the tone that Telemachus in the Odyssey

00:13:23.120 has to become a man. And that means that he has to become like Orestes and slay 0.93

00:13:31.680 the equivalent Aegisthus. So Aegisthus in Orestia is what the suitors are in the Odyssey.

00:13:39.680 I see. Excellent. Right. So the chorus are there with Electra, and Electra begins to speak and say,

00:13:50.000 O Hermes, messenger of the gods, pathfinder and guide of the underworld, great go between above

00:13:56.000 and below, help me, speak for me, awaken the powers of the dark earth, protectors of this house,

00:14:03.200 command them to hear me, and call to the earth herself, call to our great mother, gravid with all

00:14:09.840 life, mother of everything, nurse of every plant and creature, great womb quickened by mankind's

00:14:16.400 offerings, beg her to hear me. And she goes on to say that, and I call on his spirit, father,

00:14:23.520 pity your children, pity me, pity Orestes, pity your son Orestes and your daughter. We are disinherited

00:14:31.200 and homeless, bartered by our own mother, sold off in exchange for Aegisthus, supplanted by your

00:14:38.240 killer. I live among slaves. I live the life of a slave. Orestes is banished. How shall we 0.96

00:14:45.840 get our home back? Aegisthus and your queen Clytemnestra glitter among the luxury of your treasures,

00:14:52.880 like two serpents coiled together in a gorgid sleep. Father, where is Orestes? Guide him home.

00:15:00.720 Hear my prayer and answer it. And of course, Orestes is already there. He's come independently of that.

00:15:08.000 But you see, just within this speech by Electra, you see that she is in some ways very much the

00:15:18.640 opposite of her mother. Unlike Clytemnestra, who took justice, shall we say, into her own hands, and 0.64

00:15:27.280 personally murdered Agamemnon. Electra is much more of a passive character, certainly in this play. She

00:15:35.280 prays for other people to do things for her. She prays for Orestes, the man, to come and restore

00:15:44.240 justice. And it's obvious also from much of the dialogue that she has a genuinely strong bond with

00:15:51.120 her brother as well. There is a great amount of familial love between the two of them. And they

00:15:56.800 both obviously feel like they were their father's children. Yes. More than their mother. They don't

00:16:03.360 seem to have particular affinity towards their mother. No. And also, Orestes was not, he didn't, he

00:16:12.000 didn't raise, he wasn't raised in Argus. That's why he comes back to Argus. Yes, he's raised in Thocus. 0.87

00:16:17.680 But he wasn't raised in Argus. And when he, in the first scene where he is talking to Clytemnestra,

00:16:24.320 which I'm sure we'll talk about, she doesn't recognize him. You don't sense her,

00:16:31.520 you know, you don't sense there to be any sort of connection between them.

00:16:35.680 Hmm. On the point of what you were saying about recognition. Yeah. That leads into quite a humorous,

00:16:43.840 it's quite very much satirized and joked about. But the fact of how Orestes and Electra

00:16:52.240 come to recognize one another. Because before, when Orestes first arrives on stage, he lays a lock of his

00:16:59.600 hair at the Agamemnon's tomb. Yes. And then he goes away. And Electra spots his hair. Yes. And she's like,

00:17:08.880 my gosh, it's like, it's the same hair as mine. It could only belong to my brother.

00:17:14.640 Only other person on the planet with that, with that hair type. Yes. And then also, what's more,

00:17:22.960 you see the footprints from where Orestes has been walking with Pylades. And Electra says,

00:17:30.640 oh, and we have the same foot shape. It's the same foot as well. So, yes, this nan has the exact same

00:17:39.680 foot as I, this woman. And then what's more, when Orestes finally reveals... They have the same number of

00:17:46.240 Timberland boots. Yeah. And when Orestes does turn up and he says, oh, it's me. Don't you recognize me?

00:17:54.640 He says here, look, this is of the same fabric. Don't you recognize this weave? You, you weave this

00:18:00.640 for me many, many years ago. Like, well, how's it still fit? You know, like there's this. And this is

00:18:06.720 so absurd that it was mocked by Euripides in his version of Electra. And he just goes through all these

00:18:13.760 things saying, look, none of this makes sense. Which is just a sort of a pernicious humor you'd

00:18:20.880 expect from Euripides, who was a very biting man. But nonetheless, the two come together. And then,

00:18:30.400 now that Electra sees that here is her brother and her instrument for divine retribution 0.99

00:18:38.720 against their mother, they can begin to hatch the plan to kill her. So I'll read from this part here

00:18:48.080 as well, because this is where Orestes begins to talk about the actual charge that Apollo gave him.

