← Ascend - The Great Books Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript141 lines
- [00:00]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Today on Ascend, the Great Books Podcast, we continue our journey through the Oresteia with the second half of the first play, Agamemnon. We will look at the character Cassandra, who is probably one of the most beautiful, haunting characters in literature. We'll also look at Clytemnestra and have a few debates over how she sees herself and whether she sees herself as an agent of this primitive, ancient justice. And as always throughout the Oresteia, we are tracking the concept of justice and how Aeschylus presents it in different facets and what he's trying to teach us. So join us today for a conversation on the second half of Agamemnon.
- [00:53]
Dr. Grabowski
Welcome to Ascend at the Great Books Podcast. We're so glad that you have joined us. This is part two of Agamemnon. If you have not. If you're just now joining us, make sure to go back one episode as we go through basically half of Agamemnon. This is part two. We have Dean Harrison Garlic, Dr. Grabowski, Thomas Lackey with us again. Guys, I'm so thankful that you guys went ahead and wore the same outfit tonight as you did last week, so it kind of has some cohesiveness to the whole play. I'm grateful for you guys participating in that idea. That was very generously brought up by Deacon Garlic. So I appreciate you guys playing along there. Good to have you along, Deacon.
- [01:38]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, thank you. I'll take that as a good welcome. To my credit, I've worn the same outfit for every single podcast we have ever had. But so anyway, yes, we have Thomas Lackey, our independent scholar and friend of the podcast, along with Dr. Grabowski, back to discuss the second half of Agamemnon. I thought we had a really good discussion last week, and so I'm kind of excited to round this off and see where Aeschylus is taking the narrative. So one preliminary before we begin, because it's just a bad taste in my mouth and I found it somewhat ignoble, is I hadn't looked up how Aeschylus died. I knew he died in Sicily, but I didn't know, like, how he died. And there's this story that Aeschylus is bald, which is important for the story. And a eagle is flying over his head and it's holding a tortoise, and it drops a tortoise, and it hits him in the head and he dies. This is how the magnanimous man Aeschylus, who fought in the battle of Marathon and defeated the Persians, dies via tortoise. And I can't I can't believe it. I actually. I refuse to believe the narrative.
- [02:45]
Thomas Lackey
So I just laughed and thought this was a funny story for a while. And then all of a sudden it occurred to me that he got offed by Zeus. And then I was like, oh, now it makes sense. You know, it's like. But I think the secondary aspect, I guess everybody's a critic, right?
- [03:02]
Dean Harrison Garlic
It's death. Death via birds. Right? This is the first guy to die via bird sign. I think this is because, you know, we talked about last week that he had, like, a certain impiety about questioning Zeus and whether Zeus was actually a. A nameless force that was simply personified. And so, yeah, Zeus often.
- [03:18]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I mean, he's like, well, I'll tell you what my name is. And then.
- [03:23]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Here, have this tortoise.
- [03:26]
Thomas Lackey
Are there any gods associated with tortoises?
- [03:29]
Dr. Grabowski
All I know is, like, on the. In the history of, like, deaths, it goes like Arius. And then, like, Aeschylus has to be, like, the second most, like, embarrassing way to die.
- [03:42]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, I think it came up. I think. Well, just for the record, for those who also find it incredible, this story is basically. Everyone admits it was made up by some comedic Greek author that very much was trying to juxtapose Aeschylus's noble life with this, like, ignoble death. So if you don't believe it, that's fine. It's very credible to not believe it. So, anyway, that's my one point I wanted to share. Before we jump back into the text, let's look at back into Aghbidmon. We are halfway through. So we're spending two weeks studying Agavin Mon, the first play of the Oresteia. So let's pick up around line. 976. 976. So this kicks us off with a chorus. So let's take a little moment to remember where we are. So we had finally the advent, if you will, of Agamemnon into the play. We saw this back and forth with his wife Clytemnestra. We spent a good amount of time, last time talking about why she tries to tempt him and is successful to get him to walk on these tapestries back into the house. And we had this kind of, like, comedic moment when Agamemnon finally decides to get off the Chariot onto the tapestries. He's basically been pushed into this by his wife. She's playing the masculine role, he's playing the feminine role. But as he steps down, he reveals this beautiful woman behind him in the Chariot Cassandra, the princess of Troy. And we kind of imagine Clytemnestra trying desperately to hold her face together as she kind of realizes this. But this is where the narrative picks up, right? And we get into a chorus. And so the chorus, if you remember right, is the kind of old men of Argos. Argos, as they are kind of observing these things. It's kind of almost inept group of old men.
- [05:31]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I'd also wrote one quick staging thing. Remember that there are only normally two speaking roles, and Agamemnon and Clytemnestra have been talking for a very long time, so we know who those two were. So I just want to set the stage normally two, occasionally, rarely three. And that's going to be important in just a second. But just imagine you're the audience. You're used to only seeing two. And then, you know, and. And here we go, right?
- [06:01]
Dean Harrison Garlic
We get another. If we're tracking it right after line 1000, we get another reference to justice. So if you remember, as we work through the Orestaya, one of our main themes that we're looking at is the theme of justice. What is justice? And I think last time I talked about it, as. It's almost kind of like we're looking at a diamond. He's. He never gives us, at least now, the whole picture. We're kind of just looking at different facets of it and kind of seeing what are the pros and cons of those. We're very much tracking a very primitive justice, this kind of lex talionis, this law of revenge, an eye for an eye. And so he gets another reference to justice, around a thousand or so. So just to flag that, if we push on to another line that caught my attention, line, I don't know, 10, 16 or so, we've had a few biblical parallels that we looked at. I think Adam last week brought up, you know, can you draw out a parallel between Abraham and Isaac with Agamemnon and Ephigenia almost as a dark, twisted mirroring of that tale. I think the other one, too, that I've noted, and this is actually going to be a theme throughout the Urstai as a whole, is blood in the soil. Right. Blood that seeps into the earth. There's some wonderful lines on this. And so it's hard not to read these without also thinking of Cain and Abel, which is obviously a much older story, but also has that same kind of poetic description of the murder. And it's the blood that cries out so around like. I don't know, 10, 17 or so he says, but a man's lifeblood is dark and mortal. Once it wets the earth, what song can it sing back? Which is interesting because this is. It's the blood that actually cries out in the Cain and Abel narrative. So just as another theme or a kind of, maybe not a theme, but a reoccurring pattern is we're going to see blood in the earth several times in the Orestia. Any other thoughts on the. On that chorus before we push into Clive Himnestra and the leader?
- [07:57]
Thomas Lackey
Well, only that that's going to be a good passage to keep in mind when we get to Libation bearers. Because this idea of, of. Of blood trying, Trying to call the dead back.
- [08:09]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah. Somewhere in the Oresteia there's a really wonderful line about the blood clots in the earth. Like, so if the blood gets spilled in the earth in this kind of like murderous, ignoble way, right. This unjust way, then it clots and it won't actually, you know, find the peace that it needs. So this Cain and Abel. I just want to flag that because this Cain and Abel parallel will pop up several times throughout the entire narrative. All right, let's look at the next section. Why don't you lead us into this, Thomas? Because then we kind of get this, this moment at 1070 of Cassandra entering the narrative via a screen and I think on its face, right. So just as a kind of a. Almost a first time reader of the Oresteia, obviously, like I kind of found this to be an unsettling way that this enters, obviously just to have this woman scream. And then her statements are very hard at first to understand what she's talking about. So it's almost like she's immediately thrown into a screaming manic phase and what her role is here. But maybe taking a step back, can you help us understand from like the practicalities of the play how the scream would have affected the audience?
