Pylades
In
Mythology
Orestes and Pylades
Orestes had been sent to Phocis during his mother Clytemnestra's affair with Aegisthus. There he was raised with Pylades, and so considered him to be his closest friend. While Orestes was away, Clytemnestra killed her husband, Orestes' father Agamemnon.
Death of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra
As an adult, Orestes returns to
In other versions of the revenge of Orestes and
According to Pausanias, Pylades killed two sons of Nauplius (Oeax and Nausimedon) who had come to aid Aegisthus.[4]
Attempted murder of Helen
Pylades returns to his homeland, but is exiled by his father for taking part in the crime. He then returns to Orestes' side and helps him to come up with a plan to avoid execution. They attempt to murder
Tauris
Pylades plays a major role in another of Euripides' plays,
Pylades and Orestes
The relationship between Orestes and Pylades has been presented by some authors of the Roman era as romantic or homoerotic. The dialogue Erotes ("Affairs of the Heart"), attributed to Lucian, compares the merits and advantages of heterosexuality and homoeroticism, and Orestes and Pylades are presented as the principal representatives of a loving friendship:
- “Phocis preserves from early times the memory between Orestes and Pylades, who taking a god as witness of the passion between them, sailed through life together as though in one boat. Both together put to death Klytemnestra, as though both were sons of Agamemnon; and Aegisthus was slain by both. Pylades suffered more than his friend by the punishment which pursued Orestes. He stood by him when condemned, nor did they limit their tender partnership to the bounds of Greece, but sailed to the farthest boundaries of the Scythians – the one sick, the other ministering to him. When they had come into the Tauric land, straightaway they were met by the matricidal fury; and while the inhabitants were standing round in a circle, Orestes fell down and lay on the ground, seized by his usual condition, while Pylades ‘wiped away the foam, tended his body, and covered him with his well-woven cloak’ – acting not only like a brother but like a father too. When it was determined that one should remain to be put to death, and the other should go to Mycenae to convey a letter, each wishes to remain for the sake of the other, thinking that if he saves the life of his friend, he saves his own life. Orestes refuses to take the letter, saying that Pylades was more worthy to carry it, acting more like the older lover than the younger. ‘For,’ he said, ‘the slaying of this man would be a great grief to me, as I am the cause of these misfortunes.’ And he added, ‘Give the tablet to him, for (turning to Pylades) I will send thee to Argos, in order that it may be well with thee; as for me, let anyone kill me who desires it.’ Such love is always like that; for when from boyhood a serious love has grown up and it becomes adult at the age of reason, the long-loved object returns reciprocal affection, and it is hard to determine which the lover of which, for – as from a mirror – the affection of the lover is reflected from the beloved.” (47, W. J. Baylis)
In 1734,
Other Pylades in history
After the assassination of Roman Emperor Pertinax by the Pretorian Guard and the auctioning of the Emperorship, the new emperor, Didius Julianus, celebrated as follows: "A magnificent feast was prepared by his order, and he amused himself till a very late hour, with dice, and the performances of Pylades, a celebrated dancer."[7]
Notes
- ^ Robin Hard, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology, 2008, p. 708
- ISBN 0-203-44633-X.
- ^ Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Trans. Hugh Lloyd-Jones. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979. Print.
- ^ Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 1.22.6
- ^ Lucian. The Amores. Trans. W.J. Baylis.
- ^ Euripides. Iphigenia Among the Taurians. Trans. Moses Hadas and John McLean. New York: Random House, Inc., 2006. Print.
- ^ Gibbon, Edward (1914). "V". In Bury, J.B. (ed.). The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1. New York: MacMillan Company. p. 117.
References
- Euripides, The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 1. Iphigenia in Tauris, translated by Robert Potter. New York. Random House. 1938. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Euripides, Euripidis Fabulae. vol. 2. Gilbert Murray. Oxford. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1913. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360. Google Books.
- Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.