The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus' "Oresteia" 3110334348, 9783110334340

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Giulia Maria Chesi The Play of Words

Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes

Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter · Christina Kraus Giuseppe Mastromarco · Gregory Nagy Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 26

Giulia Maria Chesi

The Play of Words Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus’ Oresteia

DE GRUYTER

ISBN 978-3-11-033431-9 e-ISBN 978-3-11-033433-3 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgments I wish to thank Anna Di Re Dell’Anna for her Greek lessons at school; my Cambridge College, the Faculty of Classics, and my friends, Enrico Ventura, Lorenzo Corti, Rachel Bryant Davies, Sherin Saeidi, Giulitta Nardi Perna, Kai Schöpe, Tessa Marzotto, Helen van Noorden, Maria Kilby, Paula Ornelas, Francesco Giusti, Marco Formisano and Craig Williams, for their unvaluable support; Agis Marinis, Elton Barker, Pat Easterling, Lucia Prauscello, Renaud Gagné and the anonymous readers of De Gruyter for their precious suggestions; Davide Ruggerini, for the index; Maria Erge (De Gruyter) for editorial assistance. Especially I thank Froma Zeitlin, for having done the first step; Thomas Poiss for his integrity; Simon Goldhill, il (mio) Maestro, for his deinon example of humility, generosity, patience, and intellectual responsibility in teaching me how to read and how to write; my dad Mario and Licia, for always being there; Jim, for our time in Berlin-Mitte, as he was a child; Laura, for our being sisters; Diego, for his intelligence and our love. My deepest thanks go to my grand-mom and to Cristina – my mother, my best friend – for having taught their child the social duty of (female) dis-obedience – someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think – Emma Goldman

A Cesarina e alle sue lunghe ore

The term ‘non father’ does not exist in any realm of social categories A. Rich, Of Woman Born More peculiar perhaps, but sadly unsurprising, were the assessments I accepted about fictional women. For example, I quickly learned that power was unfeminine and powerful women were, quite literary, monstrous … Bitches all, they must be eliminated, reformed, or at the very least, condemned L. R. Edwards, Massachusetts Review 13 (1972) Perhaps this is one of those cases, not infrequent in Aeschylus, in which the word is more important than the man (or woman) R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Studies in Aeschylus

Contents Abbreviations

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Introduction 1 How I re-read the Oresteia: language, narrative and womanhood

1

Agamemnon 10 10 I Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice 10  Clytemnestra or Iphigeneia’s mother and Agamemnon’s wife 15  Mother, daughter and sacrifice 20  Iphigeneia’s silence and paternal violence  Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and paternal 27 treachery  Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and maternal 30 sophronein 35  Clytemnestra’s motherhood, the Alastor and the Erinys 43  Conclusions 44 II Cassandra, the chorus and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice 45  Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and a bad mother  Problematising Clytemnestra’s representation as a bad mother and 50 a bad wife 55  Conclusions 55 III Clytemnestra and the war against Troy 57  The chorus on the war against Troy 60  Clytemnestra on the war against Troy 67  The voice of the other 74  Agamemnon on the war against Troy 77  The misuse of power 81  Conclusions Choephoroi 82 83 I Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tropheus 83  The nurse on trephein 86  Clytemnestra on trephein 91  Agamemnon as father-tropheus  Clytemnestra as mother non-tropheus and female tyrant 98  Conclusions 99 II Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tokeus

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

Agamemnon as father-tokeus and Clytemnestra as mother non99 tokeus  The father-tokeus and the estrangement between mother and 107 son 109  Conclusions 110 III Clytemnestra as mother-philos 110  The adulterous wife is still a mother 113  Clytemnestra as mother-tropheus 117  Clytemnestra as mother-tokeus 122  Maternal sophronein 125  Clytemnestra as mother-philos and the death of her son  Divine command against the mother and human suffering for the 128 mother 130  Conclusions IV Shall I kill the mother? The reality (of the metaphors) of son and 131 mother 131  The blood of the mother, once again 135  The maternal continuum, once again 137  Clytemnestra’s dream and metaphorical motherhood 140  Orestes and Apollonian logos 142  Orestes’ logos and biological motherhood 146  Conclusions Eumenides       

147 148 The Erinyes and maternal sophronein 155 The Erinyes, their painful memory and female genealogy 160 The legitimacy of words 169 Athena’s persuasion, the Erinyes and/or Eumenides 176 Zeus, his Erinyes and the Trojan War 181 The son, the father and the war against Troy 184 Conclusions

General conclusions

186

Bibliographic References Index of Names and Subjects Index Locorum

208

188 206

Abbreviations D-P DK KN

J. D. Denniston, D. L. Page, Aeschylus: Agamemnon (Oxford 1957). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. H. Diels and W. Kranz (6th edn.; Berlin 1952). The Knossos Tablets. A translation by J. Chadwick, J. T. Killen, J.-P. Olivier (4th edn.; Cambridge 1971). L Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, vols. 7 – 8, ed. É. Littré (Paris 1851 – 1853; repr. Amsterdam 1962). LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexikon, with a Revised Supplement, (9th edn.; Oxford 1996). LSN S. D. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (Cambridge 1984). OCD S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn.; Oxford 1996). W Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati, vol. 2, ed. M. L. West (Oxford 1972).

The editions used are: Agamemnon, Denniston-Page (1957); Choephoroi, Garvie (1986); Eumenides, Sommerstein (1989). Ag.= Agamemnon; Cho. = Choephoroi; Eum.= Eumenides. Other abbreviations follow the common usage for classical abbreviations.

Introduction How I re-read the Oresteia: language, narrative and womanhood Lire c’est trouver des sens, et trouver des sens, c’est les nommer […] Je nomme, je dénomme, je renomme: ainsi se passe le texte R. Barthes, S/Z Aeschylus is the terror of systematizers C. J. Harington, Aeschylus

The Oresteia is the tragic story of Orestes, who murders his own mother in revenge for his father’s assassination, and is ultimately acquitted by the court of Athens. In order to understand the dynamics of violence and power involved in the story of Orestes, we need to look at the complex characterisation of Clytemnestra as mother, wife and queen in the trilogy. Critics, starting from Simone de Beauvoir (1949), continuing with Zeitlin in her influential article on misogyny in the Oresteia (1978, repr. 1984 and 1996), Goldhill (1984) and more recently McClure (1997, 1999), Wohl (1998) and Foley (2001), have focused their attention on the negative characterisation of Clytemnestra as a bad mother, an adulterous wife and a female usurper of male power, whose mind is darkened. However, the Aeschylean discourse on motherhood, wifehood and power is much more articulate. Undeniably, the narrative of the play is constantly concerned with the projection of a negative image on Clytemnestra, and thereby we are faced with a successful separation of her role as mother, wife and queen: she is not a mother giving and nurturing life, but an adulterous wife, a tyrant and a foolish female. Such a gesture of separation also implies exerting control over Clytemnestra. The repudiation of her maternal role works as the crucial step in the trilogy towards: – the definition of bloodlines as paternal (the father is the only genetic parent); – the definition of motherhood as socially contingent (mother = the wife of the children’s father); – the authorisation of Agamemnon’s power in the family and in society (genitor, husband, head of the family, king, warrior), in order to justify matricide. This discourse of separation and control over Clytemnestra’s role as mother, wife and queen allows us to agree with Seidensticker (1995: 156) that ‘the power and authority of men, in polis and oikos, remain essentially unquestioned in drama’. Yet, this statement might be applied only with some reservations to the Oresteia.

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Introduction

In fact, the Aeschylean play exposes the limits of this very discourse of separation, by means of a narrative that confronts us with the characters’ and the chorus’ constant failure to suppress Clytemnestra’s role as a mother giving and nurturing life, and to characterise her as a bad wife, a tyrant and a foolish woman.¹ In performing this failure, the play’s discourse on inter-familial violence introduces a question both on kinship relations (is kinship maternal and/or paternal?) and on power relations (is the authorisation of power feminine and/or masculine?). These questions jeopardize the very condition of the possibility of politics, i. e. of a communal life together in the family and in society according to the authority of the law of the Father. Thus, my contention is that a re-reading of the Oresteia is required, for the following reasons.² First, in my interpretation, we can assume that the play performs a gesture of separation in regard to Clytemnestra’s female roles, without suggesting any definitive answer to the questions it raises. Second, we can argue that the trilogy is not an assertive and normative text, simply responding to the question ‘Is it true that Clytemnestra either is or is not a mother giving life, and therefore a bad wife and usurper of male power?’. Quite the contrary, as I hope to show, the Aeschylean play unfolds as a text, which asks to be read in connection to the related question ‘Who is Clytemnestra, i. e. is she a mother giving and nurturing life, and therefore a bad wife and an usurper of male power?’. The difficult task of defining who Clytemnestra is affects the way in which we interpret Orestes’ position in the family and in society. The question ‘Who is Clytemnestra?’ fundamentally implies the question ‘Who is Orestes?’, pushing us to ask ourselves to what degree the Oresteia is a paradigmatic text. Indeed, if

 Following Goldhill (1990: esp. p. 108) on Barthes, I use ‘character’ as ‘fictional figure’, on the assumption that we can account ‘person’ and ‘figure’ as two fundamentally different concepts: while a figure is devoid of any inner life, a person is not. Through language, a figure constructs a discourse that is part of the play and its narrative. On characters in a play as lacking an inner life, cf. also Griffith (1999: 37– 38). On Griffith, cf. Easterling and Budelmann (2010: 290). On characters and discourse, cf. below n. 6.  The emphasis on reading the Oresteia might raise the objection that the play was written for the performance on stage. However, by exploring the complexities of Aeschylean language and the related discourse on Clytemnestra’s wifehood and motherhood, my study approaches the Oresteia as a written text, and, following Goldhill (1986: 284), assumes that ‘performance does not efface the textuality of drama’. Moreover, one might note that a performance is a text; on this point, cf. Goldhill (1993). On the performative dimension of Greek tragedy, cf. e. g. the groundbreaking book of Taplin (1978); Sider (1978); Easterling (1997); Gould (2001: 174– 202); Goldhill (2007); Ley (2007); Avezzù (2009). Especially for Agamemnon and Choephoroi, cf. Di Benedetto (1989: 76 – 101); Hardwick (2005); Fusillo (2005); Goward (2005: 24– 42); for Eumenides, Jouanna (2009).

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we are not in the position to determine whether Clytemnestra either is or is not a mother giving life, a good/bad wife and usurper of male power, we cannot even say if Orestes is or is not her son and therefore that he is or is not just the son of his father and his legitimate heir, and, finally, that power is or is not strictly male. Therefore, as Aeschylus re-writes Homer, the tragic poet turns the story of Orestes into a question, and precisely into a question about origins and belonging. This is akin to saying that, in Aeschylus, Orestes no longer has a paradigmatic function as he does in Homer; and not just because of the matricide, but because his very identity is put into question. That is to say: Orestes becomes a tragic character in Aeschylus as he stops being unequivocally the son of the father, i. e. the male subject of power. Again, in the case of Clytemnestra (as with Orestes), the Aeschylean text displays itself as a set of questions: 1) in regard to Orestes’ position in the Atreid family: is it the case that Orestes is linked to his family through paternal bloodline and/or through a blood connection with his mother? 2) in regard to Orestes’ position in society: is the validation of Orestes’ power as the legitimate son and heir of his father successful? Is it the case that the authority of male power has to exclude/include maternal (and) female power? According to these questions I pose to the Aeschylean text, this book problematises the play’s discourse on Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ position in the family and society, reading the play’s narrative about interfamilial violence and matricide as a narrative of uncertainties on the origins of birth and power. Thus, my study on the Oresteia might help ‘revalue the place of blood in politics, to rethink what blood means for patriarchal thought’.³ This is the fundamental reason why I explore the play’s discourse on blood ties and power relations as the privileged way to explain the dynamics of violence hunting the Atreid family. Accordingly, I explore the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of keywords such as τρέφειν, τίκτειν, φίλος, ἐχθρός, ἔρνος, ὠδίς, μήτηρ, πατήρ, αἷμα (words related to the sphere of blood ties) and δίκη, τέλος, ἀνήρ, γυνή, σωφρονεῖν (words related to the sphere of power relations). In particular, I shall discuss: 1) how in Agamemnon, Choephoroi and Eumenides the characters’ and the chorus’ appropriation of the above mentioned keywords constructs a negative image of Clytemnestra as non-mother, bad wife and tyrant, giving shape to a narrative of acceptance of the male origins of birth and power;

 Quote from Goldhill on Antigone (2012: 234).

