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- [00:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
My friends, before we get started on the final part of Aeschylus Oresteia, the Eumenides, I want to make an announcement. We are reading Dante's Inferno for Lent. The Inferno tells of Dante, the pilgrim's journey through hell, and it is a story of love, human desire and the ugly reality of sin. Dante the poet invites us to accompany him on this journey and by doing so, better our own souls. We start next week. We will be using the Anthony Esselin translation and be joined by different guests on each of the seven episodes. Check out our account on X or our website for the reading schedule and more information. So join us in reading Dante's Inferno for Lent. Now back to the Oresteia. Today on Ascend the Great Books Podcast, we are finishing the Oresteia with the second half of the Eumenides by Aeschylus. We'll start off with a brief conversation on why we appreciate this text, the Oresteia as a whole, and how it's laid some foundations for our upcoming conversations on Plato and philosophy in general. We'll then do a deep dive into the maturation of justice in the text. What exactly is it that Aeschylus is bringing that is new to the concept of justice? We'll then end with actually ranking the plays in the Oresteia and and defend our favorites. So please join us today on Ascend the Great Books podcast as we discuss the second half of Eumenides. Welcome to Ascend the Great Books Podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick, coming to you from rural Oklahoma. You can check us out on thegreatbookspodcast.com we have a whole library to help you navigate the great Books. We have guides, all kinds of articles to help you. So please check out thegreatbookspodcast.com you can also follow us on X and YouTube and you can also support us on Patreon. Today we are discussing the Eumenides. The Eumenides, the last play in the Orestaya. We're using the Fagels translation today. As always working through the ORESTEIA, we have Dr. Frank Grabowski, who is a philosophy PhD professor at Rogers State and a diaconate candidate. Dr. Hrabowski, how are you? Very well.
- [02:38]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Looking forward to finishing up the amenities.
- [02:40]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, we should talk about the fact that you're a very long suffering individual because you do the podcast with us moving through the Great Books. But then you also have me as a teacher in the Great Books in the diaconate formation program. So some months you get me twice suffering into truth. Very escalis very Escalus esque. I like it. No, it's group. I mean, we are really blessed, actually. Diocese of Tulsa, that we have a deaconate formation program that, you know, forms our clerics. That actually has a great book sequence. As far as I know, we're the only one in the country that has that.
- [03:16]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
No, it's really been outstanding. Both. Both you, Dr. Meloche and Dr. Spencer. I mean, yeah, the cohort has really benefited from the good conversations, I think. I mean, that's what we always look forward to. It's not just lecture based. It's very Socratic, which is awesome.
- [03:33]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I very much enjoy it. We also have Mr. Thomas Lackey, friend of the podcast, member of the Sunday Great Books as well with Dr. Krabowski, and also independent scholar Thomas. How are you, buddy?
- [03:45]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Good. Really good.
- [03:46]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I am. You know, this was my first read through for the Oresteia. Well, I shouldn't say my first read through. My first kind of like real working through it. I read through it the first time around Christmas as we were kind of finishing up our Year of Homer. It was recommended to Me by Mr. Eli Stone. He joined us for the Odyssey, kind of helped us out a bit. He's in our Sunday Great Books group as well. And I must say, like, I'm really glad that we've taken up this trilogy. Like, I've really enjoyed it. And I think that I was trying to figure out why I really enjoyed it. And I think, just like in a nutshell, the first two plays were okay, I thought. I mean, they were good, they were entertaining. But the third play, this Eumenides, I think, is the one that sold it on me. That really showed me how these plays really can be an intellectual bridge between Homer and Plato, because here they're wrestling with justice. And I think that what I've received is a good understanding of the antecedents to both Plato and Christ, if that makes sense. Right. So Plato and Christ both take up the question of justice. I think the more I've wrestled with Aeschylus and the Oresteia and really just the. The plays overall, the more I've come to have a deep appreciation for how complex the virtue of justice is and what justice was readily thought of in that time period. I think it's really going to help me. It's really helped me contextualize my own studies of Plato and Christ. I think it's really going to help us then, as we move into Plato, have a deeper understanding when he takes up the virtue of justice. I mean, what about, you know, Dr. Grabowski. What about yourself?
- [05:26]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Like, oh, you know, as you were. As you were talking, I was just thinking to myself how blessed we are that we have this trilogy, but also how unfortunate we are that we have no other trilogy. I mean, just imagine if we had other trilogies from Aeschylus or Sophocles, and how much more. Even those would help us to develop a better understanding of justice and Plato and. And justice as it's expressed in the New Testament. So, no, I've really enjoyed it. It's a very humane trilogy. I'm really interested to hear what you guys have to say about the concluding half of it.
- [06:03]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I mean, I've loved it. Actually. I think the only quibble I'd have is that I think Agamemnon is my favorite of the three. Yeah, let's rewind to that after we go get through the text. But that said, also, I think what's interesting that he ends up wrestling with, as you were talking about there is the question, as well as justice as a virtue in the individual and then justice as a virtue in the society. Because I think when you have this more avenger notion of justice, the two are collapsed. And one of the other things coming apart here as he tries to work with the question of justice is are those actually, as it were, related but separate virtues that need to be teased apart a little bit? And I think that's. That's something else he's kind of working. Working through.
- [06:53]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, I agree. I just think that, well, at the end, we'll take up where, what our favorites are and maybe compare this a little bit to other plays. I'm kind of fascinating to see how Agamemnon became your favorite, but we'll. We'll leave that as a teaser until the end of the episode. But no, I. I very much have appreciated it. I appreciate kind of watching this maturation arc of what is justice move throughout these texts. And so I actually, the more we read the plays, the more excited I am to get the Plato. Not that the plays don't stand on their own, but I think the more I read them, the more I'm excited to get the Plato.
- [07:27]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that a lot, too. I want to. I want to reread some of the dialogues and I think with fresh eyes because I can't help but think it's going to change my perspective somewhat going back to Plato looking at. Through the lens of Aeschylus.
- [07:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I'm sure it will. I mean, even like, I think Last episode you mentioned just all these conversations on justice and eye for an eye, you know, is this really a limiting principle, etc. And then you take on, you know, the command of Christ to love your enemy because he's like, well, I mean, even the pagans love their friends and that. I mean, it's just amazing how well that dovetails into this entire conversation. And I think that's one question I have as we approach the text tonight is I think we all agree that Aeschylus moves the ball forward on the question of what is justice. But as I read, you know, this, Part two, if you will, the second half, the amenities, like. One of the questions I had was, yes, but in what way does he actually do that? And in what way does virtue or just justice maybe stay a bit stagnant still? Right. Where do things move forward? Where do things maybe kind of plateau a bit?
- [08:32]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, I think my. Somewhat. I don't know if this would be controversial or not, but I'm gonna. This is my take as well. I think Eskalisk is also something of a realist. I think part of what he's doing, so. So my case will be is arguing for something that is kind of a. Lowering the expectations of justice very slightly. And I think that's a weird way to put it because. Because I'm actually meaning this in a positive sense because I think he's basically. Are he shows that in all of these. Like, in a trial like this, you're going to have people who feel like they've lost. Right. The outcome wasn't what they thought it ought to have been. And in, you know, without. Without this system that he's, you know, articulating, the only recourse is more violence and another cycle of. Of vengeance and death. And what he's trying to say is actually in some way giving a system by which people can manage their disappointments, which is, I think, a very important thing.
- [09:36]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, it is, and I look forward to. Because I think that's going to tether a bit to some of the questions I have as we kind of look at the actual trial. Because there's a few things about the trial that I found a bit lackluster. And I wonder if that's going to tether to your insight that they're intentionally lackluster or. I think the other thing that occurred to me is, does Escala still just not have the grammar to articulate certain things? Right. Is he. He's pushing things forward, but is he also hitting a ceiling in a certain way? So good we'll, we'll kind of parse those out as we get there. So let's look at the text. Let's jump in. And so we are, we have a scene shift, I believe. So we are starting. I'm looking at the faggles translation. And so last week we ended at line 570. And so we're picking up right after that. So the scene has shifted to the Areopagus, the tribunal on the Craig of Aries. Athena enters the procession to The Herald and 10 Citizens. She has chosen to be judges. So maybe first we should kind of, you know, before we dive into kind of the deeper understandings, make sure we have the literal. Where are we and why is this place important?
- [10:45]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
So go ahead, Dr. Braxter, you're about to say something.
- [10:49]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, I would, I mean, so this is, I guess would be the city center. I mean, terms of, if we were to think of this in, in modern terms, I mean, this is the city center. This, I, I assume would be in an open area. I don't know much about the, the Craig of Aries, what, what that would be referring to. I would have to, I'd have to look that up.
- [11:15]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
So my, my understanding of the Areopagus, just like as a preliminary is that like this is the, these are like the, the Craigs, the, the cliff, right. So you've, you've got the Acropolis and that like this kind of collection of buildings. And then adjacent to that you have this cliff, the Areopagus. And it's famous particularly for this context. It's famous for already hosting a trial. So it hosted the, the judgment of Ares, which is why it's called the Craig of Aries. And so it already has like, there's a mythological layer here that this was already a place of judgment is my understanding, because I was trying to figure out like, you know, we're, we're scene shifting a lot. I'm assuming there's intentionality behind that, just like with Apollo's temple and things of this nature. So I did a little bit of research into it. And so there's a tethering here to just the concept of judgment and justice with the Areopagus.
- [12:10]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, I think there's a sense, you know, if you're tethering it as well, you have like two time frames going on. You've got the mythical time frame in which Aeschylus is writing about and then you have the actual time frame that he's writing in. And of course, this is this, I believe, the remaining sort of aristocratic elements of Athens, because most of it's moving to a democratic form. And the older. What. What are what I'm searching for word. I'm missing it. But basically the older aristocratic group still has some function, one of which is murder trials. Right. And. And they. And they, I believe, meet or still hold their court on the Areopagus. And by the way, if we just want to tie this forward through kind of time, we've got also when St. Paul goes, you know, he. He discourses on Mars Hill, slash the Areopagus. And then Milton writes his favorite thing on free speech, entitles it the Areopagitica. So you've kind of got this, like, thread now. Mind you, I'm not saying those are all. They're downstream from this only in the sense of that how much history have we now established? All tied to one location? And there's one sense, there's a sense in which, you know, all of this getting packed. Well, not all of it in Aeschylus's day, but for us, this, this recurrent theme of being packed into this one very storied place.
