#oresteia

[pelideswhore]

i support clytemnestra killing agamemnon and i also support orestes/electra killing clytemnestra. yes those things can and do coexist.

[katerinaaqu]

I find it incredibly hilarious that in Aeschylus' "Eumenides" Apollo acts as a witness to Orestes and has the most lawyer energy ever 🤣 😆 like he wants to persuade the audience that Orestes is justified and to achieve that he speaks on how a father is the real parent and not the mother and says that "a father can exist even without a mother" and then uses fucking ATHENA as an example! 🤣🤣🤣 like he says "Zeus gave birth to Athena through his head so the father is the parent"

I just can't help but finding hilarious! 🤣🤣 and I can imagine Hermes in the background snickering at that or trying not to yell "dude what the fuck?!" 🤣🤣🤣

Apollo definitely works as a lawyer here hahaha 😆 😂 🤣 confusing the audience 😂

[mothmanismymainman]

the iliad as those bird memes (sorry for weird formatting at the end)

achilles:

patroclus:

helen:

diomedes:

hector:

odysseus:

andromache:

calchas:

paris:

bonus! clytemnestra:

[hlblng]

“I shall teach you old men the lesson you failed to learn when you were children” Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' Agamemnon (trans. Ted Hughes)

Clytemnestra is the wife of Agamemnon, the king of Atreus and commander of the Greek army that assails the walls of Troy. In order to placate the goddess Artemis, he sacrifices his oldest daughter Iphigenia on the goddess’ altar, spilling her blood and breaking the heart of his wife in the process. Clytemenestra, consumed by hatred and the desire for revenge after the murder of her daughter, invites Agamemmnon’s cousin and enemy Aigisthos into the palace and into her bed, while Agamemnon is away at Troy. Finally, after 10 years of waiting, Agamemmnon returns triumphant to his city, palace and wife. Finally, after 10 years of waiting, Clytemnestra gets her revenge and murders her husband in the bath. Through fear and intimidation tactics, she and her lover Aigisthos assume the throne and live happily - for a while. Years later, her now grown son Orestes, who grew up far away, and her daughter Electra conspire to kill their own mother as revenge for the murder of their father. She dies screaming, kicking, cursing and Orestes falls mad with the blood guilt of murdering your own mother. Only after the intervention of a god or two, order is restored in the house of Atreus. For now, at least.

To me, Clytemnestra is a character transcending boundaries. The adulterous wife, the villainess that kills her husband, the wronged mother revenging her daughter, the cold queen disowning her grieving children, “a man’s heart in a woman’s body”, as Aischylos puts it. She’s all that and more. In Euripides’ Electra she even is a doubting woman looking back on her life and her choices, maybe not regretting but perhaps questioning what it was all for. She’s all of these things, yet none of them wholly. You look at her and you feel for her because how could he, how could her beloved husband murder their perfect innocent daughter, all for the promise of Troy. You look at her and you revel in her bloodlust as she swings the axe at Agamemnon and gives the perfect villain speech at the steps of his, well now her, palace. You look at her and you’re repelled by the ice cold indifference towards her remaining children, abandoned like a toy no longer worth playing with. Was there only enough love for the one daughter in her? When she kills Agamemmnon does she feel relief, satisfaction, finally she has had her triumph over the one who wronged her more than any other? Or is there also a tinge of sadness, of grief, for the life she used to know, before the day her daughter’s blood got spilled in the name of a war she doesn’t care about? 

She certainly doesn’t tell us. None of the characters do.

[petaltexturedskies]

Aiskhylos, An Oresteia (tr. by Anne Carson)

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

No one talks about Helen being Iphigenia’s aunt.

Her niece was murdered so her husband and brother-in-law (plus their armies and others) could go “save her”. Her sister lost her daughter so her husband could get his brother’s wife back.

Her Iphigenia, with her black hair and sweet smile, who would always smile when she saw her.

Her Iphigenia, her first niece, the oldest of her sister’s children, who was some years older than her own daughter and who she thought would grow up together.

Oh the guilt the anger

[ciceroniantrash]

Anne Carson’s Kassandra speaks shitpost

[catilinas]

btw

[jondrettegirls]

Oresteia by Robert Icke | The Aeneid by Vergil (Tr. Shadi Bartsch) | It’s a Quality of the Gods by Suniti Namjoshi

[ditoob]

why did nobody tell me the Oresteia was so good Orestes is slowly becoming one of my faves

[cyrusughhhh]

They call him Lil P in the streets

Pyrrhus/Neoptolemus: I ran the streets since I was ten Orestes: Streets killed me!

[katerinaaqu]

Okay you are there to witness the final face-off! Who would you cheer for more? Let me know on the comments below!

Two crazy lions fighting for Hermione over the temples of Delphi; two kids that got destroyed by war or the consequences of it 🤔 let me know your thoughts!

[erudities]

[parasympatheticnervoussystem909]

electra

[apollon-quotes]

"First, in this prayer of mine, I give the place of highest honor among the gods to the first prophet, Earth; and after her to Themis, for she was the second to take this oracular seat of her mother, as legend tells.

And in the third allotment, with Themis’ consent and not by force, another Titan, child of Earth, Phoebe, took her seat here. She gave it as a birthday gift to Phoebus, who has his name from Phoebe.

Leaving the lakeband ridge of Delos, he landed on Pallas’ ship-frequented shores, and came to this region and the dwelling places on Parnassus. The children of Hephaistos, road-builders taming the wildness of the untamed land, escorted him with mighty reverence.

And at his arrival, the people and Delphus, helmsman and lord of this land, made a great celebration for him. Zeus inspired his heart with prophetic skill and established him as the fourth prophet on this throne; but Loxias is the spokesman of Zeus, his father.”

- Aeschylus, Oresteia

[likethexan]

Children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra as Melodrama songs:

Iphigenia - Writer in the Dark ("Did my best to exist just for you / Now she's gonna play and sing and lock you in her heart / I am my mother's child / I'll love you 'til my breathing stops / I'll love you 'til you call the cops on me”)

Electra - Liability ("All that a stranger would see / Is one girl swaying alone, stroking her cheek / They say, "You're a little much for me / You're a liability / The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy / 'Til all of the tricks don't work anymore, and then they are bored of me")

Orestes - Sober II ("You asked if I was feeling it, I'm psycho high / Know you won't remember in the morning when I speak my mind / And the terror and the horror / God, I wonder why we bother / All the glamour and the trauma / and the fucking melodrama")

Chrysothemis - Hard Feelings/Loveless (“Please, could you be tender? And I will sit close to you / I care for myself the way I used to care about you / 'Til I don't need fantasy, 'til I feel you leave / Bet you wanna rip my heart out / Well, guess what? I'd like that.")

+

Pylades - The Lourve ("I am your sweetheart psychopathic crush / Drink up your movements, still I can't get enough / Blow all my friendships / To sit in hell with you / Okay I know that you are not my type (still I fall) / I'm just the sucker who let you fill her mind")