- [09:14]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I think that that's what everyone was heading towards before because you could have these non speaking parts, essentially extras. And even just before this, we had Clytemonestra trying to get her to speak. We had the chorus trying to get her to speak and she says absolutely nothing. So probably the audience is sitting here and thinking that she's not a speaking part. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere she lets out this, this piercing wail or scream. And it would, I think, have had something the effect of like a jump scare in a horror movie or something like that. Because you're just not expecting it. They're expecting her to be there, just not expecting her to talk. And all of a sudden, and she doesn't just talk, all of a sudden she lets out this, this, this piercing wail and I'm sure the audience just leapt up. In fact, we actually have some contemporary reports that the Oresteia was, you know, they. So, so the story goes anyway that, you know, people miss women miscarried in the audience and you know, people went mad and all these sorts of like over the top. Now I don't say it's necessarily associated with this moment, but so the story goes, the Oresteia was a. Was a greatly affecting play to see.
- [10:28]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Really that actually affected the audience to that degree that people.
- [10:32]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, so the stories go. I'd have to go back and find the references. Of course, when I say contemporary, they're probably actually not contemporary. They're probably several hundred years later. So, you know, the fame may have grown by that time. But again, so the story goes, this was just, just absolutely bowled people over, especially the side of the Furies. But we're not there yet.
- [10:52]
Dean Harrison Garlic
So Cassandra, I. Let's talk about her a little bit. I mean, I actually really liked this passage. I like this because I thought it was really creative. We find that basically Cassandra's trying to tell them what's happening in very poetic terms. If you remember, as Thomas last week explained to us, like the structure. So there's like the stage, but there is. What's the name of the house that's in the back, like the shed. They can go into the Skane and in this scene, the skene then is the house of Agamemnon, right. So Agamemnon's actually going inside the house. So I found this to be really interesting that the action then, right, the actual killing and intense, not the intense, the anticipation of ag men being killed. All, all of that, right, is off stage. That's in the house. We don't see it. But Cassandra, through this like gift of prophecy, is able to see what's going on and describes it in very poetic language. And I found Thomas, your practicalities of the play really helped me understand the dynamics of this because overall I found it a really interesting way for Aeschylus to present what is really the zenith, I think of the play, right, is the death of Agamemnon itself happens off stage.
- [12:03]
Thomas Lackey
But I think it's interesting too, just how effective and eerie it is, right. The fact that she's filling in, it could be done in a very ham handed way. And you just have someone come in and tell and say what's happening. The way Aeschylus handles it, where we already know. There's a dramatic irony here because we already know what's going to happen. But the way it's presented gives it an eeriness, a foreboding, and an intensity that is amazingly well done.
- [12:34]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah. So just for the example, right, the leader says this is a little after 1085, the House of Atreus and his sons. Really? Don't you know it's true? See for yourself. No, the house that. The house that hates God. An echoing womb of guilt. Kinsmen torturing kinsmen. Severed heads. Slaughterhouse of heroes. Soil streaming blood. So this is again, last week we talked about this kind of cascading curse of the house of Atreus going all the way back to Tantalus and what he did, and then Atreus and what he did, and then Agamemnon with Evigenia. And so she sees this house for what it is. It's very, it's very reminiscent. If you remember, what was the name of that prophet that Telemachus picks up right before he goes back to. Remember that guy, right before he goes back home, he randomly picks up that prophet. I think the whole rhetorical device of the prophet is that when he gets inside the house of Odysseus, remember there's a scene where he has to leave because all he can see is the slaughter and blood, like all the way up to the rafters. And he has to leave because it's so overwhelming to him. That's what I, I find that was what was coming to mind when I read this Cassandra passage, is that she, as the seer, the prophetess, can actually see the slaughter. Not only that's going to happen in the future, but she sees the curse that's been lingering there historically.
- [13:55]
Thomas Lackey
Well, it's probably worth mentioning again that Cassandra's curse here is such that her prophecies are always true, but her prophecies of the future are never believed. So the course trusts her. When she sees the past, when she tells them very explicitly what she's seeing about to happen, they, they, they, they can't. They can't believe it.
- [14:18]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah. Let's dig into her myth a little bit. Right? Because I. So let me tell you what I understand of it and if there's any corrections or additions. So she has this gift of prophecy. She has the gift of prophecy because when she was in Troy, presumably Apollo, right, she got the attention of Apollo and Apollo came down to have sex with her as the Olympian gods were. Want to do. But this is really interesting because we've talked about on the podcast before that the acts of the gods are always fecund. I think we talked about this when we talked about Hesiod's theogony. Right. That they. They always have these children, they have these offspring. Cassandra was actually mentioned on that podcast, or at least referenced, because she's one of the few narratives that I know this is not true. And so without going into all the explicit details, my understanding is that obviously Apollo was coupling with Cassandra and then she pulled away. And so there's no offspring from this act. All right. Which is very much an exemption or exception to what we normally see in the mythology. So what's interesting is that she still is. She's given the gift. I use gift there, oddly. But she's given the gift of prophecy from this act, but then also a curse, which is that she cannot be believed. And there's one more caveat on it, which I think we'll see in the text explicitly. But that's my understanding of kind of the hell that she's in, is that she can see all these things because of this backstory, but then no one believes her.
- [15:41]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I was just going to say that, you know, we also have to say that she's. She is sort of the victim here in multiple ways, because she is the. The. She was raped by Ajax in the temple of Athena. So part of the curse that's come on the house of Atreus, or part of the. Not on the house Atreus, but on the. On the returning victors from Troy, has it that they went too far and they committed sacrilegious and unjust acts. They killed Priam as he sought sanctuary in the temple. But here you have Cassandra, who was, in some sense or other promised to Apollo, raped in a temple, which is obviously an evil act now, compounding as a sacrilegious act. But also it was the temple of Athena, who is herself a virgin goddess. The levels of offenses just keep rising. And I think that it has to heighten the pity here. This because she's Prime's daughter. The city has fallen, she's now a captive. She's been assaulted. She is in every possible sense the most innocent of victims.
- [16:56]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Right. I mean, and that makes her another parallel to Ephedenia. Right?
- [17:01]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [17:03]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Like she's. She's the innocent victim that's brought into.
- [17:05]
Thomas Lackey
This and who's being destroyed to some extent through Agamemnon, even though it's not as Explicit here. I mean, it's not explicitly intentional on his part, but I think there's a sense in which Agamemnon is portrayed as the person who simply ruins and destroys everything that he touches.
- [17:25]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Correct. Yeah. This is another beautiful thing destroyed by him. Yeah. So if you jump in the narrative to the leader in Cassandra, if you jump all the way to 1215, this is. This is actually what I was thinking about when I talked about her backstory. She. She almost says this. I'm sure there are other ways to read this, but the reason I took her story to say this is the way it's translated into Fagles is, you know, she's saying that she had coupled with Apollo. And the leader says, you bore him a child. And she says, I yielded. Then at the climax, I recoiled. I deceived Apollo. Right. And so this is the. She actually deceives the God, which I took this to be very literal. Right. That she yielded to him, and then she basically draws away from him, and that it causes the act not to actually produce any offspring. It's hard to express how unique this is, I think, in Greek mythology. But then I think the reason I bring this back up is, one, because they give a little textual touch point on it. But two, I mentioned there was a caveat. And so my understanding of her caveat, and I think Fagles talks about this in his endnotes, is that, you know, it says, in Apollo's anger, never touched you. Is it possible? She says, well, once I betrayed him, I could never be believed. Right. Which is a curse. And then the leader says, oh, well, we believe you. Your vision seemed true to me. And in response to that, she screams again. And so Fagel's endnotes kind of unpacks this passage a little bit in which he says that the caveat to Cassandra's curse is that when she finally is believed, that will be the hour of her death. That finally, when the curse is lifted and she has the prophecy, she still has a gift of prophecy, but when she can be believed, then she knows that she's going to die. And so that's why she screams in response to the leader saying, we believe you. Your vision seems so true. Now, granted, I would. Some would argue here that even after this leader still doesn't quite understand what's going on, but just the fact he seems to say, your vision seemed true to us. She screams, knowing that her death is near. Well, I think a few lines after that is really interesting because I think this is our first. Is this our first really substantial Touch point with Aegistis because she says, for so much suffering, I tell you, someone plots revenge. A lion who lacks a lion's heart. He sprawled at home in the royal lair and set a trap for the lord on his return. And so I think this is our first real clear reference to, you know, Aegistus. Do we want to maybe just remind everyone where Aegistus fits in in the narrative?