- [13:36]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I like that a lot. I like the layers, I think, that this place presents. Look, too, because we have also kind of in the side notes here that there's a stone of outrage and a stone of unmercifulness, right? So she's. She's setting up. Athena, I think, Dr. Grabowski, you've kind of helped us contextualize this a lot. We are. We're getting a procedure set up, right? We're getting role set up. We're getting. So here comes Athena. She's a judge. We have a jury that's just walked in. We have a place in which judgment happens. Right. There's no place where the blood of danger has justice. That's just wherever it happens to be. Right. You murder them in their own home. No. So now we have a place of judgment, we have these different roles, and now we have, like, these two distinct places that people can stand depending on where they are in the conflict. So my understanding is like, you know, stone of outrage is the person who is being accused. Right. They're almost, you know, outraged against. Right. They're pushing back against things. And then the stone of unmercifulness, which is a. A lovely loaded term, right. The person who is not showing mercy is the one kind of bringing this claim. And so Orestes is at, you know, the former, and now the Furies are at the latter. Right. Because they're kind of pursuing this claim against Orestes. They're very Much on the plaintiff side.
- [14:51]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
That's wonderful. There's also a temporal element, as we'll see here, too. So. Yeah, I mean, it's creating this sort of very interesting representation of justice, not as an embodiment, as embodied in a person or as in a given action, but rather as something that has a location, as you said, but also will take time to settle.
- [15:12]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, No, I had a question. You said 10 jurors. Is that in the text or is that in the comments? Because mine. Mine is indeterminate as to the number of jurors, which is kind of important, potentially later.
- [15:26]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Mine. Mine says it in kind of, like the scene notes. Does that make sense? Like, off to the side. So it's not the footnotes, but Fagal has, like, the scene notes. They all seem to have those. I'm not sure exactly.
- [15:37]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Mine has seen notes. It just doesn't mention the number. And I only mentioned that because in a few commentaries, the number was left ambiguous and which left some doubt as to whether or not when we get there, the deciding vote, it wasn't required or not. Right. If that makes sense. But we'll. We'll wait. We'll wait for that.
- [16:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Okay, good. So let's look at, you know, Apollo comes on the scene. So again, we're kind of playing out these roles. So Apollo comes in as what? I mean, he's like. He is the advocate. He's the paraclete. He's not a strict attorney because he's also in the mixmaster of what happened. Right.
- [16:19]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
He's not a witness.
- [16:20]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. Because, well, he's not even a witness. I mean, he's. He's. He was the person who told him to go do it.
- [16:25]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, he's like a conspirator.
- [16:27]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, he's like a conspirator. Like, you can't just, like. So he can't actually step out as a completely neutral party. Which I think, going back to, like, Dr. Grabowski's comment about procedural. This procedural justice that's unfolding right now, a lot of that is about being neutral. Are we bringing neutral parties to adjudicate the claim that can be dispassionate, which is a world away from, like, you know, getting the Blood Avenger to have the fortitude and passions to go kill whoever they need to in the name of justice? I mean, we're shifting to something very different here. So the trial begins around, like, 590. Apollo has a, you know, a comment to this of, like, bring on the trial. You know, the rules now. Turn them into justice. But if I wanted to kind of anchor like why do you keep using the term procedural? I think that's a good, that's a good line that I think I would really anchor that in. We get straight into a cross examination. So the Furies jump right into a cross examination of Orestes. Of course, like the first question they're just going to ask is hey, did you murder your mom? And the answer is yes. And I think for the Furies the whole trial should be over, right? Look, he's already said this, he's admitted to this, etc. He states further, you know, that he has no regrets a little after 600 and something I found fascinating a little bit before 605 is that he appeals to an advocate, right, for someone to help him. But he doesn't immediately say Apollo. He actually appeals back to his father, right? The one for whom he actually was the blood of injure. It's. It's really kind of a harken back to the libation bears when he asked for his father's intercession before Orestes went off to murder Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. And so it's just kind of an interesting note here. Now unlike Clytemnestra, again, Agamemnon does not actually appear. He doesn't pull a patroclus and show up in the trial. That would have been interesting, but he doesn't do it well.
- [18:22]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
And I think it's interesting. There's back and forth. I mean this is all structured in that. I think it's. My pronunciation will be terrible that stigmatia where it's line for line back and forth in the. The. In this he says in verse about I have my trust, my father sends me forth from the grave. They taunt him about trusting in corpses now that he's killed his mother. But he says that his mother had she incurred a double pollution. In my translation it says that. I think the idea of pollution here is interesting because it's not just that she's guilty, but when you introduce this idea of pollution there's introduce also this notion of kind of ritual uncleanness along with the idea that it's a taint on the society, something that has to be cleaned out, right? So it's not just like she personally carries a moral guilt, but a stain is, is. Is. Is tainting the whole house and has to be cleansed. Which I think is a very interesting. Leans on the necessity of something being done about this.
- [19:30]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Do you think, do you think that's a Hearken back though to more of the old way of looking at when you have to have like the purging ritual. Because when you think about pollution, which I think is a very different. I think Fagles just says she had two counts against her deadly crimes. He doesn't have the, the poetic layer of like pollution. But when you say pollution, I really think of the old ways that there has to be like a ritual cleansing.
- [19:55]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah. And I think that you notice this imagery come up in a couple of ways, harking back to the. To Homer when he kills the suitors. They then cleanse the hall with brimstone and these sorts of things, which has both obviously a very practical and important effect in cleaning the hall. But in the context of the poetry, I think there's a much more of a sense of it being cleansing of the stain, not of the suitor's evil, not just of their literal blood. Something like that is hinted at here.
- [20:36]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I appreciate that. I think, you know, kind of using blood as a segue. It's interesting here that again, the role of marriage is going to pop up. That's going to be a sticking point in the actual trial. We've already seen kind of the foreshadowing of it and dialogues earlier. But around 610, Rusty says, you know, she lived on. You never drove her into exile. Why? So it's interesting that he's actually being cross examined by the Furies and he turns around and asks them a question, hey, why. Why did you not do the just thing? Why did you not drive my mom out into exile and haunt her? Because she killed her husband. Right. She's also a betrayer, etc. And the furies give their answer, right? The blood of the man she killed was not her own. And so again, we kind of have this kind of discount of marriage. I simply flag it because I think we did last time a pretty good job of parsing that out of how that plays inside of her. Excuse me, Zeus and Hera and like a bedrock of civilization. But this morning when I was rereading this section, I really kind of picked up on the fact that I think the Furies have their own maturation towards the end about how they view marriage.
- [21:49]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I think that's right. Yeah.
- [21:51]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And I did not see that the first time I read that. So I want to flag that here, that in the course of the trial they still don't hold marriage in any kind of esteem.
- [21:59]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
No. And it's really important again, when you get to the context sort of post verdict, but I Think there's another interesting thing here where I think Aeschylus is showing this is a blindness in the Furies. Right. I think there's a sense in which he's showing that all of these participants have, even in pursuing what they believe to be justice, been blind in one aspect or another. And I think that's kind of why he's leaning or showing in some ways that being a judge in your own cause is not, is not wise. But even the Furies, I think he's showing to be blind as regards the role, and I of, of that, that Apollo's articulated earlier about Zeus and Hera. Now I think Apollo has his own blindness. So we're going to get to that in just a moment.
- [22:43]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, that's exactly what I was about to ask you is like, but does Apollo have his own blindness? Because he still seems, he does some things well, but then he still seems to be stuck in somewhat of the old ways. Like he hasn't, he hasn't. Like he's not, it's not like he's an. A character or an advocate of the new justice. He himself maybe seems to be in transition along with this overall concept. Like he's also a character that's developing. I kind of point it out because he has a statement around, I don't know, 620 and then down by 625 where he basically just appeals to Zeus and he just says, right, Zeus did not command the Olympian father. This is his justice. Omnipotent, I warn you, bend to the will of Zeus. No oath can match the power of the father. To me, that's very Homeric. That's not a, that's not a parsing out of a new understanding of justice. That's not justice as a principle, as a virtue that I apply dispassionately. That's an appeal to power. I mean, that this is, this is Hesiod's, you know, succession myth. Like, well, why is it just that Zeus is the king of the gods? Well, because he's the most powerful one. So I didn't know like, how we read Apollo here because he seems to do some things against the Furies that are good, but he doesn't seem to be on the same page totally with Athena, even though Apollo does seem to have faith in the trial. Right. Like he's, remember, he's the one that pushed for the trial. He's the one that told Athena to do this. But he doesn't seem quite in his own understanding of justice to be where Athena is or where Athena wants to take things.
- [24:18]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I agree, let me just say. But I think that this is very much in character and is dramatically appropriate. So I think it works within, within the overarching drama. But Thomas, you were about to say.
- [24:30]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
No, no, I was going to say more or less what you said. But I think it works in the drama precisely because you have partisans, right? Like Apollo is a, is, is a partisan on one side, the Furies on the other. And they both seem to be arguing that their case for their client in the case of the. But there's also this weird mishmash that the Furies are essentially representing not just Clytemnestra, but themselves and their rights. And Apollo is representing not just arrestes, but himself and essentially justifying himself. But that means that they are in these partisan camps and you have to have something that sort of transcends that in order to, to reconcile the two camp, this, two sides.
