Iphigenia and Clytemnestra in Greek tragedy

Clytemnestra and Iphigenia

One of the most striking aspects of ancient Greek tragedies with the Trojan War and its aftermath serving as their narrative backgrounds, is the portrayal of Greek women as central and very active protagonists/antagonists, such as Antigone in the play by Sophocles and Penelope in Homer's The Odyssey. For the most part, the heroines and anti-heroines portrayed in 5th century Athenian tragedies served as a way to explore "the tensions inherent in the moral code of contemporary society" by strongly reacting to the violations of that code by men, especially related to the Greek familial system (Martin, 132).

Undoubtedly, two of the most interesting women in all Greek tragedies is Clytemnestra as portrayed in Aeschylus' play Agamemnon, produced sometime around 458 B.C.E. And based on the exploits of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek armies in the Trojan War, and Iphigenia in Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides, circa 410 B.C.E. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, takes a lover and rules her city in her husband's place when Agamemnon subverts his marriage, first by sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to appease an angry goddess who is holding up the Greek army and then by staying away from home for ten years so as to besiege the city of Troy. When Agamemnon finally returns home, he brings with him a captive Trojan princess whom he intends to install in his home as a concubine. Enraged by this final insult to her status as an honorable Greek wife and mother, Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon which "ensures tragic destruction for herself and her family while avenging her own honor" (Martin, 133).

Perhaps the best example from Aeschylus' play Agamemnon which demonstrates the emotional strengths of Clytemnestra can be found in her monologue which represents some of the best poetry ever written by a Greek tragedian in the 5th century B.C.E. Certainly, her emotional strengths are linked to the roles of men in ancient Greece who culturally dominated almost every aspect of the lives of women, whether as daughters or wives. For instance, in Demosthenes' Orations (59:122), a man speaking in a lawsuit declares "We have companions for the sake of pleasure, ordinary prostitutes for the daily attention to our physical needs" (Martin, 139) which obviously references Agamemnon's decision to bring a concubine (a prostitute) into Clytemnestra's household which she sees as breaking accepted Greek social norms.

In her monologue, addressed to the elders of Argive, Clytemnestra declares "I shame not in your presence to avow/My wifely temper; bashful fear in time/From mortals dieth; not by other taught/But from myself, the wretched life I'll tell/'Twas mine to lead while this man was at Troy (Swanwick, 178). Here we find an example of Clytemnestra's inner strength via her admittance of a "wifely temper" which came to the forefront while Agamemnon was fighting in Troy and away from home for ten years. This temper surely gave Clytemnestra the ability to withstand her "wretched life" by serving as a type of emotional outlet for her anger and disappointment related to being imprisoned in her own household as the doting wife of Agamemnon who certainly experienced sexual encounters with other women as leader of the Greek armies at Troy.

Another example has Clytemnestra admitting "Thus harassed by these ever-rife reports

(i.e., that Agamemnon was dead)/Full often from my neck have forceful hands/Seized and untied the beam-suspended noose" (Swanwick, 179), a reference to attempting to hang herself from a roof beam. This indicates that Clytemnestra was indeed a very strong woman with sufficient inner strength to do away with herself because of her grief associated with Agamemnon and his alleged death at the hands of the Trojans -- "For a woman severed from her mate/To sit forlorn at home is grievous woe" (Swanwick, 179).

In Iphigenia at Aulis which focuses on the sacrifice of Iphigenia at the hands of Agamemnon, after throwing herself into the arms of her father whom she obviously loves a great deal, Iphigenia proclaims "Be mine, all mine today; turn not unto moody thoughts" (Swanwick, 236) which shows that Iphigenia possesses the strength to sway her father from negative thinking related to his trials and tribulations in the Trojan War. As a supportive note, Agamemnon acquiesces to his daughter's strength upon replying "Why so I am, all thine today; I have no other thoughts" which induces Iphigenia to order her father to "Soothe thy knitted brow, unbend and smile" (Swanwick, 236).