Orestes, pursued by the avenging Furies, “Gorgon-like, vested in sable stoles, their locks entwined with clustering snakes,” has fled to Delphi to invoke the aid of Apollo.  He clasps the navel-stone and in his exhaustion falls asleep.  Around him sleep the Furies.  The play opens with a prayer made by the Pythian priestess at an altar in front of the temple.  The interior of the sanctuary is then laid bare.  Orestes is awake, but the Furies sleep on.  Apollo, standing beside Orestes, promises to protect him, but bids him make all haste to Athens, and there clasp, as a suppliant, the image of Athena.  Orestes flies.  The ghost of Clytemnestra rises from the underworld, and calls upon the Chorus to pursue.  Overcome by their toil, they moan in their sleep, but finally start to their feet.  Apollo bids them quit the temple.

The scene changes to the ancient temple of Athena on the Acropolis at Athens, where Orestes is seen clasping the image of the goddess.  The Chorus enter in pursuit of their victim, and sing an ode descriptive of their powers.

Athena appears, and learns from the Chorus and from Orestes the reasons for their presence.  She declares the issue to be too grave even for her to decide, and determines to choose judges of the murder, who shall become a solemn tribunal for all future time.  These are to be the best of the citizens of Athens.  After an ode by the Chorus, she returns, the court is established, and the trial proceeds in due form.  Apollo appears for the defense of Orestes.  When the arguments have been presented, Athena proclaims, before the vote has been taken, the establishment of the court as a permanent tribunal for the trial of cases of bloodshed.  Its seat shall be the Areopagus.  The votes are cast and Orestes is acquitted.  He departs for Argos.  The Furies break forth in anger and threaten woes to the land, but are appeased by Athena, who establishes their worship forever in Attica.  Heretofore they have been the Erinnyes, or Furies; henceforth they shall be the Eumenides, or Gracious Goddesses.  The Eumenides are escorted from the scene in solemn procession.

Any analysis of the plays so brief as the preceding is necessarily inadequate.  The English reader is referred to the histories of Greek Literature by K.O.  Mueller and by J.P.  Mahaffy, to the striking chapter on Aeschylus in J.A.  Symonds’s ‘Greek Poets,’ and, for the trilogy, to Moulton’s ‘Ancient Classical Drama.’  If he knows French, he should add Croiset’s ‘Histoire de la Litterature Grecque,’ and should by all means read M. Patin’s volume on Aeschylus in his ’Etudes sur les Tragique Grecs.’  There are translations in English of the poet’s complete works by Potter, by Plumptre, by Blackie, and by Miss Swanwick.  Flaxman illustrated the plays.  Ancient illustrations are easily accessible in Baumeister’s ‘Denkmaeler,’ under the names of the different characters in the plays.  There is a translation of the ‘Prometheus’