24. Our, "Sooo much more helpful than SparkNotes. [15], sfn error: no target: CITEREFChisholm1911 (. Clytemnestra’s plan for revenge requires Aegisthus but he also has an agenda, believing that the Throne of Mycenae is rightfully his. [2][3] Atreus, not knowing the baby's origin, took Aegisthus in and raised him as his own son. Agamemnon had sacrificed Iphigenia to appease the anger of the goddess Artemis. In despair, she killed herself. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. ... that follows, but at the very end of the play she has calmed down and taken on a different role. Though Aegisthus claimed he planned Agamemnon s decease, he had no active portion in the existent slaying. In the first play, Agamemnon, he appears at the end to claim the throne, after Clytemnestra herself has killed Agamemnon and Cassandra. [5] After Helen's abduction to Troy, Agamemnon was forced to sacrifice his own daughter Iphigenia in order to appease the gods before setting off for Ilium. Struggling with distance learning? In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae, the son, or grandson, of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra and the father of Iphigenia, Electra or Laodike (Λαοδίκη), Orestes and Chrysothemis. He used the Spartan army to drive out Aegisthus and Thyestes from Mycenae and place Agamemnon on the throne. Why does Orestes hesitate and turn to Pylades for advice before killing Clytaemestra? According to Johanna Leah Braff, he "takes the traditional female role, as one who devises but is passive and does not act. Character Aegisthus Show Agamemnon. Besides, Agamemnon bsiught a Trojan princess named Cassandra as his mistress whom Clytemnestra disliked vehemently. Aegisthus ruled for seven more years before his death at the hands of Agamemnon's son Orestes. With Agamemnon away fighting in the Trojan War for ten years, Clytemnestra began a secret affair with Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin. During his absence, Clytemnestra also involves herself in a relationship with Aegisthus who is Agamemnon’s cousin. In the first production he was depicted as "an epicene...with long curly locks and rouged lips, half-cringing, half-posturing seductively. Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and Thyestes' own daughter Pelopia, an incestuous union motivated by his father's rivalry with the house of Atreus for the throne of Mycenae. In addition, Thyestes had an affair with Atreus' wife, Aerope. By Clytemnestra, Agamemnon had a son, Orestes, and three daughters, Iphigeneia (Iphianassa), Electra (Laodice), and Chrysothemis. She may also have been angry at him because Agamemnon had slain her first husband and brought her to live with him by force. Aegisthus is the extreme example of improper hospitality while a man is away at war. Through modern interstation, we see that Clytaemnestra is the clear protagonist of The Agamemnon. When she discovered that the sword belonged to her own father, she realised that her son was the product of incestuous rape. Instant downloads of all 1434 LitChart PDFs During Agamemnon’s absence Clytemnestra entered into a relationship with Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin, the only surviving son of Thyestes. ... With her air of confident authority, it's hard to doubt that … Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Aegisthus murdered Atreus in order to restore his father to power, ruling jointly with him only to be driven from power by Atreus' son Agamemnon. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Agamemnon gone, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus become lovers Clytemnestra and Aegisthus intend to kill Agamemnon on his return from Troy Agamemnon, victor at Troy, returns to Argos with Cassandra, Priam's daughter, among the spoils Even though Agamemnon gets a shout-out in the play's title, Clytemnestra may well be its most interesting character. There they respectively married Tyndareus' daughters Clytemnestra and Helen. When he was still a young boy, he and his brother Menelaus had to flee Mycenae after their cousin Aegisthus murdered their father and claimed the throne. While Agamemnon was in Troy, Aegisthus, the son of Thyestes, had ample opportunity to avenge the wrongs committed against his father by Agamemnon's father, Atreus. But once again the shedding of family blood brought disaster. Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus, and Agamemnon recovered his … [6][7] The impiety of matricide was such that Orestes was forced to flee from Mycenae, pursued by the Furies. First, she prevents Aegisthus from fighting the Chorus; then, she leads him inside and tells him that they will be joint rulers in Argos. In order to take revenge for the death of her daughter and to hide about his adultery, Clytemnestra has plotted to kill Agamemnon when he returns from the war. In absence of Agamemnon, she made an incestuous relationship with Aegisthus, the son of Thyestes, to take revenge upon Agamemnon. Aegisthus was the apparent lover in the triangle who killed Agamemnon in order to establish an intimate relationship with his wife. