THE TROJAN WAR

A generation before the Trojan War, two brothers, Atreus and Thyestes, contended for the throne of Argos. Thyestes seduced his brother's wife and was driven out of Argos by Atreus, who then established himself as sole king. Eventually Thyestes returned and asked to be forgiven. Atreus pretended to be reconciled with his
brother but secretly planned to avenge the seduction of his wife and at the same time to eliminate a rival for the crown by rendering Thyestes unclean in the eyes of the citizens of Argos. Atreus murdered the two young sons of Thyestes, cut their bodies into unrecognizable pieces, and had them served to their father at a banquet given in honor of his return. Thyestes was horrified when he learned what he had dined on. He cursed Atreus and all his descendants, and fled from Argos with his only remaining child, the infant Aegisthus. When Atreus died, the throne of Argos was inherited by his son Agamemnon, who married Clytaemestra, the daughter of the king of Sparta. They had three children — Iphigenia, Electra, and Orestes. The other son of Atreus, Menelaus, married Helen, the sister of Clytaemestra, and in due course became the king of Sparta when her father died. Most of the Greek chieftains had been among the suitors of Helen, for she was renowned to be the most beautiful woman in the world. They had made a pact to accept without protest her choice of a husband and to come to his aid if anyone attempted to steal Helen from him. Sometime after Helen and Menelaus were married, Paris, the son of the king of Troy, came to Sparta. He seduced Helen and carried her back with him to Troy. Faithful to their oaths, the chieftains rallied with their armies to the call of Menelaus. A great force was mobilized to capture Troy and restore Helen to her rightful husband. Agamemnon, as leader of the largest contingent, was made commander. The expedition assembled at Aulis, on the eastern coast of Greece, but was unable to sail for Troy because of adverse winds. Calchas, a soothsayer who accompanied the army, declared that the goddess Artemis was responsible and could only be appeased by the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia. Agamemnon was appalled by this command and refused to obey, but finally gave in to the pressure put on him by the other chieftains. He induced Clytaemestra to send Iphigenia to Aulis by claiming that the maiden was to be married to Achilles, the greatest of the Greek heroes. When the young girl arrived at the camp, however, she was sacrificed to the goddess. After this the wind changed. The army boarded its ships and set sail for Troy. Meanwhile, Aegisthus returned to Argos in the absence of Agamemnon. He began to plot against his cousin in the hope of regaining what he considered to be his rightful place on the throne, and of avenging the treatment his father and brothers received at the hands of Atreus. Aegisthus discovered that Clytaemestra had developed a bitter hatred for Agamemnon because of the sacrifice of her daughter. Her enmity for her husband continued to increase as she received reports of his infidelity with other women while on campaign at Troy. Before long, Aegisthus and Clytaemestra became lovers. They shared the same hatred for Agamemnon and began to conspire together. They planned to murder him when he came back to Argos. The siege of Troy lasted ten years. Finally the city fell and was sacked by the Greek army, its temples were destroyed, and the surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery. The first play of the trilogy, Agamemnon, takes place in Argos shortly after the fall of Troy. Agamemnon returns home with only one ship because his fleet was scattered by a storm at sea. He is accompanied by his newest concubine, Cassandra, the daughter of the king of Troy. Aegisthus remains in the background while Clytaemestra gives her husband an affectionate welcome and the people of Argos applaud their victorious king. Later, Clytaemestra traps Agamemnon in his bath and kills him with an axe. Cassandra is murdered also. Clytaemestra and Aegisthus announce the murders to the people, overcome the opposition of the Elders, and set themselves up as the new rulers of Argos. The action of The Choephori, the second play, takes place a few years later. Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, has been living in exile in the nearby kingdom of Phocis. In obedience to a command given him by the god Apollo, Orestes returns to Argos to avenge his father. He seeks out his sister Electra, then gains admittance to the palace by disguising himself and kills Clytaemestra and Aegisthus. Orestes tries to justify the murder of his mother, but in the final scene of the play he is afflicted with madness and flees in terror from the Furies, hideous spirits who hunt down and punish murderers. The story of The Eumenides, the last play, begins a few days later. Orestes seeks refuge in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. He is forced to wander as an outcast for the next few years, with the Furies constantly tormenting