Agamemnon by Aeschylus

Questions : 


The Role Of The Chorus in Agamemnon by Aaeschylus


Significance of the Red Carpet episode in Aschylus' Agamemnon

Sketch The character of Clytemnestra in the Play “Agamemnon” by Aeschylus


Remember :  Agmemnon's wife : Clytemnestra
Daughter - Iphigenia
Torjon princes -Cassandra
Clytemnestra's lover -Aegisthus 



Theme : " Justice and Judgment" is definitely the main theme of the paly . Instead, "Revenge"  or maybe "Fate and Free Will.


Important note :
#Agamemnon had been gone for 10 years fighting the Trojan War.
#Menelaus husband of Helena who is missing in sea .
#Clytemnestra, took revenge of her daughter  Iphigenia's death by her husband .
#Cassandra can tell the future .. 


Summery :



Agamemnon begins with a Watchman on duty on the roof of the palace at Argos, waiting for a signal announcing the fall of Troy to the Greek armies.  He sees a signal fire burning in the distance; this means that Troy has been captured. The Watchman goes off to alert Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife. In no time all of Argos is buzzing with activity, with many sacrifices being offered to the gods.

In the next scene, the Chorus, a collection of old men, gathers in front of the palace of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, who has been taking care of things while Agamemnon is gone. 
They sing a song about the causes of the Trojan War and how, on his way there, Agamemnon sacrificed his and Clytemnestra's daughter Iphigenia to convince the goddess Artemis to send him good winds.

When the Chorus finishes its song, Clytemnestra appears outside the palace and tells them the good news of the war ending, and how she knows it.  Then she heads back inside the palace. The Chorus is still confused  about the news. Then, however, a Herald appears to announce that Agamemnon will be there soon. The Herald provides a convincing account of how Troy has been captured.


Clytemnestra sends him back to Agamemnon, to tell her husband to come swiftly, but before he departs, the Chorus asks him for news of Menelaus. The Herald ( ঘোষক) replies that a terrible storm seized the Greek fleet on the way home, leaving Menelaus and many others missing

The Chorus sings of the terrible destructive power of Helen's beauty. Agamemnon enters, with Cassandra, a Trojan Princess whom he has taken as his slave and concubine(রক্ষিতা).
Clytemnestra welcomes him, professing her love, and orders a carpet of purple robes spread in front of him as he enters the palace. Agamemnon acts coldly toward her, and says that to walk on the carpet would be an act of hubris ( অযথা গর্ব )
, or dangerous pride. However, and he enters the palace.

The Chorus expresses a sense of foreboding, and Clytemnestra comes outside to order Cassandra inside. The Trojan Princess is silent, and the Queen leaves her in frustration. Then Cassandra begins to speak, uttering incoherent  (বিচ্ছিন্ন )prophecies about a curse on the house of Agamemnon. 
She tells the Chorus that they will see their king dead, says that she will die as well, and then predicts that an avenger will come. After these bold predictions, she seems resigned to her fate, and enters the house. 

The Chorus' fears grow, and they hear Agamemnon cry out in pain from inside. As they debate what to do, the doors open, and Clytemnestra appears, standing over the corpses of her husband and Cassandra. She declares that she has killed him to avenge Iphigenia, and then is joined by her lover Aegisthus, Agamemnon's cousin, whose brothers were cooked and served to Aegisthus' father by Agamemnon's father. They take over the government, and the Chorus declares that Clytemnestra's son Orestes will return from exile to avenge his father.



#Discuss the theme of revenge and justice in Agamemnon  by Aeschylus

Aeschylus's Agamemnon, the first play of the trilogy, calls our attention to a central concept of justice; Justice as revenge. From the killing of Agamemnon and Cassandra and also from the prophesy of Cassandra (that Clytemnestra will be killed due to her action) we find a clear concept of Justice. 

That Agamemnon is killed for his and his father's action and that Cassandra is killed for her betrayal to god, Apollo and Clytemnestra and Agisthus will be killed for killing Agamemnon and Cassandra are the acts of Justice. And justice is done in the form of revenge.She feels no guilt and is convinced of the justice of killing the man who killed her daughter


In the very beginning of the play, Agamemnon, the King of Argos, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the commander of the Greek armies during the siege of Troy, commits a sin of “the shedding of kindred blood” by slaughtering his virgin daughter Iphigenia. As Clytemnestra cries:
“His child, and my own darling, whom my pain brought forth-He killed her for a charm to stop the Thracian wind!”

So, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife and Iphigenia’s mother, plans to murder him with ruthless determinations soon as he comes back to home after ten years and finally does. We, the audience, hear the scream of Agamemnon while Clytemnestra blows him the mortal strike: 
“Help, help! I am wounded, murdered , here in the room!Help, help again! –a second, mortal blow!”

The angry wife Clytemnestra adds that Zeus himself is using her as a divine tool to imply justice upon Agamemnon because of his fatherAtreus’s misdeed. But what she fails to understand is that by killing her husband, she becomes a part of the cycle of killing.


Aegisthus supports this killing and considers justice because Agamemnon's father Atreusboiled two of Thyestes' sons, Aegisthus' brothers, and served them boiled in a cauldron to their father at a banquet. Since then, Aegisthus has been in exile awaiting a chance to seek revenge for the terrible crime. Andfinally justice is done in the form of revenge. 


Moreover, the Chorus of Elders does not believe that Zeus has used Clytemnestra as a divine tool to exact justice against Agamemnon for killing Iphigenia or to punish him for Atreus' sins. Instead, they believe firmly that she is very wrong, and they pray for the day that Agamemnon's son Orestes will return and as a rule of "an eye for an eye", will kill his mother and Aegisthus to avenge his father's death:

“Oh, does Orestes live? Kind fortune, bring him home,To se against thee two his sword invincible!”

Thus the cycle of bloodshed will continueeven further because sin only begets another sin.When one has committed sin there is no return.



Agamemnon as a tragic hero ? \


In Poetics, Aristotle defines tragic hero as a generally decent person of noble class who is brought down from a higher state to a lower state because of a weakness in character, which causes an error in judgment. In the play Agamemnon (Agam.) by Aeschylus, Agamemnon has left his wife, Clytemnestra, to rule his country while he fights the Trojan War, and he returns expecting a loving welcome. Ambition makes him sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, and leave his country to help another. Pride causes him to yield to his wife, walk on the purple carpet, and disrespect the gods. Clytemnestra’s vengeance brings her to kill her husband, which in turn, has his son, Orestes, to bring her own death. Hubris and wills her to boast of her murderous deeds and lie, expecting no punishment. Because of their flawed character, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra make the wrong decisions, thus causing their downfalls.

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