Chorus – …the kingly birds, one black, one white of tail, hard by the palace, on the spear-hand, in a station full conspicuous, devouring a hare with brood unborn checked in the last effort to escape.
Sing the song of woe, the song of woe, but may the good prevail! (115-121)
Chorus – [quoting Calchas] “…holy Artemis is wroth at the winged hounds of her sire that they make sacrifice of a wretched timorous thing, herself and her young ere she hath brought them forth. An abomination unto her is the eagles’ feast.” (134-138)
Chorus – [quoting Calchas] “I implore Paean, the healer, that she [Artemis] may not raise adverse gales with long delay to stay the Danaad fleet from putting forth by reason of her urgence of another sacrifice, knowing no law, unmet for feast, worker of family strife, dissolving wife’s reverence for husband. For there abideth wrath – terrible, not to be suppressed, a treacherous warder of the home, ever mindful, a wrath that exacteth vengeance for a child.’” (146-155)
Chorus – Then, as she shed to earth her saffron robe, she smote each of her sacrificers with a glance from her eyes beseeching pity, and showing as in a picture, fain to speak; for oft had she sung where men were met at her father’s hospitable board, and with her virgin voice had been wont lovingly to do honour to her loved father’s prayer for blessing at the third libation – (238-247)
Chorus – Hail, sovereign Zeus, and thou kindly Night, that hast given us great glory for our possession, thou who didst cast thy meshed snare upon the towered walls of Troy, so that nor old nor young could o’erleap the huge enthralling net, all-conquering doom. Great Zeus…lord of host and guest… (355-361)
Chorus – So they make lament, lauding now this one: ‘How skilled in battle!’ now that one: ‘Fallen nobly in the carnage,’ – ‘for another’s wife,’ some mutter in secret, and grief charged with resentment spreads stealthily against the sons of Atreus, champions in the strife…
Dangerous is a people’s voice charged with wrath – it hath the office of a curse of public doom. In anxious fear I wait to hear something shrouded still in gloom; for Heaven is not unmindful of men of blood. In the end the black Spirits of Vengeance [Erinyes] bring to obscurity him who hath prospered in unrighteousness and wear down his fortunes by reverse;… (445-451 & 456-469)
Clytemnestra – …let him come with all speed, his country’s fond desire, come to find at home his wife faithful, even as he left her, a watch-dog of his house, loyal to him, a foe to those who wish him ill; yea, for the rest, unchanged in every part; in all this length of time never having broken seal. Of pleasure from other man or voice of scandal I know no more than of dyeing bronze. (605-612)
Chorus – Even so a man reared in his house a lion’s whelp, robbed of its mother’s milk yet still desiring the breast. Gentle it was in the prelude of its life, kindly to children, and a delight to the old. Much did it get, held in arms like a nursling child, with its bright eye turned toward his hand, and fawning under compulsion of its belly’s need.
But brought to full growth by time it showed forth the nature it had from its parents. Unbidden, in requital for its fostering, it prepared a feast with ruinous slaughter of the flocks;… (717-731)
Chorus – But old Arrogance [hubris] is like to bring forth in evil men, or soon or late, at the fated hour of birth, a young Arrogance [hubris] and that spirit irresistible, unconquerable, unholy, even Recklessness, - black Curses unto the household, and like are they to their parents. (763-771)
Clytemnestra – There is a sea (and who shall drain it dry?) producing stain of plenteous purple, costly as silver and ever fresh, wherewith to dye our vestments; and of these our house, thanks be to Heaven, hath ample store; it knows no penury. (958-962)
Cassandra – …a house of Heaven loathed, a house that knoweth many a horrible butchery of kin, a human shambles and a floor swimming with blood. (1090-1092)
Cassandra - Behold yon babes bewailing their own butchery and their roasted flesh eaten by their sire! (1095-1096)
Cassandra - Ha! Ha! What apparition’s this? Is it a net of death? Nay, she is a snare that shares his bed, that shares the guilt of murder. Let the fatal pack, insatiable against the race, raise a shout of jubilance over a victim accursed! (1114-1118)
Cassandra – For from this roof doth never depart a choir chanting in unison, but unmelodius; for it telleth not of good. And lo, having quaffed human blood, to be the more emboldened, a revel-rout of kindred Furies haunteth the house, hard to be driven forth. Lodged within its halls they chant their chant, the primal sin; and, each in turn, they spurn with loathing a brother’s bed, for that they are bitter with wroth against him that defiled it. … Bear witness upon thine oath that I do know the deeds of sin [hamartias], ancient in story, of this house. (1188-1193 & 1196-1197)
Cassandra - Yet, unavenged of Heaven, shall we not die; for there shall come in turn another, our avenger, a scion of the race, to slay his mother and exact requital for his sire; an exile, a wanderer, strangered from this land, he shall return to put the coping-stone upon these infatuate iniquities of this house. (1279-1283)
Clytemnestra – Once he had fallen, I dealt him yet a third stroke to grace my prayer to the infernal Zeus [dis], the saviour of the dead. Fallen thus, he gasped away his life, and as he breathed forth quick spurts of blood, he smote me with dark drops of ensanguined dew; while I rejoiced no less than the sown earth is gladdened in heaven’s refreshing rain at the birth-time of the flower buds. (1384-1392)
Clytemnestra – By Justice [Dike], exacted for my child, by Ate [impulsive revenge], by the Avenging Spirit [Erinys], unto whom I sacrificed yon man,… (1432-4
Recommended reading:
Brown, A.L. ‘The Erinyes in the Oresteia: real life, the supernatural, and the stage,’ Journal of Hellenic Studies103 (1983) 13-34.
Dignan, F. The Idle Actor in Aeschylus (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1905).
Fagles, Robert & W. B. Stanford. ‘The Serpent and the Eagle,’ in Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Trans. Robert Fagles. NY: Viking Penguin, 1979. 13-97.
Heath, J. ‘Disentangling the beast: humans and other animals in Aeschylus’ Oresteia,’ Journal of Hellenic Studies 119 (1999) pp. 17-47.
*Hernandez, Pura Nieto, 'Odysseus, Agamemnon and Apollo,' The Classical Journal, vol. 97, no. 4 (Apr.-May, 2002), pp. 319-334.*
*Lee, Mirielle M. '"Evil Wealth of Raiment": Deadly Poploi in Greek Tragedy,' The Classical Journal, vol. 99. no. 3 (Feb.-Mar., 2004), pp. 253-279.*
Lloyd-Jones, Hugh ‘The Guilt of Agamemnon,’ in E. Segal, ed. Greek Tragedy: Moderm Essays in Criticism. Yale: YUP, 1983.
*McNeil, Lynda. 'Bridal Cloths, Cover-ups, and Kharis: The "Carpet Scene" in Aeschylus'Agamemnon,' Greece & Rome, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 1-17.*
*Mace, Sarah. 'Why the Oresteia's Sleeping Dead Won't Lie. Part I: Agamemnon,' The Classical Journal, vol. 98, no. 1 (Oct.-Nov., 2002), pp.35-56.*
Smith, Peter M. On the Hymn to Zeus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. Oxford: OUP, 1980.
Tyrrell, W. Blake. ‘Zeus and Agamemnon at Aulis,’ Classical Journal, 71 (1976) 328-334.
Vidal-Naquer, P. ‘Hunting & Sacrifice in Aeschylus’ Oresteia’ in Tragedy and Myth in Anchient Greece. NY: Zone Books, 1990.
