Though often described as crones, gorgons or even harpies, I have chosen instead to have the Furies (Greek, erinyes) represented here by a scene from a 4th century Greek vase now in a museum in Karlsruhe, Germany. In my own imagination, they are much older and wingless. The chapter with the title above follows--
Orestes and his
companions awoke to a noisy commotion in the shrine. They saw Kalkhas and his
assistant confronting three or four creatures that looked like old women
dressed in many layers of rags and covered with snakes; perhaps it was so
because when they spoke what everyone heard were hisses that almost drowned out
their voices. Their appearance suggested that they should smell of sulphur and
hell-fire, yet around them swirled a smell mostly of the earth, of deep and old
earth.
“You have no
right to be here,” intoned Kalkhas. “This shrine is dedicated to Lord Apollo,
son of Zeus Almighty. Orestes whom you seek for your foul purposes has been
purified by Bright Apollo himself. You have no power over him!”
What would you know about our
powers?
You are but Apollo’s servant.
We are more ancient even than
Zeus,
Though we bow before his
thunderbolts.
Him that we seek has shed his
mother’s
Blood, such pollution Apollo—
Even though he rides with the sun
And spreads great pestilence among
The armies and the cities of men—
Cannot forgive, cleanse or
absolve.
One who has shed his mother’s
blood
Is damned forever; we would devour
Such a monster …
The Furies,
ancient divine beings that tended to the fate of men and the world, were interrupted
by the appearance of Apollo himself, radiant in anger and self-importance:
Such crones as you dare to intrude
into my shrine?
You fail to reckon on the passing
of power to a new era.
Even as Ouranos was supplanted by
Chronos
And him by his son Zeus, father of
us all.
You dare belittle my power to
absolve what you call pollution.
Know then that Zeus has deemed the
morality of men in need
Of proper and orderly management
and
Will bring an end to the senseless
cycles of blood feuds.
Such vengeance as you speak of is
either too little
Or too much and depends on
inflamed passions.
His audience,
however, was far from cowed by his appearance or his claims and retorted:
We hear what you have to say
And long have seen that what you
do
Seem to mock your own high goals.
Zeus himself has favored Herakles,
And waged war on Priam’s city.
Why else do you favor Agamemnon?
And now wish to exempt his son
From full and just retribution
For slaying his own mother, pah!
How just and proper is that!
Apollo in turn protested:
Agamemnon was far from being my
favorite among
The Greeks. He prolonged the agony
of war before
Priam’s gate by refusing the
ransom offered by Chryses
My priest, who pleased me with his
manifold devotion,
For his daughter, Chryseis. The
fool claimed she was more
Fit to be his queen than
Clytemnestra. So he
Boasted and kept Chryseis to warm
his bed a year
Despite the pestilence I sent
among the Greeks.
Then when his chiefs and men
persuaded him that she
Should be given up in ransom, he took
Briseis from
Brilliant Achilles. That fool,
idiot, Agamemnon.
I do this not for him at all, but
to uphold
The law that fathers and kings are
sacred to Zeus.
Furies:
Then why protect his son Orestes?
For the son killed his mother.
Are mothers less than fathers and
kings?
Do they not deserve to be avenged?
Apollo:
Because she had shed blood first,
that of Agamemnon.
His sin is less; he must avenge
the father she slew.
Furies:
That blood-guilt is not the same;
Man and wife are not kin, though
wrong
This sin is less than matricide.
Our role is to avenge the shedding
Of family blood, the worst
Of crimes, the most impious.
Apollo:
Do you then belittle the bonds of
marriage?
Such as is made sacred by
Aphrodite, Hera,
Zeus himself, even by Hestia, his older
sister.
Further, to the sacred rituals
should be added
The vows of parents and even of clans
and nations.
Those are what bind man and wife
more than their blood.
Your fine distinction is strained
and weak; murder
Is the taking of any life. But to
kill a
King who must, Zeus-like, give
order to a city,
We deem a crime that demands
vengeance, thus
We urged Orestes on to his
glorious deed.
Furies:
You call glorious what we assert
To be heinous murder. A mother
Is closer and dearer than anyone
And ought to be revered above all.
Apollo:
Not so, for a child is born of the
seed of a man,
He places that seed in a woman
only temporarily
Until it is ready for the world
and its fate.
The mother gives nothing but a
space for the seed
Which she gives up when time is
ripe and birth fitting.
Furies:
Your words are childish and
ignorant—
Apollo:
Athena, goddess of wisdom was not
born of a mother.
Furies:
The exception that proves the
rule.
But we will stay and bandy words
No more with you. You cannot
cleanse
Orestes of the pollution of the
Blood of his mother. Surrender
Him to us; we will suck out his
Stained blood, polluted as it is.
Apollo shone
brilliantly as ever, full of Olympian majesty. But the Furies walked through
his barriers as if they did not exist. In a towering rage, he summoned his
chariot drawn by the fire-horses that drew it at his behest. He would have
ascended to Olympus and called on Father Zeus to smite the Furies with his thunderbolts. But Hermes
appeared briefly and whispered to him and then to Kalkhas before disappearing.
Greatly
humiliated and offended, Apollo cast a spell to put the Furies to sleep—he
could not fight them but apparently he, like Hermes, could delay them. Then he
whispered briefly with Kalkhas and vanished. The seer approached Orestes and
his party and told them:
“Lord Apollo
has cast a spell to put the Furies to sleep. It will hold them for a few days.
Meanwhile, you need to go to Athens and supplicate the goddess Athena for her
protection. She is not there now but Lord Hermes has gone to fetch her from her
errands. It is to Athena that you must go, and quickly.”
Without another
word, Orestes led his party out and got on the way to Attica and Athens. “So
much for the promises of a god,” he muttered.
“His dreams
were strong and the headaches real enough,” responded Pylades.
“You all do not
have to come with me on this quest,” announced Orestes after they had ridden
for a while. “If Athena can save me, well and good. If even she cannot, the
Furies will kill me whether or not anyone else is there.”
“But Orestes,” contended
Pylades amiably. “We want to keep you company; besides, I’ve never seen Athens.”
I write what interests me, in a way that, I hope, would make it interesting to others. But it has never occurred to me to write a scene because it would sell. Obviously, this is something to ponder for the future.