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2)

Introduction

how, at the same time, the characters’ and the chorus’ appropriation of those same keywords does not have the power to construct an authoritative discourse on Clytemnestra as non-mother, bad wife and female usurper of male power and therefore unfolds a narrative of doubt and hesitation on the male origins of birth and power.⁴

This discussion produces several considerations about how we commonly handle the tragic language of the Oresteia. To begin with, the language of the Oresteia is not simply a means of self-representation, permanently stressing the failure in communication, which leads to conflict; and the characters do not unambiguously appropriate keywords for themselves, while remaining irreconcilable as to the usage by other dramatis personae (as we would say according to Vernant on tragic language).⁵ It does much more than that. The language of the Oresteia performs the difficult process of establishing the authority of a discourse on womanhood through the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of keywords. Therefore, as I intend to show, we can argue that: 1) it stages a constant failure in the process of making a decision about women as characters in the play; 2) it also stages, in turn, the reader’s constant failure to take a position on this characters’ failure in decision-making. In this sense, the language of the Oresteia accomplishes two different things. My first point concerns the act of decision-making as characters in the play. The language of the Oresteia shows that every male deliberative action is exposed to the danger of failing, since there is no decision-making without a discourse that jus-

 The expression ‘a narrative of doubt and hesitation’ is Prof. Goldhill’s, from the lecture ‘The Narrative of the Chorus’, Cambridge 17. 10. 10.  Cf. Vernant (1977: 35): ‘Les mots échangés sur l’espace scénique ont moins alors pour fonction d’établir la communication entre les divers personnages que de marquer les blocages, les barrières, l’imperméabilité des esprits, de cerner le points de conflit. Pour chaque protagoniste, enfermé dans l’univers qui lui est propre, le vocabulaire utilisé reste dans sa plus grande partie opaque; il a un sens et un seul. A cette unilatéralité se heurte violemment une autre unilatéralité’ (italics mine). On the characters’ various usage of language as the central theme of the Oresteia, cf. notably Goldhill (1986: 3): ‘It is the way in which what one does with words becomes a thematic consideration of the Oresteia that makes this trilogy a “drama of logos’’ ’; Goldhill (1997a: 136 – 150; esp. pp. 136 – 141 for the Oresteia).

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tifies it, and no discourse without the violence inherent in the use of language.⁶ This implies: 1) that tragic violence against female characters in the Oresteia begins with and fails through language; 2) that the trilogy, in all three plays, is properly concerned with failure – and not simply with the process of decision-making;⁷ 3) that male deliberative actions engage with the difficult process of defining who a woman is (as mother, wife, queen), and of dealing with an acceptable definition. The construction of this definition marks in the Oresteia the condition for and the limits of male rationality. My second point concerns the characters’ acts of making their decisions in relation to the reader’s act of taking a position in the text. The language of the Oresteia shows that it is an oversimplification to read the Oresteia following Aristotle’s view on tragedy. According to Aristotle, what matters in tragedy are the characters’ actions. This is certainly true: it is precisely actions that Agamemnon and Orestes put into question.⁸ Yet, if we simply abide by Aristotle, we forget the reader and miss the question that tragedy actually triggers for us. The language of the play, in performing the characters’ constant failure in decision-making (and thereby the inherent undecidability), forces us, as readers, to question our own position-taking in the text. The play and its language, in other words, cause us to take a step further into the undecidability of the text, and not, as

 Following a common practice in the Humanities and Social sciences, I use ‘discourse’ in order to refer to the way of thinking displayed by the characters through their use of language, and therefore to the system of values and to the conduct of actions they construct as a possible truth.  I argue (against a common view) that the language of the Oresteia problematises the usual Athenian practice of taking a decision in the boule rather than simply mirroring it. Cf. Hall (2010: 64– 65): ‘Deliberation means the entire process of giving and receiving advice, acquiring information, weighing up alternatives, and decision-taking. … Its importance in terms of the decisions made by the city is underlined by the speed with which the oligarchs who took power in 411 ousted the democratically elected Council. … The council met almost every day (Xenophon, Hellenica 2.3.11), and it considered matters relating not only to the state’s finances and the scrutiny of magistrates, but the Athenian cults, festivals, navy … Greek tragedy offers a training in decision-making. … Aeschylean characters deliberate less than those in the other two tragedians’. Yet, the Oresteia contains the two loci classici of the conflict involved in decisionmaking, notably Agamemnon’s dilemma (Ag. 211) and Orestes’ tragic question ‘What shall I do?’ (Cho. 899).  Cf. Agamemnon’s dilemma in Ag. 211 and Orestes’ question ‘What shall I do?’ in Cho. 899. Cf. Aristot., Po. 1450b3 – 4: ‘We maintain that tragedy is primarily an imitation of action (πράξεως), and that it is mainly for the sake of the action that it imitates the personal agents (τῶν πραττόντων)’. The translation of this passage is by Barnes (1984).

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Vernant would say, a step back: notably, according to Vernant, the reader understands what the characters do not, namely the ambiguities of language and the conflict they trigger.⁹ This turns Orestes’ question ‘What shall I do?’ into our own question ‘What shall I do, therefore, who am I?’, i. e. ‘How did I become what I am?’. Accordingly, the play engages us, as readers, in a process of destabilization of our own identity in the family and in society, and of its unity through language and actions. Again, the play supports this interpretation. When the jury of Athens votes half in favour of Orestes and half against him, his acquittal constitutes a moment of acceptance of the play’s discourse on the separation of Clytemnestra’s role as mother, wife and queen: Orestes is acquitted because Clytemnestra is not his mother, but the adulterous and murderous wife of his father and king of Argos. Yet, at the same time, the acquittal of Orestes exemplifies the failure of this discourse on separation (the jury is divided), causing the narrative to shift from a moment of acceptance to one of doubt and hesitation: the figure of Orestes, acquitted in dubio pro reo, symbolises the characters’ failure to instantiate the father or the mother as the sole origin of birth and power. So for whom, as a reader, do I actually have the power to vote? In both cases (for the mother or for the father) Orestes will be acquitted, and one way or the other we will still be haunted by the shadow of the voices against or for Orestes, questioning our position in the text and, accordingly, what we might say in support of our position, and what we think we are because of this position.¹⁰ This is how the story of Orestes becomes our own story, and how this story, against Aristotle’s interpretation of Greek tragedy, can hardly be read without the way of being (ποιότης) of its reader, understood precisely as our own history of reading and, accordingly, as our own story of permanent difficulty to establish who we are as subjects in the family and in society.¹¹ So, when Aeschylus re-writes Homer, turning Orestes’

 Cf. Vernant (1977: 36): ‘C’est seulement pour le spectateur que le langage du texte peut être transparent à tous ses niveaux, dans sa polyvalence et ses ambiguïtés. … Le langage lui devient transparent, le message tragique communicable dans la mesure seulement où il fait la découverte de l’ambiguïté des mots, des valeurs, de l’homme, où il reconnaît l’univers comme conflictuel et où, abandonnant ses certitudes anciennes, s’ouvrant à une vision problématique du monde, il se fait lui-même, à travers le spectacle, conscience tragique’.  Cf. Goldhill (1984a: 174): ‘the Oresteia, a play which not only dramatises a failing search for a defined τέλος … but which also dramatises the very act of interpretation as blocked, in error, a series of méconnaissances’.  On the story of Orestes becoming our own story, cf. Barthes (1970: 184): ‘Tel le discours: s’il produit des personnages, ce n’est pas pour les faire jouer entre eux devant nous, c’est pour jouer avec eux’. On Aristotle’s ποιότης and Greek tragedy, cf. Hardy’s translation of Poetics, 1450a15 – 18: ‘La plus importante de ces parties est l’assemblage des actions accomplies, car la tragédie

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story into a question, the tragic play passes this question on to his reader. Hence, in reading the Oresteia I chose to adopt the position of a ‘resisting reader’ (Fetterly), in the hope to escape the tyranny of what Goldhill (with Barthes) calls the ‘critical level’.¹² What I have said in regard to the language of the characters can be applied to the language of the chorus as well. Since the chorus brings the dramatic movement from a narrative of acceptance to one of doubt and hesitation concerning Clytemnestra’s motherhood, wifehood and female power, the language of the chorus neither comments on the staged events as an idealized spectator (according to German Idealism, notably Schlegel), nor it represents a frightened spectator, somehow aware of the opaque nature of language and of its dangers (according to Vernant).¹³ Rather, the chorus is involved in the narrative construction of the play, along with the characters. Its language, like that of the characters, thereby forces us as readers to take a failing position within the text. It is in the performance of this dramatic exchange between characters, chorus and reader that the language of the play writes and re-writes its own narrative. Thus, I would expand upon Goldhill’s idea that we cannot understand the play if we do not understand the narrative of the chorus, suggesting that we cannot understand the play if we do not understand the verbal exchange in the play performing both the characters’ and the chorus’ failure to make a decision, and the reader’s failure to take a position within the text itself.¹⁴ In relation to the play’s discourse on motherhood, wifehood and power relations in the family and society, my analysis of Orestes’ story of violence follows the chronological order of the trilogy. I have accordingly divided this book into three chapters. In the chapter on Agamemnon (1), I look at the characters’ rhetoric of motherhood and wifehood, focusing on the narrative of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice and on Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a queen. In the chapter on Choephoroi (2), I investigate the play’s discourse on motherhood, wifehood, power

imite non pas les hommes mais une action et la vie … et la fin de la vie est une certaine manière d’agir, non une manière d’être (ποιότης)’ (italics are mine).  Cf. Fetterly (1978: xxii); LSN: 4: ‘Hence both my questioning of the textual critics in their prescriptive readings, their assumption of the corrupt and to-be-corrected text, and also my questioning of the literary critics who “slipping the universal passkey into all lacunae of signification”, find “a critical level is established, the work is closed, the language by which the semantic transformation is ended becomes nature, truth, the work’s secret” ’.  Cf. Vernant (1977: 35 – 36): ‘Le chœur, le plus souvent, hésite et oscille, rejeté successivement d’un sens vers un autre, ou parfois pressentant obscurément une signification demeurée encore secrète, ou la formulant, sans le savoir, par un jeu de mots, une expression à double sens’.  Prof. Simon Goldhill discussed this idea in his lecture ‘The Narrative of the Chorus’, Cambridge 17. 10. 10.

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Introduction

relations in family and society, looking at Orestes’ matricide and Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a tyrant. In the chapter on Eumenides (3), I examine the discourse on motherhood, wifehood and, again, familial and societal power relations at work in Orestes’ trial. Finally, some notes on the terminology. Speaking of Clytemnestra as ‘mother giving life’ and as ‘mother nurturing life’, I assume that there is a difference between the sexes and that this difference consists precisely in the exclusive power of a woman to conceive and to maintain life in utero, through her blood.¹⁵ This does not assume an essentialist position on women, whereby a woman becomes a woman only through pregnancy and marriage. Instead, this is to say that culturally constructed gender distinctions are based on sex, and that the law of the Father consists in, and is made possible by a) the social acceptance of marriage and the definition of the mother as wife and female procreator for the Father, b) the social acceptance of the sexual, reproductive and economic exploitation of the female body.¹⁶ By maintaining that cultural womanhood cannot be separated from biological womanhood, I differ from those scholars who, as they speak about politics of menstruation, neglect the fact that its social meanings tend to undermine the power of female biology.¹⁷ For this reason, I also differ from Butler (2000, ch. 1), whose criticism of Irigaray’s concept of the maternal never speaks of the mother, her body and its relation with maternal thinking or thinking through the body.¹⁸ Finally, I assume that the gender studies on the feminine and the female character of Clytemnestra, since they neglect the maternal dimension of Clytemnestra as a mother giving life, cannot be regarded as feminist: by neglecting her maternal body, they construct motherhood according to the patriarchal view of the mother figure as a projection of male identity, i. e. as the wife of the father for whom she has borne children. ¹⁹ Furthermore, I refer to the parental role of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon with the following terminology: genitor and genitrix term the social role of the father and the mother, as according to the classical definition of Barnes (1973:

 Cf. Gianini Benotti (1972); Rich (1977); Trebilcot (1983); Fouque (1994); Demichel (1994); Heritier (1996); Irigaray (2000); Lipperini (2007).  Cf. Skultans (1970); Brownmiller (1975); Dworkin (1981); Dally (1982); Ehrenreich (1983); Fraser (1989); Weinbaum (1994), with further bibliography; Cheah and Grosz (1998), in their interview with Butler; Mclanahan and Percheski (2008).  Cf. for instance Laws (1990).  On the mother’s body and its relation to maternal thinking or thinking through the body, cf. Gallop (1988); Irigaray (1984); Ruddick (1989); Muraro (2006).  On the question whether gender studies on female characters in Athenian drama are feminist or not, cf. Rabinowitz (2004) and Gilhuly (2006: 5) on Rabinowitz (2004).

