The Libation Bearers

“He met his end in violence through a woman’s treacherous tricks…

Here is a lock of hair for Inachus, who made

me grow to manhood. Here a strand to mark my grief.

I was not by, my father, to mourn for your death

nor stretched my hand out when they took your corpse away.”

Orestes’s dedication of a lock of hair to his father touches on several symbolic and thematic points that recur throughout the play. The lock itself symbolizes The Dynamics of Power and Familial Loyalty in Agamemnon’s family, which is locked in an endless cycle of bloodshed and violence. The grief of Orestes (and his sister Electra) shows their admirable devotion to their father, contrasting them with the treacherous Clytaemestra. Finally, Orestes’s role as the new male leader of the family is important too, with Orestes taking over his father’s old role through the act of avenging his murder.

“Terror, the dream diviner of

this house, belled clear, shuddered the skin, blew wrath

from sleep, a cry in night’s obscure watches,

a voice of fear deep in the house,

dropping deadweight in women’s inner chambers.

And they who read the dream meanings

and spoke under guarantee of god

told how under earth

dead men held a grudge still

and smoldered at their murderers.”

Dreams, omens, and prophecies are prominent throughout the Libation Bearers and the rest of the Oresteia (See: Symbols & Motifs). Here, the Chorus refers allusively to the prophetic dream of Clytaemestra, which predicts the return of Orestes (the dream will be elaborated later in the play). The Chorus stresses the role of the gods in generating omens such as prophetic dreams, and also introduces the idea that the dead (Agamemnon in this case) can punish their killers from beyond the grave.