How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #7
(Orestes): "I have my trust; and my father sends me support from the grave."
(Chorus of Furies): "Yes, put your trust in corpses now you have killed your mother!"
(Orestes): "I did so because she incurred a double pollution."
(Chorus of Furies): "How so? Explain this to the jurors."
(Orestes): "In killing her husband she killed my father." (598-602)
Okay, so we think that Orestes's argument here is kind of crazy. He seems to imply that, because a member of a family has multiple roles, if that person is killed, multiple people have a claim to avenge him or her. At the very least, Orestes's words suggest that you would incur a separate guilt-stain matching up to each one of the familial roles played by the person you killed.
This, in itself, is a little crazy, but isn't it also self-contradictory from Orestes's own perspective? If you must honor each of the multiple roles incarnated in an individual person, then how could Orestes avoid self-contradiction, or disregarding his role as son of his mother?
Quote #8
(Orestes): "But why didn't you drive her in flight while she was alive?"
(Chorus of Furies): "She was no blood-kin of the man she killed."
(Orestes): "And am I blood-kin of my mother?"
(Chorus of Furies): "How else did she nurture you in her womb, you foul murderer? Do you disavow a mother's blood, your nearest and dearest?"
(Orestes) (turning to APOLLO): "Now is the time for your evidence, Apollo, to set out on my behalf whether I killed her justly. I shall not deny I did it, as it is the fact; but you are now to give your judgment whether in your opinion this blood seems justly shed or not, so I may tell them here." (604-613)
It also seems safe to say that Orestes is being pretty nonsensical here. Even if you disavow a relationship, that just means disavowing the social ties of the relationship, right? Just because you swear to something doesn't mean that you can take away a blood relation, can you?
Quote #9
(Chorus of Furies): "See how you are pleading for this man's acquittal! When he has shed his mother's blood—his own kin's! —on the ground, is he then to live in his father's house in Argos? And what altars is he to use—the public ones? What brotherhood will admit him to its rituals of sprinkled water?" (652-656)
Once again, the Furies put forth their theory that nothing at all can excuse shedding the blood of a family member, let alone one's mother.