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Courtney Williams
Andrew Vorder Bruegge
Theatre History and Literature I
September 29, 2011
The Case for Clytemnestra
We are here today because the great queen Clytemnestra is on trial for the murder of her husband, the king Agamemnon. Clytemnestra killed her husband. There is not a doubt in anyone's mind about that fact. However, I must urge everyone to stop and think before they make too rash a judgment about the queen. Do not condemn her before understanding the full story. Though Clytemnestra did kill her husband, it was not simply cold-blooded murder. It was an act of tyrannicide, and death to a tyrant is to be applauded. We must understand the context of ancient Athens. I am here to speak in defense of the queen Clytemnestra.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have already heard what the prosecution has had to say. According the them, what happened in the house of Atreus is nothing more than premeditative murder most foul. Agamemnon, back from ten years of war over Helen of Troy, comes back expecting to be welcomed home by the warm and open arms of a loving wife. She bids him enter the house, walking along a purple plush carpet as a great conqueror should. He takes a bath to wash away the blood, dirt, and grime of ten long years of fighting, when suddenly, Clytemnestra "flung a robe of mesh around his body, wound and bound him in a tangle of folds and pushed him backwards. Helpless he fell into the bath. And there... she drove her sword through him. Three times" (Aeschylus 179). So ends the great king Agamemnon.
According to the prosecution, Clytemnestra plotted and schemed for the end of
Agamemnon for years with her lover Aegisthus, merely to gain the power of the throne. They

Williams 2 are content to end the story there and to condemn Clytemnestra as a murderess. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you were to stop the story right there, you would not get the big picture.
It is the same thing as looking at only a single tree when there is an entire forest right in front of you. I must urge you to continue listening; keep your mind open and ready, because there is so much you do not know about this great queen.
Let me remind you that Clytemnestra was not the first person to kill in this marriage.
Agamemnon committed murder. The king of the house of Atreus murdered Iphigenia, the daughter of himself and Clytemnestra. She was beheaded by her father to appease the gods so they would send strong winds to fill the sails of the thousand war ships bound for Troy. "He murders his own daughter, Iphigenia. Then orders the public sacrifice of this girl" (Aeschylus
15). Before their unhappy reunion, the last time Clytemnestra saw her husband was when she
"wept [herself] blind [and] he closed his eyes" and murdered their daughter (Aeschylus 77). For ten years, any memory of her husband was tainted with her daughter's blood and her final cries for help. She had these images as her constant companion for ten years. An innocent daughter sacrificed by a father for war is not something that helps a wife to welcome back her husband after ten long years of absence.
Speaking of those ten long years, why was King Agamemnon gone for so long? While
Clytemnestra was at home mourning the death of her beloved daughter, he was fighting a cursed battle and leading his men to die in filth and agony away from their homes for a cause that was not theirs. Look at the words of the Herald when he returned from the war with Troy: "Our huge task is done... Yet what did it amount to?... We suffered in the ships, tortured by boredom and by lice... And on land the dog holes were worse... Thank God it's all over" (Aeschylus 31). This was a war these men were forced into by their king. For years they had to endure fighting, death,

Williams 3 and decay, all for one single woman. "They called her Helen--that was a prophecy. Helen the
Destroyer. Not a name but a title" (Aeschylus 36). The men of Argos simply wanted to return home to die on their own land, but for ten years they stayed according to the king's command.
Some might call King Agamemnon a tyrant for these actions.
On top of all of this, when King Agamemnon finally returns home to his wife, he has the nerve and audacity to flaunt "the jewel of Troy," (Aeschylus 47) Cassandra, in the face of
Clytemnestra. His spoils of war consist of a new sex slave, which he tells Clytemnestra to "Let her be cared for... Treat her as mine" (Aeschylus 47). Agamemnon has been violating the sanctity of marriage in the ancient Athenian culture, a culture that "regarded adultery as a more heinous offence than rape" (Carey 407), and then he comes home and expects his wife, a queen, to accept this without so much as a word against him.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, after hearing this, I think it is safe to say that
Agamemnon is perhaps not the great and noble king that the prosecution would like to lead you to believe he is. He proved himself to be murderous, tyrannical, and adulterous. This is the man that returns to Clytemnestra after ten years. This is the man she is expected to welcome and obey as if nothing has happened. If you know anything of Clytemnestra, you know that she is a strong and driven woman. This would not be something that she would take lying down. I speak directly to the jury as I ask, if you were in the position of Queen Clytemnestra of Argos, what would you have done?
True, in the culture of today, Clytemnestra would most likely be convicted of murder, plain and simple. She created and carried out a plan that ended with the murder of a king. She would be found guilty and given a jail sentence or perhaps the death penalty. However, we must remember that this was not something that happened in our modern society. We must look at the