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63); genetic father terms the carnal father, as in Barnes (1973: 63); the mother giving and nurturing life terms the biological mother. The bibliography was updated to November 2013, as the book went to press.

Agamemnon I Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice In this section, I explore Clytemnestra’s representation of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, focusing on Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and on paternal violence in its relation to the mother-daughter bond. In order to understand the discourse that takes place when a son kills his mother, we have to start from the narrative of violence involved in the mother-daughter bond (Iphigeneia’s sacrifice), before looking at the narrative of violence involved in the mother-son relationship (matricide). This particular critical perspective leads us to ask ‘not only where the stories of women are in men’s plots, but where the stories of mothers are in the plots of sons and daughters’.²⁰ By doing so, we will be able to point out the differences in the play which pertain to the relationship between mother and daughter, and between mother and son, investigating the discourse of violence at work in Aeschylus’ representation of matricide. In discussing the sacrifice of Iphigeneia from the narrative perspective of Clytemnestra, my analysis differs consistently from most studies in the scholarship, which insist instead upon the relationship between a daughter (Iphigeneia) and a father (Agamemnon).²¹ In sections one to six, I explore Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge according to her rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords γυνή, ἀνήρ, πόσις and πατήρ in Ag. 316, 600, 602– 604, 606, 612, 1405, 1438, 1557, φίλος, θύειν and ὠδίς in Ag. 1417– 1418, ἔρνος in Ag. 1525, κύων in Ag. 607 and 896, δολία in Ag. 1523, σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425, μήτηρ and εὐφρόνη in Ag. 265, δίκη in Ag. 1432.²² In section seven I sum up my conclusions.

1 Clytemnestra or Iphigeneia’s mother and Agamemnon’s wife A discussion of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, from the perspective of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood, inevitably leads to the question of how Clytemnestra explains the murder of Agamemnon. We detect four manners in which she refers to the death of Agamemnon:

 Cf. Hirsch (1989: 4).  Cf. Di Benedetto (1977: 187); Nussbaum (1986: 32– 41); Wohl (1998: 71– 82); Föllinger (2003: 85 – 86; 2007: 17). For extended bibliography, cf. below n. 37 and 57.  I use the expression ‘rhetoric of appropriation’ as Goldhill does (1986: 46): ‘It is this sort of one-sided laying claim to evaluative and normative words that I term “the rhetoric of appropriation” ’.

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– – – –

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as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice (Ag. 1397 ff., 1412 ff., 1525 ff., 1551 ff.); as the work of the power of the Alastor of the Atreid family (Ag. 1497– 1504); as a punishment for his relation with Cassandra (Ag. 1438 – 1447); as a revenge for his relation with Chryseis and other captive women (Ag. 1439), and as protection of her own adulterous union with Aegisthus (Ag. 611– 612; 1434– 1436).

These different levels of explanation conform to the status of a woman with a child, that is to say to Clytemnestra’s position as wife and mother. Thereby, she focalises on Agamemnon in different ways. When she refers to Cassandra, Aegisthus and the captive women of Troy, she is talking in her role as wife, focusing upon Agamemnon as her husband. Here, she insists upon the sexual relationship between Agamemnon and Cassandra (Ag. 1438: κεῖται γυναικὸς τῆσδ’ ὁ λυμαντήριος; 1442– 1443: πιστὴ ξύνευνος, ναυτίλων δὲ σελμάτων/†ἰστοτριβής†; 1446: κεῖται φιλήτωρ τοῦδ’).²³ Moreover, she hints at her sexual independence from her man, as her rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἀνήρ and γυνή in passage 611– 614 points out: οὐδ’ οἶδα τέρψιν οὐδ’ ἐπίψογον φάτιν ἄλλου πρὸς ἀνδρὸς μᾶλλον ἢ χαλκοῦ βαφάς. τοιόσδ’ ὁ κόμπος, τῆς ἀληθείας γέμων, οὐκ αἰσχρὸς ὡς γυναικὶ γενναίαι λακεῖν

Yet, when she speaks of the murder of Agamemnon as a compensation for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and as the effect of the power of the Alastor of the Atreid family, she is talking in her role of mother, focalising upon Agamemnon as the father and the murderer of her daughter.²⁴ Accordingly, she identifies herself as the mother of Iphigeneia and not as the wife of Agamemnon. As we infer from pas-

 In line 1438 Clytemnestra is referring to herself (cf. D-P ad loc.). What is true for Clytemnestra (Agamemnon is her λυμαντήριος), it is not for the nurse. In Cho. 764 the nurse refers to Aegisthus as λυμαντήριος of the Atreid house. For Aegisthus as lovemate of Clytemnestra, cf. also Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἀνήρ as object of her philia in Ag. 1654: μηδαμῶς, ὦ φίλτατ’ ἀνδρῶν, ἄλλα δράσωμεν κακά. At line 1443 following Fraenkel (ad loc.) and Lloyd-Jones (1978: 58 – 59), I read, as in the MS, ἰστοτριβής. For an interesting discussion of passage 1446 – 1447, cf. Fuqua (1972); especially for line 1443 and the erotic undertone of ἰστοτριβής, cf. Tyrrell (1980); Koniaris (1980); Borthwick (1981).  On Clytemnestra’s representation of Agamemnon as father and murderer of her daughter, cf. Loraux (1990: 77): ‘Mortelle, Clytemnestre connaît la mort en sa fille: elle a irrémédiablement perdu Iphigénie … et elle tue le père meurtrier’.

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sages 1397– 1418, 1497– 1500 and 1551– 1557, in casting Agamemnon as the sacrificer of Iphigeneia, she either refuses to identify herself in the role of wife, or she talks about Agamemnon as the father of Iphigeneia and refers to him as ἀνήρ in the general sense of the demonstrative pronoun ‘that one’. In passage 1397– 1418, she mentions Agamemnon twice, in relation to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia: Ag. 1397– 1398: τοσῶνδε κρατῆρ’ ἐν δόμοις κακῶν ὅδε πλήσας … Ag. 1417: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα …

Yet, in these same lines, she admittedly refers to him as her husband (Ag. 1405: πόσις), with the sole purpose of denying his marital status by stating that he is dead (Ag. 1405: πόσις, νεκρὸς δέ).²⁵ Further, she mentions Agamemnon as ‘that one’, but not as her husband (Ag. 1414: οὐδὲν τότ’ ἀνδρὶ τῶιδ’ ἐναντίον φέρων). Similarly, in passage 1497– 1500, she identifies herself with the wife of Agamemnon by denying it at the same time (again, Agamemnon is dead; Ag. 1500: φανταζόμενος δὲ γυναικὶ νεκροῦ). Moreover, she denies to be Agamemnon’s wife (Ag. 1498 – 1499: †μηδ’ ἐπιλεχθῆις†/Ἀγαμεμνονίαν εἶναί μ’ ἄλοχον).²⁶ Finally, to the old men of Argos who reproach her for the killing of her husband (Ag. 1544: ἄνδρα τὸν αὑτῆς), she replies that Agamemnon is the father of his own daughter Iphigeneia (Ag. 1556– 1557: θυγάτηρ ὡς χρή/ πατέρ’ ἀντιάσασα).²⁷ Consistent with this representation of Agamemnon as the father of Iphigeneia, Clytemnestra refers to him as her husband, and to herself as his wife, only when she is not talking about Iphigeneia; the first time in the so called bea-

 For similar remarks on line 1405, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 108 – 109): ‘The word πόσις receives great emphasis; its juxtaposition to νεκρός suggests perhaps a causal connection between those two conditions’.  On the Alastor and Clytemnestra’s motherhood, cf. below ch. 1, I. 6.  I differ from Belfiore (2000: 145) who quotes lines 1555 ff. as evidence that ‘Klytaimestra says that she killed her husband in vengeance for his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia’. I also differ from Neuburg (1991: 60). In glossing lines 1555 – 1557, Neuburg notes: ‘Clytemnestra sees herself as having acted justly under the rubric of avenger for family-murder, while the chorus sees her only as someone who has slain her own husband, which is obviously reprehensible’. This is right, but not quite the point. Neuburg misses the fact that here Clytemnestra refers to Agamemnon as pater and to Iphigeneia as thugater, thereby pointing out her position as mother and avenger of her daughter’s death. Such omission is sadly surprising, since in his paper Neuburg wants to look at the question of family relationships as ‘crucial to the drama as a whole’ (p. 53). Now, how is it possible to answer this question limiting oneself to speak of Clytemnestra as avenger, keeping silent about Clytemnestra’s position as the mother who avenges her daughter’s sacrifice?

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con-speech, then in the speech she delivers immediately after the exchange between the chorus and the herald: Ag. 316: Ag. 600: Ag. 602: Ag. 603: Ag. 604: Ag. 606:

ἀνδρὸς παραγγείλαντος ἐκ Τροίας … ἄριστα τὸν ἐμὸν αἰδοῖον πόσιν γυναικὶ τούτου φέγγος ἥδιον δρακεῖν ἀπὸ στρατείας ἄνδρα σώσαντος θεοῦ … ταῦτ’ ἀπάγγειλον πόσει γυναῖκα πιστὴν δ’ ἐν δόμοις εὕροι μολών

Critics, however, have often dismissed the complexity of Clytemnestra’s self-representation as mother and wife, most of the times suppressing Clytemnestra’s self-representation as a mother. This is a common trend in the scholarship, which reflects precisely the following prejudice: a woman with a child is not a mother in the first place, but the wife of her husband, i. e. the object of the male desire for sex and reproduction.²⁸ In order to pursue this critical level, scholars in fact read the narrative of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice while bearing in mind the discourse of Apollo, and following it as if it were indisputably right. So they tend to define a single narrative frame for the character of Clytemnestra: the adulterous wife of the father of the child.²⁹ Yet, to erase the complexity of Clytemnestra’s explanation for the murder of Agamemnon, from her narrative perspective as both mother and wife, amounts to erasing the complexity of the play’s discourse on motherhood, wifehood and violence. Now, a discussion of

 Cf. for example Foley (2001), who looks at Clytemnestra’s action only as the action of a wife against her husband (cf. ch. III. 4, Tragic wives: Clytemnestras). Foley’s omission might be explained by the fact that she turns the parameters of her analysis of female acts in Greek tragedy into the division of women into maternal women (mothers) and non-maternal women (wives, concubines). Thus, on the one hand, she sees as mothers only old women, who are not at the mercy of eros anymore (Aethra in Euripides’ Suppliants, Jocasta in Phoenissae, Hecuba in Hecuba); on the other hand, she categorises Clytemnestra, Medea and Jocasta only as wives. On this distinction, cf. Hirsch (1989: 1– 27), esp. on Jocasta pp. 1– 8. For further bibliography, cf. n. 75.  Cf. e. g. Bunker (1944: 200); Earp (1950: 55); Kitto (1956: 36); Peradotto (1964: 390); Vickers (1973: 145); Betenski (1978: 20); Kraus (1983: 195 – 196); Maitland (1992: 30); Pulleyn (1997: 567); Käppel (1998: 194– 197); Gould (1978: 59 – 60; 2001: 165); Helm (2004: 45); McClure (2006: 81); McHardy (2008: 103 – 104); Wolfe (2009: 698 – 703). In her discussion of the maternal authority in the Persians and of the characterisation of Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon, McClure denies maternal authority in the case of Clytemnestra. She observes at p. 82: ‘Clytemnestra is never once directly alluded to as a mother by the other characters in the Agamemnon except when Cassandra refers to her oxymoronically as the “mother of death” ’. As I will show, Cassandra’s representation of Clytemnestra as a ‘mother of death’ aims to undermine the authority of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood.