- [20:18]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah. So Aegistis is Thyestes son. So Thyestes is Atreus brother, the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. And it's Atreus that killed Thyestes children and offered them as food. Which is this story that Cassandra is envisioning. She's seeing this, you know, before then Aegisthus. I think it's the reason that. I think this would be a good point to think as well, that he has some motive, not just for revenge, but for justice. Right. These are his brothers that were. That she sees. And I think that. I think this is one of the trickiest parts that we get in Aeschylus as we start to unwrap all this, that Clytemnestra has some, some motive that's, that's probably hateful and wrong, but some motive that could be understood as just that she is the, the. The redeemer avenging the murder of her child. Aegisthus winds up as the avenger of his. Of his. Of the crime against both his brothers and his father. And.
- [21:35]
Dean Harrison Garlic
No, I, I completely agree. I completely agree. I think that. I think this is really challenging to the narrative. We're going to see, obviously the name of this trilogy. We're going to see Orestes, you know, presented as this hero. I mean, think of it, think of the Odyssey. I mean, the whole Odyssey is like, Orestes is the hero. He avenged his father, you know, X, Y and Z. And I think you're absolutely correct, is that we have to ask ourselves, well, why, why is, you know, Aegistus not a hero? Why. Why is Clyte Fenestra not a hero? Because, you see, again, the problem that's being presented here is the cycle of violence. Lex tal. And so people have these wrongs that are done to a family member, and so they become the, the, you know, blood avenger and they go off to kill someone else. So here they're killing Agamemnon for, you know, say, just crimes, crimes on the house overall. But then they're seen as the bad guys. And so I think that there's, there's multiple layers here. One is, are their intents Actually, just. Right. Are they actually being true Blood Avengers? I think that would be a question I have. Right. Are they. Are there. Are their intentions actual? Just. And then two, if we're going to start having all these different Blood Avengers trying to kill different people of different families, I think this is actually the problem that Aeschylus is trying to draw out is, well, is there not a standard that can be appealed to? And I think this is. What's. This is why we're starting to really prime the pump on understanding justice outside this familial context of revenge. But there has to be some kind of standard that orders all of these things as a whole. I'm just kind of pushing into Cassandra's narrative. Around 1280, we actually see her ripping off her regalia, right? She's dressed like a priestess of Apollo, and so she actually rips off her regalia. And I mean, I really. I don't know, I really felt a lot of sympathy for Cassandra. I like Thomas, what you said, that she really is, in a lot of ways, the most innocent character I think, in this, outside of, you know, the side character of Ephigenia. But there are definitely parallels between them because, you know, when she starts realizing she's going to die, when she talks about that, she's finally free, right? She is finally free of this. She says, look for another victim. I am free at last. Make her rich and all your curse and doom. And she's staggering backwards as if wrestling with a spirit, tearing off her robes. So here she's. My understanding is she is freeing herself kind of from the curse of Apollo. And then around 1295, for a seer, he brings me here to die like this, not to serve at my father's altar. I mean, that is a strong Epigenia illusion, right? So Cassandra is brought here to die at the house of Atreus and not serving at her father's altar. And this is. I think there's a very strong parallel here to Evigenia being brought out of her house right away from where she should be to die for what seems to be an evil cause.
- [24:48]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I think there's an interesting comparison as well in that in some sense or other, even though she recoils from it, Cassandra says that she'll submit to death, and Iphigenia is she. Cassandra becomes the willing is by far too strong a word. But there's a sort of. There's a sort of divine resignation, if you will, in the sense that it's a little bit different than Iphigenia, who I think is truly uncomprehending of why this is being done to her.
- [25:20]
Dean Harrison Garlic
So the next thing that I would point to as we kind of are kind of moving along in this narrative is around 1300. So we've had the reference to Aegistus, and now I think we're getting our first real substantial reference to Orestes, I believe. And so she says, there will come another to avenge us. Born to kill his mother, Born his father's champion. There's a lot going on in this line. 1. I think it's interesting that it says avenge us. Usually when we talk about Orestes being the avenger, we talk about being an avenger of Agamemnon, his father, but she actually, Cassandra, includes herself in this, that this injustice done to her will actually be avenged. And then two, we're starting to see the tension that's going to happen with this primitive justice of blood avenger lex talionis, this familial level of justice, because here is a man who has to kill his own mother. Orestes, to avenge his father, will have to kill his mother. And you're gonna immediately see the problem this is gonna bring into it with the kind of Blood Avenger concept of justice.
- [26:37]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I think there's also a sense there where we're talking about going too far. If we were going to grant Clytemnestra some level of justice in her vengeance, why she should take it out on Cassandra is not obvious. I mean, if anything, she should see the same analogies we're seeing of the innocent victim caught up in Agamemnon's, you know, ruin and take pity. I think it connects to something we. We brought up in the first half, which is how much of Agamemnon is justice and how much is ambition. Right. Is he just seeking justice for Troy or is he also have the mixed motive of wanting be to the conqueror? And I guess we can have the same thing with Clytemnestra. How much is just the defense of her and revenge for her child? And how much does she actually, you know, does she enjoy being queen with Aegisthus as king and wish to maintain that?
- [27:44]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, I mean, similarly, one of the questions I had, and I'm not. I mean, I'll throw this out here because I'm not sure if it tracks the gender kind of roles that we've been discussing, but I really like this triumphant narrative that gets picked up by Cassandra that she's going to march into the house by herself. Right. She will willingly go into the house because she realizes it's her time to die. And one of the things that really caught my attention, so that's a little bit after 13:25, where she is going to go in to the house itself. You get a little side note in the play that that's occurring. But what's interesting to me, though, is down at 13:35, when she approaches the doors again crying out, she says, friends, I cried out not from fear like a bird fresh caught, but that you will testify to how I died. When the queen, woman for woman dies for me and a man falls for man who married grief. That's all I ask my friends. A stranger's gift for one about to die. I found this, like to go back, tethering it to all of our conversations about being spirited and a thumotic. So here is a woman who is going into a house that she knows she will die. And right before she goes in, she makes sure that she goes in bravely, right? Her spirit is set. And friends, testify to me, is this not a comment of glory? Right. Tell of my story, tell my narrative that I entered this house bravely.
- [29:21]
Clytemnestra
Well, there's certainly dignity to her death, unlike the death that Agamemnon is going to suffer, which is humiliating, Right? So I think. Yeah, I think I agree with you, Deacon. I think that she's at least embracing death in a dignified and honorable way, which again, lends credibility to her character and sympathy to her character.
- [29:50]
Thomas Lackey
Well, you know, I think there's something here that's respectable too, in a way that is sometimes lost, especially if you look at sort of Norse mythology and these other mythological elements where death is treated almost with contempt. This has an almost more Christian like view in which death is treated with a certain level of bravery and dignity, but is still something horrible and to be shunned. Right. She embraces it bravely. But there's a sense, I mean, I want to be careful in the analogies I make here, but there's a sense of where you could say her saying, you know, if this cup could pass from me, right? There's a sense in which she doesn't want to drink this cup, but she's going to because there's little bitty gain from flying.
