"You try me out as if I were a woman and vain; but my heart is not fluttered as I speak before you."

I was impressed by encountering such a proud and strong image of women in a Greek tragedy. The main two characters are nothing like the stereotype of women today or through history, Clytemnestra and Cassandra are extremely the oppsite extremes of the female possible personalities.

The first is the wife of Agamemnon and queen of Mycenae, she is the powerful precursor of today's femme fetale. She is brave, wicked, vengeful and unyielding. She feels no regret for the treachery and carnal sin in her alarming fearlessness and awareness that she has finally fulfilled her destiny.
The chorus declares her attitude as unwomanly, yet she is proof that there is nothing woman cannot do and that nothing may be labeled as ladylike or not.

Cassandra on the otherhand is just, fair and like many women today, although she is peaking the truth she is not being listened to. Her divine prophecies are subjected to the lowly mansplaining of the troians. This effect is out of her control and ironically inflicted on her by a self-righteous all-powerful god.
Cassandra is the icon of all the ignored women, whose wisdom and wit is ignored as lunacy or disregarded as lies.

Oresteia is not meant as a myth about women but their representation is quite remarkable so early in the day and a beautiful addition to the wonders of epic tragedy.

In this play, Eschyle is grandiose. It's a longer play, but it had my full attention. Clytemnestre, Agamemnon's wife has been waiting ten years to avenge her daughter's sacrifice at the hands of her husband who'd believed an oracle saying that the winds would only pick up and bring his men to Troy is he shed the blood of his young daughter. The brilliance of the play lies in the way Eschyle slowly reveals Agamennon's fate.
At first it seems that Clytemnestre is thrilled hear the tales of victory and pillage by the newly returned unnamed soldier and when it is announced that the king is well and on his way back, sacrifices and offerings begin in his honor. All around the palace, there is fires and rirual slaughtering and it is against this already frenzied backdrop that the play unfolds.
Cassandra, bound in a chariot, Agamennon's prize, makes for a thrilling character. She foretells her own violent end to a chorus of old men who don't believe her.... Of course.

Clytemnestre murders her husband in his bath and axes Cassandra to death.

She blames the genius of the age.

It's a bloody, haunting and beautiful piece. Now we all know what happens next. Electra waits for her brother Orestre's return so they may avenge their slain father.

Talk about Greek Tragedy. To be continued...

3.5

yeah i really didn’t follow this one

“I think, neither was this man’s death ignoble, for did he not also bring ruin on the house through treachery?”

More than five years since I first read it for my Greek drama class and it still hits! There’s something liberating about reading the ancients for fun rather than for study. Anyway, sometimes I support women’s wrongs. I could go on about Clytemnestra (and Cassandra) for ages

Although a highly paganistic work, this trilogy nevertheless is on point with vengeance and redemption: both belong to God and both can only be given by God.

I highly recommend this to any literature nerd and anyone interested in Greek tragedies! The writing style is beautiful, the characters are real, the setting and gods are creepy, and the overarching theme of redemption is a welcome twist to tragedies.

I also strongly suggest watching Peter Hall's 1983 staging of the plays (link below to "Agamemnon"). It truly captures every element of how the Greeks performed their plays and gives us readers a better understanding of how the play is supposed to work. I found it particularly helpful in understanding the parts the chorus sings. While they are eerie on their own, hearing the voices and the music accompanying them really accentuates the power of this role.

Overall, at least go forth and watch this if you don't want to spend the time reading it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdv3v...

sad! well theres other guys. (review of the full oresteia here)

"Man must suffer to be wise"

3.5

The Homecoming of Agamemnon
02 July 2012

tThis is the first part of the only Greek trilogy that we have. The play is set after the Trojan War in the city of Argos, of which Agamemnon is the ruler. Agamemnon's wife learns of the defeat of the Trojans and the imminent return of her husband through the use of a series of beacons. However while she is eagerly awaiting her husband's return, it is a different scenario from Odysseus' wife Penelope, who remained faithful to her husband for the twenty years he was away. Instead, while Agamemnon was away, she took a lover, Aegisthus, and is plotting her revenge for the murder of her daughter at Aulis.

tThere is a lot of background to this play, but that is not uncommon for Greek drama in that they are set within a complex historical context that has a lot of past events that all tie in together and also provide the precursor to a lot of other events. This is probably why the trilogy was so popular in that it enabled the playwright to look to the events that arose within the play (and also that Greek plays tend to be quite short).

tAgamemnon is a man with a lot of enemies, but then that is to be expected in relation to a man that had set himself up as overlord of Greece. However, his father had tricked Aegisthus' father, Thyestes, into eating his children, but Aegisthus managed to escape, and by allowing Clytemnestra (Agamemnon's wife) to take him as her lover puts him in the best position to extract his revenge. However, Clytemnestra did not need much encouraging to murder Agamemnon, as prior to the war, he sacrificed his daughter, Iphagenia, so that the war would be successful (actually it was so that the winds would change to enable the fleet to sail to Troy). This is going to upset most mothers, though to add insult to injury, he brought Cassandra back as his prize, so he effectively arrives in Argos to face an angry wife with a woman that he picked up to take her place when she was not around. However, it is clear that Clytemnestra's actions were not looked upon all that well. While revenge is acceptable to the Greeks, it does not seem to be the case where it is the woman seeking revenge.