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Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and wifehood can help us in two directions. First, to differentiate the characters’ representation of Clytemnestra as merely an adulterous woman from her self-representation as an avenging mother and a woman refusing sexual dependence on her man.³⁰ Second, to underline the differences between the Aeschylean and the Homeric Clytemnestra. Homeric epos does not tell the story of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, and it is vague about the death of Clytemnestra (the only time Clytemnestra’s death is mentioned (Od. 3, 309 – 310), it is not clear whether she is murdered by his son Orestes, or she commits suicide).³¹ Moreover, Clytemnestra is only portrayed as the adulterous wife of Agamemnon (Od. 3, 266–272; 11, 439; 24, 199), and as the counter-example of Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus (Od. 13, 379 – 381; 20, 33 – 35; 24, 191– 202). We might say that the Homeric story of the Atreids focuses on the horizontal relations between a wife (Clytemnestra), a husband (Agamemnon) and a love mate (Aegisthus). Aeschylus maintains Homer’s characterisation of Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife: yet, his Clytemnestra is the mother of a matricidal son and of a sacrificed daughter in the first place. The Oresteia is a tragedy not because Clytemnestra betrays her man, but because she kills the father who has killed her daughter, and will be killed in return by her own son. The vertical relations between parents and their children become the object of Aeschylus’ poetic interest. Moving from Clytemnestra’s depiction as a wife to her depiction as a mother, Aeschylus is breaking a silence in Homer and rewriting the Homeric epic tradition, a shift that posits motherhood as a crucial issue in all three plays of the trilogy: in Agamemnon through Clytemnestra’s depiction as a mother and through her rhetoric of explanation of Agamemnon’s death as revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice; in Choephoroi through Electra’s and Orestes’ rhetoric of explanation of motherhood and matricide; in Eumenides through the dispute between Apollo and the Furies on the role of mother and father in reproduction. The Aeschylean characterisation of Clytemnestra as mother allows a comparison with Penelope. As we will see, in Aeschylus Clytemnestra is a bad

 Cf. Loraux (1990: 76 – 77): ‘Mais il y a aussi Clytemnestre … dont on fait trop vite une adultère meurtrière’. On Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and the murder of Agamemnon as an excuse for sex, cf. below Cassandra’s discourse in ch. 1, II. 1.  On the paradigmatic function of the Atreid myth, the absence of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice and the uncertainty about Clytemnestra’s death in the Odyssey, cf. e. g. Duering (1943: 95 – 105); D’Arms and Hulley (1946); Lesky (1967: 10 – 18); March (1987: 84– 86); Thornton (1988); Hölscher (1967; 1989: 297– 310); Olson (1990); Griffith (1991: 176); Sommerstein (1996: 190 – 192); Gould (2001: 164– 165); McHardy (2008: 104– 105); Wolfe (2009: 695 – 696). The Nostoi and the Ehoiai mention Orestes’ matricide; cf. Vogt (1994: 97 n. 1).

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wife for the characters in the play, nonetheless she is and remains a philos of her children: in tragedy, bad wife is not equivalent to bad mother. In Homer, instead, Penelope’s role as mother is never detached from her role as wife. She is depicted either as a (good) mother since she is a (good) wife (Od. 2, 113: μητέρα σὴν ἀπόπεμψον, ἄνωχθι δέ μιν γαμέεσθαι; 11, 178: ἠὲ μένει παρὰ παιδὶ καὶ ἔμπεδα πάντα φυλάσσει), or as a woman who might abandon, or not recognize her man, and therefore as a mother who might not take care of her son: μητρὶ δ’ ἐμῇ δίχα θυμὸς ἐνὶ φρεσὶ μερμηρίζει, ἢ αὐτοῦ παρ’ ἐμοί τε μένῃ καὶ δῶμα κομίζῃ εὐνήν τ’ αἰδομένη πόσιος … Od. 19, 524– 525: ὣς καὶ ἐμοὶ δίχα θυμὸς ὀρώρεται ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα, ἠὲ μένω παρὰ παιδὶ καὶ ἔμπεδα πάντα φυλάσσω μῆτερ ἐμή, δύσμητερ, ἀπηνέα θυμὸν ἔχουσα Od. 23, 97– 99: τίφθ’ οὕτω πατρὸς νοσφίζεαι, οὐδὲ παρ’ αὐτόν ἑζομένη μύθοισιν ἀνείρεαι οὐδὲ μεταλλᾷς;

Od. 16, 73 – 75:

The expression ‘μῆτερ ἐμή, δύσμητερ’ is particularly important in regard to my discussion of the Aeschylean discourse on motherhood. It is precisely this Homeric characterisation of the mother as a bad mother that is destabilized by the narrative and the language of the Oresteia, as a central step for the representation of matricide as a problematic act of violence. In what follows, I turn to a discussion of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood in relation to the sacrifice of her daughter and to Agamemnon’s paternal violence. My discussion takes the chorus’ representation of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in the parodos as a starting point.

2 Mother, daughter and sacrifice The sacrifice of Iphigeneia is narrated at length in the parodos (Ag. 205 – 227). As has often been observed, in the chorus’ report Iphigeneia’s sacrifice represents the tragic version of the wedding ritual, in which a virgin passes from her kurios into the hands of Hades (her spouse). Several elements in the text support this position. Iphigeneia is a virgin (Ag. 215: παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος, 229: αἰῶνα παρθένειόν, 245: ἀταύρωτος); she seems to wear the saffron bridal veil (Ag. 239: κρόκου βαφὰς); the erotic undertone of verses 240–241 evokes hymeneal images (ἔβαλλ’ ἕκαστον θυτή-/ρων ἀπ’ ὄμματος βέλει φιλοίκτωι); the image of the force of the gag in line 238 (βίαι χαλινῶν) suggests the trope of the bride

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tamed like an animal in her first sexual encounter.³² However, there is even more in this analogy. The sacrifice of Iphigeneia can be seen as some kind of funeral nuptial with Hades, precisely because her death represents a precondition for war: as the expression ‘προτέλεια ναῶν’ (Ag. 227) shows, in the case of Iphigeneia the preliminary sacrifice to marriage (προτέλεια) is her own sacrifice and prelude to war.³³ Yet, Iphigeneia is not just a virgin. Following Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’ discourse, when Agamemnon kills Iphigeneia in sacrifice as expedient (Ag. 199: μῆχαρ) and conditio sine qua non for winning the favourable winds for the expedition to Troy and starting the war against Troy, as a matter of fact he kills his own daughter: ἔτλα δ’ οὖν θυτὴρ γενέσθαι θυγατρός, γυναικοποίνων πολέμων ἀρωγὰν καὶ προτέλεια ναῶν Clytemnestra – Ag. 1417– 1418: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοί ὠδῖν’, ἐπωιδὸν Θρηικίων ἀημάτων chorus – Ag. 224– 227:

This clash of civic and paternal duties constitutes the core of Agamemnon’s dilemma, and leads to the irremediable conflict between Agamemnon and Clytemnestra:³⁴ Ag. 206 – 208: βαρεῖα μὲν κὴρ τὸ μὴ πιθέσθαι, βαρεῖα δ’, εἰ τέκνον δαΐξω …

 Cf. e. g. Goldman (1910: 117); Peradotto (1969: 245); Cunningham (1984); Armstrong and Ratchford (1985); Armstrong and Hanson (1986); Seaford (1987: 124– 125); Griffith (1988: 553 – 554); Lynn-George (1993: 7 n. 23); Bowie (1993: 20); Wohl (1998: 72, 78); Fletcher (1999: 16); Heath (1999: 28 – 29); Delneri (2001: 60 – 61).  On the virgin’s sacrifice as funeral wedding with Hades, cf. Loraux (1985: 68 – 75). On the expression ‘προτέλεια ναῶν’, cf. Zeitlin (1965: 466): ‘In this context, proteleia is used with greater effect than before. Iphigenia was literally the preliminary sacrifice before the departure of the fleet’. As Zeitlin, cf. also Dumortier (1975a: 190 – 191); Petrounias (1976: 210); Lebeck (1983: 81). On the death of a virgin as condicio sine qua non for the beginning of war, cf. Burkert (1972: 77): ‘Das vorbereitende Jungfrauenopfer prägt bei den Griechen vor allem die Einleitung des Krieges’, with full evidences at n. 30, p. 77– 78. On this topic, cf. also Loraux (1985: 61– 65). For προτέλεια as preliminary sacrifice to marriage, cf. Burkert (1972: 74– 75 with n. 20).  This clash returns in the opposition between the stated necessity of the war against Troy in Ag. 224– 227 and Agamemnon’s description as Iphigeneia’s father in Ag. 228, 231, 244, 245. On this topic, cf. LSN: 30 – 31. On Agamemnon’s dilemma and his position as father, cf. ch. 1, I. 4.

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Ag. 211– 213:

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… τί τῶνδ’ ἄνευ κακῶν; πῶς λιπόναυς γένωμαι ξυμμαχίας ἁμαρτών;

In Ag. 1417– 1418, Clytemnestra enlightens us on the mechanisms of this conflict between sexes. Clytemnestra speaks this passage after the murder of Agamemnon, when she claims, in front of the chorus, the rightneousness of her violent deed. In this line, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word ὠδίς, a mother, through her ὠδῖνες, guarantees the continuity of life in the family. Quite the contrary, according to Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the word θύειν, the father and warrior kills his own daughter for the sake of war, breaking up the continuity of life in the family, which he, as kurios, is supposed to safeguard through the virgin’s marriage.³⁵ In translation, we should try to maintain this opposition. So, for example, Smyth (Loeb 1936) aptly translates ‘he sacrificed his own child, even her I bore with dearest travail’; Collard (2002) ‘he sacrificed his own daughter, the darling of my womb’; Centanni (2003) ‘ha sacrificato sua figlia. Mia figlia! Che io ho partorito’; Carson (2009) ‘this man sacrificed his own child, my most beloved, my birthpang, my own’. The Greek supports this reading. Indeed, the substantive ὠδίς properly indicates the female child in relation to its mother at the moment of giving birth and, read with θύειν, it stresses the insoluble clash between the one who gives birth (the mother’s figure) and the one who kills for the sake of war (the father’s figure).³⁶ Following this line of interpretation, we can make the following observations:

 On Agamemnon’s position as kurios of Iphigeneia, cf. Föllinger (2007: 21), with extended bibliography at n. 39. Furthermore, it is certainly true that sons guarantee the continuity of the oikos in Athens, and daughters can do it only if there are no sons. Agamemnon’s tragic action, then, might reflect the Athenian idea that the death of a son, and not the death of a daughter, threatens the continuity of the oikos. Yet, it is also equally true that without regeneration of life, an oikos becomes extinct: sons are born only from mothers. Now, with Iphigeneia’s death, there will be no sons born from her who will be the heads of new households, and no daughters who will bear sons. It is notable that in the Atreid house Electra is still capable of bearing children. Yet, this objection does not affect the matter in a substantial way: Agamemnon, in sacrificing Iphigeneia, still violates his role as kurios, and the fact that he could be the kurios of Electra does not efface the tragic dimension of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice.  Cf. Loraux (1990: 79 – 80): ‘la fille, on s’en souvient, pouvait être désignée comme ōdis, d’un nom qui renvoie au vécu même de l’accouchement, dans sa durée et sa douleur, mais avant que la séparation de la mère et de l’enfant ne soit accomplie’. Thus, as Loraux (1990: 137 n. 93) observes, ὠδίς properly designates the female child in relation of her mother, and not just the child in relation to the female. For this meaning of ὠδίς, cf. Dumortier (1975: 28) who notes that ‘En Agam., 1417– 1418, ὠδίς, signifie le fruit de la douleur, l’enfant … ὠδίς sera l’enfant, par rapport à la femme’. On ὠδίς, cf. as well Winnington-Ingram (1983: 110) who notes that this