- [25:15]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I really liked the Apollo tries to make an argument here. Basically it's like pro Agamemnon about like, hey, look, he went on the campaign, he did all this work, he did these things and then he came back and Clyde Temestra, you know, murdered him. And like, you know, shouldn't this actually move you? And I found this is really funny because there's a few rhetorical terms in here that I think are quite clever where the leader of the, the Furies, this is a little bit before 650, says Zeus, you say, sets more store by a father's death. He shackled his own father, Kronos, proud with age. Doesn't that contradict you? And I thought this was a brilliant little move by the Furies. And I think Aeschylus is, is probably pointing out something that it's probably going to run him, you know, close to impiety here. But he, he's pointing out like, you know, oh yeah, look, here's this unjust act. And he and the Nefuris are pointing back to the Olympians and saying, well, haven't the Olympian gods also acted unjustly? And I think that's a great question. And I think that's a question that, you know, we had, as we read through Homer and the Iliad and the Odyssey is like, well, can you really have a justice that aligns with the divine if all these gods, including Zeus, are acting, actually acting unjustly.
- [26:33]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, and it's interesting here, right? I mean, Hesiod would have the Furies as being born from this very action. Now, Aeschylus has said that the daughter is a Knight. And it's interesting. I wonder if we're still supposed to maintain this Hesiod style connection or not.
- [26:52]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It is interesting though that Apollo responds. I mean, the pushback here too is that, you know, he actually just shackled Kronos. Right. Kronos isn't actually dead.
- [27:03]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Right.
- [27:05]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Granted, he's, you know, shackled for eternity down in Tartarus, being tortured or whatever's happening to him, but he's technically not dead. Right. So Zeus did not murder his father in so far as though, you know, they use it as some way to escape the fact that Zeus would have pity on the murder of a father.
- [27:24]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I misspoke. By the way, I was thinking of Uranus when I said that, because Kronos is different. Kronos, Zeus has throw up his siblings with the. Yeah, I was thinking of Uranus and well, Kronos.
- [27:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. Yeah. Because he's the one that in Hesiod, the furies arise from his genitals being tossed into the sea.
- [27:44]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [27:45]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Which I think actually plays into the marriage conversation we have to have later, just for the record. So then Apollo goes back to one of these arguments that I find to be hilarious. He tries this argument down at 665. Right here is the truth. I tell you. See how right I am. The woman you call the mother of the child is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed, the new sown seed that grows and swells inside her. And so I, I mean, what's happening in this passage? I mean, my, my initial take was that Apollo is trying to go tit for tat for the error that the Furies are making. So that, so the Furies are basically downplaying the murder of the spouse by downplaying marriage and saying, well, it's not the same relationship that is in blood. And so Apollo's like, well, you know what? Who also isn't a great blood relationship? Mothers. Mothers aren't actually a blood relationship. They just grow the seed and give the birth. They're not actually related to their children. I mean, it's an asinine argument, even though he, he makes a somewhat funny rhetorical point here afterwards. But I, I what I, that's what I viewed him as is like he's kind of operating a level of the Furies and rhetorically going back and forth. I don't think he's moving our overall argument for justice forward. He's kind of stuck in that old way of thinking.
- [29:04]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
All that I have written in the margin here is compare Aristotle's embryology.
- [29:08]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I Think Aristotle.
- [29:10]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [29:10]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, you know, I think that there, I think this is, this is an important like, contrast though, because we just hinted, I mean, the, the Furies seem to have their, seem to lack an understanding of the importance of marriage, not just as a societal institution, but as, you know, fundamental to relations between men and women as such. And the, and now we have Apollo making sort of the, the inverse error. Right. So I think there's a, I mean, I, I think they're, they're both going off the road, just one on one side of the road and one on the other. And at least I'm reading Aeschylus as, as doing that on purpose. I, I don't, I do not see Aeschylus as, as actually adopting Apollo's position. Now, I could be wrong, but I just don't think this is a very convincing argument. And I'm not saying it would, was going to be very convincing in Greek times either. I mean, I think people thought their mother, they were related to their mother and their father in some way or other, maybe somewhat mysterious, but in some way or other this actually counts.
- [30:14]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, I mean, your normal Greek is probably going to look at their mom and be like, I look like their mom, right? Like, I look like my mom. My mom can't just simply be the carrier of the seed. Like there's something that actually makes me look like my mother. So I took this as Aeschylus showing that both the Furies, which are the elder gods, right, the old primordial gods and the Olympian gods, can't really push this thing forward.
- [30:41]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Right?
- [30:42]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
They're like you said, they're calling them on a ditch on, they're falling on different ditches on the same road.
- [30:47]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, also, if you think about all the times when you have the half men, half God type things, well, Zeus has a child through a mortal woman, or in a few rare cases, you have an immortal goddess who has a child from a man. And there's. There, there those, those in, in all those cases draw from both sides, right? Characteristics from the. It doesn't, it doesn't, it just doesn't work. And of course, we're also completely forgetting Metis, or at least Apollo is completely forgetting Metis. So she kind of did have a mother. It doesn't, I think, I think you lose points if you eat the mother.
- [31:25]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [31:26]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Like that's got to count against you somewhere.
- [31:28]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. And I think, I mean, I just have to throw this in there and yeah, I just have to throw this in there that this, this understanding of like a woman is, has Very much been articulated to me in modern times by Protestants when they articulate Mary. Right. She is just. This is true, right. They say, oh, like we call her the Theotokos. She's the mother of God. She's the mater dei, Right. She is that. And the response you get back is, no, she was just like a vessel. Right. She just carried Christ. Like there's no actual thing for her. And it actually wrote that out in my notes that this was the Protestant understanding of Mary. I realized Protestants are not monolithic. But for those of us who pretty much grew up in Oklahoma with the evangelicals that we did, like, this is an argument that I have heard in person, right. That Mary was simply just a vessel. She just carried the seed and gave birth, and there was nothing special about her. And what are they denying there? That Christ actually pulled his flesh from her. And earlier when I said. Earlier when I said, you know, the Greeks would have realized that they looked like their moms. Like, I don't think this would be a surprise to them that I pulled that phrase from the fact that typically a lot of people would say that Christ looked like Mary. Right. Like he was a true son.
- [32:41]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah. And I keep looking around because I thought I had a copy within reach, but I don't. The Athanasian Creed is explicit on this point, Right. That he is the God man, receiving his divinity of his father and his human nature from his mother. Now, again, I don't want, when I say that anybody to get the idea that I'm doing some sort of Greek hybrid mix here. He's not a hybrid. He's fully God and fully man. But his man nature does not come from his father, but from his mother.
- [33:15]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. He pulls his flesh from Mary. Right. That's where he pulls his humanity, which is why she operates as the new Eve of the new Covenant. She operates as the new ark of the Covenant. Right. I mean, these are. These things go deeply. But I think it's interesting into understanding that, you know, we laugh here about Apollo's understanding of women in the trial. But, like, you'll hear this out in the wild when you actually have to talk about the incarnation. We talk about, okay, well, here is the God bearer, right? Here is the Theotokos. What is her relationship to the seed? And if it's funny, because a lot of times they. They just defer, you know, maybe a lower, lower church, Protestantism will simply defer to that. No, she's. She's simply just a vessel. They basically regurgitate Apollo's argument here.
- [33:59]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, yeah, And I'm trying to remember which of the ancient heresies this is. Anyway, it'll come back to me in a little bit. But there, this, I mean, this is, this is old school that the part of, part of the, you know, the, the Aryan controversies and others led into sort of the, the reverse error.
- [34:17]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Where instead of, instead of arguing that Christ is a creature, like Aryan doesn't argue, they end up arguing that Christ really isn't a human. He's just, he's a fully divine. I forgot what that's called.
- [34:30]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
It's one of the species of mono. Monophysite. Monophysitism, but there's like, different ones, and I can't remember which one this would be, but it'll come back to me eventually.
- [34:42]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
You'll remember it right after we close the podcast is about when you remember that. So I do think, well, there's actually.
- [34:48]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
A heresy, I just looked it up called Apollinarianism, named after Apollinarius. This heresy says that Christ wasn't a real man, but not totally divine either. So I guess that's not the one you're thinking of.
- [35:00]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
No, no, there are a lot of.
- [35:03]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Those in the early church. Getting, getting the Incarnation correct is difficult, and I'm very happy that we live downstream.
- [35:10]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Actually, docetism sounds right to what I was thinking. Ultimately then comes up with this notion of him passing through Mary like light through a glass, I think is the analogy that they, they do, where it then has this idea where her, she is really just a sort of conduit in some sort of very airy way.
- [35:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. Even though that, that exact analogy is also used in an orthodox way.
- [35:43]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yes, right. That's, that's. I want, I, I, I, I, I have to be careful because that, that is also used regarding perpetual virtuality, which is another argument. Yeah.
- [35:52]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
One of our more traditional Catholic followers was about to smash their keyboard to an email to the podcast if we didn't correct that. That.
- [35:59]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, yes, yes, But I want to be clear about that, because there, there is an orthodox sense of that, as in many of these heresies, there is an orthodox sense of the word then get taken in an, in a heterodox way. So. Yes.
- [36:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. Because a heresy is always a twisting right. Heresy is never something completely made up. If it was completely made up, it couldn't be a heresy because it wouldn't be a twisting of the truth. So there's always some, you know, poor truth that's been mutilated underneath it. So. Okay, very good. Well, I. Yeah, I just.
- [36:28]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Before we stumble into a new incarnational heresy.
- [36:32]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. So we will escape as soon as we can. But I do want to throw that out that little did you know, Apollo's argument about women in this trial is actually beneficial to understand, as you have apologetics with the Theotokos, the Mother of God. So we'll throw that out right after this. I did think this was funny. I think, Thomas, you already alluded to this, that he makes this argument that sounds really fun, like just really kind of, like, bizarre. And then he's like, oh, you know who's an example of this? Our judge, Athena. Like, and I laugh. I actually laughed out loud when I read this, when I realized what he was doing. Right. So the Furies kind of do this with Zeus. Right. They appeal to Zeus, and now Apollo appeals to the judge, to Athena being like, oh, do we know. Do we happen to know any offspring here who just came directly from men and were not actually born of a woman? So I found this really funny. But to your point earlier, Apollo is also forgetting the fact that the reason Athena was inside Zeus is because Zeus had swallowed her mom. So the mother is actually still somewhat beneficial to this whole process. Oh.
