HUM-8 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Atreus, Thyestes, Erinyes
Document Summary
Orestes was placed in a no-win situation because he had to kill his fathers killer, but it is bad to kill your mother, because that causes furies to pursue the killer of the mother. Th. "s own children: th. avenged in the next generation, when aegisthus kills ag. , and attempts to regain the kingdom for his branch of the family, nb: there is an incoherence in apollodorus. He says (p. 146) that aegisthus grew up, killed atreus, and restored mycenae to his father thyestes. There are many causes for the murder of agamemnon. This is the basic story as mentioned in the odyssey. Aeschylus writes a final step w/ the furies and orestes trying to get revenge: orestes avenges his father by killing cl. Orestes pursued by cl. "s furies (erinyes) to athens, where he gets ritually purified of matricide, and the furies become the eumenides ( kindly ones ) Libation bearers: orestes kills clyt. and aegisthus, but acquires furies (erinyes)
