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| Friederike Meinert Upper Round Hall, Schloss Charlottenburg 1843 watercolor on paper Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin |
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| Hans Bock the Elder Study for Facade Painting with Figures from Classical Mythology 1572 drawing Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel |
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| Baldassare Cavallotti Curtain Design for Teatro Carcano, Milan ca. 1820 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Christian Ferdinand Christensen Theater Interior, Copenhagen ca. 1825-30 oil on canvas Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| Karl Struss International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York 1910 platinum print Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Henry Tenré Salon of couturier Jacques Doucet, rue Spontini, Paris 1911 oil on canvas Musée Angladon, Avignon |
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| Félix Vallotton The Green Room 1904 oil on board Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond |
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| Vilhelm Hammershøi Interior 1914 oil on canvas Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen |
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| Olle Petterson The Window ca. 1953 oil on canvas Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden |
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| Christen Dalsgaard Fisherman's Bedroom 1853 oil on paper Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen |
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| Gunnel Wåhlstrand The Institute 2005 drawing Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Bartholomeus van Bassen Interior with Figures ca. 1650 oil on panel Dordrechts Museum |
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| Wilhelm Ferdinand Bendz Copenhagen Interior with the Artist's Brothers 1829 oil on canvas Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen |
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| Adolf Hirschl View of an Italian Country Church ca. 1910 pastel on paper Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Gustav Klimt Allée at Schloss Kammer 1912 oil on canvas Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Charles Euphrasie Kuwasseg At Rochecorbon ca. 1875 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours |
[Orestes, Electra, and the Chorus gather round the tomb.]
Chorus:
Now, you mighty Fates, by the will of Zeus
let things end in the way
in which Justice is now in pursuit!
"For hostile words let hostile words
be paid" – so Justice
cries out aloud, demanding what she is owed –
"and for a bloody stroke let the payment be
"and for a bloody stroke let the payment be
a bloody stroke." For him who does, suffering –
that is what the old, old saying states.
Orestes:
Father, who suffered so terribly, what
can I say, what can I do,
that I can send successfully on a fair wind from afar
to where your resting-place confines you?
Light is the opposite of darkness, and similarly lamentation,
if it gives them honour, is called gratification
by the Atreidae who lie here before the palace.*
Chorus:
Child, the spirit of the dead is not subdued
by the ravening jaws of fire,
and in the end he makes his anger manifest.
He who dies is bewailed –
he who can harm is made to appear,**
he who can harm is made to appear,**
and lamentation for a father and begetter,
when it is stirred up in full abundance,
tracks down vengeance.
– Aeschylus, from The Libation-Bearers (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)
*The inevitable tension between thinking of the dead as dwelling in their tombs, and thinking of them as dwelling in the remote realm of Hades, surfaces here (Agamemnon is both near at hand and far away)
**"He who dies" and "he who can harm" are the same person