Agamemnon Revenge

We also used this same quotation in the section on "Justice and Judgment," but we're reusing it again here. Why? Mainly to point out an ambiguity that lies at the heart of Aeschylus's play. If you set out to kill somebody who did something wrong to you, can you be acting justly? Doesn't that sound more like revenge than justice? Is there a difference between justice and revenge? What about the fact that Menelaus and Agamemnon act out of "anger," as the Chorus says; can justice be dealt out angrily, or does it require a more measured approach? These questions get close to the heart of what Agamemnon is all about.

Same idea here as the last time around. The Chorus has generally portrayed the Greek war against Troy as just and sanctioned by the gods, but they also portray it as an angry act of revenge – as symbolized here by the reference to a "vengeful hand and spear." Are these two ideas compatible or incompatible?

This is another quotation that could be placed in several different sections. Most obviously, you've got some issues here relating to the theme of "Fate and Free Will"; this comes up in the idea of the "unforgetting Wrath which avenges children," a reference to the curse on the house of Atreus that will result in Agamemnon getting killed. But couldn't the Chorus's words here be interpreted in a more metaphorical sense, too? You don't necessarily have to take literally the idea that a spirit of Wrath is responsible for killing Agamemnon; after all, Aegisthus does come onstage at the end of the play and say, "Hey everybody; I just killed Agamemnon because of what his dad did to my brothers and sisters." In this light, couldn't you just take the Chorus's words here as a statement on how the desire for revenge gets handed down from generation to generation like a horrible heirloom?

These words point out a basic precondition for revenge: memory. You can't set out to take vengeance on somebody if you don't remember the bad things they did to you. Here, we see how the memory of Helen makes her absence sting like crazy. This helps explain the incredible revenge Menelaus and Agamemnon got against the Trojans.

Here, once again, we've got the Chorus making a fairly confusing and metaphorical statement out of something that could have been put a lot more simply. When they say "it is the impious deed / which later on begets / more deeds that resemble their own parentage," couldn't that just be rephrased as, "when you do bad things to other people, they do bad things to you"? Looked at in this way, it's pretty clear that the Chorus is talking about the vicious circle of revenge.

Here, Cassandra reveals the horrible crime of Atreus. This crime will inspire Aegisthus, the brother of the slaughtered children, to take revenge against Atreus's son, Agamemnon.

What does Cassandra mean when she says that Clytemnestra will "put in the drink a wage paid for myself as well"? The drink part seems pretty clear; the idea is that Cassandra's violent fate something she'll have to swallow (this is similar to English expressions like, "you've just got to stomach it," etc.). But what about the "wages" part? Typically, you earn "wages" in return for something you do. If so, we're dealing with some form of revenge here: Cassandra is going to be killed in return for something she did. But what did Cassandra ever do to Clytemnestra?

When Cassandra refers to how "woman dies in place of woman," does this shed any light on the quotation just before this one? In any case, it is clear that Cassandra thinks (correctly) that Clytemnestra is out for revenge. Cassandra also predicts that someone will come to kill Clytemnestra. Cassandra suggests that whoever does this will mainly be out to avenge Agamemnon ("my master"); she prays that this person will also avenge her own death.

Here, Clytemnestra argues that she wasn't the one who killed Agamemnon, but rather a spirit of vengeance which was out to get him in return for the crime of his father, Atreus. But can Clytemnestra really be telling the truth here? First of all, she makes it quite clear elsewhere that she was really mad at Agamemnon for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia. (No surprises here.) Also, she knows (though the Chorus doesn't yet) that she was in cahoots with her lover, Aegisthus, the surviving son of Thyestes. When she refers to that "ancient bitter demon of revenge," couldn't that just be a sneaky way of referring to Aegisthus's revenge against Agamemnon? If so, it starts to look like her talk about divine spirits of revenge isn't just covering her own heinie, but Aegisthus's as well.

Aegisthus claims that Justice sent him, but his description of that process sounds a little bit more like revenge. Are justice and revenge incompatible? The Chorus clearly thinks that Aegisthus acted unjustly, when it predicts he will be stoned to death by the people.