Agamemnon is a tragic play written by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. It is the first play in a trilogy known as the Oresteia, which explores the themes of justice, revenge, and the cycle of violence.
In the play, Agamemnon is the king of Argos and the leader of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. He has just returned home after a ten-year absence, during which time he has been fighting in the war and has been away from his wife, Clytemnestra.
Upon his return, Clytemnestra greets him with open arms and a warm welcome, but it quickly becomes clear that she has been plotting against him. She has been having an affair with another man, Aegisthus, and together they have planned to kill Agamemnon in revenge for his own actions during the war.
One of the most notable things about Agamemnon is the character of Clytemnestra. In ancient Greek plays, female characters were often portrayed as scheming and manipulative, and Clytemnestra is no exception. However, Aeschylus gives her a depth and complexity that is unusual for a female character in an ancient Greek play.
While Clytemnestra's actions are driven by her desire for revenge, she is also motivated by a sense of justice. Agamemnon has sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia, as an offering to the gods in order to gain favorable winds for the Trojan War, and Clytemnestra sees his actions as an unforgivable betrayal. In her mind, killing Agamemnon is not just an act of revenge, but also a way of seeking justice for their daughter's death.
Another key theme in Agamemnon is the idea of the cycle of violence. Throughout the play, characters are driven by their desire for revenge, and this leads to a cycle of violence that ultimately destroys the family. Agamemnon's murder sets off a chain of events that will eventually lead to the deaths of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, and the eventual rise of Agamemnon's son, Orestes, to seek revenge for his father's death.
In conclusion, Agamemnon is a complex and thought-provoking play that explores themes of justice, revenge, and the cycle of violence. Aeschylus's portrayal of Clytemnestra as a complex and multifaceted character adds depth and nuance to the play, and the themes of the play continue to resonate with audiences today.
A Summary and Analysis of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon
. According to Greek mythology, the Trojan War began as a result of Paris, a Trojan prince, stealing Helen, who was married to the Greek king Menelaus. The cycle of vengeance and blood lust is only tamed by Athena's trial of Orestes in the last play of the trilogy. I did all this. Agamemnon sacrifices his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, in the name of Artemis in return for better weather, and they are able to sail to Troy.
From the Watchman's opening speech through the Chorus' foreboding words and Cassandra's prophesies, the drama prepares the audience for the King's murder. For this reason, the first song of the chorus is called the par odos or eis odos because the chorus enters at this time , although the subsequent ones are called stasima, standing songs. The chorus doesn't understand, so Cassandra tells the future or the present that Clytemnestra is slaying her husband, and tells the past that the house has a lot of blood guilt. Clytemnestra reveals that she has killed Cassandra and Agamemnon in revenge for Agamemnon's sacrificing Iphigenia, and also because she is carrying out the curse placed on the family in the past generation. Clytemnestra explains how awful it is to be the wife of a man away at war.
Sure enough, when Clytemnestra greets her husband and his lover, Cassandra foretells that Clytemnestra will murder them both. Agamemnon, Menelaus's brother, both of the house of Atreus, vows to travel with Menelaus to retrieve Helen and declare war on the Trojans. Agamemnon marks a shift towards this new way of writing a more vital kind of drama. In Agamemnon, it is still in a time when grudges and vengeance drives individuals to commit murder in the name of justice. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and commander-in-chief of the Achaean army, resembles Achilles in some respects.
My fame proclaims itself. A signal fire announces that Agamemnon is coming home from the Trojan War. Retrieved 16 September 2011. But this house, if it could speak, might tell some stories. The play's mood carries a heavy sense of impending doom. The central characters of Agamemnon are morally complex.
But now, if he must pay the penalty for blood which other men before him shed and die in retribution for the dead he killed himself, what mortal human being who hears all this can boast he lives a life unscarred by fate? The enactment of Agamemnon has changed throughout the centuries. He does not realize that authority demands responsibility and that his personal wishes must be secondary to the needs of the community. The play begins the moment the Trojan War ends, but at the time that the play was first performed, the Trojan War was nearly a millennium in the past. She enters into the palace to meet her fate. But then she bullies him into walking over expensive purple fabrics, which Agamemnon considers disrespectful to the gods. He is aware of the importance of family order if all of society is to remain cohesive. She says Aegisthus is beside her and that they slew Cassandra, Agamemnon's concubine.
Clytemnestra, with her icy determination and fierce sense of self-righteousness, is far more attractive to the audience; we sympathize with her for much of the play. Cassandra also predicts that she and Agamemnon will soon be murdered, and hints that Clytemnestra will do it. In the next scene, screams are heard and Clytemnestra, committing the murders off stage, emerges blood-soaked and hovering over the bodies of her husband and Cassandra. This is seen in Agamemnon's reluctance to walk across the robes that Clytemnestra has lain on the floor in honor of his victory, lest he be struck down by the gods for lacking humility. Aegisthus says he can die now that he has obtained revenge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
May I never be the sort of man who puts whole cities to the sword. Oxford: Clarendon Press; p. The costumes varied in each enactment. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. The first play in the trilogy, The Homecoming, is an adaptation of Agamemnon, and focuses on the wife of a Civil War general, who exacts revenge on him when he returns from the Civil War. The gowns worn by the women varied from simple apparel to flowing majestic robes. The poetry is magnificent and moving, with skillful portrayal of major and minor characters alike.
Here the Chorus also introduces the concept of the Furies, the group of divine beings that inspire and enact revenge. In the third play of The Oresteia, Eumenides, it is argued that Orestes, in killing his mother, has committed far less of a sin than she did in killing her husband and the king. He doesn't think that Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, is managing things very well. In treach'rous wrath, Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe She gores his fenceless side! The trilogy as a whole invites us to question whether such vengeance is just. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.
Agamemnon is weak; he vacillates. He is the first known playwright to have written characters that interact with each other onstage, rather than just speaking to the Chorus. Before we offer an analysis of Agamemnon, the first volume in the trilogy, it might be worth briefly recapping the plot of the play. Aristotle, who outlined the hallmarks of tragedy in his Poetics, defined tragedy by three criteria: unity of time, unity of place, and unity of action. Now you wear your final garland— one long remembered for the blood which will never wash away. Both men are great men, but both are quick to anger, and both are conscious of the roles that they must play within the heroic code. The Agamemnon Play as a Tragedy The Greek Stage Greek tragedy is believed to have its roots in prayers and rituals to Dionysus, god of wine and harvest.
By the end of the trilogy, Orestes is tried by a juror for the murder of his mother, establishing a more just system of checks and balances. For a mortal man to place his foot like this on rich embroidery is, in my view, not without some risk. With a trilogy, Aeschylus was able to cover more ground, incorporating a longer span of action and more than one location. They both are compared to lions and destructive fires in battle, their hands are described as "splattered with gore" and "invincible," the Trojans flee to the walls, they both are appealed to by one of their victims, they are both avoided by Hector, they both are wounded in the arm or hand, and they both kill the one who wounded them. The king of Argos, and one of the commanders of the Greek fleet. Cassandra reveals the gruesome crimes that have taken place at the palace in the past generation, when Atreus Agamemnon's father butchered the children of his own brother Thyestes, and fed them to him.