- [37:40]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
The hilarious part is that the person he ought to be pointing to is the Furies. If. If he hadn't changed the genealogy, such as the Daughters of Night, he would say, I don't know. Is anyone around here born just of their father? Maybe the Furies, but.
- [37:58]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. And I think the worst thing about this is, is that I think it actually makes an impact on Athena. And I think I will. I'll show you the line later on, but I'm a little worried that Athena actually takes us into account as we kind of deal with our procedural justice. I'm not really sure if that's a great aspect here. So. But now we get the casting of the lots. So that's it. That's our. That's our trial. And so we get the casting of the lots. And so Athena has a fairly large monologue here a little after it starts, a little bit before 690. And she kind of gives this little speech, which I think points out a few key themes. One, you know, we're starting to talk about law. Right. So we talk about justice, the blood Avengers, things like this. Now we're kind of talking about law. I think this kind of goes into that procedural side of things. She mentions that this is the first trial of bloodshed. She mentions, again, the Craig of Aries and gives a little bit of the history about it about the Amazons and things like this. But again, this is a mythical place of judgment. So I think Aeschylus is kind of tying this to multiple layers of Greek history, that this place is the place of judgment. But I think the key part comes down around 7:10. She says neither anarchy nor tyranny. My people worship the mean. I urge you, shore it up with reverence and never banish terror from the gates. Not outright.
- [39:26]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot going on here, right. One is even just above this, right where she talks about setting this, this tribunal up. Man, I'm missing the line, the word here. But basically she's setting this up for all time. So already I think she's setting up with the idea of procedural justice is that you can't make up the rules and then change them every time you have a trial or every time you have a crime that needs avenged. And we're going to set up part of this whole process is these are the rules, the only rules. The rules we always use forever. And I think that's. That'll that already is a big deal. And then to say and make no innovation in the laws through evil infusions. If you pollute a clear spring with mud, you'll never find drink because again as well that you can't go changing things and tweaking things and putting your fingers on the scales or else you're going to ruin it.
- [40:16]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, you think here too that neither anarchy nor tyranny, my people, I mean it seems to be a very strong allusion to the fact that Athens just arrived out of a tyranny. Right. So there. Are they not trying to find the mean in democracy. Right. So we don't have a tyranny. We also don't want to have an anarchy, meaning, you know, we don't want to have too much government, but we also don't want to have no government, if you want to look at it that way. So where do we have it? In the middle. So it's interesting that he, I mean I kind of just thinking off my feet here, but it looks like he's trying to tether, hey look, we have this democracy, which by the way is heavily procedural. Right. To understand how we rule our polis. It's a heavily procedural kind of political regime. And it looks like she's making an analog between those procedures of the polis. And we need to have similar procedures that find the mean in the courtroom in this Kind of search for justice.
- [41:13]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
On a smaller level, and they balance, right? I mean, the democracy in part of what it does is going to pass laws. If the setting up this understanding of a jury system is setting up the other part of that, the other side of that same coin, which is that we have to have confidence not just in the laws that we passed, but how those laws are applied and administered.
- [41:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
What do you think, Dr. Groski?
- [41:39]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, again, I'm just very struck here by the way in which Athena expresses this newly developed understanding of justice as not embodied in a person, but rather the polis. And so, I mean, I'm thinking about so many of the other works that we've read and discussed in both the group and on Ascend, Ilia, the Odyssey. I mean, we very rarely do. We are very rarely do these authors depict collections of people as presented as groups or collectives. They're always represented by a given individual. And so here again, I think it's quite remarkable the way that she talks about my people, you men of Greece, earlier, she refers to my polis, my city. And so, you know, grouping people together and sort of shoring up justice not in the individual, but rather in the collective, I think is quite significant.
- [42:45]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. Two other things that occur to me. One is just flagging what might be obvious to a lot of people, but maybe not so much to others is obviously the mean becomes an incredibly important concept in Greek thought. So when we get to Aristotle and his Nicomachean ethics, you know, when he looks at virtue, a lot of his virtues, oddly enough, not justice, but a lot of his virtues, are going to be trying to find the mean between two things, right? So, you know, I don't want, like, for instance, like the classic example is like, well, I want to be brave. Well, I don't want to be a coward. That's one end of the spectrum. But I also don't want to be like a berserker and not have a healthy dose of fear and just run out and be an insane person. Right. So I. What do I find? Well, I need courage, which helps me find the mean, right. So the mean is going to become incredibly important to Greek thought. So just to flag that, the second one, I have a question is when she says, you know, you worship the mean, I urge you, shore it up with reverence, and never banish terror from the gates, not outright. So what she seems to be saying there is like, okay, I just said to have the mean and so don't banish terror. We actually need terror to a certain degree inside the polis. And this seems to me to be a foreshadowing of her offer to the furies in the back half or the latter half of this play.
- [44:09]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, if yours follows, mine says, for who among mortal men is righteous if he fears nothing? Right. I mean, her idea is, I think strongly that the law functions in this. Aristotle will pick up on this very explicitly in this role of. As teacher as well as punisher. And that part of the role of the law, I mean, if you, if you. That if you remove all punishments, you're essentially teaching the people that crime is. Is respectable and endorsed. Right. I mean, that you. And I think that's the warning here. Right.
- [44:47]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. I really appreciate what you said about. I think it's somewhat nascent here, but it's going to be so important to Western tradition, which in a lot of ways is a euphemism for Christendom. But the fact that law is a teacher. Law is a teacher because I think as moderns, when we think of law, we're downstream of liberalism. And a lot of liberalism turned law into simply a negation. Right. It's a. A necessary evil to curb your freedom so you don't bump on the freedom of others. Right. So you don't violate it. So law is basically about what you can't do simply to respect someone else's freedom. There's not really like a positive understanding of law anymore. We don't really think about law as a teacher. But I think we can look at our culture today and all you need to look at is like, we have one Supreme Court case on an issue, we have one law passed on issue, and five years later, it's completely normative and everywhere. Why? Well, because the law communicates things, that the law teaches us what it means to be human. It teaches us an anthropology. It gives us certain cultural defaults. And so. No, I like that you point out that I think that's here in a somewhat nascent, incipient way, because I think that's going to be a huge lesson that we have to learn. Probably starting with Plato is getting picked up pretty heavily by Aristotle and St. Thomas twenties.
- [46:10]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, and I think the way she's doing this here is that ours also, it points towards an external quality of justice as well, that man's internal sense of justice won't be sufficient to restrain him because of his own vices really, as well as blindness. And so that there has to be this. The law has to provide this sort of catechetical role. But also, if nothing else, Just the threat. Right. When it's working really great, the law communicates from the outside this notion of justice, which I might not have picked up on, but I will, because the law, it explains it to me well. And in the worst case, I ignore it anyway, and I become the lesson for everybody else when the law punishes me for my crime.
- [46:56]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Dr. Bobowski, were you going to jump in?
- [46:57]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
No, I was just going to say, you know, this, this discussion reminds me of John Stuart Mill. Not that we have to talk about him. Him, but, you know, he addresses this very point in his text on utilitarianism, about what the ultimate sanction of the principle of utility is. And he talks about external sanctions and internal sanctions and the need for both. But ultimately it has to be grounded in the internal. In other words, we don't want the principle of utility, we don't want morality. But we could extend this to include also law. We don't want it simply to be. We need police officers on every corner enforcing the law. This has to be somehow internalized. But the external is still a vital part of bringing about that internalization. So, yeah, I think, again, I think that this is very insightful on your part in pointing this out, in that it's very insightful for Aeschylus to bring this up.
- [47:55]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, and I think, you know, the number of times where I'm just going to fully and unrestrainedly endorse Mill is probably few, but this is one of them.
- [48:06]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
That part of his text, or.
- [48:08]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
No, no, I wasn't. But the, you know, this also reminds me, veering into a very different political philosophy as well, a little bit of Hayek's distinction between law and legislation. Right. Because there's a sense in which what you're talking about there, that when you have the attempt. And I think, you know, we can see this sometimes in the modern day as well, sometimes the law can try to move so fast that it simply imposes on people things which they do not really believe. And that tends to result in an antinomian quality. You simply regard the law as an imposition. And there's all sorts of directions we could take that. But I think you can also have it in reverse, in which you have the legalization of things which used to be criminal because people can no longer believe in their prohibition.
- [49:05]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. I do think, I mean, not to belabor this point too long, but the whole point between the intrinsic principle and the extrinsic principle, you know, that's also found in Aquinas in his Summa, when he sets up his treatise on law. He starts off in his prologue, basically saying, God has given us, you know, two externals to guide us into being good. One is grace that he's given us externally, and the other is law. That law is a teacher and, you know, an internal one being virtue. Right. Being. Being truly good is to habituate yourself to the good. Right. And so even Aquinas, though, I think, doesn't wrestle with. But I think one of the things he has to articulate and be very careful with is to what degree can the law actually even make us good? Right. I have to actually be able to receive the law. And the law can kind of work on me almost like a carpenter works on the wood, But I'm not the wood. I'm a human being that can push back and be resistant. Does that make sense? And so there's a concept here that the law can lead me into virtue, but can't force me there. But hopefully it starts to create some kind of habit in me to be good. Can you guys hear that chicken?
- [50:14]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I can, yes. No, it's not distracting. It's kind of. It's. It's kind of interesting.
- [50:20]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, I'm next to my. I'm in my kitchen. I'm next to my utility room, and I have 25 meat birds in there and four egg layers. And our. We have an Easter egger called such because they lay blue and green eggs. They're very beautiful. But he has developed very quickly. And actually we found him running around on our floor today. He had escaped our cardboard walls, but he had, like, jumped out. I can't even talk about philosophy. I don't know what he really thought when he jumped out of his little world and then stepped in the middle of our kitchen. And there's all these giant things there. He, like. He, like, bunkered down and had. He's like, I've made a huge mistake. Right. I've made a terrible life points which kind of just scooped him up and put him back, but for some reason, he's having a fit right now. So anyway, that we record from rural Oklahoma.