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when Clytemnestra speaks about her relationship with Iphigeneia, she foregrounds the biological tie between mother and daughter. By referring to the relation with her daughter as a biological tie, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood lies in sharp opposition to that of all the other characters in the play, except for the Furies. Cassandra and the chorus in Agamemnon, Electra, Orestes, the nurse and the captive women in Choephoroi, Apollo and Athena in Eumenides, all share an interpretation of motherhood, according to which a mother is solely the wife of the husband for and from whom she has borne children – not a woman who, through the experiences of pregnancy and labour, gives birth to her child; from Clytemnestra’s maternal perspective, the murder of Agamemnon represents the punishment for his warlike violence against the inviolable bond of life between a mother and the creature of her womb.³⁷

Two further considerations can be fairly put forward. First, Clytemnestra is clearly concerned with the public scope of her daughter’s death (she talks about Iphigeneia’s sacrifice as the condition for the Trojan War).³⁸ Second, in contrast to what Hall (2006: 67) has observed, Clytemnestra does not seem to be giving voice to the pain of the ‘disturbed tragic woman’. Rather, she appears to be lucidly criticising, from a maternal point of view, the violence of the father who kills his own daughter in order to sail to Troy. In referring to Iphigeneia as the exclusive fruit of her womb, Clytemnestra does not use only the expression ‘φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’ in Ag. 1417– 1418. In Ag. 1525 she also describes her child as her own shoot: ἀλλ’ ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος ἀερθὲν

word, as ἔρνος in line 1525, designates ‘the intimate physical connection between mother and child’.  On Agamemnon’s warlike violence and Iphigeneia’s death, cf. Hammond (1965: 42– 47); Peradotto (1969: 255 – 257); Dodds (1973: 57); Petrounias (1976: 151– 152); Vellacott (1977: 115); Gantz (1982: 11– 13; 1983: 75 – 77); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 83) and Seidensticker (2009: 242– 243), according to whom Agamemnon kills Iphigeneia because of his military ambitions: the sacrifice of Iphigeneia allows him to attack Troy and to prove his value in war. These sholars, however, refer to the chorus’ description of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice and not to Clytemnestra’s representation of Iphigeneia’s death. On Agamemnon’s military ambitions, cf. now the thoughtful discussion of Lawrence (2013: 76 – 77).  Accordingly, I differ from Foley (2001: 213) who argues that in these lines Clytemnestra is not concerned with the public aspect of Agamemnon’s choice.

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Clytemnestra speaks this line in her last confrontation with the chorus, when she justifies the death of Agamemnon as a revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice (Ag. 1527– 1529). We must look at this line carefully. It might seem prima facie that for Clytemnestra the conception of her daughter is the result of a sexual encounter with her husband. However, one could ask whether or not she is actually claiming that the male, in the process of reproduction, is just a donor of sperm, and the woman, instead, the unique genetic parent of the child. The text seems to support this question. In line 1525, the Greek, as Fraenkel argues (ad loc.), reads: ‘my shoot that I conceived by him’.³⁹ Now, when Clytemnestra affirms that she conceived her child ‘from this man here’ (ἐκ τοῦδ’ … ἀερθὲν), she is clearly representing Iphigeneia as her daughter (ἐμὸν … ἔρνος) and not as their common child.⁴⁰ We find an echo of Clytemnestra’s representation of the child as fruit of the maternal body also at line 898, in Clytemnestra’s welcome speech to Agamemnon. Here, Clytemnestra describes the Atreid as the only child of the father: … μονογενὲς τέκνον πατρί

We might detect a sarcastic tone in this phrase. The Greek reads a dative: πατρί (i. e., for the father). As a dative possessive, πατρί expresses the idea that Agamemnon is the only son of his father (μονογενές; cf. LSJ) and the guarantor of the continuity of the genealogical line of the Atreids (cf. Fraenkel ad loc.). Yet, read as a dative of reference, it also seems to imply that children are born of their fathers according to the fathers’ point of view. ⁴¹ There is more to be said about the expression ‘ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος ἀερθὲν’, and about the implied idea of the autonomy of the maternal body in generating life. The assimilation of the embryo to a shoot (ἔρνος) seems to suggest the no-

 Cf. e. g. Mazon in Vidal-Naquet (1982): ‘Au beau fruit que j’avais de lui’; Medda in Di Benedetto (1999): ‘Ma al mio germoglio, che da lui avevo concepito’; Sommerstein (2008): ‘the offspring that I conceived by him’.  Accordingly, I differ from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 110) who argues that in Ag. 1417 and 1525 Clytemnestra describes Iphigeneia as her and Agamemnon’s child.  For a different reading of this line, cf. Sommerstein (2008: 103 n. 185): ‘Agamemnon is not, of course, an only son; this phrase, like the previous three, metaphorically describes him as one on whom depends the whole safety of the house and/or the city’. Of course, Agamemnon is not the only child of Atreus (Menelaus is his brother). Thus, it could be argued that the phrase ‘a father’s only son’ implies a reference to Orestes (who is the only son of Agamemnon) and that it expresses a presentiment of Orestes’ revenge. However, referred to τέκνον, the adjective μονογενές means ‘the only member of a kin or kind, hence, generally, only, single’ (LSJ), ‘unicus’ (Italie). Moreover, one has to bear in mind that here Clytemnestra is talking about Agamemnon.

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tion of a biological continuity between a mother and the baby in her womb: as a shoot grows up from a branch, so a baby does from the maternal body. It is not by chance, then, that Apollo, in his speech in defence of Orestes, will use the word ἔρνος to name the embryo: Eum. 660 – 661: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων, ἡ δ’ ἅπερ ξένωι ξένη ἔσωσεν ἔρνος … Eum. 665 – 666: οὐκ ἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη, ἀλλ’ οἷον ἔρνος οὔτις ἂν τέκοι θεά

Apollo’s re-appropriation of the word ἔρνος indicates how much the god’s and Clytemnestra’s discourses on motherhood differ from one another. For Clytemnestra, the child is the offspring of the maternal womb: the maternal body is the condition of life; the baby is the fruit of the mother’s body. For Apollo, instead, the child is the offspring of his father (Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων); the mother does not give life to her baby, i. e. the mother’s body does not nurture the life of the baby in her womb (Eum. 665: οὐ κἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη). Whereas Clytemnestra describes the mother-child bond as an intimate physical relation (the mother’s womb is the origin of life), Apollo reduces the motherchild dyad to a merely physical relation: the mother’s body – as Apollo properly says – is by definition a foreign host to a foreign guest, i. e. a stranger to a stranger (Eum. 660 – 661: ἡ δ’ ἅπερ ξένωι ξένη/ ἔσωσεν ἔρνος). In this interpretation, within the course of the dramatic events from Agamemnon to Eumenides, we seem entitled to talk about the Oresteia as a tragedy in which the characters try to justify inter-familial violence by withdrawing the authority of Clytemnestra’s maternal claim to the reproductive power of her maternal body. In the following section, I address the topic of the silence of Iphigeneia on the altar, exploring further Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge in relation to Agamemnon’s use of paternal violence.

3 Iphigeneia’s silence and paternal violence Before being led to the altar, Iphigeneia has been gagged. The brute force of the gag (Ag. 238: βίαι χαλινῶν), a violent ‘bit’ which imposes a forced silence on Iphigeneia, assimilates the young girl to an animal (Ag. 232: δίκαν χιμαίρας).⁴² The

 On the corrupted sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. the seminal article of Zeitlin (1965: 466–467). On Aeschylean silence, cf. Taplin (1972); Thalmann (1985); Montiglio (2000: 192, 216 – 219, 246– 247). On the motif of the gag, cf. Petrounias (1976: 158), with further bibliography at n. 611.

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animal violence of Iphigeneia’s silence is contagious. As Iphigeneia cannot speak while being sacrificed, also the chorus can only keep silent (Ag. 247: τὰ δ’ ἔνθεν οὔτ’ εἶδον οὔτ’ ἐννέπω) about the moment the father plunges the sacrificial knife into his daughter’s throat (Ag. 208: τέκνον δαΐξω; 209 – 210: μιαίνων παρθενοσφάγοισιν/ῥείθροις πατρώιους χέρας). Now, if we listen to the chorus’ silence and try to give it a voice, the most obvious explanation (i. e., the ritual convention according to which the sphage cannot be described) does not seem conclusive. Further remarks are necessary. In what follows, I introduce two suggestions. My first remark is essentially epistemological. The silence of the chorus, by mirroring the silence of Iphigeneia, expands and reverses it. Iphigeneia does not say what she knows and would like to tell to her father and her household (Ag. 228: λιτὰς δὲ καὶ κληδόνας πατρώιους; 237: φθόγγον ἀραῖον οἴκοις); the chorus does not say what it has not seen and does not know (Ag. 247: τὰ δ’ ἔνθεν οὔτ’ εἶδον οὔτ’ ἐννέπω). Thus, the silence of the chorus says something about how difficult it is to use language in order to describe the horror of violence, and reminds, in this sense, of the silence of the watchman, the first moment of silence in the play (Ag. 36: τὰ δ’ ἄλλα σιγῶ). On this topic, as Wohl (1998: 79) has similarly observed, it should be pointed out that the chorus might simply not talk about something that it thinks actually happened, but in the end did not. Nonetheless, as I see it, this does not affect the issue in a significant way. Whether we argue that the chorus is keeping silent about something that really happened but it has not seen and does not know, or if, on the contrary, we maintain that it is keeping silent about something it thinks really happened, but it has not seen and it does not know, the silence of the chorus still faces us with the difficult task of putting violence into words. My second suggestion concerns the aetiology of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. The absence in the Aeschylean version of the caput aquae for Artemis’ wrath grounds the chain of inter-familial murders in the Atreid family in a causal suspension: we do not know why Iphigeneia has to die.⁴³ Yet, the chorus does not keep silent

 On Artemis’ wrath, cf. e. g. LSN: 20 – 25; Daube (1938: 144– 150); Whallon (1961); Lloyd-Jones (1962: 189 – 191; 1983); Hammond (1965: 46); Dawe (1966); Peradotto (1969); Fontenrose (1971: 79 – 81); Lebeck (1971: 29 – 36); Langwitz-Smith (1973: 4– 6); Freyman (1976: 67– 68); Lawrence (1976; 2013: 71–73); Neitzel (1979); Sommerstein (1980); Bergson (1982); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 85 – 86); Elata-Alster (1985); Furley (1986); Clinton (1988); Thiel (1993: 47– 87); Käppel (1998: 110 ff.); Heath (2001); Helm (2004: 41– 42); Grethlein (2013: 81– 83). For a recent discussion of some of these positions, cf. Geisser (2002: 260 – 262); Föllinger (2003: 67– 71). For a detailed discussion of the Aeschylean language in lines 122– 130, cf. Edwards (1939). On the animal imagery in the portent of the eagle and the hare, I shall mention West (1979), according to whom

