 Clytemnestra after the murder of Agamemnon (John Collier, 1882) | |
| Author | Lucius Annaeus Seneca |
|---|---|
| Country | Rome |
| Language | Latin |
| Genre | Tragedy |
| Set in | Agamemnon's palace |
Publication date | 1st century |
| Text | Agamemnon at Wikisource |
Agamemnon is a fabula crepidata (Roman tragedy with Greek subject) of c. 1012 lines of verse written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca in the first century AD, which tells the story of Agamemnon, who was killed by his wife Clytemnestra in his palace after his return from Troy.
The scene is laid partly inside and partly outside the palace of Agamemnon at Argos or Mycenae, on the day of the return of the king from his long absence at Troy, beginning in the period of darkness just preceding the dawn. [1]
The blood-feud between Atreus and Thyestes was not ended with the vengeance which Atreus wreaked upon his brother. It was fated that Thyestes should live to father upon his own daughter a son, Aegisthus, who would slay Atreus and bring ruin and death upon Agamemnon. [1]
The Trojan War is done, and now the near approach of the victorious king Agamemnon, bringing his captives and treasure home to Argos, has been announced. But his wife Clytemnestra, enraged at Agamemnon because he had sacrificed her daughter Iphigenia at Aulis to appease the winds, and full of jealousy because he brings Cassandra as her rival home, estranged also by the long-continued absence of her husband, but most estranged by her own guilty affair with Aegisthus, is now plotting to slay her husband on his return, gaining both revenge and safety from his anger. [1]
The ghost of Thyestes, arriving from the underworld, calls upon his son Aegisthus to carry out the revenge which had been promised him by the oracle.
The Chorus of the Women of Argos or Mycenae complains of exalted fortune as unstable, full of anxieties and cares, and therefore gives preference to a modest life. [2]
Clytemnestra, conscious of her own wickedness, and fearing punishment for her adultery now that her husband has just returned, meditates the destruction of Agamemnon as a remedy. The Nurse however, dissuades her from adopting such a step.
Aegisthus comes on the scene and finds Clytemnestra in a hesitating mood and prepared to yield to the wise counsels of the Nurse. He succeeds in diverting Clytemnestra from her new-born resolution, and on again towards her rash purpose.
The chorus of the women of Mycenae and Argos sing a triumphal hymn in honor of Apollo on account of the victory gained at Troy, but introduce laudatory addresses to Juno, Minerva and Jupiter. [2]
Eurybates reports that Agamemnon has returned and is now approaching—that a tempest was visited upon them by Pallas, which was made worse for them, through the treachery of Nauplius. Sacrifices are prepared for the gods, and a feast is got ready for Agamemnon. The captives are brought forward.
The Chorus of Trojans bewail the fates and the misfortunes of Troy. Cassandra is seized with one of her prophesying fits, and foretells what dangers are threatening Agamemnon. [2]
Cassandra, when Agamemnon returns, predicts his fate, but she is not believed.
The Chorus of Argos Women sing the praises of Hercules, especially as he was brought up at Argos, and they maintain that his arrows were required by the Fates, for the second downfall of Troy. [2]
Cassandra, although she (actually) sees nothing, and is only in the proscenium, foretells what is to happen, and she narrates everything that is progressing in the banqueting hall to those outside concerning the slaughter of Agamemnon.
Electra persuades her brother Orestes to take flight and luckily encounters Strophius. She hands Orestes over to Strophius to be carried away. Electra flies to the altar for protection.
Clytemnestra orders Electra to be dragged away from the altar and thrown into prison. Clytemnestra orders death for Cassandra. [2]
There is no earlier known play which serves as an obvious model for Seneca's Agamemnon. [3] The play tells the roughly same story as the Agamemnon by Aeschylus. [3] However the characterisation, structure, and themes of Seneca's play are very different from Aeschylus's play. [3] Agamemnon has only a relatively minor role in Seneca's play, compared with Clytemnestra and Cassandra who have large parts. [4] Other (lost) plays which might have influenced Seneca include Agamemnon by Ion of Chios, Aegisthus by Livius Andronicus, and Clytemnestra by Accius. [4]
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Acheans during the Trojan War. He was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Iphigenia, Iphianassa, Electra, Laodike, Orestes and Chrysothemis. Legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. Agamemnon was killed upon his return from Troy by Clytemnestra, or in an older version of the story, by Clytemnestra's lover Aegisthus.
