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

Clytemnestra, the queen of Argos, the wife of the king Agamemnon, is the one of the central character of the play  “Agamemnon” by Aeschylus (525?-456 bc), an ancient Greek dramatist.  She rules Argos in his absence of her husband. She is very different from the typical women of her time and portrayed as a mixer of strength and weakness. She kills her husband Agamemnon to take revenge on him for his sacrifices of her daughter Iphigenia. She is, a sympathetic character in many respects, but the righteousness of her crime is tainted by her entanglement with Aegisthus. Now we will take a deeper look into the understanding of Clytemnestra.

Clytemnestra’s most important characteristic is her male strength of heart. As the Elders of Argos, the Chorus comments: 

“Madam, yours words are like a man’s, both wise and kind.”

She is a strong woman, and her strength is evident on many occasions is the play. She after her murder of her husband, Agamemnon, and his concubine, Cassandra, remains fearless. 
She is a skilled orator and hides her deadlyplane of killing her husband with her public statements about how much she loves her husband. Her emotional words are full of hypocrisy. Asshe displays: 

“ I will speak, unashamed, a wife’s love for her husbadWith time dies difference. What I shall tell I learnt Untaught from my own long endurance, these ten years”

Her shrewdness is also shown by the way she coaxes her husband into submission. She wants him to walk on rich purple tapestries in hopes that this would anger the gods and they will aid her in his murder.
“Now, dearest husband, come, step from your chariot.
But do not set to earth, my lord, the conquering foot
That trod down Troy”

When Agamemnon primarily refuge to do this, Clytemnestrachallenges his manhood and valour. 

“Might you have vowed to the gods, in danger such an act?Imagine Priam conqueror: what would he have done?Then why humble your heart to men’s censorious tongue?”

And thus she forces Agamemnon to bend to her will. As Agamemnon says: 

“Treading on purple I will go into my house.”

Thus Clytemnestra single-handedly plots to murderAgamemnonwhen 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!”

Once again her persuasive tactics are put to good use as she tries to persuade the Chorus that she was correct in killing kingwho killed her daughter.

“His child, and my own darling, whom my pain brought forth-He killed her for a charm to stop the Thracian wind!”

Clytemnestra adds that Zeus himself is using her as a divine tool to imply justice upon Agamemnon because of his father Atreus’s misdeed.

Clytemnestra with her cunning ways justifies this double murder by stating how her husband was unfaithful with many women:

“He who sweet to every Trojan Chryseid, And soured my life, lies here; with him his prisoners,His faithful soothsayer, who shared his breath,”

Clytemnestra believes that she was in the will of the gods because she was seeking revenge not only for her sacrificed daughter, but also for Agamemnon's cousins, Aegisthus.

Moreover, the Chorus, Elders of  Argos, 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 set against thee two his sword invincible!”

However, Cassandra compares Clytemnestra with “lioness in human form, who when her lord was absent paired with a wolf”.So this commentary proves her strength and boldness. 
We see some more of Clytemnestra's psychotic side in the debate with the Chorus that follows, but at the very end of the play she has calmed down and taken on a different role. First, she prevents Aegisthus from fighting the Chorus; then, she leads him inside and tells him that they will be joint rulers in Argos. 

“You and IJoint rulers, will enforce due reverence for our throne.”

Towards the end our discussion, we can say thatthe character of Clytemnestra becomes very interesting for her duality. She is very different and strong hearted woman and at the same time   she is a liar, a two-timer, and a murderer.

This paper is prepared for you by Talim Enam, BA (Hons), MA in English.

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