- [30:37]
Dean Harrison Garlic
No, I agree. I think there's something here too. Like, you know, if we look forward to Plato in his Symposium, right? He'll talk about the dispirited, that thumotic very much seeks glory, honor, etc. But it's also because that glory and honor is a type of immortality. It's a type of infinite that the erotic appetite can actually satiate on. And so it's interesting here that, you know, we get in Cassandra. I really like what Dr. Krabowski said, a much more spirited and noble death, which is going to be juxtaposed to Agamemnon's very ignoble death. I think that Thomas, when we. When you helped us kind of go through the Odyssey at times, I think one of the things you pointed out is that Agamemnon's death really robs him of all of his glory, his chaos that he could have had. Right? He didn't finish the ark. Right. The hero wasn't able to return home, and so he dies an ignoble death. And I think it's really interesting that Aeschylus kind of inserts this character here to give us a noble death as a juxtaposition.
- [31:43]
Clytemnestra
We see the same thing in the Iliad, too, I think. Deacon, who is it? Lycaon, when fighting against Achilles, opens his arms wide. I think there's this gesture of acceptance. And though the other characters don't come to mind, I think. Isn't there someone fighting Diomedes saying something to the effect of, well, my father will offer you X number of goods in exchange for my life? Where clearly, Homer's point there is that there is a. A kind of honorable, willful acceptance of death, and then there's a cowardly way of trying to escape or avoid death that is ignoble. And I think that certainly Cassandra here belongs among those who understands what's about to happen and graciously accepts it.
- [32:46]
Dean Harrison Garlic
It's interesting, too, the Lycaon narrative, because if you paint it that way, he's basically a convert, right? Because he tries to beg for his life. And then Achilles gives one of the most famous passages in the entire Iliad in which basically there's this fraternity of man under the fate of death. Achilles has a hilarious line where he's like, look at me. Look how good I look. Look how amazing I am. I mean, it's literally what it says, right? Like, look how good I look. Look how amazing I am. Look how strong I am. I'm going to die. So who are you? Like, you're not going to escape death. And he gives this, like, really beautiful, slash haunting narrative of we're all going to die. It's about how you embrace it, and then we. And then, you know, Lycaon, I think, does well and embraces it. So, no, that's a great parallel to bring this text Because Cassandra, in a lot of ways, plays a hero role here in a certain way, I guess, like a tragic hero.
- [33:38]
Thomas Lackey
I mean, I think just to put a cap kind of on it, she has to be one of the great literary figures of all time. And she.
- [33:48]
Dean Harrison Garlic
You think so?
- [33:49]
Thomas Lackey
I think so, absolutely. I mean, I can say so even in sort of like, juxtaposed way. I was reading Watership down the other day to the kids, which is a story about rabbits, but it leads off with one of Cassandra's speeches as the very opening lines. I mean, there's this. It's a theme, this kind of terrible idea of being able to see what's coming and have no one believe you. It's a burden. It's really too much to bear. And yet she seems to bear it nobly.
- [34:25]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, let's look at the shift into the chorus. So she goes into the house and I think I have a note here in my text, but I think, Thomas, you already hit this, which is, by what right is Clytemnestra actually killing Cassandra? I guess my point here is, like, earlier we talked about the cycle of violence and that Clytemnestra might be able to make a right and claim a right to kill Agamemnon because he killed the daughter Ephigenia, right? Aegistus has a claim, theoretically, to kill Agamemnon because of the curse of Atreus, but she seems. Cassandra just seems to be murdered. There's no claim against Cassandra. There's no claim that Aegistus or Clytemnestra can make is there against Cassandra. So she really is like this just sacrificial character, again, very much like Evigenia.
- [35:22]
Clytemnestra
I think, Deacon, I think what's happening here is that, you know, Clyte of Nestra is operating with this ancient understanding or conception of justice. I don't want to necessarily say might makes right, but a bit later, she speaks of a masterpiece of justice, where it's the ends justify the means. So justice isn't the standard by which, as you mentioned earlier about this sort of. Aeschylus is working towards this more abstract understanding of justice as a standard that we apply to situation. And here Clytemnestra clearly understands justice not to be that standard by which she judges who is to live and who is to die, but by the mere fact that these people die, that renders her act just.
- [36:14]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, I think that's. I think that's true in a lot of ways. It just. Yeah, it just struck me as just, you know what? And also because I guess it goes into her intent. Like, to what degree is all of this a pretense? So we talk about. Because I don't. I don't read Phytomnestra as like a solid agent of this primitive justice that has, like, you know, this. This just intent. And the problem here is that the concept of justice is warped. I don't read her like that. I read her like there is an ancient understanding of justice with the Blood Avenger, and she's using that to her advantage to claim the kingdom for her own.
- [36:55]
Clytemnestra
So you don't think that she sincerely believes that she is justice made manifest?
- [37:03]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I. I guess, no, I don't. Well, I'm not sure how much I believe her just because of how she presents.
- [37:10]
Clytemnestra
Do you think that she's using this as an excuse or a ruse to justify her actions? Or does she truly believe that she is righteous in murdering her husband and Cassandra?
- [37:23]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, the problem is when you phrase it as. Does she truly believe that she is righteous in doing it? I think she does believe that she's correct in doing it. Okay. But I think that she has ulterior motives to do so.
- [37:38]
Clytemnestra
Two things can be true at once.
- [37:40]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, I think so. But I guess that's my point, is that the murder of Cassandra, to me, tends to bring that out. Because if it was just a strict. I'm an agent of justice, I don't see how she murders Cassandra.
- [37:52]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I think we'll see this contrasted with Orestes later. Right. That Orestes is not. Orestes does seem to be more concerned with justice and seems to recoil a little bit from what he believes justice demands, as opposed to. I think my comment would be, I think that she hates Agamemnon, which is not the same thing as justice. Right.
- [38:15]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I mean.
- [38:16]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah. And I think this is something Aeschylus is struggling with as well, that, you know, when we do try to be our own avenger, we often. When we feel that we've been wronged, we often strike back, not just at the person that hurt us, but at. We feel like we've been wronged by the world in some sense, and strike back at everyone, at any hand that reaches out. And I think you see something like that going on here too. And. But she feels justified in doing it. I have been wronged, and therefore I will wrong others. And that's just the way it's going to be.
- [38:50]
Clytemnestra
And this does. Thomas, you're right. And I think this goes back to the point that Deacon has made in the past about Clio Nestra operating with a lex talionis understanding of justice. I mean, she says very explicitly at one point later, we'll get to it. But in the Fagles translation, act for act, wound for wound. Basically you live by the sword and you consequently die by the sword. So it's very primitive. It's very primitive. And so I think that as we sort of step back, this is Aeschylus's opportunity to critique this lex talionis approach to justice.
- [39:29]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I agree, but I think if I was going to pivot off of your comments and Thomas's comments, I'd like to throw out the theory that she's actually in violation of lex talionis, that she's failed the primitive justice. Because I, for an eye, is a limiting principle. Right. So like.
- [39:45]
Clytemnestra
So she crosses that line when killing Cassandra.
- [39:48]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Correct. Because like, you think about what's the. What is the. What's. What's the old tale in the American south, like Kentucky, of the two families that hate each other.
- [39:58]
Clytemnestra
Oh, the Hatfield turquoise.
- [40:00]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, like that. The eye for an eye would end that. Right. But it's not eye for an eye. You kill the brother and they kill, you know, your family member and two more. Right. It always grows. So we critique eye for an eye for primitive justice, but the reason that it's not just sheer revenge, it's actually considered a form of justice is because it has a limiting principle on the revenge. Right. You can't go and kill the whole family. You actually only can kill something proportionate to what was taken from you. And so just I guess to give a defense of the primitive justice and why it's actually a form of justice is that limiting principle. And so I. I guess I'm flirting with the idea that the killing of Cassandra is a violation of lex talionis.
