“for the gods by means of Helen’s loveliness embroiled Troy and Hellas, causing death thereby, that they might lighten mother Earth of the outrage done her by man’s excessive population.”
~ ‘Orestes’ by Euripides (Edward P. Coleridge translation. GB5 - p. 410)
The play starts with a monologue from Electra, who talks about her family’s origins and the current state. Starting with Tantalus, their ancestor, who was punished by Zeus for talking too much at a feast, to Thyestes, whose sons were killed by his brother Atreus, to Atres’s son Agamemnon, who was killed by his wife Clytaemnestra, to Agamemnon’s son Orestes who killed his own mother, they have always had bloodshed and strife in every generation. She says her brother Orestes is ill, plagued by guilt, haunted by the Furies and they are shunned by their city. She has heard that her uncle Menelaus is back from Troy and hopes he might help them.
Helen comes in and expresses her sorrow for her sister Clytaemnestra’s death. She wants to go to her sister’s tomb to give offerings but is afraid to go in public because the people of Argos hate her for starting the gruesome war. So she sends her daughter Hermione, who was cared for by her sister when she was in Troy. Orestes wakes up and feels refreshed but is confused as to where he is. But soon he gets possessed by the Furies and is in a delirious state. Electra feels sorry for him and calms him down. Orestes says he is sad to have killed his mother, but it was Apollo who asked him to do it.