- [51:09]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, to connect to your point there, too, about the laws and their catechetical aspect, I think that's also connects to what she's saying with law when she said, make no innovation in the laws through evil infusions. I think there is very much the idea. And I mean, it's. It's explicit. I mean, it's not even implicit. It's just explicitly here, look, you can lead people astray through bad laws just as you can lead them on the right path through good ones.
- [51:36]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree. Well, let's look at the. Let's look at the actual casting of the lots. So Athena kind of gives her monologue. The jurors cast her lots. And then Athena has, like, a really interesting little speech she gives here at 750. She says, I will cast my lot for you. This is speaking to Orestes. No, mother gave me birth. So there's the line that I'm like, okay, wait, does that mean Apollo's argument actually made an impression on her? Like, why is she mentioning that? So no, mother gave me birth. I honor the male in all things but marriage, yes, with all my heart. I am my father's child. I cannot set more store by the woman's death. She killed her husband, guardian of her house. Even if the vote is equal, Orestes wins. So she casts her lot, which is the tiebreaker. What do we make of her little speech here?
- [52:33]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, I mean, I would just. I'm wondering from a legalistic point of view, is. Is this an instance of innocent until proven guilty, judging from the last line? So even if it's tied.
- [52:46]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, no, I definitely think we've got.
- [52:47]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
That a sufficient number of votes haven't been cast to fight to. To find him guilty.
- [52:53]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And then it shows. It shows what the default is.
- [52:57]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right, right, right.
- [52:59]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
The cast of votes to move him into guilty. Right. So. No, that's a good point. Yeah. So the.
- [53:04]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I think that's a. That harkens back to another sort of thing that she says right before they vote. But she says to rise and take your votes for casting and decide the case with respect for your oath, which I think is an interesting quality, because the idea of what sort of oath is it that they've taken? And again, you have this. It's got to be an oath. It's referenced before, but the idea sterile is something that you're judging this not by your. Which side do you like better, but which is do you think actually just because you wouldn't have to remind people to honor their oath if it were just. Well, no. Cast your vote for whomever you like the most. That's not. Yeah.
- [53:49]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
You wanted to make some hay out of that. That one line. No, mother gave me birth.
- [53:54]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
So what is.
- [53:55]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Why is that significant?
- [53:57]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, I'm worried here that she. I mean, I guess this is where I. This is where I earlier was mentioning to what degree does Aeschylus push justice forward? And so my. Let me kind of throw out. I don't think this is Overly negative, but kind of let me throw you out where I am and maybe get some pushback. I think that the understanding of the primitive justice, so you basically love your friends and hate your enemies in a lot of ways. I actually think that stays the same. I think the principle of justice, so the Blood Avenger system is going away, but the principle of justice, of love your friends and hate your enemies, is remaining. What's actually being added to it is that it's going to be played out procedurally and not through a singular kind of familial level Blood Avenger. This is going to be procedural, polis level form of justice. Because I think some of these things she says here about, like, what is swaying her, these aren't. These aren't appeals to a concept of justice. Right. These are subjective things that she's mentioning about her own relationship to her father and so how that informs her understanding of Clytemnestra. So I. We're not getting the full fledged understanding of justice, which is fine. I wasn't expecting to find it in Aeschylus. I mean, Plato has to write an entire dialogue, the Republic, you know, his second longest, I believe, to try and even explore this concept. So I think that's my working premise right now, is that the justice says pretty much the same, the primitive justice of just love your friends and hate your enemies. But what we've added to it is a bunch of procedures, and we're hoping that this causes a more just turnout. But I think it does do several things that solve problems with the Blood Avenger model. For instance, it stops the cycle of violence, which is a huge win. Right. I mean, that's a huge win for Aeschylus to push Athens culturally to that point.
- [56:02]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
That's right.
- [56:03]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, I think this scene is interesting as well. Right. You have to almost set the context for Athena has this speech. But what's going on just before and perhaps even during this is that, yes, the jurors are filing up to cast their votes while Apollo and the Furies are hurling insults at each other from either side. Right. So, I mean, this is not some sort of, like, rousing, oh, you know, we're all going to join hands and sing Kumbaya and we have achieved perfect justice. Right. No, they're just absolutely insulting each other and screaming.
- [56:41]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [56:43]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
As jurors are voting right in front of them.
- [56:44]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
But again, that's customary. You would. You would come to expect that from Apollo and the Furies.
- [56:50]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, but I'm just saying that I think it's setting up a Kind of expectation that. It is a. Kind of a realistic expectation that these. Yeah, it's.
- [56:59]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, that there still will be disagreement. Are you saying. Yeah, people will still have grievances against the judgment.
- [57:07]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, and also, I think this is just an anecdotal type thing, but we have reports of women in the audience sort of miscarrying when they saw the Furies. They were so horrible and stuff like that. Now, these might be dramatic overreact, you know, exaggerations, but there's an idea there that this was a mixed audience. And I have another question, which is leaving this court case, how many wives and husbands and, you know, just. Or we're having this. You know what I mean? I think Aeschylus has set up a context in which all the men and women leaving are going to be having this discussion about Apollo's argument versus the Furies argument all the way back home.
- [57:48]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. No, I love that context. Also, I think the Greeks just throw in that miscarrying every time they want to say something was dramatic. Because that veneer. That veneer is also when Cassandra screams, remember, that's another one. Like one just freaked out so bad there are women miscarrying in the audience. And.
- [58:04]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, to be fair, it's like the same audience, though, so it's. It might still work. But the, The. Yeah, I mean, I think this is. This is. He set up an interesting scenario in terms of that, like as a. As an audience as well. But I think here's a question about the vote, which is, what is the vote? Because yours has 10, which means that her vote is not necessary. Right. Because I don't see how to work that out. How would that. It'd be like if it's six to four and he's guilty and she votes. It still doesn't tally. If it's 10 to 10, I mean, it's 5 to 5 to make the 10, then her vote is not a deciding vote at all. And so I think there's still some open question here. She votes last and she votes to acquit. And I think there is at least a hint that the vote is tied right now.
- [59:06]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
That was my. That was my takeaway that it actually was tied. Yeah. She says the lots are equal. Well, that's interesting when she says the lots are equal. And maybe. I apologize if the text actually is more clear than this somewhere, but when she says the laws are equal, I wonder if she means the jurors lots are equal. So therefore hers is the deciding one. Which I understand what you're saying there is that. But if they are equal, then would that also mean that because the presumption is innocence that he wouldn't be charged anyway? Or does she mean that? Well, I don't know. I don't know.
- [59:43]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Ambiguity. There's a footnote in the lobe that addresses this very briefly. And in the lobe the translator prefers 11 jurors to 10, but he does allow for the possibility of 10. And he points to a couple of lines and we don't necessarily need to get in. Into the details but. But it seems to be an open question.
- [60:08]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I think that. But Thomas question I think that's interesting is that, well, if they would have been tied without Athena, is that. That. Would that have been enough to move the needle from him being innocent to guilty? Like why, why does she have to say? Because that seems to be the. That's. Isn't that the implication? Right. Even if the vote is equal, Orestes wins.
- [60:30]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right?
- [60:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, if they were going to be equal and he would win anyway, why would she say that? Right.
- [60:36]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, and she could have refrained from voting, I suppose. Although if they were tied and it was 10, then she could have found him guilty. And so she essentially. Then the tie breaking vote. She is the 11th tie breaking vote.
- [60:50]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that's true.
- [60:51]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I kind of like the idea. I personally, I think it's dramatically interesting if she, if they're not tied and she ties it, establishing the principle that even ties acquit, go free.
- [61:07]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. So basically, I mean, just kind of like trying to sum up this conversation quickly. So basically if they're, if she actually made the lots equal, then there's a principle that if they're tied then you remain innocent because you couldn't push it into the guilty or what she means earlier is, is that she, her deciding vote would not have made him innocent, but she could have made him guilty. Right? Right.
- [61:35]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [61:35]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
If it's 5, 5. So say there's 10. If it's 5, 5 then. And she votes, she votes that he's not guilty, then he is what he is. Even if she would not have voted. But if she voted that he was guilty, then she would have swayed it over. Does that make sense?
- [61:53]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [61:55]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
So then the deciding vote basically is one that could actually push it into guilty, which is kind of interesting on itself. Well, if all the different translations have footnotes, this is ambiguous. I'm not sure we're going to solve it tonight, but that makes me feel better about not being able to track this directly. So I will say that when I first Read this. I think I've mentioned this before. Like, when I first read the Oresteia, when I finished the second play, I was very kind of interested in, like, wait, what is the third play going to be about? And I had a very similar feeling inside the Eumenides because I felt the trial went very fast. Like, and again, that's. That kind of goes into the fact that I think we're really adding procedures. We're not really parsing out what justice is. So the trial can go pretty quickly because the whole point is to show the procedures. We're not getting into a philosophical debate about what justice is. And so it went very quickly. And then I was like, wait, what is the rest of this play about? And I thought, this is really interesting that basically the rest of the play is Athena trying to kind of placate the Furies and then invite to incorporate them into this new justice, into this new procedural justice in Athens. And I thought this was really a section that really made the play for me because I thought this was really brilliant by Aeschylus, that this isn't just simply a negation of the old justice, it's a perfection. But I think this works really well philosophically to see the Furies, Athena, etc, as this kind of analog of the maturation of justice and that the primitive justice is a true justice, it's not an injustice. And so when you discover these new things, like, oh, we could be procedural, it actually perfects the prior principles.
- [63:41]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
So I guess we're not there yet. But is it fair to say that she enlists the help of the Furies as a sort of law enforcement?
- [63:48]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I mean, I think so. I mean, is this. You don't. You don't banish terror from the polis. Right? Right. You need terror to a certain degree.
- [63:58]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Sword is but words. Right. As Hobbes would say.
- [64:01]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I mean, they're. They're called into. They're called. I mean, the way I read this is, is they're called now to be the enforcers of the new justice. Right. Because they're the enforcers of the old justice, the old Blood Avenger model, the eye for an eye. I think we're kind of still in Eye for an Eye, but we now have procedures that make it more dispassionate and we're going to have more fair outcomes and the cycle of violence stops.
- [64:26]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
It seems like they're very happy with the outcome, though.
