Agamemnon

In Agamemnon, how and why do the gods remain strangely silent?

In Agamemnon How and why do the gods remains strangely silent?

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From the text, we can infer that the gods remain silent as a form of foreshadowing, as it is in Agamemnon that we find the kernel of what is to come in Choephori and Eumenides. Cassandra prophecies the key plot events through the end of Choephori, and the Chorus' refrain, "Sing sorrow, sorrow: but good win out in the end," anticipates the just resolution of the trilogy in the final play. But the play itself ends with a barrage of questions particularly centered around human guilt and divine causality. The vicious cycle of vengeance illustrated so poignantly in Agamemnon points to the inadequacy of humans, yet throughout the play gods remain strangely silent. Their intervention is sure to come..... that is all we know.

The tyranny under which Argos finds itself at the end of Agamemnon corresponds in a very broad way some events in the biographical career of Aeschylus. During his life, Aeschylus is know to have made at least two visits to the court of the Sicilian tyrant Hieron. It was a place that lured some of the other great poets of his day, Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides. He was also alive to see the democratization of Athens. The tension between, tyranny and democracy, is introduced in Agamemnon and, again, is developed more in the next two plays.

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Agamemnon