Agamemnon

Agamemnon is the first play of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, which also includes Libation Bearers and Eumenides. The play is set in front of the palace of Argos and begins with a Watchman who sees the beacon fire announcing the fall of Troy, ten years after the Greek army sailed (Agamemnon 1–39). A Herald soon confirms the news, and Agamemnon arrives in a chariot that also carries Cassandra, the Trojan princess, a prize of war. Clytemnestra welcomes her husband with extravagant words, and persuades him to enter the palace by walking on a path of purple tapestries, an honour fit for gods rather than men (810–974). Left outside, Cassandra, a prophetess whom Apollo has doomed never to be believed, sees what awaits her and the king, and goes in all the same (1035–1330). Clytemnestra kills both Agamemnon and Cassandra, and defends the deed before the Chorus as just vengeance for Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon sacrificed at Aulis (1372–1447). She is not alone in it: Aegisthus, her lover and Agamemnon’s cousin, appears to claim his share, as the surviving son of Thyestes, whose other children Atreus, Agamemnon’s father, killed and served to him at a banquet (1577–1611). The Elders of Argos protest and warn that Orestes may yet return (1646–1648).

Date and Historical Background

According to the ancient hypothesis (the production notice printed with the play in the manuscripts), Agamemnon was staged in the archonship of Philocles, in the second year of the 80th Olympiad (458 BC), together with Libation Bearers, Eumenides and the satyr play Proteus, and Aeschylus won the first prize; the choregus who paid for the production was Xenocles of Aphidna. Of the Proteus only a few fragments survive.

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Watchman at the palace of Agamemnon in Argos
• Agamemnon, the king of Argos, returning from Troy after ten years
• Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife
• Cassandra, Trojan princess and prize of Agamemnon
• Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin and Clytemnestra’s lover
• Chorus of Argive Elders
• Herald from the Greek forces

Setting

The play is set in front of Agamemnon’s palace at Argos.

Summary of Agamemnon

Prologue

(Agamemnon 1–39) On the roof of the palace of the Atreidae at Argos, a Watchman has been lying like a dog for a year, waiting for the signal-fire that is to announce the fall of Troy. He has been placed there by the queen, “a woman in heart, with a man’s strength of purpose.” At last the fire flashes out in the night, and he cries out to wake Clytemnestra, so that she may raise the cry of joy. “May it fall to me,” he says, “to take my master’s dear hand in mine when he comes home. The rest I keep silent: a great ox has trodden on my tongue” (34–37). Yet the house itself, he adds, could tell a plain tale if it could speak. He then goes down.

Parodos (Entrance Song)

(Agamemnon 40–257) The Chorus of old men of Argos enters and recalls, in a long song, the history behind the expedition. In the tenth year since Menelaus and Agamemnon sailed with a thousand ships, they are anxious and uncertain (40–103).

The fall of Troy, they say, is the punishment for Paris offending Zeus, the god of guests and hosts, when he carried off Helen, the wife of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus (60–62). The Chorus then tells how, as the army was gathering, an omen appeared: two eagles, one dark and one white-tailed, tore apart a pregnant hare before the palace, and the seer Calchas explained that the army would take Troy, but that Artemis, angry at the eagles who had slain the hare and her unborn young, might send adverse winds and demand another sacrifice, a lawless one (104–159). Calchas’ prophecy ends with a warning, which the Chorus recalls: “for there waits a terrible, ever-rising, treacherous keeper of the house, a wrath that remembers and avenges a child.” (154–155).

The prophecy is fulfilled. The fleet is held at Aulis by contrary winds, and Calchas names the remedy, the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia (184–204). The king hesitates—“heavy is my fate if I disobey, but heavy too if I slay my child”—and then puts on the yoke of necessity and consents (205–227). Iphigenia is lifted over the altar like a goat, with a gag over her mouth, as her father prays (228–247). The Chorus does not tell what followed (248–257).