- [64:29]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
But did you find their happiness, like, really quick? So she. I mean, let's kind of maybe parse this out a Little bit. So she makes the offer, I think, originally at 8:15 is the first time she talks about, listen, you can have seats in the polis. Like, we'll worship you. You know, the Furies, their first response several times, is about the ancient laws. They don't want to let go of the ancient laws. They also then talk about their proud hearts. So it kind of shifts into, like, their. Their pride of being incorporated into this new model. So that's it. Like a little bit between 850. They also say it again at 880. They talk about their. Their pride, you know, that they have. But she's very much. Athena, though, I think, is very much seeking to synthesize these things. So it's almost like the trial, like Orestes becomes an afterthought. And it's almost like the trial was an exhibit of. Here's the new type of justice. Would you like to be incorporated into it?
- [65:34]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Hmm.
- [65:35]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, I think there's two interesting things going on, too. The chorus is singing and Athena is speaking, which I think is already an interesting contrast because they're jumping around in this kind of frenetic dance. And then she responds speaking, which already has this kind of calmness to frenzy kind of dimension. But the first thing she, Athena, says is, let me persuade you to bear it. I think that's a very fascinating line. And then she goes into saying, look, the vote was equal. You're not dishonored. Because, look, you convinced half the jurors that you were right and Apollo was on the other side. Apollo himself was saying, I told Orestes to do it. And you still got half the people to side with you. So, no, it's true. You didn't win, but you're not ashamed, right? I mean, that's kind of her conciliatory approach, because they. They keep saying, look, I am. I'm. I'm shamed by your citizens. Like, here I am a God. Or God. Not only we're being shamed by the gods, we're even being mocked by the people. And she's like, no, yeah, yeah.
- [66:42]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Sorry. I was gonna say it reminds me of Zeus and Hesiod's Theogony, right? That he's. He's portrayed as this consensus builder. He's. He's. He's portrayed as someone who can, you know, bring in these older powers. Right? There's several Titans, remember, that he incorporates into his reign. Aphrodite is one, Prometheus is one. That one doesn't turn out so great, but he's a consensus Builder. And it's interesting here that Athena, his daughter, who obviously there's very little daylight between the two, is now also playing that synthesis, consensus building role inside this new polis and so this new political system.
- [67:20]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
What do you think is interesting? That you know, the Furies represent an ancient, a more ancient order, but even Zeus is very slightly sidelined in this, if you think about this. Right. Because we're, there's an almost handing over to Apollo and Athena of the, the actual workings of this, of this, of justice. I don't, I don't know, I don't know what to make of that. But if you compare this to the Iliad and the Odyssey or the Iliad especially, where Zeus is the, the main player by far.
- [67:54]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I think there's something to that. I mean, I think that goes back to maybe the impression that, that Dr. Grabowski shared, that he did not agree with. Right. That sometimes this is read as Athens moving in a more secular fashion. Right. And so it's less the capriciousness of the gods and now it's man. Right. On the jury. I certainly think there's a more human element that is elevated here. But I also think because of the presence of Athena, you can't really escape the divine. Right. The goddess of wisdom is still the one that orchestrates the entire trial. But you're correct that Zeus himself, right, the one who moves all things towards their end, as the Iliad reminds us in the opening, seems to be somewhat suspiciously absent from the text.
- [68:40]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
So there's a very interesting passage that I'm actually curious to know how Thomas's translation reads. And so in the fables, this is around 835, so Athena is speaking and she begins, you have the power, you are the goddesses. But then she says, I put my trust in Zeus and must I add this, I'm the only God who knows the keys to the armory where his lightning bolt is sealed. No need of that, not here. So, Thomas, are you able to find.
- [69:20]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I've got it. Yeah. Besides, I alone of the gods know the keys of the house in which his lightning is sealed. But there's no need for it. Be ready to let me persuade you.
- [69:32]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
So how does that figure into your observation that Zeus has been sidelined or has been. I'm not, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that, that he, he doesn't really have the presence here as he does in some of the other ancient texts.
- [69:50]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I mean, I think Athena is, you know, it's definitely taking on His. His sort of representative role here. I mean, Apollo does to an extent as well. But I mean, there might be a dimension which is just related. We are talking about Athens, and so referring everything back to the patron God of the city makes a. A lot of sense if. If that makes sense. But I also, I will say, by the way, that line is just interesting in another sense, because she's threatening, flatly threatening the Furies, but in the most gentle way possible.
- [70:24]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I took it as. I mean, two thoughts. One, I took it as. On the statement, on its face, I took it as Athena being like, listen, Furies, stop talking about power. If we want to talk about power, I can outpower you. I'm not trying to make an argument about power. If I wanted to, I know where the lightning bolts are. I could end this. Right. That's how I took it as. Right. The Furies just keep talking about their power. And she's like, no, I'm not trying to overpower you. And if you wanted to, I could do that. But I'm trying to persuade you, because a lot of people who comment here on the end of the text, they really will highlight the relationship between power and persuasion, that this whole thing right here is an expose on wisdom's ability to persuade into something new, into something good. On the Zeus question, you know, you're right. Zeus is still referenced as a guidepost. Apollo did it in the trial. He's still very much, I think, the highest power. But I guess when I say sidelined or he's not as much, I do find a difference between Aeschylus and how we've kind of been reading over the Oresteia. And Zeus's just general role. Remember, he's almost like that nameless, you know, this kind of nameless power as opposed to, like in the Iliad, literally everyone's having to go up and ask Zeus what they need to do, and he. It's. He's basically making every decision in the text. That's kind of what I meant. I mean, Zeus is still very much present. He's still a guidepost in a lot of different ways. But I find his importance of needing to move every detail of the text like he did in the Iliad, I think that's been diminished.
- [72:02]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, it's funny, it's almost been diminished across the three plays because Zeus is referenced explicitly and frequently in Agamemnon, but in this increasingly less personified way. Right. Because Zeus, if that's what your content that we call you type references, where, again, there's some notion Again, that whatever notion we have of Zeus is insufficient to actually grasp the greatness that is the highest of all gods. But we address you by some means or other, but in a weird way, precisely as that notion of God gets pushed up above this kind of, I would say, less philosophical notion that you see in the Iliad, you lose the personification of the God, right? Because he no longer fits into this neat category of person. And I think that you ultimately see this pushed out to Plato and especially to Aristotle. Right? Because Aristotle can't even. It's only back in Christianity that you reunite the idea of the truly omnipotent God and omniscient, and all the omni fill in the blank with the personal God because Aristotle ends up splitting them apart. And probably, one could argue, so does Plato. But we're going to definitely say Aristotle does.
- [73:21]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I think Aristotle does do that. He has a very kind of. Well, in the Platonic sense, he has a very kind of unerotic, impersonal God. Right. He's an unmoved mover. It's really not clear that he would listen to your prayers or has any kind of like, purpose for your life. Whereas I think a lot of people, like when we read Plato and the diaconate, I think a lot of people are surprised how personal the God is in Plato. So a lot of times I think what a lot of people think is that the pagans gave us like the good pa. Like basically we had Zeus and that was bad in the Pantheon. And then Aristotle gave us the unmoved mover. And then Thomas Aquinas told us that the unmoved mover was personable and we merged them. And then I think people are very surprised when you read Plato's apology, you know, how the daemon, the spirit, spoke to him as a boy and would guide him actually throughout his life. And that he thinks that God has called him to a vocation in Athens, right, to be the gadfly. And I think that's really interesting that a pagan has that deeply of a personal text. And so, no, I agree with you that particularly on the Aristotelian side, I think St. Thomas Aquinas has to do a lot of work to bring that personal aspect back into that Aristotelian grammar of the unmoved mover. I think here too, let me point out two things that caught my attention kind of jumping forward a little bit in the text around 9:30, because I was trying to figure out what has changed with the Furies, like, what are we supposed to see, like A certain maturation in them, like a development. Like, what's their character arc like? Obviously, we're moving towards the end of the play here. So, like, what's the zenith? Like, what are we supposed to take away from this? There's a few things. One, at about 9:30 or so, the Furies have now they're dancing around Athena. They've embraced her as their leader. I found that transition to be somewhat quick but fine. Like, here they are, she's the leader, and the Furies say, I will embrace one home with you, Athena. Never fail the city. So one thing I want to point out here is, it seems then, if we're going to track these different maturations of justice, one thing we've moved from is the familial level of the Blood Avenger to the Polis now taking responsibility for actually punishing crime. We've said that before, but I want to flag that. Then the Furies become an embodiment of this, moving from the old familiar ways to saying, no, we'll be connected to a city, to a Polis, to Athens. So I think a lot of ways, I think what's happening here, what Aeschylus is showing us is what is happening to the Furies in the last couple pages, is another analog to what has happened to the Athenian understanding of justice. Because the other thing I would point out here is down at 970, the Furies speak again. In the lightning stroke that cuts men down before their prime, I curse but the lovely girl who finds a mate's embrace, the deep joy of the wedded life. Oh, grant that gift, that prize, you gods of wedlock. Grant it, goddesses of faith. So, I'm sorry, did we just have the Furies praise the blessings of wedlock after having this back and forth with Apollo earlier in the text? So I saw this as another thing of like, okay, how does the integration change the Furies? Well, they're moving from family to Polis. They now have an appreciation for marriage more than they did, I think, Thomas, you've done a good job of navigating for us that marriage becomes a civilizing factor. So it seems to run quite parallel to this whole conversation. And then the last one I would point out is around 990. And here the. So, yeah, around 990, the Furies are speaking, and they say towards the bottom of their chorus, give joy in return for joy, one common will for love and hate with one strong heart. Such union heals a thousand ills of men. So what is the concept of justice that we have here at the end of the play. I'm sorry, it is still, you love your friends and you hate your enemies, and if you do this, then you are blessed. So this is. I don't mean this to. I don't mean this as a pejorative to say, oh, look, we just wasted all our time bringing the Orestaya. We're still in the same boat. I do think, though, that what has the concept of justice, what is justice? I don't think that has moved. What has moved is the procedural trappings around it. And that is actually going to create certain benefits. There are certain problems with the old concept of the Blood Avenger model that I think fell short. The new procedural model is going to give us benefits. But the question, really, the thick question of what is the principle of justice? What is justice? Seems to be somewhat elusive.
