Book the Second: The Libation Bearers

Up next is the second part of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, The Libation Bearers. Here's a free version.

Wives & Concubines

Personally, I'd slap a floral wreath and a Mother-of-the-Year sash on our feisty Clyty for seeking justice for her daughter. She's the vengeful mother bear every wronged cub deserves. Technically, one could say she helps two wronged children, her own daughter, the sacrificial Iphigeneia, and the exiled Aegisthis. The latter relationship strikes me as a bit icky though - more mama cougar than mama grizzly. Um, ewww.

So much to talk about in the second half of Agamemnon. Where to start? There's the moment on the purple welcome home mat when Agamemnon's spidey sense gets all tingly. Hmmm, why am I hesitant to go home to the wife I last saw when I killed our daughter? Why??? And how about Cassandra's crazypants, yet still impeccably attired soothsaying? I know if I were ever carried off as a spoil of war, I'd be sure to take my ceremonial soothsaying robe with me, even if I know that no one would ever believe my predictions. No wonder ABBA sang about her. I think I was most surprised by the unseen murder at the end behind the palace gate. They literally stage the crime scene for you, without letting you see all the action that resulted in it. And yet, I somehow found it more dramatic for being presented to you after all the stabby-stabbiness is done.

At the end, there's lots of talk of justice from Clytymnestra and Aegisthis, and I can see how wrongs have been righted. But when does justice become vengeance? Can you have one without at least a hint of the other? Now that there have been more deaths, i.e. more wrongs to right, will there be more reckonings to come? I'm betting yes.