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 ...