him. Finally he arrives at Athens and throws himself on the mercy of the goddess Athene. The Furies follow him there and insist that Orestes must be punished for matricide. He claims that he acted according to Apollo's dictate and is not responsible for the crime. Athene convenes a special court to hear the case, but the jurors are unable to reach a verdict. Athene casts the deciding vote and Orestes is acquitted. The Furies angrily threaten vengeance on Athens, but Athene clams them by the offer of a position of honor in the cult of her city. They accept. The ancient Furies are transformed into benevolent spirits. Their name is changed to the Eumenides, or "kindly ones," to symbolize their new character. The legends about the family of Atreus were among the most popular in the Greek mythological heritage and many versions of them were known in the ancient world. Some elements of the story are recounted in the Odyssey of Homer. Pindar and other poets made use of the legend also, and it provided the plots for many tragedies in addition to the trilogy by Aeschylus, including Electra by Sophocles, and Electra, Orestes, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides. A complete account of the legend, with reference to all its sources and variant versions, will be found in Volume II of The Greek Myths by Robert Graves, available in paperback edition, or in any other good handbook of classical mythology. Background of Greek Tragedy Tragedy was performed in Athens at the three annual festivals of Dionysus, the most important of which was the Great, or City, Dionysia in late March. On three successive mornings at this festival, three tragic poets, who had been selected competitively earlier in the year, each presented a tetralogy consisting of three tragedies and a satyr-play. In addition, the festival featured comic and dithyrambic contests, and religious processions and rituals of various kinds. At the close of the festival, ten judges who had been chosen by lot determined the winners and awarded prizes. Besides writing the plays and composing the accompanying music, the poet was responsible for directing the production and supervising rehearsals. Often, in earlier times, he acted the role of the protagonist, or central character, also, but this tradition seems to have been broken in the time of Sophocles. The poets chosen to compete at the festivals were assigned actors, chorus, extras, and musicians by the state. The costs of the production were paid by the choregus, a wealthy citizen appointed by the government to do this as a liturgy, or public service. The privilege of backing the plays was considered a great honor, and the choregus shared the praise and awards given the poet if their plays won first prize. Because attendance was a civic and religious obligation as well as a source of entertainment, admission to the theater was originally free. When it eventually became necessary to charge for tickets, the state provided funds for all citizens who could not afford the price. Origins Tragedy is thought to have developed from the ancient dithyramb, or choral lyric, which was sung by a male chorus in honor of the god Dionysus at his annual festivals. These performances also included group dancing and probably some brief dialogue between the leader and the chorus. At first the dithyramb was a crude improvisation based on the myths about Dionysus and may have taken the form of a rough burlesque or satire, from which the satyr-play of classical drama was derived. In time it came to have a more formal artistic structure and its content was expanded to include stories from the whole legendary tradition. At some point, a radical transformation in approach took place and a serious philosophical attitude replaced the older boisterousness. The addition of an actor to the chorus allowed more complicated and lengthy stories to be used. The father of drama was said by the Greeks to have been Thespis. He first used an actor in his productions and was responsible for several other innovations. In 534 B.C., Thespis put on the first tragedy at the festival of Dionysus in Athens, although his new dramatic form may have been in existence for a short while before this in the rural areas of Attica. There is some reason to believe, however, that it was Aeschylus who first wrote tragedy in the sense that the word is used today, with emphasis on content rather than stylistic matters. During the fifth century, tragedy matured and its technique was improved until it became the sophisticated literary form seen in the hands of Sophocles. Regardless of the changes in style and content, tragic performances remained an important element in the civic worship of Dionysus. The dithyramb also developed along independent lines as a choral medium, and dithyrambic contests continued to be a regular part of the dramatic festivals at Athens along with tragedy for the next few centuries. Plots The stories used in tragedy were taken almost exclusively from the great cycles of mythology, although occasionally, as in The Persians of Aeschylus, a poet