- [40:39]
Thomas Lackey
I think so. And I think this is something that Aeschylus worked in as a critique of Agamemnon's sacking of Troy as well. That again, it went too far, I think by comparison, I think he more he shows Orestes being more careful to go to the limits of justice and not beyond.
- [40:58]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I like that parallel. I like that a lot. Well, let's look, push into this, because the chorus. Then again, so we're at 1355. The chorus actually gives a little summary of Agamemnon. It's interesting how it contextualizes this. So it says this is at 1360. Take this man. The gods in glory gave him Priam City to plunder, Brought him home in splendor like a God. But now if he must Pay for the blood his father's shed. Okay, so that's one. He has to pay for the blood his father shed and die for the deaths he brought to pass. That's two. And notice that deaths there is plural, so it's not just Ephesinia. And I'm curious as to whether that's all the deaths at Troy or the deaths because of the curse of what happened in Athena's temple. But it's plural. I think that's interesting. And bring more death to avenge his dying. 3. So there's this threefold thing happening, and so two of them are reasons that he died the deaths, basically like his father, the deaths he caused. And then he's gonna cause more deaths because of the cycle of violence. And it's interesting then how it finishes and to avenge his dying. Show us one who boasts himself born free of the raging angel once he hears. So this is interesting because I read this raging Angel. I'm sure there's some interesting interpretations or different translations of that, right? This. This violent messenger who was born free of the cycle of violence, like who. Who amongst us is actually born free from this? So it's interesting that the primitive justice almost becomes a curse in and of itself.
- [42:42]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I think there's also a reference here that I'm looking. I'm struggling for the line, but I think there's a sense in which Clytemnestra doesn't look at herself as a Persona for. Of justice, but as the personification of the house of. Of the curse on the house of Atreus, that she's in some sense opened herself up to become the curse. And I think this idea of the vengeance avenging a raging angel, this you demon who are falling on the house, as the chorus calls her, I think she's open to that as her role.
- [43:16]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, very good. Yeah, it's just. It's a really robust passage right there that tries the map, all the different deaths that are happening. And so again, there's this critique of the primitive justice, which I think Aeschylus is very much trying to show us the problem of lex talionis. So let's push on into Agamemnon showing up, which I. He's. This is. It's. I mean, Agamemnon can't even die without a somewhat comedic kind of like, underpinning to this, because he's, like, getting stabbed and giving commentary as he stabbed. I don't know if anyone else found it to be an odd.
- [43:53]
Dr. Grabowski
This is hilarious. This is like one of the most. This is like the funniest part, I think, of this whole play is like getting him getting stabbed and giving a play by play commentary of him being stabbed.
- [44:04]
Thomas Lackey
Or do remember, to his credit, he's in the skein A. We can't see in the skein A.
- [44:11]
Dr. Grabowski
That's fair. That's fair. I do. Like, my imagination was like, trying to figure out, like, obviously Agamemnon is a big man, right? I mean, he's like, he's a war. Like, he's a man of war. Big man. So. And Clonestra, like, I'm assuming, is not, you know, not a big woman. Huh?
- [44:36]
Dean Harrison Garlic
So she's like a man.
- [44:37]
Dr. Grabowski
Well, yeah.
- [44:40]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I mean, there's a. I mean, Clytemnestra might look like a linebacker.
- [44:45]
Dr. Grabowski
She. She may look like a linebacker.
- [44:47]
Thomas Lackey
Sister, let's give her. Let's just throw this out.
- [44:53]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I mean, Agamemnon wasn't too fond of her, you know, looks, build and breeding in the Iliad, but your point's taken. I'm just being difficult.
- [45:02]
Clytemnestra
No, we also don't know where Aegisthus is in all of this. He may be assisting.
- [45:09]
Thomas Lackey
Well, it is worth pointing out that in most of the stories, Odyssey included, Aegisthus is put as the main murderer. And the chorus almost assumes this too. They say, what man is going to bring this all about? And Cassandra says, your lines are running far from the visions I'm seeing, or something like that. So again, I jumped backwards a little bit. So even the implication is, well, what man is going to kill Agamemnon? And they're like, not a man. Aeschylus has, you know, set up a different stage.
- [45:40]
Dean Harrison Garlic
So the way I took this, or at least the image that's in my head, is that he's gotten into like the bath and he's going to take his bath and she has basically tied him with these robes, right? These robes become like a net. There's a lot of hunting themes that come in here and metaphors, right, where he's basically tied up. And so I kind of had this picture in my head and maybe this is wrong. Correct me where Agamemnon is basically all wrapped up and can't. Like he's been twisted in these, in these robes and he can't do anything. And he's just literally sitting there getting stabbed by his wife while he's presumably naked from the bat. I mean, it's incredibly ignoble death and he just gets stabbed there. And yes, the crying out, while I understand is practical because of the skein, it does make an awkward death Like I said earlier, he can't even die without there being a somewhat comedic layer to this.
- [46:32]
Thomas Lackey
Well, and I will say that because I don't know if we brought this up, but there's a backstory to these robes as well. Just like she took this elaborate care in or in doing these tapestries, these robes that he would be putting on and gets tangled in don't have a head. So he like, basically tosses them on and he can't get his. Can't seem to find, you know, the, the head and arm and holes and stuff like that. Right. So, yeah, so that there's a. She's. She's planned this in minute detail. And I guess my follow up question, though, is if she planned it in minute detail, did she then get excited and like, miss with the first blow, or did she intentionally make sure that he. That it takes more than one hit?
- [47:14]
Dean Harrison Garlic
How do you know the thing about the rope not having the head? I mean, because that's, that's so terrible. Because now it's like a. It's like when my 3 year old struggles to put on his shirt and there's just like an embarrassing moment of, you know, humanity. And now that makes it even worse. Ah, poor Agamemnon.
- [47:31]
Dr. Grabowski
No, I mean, so like, thanks to God, I've never seen somebody die, like in battle or anything like that. But my understanding, based off of the movies and you know, the documentary that we watch for the Iliad, is that, like, when somebody has a death blow, they don't get a chance to, like, sit there. And if they take a death blow, they don't get a chance to commentate on it. They're dying.
- [47:57]
Thomas Lackey
The darkness fails their eyes.
- [48:00]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Right. I want to point out loosed his limbs. I do want to point out though, that Hector got like, cut through the throat, but somehow could give a monologue at the end. Remember when Homer makes this, like, line like, oh, and it sliced his neck, but his windpipe was okay. And then like, he. Hector's like, able to give this giant monologue. Now, granted, Hetrick's monologue was a lot better than Agmedmon's, but there is a parallel there.
- [48:22]
Thomas Lackey
You know, I always wonder if this is like the second time Homer's retelling this part of the story, because the first time he told that somebody's like, how do you talk without a wind, without a neck? And you know, they're like, like, he got his neck, but his windpipe was fine.
- [48:41]
Dr. Grabowski
What are your thoughts on this? Like, what's happening here?
- [48:43]
Clytemnestra
Are you asking Me?
- [48:45]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yes.
- [48:45]
Dr. Grabowski
Yeah. Well, I'm assuming your name is still Dr. Grabowski.
- [48:48]
Clytemnestra
Well, I didn't. I didn't hear. Oh, no, I think. Look, I think this is all done for dramatic effect. Obviously, Agamemnon has to announce, albeit awkwardly, that he is being murdered, because, as Thomas noted, he's in the Skaene. And so there has to be at least some way of letting the audience know what's happening. And then, of course, we have to give the chorus an opportunity to respond. And so I think this is all just being done for dramatic effect. And so the language of it being a death blow or a deadly blow is simply. It's not just a flesh wound, as they would say.
- [49:28]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Right.
