Aeschylus’ The Oresteia debates what is just and from what source or authority that ideal emanates, a debate which is modified and clarified by the trials of Clytemnestra and Orestes. While the queen embraces humans’ power to enact and shape justice, her son dwells on its root in divinity. However, they each doubt the righteousness of their murderous deeds, and their ensuing need to justify them reveals a greater truth. Aeschylus presents the need for justification as itself a form of justice because it shows their guilt–the painful, personal punishment caused by conflicted conscience. The conscience, Aeschylus suggests, ultimately brings judgment on us all.
Clytemnestra takes responsibility for Agamemnon’s murder with the conviction that humans must make justice for themselves, despite all ramifications and punishments. At the end of Agamemnon, she willingly resigns herself to suffer those consequences, yet begs her lover Aegisthus “No more, my dearest/No more grief” ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia: Agamemon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides. trans. Robert Fagles, (New York: Penguin, 1984), 1688-9.)) Exhausted by the House of Atreus’ cycle of violence and 
vengeance, to which they both contributed, she stresses that without more carnage they still “have too much to reap/Right here.” [emphasis added] ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia, 189-90.)) Clytemnestra strengthens the agricultural metaphor into an apt one for the cycle of justice. She calls the consequences of murder “our mighty harvest of despair,”[emphasis added], a description which displays her great foresight into the ebb and flow of retribution. ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia, 1690.)) Just as currently “[Their] lives are based on pain,” she acknowledges that the harvest will yield troubles for years to come. ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia, 1671.)) Justice, like farming across the seasons, follows cycles: the Chorus’ condemnation, Orestes’ retribution, and her own personal pain will continue to revisit Clytemnestra. She knows she cannot escape the fruits of her deeds or the seeds she has sown. By showing the queen as understanding and accepting her place as victor and victim in the tragic cycle of the Atrides, Aeschylus renders her philosophy more accessible and herself more sympathetic to the audience.
The conscience, Aeschylus suggests, ultimately brings justice on us all.
At this point, the queen moves to address her audience, the Chorus, and further alludes to the cyclical nature of justice with the logic of action-reaction. She reminds the elders that any vengeance by them would meet equal pain: “turn for home before you act/and suffer for it.” ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia, 1692-3.)) Her next claim, “What we did was destiny,” abruptly and uncharacteristically shifts the emphasis from human to divine. ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia, 1693.)) Yet were she able to explain even part of her actions as destiny, she would seem less responsible; the status of a manipulated player might soften the elders’ scorn and, more importantly, boost her own morale. Clytemnestra feels guilty, a sensation which shines through the façade of her rejoicing in her own accomplishments. Her boast that “If [she and Aegisthus] could end the suffering, how [they] would rejoice” reflects such a conflicted psyche. ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia, 1693.)) Here, apparent joy contrasts with self-doubt; although they rejoice in the death of Agamemnon, could and would suggest their ultimate inability to control any cycle of violence. Clytemnestra wonders how responsible and guilty she actually is, and how guilty she wants to consider herself. Though she asks the elders, “Can you accept the truth?” neither she nor they know the truth. ((Aeschylus, The Oresteia, 1696.)) With this ambiguity, Aeschylus softens Clytemnestra from a wronged, headstrong vigilante, filled to the brim with her beliefs to a woman conflicted in the aftermath of a terrible deed.
In contrast to his mother’s convictions, Orestes, in The Libation Bearers, attributes his deeds more to divine than human influence. Yet he emphasizes divinity’s “tremendous power” to such an extent that he reveals his own insecurity over the righteousness of murdering his mother. ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 274.)) To start, he boldly asserts that “Apollo will never fail [him]” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 272.)) because “his oracle charges [him]/to see this trial through.” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 273-4.)) The justification of a divine mission and Apollo’s pledged support encourage Orestes, but that support is conditional. “His voice ringing with winters of disaster,” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 276.)) the god incites terror in Orestes, who claims Apollo will “[pierce] the heart within [him]. . ./unless [he hunts] down my father’s murderers.” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 277.)) Based on that characterization of Apollo, Orestes must murder his mother and Aegisthus out of fear for his life as much a out of anger or justice. Apollo’s threat corrupts his otherwise “pure” motives, so Orestes disguises blackmail with self-righteous indignation: “they destroyed my birthright.” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 279.)) By rationalizing murder both as a god’s order and as a rightful course of action for any good man, Orestes displays sensitivity to the weight of his coming deeds.
Orestes’ sensitivity enables self-reproach and guilt from both Apollo and his conscience. Though he accepts the thundering order to “Gore [Clytemnestra and Aegisthus] like a bull. . .or pay their debt/with your own life,” like any man, Orestes has fears. Specifically, he fears Apollo’s threat of “one long career of pain.” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 281.)) By inserting the issue of self-preservation into the murders of his mother and her lover, Aeschylus emphasizes the multiple levels of guilt which Orestes feels. he 
suffers from divine pressure to murder and suffers under the weight of premeditated matricide. He suffers from the truth that he would equally regret murder and the failure to avenge his father through murder; Orestes must choose between killing his own blood and living as a coward, with no “refuge, none to take[him] in/a pariah, reviled.” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 299-300.)) His burdened conscience independently anticipates the “madness [and]. . .terror.” ((Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 293-4.)) Apollo’s vow creates turmoil; the deeds Apollo asks of Orestes are as much conflicts of divided loyalties as they are of justice. Orestes doubts himself and so lives in a state of guilt like his mother, proving the inescapability of the conscience.
Despite Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ philosophical differences over the source of justice’s authority, the pair suffers the same punishment. The former’s emphasis on the tie between humanity and justice and the latter’s bequeathing of justice to divinity do little in the grand scheme to give them impunity; neither conviction cleanses them completely. The mother and son desperately try to justify their deeds, as they seek approval and closure as much from society as from their own consciences. Through that tension, Aeschylus reveals the most original form of justice: guilt, the soul’s punishment. Like the harshest judge, it is scarcely mollified by intent or inspiration. Condemning its creator, the phenomenon haunts anyone who doubts his choices, whether they are condoned by men or by gods. Thus, Aeschylus suggests that only a truly just action produces no guilt. Our consciences are the preliminary and most powerful courts of law.
Bibliography
Aeschylus. The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin, 1984.
