Themes

Seferis employs the themes of the fraud, the trap, the blood, and the familial crime that we encounter in Aeschylus’ Oresteia in order to talk about the civil war.

 The verbatim allusion to the Choephori (see ‘Language’) brings to the fore the theme of the vicious circle of revenge.

Language   

X.

line 2

‘Souls trapped in the net of the great spider’ (Ψυχές πιασμένες στο δίχτυ της μεγάλης αράχνης); a possible allusion to Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, more particularly lines 1492, 1516: (‘ To lie in this spider’s web, breathing forth your life in an impious death!’) The verse is uttered by the Chorus and it refers to the Agamemnon who was trapped and murdered by Clytemnestra.

XI.

line 2 [the verse is repeated in line 8] 

‘Remember the bath in which you were done to death, father!’ (Θυμήσου τα λουτρά που σε θανάτωσαν πατέρα); an allusion to Aeschylus’ Choephori 491.  In Aeschylus the verse is uttered by Orestes who, standing on his father’s tomb, reminds him of his murder. In Seferis the verse is pronounced by an anonymous female.

Cf. Mythistorema, III.

Characters

Bibliography

Orphanidis, N. 1985. Η πολιτική διάσταση της ποίησης του Σεφέρη, Αthens, 153.

Vagenas, N. 1979. O ποιητής και ο χορευτής. Μια εξέταση της ποιητικής και της ποίησης του Σεφέρη, Αthens, 262-63, 268.