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only about the origin of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. In its report of the events in Aulis, it does not even mention the most important aspects of this sacrifice. At the beginning, it does not tell the reasons for Artemis’ demand; at the end, as we have seen, the old men do not speak about the young girl’s throat being cut. Indeed, the chorus talks about Iphigeneia as she is being sacrificed only through allusions: the comparison of the girl with a goat (Ag. 232: δίκαν χιμαίρας), her assimilation to a beautiful painting (Ag. 242: πρέπουσά θ’ ὡς ἐν γραφαῖς).⁴⁴ We could say with Derrida that ‘there are’ in the tale of the chorus ‘only, everywhere, differences and traces of traces’.⁴⁵ Traces of traces, then. As Rehm (1994: 51) has observed, the traces of Iphigeneia’s blood on the altar can be read as a morbid substitution of her menstrual blood: ‘The “bear” Iphigenia shows her readiness for the onset of menstruation, which will take the ironic, and fatal, form of her own blood being shed’. Relying on Rehm, I make the contention that the traces of Iphigeneia’s blood on the altar are themselves traces of the biological symbiosis between mother and daughter. There is indeed a symbiotic relation between the mother and the daughter’s blood: by virtue of the same menstrual blood only the daughter, through pregnancy and labour, can become – as her mother did – a mother herself.⁴⁶ As Loraux (1981: 49 n. 67) has pointed out, Clytemnestra uses the word ὠδίς to indicate this symbiotic identity between mother and daughter (Ag. 1417– 1418: ἔθυσεν…φιλτάτην ἐμοί/ὠδῖν’): ‘ôdis, par un redoublement du féminin, caractérise la fille’.⁴⁷ Following this line of interpretation, we may explain the daughter’s

this imagery parallels the Archilochean fable of the eagle and the fox. On West’s article, cf. the note of Arnott (1979); Davies (1981) and, more recently, Heath (1999a).  Cf. Gurd (2005: 20), who claims that Iphigeneia’ sacrifice is alluded to only through ‘deformed refractions’, and on line 242 Fletcher (1999: 16 – 19). On the impossibility of the chorus to speak directly about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. also Delneri (2001: 58). The simile ‘δίκαν χιμαίρας’ recalls the mythical version according to which Iphigeneia was not sacrificed, but was instead replaced by a stag.  Derrida in Positions, quoted after Culler (1983: 99).  With ‘mother’s blood’ I mean the mother’s menstrual blood. This equivalence is well attested in the Corpus Hippocraticum. The Hippocratics thought the uterus to be a container full of blood from the body; in case of a pregnancy, this blood served as nourishment for the fetus; otherwise it flowed out from the vagina through menstruation (Hipp., Mul. 1. 1, L 8. 12, 1. 24– 25, L 8. 62– 68; Nat. Puer. 14– 15, L 7. 492– 497). Cf. Hanson (1992: 39); Dean-Jones (1989: 182– 186; 1994: 171, 200); King (1998: 76, 90); Cole (2004: 164).  On the maternal continuum in feminist debate, cf. e. g. Chodorow (1974: 47– 48) who discusses at great length the consequences that the intimate physical relationship between mother and daughter has on the psychological development of the daughter (esp. pp. 58 – 66); Kristeva (1977: 420); Irigaray (1984: 100 – 103). Relying on Loraux on the meaning of the term ὠδίς, I have found sadly surprising Foley’s silence on the symbiotic relation between Iphigeneia and Cly-

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sacrifice by her father and its horror as a break-up of the blood connection between mother and daughter. Moreover, we can conclude that in the Oresteia violence against female characters (father kills daughter; and as we will see, son kills mother) goes along with a discourse on the maternal body.⁴⁸ Against this background, when Clytemnestra uses the word φίλος in relation to her child as the fruit of her womb (φιλτάτην ὠδῖν’), she conceives the motherdaughter dyad as a bond of philia that links people related by maternal blood. This generates an overvaluation of kinship relations through maternal consanguinity and a related undervaluation of social kinship ties through marriage. As Zeitlin (1978: 158) has similarly pointed out, seeing herself as a mother, Clytemnestra does not see herself as a wife: ‘If the female overvalues the motherchild bond, her own unique relationship, she will, in turn, undervalue the marriage bond’. Following Zeitlin, I argue that Clytemnestra’s overvaluation of kindred ties prevents her from facing a dilemma before killing Agamemnon. In fact, she does not have to struggle between the choice of avenging a philos (Iphigeneia) or killing one (Agamemnon): she does not see her husband as her philos, only Iphigeneia.⁴⁹ Clytemnestra’s separation of her role as mother from her role as wife leads to a tragic conflict. Explaining the murder of Agamemnon as a mother’s revenge for the death of her daughter and philos, Clytemnestra suppresses the fact that as a mother, who acts for her daughter and therefore against the father of her daughter, she is also, inevitably, acting as a wife against her husband. Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος at lines 1372– 1376 points in this direction: πολλῶν πάροιθεν καιρίως εἰρημένων τἀναντί’ εἰπεῖν οὐκ ἐπαισχυνθήσομαι· πῶς γάρ τις ἐχθροῖς ἐχθρὰ πορσύνων, φίλοις

temnestra. Foley (2003: 120 – 121) only takes into account the symbiotic relationship between Hecuba and Polyxena. I also do not understand why here Foley borrows a notion from the feminist theory on the mother’s body (i. e. the notion of symbiotic relation between daughter and mother), but without explaining how the bodies of Hecuba and Polyxena are connected through the symbiotic relation between bodies with the power of giving life.  Cf. Goldhill (1991: 26): ‘there is … no notion of violence without … a discourse of the body’.  I differ from Foley (2001: 205), who takes Agamemnon’s dilemma as a proof that moral choices are a prerogative of men. Yet, Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s positions can hardly be compared. Clytemnestra, as I argue, does not have to choose between two philoi (for her, Agamemnon is her enemy). Cf. Zeitlin (1978: 157): ‘There the two traits of mother love and conjugal chastity diverge, are, in fact, antithetical to each other’. For Clytemnestra, then, the premises of a moral dilemma are not given. Agamemnon, instead, has to struggle between killing his daughter and philos and betraying his army.

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δοκοῦσιν εἶναι, πημονῆς ἀρκύστατ’ ἂν φάρξειεν ὕψος κρεῖσσον ἐκπηδήματος;

Clytemnestra speaks this passage immediately after the murder of Agamemnon, trying to provide an explanation, perhaps a justification, for her behaviour before the killing: she says that she has fought against the one who she treated as her philos, i. e. Agamemnon as her husband (in reference to her definition of Agamemnon as αἰδοῖον πόσιν in Ag. 600), but who in fact was not. Clearly, according to Clytemnestra, the bond of philia seems even to exclude any expression of social kinship through marriage. At lines 606 – 608, in the speech she delivers after the chorus’ exchange with the herald, Clytemnestra views philia in the very same way. In this passage, she talks to the messenger and depicts herself as a watchdog faithful to Agamemnon and hateful of his enemies: γυναῖκα πιστὴν δ’ ἐν δόμοις εὕροι μολών οἵανπερ οὖν ἔλειπε, δωμάτων κύνα ἐσθλὴν ἐκείνωι, πολεμίαν τοῖς δύσφροσιν

This self-representation as a faithful dog provides a good example of Clytemnestra’s ability to manipulate language: as a woman who chooses a love-mate, she certainly cannot be a faithful dog (κύνα ἐσθλήν), i. e. a faithful wife (γυναῖκα πιστήν) to her husband (ἐκείνωι). In this sense, the image of the dog alludes, as in the Homeric tradition, to female sexual impudence.⁵⁰ However, beyond this deceptive self-depiction, we can still detect in these words an emphasis on the fidelity of a mother to her own daughter. As Betenski (1978: 15) and Loraux (1990: 142 n. 123) have noticed, it can be fairly argued that the loyalty of the dog Clytemnestra is obviously in favour of her daughter, and that her hostility is meant against Agamemnon, her δύσφωρν, i. e. the father who bereft her of her daughter. So Clytemnestra manipulates the meaning of the pronoun ἐκείνωι. The messenger interprets the pronoun as referring to the absent Agamemnon; she hints at the sacrifice of her child. Again, in this interpretation, Clytemnestra portrays her marital relationship with Agamemnon as a bond between enemies (πολεμίαν, δύσφροσιν). Clytemnestra’s discourse on philia as a bond between mother and child implies the authorisation of the mother as subject of power in the Atreid household. In this regard, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word κύων

 Cf. Redfield (1975: 194– 195). As Redfield, cf. also Harriott (1982: 17); Mainoldi (1984: 108); Goldhill (1988: 15).

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is again very telling. In line 896, in the context of the long speech she delivers to the chorus shortly before Agamemnon’s entry on stage, Clytemnestra talks about Agamemnon as the watchdog of the house: λέγοιμ’ ἂν ἄνδρα τόνδε τῶν σταθμῶν κύνα

As has been observed, she seems to transfer her sovereign authority from herself to Agamemnon, who is finally back home as her husband and king of Argos (ἄνδρα).⁵¹ If this remark is correct, an opposite statement seems legitimate as well. Using the words κύων and ἀνήρ to point out Agamemnon’s position as the kurios of the Atreid house, Clytemnestra may also claim the role of mistress of the Atreid household for herself.⁵² In fact, as Petrounias has similarly observed (1976: 141– 142), she seems to suggest that Agamemnon is not in the position to be the watchdog protecting his house, i. e. the lord and the head of his family: as the chorus asserts, he killed his own daughter, delight of the house (Ag. 208: δόμων ἄγαλμα). According to this interpretation, Clytemnestra might assert the legitimacy of her female authority in the house because she does not violate, through an act of violence, the parental relationship with her child. She does not violate the bond between parent and child; Agamemnon does, and by doing so, he repeats the crime of his father Atreus.⁵³ In passage 606 – 608, again, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word κύων can be read as a textual evidence of her self-representation as mistress of the Atreid household. As Fraenkel (ad loc.) has pointed out, here the adjective ἐσθλήν is used in the same meaning of εὔφρων. Thus, as εὔφρων con-

 Cf. Sevieri (1991: 21). In Homer the dog is already thought of as a violent protector of family’s life (Od. 20, 14– 16). On this topic, cf. Harriott (1982: 15 – 16); Mainoldi (1984: 166); Goldhill (1988: 16). In regard to Clytemnestra as the mistress of the Atreid house, we shall notice that Agamemnon refers to Clytemnestra precisely in her function of guardian of the house in Ag. 914: Λήδας γένεθλον, δωμάτων ἐμῶν φύλαξ. Cf. Mainoldi (1984: 166): ‘Agamemnon appellera Clytemnestre ‘guardienne de ma maison’ (Ag. 914), en montrant ainsi la confiance qu’il a en elle’. On this line, cf. also Kraus (1978: 45).  In opposition to Clytemnestra, who claims the power of the mother in the family system for herself, Athena ascribes to the father’s figure the role of the head of the family (Eum. 739 – 740). On this issue, cf. pp. 165 – 166.  Cf. Freyman (1976: 70) who observes that Agamemnon’ decision not to sacrifice Iphigeneia ‘would have affirmed the bond of parent and child and would have broken the curse and the circle of pathos’ and Walsh (1984: 71) who comments on Agamemnon as the sacrificer of his daughter: ‘The figure thutēr thugatros, then, indicates … the natural fact of kinship, violated by Agamemnon’s choice’. On the cena thyestea, cf. below ch. 1, I. 6. On Agamemnon repeating Atreus’ crime, cf. Sewell-Rutter (2007: 22).

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tains a reference to the loyalty of the chorus towards the king (Ag. 806), so ἐσθλήν hints at Clytemnestra’s loyalty towards Agamemnon in his public role as king. Read this way, the expression ‘κύνα ἐσθλήν’ produces an eloquent clue of the complexity of Clytemnestra’s deceptive language. We can infer from the expression ‘κύνα ἐσθλήν’ two levels of communication. On the first one, the faithful dog, which Agamemnon will find at home, is in fact his adulterous woman; on the second one, the faithful dog, which Agamemnon will find at home, is in fact the woman who is not loyal to her king (and husband). The idea, according to which Clytemnestra in lines 606 – 608 is claiming the authority of her power in the Atreid house, is supported in the text at the lines 609 – 610: … σημαντήριον οὐδὲν διαφθείρασαν ἐν μήκει χρόνου

As Fraenkel argued (ad loc.), the expression ‘σημαντήριον οὐδὲν διαφθείρασαν’ does not contain a reference to Clytemnestra’s chastity: the word σημαντήριον is not a term for the seal of chastity; it designates instead the seal that kept safe the properties of the master of the house during his absence. Thus, with this phrase, Clytemnestra mentions her position as the oikophulax and oikonomos in the Atreid household. Quoting Fraenkel: ‘She is only concerned with stating that she has left everything of value undisturbed’.⁵⁴ Keeping with this discussion of Clytemnestra’s discourse on philia and the mother-daughter bond, we are in the position to say that the violation of philia-relations in Agamemnon does not threaten social bonds only (such as the ones established by marriage and xenia), but also kindred ties based on maternal consanguinity.⁵⁵ Clytemnestra’s defence of blood ties might be understood as the defence of the authority of the bond of maternal philia, which runs through blood and not through marriage, and, accordingly, as the defence of the authority of maternal genealogy and the related maternal power in the social system of the family and of the community. Thus, the Aeschylean tragic discourse on blood and social kinship does not simply ascribe blood kinship to the mother and social kinship to the father: the maternal kinship is determined by both blood ties  On the expression ‘σημαντήριον οὐδὲν διαφθείρασαν’ as not referring to Clytemnestra’s chastity, cf. also Pelling (2005: 97). Following Fraenkel, I differ from Fowler (1967: 30), who reads lines 609 – 610 as referring to Clytemnestra’s sexuality.  On Greek tragedy and the transgression of the reciprocal relations of philia, cf. Belfiore. In her treatment of Agamemnon Belfiore discusses only the violation of the marriage’s relationship. This is not surprising, since she looks at the character of Clytemnestra merely in her role as wife (2000: 144): ‘In the main pathos, wife deliberately kills husband’.

