Agamemnon Family

In these words quoted by the Chorus, we see Calchas, the chief soothsayer of the Greek fleet, accurately predicting what will happen. Artemis will force Agamemnon to kill his daughter, Iphigenia; this, in turn, will inspire Clytemnestra to seek revenge on him. At the same time, however, there could be a double meaning in Calchas's reference to the "unforgetting Wrath which avenges children." This doesn't just have to refer to Clytemnestra, but could also refer to the spirit of vengeance (or, more simply, the desire for vengeance) that will impel Aegisthus to murder Agamemnon in revenge for his brothers and sisters, who were killed by Agamemnon's father, Aegisthus. Things must get really awkward at this family's Thanksgiving dinner.

These words spoken by Clytemnestra use family imagery in a metaphorical way, when she suggests that the dawn is the child of "mother night." Is this just random, or could it be connected with the play's more general themes? Here's something to think about: if the night before was when Troy was captured, and if Troy being captured led to Agamemnon's homecoming, then wouldn't it make sense (still in a metaphorical way) to say that the fall of Troy is the "mother" of Agamemnon's homecoming? In a play in which the cycle of revenge is handed down from generation to generation within a single family, wouldn't it make sense to talk about all forms of cause-and-effect in terms of mother-and-child imagery? Maybe Aeschylus isn't so crazy after all.

If you weren't convinced the last time around, look how Aeschylus is hammering the point home. He repeatedly describes sequences in time, and sequences of cause-and-effect, in terms of mother-and-child imagery. This can hardly be coincidence in a play focused on the cycle of revenge passed down from generation to generation of a single family.

This is Aeschylus's equivalent of those famous passages of "begats" in the Bible. True, Aeschylus uses a variety of imagery during the main body of the speech, but he makes Clytemnestra drive the point home at the end by calling the light that the Watchman saw at the beginning of the play "a true grandchild of the fire on Ida." (By "grandchild" Aeschylus obviously means something more like "descendent," since many "generations" have been involved.) As with the previous examples, Aeschylus describes sequences in time and sequences of cause-and-effect in terms different generations; this echoes his play's overarching theme of cycles of revenge handed down from generation to generation of a single family.

Even though the Herald does not know what has happened to Menelaus, the play's original Greek audience would have known from Homer's Odyssey that he was OK. Thus, this passage points to one of the more mysterious issues in the play: if Agamemnon is punished by the gods because of the crime of his father Atreus, why does Menelaus get off scot free? After all, you'd think that, as Agamemnon's brother, Menelaus would be just as guilty of a crime he really had nothing to do with, right? But here's another, more basic question: supposing Zeus really is saving Menelaus for the reasons the Chorus suggests; what is it about a family-unit that makes it especially sad if all of its members die? Why is it so culturally important for this unit to survive? In thinking about this, you can draw on your own culture, what you know about the culture of the ancient Greeks, and the other references to family in Aeschylus's play.

Here, the Chorus speaks in metaphorical terms about impious deeds begetting impious deeds; this reference to lines of cause-and-effect (or perhaps action-and-response) in generational terms sounds a lot like the quotations we looked at earlier in this section. Here, however, their words should also be interpreted literally: they are saying that rotten people give birth to children who are also rotten. Based on your reading of Aeschylus's play, why do you think this might be? Is it coincidence? Is it genetic? Is it because rotten people pass on rotten values to their offspring? Or is there a more supernatural cause; say, if a father dishonors the spirit of Justice, then she will abandon his house, thus depriving his children of the divine power they need to act justly? This is a pretty important issue in the play, and definitely worth thinking about.

This passage raises the same questions as the one before it. Sure, bad behavior may be passed along within families, but how? And why?

Anytime somebody assures you that what they're saying "carries no deception," you've got to immediately suspect some deception. What do you think might be the real reasons why Clytemnestra has sent her and Agamemnon's son Orestes out of town? Could she be ashamed to have her son see her having an affair with Aegisthus? Could she be worried that he might get caught in the crossfire when she tries to kill Agamemnon? Can you think of any other reasons? If either or both of the two we have suggested is correct, what does this say about Clytemnestra's feelings for her son?

Here, Clytemnestra defends her actions in killing Agamemnon by invoking her own rights as a mother. Do you find Clytemnestra's argument persuasive?

In this passage, Clytemnestra draws a distinction between her rights as a member of Agamemnon's family, and those of the Chorus, who are merely his subjects as citizens of Argos. According to her, the citizens have no business messing in Agamemnon's funeral arrangements: that's a strictly private matter and falls within the control of the family. The irony comes in Clytemnestra's final lines, of course, when she says that the only ceremony Agamemnon will receive is being greeted by his daughter Iphigenia in Hades. This suggests that, in the real (living) world, Clytemnestra will not be giving him an elaborate funeral.