Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra | |
---|---|
Greek mythologycharacter | |
In-universe information | |
Family | Tyndareus(father) Leda(mother) Helen of Troy(twin half-sister) Castor and Pollux(full-brother and half-brother respectively) |
Spouse | Tantalus,Agamemnon |
Children | Iphigenia,Electra,Orestes,Iphianassa,Chrysothemis,Aletes,Erigone,Helen |
Clytemnestra(/ˌklaɪtəmˈnɛstrə/,[1]UKalso/klaɪtəmˈniːstrə/;[2]Greek:Κλυταιμνήστρα,Klytaimnḗstrā,[klytai̯mnɛ̌ːstraː]), inGreek mythology,was the wife ofAgamemnon,king ofMycenae,and the half-sister ofHelen of Troy.InAeschylus'Oresteia,she murders Agamemnon – said byEuripidesto be her second husband – and the Trojan princessCassandra,whom Agamemnon had taken as a war prize following the sack ofTroy;however, inHomer'sOdyssey,her role in Agamemnon's death is unclear and her character is significantly more subdued.
Name
[edit]Her Greek nameKlytaimnḗstrais also sometimesLatinizedasClytaemnestra.[3]It is commonly glossed as "famed for her suitors". However, this form is a later misreading motivated by an erroneous etymological connection to the verbmnáomai(μνάoμαι,"woo, court" ). The original name form is believed to have beenKlytaimḗstra(Κλυταιμήστρα) without the-n-.The present form of the name does not appear before the middleByzantineperiod.[4]Homeric poetry shows an awareness of both etymologies.[5]Aeschylus, in certainwordplayson her name, appears to assume an etymological link with the verbmḗdomai(μήδoμαι,"scheme, contrive" ). Thus given the derivation from κλῠτός (klutós"celebrated" ) and μήδομαι (mḗdomai"to plan, be cunning" ), this would result in the quite descriptive "famous plotter".[6]
Background
[edit]Clytemnestra was the daughter ofTyndareusandLeda,the King and Queen ofSparta,making her a Spartan Princess. According to the myth, Zeus appeared to Leda in the form of a swan, seducing and impregnating her. Leda produced four offspring from two eggs:Castorand Clytemnestra from one egg, andHelenandPolydeuces (Pollux)from the other. Therefore, Castor and Clytemnestra were fathered by Tyndareus, whereas Helen and Polydeuces were fathered byZeus.Her other sisters werePhilonoe,PhoebeandTimandra.
Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus were in exile at the home of Tyndareus; in due time Agamemnon married Clytemnestra and Menelaus married Helen. In a late variation, Euripides'sIphigenia at Aulis,Clytemnestra's first husband wasTantalus,King ofPisa;Agamemnon killed him and Clytemnestra's infant son, then made Clytemnestra his wife. In another version, her first husband was King ofLydia.[citation needed]
Mythology
[edit]AfterHelenwas taken from Sparta toTroy,her husband,Menelaus,asked his brother Agamemnon for help. Greek forces gathered atAulis.However, consistently weak winds prevented the fleet from sailing on the ocean. Through a subplot involving the gods and omens, the priestCalchassaid the winds would be favorable if Agamemnon sacrificed his daughterIphigeniato the goddessArtemis.Agamemnon persuaded Clytemnestra to send Iphigenia to him, telling her he was going to marry her toAchilles.When Iphigenia arrived at Aulis, she was sacrificed, the winds turned, and the troops set sail for Troy.
TheTrojan Warlasted ten years. During this period of Agamemnon's long absence, Clytemnestra began a love affair withAegisthus,her husband's cousin. Whether Clytemnestra was seduced into the affair or entered into it independently differs according to the version of the myth.
Nevertheless, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus began plotting Agamemnon's demise. Clytemnestra was enraged by Iphigenia's murder (and presumably the earlier murder of her first husband and son by Agamemnon, and her subsequent rape and forced marriage). Aegisthus saw his father Thyestes betrayed by Agamemnon's fatherAtreus(Aegisthus was conceived specifically to take revenge on that branch of the family).
In old versions of the story, on returning from Troy, Agamemnon is murdered by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife, Clytemnestra. In some later versions Clytemnestra helps him or does the killing herself in his own home. The best-known version is that of Aeschylus: Agamemnon, having arrived at his palace with his concubine, the Trojan princessCassandra,in tow and being greeted by his wife, entered the palace for a banquet while Cassandra remained in the chariot. Clytemnestra waited until he was in the bath, and then entangled him in a cloth net and stabbed him. Trapped in the web, Agamemnon could neither escape nor resist his murderer. Meanwhile, Cassandra prophesied the murder of Agamemnon and herself.
Most versions of the myth attribute her prophetic power as being a gift from Apollo in exchange for sex, while some claim that serpents from thetemple of the Thymbraean Apolloflicked their tongues in her and her brother Helenus' ears, somehow giving the power of divination. In every version though, Cassandra is thereafter cursed by Apollo to be incredible, completely negating the utility of her prophecies, after refusing to have sex with the god.[7]
So, despite her ability to envisage both Agamemnon's murder and her own, her attempts to elicit help failed due to Apollo's curse making her prophesies incredible. She realized she was fated to die, and resolutely walked into the palace to receive her death.