- [78:33]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Well, and I think there's an interesting, like, even foreshadowing, just about a hundred lines before, in one of Athena's speeches going back and forth with Furies, she. I think 1. It talks about this. This notion, talking about that kind of graduation, if you will, from. From some of the notions of the family into the polis, so that the polis becomes a kind of extended family, if you will, because she says, I disapprove of birds battling in its own home. She's talking about that fighting within the city. But now she's. Essentially, then, if you're. If you think about it, equating the home, which is normally associated with the family, to the city at large. Right? So. But to keep strife out of the city. But then she says something interesting. Let war stay abroad, right? How did this all begin? All of it is with Agamemnon and. And Menelaus going to war abroad. So I. Again, a question of what have we really learned? I think there's a good question as to whether or not we've really learned anything at. At some level, is this your.
- [79:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Is this your segue into why you like Agamemnon best? Is that what you're setting us up for?
- [79:42]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
No, I wish it were. That would be an awesome segue. But I do think it's kind of funny just. Right. We're. We're not even just like, to the beginning of Agamemnon. We're all the way back to the beginning of this whole story.
- [79:53]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, again, I think that. I mean, not. Okay, I don't want to be that negative, or at least I'm hesitant to jump on board with that. But I mean, even to a certain degree, we knew that Aeschylus was downplaying the procedures of the Blood Avenger model to make a point. So even if you kind of make an argument that we're going, you know, have we circled all the way back to Iliad now? Have we really learned anything? What's funny is, is that the Shield of Achilles has the city adjudicating the Blood Avenger model via procedures. So it's. We've. I think. I don't think we've gone all the way back to the Iliad, but I do think, at least I want to believe that we have pushed the concept of justice forward via this kind of procedural, more dispassionate, because even in the. The Shield of Achilles, in the old model, once the procedures or the statements of the city were done, it was still the Blood Avengers job to go out and kill the person. Right. The state really didn't take up that mantle. Right. So I do think there's been a few things. Even if we concede that there are procedures in the past, I do think that the new model, where it roots the execution of these individuals on a state level and also brings in a jury. There's no jury on the Shield of Achilles. Right. It's just kind of the judges that they pay gold bars to, if I remember correctly, the jury also, I think, is another thing about the peers. So if I had to point out, like, you know, where. Where did justice mature here? Did it mature in a real way? I think those are some of the things I would highlight, and I would.
- [81:26]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Just add one point that it's the. I think it's the mark of a good artist to be didactic without being dogmatic. And so I think what Aeschylus is offering, well, he's certainly offering his viewers in ancient Athens, but he's offering us, too, an opportunity, I think, to have this sort of conversation. Right. So, yeah, I mean, is there a fully developed new conception of justice here? Well, no, it's nation. Nation. I mean, we've mentioned this already, but the ingredients are there, but yes.
- [82:09]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
And I just don't want to be overly critical of escalation when I say where we really learned. I mean, I don't. I want to be a little bit. Now I'm going to, like, argue against myself for a second and say all of these little bitty references to the procedure.
- [82:22]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [82:23]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
But also to things like the oaths of the jurors and the rest of it are all saying that there's something other than my sense of having been wronged that constitutes justice. Now, it doesn't articulate exactly what that thing is. There seems to be an idea that if we keep going the way that we've been going, we're going to miss it and that we need these new procedures in order to get at it, whatever it is, or else we're. It's. It's going to. We're going to keep going. We're going to keep missing our target.
- [82:55]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I agree. I think there are wonderful foundations being set here for Plato.
- [83:01]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And in a way, it's an etiological account of this new justice, this procedural justice. And so etiological accounts don't have to give us all of the mechanisms. They don't have to necessarily tell us all the details.
- [83:18]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
But can you give us the working definition of.
- [83:21]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, I mean, I'm understanding an etiological account to be a story, an allegory that tells us not the literal origins necessarily. Maybe, but, you know, like the Garden of Eden, the Fall many would point to as an etiological account. I mean, it's sure, it could be read literally that there was an actual Adam and there was an actual Garden of Eden, but that it goes to explain why things are the way they are, why childbirth is so painful, why we put so much work into projects and they're unproductive and so on. So, I mean, I think that this, this is in. Well, I think in a similar vein, that this is giving us this. This kind of artistic account of where justice as the Athenians would have understood it at that time, comes from and does so in a, you know, very beautiful and artistic way. I don't know if you guys agree with that, but.
- [84:27]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I think so too. I mean, no, I think when we're hearing lessons via stories, right, There's. There's only so much of the details you can kind of push into, because it's not a treatise, if you like treatises, if you want to read instruction manuals, just get ready, we'll get to Aristotle and you will be free.
- [84:47]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Politics.
- [84:48]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
But if, but if you really like stories. But I do think, though, I mean, I would give a brief defense here that I do think that, you know, the story model is. Is really the premier model of, of telling because the. What a story does is it gives you layers, and so it meets readers where they are, right? Aristotle does not meet readers where they are, right? He. It's just like, well, here's all this jargon and try not to choke on it. And you've got to figure it out like our Lord, I think then is the par excellence when it comes to being a teacher. And the next greatest teacher next to our Lord is Socrates, right? Both of them don't write anything down. Both of them only communicate to their disciples. They're very much intending to invest in the people around them. And that second circle of that great teaching then are those who write them down, but they write down their teachings in story form. So we get that Christ taught in parables, we get the gospels, we get these types of things. And you compare that, then you know, Plato is just like, if Socrates only had one disciple who wrote down all of his stories, right? Who wrote down these dialogues. So, no, I think you do. You get these consensuate circles out. And I think that the storyteller, I mean, our whole culture, entire western culture, is based off these two storytellers, right? Socrates and Jesus Christ, I mean, to tell the story. And I don't mean, don't mistake me, because I know someone right now is freaking out. I'm not equating those two. Obviously our Lord is God. But there is a parallel here between Socrates also, even his death by the state and what he died for. There is a pagan mirroring of our Lord in Socrates and particularly in how they taught, right? That they focused on individuals. They taught via stories, this kind of like, you know, dialogue back and forth. And, you know, because even Plato, well, Socrates too, as much as we understand him, you know, it's not just the dialogues. Think about Plato's republic. He teaches through myth, right? He teaches through his own parables. He gives us the myth of Gyges. He gives us Plato's cave. He gives us the myth of Ur, like he. He gives us these stories as well.
- [87:05]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
The republic itself is narrated. I mean, right? And then happen. That itself is a story, right?
- [87:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And then even on top of that, Plato then retells all these things in a dialogue story format. The thing about this is, I think, to your point, Dr. Hrabowski, is that narratives are a great way to hide deep truths. They're a great way to talk to an entire people group and everyone meets it where they are. But then this is one of the things that we're focusing on the podcast is that you have to be an attentive reader if you really want to mine the depths. And then I think you get to such a level that you really can only deal with implications and kind of signs and symbols of what is the real teaching here, right? What are the deeper levels of what Aeschylus thinks about justice? And there's only so much of that, I think you can. You can kind of parse together.
- [88:00]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And the author, if he knows what he's doing, has to allow for certain ambiguities. Because if everything were transparent and just boldly stated, there'd be no need to return to these books. There'd be no need to see these plays performed again. If you were able to take away the author's meaning from one viewing or one reading, then I guess the author achieved his purpose. But then. Right. Why come back to them?
- [88:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, I agree. Let me push this forward a little bit. By.
- [88:35]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
I was to say, there's a secondary aspect as well. I think this applies to Homer and it applies to Aeschylus. It doesn't always apply to all these other cases of story, but there's a special kind of category of the stories we tell about our people to explain who we are. I mean, this kind of additional mythological layer where. Where Homer really becomes for all the Greeks, stories that we tell to explain who we are as people. And then Aeschylus does this for Athens, who we are as Athenians. I mean, again, maybe not exclusively. I'm not saying only Aeschylus does this, but there's a sense in which these stories, and obviously there's a category of revelation, but the entire Old Testament becomes this also for the Jewish people, as it's not just stories even in a moral sense or thing like that, but they're stories that literally explain who we are as people. Now, again, the Old Testament becomes a very special category of that because it also has the aspect of revelation. But you still can have these. You just have to imagine the father sitting down to tell these stories to their children so that the children will know who we are.
- [89:50]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. Which, by the way, is why you fathers listening should be reading stories to your children. You should be reading them Bible stories. You should be reading them stories from our tradition. There's lots of variations of great books that are narratives that have been reduced to children's narratives. You know, I'm just actually currently this evening reading a story to my daughter that is a child's retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And so also like Dulier's, if you're not familiar with Julier's Greek mythology and also Norse mythology, these are great texts. My secret goal, which I think I mentioned on the podcast, so I'm not entirely how secret it is. My secret goal, though, is when my daughter, who's currently 10, when she gets to the point where she can read Dante's Inferno, that she can track all the mythology and all the biblical allusions. I'm not worrying about Florentine politics. She can figure that out when she gets there. But if you've ever read the Inferno, you'll know that the whole thing is brimming with biblical allusions and Greek mythology allusions, et cetera. If you come in raw to that, it's a very slow read because you don't understand what everyone means. But that's my goal, though, is that when she gets to that point, these will just be second nature to her and she'll be able to move through that text. So she's kind of on her own little great books journey through mainly scripture and Greek mythology, which I think are good basis points. Right. For her. And then when she gets into the actual great books, I'm hoping that a lot of these concepts are familiar to her.
- [91:21]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, and I myself don't have any children. I don't have any children, But I agree 100% with what you just said, Deacon Harrison, because. And this was actually brought up during a recent deacon formation weekend, that by learning and knowing how to read these great books closely and carefully, we can then turn our attentions to the greatest book and the greatest story of all time and find ourselves within that story. Right. To see what role we're playing within the story of salvation history. And so, yeah, all these parts fit.