Williams 4 case of Clytemnestra through the eyes of ancient Greece. To help with this transition of thought, think of this statement by Tao-Ching Hsu: "To understand a new style in art it is usually necessary to leave one's preconceptions first, to unlearn one's taste, to give up one's unconscious aesthetics... Adjustments of basic concepts, admittedly difficult, have to be made, otherwise appreciation, which could start in a small area, will remain crippled and eventually become smothered" (Hsu 37). Though he was talking about what is necessary to understand and appreciate Chinese art and theatre, particularly when coming from a European perspective, his words ring true when looking at any different culture or time period. To fully understand this situation, you must shed your ideas and perspectives on modern law and order and travel back to the world of ancient Athenian law. Do not let today's ideals color your thoughts on
Clytemnestra.
When Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon, she was not committing a horrible, condemnable atrocity, far from it. According to the laws of ancient Greece, Clytemnestra was doing her duty when she killed her husband. The law in ancient Greece was centered around avenging the victim of a crime. If someone was murdered, that person by rights was to be avenged. In the world of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, and the house of Atreus, "it was the victim's next of kin who was required to bring a murderer to justice" (Garland). Agamemnon murdered Iphigenia.
In this case, who would be next of kin to the victim but her mother, Clytemnestra? Iphigenia's death needed to be avenged, and Agamemnon needed to be brought to justice. Clytemnestra was doing her duty as a resident of Greece by killing her daughter's murderer. An unavenged death could at times lead to disease, barrenness, and bad crops, as seen in the case of Oedipus the King.
Clytemnestra was trying to restore order to her life and the lives of those around her.

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Furthermore, Clytemnestra was doing a service to those who lived in Argos by bringing an end to a family of murdering tyrants. When two men slew the son of a tyrant in 6th century
BCE Greece, they were "commemorated as 'tyrannicides' and appointed heroes of the Athenian state" (Garland). The death of a tyrant was something to be commended in this society.
Clytemnestra just wanted the murderous, tyrannical history of the house of Atreus to come to an end. She herself said, "I speak as a woman, hear me: Let the cycle of killing end here. Murder for murder, evil for evil: Let this be the end of it. And let our hope succeed. I have great hope"
(Aeschylus 22). Do those sound like the words of a woman who killed merely for personal gain?
Finally, Clytemnestra, having married into the house of Atreus, brought the curse, "the blood-eating Fury that hates our house" (Aeschylus 74) upon herself as well. The curse Fury was always circling her, calling for bloodlust and destruction, driving Clytemnestra to kill. In her own defense, Clytemnestra says, "That Fury, she steered the blade through Agamemnon, not
I. Not my hand" (Aeschylus 75). Clytemnestra was not acting of her own accord and free will when she brought upon the death of her husband the king. She was driven to action by a curse brought down by the gods and an ever-present Fury crazed with a thirst for blood. A person cannot be expected to fight such a presence of fate for forever. Clytemnestra dealt with the curse for ten years alone. When her husband returned without a word of comfort for her, it was the final straw. The constant cries of the Fury sent her over the edge and drove the sword through her husband. Clytemnestra was a pawn in the curse of the generations.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, take a moment to comprehend the weight that pressed on Clytemnestra's shoulders for years and years: the murder of her daughter, the loss of love for a husband, the link to a family of tyrants, and a curse that called for blood are just a few of the things that Clytemnestra dealt with on her own. I ask you again, how would you have dealt with

Williams 6 the situation? Yes, it is true that Clytemnestra took a lover. He, too, was disenchanted with the
"noble" house of Atreus. Can you not see that they came together in the hope that they might provide each other with some measure of comfort? Yes, Clytemnestra also brought about the death of Agamemnon. For the reasons I just gave you, you can see why she arrived on his death as the way to end the madness in her life. I am not trying to say that Clytemnestra is completely blameless. There is blame enough for every single person in the house of Atreus to share. I am merely asking you to consider the circumstances and to look at the context of the crime with your new understanding for the Greek way of life under the ancient laws and codes. If you understand what it was really like in Argos, then you cannot convict and condemn Clytemnestra for murder. Both the codes of the society and of the law were practically putting the sword in her hand to do the deed. For ten years, Fate pushed her inch by inch until she was on the precipice, and the arrival of Agamemnon wildly pushed her over the edge. Finally, she could avenge her daughter's murder, end a tyrant, and hopefully put a curse and an ever circling Fury to rest. All she needed to do was put an end to Agamemnon. With his death, perhaps she could finally be free. Who are we to deny someone their right to freedom? I urge you. Think about
Clytemnestra, not in the realm of today, but in the ancient realm of Greece. Understand her background. Do not condemn this woman, this queen, for the death of Agamemnon. I trust you will make the right decision.

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Works Consulted
Aeschylus, and Ted Hughes. The Oresteia . New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999. Print.
Carey, C. "Rape and Adultery in Athenian Law." The Classical Quarterly 54.2 (1995): 407-417.
Academic Search Premier.
EBSCO. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.
Garland, Robert. "Murder Most Foul." History Today 54.2 (2004): 9-15. Academic Search
Premier.
EBSCO. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.
Hsu, Tao-Ching. "General Considerations of Theatrical Entertainment in China." The Longman
Anthology of Drama and Theatre . 1st ed. New York: Longman, 2001. 37. Print.