Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths(47)

Cassandra’s prediction that Agamemnon would be caught in a snare is not the only mention of some sort of ambush or trickery in the play. Agamemnon appears to have been killed using a trick garment, like a straitjacket. There is a remarkable pot by the Dokimasia Painter, now held by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.14 It was made either just before or just after this play was first performed (the dates are so close that it’s not possible to say conclusively that the krater shows a scene from the play, nor that the play describes a scene already well known because here is an example of it on this wine bowl). The mixing bowl was produced in Athens, so it is certainly possible to say that, in the middle part of the fifth century BCE, at least some artists in Athens were making the snare a feature of Agamemnon’s death. Because here we can see Agamemnon in a thin gauzy robe: his naked body is visible through the transparent fabric. He is reaching forward with his right hand, although at the same time his whole body is leaning back: he shrinks away from the sword in the hand of his attacker. The killer in this version of the story is not Clytemnestra, however, but her lover Aegisthus. She stands behind him, holding an axe. This is one of the most frequent variations in this myth, raising the question: is Agamemnon killed by Aegisthus or Clytemnestra, or the two of them together? For Aeschylus, Clytemnestra claims all the credit for the deed. Aegisthus won’t be onstage until two hundred lines after his lover appears with the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra. Whether she is boasting of her murderous capabilities or merely describing them with glee, she certainly doesn’t want to share responsibility. The Boston krater shows us a less shocking version of the story, perhaps: a man killing his lover’s husband, rather than a wife slaying her daughter’s murderer.

But the gauzy robe which Agamemnon wears in this image is strange. His hand reaches out but the robe stretches around his fingers: he cannot release his arms or hands from within. It almost touches the floor, so it seems to be acting as a restraint. Perhaps this explains his posture: he is leaning back so far that in reality he would fall. His balance is impeded because he cannot use his arms to steady himself. And so, Aegisthus (on the krater) or Clytemnestra (in the play) has used trickery before violence. Agamemnon is a returning warrior, after all, so we cannot be surprised if Clytemnestra uses guile to raise her chances of success. It should here be noted that employing trickery to kill or maim an opponent who has superior strength is not a uniquely female characteristic: it is what Odysseus does, time and again.

The theme of nets and woven fabrics runs throughout Aeschylus’ play, from the tapestries that Agamemnon walks across to the robe which – if it was like the one on the pot – apparently has the ends of the sleeves sewn together, or perhaps no sleeves at all. The imagery is consistent: Clytemnestra is the hunter, Agamemnon her prey. And weaving, which is the idealized task of ‘good’ women in myth (we’ll look at Penelope, later on, and her weaving and unweaving of a shroud), has become something darker, much more dangerous. Clytemnestra hasn’t spent ten years weaving tapestries: she has metaphorically woven plots and schemes, and literally woven the restraint or straitjacket which she uses to outwit Agamemnon. The wholesome pursuit has been twisted to murderous ends. Even the tapestries which seemingly posed no danger to Agamemnon were turned into a trap when Clytemnestra used them to incite him to an act of hubris.

The chorus continue to respond to Clytemnestra with shock and horror: they tell her she deserves to be banished for her crime. Her reply is coruscating. He’s the one you should have banished, she says. He’s the one who killed his own daughter, as though she were nothing more than a sacrificial animal. And what did you do about that? Nothing. I tell you what, if you can overthrow me, you can rule this place. If the gods decide differently, you’ll learn to live with it.

Make no mistake, this woman is offering to fight a whole crowd of men if she has to. They criticize her again, and she finally lets rip: it was with Justice, Ruin and Vengeance (who are goddesses, not merely qualities) that she sacrificed Agamemnon.15 Her language is deliberately incendiary. Agamemnon had sacrificed her daughter like an animal; Clytemnestra has treated him the same way. Not only that, but she claims to have had divine assistance in doing so. And then she offers an additional argument, as she turns to the matter of Cassandra. First, Agamemnon was the darling of Chryseis at Troy, she says (Chryseis was briefly his war bride, before he was forced to return her to her father in Book One of the Iliad). And now this bedmate, this lover of his, lies dead beside him. So Clytemnestra, for all her high-minded ideals of avenging her daughter Iphigenia, also has a baser motive: sexual jealousy. But she soon goes back to her original argument: the much-lamented Iphigenia16 is her motive. He killed her daughter, so she killed him. Her anger extends beyond his death, too. He’ll have nothing to boast about in Hades, she says. He’ll be welcomed to the Underworld by Iphigenia. The chorus are defeated by Clytemnestra, not just by the havoc she has wreaked, not just by her total failure to be apologetic for it, but by her superior arguments.

Then finally, at the very end of the play, Clytemnestra’s lover Aegisthus comes onstage, revelling in the excellence of the day. He explains that his father, Thyestes, had a long-running feud with Agamemnon’s father, Atreus. Thyestes tried to take Atreus’ kingdom from him, and Atreus repelled his attack. The two men apparently reached a détente and Thyestes was welcomed back into Atreus’ house for a feast. But the dinner contained a stomach-churning dish: Thyestes’ own children had been murdered and their hands and feet were served up to him. He ate them unknowingly. Aegisthus, his youngest child, survived the bloodbath because he was only a baby when it took place. He, too, is acting in the spirit of revenge: he claims credit for planning the murder. If Clytemnestra is punishing her husband for his terrible acts as a father, Aegisthus is punishing him for whose son he is. Like Clytemnestra, he claims to have acted with Justice on his side. And he too is unapologetic in the face of societal disapproval. Death would seem fine to him, he says, now he has seen this man caught in Justice’s snare. The chorus are not persuaded by Aegisthus’ arguments any more than they were convinced by Clytemnestra’s defence and attack. Aegisthus is unbowed by their criticism and threatens them with imprisonment and starvation. Whatever else drew Clytemnestra and her lover together – sexual desire, a common enemy – we see that they are tremendously well suited in terms of their dispositions. The chorus try to wound him the only way they know how: he planned the murder, they say, but didn’t have the courage to carry it out. He left that to a woman.17