00:18:56.640 And he goes on to say, Apollo's command is like fate. No man can refuse it. The voice of Apollo,

00:19:04.400 relentless, directs my feet, my mind, my hands, towards this collision of killer with killer.

00:19:10.400 The voice of Apollo freezes my body to a lump of ice recounting the horrors waiting for me if I fail,

00:19:17.920 or if I flinch, or dodge off sideways. From this task, blood for blood, your face fixed like bronze.

00:19:26.240 Their debt cannot be weighted out in gold. And if I fail, I pay for failure with my own life.

00:19:33.360 Apollo told me what rights men must perform to appease angered spirits of the earth. He told me

00:19:39.360 what their unappeased anger spills into men's homes. The ulcers that gnaw the human shape to an oozing

00:19:46.480 stump. The white fungus that flowers on the ulcers. Then he told me what the unavenged blood of a murdered

00:19:54.560 father presents to the eyes of a neglected son. The Furies, forcing their way out of the thick

00:20:01.760 darkness. Drunk with the fumes of that blood. Their arrows flying in the darkness. Insanity flung like

00:20:09.280 a net. Their night horrors dragging the sleeper awake. Hunting him from collapse to deeper collapse.

00:20:17.120 Lashing him from city to city. With whips of bronze wire. Befouled in blood and suppuration. 1.00

00:20:24.160 Loathed and shunned as if leprous. Banished alike from the banquet. And from the sacred precinct.

00:20:32.560 Right. So I think that's a beautiful passage. I have two things to say here and I think they're really

00:20:38.320 important. And they tie in, they tie really well with what we said in the beginning about Agamemnon.

00:20:44.720 Now, when we talk about these stories, one of the first things that, you know, people ask is,

00:20:50.320 you know, is there a third option? Is there something else we could do? So for instance,

00:20:56.320 we can definitely see people saying, well, Clit of Nistra had a point. Why didn't Agamemnon insist

00:21:05.280 to Artemis that he dies instead of Iphigenia? I mean, I think that's a very plausible way of,

00:21:14.480 very plausible question. But what we need to remember, which is very often forgotten,

00:21:20.320 and a lot of scholars are responsible for this because they give a completely,

00:21:27.280 you know, fragmentary view of the, what is called the heroic landscape or the heroic

00:21:34.640 mindset or the heroic virtue list. The first, when the gods tell you to do something, you do it.

00:21:42.960 That's the first and core virtue of the Homeric paradigm. The Iliad is about Achilles's wrath.

00:21:54.240 Achilles wants to slay Agamemnon. He doesn't do it because Athena tells him not to.

00:22:00.400 So it's not just being a Luke smaxer, Chad, who's going to just slay everyone. It's

00:22:09.040 first and foremost reverence that you owe to gods. That's the core virtue. Yes.

00:22:13.760 So if the gods ask you to do something, you have to do it in that framework, in this world.

00:22:22.560 The same thing applies for Agamemnon. The same thing applies now for Orestes because Apollo orders him.

00:22:30.480 There's no leeway. There's no leeway. No, none whatsoever. There's no bartering with Apollo saying,

00:22:38.480 do you want me to, do you want me to give you more, maybe give you some money?

00:22:42.320 Or there's no bartering. He's not a merchant. No, right. No, there's no haggling involved with Apollo.

00:22:51.360 No, absolutely not. And what's more as well, as you say, from that remarkable description

00:22:57.200 that Orestes recounts, it's not only if you don't kill your mother. It's like, no, you will be, 0.97

00:23:05.280 if you don't do it, you will be, you know, there'll be a profusion of ulcers all over your body. You'll

00:23:12.720 get sick. You'll be ill. The Furies, who we'll talk a lot more about, obviously, in the third play. But

00:23:20.640 worth mentioning now, these very, very ancient, because they come from before the time of the

00:23:25.920 gods themselves, don't they? Before the Olympians, straight from Uranus, the sky.

00:23:31.760 Yeah. So let me give you this, because I think when we bury the context in mind,

00:23:38.720 we see the real beauty of these plays. Because sometimes they can, especially Aeschylus,

00:23:44.320 Aeschylus can be interpreted as very dry, at least in comparison with Sophocles.

00:23:50.800 Yeah. But if we bury the context in mind, the text becomes alive.

00:23:55.840 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from The Lotus Eaters,

00:23:59.200 head to our website where you can find more.

00:24:08.160 I'm sorry.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - September 06, 2025

PREVIEW： Chronicles #13 ｜ The Libation Bearers

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