Page 15 - GALIET MUSIC´S METAPHOR: The House of Atreus IV

and the visual moaning of all of her body parts. At moments she seems utterly Dionysian, at others Apollonian. Moreover, her evocative and euphonic English rendering of “Hototoi popoi da, Opollon, Opollon!” is equally magnetic. However, her desperate “my cry of distress is not like a bird at a thicket” (Ag. 1316) is eerily not true. Cassandra’s cry, indeed, swells into the sorrowful cry of the bird she professes not to be. So accursed is she by Apollo, she is not to be believed even in this utterance.
The Erinyes’ act, as effective as the textual timbre of Cassandra’s act, also shows a strong textual, mythical and metaphoric resonance with the Oresteia. Theatrically, the furies appear at the finale of Libation Bearers despite controversy. The extravagant and hair-splitting entrance of the disgusting, loathsome furies through both eisodoi and the centre aisle 3⁄4 dressed in rags, with hirsute hair and disfiguring makeup 3⁄4 quite repulsive in appearance, fill the stage with dread and accentuate Orestes’ despair and ate. This appearance is necessary for two reasons. First, it makes evident to the audience the nature of Orestes’ unjust crime; it is not right to kill one’s blood- kin. Second, it aids in theatrical performance. Orestes needs the furies on stage to make his dread appear more intense in order to achieve a higher theatrical impact. Mythically, the furies’ hissing and howling, slithering and crawling in Libation Bearers and Eumenides effectively represent their mythical-physical behaviour in conjunction with their mythical-spiritual dread. In fact, Hesiod’s “never do they (the furies) cease from their terrible wrath until they have paid the sinner his due”10 would have resonated with the classical audience fiercely. Metaphorically, the furies’ descent through the stage’s trap floor resonates with their return to chthonic forces of Nyx, their other mother, who dwells in the netherworld.
10 Hesiod. Theogony and Works and Days. Trans. E.M. West. Oxford: Oxford University, 1988. 9
• 15 •