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and the bond of philia. In Saxonhouse’s words (2009: 51), the bond of philia deriving from the maternal kinship and the biological consanguinity with the mother can be understood in terms of ‘the ties of family arising from the processes of birth from the female’s womb’. However, Clytemnestra’s discourse on maternal blood ties and maternal power is potentially vulnerable. As I will argue in my discussion of the characterisation of Clytemnestra as a bad mother and an adulterous wife in Cassandra’s speech and in Choephoroi, the play constantly performs the attempt to suppress the blood connection between mother and child, in order to instantiate the Father as the only genetic parent of the children and as the only subject of power. ⁵⁶ At the same time, this attempt fails: there is no way to deny the primary kin relation with the mother and to figure bloodlines and power relations as merely male and paternal. Accordingly, as we shall see, the play destabilises its own discourse on matricide as a necessary act of dike. In what follows, I dwell on Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood in relation to paternal violence further. In sections 2 and 3, I focused on Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of representation of her maternal bond with her female child, i. e. on the relation between Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia. In sections 4 and 5, I shift my focus to the relation between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon in connection to their child Iphigeneia, exploring the particular way Clytemnestra talks about Agamemnon’s decision to sacrifice Iphigeneia.

4 Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and paternal treachery In her last dramatic exchange with the chorus, shortly before Aegisthus’ appearance on stage, Clytemnestra asserts that Agamemnon turned himself into the sacrificer of Iphigeneia with deception:

 I differ from Butler (2000: 11– 12) who writes on Antigone: ‘Not only does the state presuppose kinship and kinship presuppose the state but “acts” that are performed in the name of the one principle take place in the idiom of the other, confounding the distinction between the two at a rhetorical level and thus bringing into crisis the stability of the conceptual distinction between them’. If I am not wrong, Butler is missing a crucial point: paternal kinship is both biological and social insofar as it is grounded in the suppression of the primary blood relation with the mother. Therefore, the state presupposes kinship only insofar as it is linked to the father and not to the mother. However, I agree with Butler that the discourse of the tragic text on kinship tends to destabilize the category of blood and social kinship. On this topic in relation to the Oresteia, cf. pp. 102– 107, 162– 170, with n. 265. On the dichotomy of social and blood kinship in Greek tragedy, cf. e. g. Vernant (1996: 342– 343); Goldhill (2004: 38). For more recent contributions on this topic, cf. n. 166 and n. 167.

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Ag. 1521– 1524: οὔτ’ ἀνελεύθερον οἶμαι θάνατον τῶιδε γενέσθαι· < >

οὐδὲ γὰρ οὗτος δολίαν ἄτην οἴκοισιν ἔθηκ’;

Fraenkel (ad loc.) does not consider this passage a question, and objects that it contains an explicit reference to Agamemnon’s dolos, namely to the episode of Achilles’ marriage with Iphigeneia. He comes to the conclusion that ‘Clytemnestra denies δόλος on Agamemnon’s part. Here, as elsewhere, she insists on retaliation in its most precise form (cf. especially 1527– 9)’. However, if we interpret line 1524 as ending with a question mark (cf. the OCT text by D-P), the Greek, with a rhetorical question, seems to imply that Agamemnon has been using deceit (cf. Sommerstein 2008: ‘for did he not also cause a calamity for this house through treachery?’). Why does Clytemnestra speak of dolos in connection to Agamemnon’s violence against Iphigeneia? Agamemnon does not answer this question directly, as it eludes every possible allusion to the episode of Achilles’ wedding with Iphigeneia. It seems necessary, then, as it is often the case with Aeschylus, to place ourselves on the margins of the text and, inevitably, to risk an interpretative drift. My contention is that the dolos of Agamemnon may be equivalent to the solution of his dilemma. When the old men recall Agamemnon’s tragic impasse, they also report, in the form of direct speech, his belief that shedding virginal blood is an act of themis according to Artemis:⁵⁷ Ag. 214– 217: παυσανέμου γὰρ θυσίας παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος ὀργᾶι περιόργωι σ ἐπιθυμεῖν θέμις· εὖ γὰρ εἴη

 On Agamemnon’s tragic impasse and his sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. e. g. the influential contributions of Daube (1938: 170 – 178); D-P (1957: xxiii – xxix); Reeves (1960: 168 – 171); Whallon (1961); Lloyd-Jones (1962); Dawe (1963: 47); Fraenkel (1964: 334– 335); Lesky (1966); Bergson (1967); Revier (1968: 11– 24); Peradotto (1969: 249 – 261); Dodds (1973: 57– 58); Dover (1973); Tyrrell (1976); Bollack (1981: 276 – 284); Nussbaum (1986: 34– 36); Sevieri (1992); Basta Donzelli (1997). For a review of the secondary literature on Agamemnon’s decision, cf. Käppel (1998: 98 – 109); Geisser (2002: 263 – 267); Föllinger (2003: 54– 57). For most recent contributions, cf. e. g. Rechenauer (2001: 72– 73); Föllinger (2003: 85; 2007: 17); Willink (2004: 49 – 54); Sewell-Rutter (2007: 153– 166); Gruber (2009: 300 – 310); Lawrence (2013: 74–83). In verses 215 – 217 there are many philological difficulties. Following Ewans (1975: 26 – 28), I read the expression ‘σ … θέμις’ as ‘it is allowed for Artemis’. As Ewans, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 85 n. 16).

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Now, Agamemnon’s dolos might consist in mistaking Iphigeneia for a virgin: when he sheds her blood, he is not shedding virginal blood, but the blood of his daughter.⁵⁸ In the frame of such a representation of the sacrifice of a daughter as the sacrifice of a virgin, Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word αἷμα is silent on the blood connection between mother and daughter, in sharp opposition to the Furies’ use of the same word in Eumenides (cf. p. 168). Furthermore, Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word θυσία (παυσανέμου γὰρ θυσίας) consistently differs from Clytemnestra’s use of the related verb θύειν. In the first case, we have a representation of the killing of Iphigeneia as a ritual death (σφ’… θέμις), which is also an anticipation of the corresponding discourse on Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in Choephoroi (cf. pp. 96–97, 102). In the second case, as we have seen, we have a condemnation of the use of paternal violence against a daughter’s life. Further remarks on the blood shed by Iphigeneia are possible. As has been observed, in some medical and philosophical literature (Hipp., Mul. 1. 6, L 8. 30; 1. 72, L 8. 152; 2. 113, L 8. 242; Aristot., HA 581b1– 2), the body of a bleeding woman is associated with the bleeding body of a sacrificial animal.⁵⁹ The sacrificial analogy used by physicians and philosophers appears again in the language of the Oresteia in relation to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice: Ag. 231– 234: φράσεν δ’ ἀόζοις πατὴρ μετ’ εὐχὰν δίκαν χιμαίρας ὕπερθε βωμοῦ πέπλοισι περιπετῆ παντὶ θυμῶι προνωπῆ λαβεῖν …

The comparison of the chorus between Iphigeneia and a goat helps us understand something about this corrupted sacrifice which remains untold by the old men: at the moment of her sacrifice, Iphigeneia is not like a goat on the point of being slaughtered on the altar; she has replaced the animal in a substi-

 This reading of verses 1523 – 1524 seems to work even if we assume that by the words ‘δολίαν ἄτην’ Clytemnestra is referring to the false wedding of Iphigeneia and Achilles. In this case Agamemnon would clearly be a father who does not do what a father is supposed to for his daughter: instead of giving Iphigeneia to her future husband, Agamemnon separates his daughter from her mother through an act of violence and destroys her. Nonetheless, given the Aeschylean silence about the wedding of Iphigeneia and Achilles, I would not push this idea too far.  Cf. King (1986: 117– 118; 1998: 88 – 98); Dean-Jones (1994: 101– 103). On women, menstrual blood and sacrifice, cf. also Osborne (1993).

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tution as perverse as if it was real.⁶⁰ Thus, when the chorus uses the word πατήρ in reference to Agamemnon’s position as sacrificer of his own daughter, violence against female characters (father kills daughter) is embedded in a discourse on the female body. In order to be killed by her father, Iphigeneia has to abandon what she is (a daughter and a virgin ready for marriage), and become something she is not (an animal ready for sacrifice). Yet, obviously, Iphigeneia cannot shed blood as an animal on the altar. As a virgin she has to shed blood by herself, with her first menstruation and/or by her first sexual encounter; she is not supposed to shed her blood by the knife of her father and sacrificer. In the next section, I dwell on Agamemnon’s dilemma further, and discuss his abuse of his own deliberative faculties in relation to Clytemnestra’s characterisation of maternal mind.

5 Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s dilemma and maternal sophronein In the parodos, the chorus’ report of Agamemnon’s dilemma and of his decision to sacrifice Iphigeneia insists on his abuse of deliberative faculties (Ag. 206 – 225). At first, according to the chorus, Agamemnon decides to kill Iphigeneia (Ag. 215 – 217: παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος…/ σφ’ ἐπιθυ-/ μεῖν θέμις. εὖ γὰρ εἴη); then, from that moment on (τόθεν), he changes his mind, in consequence of a wretched madness which gives foul advice, and finally dares to be the sacrificer of his own daughter:⁶¹

 For the comparison of Iphigeneia with a sacrificial animal, cf. also lines 1415 – 1416 (ὃς οὐ προτιμῶν, ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον/μήλων φλεόντων εὐπόκοις νομεύμασιν). Clytemnestra’s assimilation of Iphigeneia to a grazing beast (ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον) seems to point to her impossibility to speak of Agamemnon as a father who kills his daughter. On this topic, cf. Hoffman (1992: 110). Cf. also p. 85.  Cf. Dawe (1966: 9 – 11); Dodds (1973: 57– 58); Gantz (1982: 11); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 83); Helm (2004: 43). On Agamemnon’s decision and his mind getting lost, cf. also Lloyd-Jones (1962: 191– 192); Lesky (1966: 82); Langwitz-Smith (1973: 6 – 8); Edwards (1978); Williams (1993: 134– 135). Considering Agamemnon’ decision and his mind getting lost, the following observation of Knox (1966: 215) is hard to follow: ‘In Aeschylus and Sophocles, then, a change of mind is a rare phenomenon; when it does occur, it is either attributed to a secondary character or affects a secondary issue’. I also differ from Pucci (1992: 520 – 521). In his extremely detailed and challenging analysis, Pucci (if I am not wrong) argues that Agamemnon’s parakopa is an aspect of peitho and therefore that the Aeschylean text of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia makes the distinction between her sacrifice as the work of madness and her sacrifice as a legitimate act collapse. Surely, parakopa is an aspect of peitho (as Pucci argues at length, pp. 526 – 527, Agamemnon is persuaded that it is right to sacrifice Iphigeneia). Yet, there is a distinction between peitho as a destructive and as a positive force. On this issue, cf. pp. 171–172, 178. Finally, note that the

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Ag. 215 – 225: παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος ὀργᾶι περιόργωι σ ἐπιθυμεῖν θέμις· εὖ γὰρ εἴη. ἐπεὶ δ’ ἀνάγκας ἔδυ λέπαδνον φρενὸς πνέων δυσσεβῆ τροπαίαν ἄναγνον, ἀνίερον, τόθεν τὸ παντότολμον φρονεῖν μετέγνω· βροτοὺς θρασύνει γὰρ αἰσχρόμητις τάλαινα παρακοπὰ πρωτοπήμων· ἔτλα δ’ οὖν θυτὴρ γενέσθαι θυγατρός …

According to the chorus, Agamemnon’s bond of fatherhood with Iphigeneia affects his reason: the decision to sacrifice his own daughter drives him out of his mind. However, the bond of fatherhood does not prevent him from choosing the death of Iphigeneia, as he has to decide if his daughter should live or not. Indeed, the dilemma of Agamemnon and his decision to sacrifice Iphigeneia come first (Ag. 206–217); then his madness unfolds, and finally the killing of Iphigeneia (Ag. 218–225). Yet, whereas Agamemnon can rationally choose to kill his own daughter, Clytemnestra is not able to accept the violent death of Iphigeneia. Lines 1417– 1425 point in this direction. Clytemnestra speaks this passage during her dramatic confrontation with the chorus after the murder of Agamemnon, when she defends the righteousness of her revenge: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοί ὠδῖν’, ἐπωιδὸν Θρηικίων ἀημάτων· οὐ τοῦτον ἐκ γῆς τῆσδε χρῆν σ’ ἀνδρηλατεῖν μιασμάτων ἄποιν’; ἐπήκοος δ’ ἐμῶν ἔργων δικαστὴς τραχὺς εἶ. λέγω δέ σοι τοιαῦτ’ ἀπειλεῖν, ὡς παρεσκευασμένης ἐκ τῶν ὁμοίων, χειρὶ νικήσαντ’ ἐμοῦ ἄρχειν· ἐὰν δὲ τοὔμπαλιν κραίνηι θεός, γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν

Two points are worth attention here. First, Clytemnestra rebukes the chorus for intending to punish her for the murder of Agamemnon, whereas it should in fact punish Agamemnon for the killing of Iphigeneia. Second, Clytemnestra ends her speech by saying to the chorus that it will learn from her to act and talk in the chorus’ description of Agamemnon as a man at the mercy of his mind differs consistently from Agamemnon’s self-representation as a reasonable person in his welcome speech to the city of Argos (Ag. 849 – 850: ἤτοι κέαντες ἢ τεμόντες εὐφρόνως/πειρασόμεσθα πῆμ’ ἀποστρέψαι νόσου).