First Episode

(Agamemnon 258–354) Clytemnestra comes out in majesty and tells the Chorus that Troy has been taken by the Achaeans that very night. When the Elders ask for a proof, she answers with a long account of the chain of beacons that carried the news from Mount Ida by way of Lemnos, Athos, Macistus, Cithaeron and the hills above Argos, to the roof of the Atreidae (281–316). She adds a prayer that the victors will respect the gods of the conquered land, and a warning that the dead might still return as vengeance (320–350).

The Elders praise her sensible words and, in their first stasimon (355–474), give thanks to Zeus and Night, and sing of Paris, who has broken the law of hospitality. They sing too of the Greek dead who have returned only as urns of ashes, and of the grumbling of the citizens against the sons of Atreus (437–474). They are still uncertain about the fire, whether it is a dream or a lie (475–502).

Second Episode

(Agamemnon 503–780) A Herald arrives from the army and greets the soil of his homeland (503–537). He confirms the fall of Troy: Agamemnon, he says, has dug up Troy with the mattock of Zeus the Avenger, and its seed is destroyed (524–528). Clytemnestra, who has overheard, bids him tell her husband to come quickly to find his wife as he left her, a watchdog of the house, loyal to him and hostile to his enemies, who has broken no seal in all that time, and has known the pleasure or scandal of another man as little as she knows how to dye bronze (587–612). The Herald answers that such a boast is full of truth, and the Chorus tells him that she has spoken only for those who can understand (613–619).

The Elders then ask about Menelaus. The Herald does not want to spoil a day of joy with bad news, but tells them that a storm scattered the fleet, and that the ship of Menelaus has vanished with no word of it (620–680).

In the second stasimon (681–781) the Chorus sings of Helen, whose name was well given as “destroyer of ships, of men, and of cities” (681–698), and tells the fable of the lion cub raised in a house: at first gentle, it grows up and shows what it is by a slaughter of sheep, a priest of Ruin in the house (717–736). They add that it is not prosperity but an impious deed that breeds more of its kind, while Justice shines even in a smoky hut (750–781).

Third Episode

(Agamemnon 782–974) The Elders greet Agamemnon as the sacker of Troy, and he enters in a chariot, with Cassandra beside him and a crowd of attendants (782–809). In a speech he gives thanks to the gods of Argos and promises to judge the city’s affairs in assembly (810–854).

Clytemnestra, with her maidservants, then welcomes him with an extravagant speech about the loneliness of the wife of a soldier, her many fears for him, her suicidal impulses, and the absence of their son Orestes, whom she says she has sent for safety to a friend in Phocis (855–913). Agamemnon answers coldly: she should not treat him like a woman or a barbarian with such excess of praise, nor spread tapestries before him as if he were a god; such honour is for the gods, and to walk on dyed cloth fills him with fear (914–930). After a long exchange, she persuades him, and he agrees to enter, on the tapestries, taking off his shoes, with a prayer that no god's jealous eye should strike him (931–957). Before going in he asks that Cassandra be treated kindly (950–957). Clytemnestra prays to Zeus the fulfiller (958–974).

In the third stasimon (975–1033) the Chorus sings of the fear that has settled in their hearts without cause and a song of the Furies that they cannot silence, and recalls that blood spilled on the ground cannot be recalled.

Fourth Episode

(Agamemnon 1035–1342) Clytemnestra returns to bid Cassandra to enter the house, but the Trojan woman is silent, and Clytemnestra leaves in anger (1035–1068). The Chorus pities her. Cassandra then breaks out in cries to Apollo and begins a long prophecy, in broken lyric exchanges with the Chorus (1069–1177). She sees the house of Atreus as a place stained with the blood of kin, and the murdered children whose roasted flesh their father ate (1095–1097, 1217–1242). She sees a woman preparing a bath, a net and a bull struck by a horn: the murder of Agamemnon (1107–1129). She tells how Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy, how she promised herself to him and deceived him, and how he made her unbelieved (1202–1213). She foretells her own death, and that an exile, the son of Agamemnon, will return to kill his mother (1279–1285). She enters the palace, knowing that she will die, weeping for the fate of mortals (1295–1330).

From inside come the cries of Agamemnon: “Oh, I am struck a deadly blow within!” (1343–1345). The Elders debate what to do, each speaking in turn, without agreeing on any action (1348–1371).

