To get into the details of how this new
problem of justice is going to be settled, we have to get in the minds of what's
happening inside of the trial. There are some strange twists and turns.
And, I think it's worth us getting a sense of what's going on in this back and forth
in the trial in order to get a grip on what's happening with these new
institutions. The Olympians are going to be on the side
of the new system, And this new system is going to be
expressed in a courtroom. And, the old order is going to be the
chronic divinities lined up with the Furies and their side of things.
We'll see in the end of course the Olympians aren't going to win. but what
happens to get us there? We've got this back and forth court case.
Now, what's a stake? Well, first of all, I think we could
appeal again to one of our universal laws. We've got universal law, I think it was
number four that came up in a lecture some time ago, where we talked about the
connection with leadership. since that every decisional leader has to make his,
Never between one very good thing and one very bad thing.
It's always between either two bad things or two good things.
A leader has to figure out what to do based on those kind of hard choices.
Well, it's also true that every choice, not just in a context of leadership, but I
think every really tough choice a person faces is between two bad things or between
two good things. It's always never the case as you get in
Hollywood that there's some kind of simple choice between something that's obviously
good and something else that's obviously bad.
And the bad thing, somehow, works out better for you.
So you selfishly take it. That's never the kind of moral dilemma
that those of us who lived in the world for a while, face.
Instead, what your face is always some really tough choice between two good
things or two bad things. Well, this is definitely happening in the
case of Orestes's trial. There are two bad things that being
considered. We have to try to come to an understanding
of whose murder is going to count most. Each side makes an attempt to talk about
the murder. One of these murders as being more
significant than the other. And so, trying to either exonerate Orestes
or convict him. So, the question is boil down to a
question of whether the husband murdering the wife is worse,
Or whether the son murdering the mother is worse.
So, we've got a husband murdering a wife on the one hand,
And we've got a son murdering a mother on the other hand.
Which one is worse? The trial comes down to a decision to try
to figure that out. Apollo and the Furies are on opposite
sides. Apollo downplays the mother/son
relationship. Yeah, line 657 and forward.
According to the popular concept that the mother is just a vessel for a man's seed
and that she is not that important in the production of, of the offspring.
Strange line of argument, but what he's trying to get at there is that the
connection between the mother and the son is not all that important.
He's downplaying that connection. So, in his eyes, what he's trying to say
is that, when the son kills the mother, it's not as though some connection there
is being terribly violated. That needs them to if we understand that,
then Orestes's crime becomes less important because the connection between
mother and son here is being severed, to say it's not so important.
That's Apollo's line of argument. The Chorus, the Furies, on the other hand,
as seen, there's a section of the argument in lines 605 and four that makes this
clear, they argue that blood relations are what's most important.
So, talking about the link between a husband and a wife, there's no blood
involved. So, when a husband kills a wife or a wife
kills a husband in this case, the problem there is, is not one that's so difficult.
The connection that's being violated is not so close.
There is no blood connection. On the other hand, the Furies say, when a
mother, a son kills a mother, that's a violation of a blood connection.
So, that crime, that murder, is worse. The argument boils down to which one are
you going to value most. And for the Furies, it's the connection
that's based on blood, And for the Olympians it's something else.
It's a connection that is, based on a different kind of thing and doesn't just
fall back on blood ties and blood connection.
So, from this, let's make sure that we have that piece straight before we move
into the next part of it. We're going to take a look at the
historical background according to which this debate was being understood.
You and I as ancient Athenians, we're standing out there watching Aeschylus put
forward his drama. We've got this mythical, mythically
insoluble problem inside of this family. Let's see what can happen.
Well, it turns out that an institution that you and I, as classical Atenians
know, well, is going to swoop in and solve this famously insolvable problem.