Electra is nursing Orestes who is terrorised by the Furies. The off-stage assembly-scene (reported by a messenger) is immensely detailed, containing speeches from four different speakers as well as Orestes himself. ELECTRA is discovered alone. The city will today vote on their lives. Tyndareus, Orestesâ grandfather and Menelausâ father-in-law comes onto the scene and roundly chastises Orestes, leading to a conversation with the three men on the role of humans in dispensing divine justice and natural law. To inflict the greatest suffering, they plan to kill Helen and Hermione (Helen and Menelaus’ young daughter). Nowadays, we live in a period such as this ̶ and I am not only referring to Europe or the recent years of economic crisis. The play begins with a soliloquy by Electra, before the palace of Argos, outlining the events that have led up to this point, as her tormented brother Orestes lies sleeping. Iphigeneia is bursting with excitement to see Agamemnon, whom she loves dearly. It is the sixth day after the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. For example, he brings the mythic cycle of Agamemnon–Clytemnestra–Orestes into contact with the episodes of the Trojan War and its aftermath, and even has Orestes attempt murder on Menelaus’ wife, Helen. They do successfully capture Hermione, though, and when Menelaus re-enters there is a standoff between him and Orestes, Electra and Pylades. He is paying for avenging his father, Agamemnon’s, murder by his mother and her lover’s hand. A bull is to be sacrificed. After Helen leaves, a chorus of Argive women enters to help advance the plot. The old man informs Orestes that he has seen Aegisthus who is preparing for a sacrificial feast. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, meets an old and faithful friend, Pylades, at the court of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. “Orestes” is a late tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides, first presented in 408 BCE. Also, as in some of his other plays, Euripides challenges the role of the gods and, perhaps more appropriately, man’s interpretation of divine will, noting that the superiority of the gods does not seem to make them particularly fair or rational. For example, Tyndareus argues to Menelaus that the law is fundamental to menâs lives, to which Menelaus counters that blind obedience to anything, such as the law, is an attribute of a slave.[2]. Before the royal palace at Argos. Also some citizens of Argos want to punish Orestes and execute him for the murder. They go to plead their case before the town assembly in an effort to avoid execution, but they are unsuccessful. When Menelaus enters, Orestes tells him that when he had tried to kill Helen, she disappeared. Now Orestes is being tormented by the Furies or Erinyes who are driving him mad. In answer to the latter's inquiry, Orestes informs him of the reason for his presence. summary Orestes - Euripides An exhausted Electra bewails her fate as an outcast before her own house, guardian of Orestes who is maddened by the Furies. Indeed, Nietzsche is quoted as saying that myth died in Euripides’ violent hands. When at first he hears Electra crying within the house, he expresses a desire to greet her immediately, already demonstrating a tendency to wander from the task at hand, which, as the Old Man reminds him, is to set the plan for revenge in motion. The role of so-called natural law is also questioned: when Tyndareus argues that the law is fundamental to man’s lives, Menelaus counters that blind obedience to anything, even the law, is the response of a slave. Orestes, in supplication before Menelaus, hopes to gain the compassion that Tyndareus would not grant in an attempt to get him to speak before the assembly of Argive men. Orestes, the young son of Agamemnon, is sent by a relative to Phocis before Aegisthus can destroy him. Some have argued that Euripides’ innovative tendencies reach their zenith in “Orestes” and there are certainly many innovative dramatic surprises in the play, such as the way in which he not only freely chooses mythical variants to serve his purpose, but also brings myths together in entirely new ways and freely adds to the mythic material. But Menelaus has just arrived from the war, offering hope of reinstatement or at least rescue. Orestes's inexperience reveals itself on several occasions. stes kills his mom, Clytemnestra, as payback for her murder of Agamemnon, Orestes' dad. To complicate matters further, a leading political faction of Argos wants to put Orestes to death for the murder. The only person capable of calming Orestes down from his madness is his sister Electra. Themes and dramatic structureIn Orestes Euripides presents a brilliant and intellectually provoking revisitation of one of the most popular tragic stories by creating a clash between the traditional heroic figure of Orestes and the unheroic reality of Argos.The rift between what the protagonist is bound to be as a figure of the myth and the immense SUFFERING he must face as a human being is beyond remedy.