Ορέστεια

"What good are the oracles to men? Words, more words, and the hurt comes on us, endless words and a seer's techniques have brought us terror and truth."

The distance from the violence and chaos of Agamemnon, through its perpetuated upheaval in The Libation Bearers, to the conclusion of all chaos with peaceful order in The Eumenides may not take up many pages but feels vast and richly familiar. Perhaps now is a good time to read The Oresteia at the end of 3 1/2 years of political disorder, hatred, violence and the pettiness of revenge. But it is all too easy to unfairly reduce Aescheylus' trilogy - a gift to Western civilization, a gift that defines us as it describes us.

The latent struggle we encounter in life itself (from identity, gender, social hierarchy, and power) only nearly avoids it's own poisonous end (as madness spins off into self-perpetuating and unending circles of madness) with the interruption of justice, and it's all here in this trilogy of plays. Such a profound work I could feel it operating on my dreams at night. Clearly these ideas tap into something wed to our society and I can't help but feel less relieved by the end than hopeful that the kind of struggle we engage in is one we can choose, though there is always struggle.