tAs with a lot of Aeschylus' plays, it seems to be very little on the action, and a lot on the storytelling. While Clytaemnestra does appear at the beginning of the play, it is not until a quarter of the way through that she first speaks. In fact, most of the major characters only appear for a short time. The only major character that is on the stage for an extended period of time is Cassandra, and she is trying to warn the Chorus of what is to come, but due to her curse nobody believes her. It seems that a majority of the play actually revolves around Cassandra and her prophecies, and also the curse that has been placed upon her to be able to predict the future, but is never listened to. In fact, she is treated like the barbarian that she is.

tClytaemnestra and Penelope are two contrasting women in Greek mythology. Penelope is seen as the epitome of female honour however Clytaemnestra is portrayed as the complete opposite. Penelope waits patiently for her husband to return, and uses every trick that she can think of to outwit the suitors who are eating her out of house and home. Throughout all that time she rebukes the advances of all of the man that come, and also resists the social pressure that she is under to remarry. Clytaemenstra is the opposite as she is a very proud and hot headed individual who is seeking revenge against her husband. She takes a lover, and then lays a trap for her husband for when she returns.

tThe play concludes with the idea that Argos has now become a tyranny. This is odd because it never was anything other than a tyranny. Agamemnon is actually not a very nice guy. The best portrayal of him would have been in the movie Troy, where he is portrayed as a vicious imperialist who is looking for any excuse to expand his power. We don't see that here, but rather see a man who has returned from ten years of war to find his house not only in shambles but also turned against him. In a way, this play is another example of returning from war and the difficulties of returning to one's previous life. I suspect that there are a lot of soldiers out there that could sympathise with the plight of Agamemnon, though these days, with much better communication systems, the breakdown of the family unit due to war is evident much sooner, but happens all too often.

نسبت به آثار سوفوکل و اوریپید ضعیف‌تر بود به نظرم. البته آیسخولوس اولین نفریه که ازش نمایشنامه باقی مونده و درام هنوز در حال آزمایش و خطا بوده. نقش همسرایان تو این نمایش خیلی پررنگ‌تر از شخصیت‌های اصلی بود و فقط همسرایان حرف می‌زدن و شرایط رو توصیف می‌کردند. به هر حال خوندنش خالی از لطف نبود.

Los pasajes de Casandra me parten el corazón.

Aiskhyloksen draama Agamemnon aloittaa upean antiikin Kreikan trilogian, jollainen se on ainoa laatuaan eli säilynyt luettavaksi vielä tällä vuosituhannella. Antiikin kirjallisuuden ystäville tämä sarja antaa oivan mahdollisuuden tutustua, millaisista teksteistä muinaisuudessa oli kyse, kun draamoja esitettiin Ateenassa vuosittaisissa näytelmäkilpailuissa.

Aloitusosassa Troijan sodasta palannut mykeneläinen kuningas päästetään päiviltä, seuraavassa Orestes-poika nitistää äitinsä ja viimeisessä jaksossa Orestes saa tuomionsa ja sovittaa tekemänsä murhan.

Toisin kuin myöhemmässä draamassa aiskhylolainen näytelmä on erittäin keskitetty, eikä näyttämöllä yleensä ollut kahta henkilöä enempää kuoroa lukuun ottamatta. Kuoronjohtajille lankesi usein kertojan rooli, ja niin on tälläkin kertaa, eli hänen tehtävänsä on alussa esitellä Agamemnonin ylevää roolia ja urotöitä Troijan tuhoamisessa.

Kun on rantauduttu, ja oma palatsi häämöttää, kuningas on autuaan tietämätön, että hänen puolisonsa Klytaimestra on kaapannut vallan sotapäällikkö Aigisthoksen kanssa. Oman roolinsa tekee ryöstösaaliina mukaan tempautunut Apollonin papitar Kassandra, joka ennustaa näyssään ruumisröykkiön ja Oresteen ajautuvan kostoretkelle.

Lopulta salaliitto onnistuu, ja niin Agamemnon kuin Kassandrakin päätyvät väistämättä kohtaloonsa, ja Klytaimestra hakee tekosyitä hirmuteoilleen, kun kirveet ovat viuhuneet: olihan hänen miehensä syypää tyttärensä Ifigeniaan uhraamiselle ennen Troijaan lähtöä. Uusi kuningas puolestaan kertailee Tantalos-myyttiä.

Näytelmä päättyy mahtipontiseen kohtaukseen, jossa sodan välttäneistä vanhuksista koostuva kuoro yrittää ottaa mittaa vallananastajasta joukkoineen. Kuoronjohtaja uhoaa vielä kostavasta pojasta, mutta sellaiset puheet kaikuvat ihan kuuroille korville.