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Aegisthus was a figure in Greek mythology. Aegisthus is known from two primary sources: the first is Homer's Odyssey, believed to have been first written down by Homer at the end of the 8th century BC, and the second from Aeschylus's Oresteia, written in the 5th century BC. Aegisthus also features heavily in the action of Euripides's Electra, although his character remains offstage.
Cassandra or Kassandra in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.
In Greek mythology, Menelaus was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre-Dorian) Sparta. According to the Iliad, the Trojan war began as a result of Menelaus’s wife, Helen, fleeing to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. The cuckolded Menelaus was a central figure in the Trojan War, leading the Spartan contingent of the Greek army, under his elder brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Prominent in both the Iliad and Odyssey, Menelaus was also popular in Greek vase painting and Greek tragedy, the latter more as a hero of the Trojan War than as a member of the doomed House of Atreus.
In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the brother of Electra. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones.
Electra, also spelt Elektra, is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies. She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, Electra by Sophocles and Electra by Euripides. She is also the central figure in plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. She is a vengeful soul in The Libation Bearers, the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy. She plans out an attack with her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra.
In Greek mythology, Pylades was a Phocian prince as the son of King Strophius and Anaxibia who is the daughter of Atreus and sister of Agamemnon and Menelaus. He is mostly known for his relationship with his cousin Orestes, son of Agamemnon.
In Greek mythology, Atreus was a king of Mycenae in the Peloponnese, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae.
In Greek mythology, Aerope was a Cretan princess as the daughter of Catreus, king of Crete. She was the sister to Clymene, Apemosyne and Althaemenes. Aerope's father Catreus gave her to Nauplius, to be drowned, or sold abroad, but Nauplius spared her, and she became the wife of Atreus, or Pleisthenes, and by most accounts the mother of Agamemnon and Menelaus. While the wife of Atreus, she became the lover of his brother Thyestes, and gave Thyestes the golden lamb, by which he became the king of Mycenae.
In Greek mythology, Thyestes was a king of Olympia. Thyestes and his brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus, in their desire for the throne of Olympia. They took refuge in Mycenae, where they ascended the throne upon the absence of King Eurystheus, who was fighting the Heracleidae. Eurystheus had meant for their lordship to be temporary; it became permanent because of his death in conflict.
The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Furies.
Electra is a 1962 Greek film based on the play Electra, written by Euripides. It was directed by Michael Cacoyannis, serving as the first installment of his "Greek tragedy" trilogy, followed by The Trojan Women in 1971 and Iphigenia in 1977. The film starred Irene Papas in the lead role as Elektra and Giannis Fertis as Orestis.
Electra,Elektra, or The Electra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career. Jebb dates it between 420 BC and 414 BC.
Euripides' Electra is a play probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely before 413 BC. It is unclear whether it was first produced before or after Sophocles' version of the Electra story.
Clytemnestra, in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the half-sister of Helen of Troy. In Aeschylus' Oresteia, she murders Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess Cassandra, whom Agamemnon had taken as a war prize following the sack of Troy; however, in Homer's Odyssey, her role in Agamemnon's death is unclear and her character is significantly more subdued.
The Returns from Troy are the stories of how the Greek leaders returned after their victory in the Trojan War. Many Achaean heroes did not return to their homes, but died or founded colonies outside the Greek mainland. The most famous returns are those of Odysseus, whose wanderings are narrated in the Odyssey, and Agamemnon, whose murder at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra was portrayed in Greek tragedy.
Reflections of the Oresteia in the arts and popular culture show the influence of the classic trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus.
Electra is a two-act play written in 1937 by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux. It was the first Giraudoux play to employ the staging of Louis Jouvet. Based on the classic myth of antiquity, Electra has a surprisingly tragic force, without losing the spirit and sparkling humor that made Jean Giraudoux one of the most important playwrights of the mid twentieth century.
Clytemnestra, also known as Clytemnestra after the Murder, is an 1882 oil painting by John Collier. It has been held by the Guildhall Art Gallery, in the City of London, since 1893. A second version, c. 1914, is held by Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum.
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