Resumo de The Libation-bearers

The Libation Bearers is the second play in the trilogy The Oresteia. The story takes up a few years after the close of the first part of the trilogy, Agamemnon. At the beginning of the play it is established that the usurpers, Clytaemestra and Aegisthus (now King of Argos) are now secure in their power. Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytaemestra, is forced to stay on in Phocis, and is now a young man. His sister, Electra, has become resentful and bitter as she waits for his return. The play begins with Orestes at Agamemnon's tomb, declaring his want for revenge of his father's murder and repossession of the crown which was rightfully his. With this declaration comes a recognition of his desires which quickly changes into conspiracy.
Electra visits her father's tomb on her mother's behalf, but not out of sympathy for her mother, but to appease the spirit of her wronged father. She meets Orestes there and together the children and the chorus invoke his ghost to feel wrath against his murderers. They want to both to incite the anger of the ghost as well as empower themselves with the anger that will make them do what they must.Together, Electra and Orestes plan the assassination of the usurpers.
Orestes poses as a traveling merchant and brings the news of the death of Orestes to his mother Clytaemestra. She invites him in with old-fashioned and stately courtesy and send for Aegisthus. The slave sent to fetch Aegisthus was the one who had nursed Orestes when he was an infant. The Chorus tells her to suggest to Aegisthus not to bring his bodyguard. Aegisthus comes in without a bodyguard and Orestes and Pylades kill him while Clytaemestra watches. She dares Orestes to kill her too. He remains undecided for a while, but then a word from Pylades hardens his will and he kills her. The bodies of Aegisthus and Clytaemestra are then brought out and displayed along with the robe in which Agamemnon had been ensnared. In a state of poetic justice, Orestes narrates his mother's actions publicly and states that he was the murderer of both the usurpers and that this was justice. However, the play ends with the Furies chasing Orestes making it clear that more suffering was yet to come in the last part of the trilogy.
The play has a simple, yet an intriguing and practical plot. Character development is good as throughout audience is aware of the deliberations of Orestes as he decides whether he should or should not kill his mother, how the assassination should be carried out, and also in the beginning as he becomes aware of his own desires. This is an early drama with all the makings of a revenge due to its plot, climactic action and basic mechanism.

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