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The Platypus Reads Part VI


In this series of posts, I've found myself creating what could be called a spiritual geography; charting the landscape of my psyche with my favorite authors as a guide. Since my wife and I have finished our tour of Tolkien's completed works and started work on the Oresteia, I've decided to continue the project.

The story of the House of Atreus has appealed to me ever since I stumbled upon the references to it in Watership Down. The book opens with a quote from the Agamemnon: "Chorus: Why do you cry out as at some sight of horror? Cassandra: The hall is wet with the smell of dripping blood. Chrous: How so? 'tis but the scent of the altar of sacrifice. Cassandra: The stench of it is like the breath from a tomb. The lines struck me much the same way, I suspect, that "Balder the beautiful is dead, is dead" struck Lewis. New vistas opened up for me with sights that I only dimly understood. A few months later, we read the Odyssey, and a little of that dimness began to clear. That was during my freshman year of high school. It wasn't until college that I actually picked up a copy of the Oresteia.

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