Greek Drama

Chapter One

1
Aeschylus

AGAMEMNON

The trilogy called Oresteia, of which Agamemnon is the first play, deals with the succession of crimes and their retribution in the house of Atreus. The series had started, before the action of Agamemnon begins, when Atreus had unfairly kept his brother Thyestes from the throne of Argos. In Agamemnon Thyestes' son Aegisthus and Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra murder Agamemnon and seize his throne. In Choephoroe, the second play of the trilogy, Orestes avenges his father Agamemnon's murder by murdering Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. In Eumenides, the third play, hereditary blood vengeance is ended when a newly instituted court acquits Orestes. Other crimes antecedent to its action are involved in the problems of Agamemnon: the abduction of Helen, the war of reprisal against Troy, Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia to raise the winds for the Greek fleet becalmed at Aulis. It was during Agamemnon's absence at Troy that Aegisthus and Clytemnestra formed their illicit relationship and plotted his murder.

The tragedy of Agamemnon involves war and politics as well as a domestic triangle, and in none of its ... read full excerpt from: Greek Drama ebook