Absent a military response from Israel, corporate earnings may be bigger markets news this week - The Aeschylus Trap
Markets and the world need Israel and Iran to break the cycle of vengeance — and so do they.
The blueprint lies in Greek tragedy.
Aeschylus was the first of the great Greek tragedians whose works have survived, and he’s most famous for his trilogy The Oresteia.
It centers on the notion of blood grudge; each time someone achieves vengeance, someone else must wreak vengeance on them, and so the tragic cycle continues.
In the Oresteia’s first play, Clytemnestra kills her husband Agamemnon to avenge their daughter Iphegenia, whom he’d sacrificed to try to ensure victory in the Trojan War.
In the second, their son Orestes kills Clytemnestra to avenge Agamemnon.
In the third, titled The Furies or Eumenides, Orestes is pursued by the Furies who try to drive him to madness and suicide with guilt.
A “blood grudge” forces all the characters into never-ending escalation and violence. No death can go unavenged, and the violence can only escalate.
John Authers Bloomberg 15 april 2024
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