that it is unthinkable that any Elizabethan playwright could have dramatized the defeat
of the Spanish Armada in such a way so soon after it had happened.
All the other surviving tragedies feature the heroic figures of traditional myths.
Since these are many and multiform, they offer almost limitless potential for individual
treatment. The Orestes myth used by Aeschylus in the one surviving trilogy, the
Oresteia, is a case in point, being used in quite different ways by Homer, Aeschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides.
The story of Orestes features almost as a recurrent leitmotif in counterpoint to
the main theme in Homer’s Odyssey. In that work Agamemnon returns from Troy to
be met by his cousin Aegisthus, the son of Thyestes, who takes him back to his palace
where he feasts and then kills him (4, 521–537). What Agamemnon did not know was
that Aegisthus had earlier prevailed upon his wife Clytemnestra to become her
paramour, thus usurping Agamemnon’s bed and throne (3, 254–275). The spirit of
Agamemnon tells Odysseus that Clytemnestra murdered Cassandra; he regards
Aegisthus as the principal agent in the plot against himself (11, 405–434). The
usurpers reigned for seven years until Orestes, as the gods foretold, returned to
avenge his father by slaying Aegisthus. ‘When Orestes had done the deed, he invited
hisfriends to a banquet for the mother he loathed and the craven Aegisthus’ (3,
303–310). Homer does not directly say how Clytemnestra died. Much is made of her
infidelity, which the spirit of Agamemnon contrasts with the virtue of the loyal
Penelope (24, 192–202). The vengeance of Orestes is hailed as a glorious act not only
by mortals such as Nestor and Telemachus but also by Zeus (1, 30) and Athena, who
holds up the bravery of Agamemnon’s son as an example to the son of Odysseus (1,
298–301). Divine approval for Orestes reflects divine support for the suitor-slaying
which is the prelude of the re-establishment of order in the house of Odysseus.
Aegisthus and the suitors die through their own wickedness and folly. Poetic justice
is unequivocally upheld in either case.
The Agamemnon of Aeschylus opens with the night watchman at dawn on the
roof of the king’s palace catching sight of the beacon that announces the downfall of
Troy. The chorus of Argive elders then set the emotional, thematic and mythological
scene by recalling the setting out of the expedition led by Agamemnon, dwelling upon
an event not mentioned by Homer. At Aulis the fleet had been marooned by contrary
winds. A priest tells Agamemnon that the anger of the goddess Artemis will be
appeased only by the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia. Agamemnon is faced with
a choice: he can return home in failure and risk the censure of men, or he can
persevere with the great expedition (whose aim is supported by Zeus) after the crime
of sacrifice. The first course is unthinkable: ‘he puts on the yoke of necessity’ (l. 217).
The priest had predicted inevitable atonement for the slaughter of a child, and the
chorus now fear its fulfilment: as the Libation-bearers put it, ‘the guilty doer must
suffer’ (drasanti pathein, l.313). The chorus introduce another great theme that will be
LITERATURE 151