Even now thou see’st those Furies overtaken,
Their madness lost in sleep: maidens abhorred,
Aged, but ever crude, whom none that lives,
Man, god or beast e’er met in fellowship.
To evil they were born, evil the gloom
Of Tartarus, their haunt beneath the ground,
And hated both of men and gods in Heaven
The power they exercise.
We have already discussed[92] the problem involved in the refusal, on the part of the Erinnyes in this play, to recognise the purgation of Orestes. This purgation ceremony is quite naturally attributed by Aeschylus to Apollo, who was the pioneer deity of the purgation-system. It could not have been performed in historical times by priests or purifiers, since the matricide had not been previously acquitted by a court. Hence the purgation of an untried kin-slayer, which in Attic law would have been invalid, was naturally rejected by the Erinnyes. They say[93]:
Such deeds the younger brood of gods will do,