might draw upon a contemporary theme. These ancient myths and heroic legends were like a bible to the Greeks, for they recorded what was thought to be the collective social, political, and religious history of the people and included many profound and searching tales about the problems of human life and the nature of the gods. The custom requiring the use of these mythological stories in tragedy satisfied an essential requirement of the religious function of drama, for it enabled the poets to deal with subjects of great moral dignity and emotional significance. From a dramatic point of view, the use of plots and characters already familiar to the audience gave the poet many opportunities for the use of irony and subtle allusions that are not available to the modern playwright. Suspense as it is known in the present-day theater could not easily be evoked, but the audience's attention was held by the poet's freedom to change or interpret the myths as he thought necessary. The spectators, already aware of the outlines of the story, learned from tragedy what personal motives and outside forces had driven the characters to act as they did. It is thought that the dramatist's reinterpretation and explanation of the ancient myths was one of the most important factors considered by the Greeks in evaluating his work. The solemn and exalted quality of Greek tragedy, and the purposeful examination of the meaning of life in which its characters engage, are even today able to make a deep impression on readers and are direct results of the use of stories based on mythological themes. The Theater and Theatrical Equipment The Greek theater was built in the open air and was generally quite large; the Theater of Dionysus at Athens, for example, had more than 17,000 seats. The theaters were usually built in hollowed-out hillsides and despite their size had excellent acoustics, so that words spoken by the performers could easily be heard in all sections. The theatron was the area in which the audience sat. It was shaped like a horseshoe and had rows of stone seats rising upward and backward in tiers. In the first row were stone thrones for the principal citizens and the priest of Dionysus. The circular area at ground level that was enclosed on three sides by the U-shaped theatron was known as the orchestra, or dancing place of the chorus. In its center was the thymele, an altar to Dionysus on which sacrifices were made and which was sometimes used as a stage prop during plays. The chorus assembled in the orchestra after marching in through the right or left parodos, or entrance passage, and remained there during the rest of the performance. The flute player and occasional harpist who provided musical accompaniment for the tragedies generally sat in a corner of the orchestra. On the side of the orchestra that formed the open end of the theatron stood a wooden structure, the skene, or scene building. This was a dressing room for the actors, but its facade was usually made to resemble a palace or temple and served as a backdrop for the action of the play. The three doors of the skene were used for entrances and exits. The proscenium was the level area in front of the skene on which most of the play's action took place, although at times the actors might move to the orchestra or even to the roof of the skene. There was no stage, but the proscenium may have been raised one step higher than the orchestra, and there was no curtain. A few items of technical equipment were available for special effects. These included devices for imitating lightning and the sound of thunder; other noisemakers; painted scenery; the eccyclema, a wheeled platform which was rolled out of the skene to reveal a tableau of action that had taken place indoors (e.g., at the end of Agamemnon where the doors of the palace are opened to show the bodies of the dead king and Cassandra, also at the end of The Choephori); and the "machine," some kind of derrick that could be mounted on the roof of the skene and used to bring about the miraculous appearances of gods. The actors performed in elaborate formal costumes and wore masks that emphasized the dominant traits of the characters they were impersonating. All members of the cast were male. They had to be competent singers as well as actors because many of their lyrical lines were chanted to music. The mode of acting seems to have been conventional and stylized rather than naturalistic, but it could not have been too artificial since many scenes call for lively, realistic action. On the whole, tragic performances must have been very stately and colorful spectacles in which a pageant-like quality was derived from the brilliant costumes and organized movements of large numbers of players and extras, and the blending of drama, poetry, music, and dance to create a solemn yet entertaining act of devotion to the gods. The Chorus The chorus was the nucleus from which tragedy evolved, and it continued to have a central place in the drama throughout classical times. The use of the chorus varied, depending on the method of the