1. key themes and aeschylean ‘unfolding’
TRANSCRIPT
Aeschylus’ Agamemnon
1. Key themes and Aeschylean ‘unfolding’
2. The house (oikos):
symbolism and polysemy
3. The ‘tapestry-scene’
End just before the Cassandra scene
so much is lost if the Agamemnon is approached as a standalone play; rather, it is the 45% of one long play/’symphony’, the Oresteia; or, the ‘engine’ of the trilogy
Aeschylean ‘unfolding’: themes, images, ideas appear initially only as flashes/sperms. As the trilogy ‘unfolds’, these develop, their semantics augment, change and intertwine, and they only acquire their full, multi-levelled semantic force only in later stages (and they often manifest in a physical form.) [Parallel: the role of garments in the Persians]
Lebeck, The Oresteia, 1971 (about imagery in the Oresteia)
Persians 1017, 1030 Persians 608-9
Justice : note that it refers to a multitude of issues, and that it is perceived differently from every party in this trilogy: restoration after wronging, revenge, balance, natural order, cosmic order, the rule of law, etc.
For example: opening lines of the first ode (parodos), 40 ff.
Wealth : material wealth, natural wealth, domestic wealth, polis wealth; human life as wealth/commodity, women as wealth, children as wealth; issues like excess, greed, abuse, destructiveness, but also creation, production, reproduction ALL attached to this theme
Reflections on wealth as the root of the problem
Ag. 362ff.
Gender : not just ‘battle of the sexes’; not just about men and women
Gender is reflected upon on a social level, on a cosmic level, but also on a conceptual level / as category of thought. All key themes are articulated in gendered terms. Über-theme => because gender is above all a cosmic category!)
Opening speech (Ag. 10-11, p. 5)
Clytemnestra as a ‘masculine’ woman
Children, progeny, youth; productive and reproductive imagery
Natural imagery of angry nature, unfavourable winds => generative imagery at the end
Marriage, especially in relation to death
More perverted ritual: sacrifice: destruction, consumption (of flesh), blood on the ground, homicide
Hunting (~wild animals), nets (in relation to Furies that approach / divine justice that creeps up) ~ textiles, clothing
Children, progeny, youth; productive and reproductive imagery
Natural imagery of angry nature, unfavourable winds => generative imagery at the end, light and darkness
Marriage, especially in relation to death
More perverted ritual: sacrifice: destruction, consumption (of flesh), blood on the ground, homicide
Hunting (~wild animals), nets (in relation to Furies that approach / divine justice that creeps up) ~ textiles, clothing
Because it is connected to every single one of the trilogy’s key themes. It is as dominant a concept as it is a physical presence on the stage.
Food for thought – set design for Electra
Theatrical space is polysemous. It does not only have
a representational function, but also a heavily symbolic,
multi-levelled symbolic function.
For a start, the interior ‘is’ not only a palace, a cave, a tent, a grove, an oracle...
Interiority and Polysemy:
Interior spaces in Greek theatre are described as deep (mychoi, thalamoi)
and above all, dark. They are associated with the unseen, the hidden, and
are therefore contrasted with exterior spaces (which are associated with the
known, the seen, the public; hence oikos/private – polis/public). They are
often connected with confinement and oppression. Hence, the connection
of interiority with what is forgotten or in distant memory, pushed away
from consciousness, suppressed, unconscious, but also past.
THE ATREID PAST AND ITS DARK
SECRETS THE FAMILY LINE, THE ANCESTORS,
THE DEAD
In connection to the previous (hidden, unseen, unknown) is the fact that
interior spaces are connected with the female. In traditional social structures,
the natural space for the female is the inside (the female belongs to the
interior, out of sight (in ideology, perhaps not so strictly in reality), the male
to the exterior).
The female womb/body is one of the par excellence interior spaces of mythic
imagination.
The (female) interior is precious, as it can produce new life/wealth. (NB:
‘wealth’ for a Greek oikos includes the life of its own members.)
But the female is also perceived (in patriarchal ideology) as unpredictable,
mysterious, and even threatening and deadly.
