The snake dream.

In the book Agamemnon, Clytemnestra killed her husband, who is Orestes’ father. Naturally, in the subsequent play, the Libation-Bearers, he is mad at his mother, and he’s looking for a reason to murder her. Clytemnestra had a dream that she gave birth to a snake to later torment her. Orestes (Clytemnestra’s son) immediately comes to the conclusion that she was dreaming of him, that he was the snake. To get revenge for his father’s murder, he believes he must do the same to his mother as the snake did to her in her dream. Orestes wants the snake to be him, he wants a reason or a sign that is telling him to kill his mom. The snake isn’t necessarily him but he wants it to be him. The snake could be Orestes just not in the way he thinks it is. Let me explain before I tell you what I think. 

First of all, Orestes thinks this dream is a sign from the gods. He wants to kill his mom, but he doesn’t just want to do it without a bigger reason than just revenge. So, he is searching for a sign and thinks he finally gets one. Obviously, Orestes has a right to be mad at his mom for killing his dad, but I don’t think even more murder has ever solved anything. So, what I think the dream might symbolize is, Orestes is the snake, because in the dream his mother gave birth to a snake just like she gave birth to him. The snake later torments her, just like Orestes is trying to find a way to do the same. So maybe the snake dream had a double meaning, the first meaning is, what Orestes originally thought it was, that he needs to murder his mother. It could also be telling the future. This dream could have been given to her by the gods so he could hear it and follow it, but it could also be telling the future since he ended up killing his mother because of the dream. The gods probably knew he would hear the dream and kill his mom, so they made it the future at the same time. The dream was the present and the future.