- [92:00]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Together well, yeah, and I was going to say Saint Bede, and it perfectly follows on what you just said. So that has a beautiful commentary on first. On first John. And in that he remarks that it's the duty of fathers to know and recall the past, as it says, any references back to Deuteronomy, Ask your fathers and they will make it known unto you.
- [92:27]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
That's beautiful. Well, let's look at. Let's push here to the end, which I just want to take up as the last question, which is why this is called the Eumenides, you know, why is it not called the Furies? And also, who are the Eumenides? And so, as you may know, when the Furies take on this new role within Athens and kind of are integrated into this new concept of justice, their name changes, right? They change from the Furies to the Eumenides. So it's named after their new Persona, if you will. And they are. There's different ways to translate it, but they are the gracious ones, right? They're the ones now that bring a certain blessing to the polis. And you see this in the text a little bit for 1050, right? Blessings. Now all people sing your blessings out. Right. I mean, that is not. That is when we think of the Furies. Right. That is not what we thought about is like, you know, the bringer of blessings. But this is who they've become. The terror that they suffered, that people suffered under the Blood Avenger model, when it's incorporated into the new kind of political. What I mean by that is like the polis level justice, the procedural justice, that the terror, hopefully then is oriented towards evil and that the Eumenides then are going to be a blessing to the city and not something that you're worried about haunting or dragging you down to Tartarus.
- [93:57]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, we're all very familiar with political euphemism, so I think that this is probably in that tradition, right. We don't have, we don't have ministers or secretaries of war. We have secretaries of defense. It's nicer sounding.
- [94:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, yeah. Because they still play the same, you know, role of terror.
- [94:15]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah. They haven't changed. They haven't. Their, their nature really hasn't changed.
- [94:18]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
No.
- [94:20]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, but no, that's a good point. There's a certain grammatical change that happens here to represent them as a, as a benefit inside the new political justice.
- [94:28]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Because this is a more civil.
- [94:29]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Is it a benefit? I mean, I think that it is. I mean, I think there's. There's a sense in which, you know, as it were, this kind of justice run amok, becomes a terror. But as we just mentioned, between this, these extremes of anarchy and tyranny, I think the, the idea at least is saying that, that you obviously don't want anarchy because there's no justice and you don't want tyranny because in fact, there's no justice there either. And I think the goal at least is to say that they've struck on a kind of mean in which the justice, you know, crimes will be avenged. And yet people don't have to live in terror. And at least in a. Like, let me put this way, let me change that. The, the innocent do not have to live in terror.
- [95:15]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. No, I mean. No, I agree with you. No, I think it is a real push forward. I mean, I. The Blood Avenger model, the idea that someone could come up and just murder you. Right. It's not like if you get triggered under the Blood Avenger model that there's any forewarning. Right. So if you're misidentified, if you thought that you were, you know, you did the right thing or whatever, it's not like you get served that Orestes is coming to murder you, by the way. No, he just sneaks into your house and then kills you both. So, no, I. No, I think there's a real. Their nature, in a certain way, has stayed the same, right? They're still the terrors. They still are the enforcers, coursers, but they've been giving a system. I mean, a crude analogy here, you know, is gasoline in an engine, right? So the. The furies are. Are the fire, this burning, this passion. But they've been given a structure in which to operate that makes them somewhat safe because they have a purpose.
- [96:05]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Right?
- [96:05]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Now, I mean, obviously, if you're the one that does something wrong, they're not safe. But that's fine. That's justice, right? Justice has a violent side. Sometimes we forget that.
- [96:15]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I like that.
- [96:17]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Okay, so here at the end of the amenities, we have traveled through the oresteia, and now Mr. Thomas Lackey is going to explain to us why Agamemnon is the best play of the trilogy.
- [96:30]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
Okay. Now, I have had all this podcast to ponder about it, and of course, didn't ponder, so now I'm going to have to just kind of wing it. But I think the dramatic tension is at its highest in Agamemnon, that we've got the setup, we have the, I think, real questions about whether or not Agamemnon could have acted otherwise. I think the implication is that he should have done, but it's not at all clear. And it's also not at all clear that Agamemnon had sort of the moral capacity to know and act otherwise, even if it was, like, abstractly possible. And you've said, I think, then that. So you have the whole backdrop of the war behind it. You have now this tragedy of him killing his daughter. I think you have the question of what part even the old men that form the course have played in this, because then they act as eyewitnesses to the crime, which I think hints. And I forget who. I wish I could reference who mentioned this, but there's a good question as to how did Iphigenia get to Aulos, right, To be sacrificed. And it's. The answer is, well, maybe, maybe. And then these men are relating this to witnessing, maybe the ones that escorted her, right? So there's this. There's all these things tangled together. And I think the final capstone, again, on the dramatic level, has to be Cassandra herself, Right? Cassandra is a compelling character, the likes of which I just don't think appears in the other plays. I mean, Mind You. Clytemnestra is quite a compelling character in her own right, and she's probably at her strongest in the first play as well. But the. The to then set this. This innocent victim who is. Is caught in the. In the middle and foresees her own fate and yet can face it courageously. I think that's going to be my pitch, that the dramatic, the sketching of the personalities and how this sort of. This log jam of conflicting moral duties seems to just smash together, but in a way that seems rich within the personalities as they're depicted. I think that's done in the strongest way in Agamemnon.
- [98:54]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I like that. My quick pitch here would be number one is Eumenides, the Ordestia. Number one is Eumenides, mainly because it made the whole trilogy for me. Like, once I could see the whole arc of what he wanted to do, how he's pushing Athens forward, how it's setting a foundation for Plato. I mean, these are things where I started really appreciating this as a text within the Western canon. Like, why is this an important text in the conversation of justice? So, for me, humanities number two is Agamemnon. I do like it. I loved Homer. Like, I loved the Iliad and the Odyssey. I loved reading through those. So, I mean, to have the Greek plays come back in and kind of parse out these narratives and fill in gaps and kind of give us deep insights into them, I loved it. I thought it was great. I do think Aeschylus did a phenomenal job in Agamemnon of setting up all the tensions. He even made me feel bad for Agamemnon, which is not something I thought after the Iliad would happen. So, I mean, that's just. That goes to, you know, his quality of writing. And then, yeah, Cassandra, I think, is a fascinating character, and I think that she, in a lot of ways, is maybe our first glance, at least in the text that we've read, of the feminine thematic, Right. Of a female character who has to be spirited, the face death and face it well, because, remember, she walks into the house by herself, right? She knows what her fate is, and she walks in there by herself and then wants people to tell her story. And so, I mean, there's a lot of things there, I think that tether to the Iliad and then third Libation bearers. I liked it. I didn't. You know, I don't think it added any more of the tension that I already got in Agamemnon. It's kind of carrying out A narrative that we already know. And I think what it did is it just raised a lot more questions for me that I needed to answer in the amenities, for instance, like him using guest friendship as kind of a cloak and dagger. Again, I'm not even quite sure Eumenides resolve that outside of maybe just pulling the Odysseus argument, that they're really in his house, so therefore he can do it. But Those are my three. What do you think, Dr. Gralski?
- [101:01]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, I think I'm going to dodge your question in a way here. For me, I think the, I mean, the highlight is Eumenides, I think, for me, without question, because in it we see the triumph of Logos, right? It's reason over brute force over, you know, Tim, a power, honor, however you want to define it. But it's, in a way, I use this analogy maybe more often than I should. But I don't know if either of you have ever listened to Tchaikovsky's 1812 over. Sure, you know, it's the one with the cannons, you know, it was a Caddyshack. But anyhow, you know, nobody listen. I mean, when you listen to Tchaikovsky's 1812, you listen for the end. It's all about the ending. I mean, but you sort of have to get there. And if you fast forward to the canons, that's a bit blasphemous. And so I think for me, you know, I can say, you know, I could say that, you know, in my judgment, of the three, you know, if I had to pick one, it would be. It'd probably be, you know, Eumenides and. And then, as you said, Deacon Agamemnon, then libation bearers. But it's really impossible for me to read these outside of the context of the Oresteia. And that. And that again, is why I find it so, so sad, so heartbreaking that now with these other Greek playwrights that we're going to be discussing, Sophocles and Euripides, we don't have trilogies from them, and so we can appreciate Oedipus Tyrannus on its own. But wouldn't it have been wonderful had we, the other two, to see where it fits in? Was it, was it the first, was it the last, to be performed within the context of the trilogy? And so, yeah, I choose Eumenides just again, because of the prominence given to Logos. But I mean, this is. I've just been really blessed that, Deacon, that you've assigned this work to us, because it's not one that I really read through with any care and without taking a real philosophical lens to it. So it's been wonderful for me.
- [103:33]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, I want to use that opportunity to say thank you to you both as we kind of. So we're ending up six weeks. So we've spent six weeks in the Orestaya that you guys have helped us kind of walk through that. So, Dr. Grabowski, Thomas, I just really want to tell you guys thank you because I think you've brought a lot to the table and helped us. Aeschylus is the teacher, and I think that you guys have helped us tremendously to kind of unpack those lessons. And so I just want to tell you thank you.
- [103:59]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And I've really grown an appreciation for Aeschylus as a playwright, but more importantly as a thinker, because I think that I didn't really. I didn't maybe respect or appreciate the sort of philosophical weight that he. He really brings to the table.
- [104:18]
Mr. Thomas Lackey
So, yeah, it's been a really rich experience. This is one of those cases where I knew the story, I knew it pretty well. But to really dig into the text gives an appreciation that I. And to go back and forth and as we slightly different takes, but then sort of all seem to coalesce, that iron sharpens iron aspect of going through it, I think has been. Has been really rewarding.
- [104:51]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No. Very good. Well, thank you everyone for joining us as we kind of move through the Oresteia and bring this chapter of Ascend, the Great Books podcast, to a close. All right, my friends, next week we are reading Dante's Inferno for Lent. Go pick up the Anthony Esslin translation and join us as we journey through this spiritual masterwork. Check out our website, thegreatbookspodcast.com or our account on X or our Patreon for more information, including a reading schedule. And we will see you next week.