- [49:29]
Clytemnestra
This is something that is quite, quite fatal. But no, I. Yeah, I didn't read too much into this or, you know, nor was I sort of questioning what was happening here. But I mean, this. We've been. We've been fooled in the past because Clytemnestra more than once goes into the house, and every time she exits, we expect Agamemnon to be dead. And yet he hasn't died yet. And so this is, I think, a bit of a surprise given so many, I don't know what you call them, like false starts or, you know, missed opportunities to announce the death.
- [50:12]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I mean, the thing that got my attention, if we push forward a little bit, is then just how over the top, inept the chorus is, right? These elderly men of Argos, which is incredibly, again, strong parallels to Mentor and the older men of Ithaca, who just simply failed to keep order in Odysseus's absence. Because, I mean, you even have this thing where the chorus fractures, right? The chorus doesn't speak as one. They fracture. It's like, we should all do something. Who's gonna help? Who's gonna do something? And guess what? They don't do anything, right? There is no hero. They don't try and help their king. They just watch him be murdered.
- [50:53]
Thomas Lackey
There's one line here that's interesting where one of the. In the courses, I'm at a loss for words to resurrect the dead. I think that's also going to be an interesting one when we get to libation bearers. But, yeah, I mean, I wonder if this is an innovation, by the way, because the course doesn't normally fracture like this. In tragedy, at least what we know of Greek tragedy, the course speaks as one. So to have it break down into these individual parts, I wonder if that was unusual.
- [51:24]
Dean Harrison Garlic
It serves, like a wonderful effect, though, right? I mean, it's just a. It really shows that these men are basically effeminate and they can't do what needs to be done. And I think it's actually part of the gender roles in swapping that Aeschylus likes to play with.
- [51:41]
Thomas Lackey
Well, if we wanted to put another layer on it, and we assume that Agamemnon is overreacting at first, which I'm not saying he is, there would be at least opening the possibility that the chorus could have saved them if they weren't so inept. Between blow one, where he's hit, and blow three, where he's actually killed. I mean, I'm just bringing that up as a possibility, as a dramatic possibility.
- [52:10]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, let's. Let's push forward into this kind of big reveal, right? If I read this correctly. So he rushes at the doors, they open and reveal a silver cauldron that holds the body of Agamemon shrouded in bloody robes, and the body of Cassandra to his left, and Clytemnestra stating to his right, sword in hand, she strives towards the chorus. So, to your point, Thomas, I just want to make sure that this was illuminated for the folks at home. Is that in the Odyssey, it is very much Aegistus who murdered Agamemnon, and that's who Orestes has to go and, you know, have this kind of revenge on here. It's very much Clytemnestrate, right. In very dramatic fashion. And that's a shift. We should note that as a shift for Aeschylus. So, you know, just a few things that caught my attention. 14:10. So he goes down and the life is bursting out of him. Great sprays of blood in the murderous shower Wounds me, dyes me black and I revel like the earth when the spring rains come down. So outside of just being politically, I think, beautiful slash haunting, I think, too, you're. I'm flagging it for that theme we're looking at of the blood and the earth, right? And here she actually revels in the blood kind of going into the earth like rain. I mean, you kind of imagine, like, what if Cain had said something like this, right? He just reveled in the blood of his brother soaking into the earth.
- [53:54]
Thomas Lackey
I mean, this also has a resonance to the birth of the Furies themselves.
- [53:59]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, I think she's. I think. Well, I think we're gonna see at times that Clytemnestra serves as an analog to the Furies. And I think that she, you know, we've said several times, does she see herself as an Avenger? Does she see herself as an age of justice? I think in a lot of ways, then she is presented as an analog to the Furies. And so just to parse that out real fast, because I don't think we've explained that the Furies, then are the divine force, the immortal force that basically enacts lex talionis. So if you imagine, like, there's someone analogous to Zeus and guest friendship. So if someone violates guest friendship, Zeus then kind of haunts them and punishes them. The Furies are like that, but with blood relations, right? So if someone murders your brother and you're then the Blood Avenger and you don't go do this like they're going to haunt you, right? So they kind of have this insatiable appetite for this cycle of violence being fed. And so if you decide to go against it, right, then they. They haunt you until you actually complete your role. Or if you're the one that does the murdering, they haunt you until you're finally brought to this primitive justice. And so they're. This. The Furies are these almost Gorgon, like. Like Medusa like creatures that basically enforce this cycle of violence. I think Clytemnestra sees herself in a certain way as analogous to them.
- [55:28]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I think one important point to bring out of that is that unlike Orestes, she doesn't. There's no evidence. She's actually hounded by them. She seems more like Agamemnon, where he puts on necessity's yoke. She takes up this mantle of the Furies, and I think. I forget which play it is, but at one point the Furies are sleeping and she sort of says, why are you sleeping? She is the antagonist trying to drive the Furies on to justice, right? So she, She's. She's. She styles herself as a Fury, but she's sort of taking the mantle onto herself.
- [56:02]
Dean Harrison Garlic
No, I like that. Yeah, I think that's gonna be at the beginning of the Libation bears. That's a good. That's a good flag. So we see Clytemnestra, the leader of the chorus, right? They're having this dialogue again. A lot of this I took, as you know, this is like 1425 going down the 1440. A lot of this, again, is the ineptitude of the chorus, right? They try and banish her from the city and she just kind of laughs it off. Like, you can't do anything to me. You're not going to do this. But it does lead, I think, into an interesting conversation. Because when they try and banish her from the city, right, we get an explicit reference to Ephigenia. So this is a little after 1440. She says that he sacrificed his own child, our daughter. The agony I labored into love to charm away the savage winds of Thrace. Didn't the law demand you banish him? I mean, this is actually. I mean, this is a good point raised by her, right? Like Agamemnon killed his daughter and you guys treat him like a king returning home. Why didn't you banish him? Where was the justice against Agamemnon? And she's using this as coverage for her own actions and a justification. Yeah, so actually, Thomas, to our point there, if you follow that down to 1455, the chorus actually starts to equate her with a fury itself, right? Mad with ambition, shrilling pride. Some fury crazed with the carnage rages through your brain. I can see the flecks of blood inflamed your eyes, right? So she becomes the Furies incarnate, right? She's actually enacted out, assuming in this context that the Furies would have gone after Agamemnon because of the sacrifice of Evigenia. Clytemnestra then becomes the hammer, right? She becomes the tool that enacts this primitive justice upon Agamemnon. I don't think her intent is pure, but I think she's presented in that light. If you look at 1530, Clytemnestra says, you claim the work is all mine. Call me Agmedmon's wife. You are so wrong. Fleshed in the wife of this dead man. The spirit lives within me. Our savage ancient spirit of revenge. So again, again, she. At the end of the play here, she's taking on this mantle of being one of the Furies, right? She is the avenger as part of this cycle of violence. And I think there's a. There's another femininity thing going on here, right? Because the Furies are all female. And so Clytemnestra takes on on this mantle disguise.
- [58:42]
Clytemnestra
Too, Deacon, because the phrase that's translated by Fagles as the savage ancient spirit of revenge is one of the names given to Zeus. Zeus the savior. Zeus Alastor. And so it's as though Clytemnestra is identifying herself, at least this is how I read it, is identifying herself as either an agent of Zeus or as embodying Zeus. So there's. There are more than. There are more than one. There's more than one passage where it's either Clytemnestra or a justice, basically saying, look, I am the justice. I am the righteous. I am the agent that brings about decay. So I think, Thomas, you were about.
- [59:37]
Dean Harrison Garlic
You were.
- [59:38]
Clytemnestra
You wanted to say something.
