Extending the unanswered lyric clues

[chickenfeet]

3. "Wait! Don't touch her yet! She still belongs to us"

5. "Let us avenge both Nature and the wrathful gods!
Let us devise torments! He killed his mother"

Comments

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

3. Oh, bother! Das Rheingold

Must think about 5.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

It is Rheingold.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

The thing is, especially now you've added the bit about the gods, I want 5 to refer to Orestes, but I'm sure that that line isn't in Strauss's Elektra. Is it? Am I even close?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Oh yes you are very close. Wrong sister!

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Ahaaaa!! Thank you! Ok, so I'm guessing Gluck, and Iphigénie. But en Aulide, or en Tauride? I'm afraid I don't know which. :-(

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

It's "Iphigenie en Tauride". "Iphigenie en Aulide" takes place before the Trojan War and therefore some considerable time before Orestes bumps off his mum and incurs the wrath of the Furies.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Ah! Thanks for the explanation - years and years ago, I used to get very confused by the two titles, and thought that they were basically the same thing. But even since I knew they were different, I've not been sure what the difference is....

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Brief synopsis:

Paris runs off with Helen. Agamemnon/Menelaus prepare to attack Troy. Achean fleet is becalmed at Aulis. Agamemnon must sacrifice Iphigenia to Poseidon to get a fair wind. Artemis springs Iphigenia to be her priestess among the Scythians at Tauris. (That's Iphigenie en Aulide).

The Iliad happens. Agamemnon returns from Troy and is bumped off by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Some time later Orestes, now adulkt, returns and bumps off C&A with or without help from Elektra (depends on version). Furies pursue Orestes.

Orestes goes walkabout and is shipwrecked with his mate Pylades, unsurprisingly, in Tauris. The custom of the Scvythians is to sacrifice foreigners to Artemis. Pylades escapes and rounds up the lads. Iphigenia recognisises long lost bro. Pylades and lads arrive in mick of time. All ends happily. (That's "Iphigenie en Tauride").

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Aaaah! *feels enlightened*