After the murders, Aegisthus replaced Agamemnon as king and ruled for seven years with Clytemnestra as his queen. In some traditions they have three children: a sonAletes,and daughtersErigoneand Helen. Clytemnestra was eventually killed by Orestes, her son by Agamemnon. The infant Helen was also killed. Aletes and Erigone grow up at Mycenae, but when Aletes comes of age, Orestes returns from Sparta, kills his half-brother, and takes the throne. Orestes and Erigone are said to have had a son,Penthilus.
Appearance in later works
[edit]Clytemnestra appears in numerous works from ancient to modern times, sometimes as avillainand sometimes as a sympatheticantihero.[8][9]Author and classicistMadeline Millerwrote "[a]fterMedea,Queen Clytemnestra is probably the most notorious woman in Greek mythology ".[10]
- Clytemnestra is one of the main characters inAeschylus'sOresteia,and is central to the plot of all three parts. She murders Agamemnon in the first play, and is murdered herself in the second. Her death then leads to the trial of Orestes by a jury composed ofAthenaand 12 Athenians in the final play. Her role is the largest in any surviving Greek tragedy.[11]
- InMourning Becomes Electra,Eugene O'Neill's retelling of theOresteiaby Aeschylus, Clytemnestra is renamed Christine Mannon.
- InFerdinando Baldi'sThe Forgotten Pistolero,aSpaghetti Westernadaptation of theOresteia,Clytemnestra is named Anna Carrasco and is portrayed byLuciana Paluzzi.
- The American modern dancer and choreographerMartha Grahamcreated a two-hour ballet,Clytemnestra(1958), about the queen.
- The Aeschylus work was also adapted bySouth AfricancomposerCromwell Eversoninto the firstAfrikaansopera,Klutaimnestra,in 1967. In four acts, the opera premiered on November 7, 1967, in Biesenbach Hall,Worcester, Western Cape,South Africa.
- John Eatoncomposed anoperain one act entitledThe Cry of Clytemnestrarecounting the events leading up to and including Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon.
- In the 1977 film adaptationIphigenia,Clytemnestra is portrayed by the Greek actressIrene Papas.[12]
- In the 2003 miniseriesHelen of Troy,Clytemnestra is played by Katie Blake.
- Clytemnestra appears as an extremely abusive mother in the playMolora,Yaël Farber's 2007 rewriting of theOresteiaset inpost-apartheid South Africaand itsTruth and Reconciliation Commissionhearings.[13]
- The 2017 novelHouse of NamesbyColm Tóibínis a retelling of the Oresteia, with divine elements largely removed. There are three narrators: Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra.
- Clytemnestra is one of several narrators ofA Thousand Ships(2019) byNatalie Haynes,which retells the Trojan War from the perspective of the women involved.
- Clytemnestra is the protagonist of the eponymous novelClytemnestra(2023) by Costanza Casati.
- An asteroid179 Klytaemnestrais named after Clytemnestra.
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^"Definition of CLYTEMNESTRA".www.merriam-webster.com.Retrieved2017-08-09.
- ^Wells, John C.(2008).Longman Pronunciation Dictionary(3rd ed.). Longman.ISBN978-1-4058-8118-0.
- ^Vol. VI(ninth ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1878, p. 44. , ,vol.
- ^Oresteia,Loeb edition by Alan Sommerstein, introduction, p. x, 2008.
- ^MARQUARDT, PATRICIA A. (1992)."Clytemnestra: A Felicitous Spelling in the" Odyssey "".Arethusa.25(2): 241–254.ISSN0004-0975.JSTOR26308611.
- ^Compareentry "Κλυταιμνήστρα",inWiktionary.
- ^Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary.New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Copyright © 1991 by Robert E. Bell.
- ^Mendelsohn, Daniel (July 24, 2017)."Novelizing Greek Myth".The New Yorker.RetrievedMay 12,2023.
- ^Haynes, Natalie (March 28, 2022)."Is Clytemnestra an Archetypically Bad Wife or a Heroically Avenging Mother?".Literary Hub.RetrievedMay 12,2023.
- ^Miller, Madeline (November 7, 2011)."Myth of the Week: Clytemnestra".Madeline Miller.RetrievedMay 12,2023.
- ^Monohan, Marie Adornetto.Women and Justice in Aeschylus' “Oresteia.”1987. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, pp. 22-23.
- ^McDonald, Marianne; Winkler, Martin M. (2001)."Michael Cacoyannis and Irene Papas on Greek Tragedy".In Martin M. Winkler (ed.).Classical Myth & Culture in the Cinema.Oxford University Press. pp. 72–89.ISBN978-0-19-513004-1.
- ^Farber, Yaël (2007–2011)."Molora".YAËL FARBER.RetrievedMay 31,2023.
Sources
[edit]- Servius.In Aeneida,xi.267.
External links
[edit]- Media related toClytemnestraat Wikimedia Commons