Fifth Episode

(Agamemnon 1372–1576) The doors open, and Clytemnestra stands over the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra. “I do not deny it,” she says. She describes how she entangled Agamemnon in an endless net of cloth, like a fish, struck him twice, and, when he fell, gave a third blow as a thanksgiving to Zeus of the dead (1372–1392). His blood, she says, struck her like the dew of heaven on the budding crops, and she rejoiced (1389–1392). The Chorus is horrified and speaks of exile and the curse of the people (1399–1411). She replies that Agamemnon had sacrificed their child as lightly as a sheep, and that no one had banished him (1412–1425). She swears by the justice due to her child, by Ruin and the Furies, that she has no fear while Aegisthus keeps the fire on her hearth (1431–1437). Cassandra, the captive and prophetess, lies there too, an added relish for her bed (1438–1447).

The Chorus laments Agamemnon, and blames Helen and the daemon of the house (1448–1480). Clytemnestra claims that the deed was not hers: the ancient avenging spirit of Atreus, who served the children of Thyestes, took the shape of Agamemnon’s wife and punished him (1497–1504). The Chorus doubts that she is innocent, but agrees that the spirit of vengeance may have helped her, and that Ares will keep pressing on with new blood (1505–1576).

Exodos (Exit Song)

(Agamemnon 1577–1673) Aegisthus enters with armed guards and greets the day of vengeance (1577–1611). He is a son of Thyestes: Atreus, Agamemnon’s father, drove Thyestes out of his house when he disputed the kingship, and, when he returned as a suppliant, killed his sons and served them to him at a feast, hiding their hands and feet from him. Aegisthus, still an infant, was driven out with his father and now returns to see Agamemnon’s death. He claims credit for planning the murder, though Clytemnestra carried it out, and says he means to rule the citizens with Agamemnon’s wealth (1608–1611, 1638–1642).

The Chorus insults him, saying that he stayed at home and left the war to a woman (1612–1635), and that Orestes may yet return (1646–1648). Aegisthus has already threatened them with chains and hunger (1617–1624); now he calls on his guards, and the old men reach for their swords (1649–1653). Clytemnestra stops the fight and tells the elders to go home (1654–1661). The insults go on: Aegisthus says that he will pursue them in days to come; the Chorus replies, “Not if a god brings Orestes back here”; and Aegisthus answers that he knows how exiles feed on hopes (1662–1671). Clytemnestra has the last words: Aegisthus should pay no heed to this idle barking, for “you and I, as masters of this house, will set it in good order” (1672–1673).

A Brief Analysis

Though Aegisthus is the one who, at the end, claims the rule of Argos, it is Clytemnestra who dominates the play. She is announced by the Watchman as a woman with a man’s strength of purpose (11); she controls the news with the beacons, the Herald and the carpet; and she is the one who speaks over the dead king and answers the Chorus for her act (1372–1447). Agamemnon appears only in the scene of his return, and his death occurs offstage. Aegisthus enters only when the deed is done, and the Chorus treats him with contempt (1612–1635).

The Chorus shows uneasiness from the start, in the parodos and in the third stasimon (975–1033), but when Agamemnon is struck, the elders only argue about what to do (1348–1371). They condemn Clytemnestra after the deed (1399–1411), but it is Aegisthus whom they directly threaten with the return of Orestes (1646–1648).

The play ties the murder to earlier deeds: the sacrifice of Iphigenia, for which Clytemnestra claims justice (1412–1418, 1431–1433); the feast of Thyestes, which Cassandra sees in the house and Aegisthus recounts (1214–1242, 1583–1602); and the Trojan War itself, begun by Paris’s offence against Zeus (60–62). The Chorus speaks of a spirit of vengeance in the house that goes on feeding on blood (1468–1474, 1560–1566), and the play ends not with a settlement but with a threat of the return of Orestes, which the next two plays of the trilogy take up.

Agamemnon Sources

The main source for this page is the play itself: Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1–1673, read in the Greek text (Perseus Digital Library). The ancient hypothesis to the play is the source for the production notice.

See Also: Oresteia, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Cassandra