Plays of Aeschylus: The Libation Bearers (Choephroe) (458 B.C.)

Monarch Notes, 20050229 by Aeschylus

Aeschylus Monarch Notes 01-01-1963 The Libation Bearers (Choephroe) (458 B.C.) Background: The Libation Bearers (Choephroe) is the second play of the Oresteia. Considerable time has passed between the murder of Agamemnon and the action of The Libation Bearers, perhaps as much as the seven years indicated in the Odyssey.

Nowhere in the text of the play, however, is there any precise statement on this point. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus still rule; Electra, Orestes' sister, is now a young woman; and Orestes, as the play opens, has just returned with his best friend, Pylades, to avenge his father's murder. This is the first extant play to contain a recognition scene, and though the manner by which Electra concludes that Orestes has been at Agamemnon's ...

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