The Libation Bearers

Guide Note

Aeschylus' play The Libation Bearers is the second play in The Oresteia. It takes place after Agamemnon and before The Eumenides. Agamemnon's son Orestes returns with his friend Pylades to Argo to average his father's death. His sister Electra has been ordered by her mother Clytemnestra who killed Agamemnon to pour libations to quiet Agamemnon's spirit. Electra recognizes Orestes hair and the two are reunited.

Orestes and Electra pour the libations to get revenge against Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Orestes kills Aegisthus. Clytemnestra begs for her life, but Pylades convinced Orestes to kill her anyway. The Furies then drive Orestes to insanity and he flees to Delphi.

Fast Facts:

1. Also known as Choephoroe or The Choephori
2. Set in Athens and the Temple at Delphi
3. Libations are water or wine poured for the gods during a religious ritual
4. Major theme uncertainty between right and wrong
5. First performed in 458 B.C.
6. Tragic play
7. Takes place about 20 years after the Trojan War
8. Uses light and dark imagery
9. Referenced by Euripides in his play Electra Play

Important Quotations:

1. They killed an honored man by cunning, so they die by cunning, caught in the same noose.
2. The gods know, and we call upon the gods; they know how we are spun in circles like seafarers, in what storms. But if we are to win, and our ship live, from one small seed could burgeon an enormous tree.
3. Oh curse upon our house, bitter antagonist, how far your eyes range. What was clean out of your way your archery brings down with a distant deadly shot to strip unhappy me of all I ever loved. Even Orestes now! He was so well advised to keep his foot clear of this swamp of death. But now set down as traitor the hope that was our healer once and made us look for a bright revel in our house.