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The Agamemnon of Aeschylus / Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes cover

The Agamemnon of Aeschylus / Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes

Chapter 4: AGAMEMNON
By Aeschylus
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About This Book

The drama depicts the homecoming of a victorious ruler whose past sacrifice of his child and acceptance of violent destiny provoke his wife's secret collusion with her husband's enemy, culminating in his murder. A chorus of elders frames the action with lyric odes that reflect religious ritual, fate, and the burden of inherited guilt. A prophetic woman recognizes the catastrophe but is cursed to be disbelieved, intensifying tragic inevitability. The piece explores cycles of vengeance and the moral ambiguity of retributive justice while balancing stark, archaic language and ritualistic spectacle with emerging psychological complexity in its principal figures.

AGAMEMNON

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

AGAMEMNON, son of Atreus and King of Argos and Mycenae; Commander-in-Chief of the Greek armies in the War against Troy.

CLYTEMNESTRA, daughter of Tyndareus, sister of Helen; wife to Agamemnon.

AIGISTHOS, son of Thyestes, cousin and blood-enemy to Agamemnon, lover to Clytemnestra.

CASSANDRA, daughter of Priam, King of Troy, a prophetess; now slave to Agamemnon.

A WATCHMAN.
A HERALD.
CHORUS of Argive Elders, faithful to AGAMEMNON.

CHARACTERS MENTIONED IN THE PLAY

MENELÂÜS, brother to Agamemnon, husband of Helen, and King of Sparta.
The two sons of Atreus are called the Atreidae.

HELEN, most beautiful of women; daughter of Tyndareus, wife to MENELÂÜS; beloved and carried off by Paris.

PARIS, son of Priam, King of Troy, lover of Helen.
Also called ALEXANDER.

PRIAM, the aged King of Troy.

The Greeks are also referred to as Achaians, Argives, Danaans; Troy is also called Ilion.

The play was produced in the archonship of Philocles (458 B.C.). The first prize was won by Aeschylus with the “Agamemnon”, “Libation-Bearers”, “Eumenides”, and the Satyr Play “Proteus”.