The conception of the Erinnyes in this play is naturally different from the Aeschylean and Sophoclean conceptions. It is similar to but not identical with the picture of these goddesses which we shall find in the Iphigenia in Tauris.[122] It is, however, erroneous to suppose that the Furies who in this play assail Orestes are conceived by the dramatist as the subjective delusions of a madman. In our opinion, the Erinnyes in Euripides, though not actually brought upon the stage, are as real and as vital as the Erinnyes of Aeschylus.[123] If the psychical effect which these goddesses produce upon Orestes is greater in Euripides, this is because the Erinnyes stand, so to speak, like vultures beside their prey, since the Argives are about to condemn him to death, and because Orestes is conceived as irremediably polluted, a victim already ‘devoted’ to the Erinnyes. Hence, naturally, at Argos Orestes feels that he is powerless to struggle against the Erinnyes; his insight into the immediate future and his contemplation of his approaching fate deprives him, temporarily, of sanity and self-control. We must not suppose that a more tender or more civilised and ‘modern’ Orestes realises his guilt more keenly than does the archaic Orestes of Aeschylus, nor must we imagine that this feeling of remorse and self-contempt produces the mental insanity which creates a more hideous Erinnys. On the contrary, Orestes is here, as elsewhere, subjectively innocent. He admits no moral guilt. If the legend insists that he is guilty, if the public opinion of the Argives decides to punish him with death, he does not admit the validity of this conception or of the decision, but nevertheless his fear of the Erinnyes naturally increases, since in death even more than in life can these titanic monsters torture the slayer. Aeschylus makes them say[124]:
It is our fate to track the steps of men
By murderous wantonness polluted, till
Beneath the earth they pass, nor yet for them
Can death grant freedom from our power.
It is Orestes’ fear of such titanic monsters waiting to inflict on him unspeakable punishment that makes him cry out in this Euripidean drama:
Ah! mother, do not set thy Furies on me.
See how their fiery eyeballs glare in blood,
And wreathing snakes hiss in their horrid hair!
There, where they stand, ready to leap upon me....[125]