playwright and the needs of the play being performed, but most often it acted as the "ideal spectator," as in King Oedipus, wherein it clarifies the experiences and feelings of the characters in everyday terms and expresses the conventional attitude toward developments in the story. In some plays, like The Suppliants of Aeschylus, the chorus was itself a central figure in the tragedy rather than a group of interested bystanders, and this had a direct effect on the size and nature of its role, but usually the chorus was not so closely involved in the action of the drama. In general, the tragedians used the chorus to create a psychological and emotional background to the action through its odes, to introduce and question new characters, to point out the significance of events as they occurred, to establish facts and affirm the outlook of society, to cover the passage of time between events, and to separate episodes. The trend in tragedy was toward a decline in the importance of the chorus, caused mainly by the introduction of additional actors and increasing sophistication in their dramatic use, and by the more personal and complex nature of the stories selected for dramatization. With the passage of time, the proportion of choral to individual lines decreased significantly, and the dramatic functions of the chorus, aside from the continued use of choral odes between episodes, were greatly reduced. At a typical performance of tragedy in the fifth century, the chorus marched into the orchestra chanting the parodos and remained drawn up there until the end of the play. At various points it divided into semi-choruses and moved around in the orchestra to suit the requirements of the play, but its most important moments came when it chanted the choral odes to music, accompanied by stylized gestures and a series of intricate group dances. At times the chorus also engaged in a lyrical dialogue, or kommos, with one of the characters and made brief comments or inquiries during the course of an episode. Structure Classical tragedies were composed within a definite structural framework although there are occasional minor variations in some plays. These structural divisions are noted in the summaries of the plays in these Notes, but it should be remembered that such notation is artificial and is inserted only for illustrative purposes since Greek tragedy was performed without intermissions or breaks. The following are the main elements of a typical tragedy: Prologue. The opening scene, in which the background of the story is established, usually by a single actor or in a dialogue between two actors. Parodos. The entrance of the chorus, usually chanting a lyric that bears some relation to the main theme of the play. Episode. The counterpart of the modern act or scene, in which the plot is developed through action and dialogue between the actors, with the chorus sometimes playing a minor role. Stasimon. The choral ode. A stasimon comes at the end of each episode so that the tragedy is a measured alternation between these two elements. Exodos. The final action after the last stasimon, ended by the ceremonial exit of all the players. Character List Clytaemestra Clytaemestra is the only character to appear in all three plays of the trilogy. She dominates the action of Agamemnon but has smaller roles in the other two plays. Many critics consider Clytaemestra the most impressive and fascinating woman in Greek tragedy. Her most important characteristic, as pointed out by the watchman in Agamemnon, is her "male strength of heart." She is proud, efficient, shrewd, and strong, and all these traits come into play when, practically unaided and without arousing suspicion, she plans and carries out a plot to commit murder. Indeed, Clytaemestra is so confident and so superior to those around her, including Agamemnon, that she often alludes to her plans more or less openly without fear of being detected. Clytaemestra is by far the strongest character in the play. This is most clearly demonstrated when, at various points, she forces Agamemnon, Aegisthus, and the Elders of Argos to bend to her will. Although the trilogy covers a period of several years, Aeschylus does not show any changes in Clytaemestra's personality. This may be because any sign of weakness or remorse on her part would have lessened sympathy for Orestes in the last two plays, but it should also be remembered that Aeschylus' main interest as a tragedian was to dramatize conflicts between opposing forces or individuals, and not to examine the inner development of particular characters. Orestes Orestes is the central figure of the trilogy. He is the main character of the second and third plays, and, though he does not appear in Agamemnon, he is mentioned frequently and his return home is predicted. Orestes' most important characteristic is his belief in the justice of his cause and his determination to carry out the command of Apollo despite the moral and emotional qualms he occasionally feels. After the slaying of Clytaemestra, Orestes is embittered and on the verge of