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Clytaemnestra: A Tale of Two Women

Clytaemnestra is a very intriguing and tragic heroine, not just because of her representation by Aeschylus in the play Agamemnon, but because she is characterized completely differently in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. In Homer’s viewpoint she is a weak, easily influenced puppet character that skulks in the shadows. In Aeschylus’s play, he casts her as a strong, tyrannical, and brutal force of nature. In fact, there are even more portrayals of her character then the two discussed above. In all characterizations of Clytaemnestra, the universal sentiment is that she is a “bad woman,” (Wolfe, 2009). The version of Clytaemnestra, in Agamemnon, is a much more complex character and a beautiful horror to behold. She is a round character filled with complexity and emotion. To understand what makes Clytaemnestra such a tour-de-force, the audience must first learn what shapes her nature: she is driven to hatred over the grief of the sacrifice of her daughter, she becomes shrewd in the hiding of her true motives while plotting her revenge, and she has the resolve to carry her murderous plot to fruition.

In the first lines of the play, the Watchman sets the stage of how Clytaemnestra is viewed by the people of Argos. He states, “She maneuvers like a man,” (Fagles line 13). This character trait will be restated in later lines of the play. Clytaemnestra is portrayed in the beginning as a woman who has stoic and has manly ways of dealing with the people. She is the stand-in ruler of Argos and she appears to wait loyally and longingly to see her husband, Agamemnon, while he is off fighting the Trojans. The Chorus, however, gives the audience insight into what has already transpired. The audience is made aware that King Agamemnon has tricked Clytaemnestra into sending their daughter Iphigenia to him and he then sacrifices her to appease the goddess Artemis, into changing the winds in the fleet’s favor. This excerpt from the play shows the Chorus’s foreboding about the fate that is to come because of Agamemnon’s treachery,

I beg you, Healing Apollo, soothe her before her crosswinds hold us down and moor the ships too long, pressing us on to another victim ... nothing sacred, no no feast to be eaten

the architect of vengeance [Turning to the palace.] growing strong in the house with no fear of the husband here she waits the terror raging back and back in the future the stealth, the law of the hearth, the mother - Memory womb of Fury child-avenging Fury! (lines 145-156)

This passage shows the fear of the Chorus that Clytaemnestra is growing bold in the face of her husband’s absence and that the façade she shows the public could not be possible because of the grief and fury she must feel towards the king. The act of a mother losing her child, cements Clytaemnestra’s hatred towards Agamemnon and her shrewd nature allows her to create a guise to hide her true agenda.

The shrewdness of our tragic heroine is displayed in her ability to make the citizens of Argos believe she is a devoted queen who longs to see her husband once more. She has such an innate ability to manipulate the people around her into doing what she wants. Clytaemnestra learns of Agamemnon’s infidelity during his ten-year campaign and keeps that knowledge a secret. She had an affair with the King’s cousin Aegisthus. She knew of his hatred towards Agamemnon’s father King Atreus for what he had done to his brothers. She knew he had killed the Atreus. She also sent her son Orestes away so he could not stop her plan. These actions show how her shrewdness helped to solidify her resolve to carry out her revenge.

Clytaemnestra’s resolve is put to the test the moment the Watchman brings her the news that he has seen the torch lit and in the Chorus’s attempts to denounce her statement that the war is over. They state, “Just like a woman to fill with thanks before the truth is clear,” (lines 474-475). A messenger arrives with the news she has been hoping for; her husband has landed on the shore. She gives a speech that admonishes the Chorus for their disbelief in her words and appears as though she is happy for his return; but the audience can read between the lines. She is clearly alluding to her plan to murder Agamemnon. He brings ashore his concubine Cassandra who can see the future. Still, this does not shake the Queen’s resolve to bring vengeance for her daughter’s murder. In one last act of control, the queen encourages her husband to walk upon a tapestry in the way of the gods. She is using these acts of haughtiness, by the king, to justify to herself, what she is about to do. She murders both Cassandra and Agamemnon in a maniacal glee and feels no guilt over the outcome. Ten years of plotting and following through with her plan, shows how much resolve it took for her to be able to keep her façade together until she got her moment to avenge Iphigenia.

Clytaemnestra is a complex character, who feels her actions were justified by the gods. To go back to the original point in the beginning, she has been characterized in two completely diverse ways by Homer and Aeschylus. In Aeschylus version, she is a criminal mastermind, who takes the on the gender role of a man. This excerpt, from author Rachel Wolfe, shows Aeschylus’s break from the Greek portrayal of women,

Clytemnestra, however, breaks with tradition and takes on an active role in avenging her daughter in Aeschylus’s version. As in Pindar’s version, it is she who does the actual killing of Agamemnon. Since it was traditionally the man who took responsibility for revenge, Clytemnestra’s centrality over Aegisthus in this context is evidence of the role reversal apparent in Aeschylus’s vision, in which Clytemnestra takes on the duties and attitudes of the man. (Wolfe, 2009)

This was truly a tale of two women. Not for the reasons discussed above, but because Clytaemnestra had two sides, public and private. Most people can perhaps relate to her because of that. She never completely revealed her cards, but showed flashes of them to the people of Argos. On the outside, she seemed like the devoted queen, but on the inside, she was a raging beast that was barely being contained. Her lust for blood, pent up for so many years, was rained down upon Agamemnon and Cassandra with no mercy. Yet, after these grotesque murders, she was still able to manipulate the Chorus to see her justifications for the crimes. She not only escaped punishment by the people of Argos, she became their ruler. Love her or hate her, one cannot deny that Aeschylus’s version of Clytaemnestra, was indeed, a beautiful disaster. Comment by Anne Benenhaley: I didn’t mean to delete this sentence. I love it!

Works Cited Fagles, Robert. "Agamemnon." Gen. Ed. Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd. Vol. F. New York: Norton, 2012. 655-701. Wolfe, Rachel M. E. "Woman, Tyrant, Mother, Murderess: An Exploration of the Mythic Character of Clytemnestra in All Her Forms." Women's Studies, vol. 38, no. 6, Sept. 2009, pp. 692-719. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00497870903021554.

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