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Key Information. Aegisthus is referred to as a "weak lion", plotting the murders but having his lover commit the deeds. After Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon, Aegisthus justifies his involvement by saying that the murder of Agamemnon also avenges Atreus’s crime against Aegisthus’s family. Aegisthus was the son of his own sister. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aegisthus&oldid=1010502111, Fictional offspring of incestuous relationships, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 5 March 2021, at 20:27. (Aegisthus was the son of Agamemnon's uncle, Thyestes, and Thyestes's daughter, Pelopia.) How does the chorus take an active part in the plot to kill Aegisthus and Clytaemestra? -Graham S. The timeline below shows where the character Aegisthus appears in, ...ambitious and arrogant. (including. Legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and Thyestes' own daughter Pelopia, an incestuous union motivated by his father's rivalry with the house of Atreus for the throne of Mycenae. According to Aeschylus, Agamemnon’s death would not only allow Clytemnestra to make her relationship with Aegisthus public, but also allow her to avenge the sacrifice of her daughter, Iphigenia. He and Clytemnestra had a son, Aletes, and two daughters, Erigone and Helen. Aegisthus (/ɪˈdʒɪsθəs/; Ancient Greek: Αἴγισθος; also transliterated as Aigisthos, [ǎi̯ɡistʰos]) was a figure in Greek mythology. He rejoices when he learns (falsely) that Orestes is dead, but remains deeply suspicious about whether or not this report is true. In addition, a modern audience is more perceptive to sympathize with a female role, seeing her rise to power, from a “lowly woman” to queen of the city, and then the inevitable downfall as a result of her actions. In Richard Strauss's and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's opera, Elektra his voice is "a decidedly high-pitched tenor, punctuated by irrational upward leaps, that rises to high pitched squeals during his death colloquy with Elektra." Clytemnestra’s lover, and her accomplice in murdering Agamemnon, Aegisthus hates the house of Atreus, which was responsible for his own family’s ruin. He was descended from Tantalus, and was from a family that was infamous for rape, murder, incest, and treachery, and when he returned home from leading the Hellenic forces during the Trojan War, he was murdered by Aegisthus, who was adulterous with Agamemnon's wife. The tragic play does not get a perfect shape without the “hereditary curse”. Agamemnon, Clytemnestra & Aegisthus Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had four children: a son, Orestes, and three daughters, Iphigenia (sometimes called Iphianassa), Electra and Chrysothemis. What is the effect of its interference? "[12] Christopher Collard describes him as the foil to Clytemnestra, his brief speech in Agamemnon revealing him to be "cowardly, sly, weak, full of noisy threats - a typical 'tyrant figure' in embryo. Unfazed, Clytemnestra interrupts them and goes on to reveal that Agamemnon’s cousin, “Would not have made it through AP Literature without the printable PDFs. Join the StageAgent community to read our character analysis for Aegisthus and unlock other amazing theatre resources! READ MORE - PRO MEMBERS ONLY. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." AGAMEMNON. In absence of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra made an incestuous relationship with Aegisthus, the son of Thyestes, to take revenge upon Agamemnon. When Menelaus's wife, Helen, was taken to Troy by Paris, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War. After Atreus was murdered by his nephew Aegisthus (son of Thyestes), Agamemnon and Menelaus took refuge with Tyndareus, king of Sparta, whose daughters, Clytemnestra and Helen, they respectively married. Thyestes raped Pelopia after she performed a sacrifice, hiding his identity from her. While Agamemnon lay siege to Troy, his estranged queen Clytemnestra took Aegisthus as a lover. Aegisthus and his father now took possession of their lawful inheritance from which they had been expelled by Atreus.[4]. In another version, Aegisthus was the sole surviving son of Thyestes after Atreus killed his brother's children and served them to Thyestes in a meal.[1]. [10][11], In Aeschylus's Oresteia, Aegisthus is a minor figure. Following Agamemnon's death, Aegisthus reigned over Mycenae for seven years. During this period Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, took refuge with Tyndareus, king of Sparta. The advice was to father a son with his own daughter, Pelopia, and that son would kill Atreus. 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