The dark red stream of textiles ‘flowing’ out of the opening
Agamemnon ‘swallowed’ by the interior. He never emerges alive.
FAMILY, FAMILY MEMBERS, PROPERTY, WEALTH
THE FAMILY AND ITS PAST, ANCESTORS, DEAD (TOMBS)
FEMALE=> PRODUCTION OF LIFE, REPRODUCTION
POWER, CLASS, DOMINATION IN COMMUNITY, AT THE EXPENSE OF COMMUNITY
THE LARGER OIKOI OF POWER AND WEALTH (IN BOTH SIDES OF AEGEAN ) DEPLETE SMALLER OIKOI
THE ANCESTRAL CURSE, (ERINYS/FURY), THE HIDDEN POWER, THE DAIMON (~Psychopathology)
OIKOS AS SYMBOL OF COSMIC ORDER
OIKOS AS EARTH – BOTH GENERATIVE AND DEADLY (HADES)
Opening scene (1ff.)
- Guard on roof / images of cosmos: starred sky, heavenly bodies rising and setting, change of seasons, darkness and light; (cf. fire, expansive spaces across the sea in Beacons’ scene)
- Zoom on house of Atreids: the house is mismanaged/mistreated; it would cry out if it could
Parodos (= Choral entry ode) (40-)
- Agamemnon and Menelaus one oikos – image of vultures crazed over their depleted nest (economics of xenia) – omen of birds devouring (/sacrificing) pregnant hare and her unborn babies near the house
Ag. 1ff.
p. 5
Ag. 37-8, p. 7
Ag. 40ff.
p. 9
The omen of the pregnant hare
Ag. 115-37, p. 16-17
Parodos (cont.) - Artemis will demand sacrifice of Iphigeneia (loss of child to ‘rectify’ loss of young life (& one perverted sacrifice is used to ‘appease’ the other); but the oikonomos (‘guileful keeper of the house’) Clytemnestra-Erinys (155) waits in the house to avenge the loss - Iphigeneia as domon agalma (‘delight of my house’, but literally, ‘the house’s precious statue’): the commodification of the house’s young life (207) and its destruction (Cf. The depletion of the soldiers’ houses mentioned later in the first ode.) First episode (257-) Enter Clytemnestra - Focus on palace oikos; ‘Beacons’ speech’: the fire finally dashes down on the house (notice also the powerful female in control of universal space)
Ag. 155, p. 19
Ag. 206ff.
p. 25
‘the house’s precious statue’
Fire of Troy dashes down on palace in Argos: Ag. 309-12, p. 39
First stasimon / ode (355ff., p. 43)
- The excessively wealthy oikoi (houses) of both sides of the Aegean and the meaning of koros (i.e. greed, insatiability, acquisitiveness)
- Helen’s abduction from the Atreid oikos as theft (402, 534); Helen as precious statue stolen from Menelaus (416)
- The war as exchange of human lives for gold (Ares chrysamoibos 438), and the return of ashes to people’s homes: the depletion of smaller oikoi
- Excessive prosperity and the punishment by the Furies (463-74)
Ag. 362ff.
p. 45
Ag. 402, p. 49
Ag. 416, p. 49
Ag. 438, p. 53
Second episode (503-) Enter Herald
- Despite victory, the suffering and the losses have been enormous
- Troy as Priam’s oikos and the payment for the crime: the mowing down of the Trojan oikos (536); the war spoils enriching Argos and the oikos of the Atreids
- Enter Clytemnestra; the watchdog of the house (607) and her ‘control of the threshold’; ‘no seal has been broken, no wealth has been wasted’ (610) (cf. Lysistrata)
- The horrific storm and the annihilation of the returning Argive fleet; the loss of Menelaus – the loss for the Argive oikos (624ff.)
