Leo Xia Professor Thalmann Classics 150g Due April 14th2014 The Ways of Justice An eye for an eye, a murder for a murder, and a sin for a sin. That was how balance and justice were perceived in Greek times during the writing of Aeschylus’ Oresteia.This is exemplified by the string of killings within the House of Atreus starting chronologically with Atreus killing the children of Thyestes’ and feeding them to Thyestes, setting off a chain of vengeance ending with Orestes killing his mother, Clytemnestra. In this trilogy, this desire for vengeance drives the plot and is the main motivation behind the characters of the House of Atreus. The trilogy starts with a stronger emphasis individuals seeking revenge on one another more privately within the family and gradually moves towards discussion in the public sphere of the ethics involved in the series of killings, bringing in divine beings such as the Furies, Apollo and Athena to debate also on how patriarchal values of society played into how women and men were judged differently, in particular the difference between the final verdicts of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. Within this larger progression of the trilogy, the passage to be discussed in lines 1399-1576 of the first play,Agamemnon,is still set in the House of Atreus and the argument between Clytemnestra and the chorus is more focused on the matter of personal vendetta, as Clytemnestra not only kills Agamemnon as vengeance for killing Iphigenia, his own daughter, but also out of jealousy due to Agamemnon bringing home Cassandra, the daughter of Trojan King Priam, as his concubine. This further complicates the judging of the murder because it went beyond
the scope of simply revenge for sacrificing her daughter. In the aforementioned lines of Agamemnon, the passionate argument between Clytemnestra and the chorus illuminates a variety of different and conflicting Greek values at the time and this continual juxtaposition goes beyond the first play of the trilogy to create a larger discussion of the issues by bringing in divine beings. The first problem presented in the passage is the conflict between Clytemnestra as a strong, assertive woman fighting for her own beliefs and the social norm of women being submissive and accepting of the predominantly patriarchal values that were prevalent during the time. Throughout the passage the chorus exhibits consistent shock towards Clytemnestra’s murder while Clytemnestra chooses her words carefully to construct a powerful case for herself, not only to cast blame away from herself but also to full-heartedly assign the blame onto her dead husband. The passage begins with an exchange of rhetorical questions, at once setting a tone of anger and disbelief at the opinions of the opposite party: “Chorus: I am amazed at your brazen tongue, that you dare to say these things, standing over your dead husband?” (Aeschylus, Lines 1399- 1400) and “Clytemnestra: Am I on trial like some senseless woman?” (Aeschylus, Line
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