- [59:39]
Thomas Lackey
Oh, no, I just say. I think that. I mean, it's very interesting that she. There's a kind of dissociation here, which she says that she's taking on the semblance of the dead man's wife. Right. She's definitely saying that she's doing this and that I only look like Clytemnestra at this point. And now you could argue whether or not this is madness or whether it's actually representing some sort of actual possession within the context of the play.
- [60:05]
Clytemnestra
But in doing so, she's completely denying culpability.
- [60:11]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I think it's also interesting that what she said, that. That what she's doing here is. Is re. Is vengeance for upon Atreus. Again, this idea of the sins of the father being visited. So at this moment, previously she said, this is justice for my daughter. Now she's saying I am just the spirit of vengeance, avenging the Atreus, the cruel banqueter. Right. So we've now, like, abstracted it a.
- [60:38]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Step, but she returns back to Ephigenia. Right. It's interesting. So she's. She's trying to give these justifications for her actions. And so at 15:51. Right. She says, no slave's death. I think no stealthier than the death he dealt our house and our offspring of our loins. Epigenia, girl of tears, act for act, wound for wound. Never exult in Hades, Swordmen, there you are repaid. So here she's giving all these justifications for why she had a right to be this embodiment of fury upon Agamemnon. And by the way, this narrative really does not play into Homer. I mean, basically, in Homer, if I recall correctly, throughout the Odyssey, you know, Aegistus basically coveted the throne of Argos, and he was an adulterer with Clytemnestra, and he kills Agamemnon when he comes home to retake, to take the kingdom. There's really nothing in there about Thyestes or Tantalus, you know, or that, you know, this is some kind of revenge for Ephigenia. I mean, it makes sense, it's implied, but Homer really doesn't play off this. Aeschylus gives a lot more layer. Layers to this narrative.
- [61:52]
Clytemnestra
Yeah, I think. I think that's really interesting, Deacon. And so I.
- [61:55]
Dean Harrison Garlic
He.
- [61:56]
Clytemnestra
He does exploit this more robust account of Agamemnon's death to draw out the meaning, the underlying meaning, or at least what he's trying to express about justice. So, you know, I always thought it was an interesting question.
- [62:13]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, why?
- [62:13]
Clytemnestra
Why did he choose Agamemnon as a subject matter? And I think this really does lend itself well to expanding upon, or at least reflecting upon, the nature of justice.
- [62:25]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Let's look at the chorus there, because I think this is really telling, right? The chorus responds, the mind reels. Where to turn. All plans dashed, All I hope I cannot think. The roofs are toppling. I dread the drumbeat thunder. The heavy rains of blood will crush the house. The first light rains are over. Justice brings new acts of agony. Yes, on the new grindstones, fate is grinding sharp the sword of justice.
- [62:59]
Thomas Lackey
That's a beautiful line.
- [63:02]
Dean Harrison Garlic
It's a very beautiful line. And what I take it as is, you know, this is still somewhat of a suffering under this primitive cycle of violence, right? So in this case, you know, justice brings new acts of agony. And then these acts of agony are going into return cause new acts of agony. On the new grindstone, fate is grinding the sharp sword of justice. So again, Orestes is going to come and avenge, but because of that, there's going to be more violence.
- [63:31]
Thomas Lackey
This is such a strange line that follows. It's strangely touching at the same time where she says, iphigenia shall welcome him, daughter meeting father, as she should at the swift fairy crossing of sorrow, to throw her two arms round and kiss him. It's a very strange turn for Clytemnestor all of a sudden. And I don't know if she means it. I don't know. I honestly can't follow exactly her turn here. I think there's a strong hint that she's mad, right? She's veering between all of these emotions and actions of justice, fury.
- [64:10]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, it's interesting. It almost says something about Ephigenia's character, right? She still tends to be this pure character that she herself, even after being murdered and sacrificed, she's going to welcome Agamemon and show him affection. I know I'm kind of spitballing here, but if she's going to play that, we've talked about her as the pure character throughout this thing. As a parallel to Cassandra, Clytemnestra is literally the opposite of that. And so it's interesting that she's like. Clytemnestra is like, this house will not mourn for him, but even Iphigenia, the actual victim in Hades, you know, she will embrace him And I wonder if that's just a contrast of pure and impure.
- [64:50]
Thomas Lackey
No, I think that's a great. A great read of it. I think that that's. I think that's the strongest contrast possible, really.
- [64:59]
Dean Harrison Garlic
And I wonder if anyone picks up that narrative, Right, because we don't have that narrative. We don't have that reunion in Hades, in the Odyssey, in either place. And I wonder if that. I'm not familiar with that getting picked up anywhere, but I know Epigen is a subject of a lot of other plays and writings, which at first I was wondering why. And now the more you get into that narrative, the more she's just a groundswell of all these really fascinating concepts. Let's look at another. Right after that, the chorus responds. And let's look at this because I think that once again, we're getting more commentaries on justice. It says each charge meets countercharge. None can judge between them. Justice, the plunderer plundered. The killer pays the price. The truth still holds, while Zeus still holds the throne. The one who acts must suffer. That is the law.
- [65:51]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I love the second line there. Just as a. In the context of this whole trilogy, these are issues hard to decide, right? I mean, it's a sort of masterful understatement of the. Of the problem that Aeschylus has laid out.
- [66:06]
Dean Harrison Garlic
But that's the whole problem, right? They don't have a third. They don't have a principle of justice to appeal to. That's the whole problem, right? So they, they, they. The cycle goes. This is the problem of the end of the Odyssey all over again, right? There's no philosophical determination of who is actually just. And whether Odysseus acted proportionately towards the suitors.
- [66:25]
Thomas Lackey
Because the problem like that Clytemnestra is addressing in one weirdo, right? What's happened here is that the. They're. So they've said this is a hard problem, and their solution was to ignore it. Now, Clytemnestra's solution was murder, which I think Aeschylus is rightly maybe complaining about here. But the point is that chorus's problem was, boy, this is a toughie. And to throw up their hands. I think this is, you know, this is a story retold in Hamlet too, right.
- [66:56]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I would push back.
- [66:57]
Clytemnestra
Just push back briefly, Thomas. I don't know if the chorus necessarily throwing up their hands or feigning impotence. I get this, the feeling that the chorus has a kind of faith that justice will win out in the end, even though they may not necessarily know how that's going to happen. So there may be a. I guess to some extent there may be that they're approaching the matter rather passively and that Clytemnestra is taking a more hands on approach to.
- [67:39]
Thomas Lackey
Maybe I'm reading Hamlet back into it. Is my problem that, you know, I see this idea?
- [67:45]
Clytemnestra
Yeah, I mean, you might. You make a good point, though.
- [67:49]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, let's push forward into this kind of last section, which is the entrance of a Justice. And this happens at 1605. So 1605, so justice enters the narrative. Again, I found this to be very underwhelming for all the reasons that I think we've already mentioned, is that very much in the play, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the one who maneuvers like a man, is definitely she's the brains. Not only is she the brains, but also she's the brawn. I mean, she really is this character that just seems to just kind of waddle up afterwards and kind of just take some level of credit. Again, there's a lot of juxtapositions here between this and the homeric retelling on 1610. I'm assuming this is intentional. He says, it feasts my eyes. He pays for the plot, his father's hand contrived, right? And then it goes, atreus, this father, this man's father was king of Argos. And he talks about the story of Theestes and the feeding of the children of Theestes. And so the feasting of the eyes there. Right, Is a pun based off the feast of Thyestes. And so I found that just kind of interesting as he kind of introduced himself that we're immediately into this narrative. You also get an appeal to guest friendship at 1620. He talks about Thyestes, Theestes, you know, being the godless, or he was a guest, this man's godless father of Atreus. So, you know, he tells basically the whole narrative here, which we've already gone over. There is then another appeal to justice, which, as we're kind of flagging these as we go through the text, I mean, this is at 16:35. So you see him down and I, the weaver of justice, plotted out the kill. Atreus drove us into exile, my struggling father and I, a babe in arms, his last son. But I became a man and justice brought me home. So there's a few things here. One, again, he sees himself as the agent of justice under this kind of blood avenger model. Two, again, what parallels or lines or distinctions do we draw between Orestes and Aegistus. So Orestes is the hero who's going to go kill Clytemnestra and Aegistus for murdering his father. But Aegisthus sees himself as a hero for finally killing Agamemnon for all the faults that were done to his father and to his siblings.
