The Erinyes in theOresteia: Real Life, the Supernatural, and the Stage

Abstract

With these robust words Müller sought to argue that the Furies were actually visible to the audience at the end ofChoephori. More recent scholars, while generally agreed that this is not so, have still held a variety of views on the relation between the invisible Furies ofCho. and the visible ones ofEumenides, and the kind of existence that they should be conceived to possess. Thus Wilamowitz, who believed strongly in the subjectivity of Orestes' visions inCho., was prepared on occasion to carry this over intoEum., and a similar thesis has been elaborated in detail by H. J. Dirksen. Conversely F. Solmsen uses the objective reality of the Furies inEum.to argue against Wilamowitz's conception of the end ofCho.(‘it is after all impossible to regard theμητρὸς ἔγκοτοι κύνεςin one play as “Gewissensqualen” and in the other as real deities’), and others have taken up a similar position. Finally John Jones claims that the image of ‘a line extending from pure subjective fantasy to pure objective fact … provides a false frame of reference’, or else that we must ‘place the Furies at both ends of the line simultaneously’.