madness, but he never doubts that he has done the right thing. Even years of torment by the Furies in The Eumenides do not weaken this belief. Thus, though his dilemma is real and frightening, Orestes is a one-dimensional character who cannot arouse real empathy. That Aeschylus intended this is shown in The Eumenides, where Orestes is turned into a human symbol in the great moral conflict that is fought out on stage between Apollo, as representative of Zeus, and the Furies, as representative of the primitive, pre-Olympian religion. Orestes drops out of the action before the final scene of the play. He is completely forgotten while the conflict is resolved by Athene, and the remaining segment of the play concentrates on glorification of the Athenian way of life. Electra Electra does not have anything near the importance given her by Sophocles and Euripides in their plays based on the same legend. Aeschylus uses her mainly to provide information for Orestes and to help strengthen his resolution by her presence. She has no real part in the plot to kill Clytaemestra and Aegisthus, and disappears early in The Choephori, the only play of the trilogy in which she appears. Agamemnon Agamemnon is a powerful king, a great conqueror and leader of men, but as characterized by Aeschylus he has certain crucial weaknesses that lead to his downfall. Agamemnon is complacent, egotistical, and shallow. In his dramatic confrontation with Clytaemestra, Agamemnon blusters a bit and echoes some conventional religious sentiments, but he is easily trapped by her wily use of his own defects as weapons against him. Clytaemestra murders Agamemnon to avenge Iphigenia but would not have succeeded if his other sins — the desecration of the Trojan temples and his sacrilegious insolence in walking on the tapestry — had not aroused the wrath of the gods against him. Aegisthus Aegisthus appears briefly in Agamemnon and The Choephori. Through an old enemy of Agamemnon and an accomplice in his murder, Aegisthus seems at base to be an ordinary man with no special attributes. He has common sense and some political ability but is no match for Clytaemestra, the woman whom he aids and eventually marries. In The Choephori, it is clear that Clytaemestra is the real ruler of Argos, though she pays Aegisthus some deference for the sake of appearances since he is a man and therefore officially the king. Apollo God of the sun and prophecy. He appears as the defender of Orestes in The Eumenides. Athene Goddess of wisdom and patroness of Athens. In The Eumenides, she establishes the new court, casts the deciding vote at the trial of Orestes, and afterward placates the Furies. Cassandra The prophetess daughter of the king of Troy, she is the concubine of Agamemnon in Agamemnon. Cilissa The former nurse of Orestes in The Choephori. A Herald Announces the return of the army in Agamemnon. Hermes The messenger god and patron of travelers, a mute character in The Eumenides. A Priestess At the temple of Apollo in Delphi, she speaks the prologue of The Eumenides. Pylades The companion of Orestes in The Choephori. A Watchman Speaks the prologue of Agamemnon. The Elders of Argos The chorus in Agamemnon. Captive Serving Women The chorus in The Choephori. The Furies The chorus in The Eumenides. At the beginning of the fifth century, it was customary for each of the tragedians who were competing at the festival of Dionysus to present a trilogy of three plays on a related theme, followed by a satyr-play. The Oresteia is the only surviving example of a Greek tragic trilogy and thus has great importance in the history of drama. Each play of the trilogy is a self-contained dramatic unit, although the endings of the first two plays lead naturally into the play that follows them. Any of the three plays can be presented alone without too much loss of understanding, but the meaning and dramatic effect of the works is enhanced by production or reading of them as a group. Each play has its own chorus and a nearly separate cast of characters, but the trilogy is given unity by the basis of its plots in the same cycle of legends. In addition, there are certain underlying themes that continue from play to play and that reach their full resolution only at the conclusion of The Eumenides. The main idea of The Oresteia is that injustice and such primitive instruments of morality as the blood-feud must be eliminated if human society is ever to attain to a high level of social organization, which can only be done by the introduction of a public morality and civic legal processes. A compromise must be reached between those old ideas that are good and those new ideas that are good. The city of Athens, whose patron goddess is the spirit of wisdom, is exalted as the model that people ought to emulate. The Oresteia uses the legend of the family of Atreus as raw material for examination of different aspects of this theme: such questions as the nature of justice, methods of establishing and maintaining justice on earth, the relationship of justice to vengeance, mercy, the gods, fate, and the social