- [70:26]
Clytemnestra
And to follow up, Deacon, again, just briefly point out that line, I, the weaver of justice, plotted out to kill. I was curious, so I checked the Greek, and the word that's being translated as justice is de chaos, and it's in the nominative case, which means it's the subject. So he's not saying that justice is using him. He is saying I am the weaver of justice, that I am justice. And so, once again, we have this identification, as we've seen before with Clytemnestra, that they are, in a sense, taking on the role of justice itself, and that they render that their actions are rendered just by virtue of their being rendered right. So it's not something that's independent that's driving them. They are the embodiment of the personification.
- [71:27]
Dean Harrison Garlic
What degree do you think, playing off of that, Dr. Krabowski? Do we really see him as the weaver?
- [71:33]
Thomas Lackey
No, I don't.
- [71:34]
Clytemnestra
Yeah, I don't think that he is right.
- [71:37]
Dean Harrison Garlic
I mean, he doesn't seem to have done anything. And even. Even the role he says he. He did, the weaver strikes me as the feminine role. He's the one sitting there conniving and being deceitful while Clytemnestra carried out the brutality of the kill. But the irony here. Maybe it's not an irony, but the, The. The thing, the juxtaposition here seems to be that Aegistus seemed to not do anything, or at least he's not a major player.
- [72:03]
Clytemnestra
I agree. My brief response would simply be that, and this may be a naive reading, but that he's justifying to himself, that he is saying these words that I am the weaver of justice. But that is merely to convince himself and to justify himself in the eyes of the chorus or in the eyes of the audience that what I have done is just because I am justice. So how could it be otherwise? To respond to your point, he's not. He's done nothing to earn this title.
- [72:35]
Thomas Lackey
Thomas, What I'm thinking is. Oh, no, not at all. What I was thinking is Aeschylus is kind of inviting us also to start questioning what's happening. I think the narrative, as one just tells the backstory here of what's been done to Aegisthus brothers. The effect is that we say something ought to be done about this. But I think one of the questions is Aegistis is not revenging himself on Atreus right, the way that Orestes eventually does avenge against Clytemnestra and Aegisthus directly, but he's taking a sense of inherited and collective guilt that wrong was done to my family and therefore I will visit wrong on Agamemnon. Now, for all Agamemnon's faults, he didn't do what Atreus did.
- [73:36]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, it's just an interesting comparison. To me, it just really is. It's one that I think Aeschylus is inviting us to make. And even if you look on it, 1670, a little bit before that, I mean, he says the treachery was the woman's work. Clearly I was a marked man, his enemy for ages. Which again, I mean, that's not really true. I don't think you did either, any part. Right. It doesn't seem like you played much of the man's part either. So the reason I'm kind of harping on this is because when we get to the end of this play, which is basically Aegistus and the chorus finally decides to do something, they take up Styx and they're going to beat him. I find this to be just like two almost inept, embarrassing characters trying to have conflict with one another. And Clytemnestra, who is the real mover of all of this, basically just comes in and says, stop. And they both stop, almost like children. And then she just takes them into the house to rule. I mean, I don't know how did anyone else on like the ending of this and this kind of how this conflict is resolved.
- [74:47]
Clytemnestra
I would like to hear though, your thoughts, Deacon, on the subsequent line, I will use his riches stop at nothing to civilize his people. And I don't know what that says in the Greek, but I mean, this is a. I think one could read this, that where he's actually being generous or that he's being somewhat somehow altruistic to civilize. To civilize his people. Does justice actually think that what has. That this is not just simply enacting revenge upon Agamemnon, but that somehow this is good for Argos?
- [75:26]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Well, it seems to me if I was going to try and like, support that, I would say, you know, does a. Justice not to see himself as the blood avenger, but also the lifter of the curse. The cursed. The curse has finally been lifted. And so this is going to be a new House of Atreus. It's not a House of Atreus anymore. It's a house of what thyestes. And the people now will be better civilized because they're not being led by these cursed leaders. I mean, I don't know. That's my. Yeah, a quick take on how to read that. You know, does this have. Maybe it goes back to your comment earlier about the empty throne. The people have been suffering and so now the throne's not empty anymore. We have a justice on it. And so this is going to have, you know, he's going to reorder society now. It's. We're not being led by those, you know, human feeding, you know, monsters anymore. Any other comments here as we kind of wrap up Agamemnon? I mean, what a wonderful play. I mean, I have a Deeply appreciated reading it with you guys. This is really only my second read through. I read through it very quickly in A Year of Homer to get some context and I. These have really blossomed and I've appreciated everyone's comments as we kind of wrap it up. Any other final thoughts here at the end?
- [76:50]
Clytemnestra
Well, I like the ambiguous ending where the leader in response to everything that has been said by both Clyde Monestra and the justice it says. And this is around line, I guess would be 1703. Gorge yourself to bursting soil justice while you can. So I think that this is the perfect setup for the subsequent two plays which will then re engage this question about, well, what exactly is justice? Is this justice? Can civilization move forward with this? Rather again, we've used the word before, but primitive and ancient conception of justice where you just simply murder somebody and claim to have done so under the guise of justice. Or is there, as you said before, Deacon, some sort of objective standard, something that we can appeal to, say maybe a form of justice that will regulate our decisions?
- [77:52]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, I think I very much. And I hope everyone is, you know, for those at home as we kind of follow along through this, because I think the first time I read Agamemnon, I read it very flatly. I didn't really understand why are we making such a big deal about these little comments about justice. It wasn't until I had read the whole Oresteia that I really saw where Aeschylus was trying to take us. Right, Aeschylus the teacher. And so as we've kind of worked through it, I hope people come to appreciate why we flag certain provisions, because these are very much going to mature as we move into libation bearers and then There's a really strict. Not strict, but really clear pivot when you get to Eumenides, the third play, where you kind of shift from these narratives that we have, these particulars of the House of Atreus that we're very much familiar with through Homer, to the third play being almost a invention of Aeschylus that moves from the particulars of this certain house to really the universals of who are we as men of Athens? And I deeply appreciate, I think, where Aeschylus takes this overall trilogy.
- [79:01]
Thomas Lackey
I think one just sort of comment I'd make because Dr. Bauski brought up Macbeth. I mentioned Hamlet before. I think Shakespeare drew a lot from here, if you can. Also Titus Andronicus draws from this. So it's one of just how rich it is in terms of themes that even with all of those plays, they don't even exhaust all that Aeschylus is wrestling with. And we're talking about, you know, stretching on thousands of years into the future, people still wrestling with the same. Not, not just the same problem, but the same characters, in a sense, being put in new settings.
- [79:42]
Clytemnestra
And it reflects, too, upon the culture at the time, because this could never have come about. These works could never have been created in a stale or, you know, emaciated, desiccated culture. These plays would have been performed not long after the reinstatement of democracy in Athens. So these were questions, issues that were being no doubt discussed, debated outside of the Oresteia, but the Oresteia really does, I think, crystallize this question of justice as well as one could.
- [80:19]
Dean Harrison Garlic
Yeah, very good. I'm very much enjoying it and very much looking forward to reading the Libation Bearers over the next two weeks with you guys.
- [80:27]
Dr. Grabowski
Looking forward to it. This has been Ascend, the Great Books podcast. We'll see you guys next.