The ambiguity between active and passive readings of the adjective is highly significant. For the history of revenge is also a history of violence between the generations, where parents and children repeatedly act against each other and to avenge each other. Agamemnon kills his daughter, and Clytemnestra takes revenge for her death. Orestes kills his mother, a child avenging a parent, and even Aegisthus sees his role in the death of Agamemnon as repaying on the child of Atreus the sins of Atreus against the children of Thyestes, Aegisthus’ father. The final adjective of this line encapsulates in its ambiguity the narrative of inter-generational violence, and the narrative of repeated punishment.
The first two words of Calchas’ prophetic statement, then, promise an explanation (gar, ‘for’) and state that something remains. As the sentence progresses, however, both the involved syntax and the layered implications of the vocabulary transform the explanation into an obscure and darkening impression of the motive force directing this narrative. The combination of the lyric compactness and prophetic allusiveness produces an expression that connects a set of terms in a network of inter-relations that continue to find further significance throughout the Oresteia. Such intricate and intense poetry is typical of Aeschylean choral lyric, particularly in the Oresteia: the linguistic texture weaves together with a conceptual patterning to produce a powerful all-embracing expression of things, a cosmology.
Violent exchange: dramatic dialogue
The second passage I wish to consider is taken from the Choephoroi and it is a passage from the highly dramatic dialogue as Clytemnestra and Orestes come face to face. Again I will first transliterate the Greek and then offer a translation, this time from Grene and Lattimore (though without their stage-directions):
Clyt. ti esti khre¯ma? tina boe¯n histe¯s domois?
Servant. ton zo¯nta kainein tous tethne¯kotas lego¯.
Clyt. oi’ go¯, xune¯ka toupos ex ainigmato¯n. dolois oloumeth’ ho¯sper oun ekteinamen. doie¯ tis androkme¯ta pelekun ho¯s takhos. eido¯men ei niko¯men e¯ niko¯metha. entautha gar de¯ toud’ aphikome¯n kakou.
Orestes. se kai mateuo¯. to¯ide d’arkounto¯s ekhei.
Clyt. oi’ go¯, tethne¯kas, philtat’ Aigisthou bia.
Orestes. phileis ton andra? toigar en tauto¯i tapho¯i keise¯i, thanonta d’ outi me¯ prodo¯is pote.
[Ellopos’ note: the text in the original Greek characters (ed. Murray):
Κλ. τί δ΄ ἐστὶ χρῆμα; τίνα βοὴν ἵστης δόμοις;
Οι. τὸν ζῶντα καίνειν τοὺς τεθνηκότας λέγω.
Κλ. οἲ ΄γώ͵ ξυνῆκα τοὔπος ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων. δόλοις ὀλούμεθ΄͵ ὥσπερ οὖν ἐκτείναμεν. δοίη τις ἀνδροκμῆτα πέλεκυν ὡς τάχος· εἰδῶμεν εἰ νικῶμεν͵ ἢ νικώμεθα. ἐνταῦθα γὰρ δὴ τοῦδ΄ ἀφικόμην κακοῦ.
Ορ. σὲ καὶ ματεύω· τῷδε δ΄ ἀρκούντως ἔχει.
Κλ. οἲ ΄γώ. τέθνηκας͵ φίλτατ΄͵ Αἰγίσθου βία.
Ορ. φιλεῖς τὸν ἄνδρα; τοιγὰρ ἐν ταὐτῷ τάφῳ κείσῃ. θανόντα δ΄ οὔτι μὴ προδῷς ποτε.
]
Clyt. What is this and why are you shouting in the house?
Servant. I tell you, he is alive and killing the dead.
Clyt. Ah so. You speak in riddles but I read the rhyme. / We have been won with treachery by which we slew. / Bring me quick, somebody, an axe to kill a man, / And we shall see if we can beat him before we go down – so far gone are we in this wretched fight.
Orestes. You next: the other one in there has had enough.
Clyt. Beloved, strong Aegisthus, are you dead indeed?
Orestes. You love your man? You shall lie in the same grave / With him, and never be unfaithful even in death.