order. It also deals with the related doctrines that wisdom can be learned only through experience and suffering, that one crime invariably leads to another if the criminal is not punished, that blood, once shed, can never be atoned for, and that authority is the foundation of civilization. Summary The play opens with a watchman standing on the roof of the palace of Agamemnon at Argos. He explains that Clytaemestra has ordered him to keep a lookout each night for the light from a series of beacon fires that will signal the long-awaited fall of Troy. He has carried out this duty faithfully for several years already and is getting demoralized. Suddenly he observes a beacon burning in the distance and realizes that the war is over. The watchman is excited for a moment by the happy thought that his long vigil is ended and that his king will finally return home, but then a feeling of gloom comes over him. He refuses to state aloud the cause of his foreboding but remarks that the walls of the palace could tell the story if they were able to speak. The watchman determines to remain silent. He will be satisfied to welcome his beloved king home again. He goes out to tell the news to Clytaemestra. Analysis The watchman's speech sets the gloomy, tense mood that will be maintained throughout the play. There is skillful artistry evident in this powerful opening and full use is made of dramatic irony. Moreover, the watchman has been made into a real man instead of a mechanical giver of information. His ambiguous reaction and brooding thoughts are genuine in the circumstances. They immediately arouse the interest of the audience and give added poignancy to his guarded comments. Agamemnon: Parodos (Lines 40-820) The Chorus of Argive Elders enter. The old men say that ten years have passed since Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus sailed to Troy with their army. Zeus ordained that a bloody war be fought to avenge the seduction of Helen by Paris. Many men have already suffered and died "for one woman's promiscuous sake," and the war still goes on. The elders add that they were too old and weak to serve in the expedition to Troy. Summary Clytaemestra comes out of the palace. The elders ask why she has ordered sacrifices to be offered at all the altars in the city. Before she is able to answer, they repeat the story of a portent that was observed when Agamemnon and his army left Argos. Two giant eagles attacked and ripped apart a pregnant hare, killing her and her unborn young. Calchas, the soothsayer, claimed that the eagles represented Agamemnon and Menelaus, while the hare was a symbol of Troy; thus the omen was a sign of victory. Calchas added that Artemis, the virgin goddess of hunting, might become angered at Zeus because his eagles had destroyed the hare, her sacred animal. He warned that Artemis might seek vengeance by demanding a sacrifice from Agamemnon. If he refused, she would prevent the Greek fleet from sailing to Troy, in an effort to thwart the will of Zeus. The elders ponder on the suffering that so often seems to accompany divine intervention in human affairs. The problem is a perplexing one that cannot be solved although it is known that Zeus has ultimate responsibility for all that happens. They conclude, "From the gods who sit in grandeur / grace comes somehow violent." Resuming their story, the elders tell how the Greek fleet was unable to sail from Aulis, the assembly place of the expedition, because of adverse winds sent by Artemis. Calchas told Agamemnon that it would be necessary for him to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to placate the angry goddess. Agamemnon and the other chieftains were horrified by this advice. Agamemnon was faced by a terrible dilemma, for he had conflicting sacred obligations to his family and his army, and whichever decision he made was bound to be sinful. Finally, "when necessity's yoke was put upon him," Agamemnon chose to ignore his feelings as a father. Iphigenia, an innocent maiden, was slaughtered on the altar. The pitiful scene tore the hearts of all who were present. Shortly afterward, the wind changed and the fleet sailed for Troy. The elders disapprove of Agamemnon's decision. They say that his mind was warped by lust for power and prestige, and warn that "Justice so moves that those only learn who suffer." They turn to Clytaemestra and repeat their question, asking the reason for the sacrifices. Analysis In Agamemnon, the parodos is followed immediately by the first stasimon; both together constitute one of the longest lyrical passages in all Greek tragedy. The story told by the chorus helps to clarify some of the allusions in the watchman's speech although the elders seem to have many of the same ambiguous feelings. The choral account of the events before the expedition to Troy is a reminder of the curse on the House of Atreus, for the sacrifice of Iphigenia is an example of how one crime breeds another and pro-vides a history of sinfulness for which Agamemnon must eventually be punished. It is worth noting that Agamemnon freely