Note 80 — Chapter XII · THE LAY AUTHORS

One reason why no Erinys pursues Orestes after he has murdered his mother is, indeed, the fact that Sophokles is treating the “Elektra” in isolation as an independent drama and could not therefore introduce a fresh thread of interest at the end, if he was to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. But the mere fact that he could so arrange matters shows that for him, in contrast with Aeschylus, the belief in the veritable reality of the Erinys and the necessary perpetuation of the idea of vengeance in the family was already obscured and almost obsolete. The ancient family blood-feud is less important to him than the rights of the separate and independent individual.