Eumenides

The setting is now the temple of Athena on the Acropolis in Athens. Orestes enters and takes up a suppliant’s position in front of a statue of Athena that stands in the center of the orchestra. He commits himself to the protection of the goddess, “blunted at last, and worn and battered on the outland / habitations and the journeyings of men” (238-39). He is interrupted by the Furies, who have tracked Orestes to Athens by the “welcome smell of human blood” (253). Spotting Orestes, they accost him and tell him he must pay for shedding his mother’s blood. When Orestes protests that he has been purified of his guilt by Apollo and calls on Athena to help him, the Furies as Chorus respond by singing the first stasimon. As they sing, the Furies dance around Orestes and utter a “spell” (306) to immobilize him (because of this, this stasimon is sometimes known as the “binding song”). They expound on their role—punishing those who have committed misdeeds—and insist on their importance in maintaining order, despite the fact that Zeus and the younger gods do not honor them.