Ag. 534ff. p. 63
Ag. 601ff. p. 71
Second stasimon (681-) - The bride Hell- en, the ‘precious statue of Menelaus’ house’ goes from one oikos to another (marriage as economic exchange, 741) - Helen ~ the (baby) lion in the house => the priest of Ruin => the Fury/Erinys in the house - Wealthy oikoi, inherited evil, and their ruin (see Rose in bibliography) Third episode (782-) - the arrival of Agamemnon with his booty, Cassandra; the business of the war and the payment exacted from the Trojans (812-23) - Entry of Clytemnestra; manipulation of Agamemnon’s entry into the oikos
Ag. 700ff. p. 83-85
“Servants, why are you waiting, when you have been assigned the duty of spreading fine fabrics over the ground in his path?
Let his way forthwith be spread with crimson, so that Justice may lead him into a home that he never hoped to see…” (Ag. 908-10)
Agamemnon about to tread on the tapestries …
Ag. 945ff. p. 111
Agamemnon destroys the ‘wealth of the house’ under his feet, while Clytemnestra utters the following speech …
Ag. 958-64, p. 112
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FABRICS IN THE ORESTEIA
the
TWO-SIDED, like the symbolic connotations of the female
Textile-making as wealth-making: utterly LABOURsome activity, with connotations of creation/production of life
- One of the most laboursome activities in the ancient world (textiles = wealth)
Carr (2000) estimates that the production of 40 m2 of plain wool fabric required 2000 hours of spinning and 160 hours of weaving. This is no plain fabric.
The destruction of wealth as destruction of female labour (of life and of wealth)
Production of purple: even more thousands of hours of labour.
Based on a recent project of experimental archaeology by Ruscillo 2005, we may estimate that to colour wool for the quantity of fabric presented in the ‘tapestry scene’ (possibly up to 260 ft2), nearly 20000 murex molluscs would be needed. Even a conservative estimate of 90 ft2 of cloth would still require a staggering amount of murex (around 6700), which becomes even more striking if we consider that these would have to be fished from depths up to 150 m. These thousands of shells would subsequently have to be crushed in order to extract the hypobranchial glands from the molluscs’ meat. Once extracted, the glands would have to be processed, first by mixing with salt in open-air vats and then through a long heating process, lasting up to ten days.
Murex brandaris
Production of purple: even more thousands of hours of labour. But ultimately, it is not only human labour and wealth that is destroyed and
wasted in this scene. Thousands of seashells get crushed for their precious gland and their natural
purpose is ended. The natural productive powers are perceived to be
inexhaustible: Clytemnestra’s words show what kind of labour is primarily destroyed and wasted
=>the labour of NATURE => the natural labour which produces life (cf.
Persians, life generated by the earth and the harvest of tears)
Violation of natural order for wealth => cf. Persians
Murex brandaris
- Some of the most expensive and laborious forms of wealth are being callously destroyed in this scene…
- …by the very members of this elite, powerful house
- … who have already been singled out for their greed
- Evoking the endless destruction of the wealth of its life, for ambition and greed
- Ultimately, this wealth does not even belong to the house – it is universal wealth / natural wealth
=> desctruction of human life for wealth constitutes violation of the cosmic / natural order
- Cosmic symbolism of oikos / house
Taplin, O. (1978) Greek Tragedy in Action, Routledge (ebook - all sections on the Oresteia, as per summer reading)
Goldhill, S. (2004) The Oresteia, Cambridge (ebook) Scolnicov, H. (2004) ‘Indoors and Outdoors’ and
‘Reversing gender roles’ in Woman’s Theatrical Space, Cambidge (Lecture material)
Mueller, M. (2016) chapter 2 'Tragic Textiles and the House of Atreus' in Objects as actors: props and the poetics of performance in Greek tragedy (ebook)
Rose, P. (1992) ‘Aeschylus’ Oresteia: Dialectical inheritance’ in Sons of the Gods, Children of earth, pp. 204-221 (Lecture material)
‘My eyes have seen a victorious return, and yet I can’t sing a victory song; the Erinys inside me sings a dirge… But here is an intepretation of what I saw and sensed:
The pursuit of any kind of excess is followed by destruction
Wealth can survive if it is not excessive
Destruction of material wealth is redeemable (imagery of agriculture)
Only one kind of wealth is not redeemable: human life
That power inside me is spinning, but we do not know when she will finish…’