Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths(46)

As he steps down from his chariot, he exhorts his wife to take care of ‘this foreign woman’7 and magnanimously reminds her that the gods favour kind masters because no one chooses to become a slave. Would this sentiment sound more reasonable coming from a man who hasn’t literally enslaved the woman he is describing? Perhaps. But of course, our response is scarcely relevant: Clytemnestra’s is the one he should be worrying about. And she is being presented with the actual living proof of her husband’s infidelity, and asked to be nice to her. One finds oneself wondering if Agamemnon has ever met his wife before today. Perhaps he had received a blow to the head on the battlefield. Of course we could argue that, in both the Bronze Age when the play is set and the fifth century BCE when the play is written and performed, very different expectations of male and female fidelity were common: Athenian men could have sex with non-Athenian women (with or without payment) and their marriages were regarded as completely secure. Women, unsurprisingly, had no such freedom. But merely because an inequality is the status quo doesn’t mean that the person on the receiving end of that inequality is going to like it, least of all when you literally parade the disparity in front of her. And of all women you might not want to further irritate, Clytemnestra should be right near the top of your list.

Agamemnon lingers no longer: he crosses the threshold and enters the palace. This liminal moment – where he is both returned and not yet in his home, ostensibly reunited with his wife but without sincerity or intimacy, victor over Troy and yet vanquished by his wife in the matter of the tapestries, alive and yet doomed – finally comes to its close. The chorus respond with foreboding and it is clear that, while Agamemnon might be too dim to perceive the dark thoughts his wife is nurturing, they are not so naive. When they have finished, Clytemnestra invites Cassandra to accompany her inside. It is the first time anyone refers to Cassandra by name in the play. Agamemnon had called her tēn xenēn – ‘this stranger’, ‘this foreigner’. It was another reason for us to be somewhat quizzical about his motives when he asked Clytemnestra to be kind to her. If he is so sympathetic to Cassandra’s newly enslaved condition, perhaps he might do her the courtesy of referring to her by name. As it is, she becomes nothing more than a type, an object. Only when Clytemnestra speaks to her do we feel that someone is responding to her as herself, rather than as a foreign-born concubine. And Clytemnestra is certainly interested in Cassandra for who she is as well as what she is – a priestess violated by Agamemnon – but not in a way that could ever be construed as kindness.

Cassandra doesn’t reply to Clytemnestra. Does she not hear? Clytemnestra grows impatient and asks the chorus if they can communicate with her. They wonder if there is a language barrier; Clytemnestra loses interest and goes back into the palace. She doesn’t have the time or focus to waste on Cassandra, it turns out. The chorus try to speak to the Trojan priestess, but she suddenly cries out to Apollo. Then she asks where she is and, on learning that she is at the house of Atreus (Atreus was the father of Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus), she becomes further distressed. She describes exactly what is about to happen to Agamemnon. He is in a bath, a net or snare awaits him, he is trapped. Her words are confusing but undeniable. The chorus agree that something bad must be occurring. Cassandra prophesies her own death and she and the chorus have an intense exchange about the cause of her troubles (she attributes them to Paris).8 And then comes a moment which seems to leap out of a horror movie: Cassandra sees Furies dancing on the roof of the palace.9 These dark goddesses punish wrongdoing, and in particular they punish crimes carried out between blood relatives. The house of Atreus is steeped in just such familial wrongdoing: adultery, child-murder and unintentional cannibalism, just for starters. No wonder the Furies have taken up residence on the roof.

The chorus are astonished by Cassandra’s knowledge of the palace history. She explains to them that she was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but he also cursed her never to be believed, because she refused his sexual advances. We have no reason to doubt her story and yet we see it disproved as we watch, because the chorus are apparently immune to Apollo’s machinations. We believe you, they say,10 it sounds like the truth to us. She tells them that they will see Agamemnon dead. They ask which man – anēr – is committing such an act.11 You’ve misunderstood me completely, she replies. And then her vision moves a little further into the future: she will kill me, she says. The two-footed lioness who mates with a wolf in the absence of the lion. It is perfectly clear to us that she means Clytemnestra. The lioness has become the bedmate of the lion’s enemy: the wolf. In her husband’s absence, we remember that Clytemnestra has been having an affair with Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s enemy.

Cassandra throws off her priestly regalia and hurls it to the ground. She no longer belongs to Apollo, she reasons, because he has allowed her to be brought here to die. She can still see the future, although the chorus don’t register what she is saying: after Cassandra’s death, and because of her, another woman will be killed, as will a man. Those Furies won’t be climbing down from the roof of the house of Atreus any time soon, it seems. And Cassandra walks into the palace, to her death.

Only now do we hear what Cassandra has already foreseen: the death of Agamemnon. He cries out that he has been struck, and then again, a second blow. The chorus acknowledge that the king must indeed now be dead. They consider running inside to catch the killers but, as with almost all choruses in Greek tragedy, although they discuss taking action, they don’t act. After all, as they say, they can’t bring the dead back to life with words.12 Eventually, the doors of the palace are opened, and Clytemnestra stands before them, with the bodies of the murdered king and priestess beside her. It is interesting to note that, although we heard Agamemnon cry out as he was murdered, we heard nothing from Cassandra: she had accepted her fate even in her final moments, it seems. The chorus are silenced by the terrible sight, and about to be shocked further. Because Clytemnestra is not remotely apologetic for what she has done, which is (from their perspective) to have killed their king. Rather, she revels in the murders. She describes the deed: how she trapped Agamemnon in a snare or net, struck him twice until he collapsed and then delivered a third, final blow. We – like the chorus – only heard him cry out twice, so this implies that he had no capacity to speak after the first two. Rejoice, Clytemnestra tells the chorus, if you can, rejoice. I glory in it.13 Agamemnon had filled his cup with evil deeds, she says, and now he has come home and drained the dregs.