made the decision to sacrifice his daughter. Fate and the curse circumscribed his choice, but the final responsibility for Iphigenia's death and his own downfall is his. The choral passage on Zeus is an attempt to justify the ways of God to man and introduces one of the main philosophical ideas of the trilogy — that wisdom is learned through suffering and that affairs on earth are controlled by the divine will. There are many mysteries that man cannot solve, but God is the source of all things. It is possible that Aeschylus viewed the gods of the Olympian pantheon as symbols of some kind, for here he seems to see one god, "Zeus: whatever he may be," as the primary moral power in the universe. Clytaemestra informs the elders that Troy has fallen. They accept this news doubtfully and ask for proof. She tells them about the system of beacons on hilltops and islands between Troy and Argos that she arranged with Agamemnon and gives a vivid description of how the news reached her. Clytaemestra gives free rein to her imagination and goes on to describe the situation in the conquered city. She visualizes the Greek army looting and pillaging in the ruins of Troy while the defeated inhabitants mourn. Clytaemestra points out that the voyage home is long and dangerous, and expresses the hope that the Greeks have not committed any sacrilege in Troy that would offend the gods. Analysis The first speech of Clytaemestra is particularly appropriate after the story of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, for she is the human embodiment of the bitterness and wrath engendered by the sacrifice and the curse that lies behind it. Clytaemestra is a majestic and powerful woman whose personality dominates the whole tragedy. She is the only character to appear in all three plays of the trilogy. Aeschylus is not too interested in her psychological motivation, however, because his drama is based on the conflict and interplay of important ethical and philosophical principles rather than the emotional development of an individual. His portrayal of Clytaemestra is strikingly human, but he does not explore her thoughts or feelings to any great extent. In this scene, the strength of Clytaemestra's character is shown by her ease in convincing the elders that her news is true, and by the "masculine" efficiency with which she arranged the complicated system of beacons. Clytaemestra's hope that the conquering Greeks will not be guilty of impiety can be read in several ways — it is a conventional expression intended to delude the chorus, but it may also indicate that she hopes nothing will interfere with Agamemnon's return so that she will not lose her chance for revenge, and that she really does hope the Greeks will offend the gods, for then she will have divine sanction when she kills their leader. Such complex meanings are typical of all Clytaemestra's main speeches. They emphasize her audacious subtlety, for she is so proud and confident that she is not afraid to hint at her plans, and they also heighten the dramatic irony of many scenes. Next Summary The elders attribute Troy's fall to the wrath of Zeus. He always punishes mortal impiety and pride, and Paris sinned by violating the sacred obligations of a guest when he kidnapped Helen from Menelaus. But he was repaid, for the dowry that Helen brought to Paris and the Trojans was death. A terrible war took place in which Greeks as well as Trojans suffered. This war has dragged on for many years and the people of Argos are restive. Their sons and husbands are gone. Every ship brings back the ashes of more dead soldiers. All this hardship has been endured for the sake of a worthless woman, but now the Argives are bitter and war-weary. The elders fear that Agamemnon will be punished for inflicting this burden on his people. The gods, they say, take note of those who are responsible for bloodshed and punish them. The only security is to avoid fame and power. Analysis The images of this ode foreshadow the death of Agamemnon and the sorrows that will continue to afflict the House of Atreus (for example, the description of Zeus casting the net of destruction over Troy also alludes to how Clytaemestra will trap Agamemnon in a net before killing him). The story of the horrors brought down on Troy because of Paris' sin is meant to parallel the story of the destructive forces brought into action by Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter. The main point of the ode is that retribution comes to all sinners. This universal moral law applies as well to Agamemnon as it does to Priam and the Trojans although only Troy is used as an example. The stasimon begins as a hymn of joy on the downfall of Troy but ends as a tacit condemnation of Agamemnon and a hint that worse things are still in store. The portion of the ode beginning "The god of war, money changer of dead bodies" is one of the most famous lyrics written by Aeschylus. It is a simple but moving description of the horrors of war. One critic has said of it, "no greater lyric poetry than this has survived from ancient Greece