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Agamemnon

Introduction

Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων, Agamemnōn) details the homecoming of Agamemnon, King of Argos, from the Trojan War. Waiting at home for him is his wife, Clytaemestra, who has been planning his murder as revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia. Furthermore, in the ten years of Agamemnon's absence, Clytaemestra has entered into an adulterous relationship with Aegisthus, Agamemnon's cousin and the scion of a dispossessed branch of the family, who is determined to regain the throne he believes should rightfully belong to him.

Storyline

The play opens to a servant standing on top of the roof, reporting that he has been crouching there "like a dog" (kunos diken) for years, "under the instruction of a man-hearted woman" (Clytaemestra awaiting the return of her husband, who has arranged that mountaintop beacons give the sign when Troy has fallen. Though she pretends to love her husband, she is furious that he sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia. This is not made clear here, but it would have been familiar to the audience.) He laments the fortunes of the house, but promises to keep silent: "A huge ox has stepped onto my tongue." However, when Agamemnon returns, he brings with him Cassandra, an enslaved Trojan princess and priestess of Apollo, as his concubine, further angering Clytaemestra.

The main action of the play is the agon between Clytaemestra and Agamemnon. She plays the loving, waiting wife and attempts to persuade Agamemnon to step on a purple (sometimes red) tapestry or carpet to walk into "his" palace as a true returning conqueror. The problem is that this would indicate hubris on Agamemnon's part, and he is reluctant. Eventually, for reasons that are still heavily debated, Clytaemestra does convince Agamemnon to cross the purple tapestry to enter the oikos, the home, where she kills him in the bath: she ensnares him in a robe and as he struggles to free himself she hacks him with three strokes of a pélekys, or axe. Agamemnon is murdered in much the same way an animal is killed for sacrifice: with three blows, the last strike accompanied by a prayer to a god.

Whilst Clytaemestra and Agamemnon are offstage, Princess Cassandra, silent until then, is suddenly possessed by the god Apollo and enters a tumultuous trance. Gradually her incoherent delirium starts making some sense and she engages in anguished discussion with the chorus whether or not she ought to enter the palace, knowing that she too will be murdered. Cassandra has been cursed by Apollo for rejecting his advances. She has the gift of clairvoyance, but the curse means that no one who hears her prophesies believes them until it's too late (i.e. they are fulfilled). In Cassandra's soliloquy, she runs through many gruesome images of the history of the House of Atreus as if she had been a witness of them, and eventually enters the palace knowing that her fate is preordained and unavoidable. The chorus, in this play a group of the elders of Argos, are left bewildered and fearful, until they hear the death screams of Agamemnon, and frantically debate on a course of action.

A platform is then rolled out displaying the butchered corpses of Agamemnon and Cassandra, along with Clytaemestra brandishing the bloodied axe, and defiantly explaining her action. She is soon joined by Aegisthus, now the king, strutting out and delivering an arrogant speech to the chorus, who nearly enter into a brawl with him and his guard. However, Clytaemestra halts the dispute, saying that "There is pain enough already. Let us not be bloody now." The play closes with the chorus reminding the usurpers that Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, will surely return to exact vengeance.^[2]