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right way (γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν), once she will rule in Argos (χειρὶ νικήσαντ’ ἐμοῦ/ ἄρχειν/ἐὰν δὲ τοὔμπαλιν κραίνηι θεός). In other words, Clytemnestra is telling the chorus that a behaviour which conforms to sophronein requires the man who deprives the mother of her daughter to be punished, and that this lesson is something the chorus has to learn from her, once she has the power in Argos. Thus, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words γιγνώσκειν and σωφρονεῖν, knowledge (Ag. 1425: γνώσηι), understood precisely as knowing how to speak and how to act in the right way (Ag. 1425: τὸ σωφρονεῖν), presumes, on the one hand, the inviolability of the mother-child bond (Ag. 1417– 1418: φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’) and, on the other hand, the condemnation of the violence against this bond (Ag. 1417: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα).⁶² In other words, according to Clytemnestra, the chorus shall learn from her maternal mind that a father cannot kill his own daughter. As we shall see (cf. ch. 3. 1), the Furies’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν also establishes the possibility of acquiring sophrosune from the mother. Against this reading of lines 1417– 1425, it can be objected that Clytemnestra, at the end of the passage, is not speaking as a mother, but as a queen. As Winnington-Ingram has pointed out (1983: 109), ‘at the end of her speech the queen has spoken not as mother’. The political meaning of the verbs νικήσαντ’ and ἄρχειν in lines 1423 – 1424 is undoubtedly in support of this critical position. Accordingly, by using the verbs γιγνώσκειν and σωφρονεῖν, Clytemnestra is telling the chorus that it will have to obey her, once she will have prevailed on it and seized the power in Argos.⁶³ Read this way, passage 1421– 1425 picks up a well–known theme in the gnomic tradition.⁶⁴ Moreover, it gives us good evidence of Clytemnestra’s transgressive way of speaking, as underlined by the chorus’ reaction in Ag. 1426 – 1427: μεγαλόμητις εἶ, περίφρονα δ’ ἔλακες …

 For the verb σωφρονεῖν as referring to the sphere of knowledge, cf. Italie who quotes Ag. 1425 as an occurrence of σωφρονεῖν in the meaning of ‘prudentem esse, sapere’. On the chorus and Clytemnestra on the female mind, cf. pp 63, 70 – 72, 78 – 79. On the female mind in its relation to female reproductive agency, cf. Diogenianus gramm., Paroemiae, 4, 2– 3, 1. On female mind, womb and female reproductive agency, cf. Sissa (1987), esp. ch. 1.  Cf. the same rhetoric of appropriation of σωφρονεῖν by Aegisthus in Ag. 1619 – 1620: γνώσηι γέρων ὢν ὡς διδάσκεσθαι βαρὺ/τῶι τηλικούτωι, σωφρονεῖν εἰρημένον.  On σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425, cf. North (1966: 46): ‘When this appears in the Agamemnon – in the threats of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to the Chorus (1425, 1620) – it contains no deeper significance than is customary in the gnomic tradition’. Cf. also Rademaker (2005: 100, 118).

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However, if this is right, we shall as well consider the possibility that in lines 1424– 1425 Clytemnestra might be speaking both as queen and as mother: a few lines above (in Ag. 1417– 1418), she explicitly refers to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. In this case, the phrase ‘ἐὰν δὲ τοὔμπαλιν κραίνηι θεός/γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν’ in Ag. 1424– 1425 would refer to Clytemnestra’s whole speech in passage 1417– 1425, and not just to lines 1421– 1425. In other words, as a queen, she is saying to the chorus: if I will rule the power in Argos, you will learn to act and talk rightly, i. e. you will learn political obedience. As a queen and as a mother, she is saying to the old Argives: if I will rule the power in Argos (queen’s voice), you will have to learn that acting and talking rightly implies the inviolability of the mother-daughter dyad and, therefore, the punishment of the paternal violence against the mother’s daughter (mother’s voice). I suspect that the only reason for dismissing this explanation is to be found in the scholars’ common trend of suppressing Clytemnestra’s motherhood. The meaning of the verb σωφρονεῖν supports this line of interpretation. As Rademaker (2005: 120) has pointed out, in Aeschylus σωφρονεῖν indicates ‘abstention from unjustified violence, especially that against one’s city or one’s family’. Obviously, from the maternal point of view of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s violence against Iphigeneia is unjustifiable – and has to be punished. As a mother, then, Clytemnestra is telling the chorus that it shall learn that the paternal violence against the mother-child bond cannot be justified. It seems important to consider that in lines 1424– 1425 Clytemnestra is speaking both as queen and as mother. Thus, this may affect the way we interpret the narrative of the chorus in Agamemnon. Clearly enough, the chorus does not share Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and her discourse on σωφρονεῖν and the inviolability of the mother-child dyad. Indeed, as we have seen, by its reply in Ag. 1426 – 1427 the chorus defines Clytemnestra as μεγαλόμητις and terrible, naughty, arrogant (περίφρονα δ’ ἔλακες). Clearly, this description of Clytemnestra represents the paradigmatic counter-example of the περίφρων Penelope. Yet, this situation will change towards the end of the play. When Clytemnestra recalls Iphigeneia’s death for the last time (Ag. 1555 – 1559), the chorus will finally admit that it is hard to judge Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s murderous acts:⁶⁵ Ag. 1560 – 1561: ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ’ ἀντ’ὀνείδους, δύσμαχα δ’ ἐστὶ κρῖναι

 Cf. Fraenkel (1964: 350): ‘Sie hält in dieser Szene dem Chor entgegen, was Agamemnon ihr mit der Opferung Iphigeniens angetan hat, und hier ist der Chor nicht mehr in der Lage gegen sie Partei zu ergreifen, sondern muss bekennen, dass er, jedes helfenden Gedankens beraubt, keines Ausweg sieht’.

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We see how the chorus might move from a moment of acceptance (only a foolish woman can kill Agamemnon and claim the righteousness of this murder) to a moment of doubt and hesitation (can we really condemn so easily a mother who defends her daughter against paternal violence?). As in line 1425, with her rhetoric of appropriation of the verbs γιγνώσκειν and σωφρονεῖν, so in her first speech, at line 265, with her usage of the words μήτηρ and εὐφρόνη, Clytemnestra seems to establish a link between the mother’s mind and the mother-child dyad: ἕως γένοιτο μητρὸς εὐφρόνης πάρα

Two remarks support this conjecture. First, as Winnington-Ingram (1983: 103) has pointed out, with the phrase ‘μητρὸς εὐφρόνης’ we see a hint of the biological experience of motherhood: ‘For instance, when the queen speaks of the night as of a mother that has given birth to the day (265, 279), it is to remind us of her own motherhood, of Iphigenia’.⁶⁶ Second, according to Goldhill (LSN: 35), the expression ‘μητρὸς εὐφρόνης’ seems to imply the expression ‘μητρὸς εὔφρονος’: ‘Her pun εὔφρων/εὐφρόνης is important because “in a play on words … the word is … only a sound image, to which one meaning or another is attached”’. Against this reading of line 265, it can be said that in Greek εὔφρων means ‘cheerful, kindly’ and not ‘reasonable, sensible, of sound mind’. Of course, the adjective εὔφρων in Agamemnon denotes the quality of cheerfulness and political kindness or loyalty (Ag. 140, 263, 797, 806). However, the adjective εὔφρων in the meaning of ‘reasonable, sensible, of sound mind’ is well attested in Aeschylus (cf. Pers. 768 – 772; Supp. 376 – 378, 640; Eum. 992– 995).⁶⁷ Moreover, the related adverb εὐφρόνως denotes clearly in Agamemnon the capability of speaking and acting as a sound-minded, intelligent, prudent person of good sense (Ag. 351, 849 – 850). I shall turn to a discussion of Clytemnestra’s mind in the chapter on Choephoroi, as I examine Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words εὔφρων and σώφρων in lines 88 and 140 (cf. pp. 110 – 111, 122– 125), and in the chapter on Eumenides, as I look at the Erinyes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν (cf. ch. 3. 1– 2). In the next section I analyse Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explana-

 Similarly cf. Goheen (1955: 133), and, most recently, Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 68 – 69).  Cf. Yarkho (1972: 171 with n. 11, 193, 196); LSN: 277– 278. For εὔφρων as ‘sound-minded, intelligent, prudent’, cf. also Alcman (1PMG=3 Calame, 37) with Calame (1983: 323): ‘εὔφρων: à prendre ici au sens propre de “qui a des φρένες, un esprit sain, bien portant”, “qui comprend” ’.

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tion of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in relation to her representation as a vengeful agent of supernatural forces.

6 Clytemnestra’s motherhood, the Alastor and the Erinys During her last confrontation with the chorus, Clytemnestra identifies herself with the Alastor of the Atreid family, and represents the murder of Agamemnon as the effect of its curse, i. e. as the punishment of the cena thyestea:⁶⁸ Ag. 1497– 1504: αὐχεῖς εἶναι τόδε τοὖργον ἐμόν †μηδ’ ἐπιλεχθῆις† Ἀγαμεμνονίαν εἶναί μ’ ἄλοχον· φανταζόμενος δὲ γυναικὶ νεκροῦ τοῦδ’ ὁ παλαιὸς δριμὺς ἀλάστωρ Ἀτρέως χαλεποῦ θοινατῆρος τόνδ’ ἀπέτεισεν τέλεον νεαροῖς ἐπιθύσας

Critics have often interpreted Clytemnestra’s appeal to the Alastor as a proof of the entanglement of her murderous deed with the avenging plans of Aegisthus. In other words, Aegisthus murders Agamemnon as a compensation for the cena thyestea (Ag. 1587– 1604) and Clytemnestra is nothing but the handmaiden of her lover.⁶⁹ This reading, however, raises some difficulties. First of all, the text of Agamemnon mentions Aegisthus’ help only once, and without any reference to the fact that Clytemnestra wanted to carry out the murderous intent of her lover (Ag. 1654– 1656). On the contrary, it repeatedly refers to Clytemnestra as murderess of Agamemnon (Ag. 1379, 1405 – 1406, 1420 – 1421, 1552– 1553) and it depicts  The Greek of this passage is full of uncertainties; for a discussion of the textual problems, cf. Oliver (1960: 312– 313); Neuburg (1991: 62 n. 31). Notably, Clytemnestra refers to the Alastor also in the exodos: in passage 1475 – 1480 (see above p. 38) and in passage 1567– 1576. In passage 1567– 1576, however, she does not link the power of the Alastor to the cena thyestea, but to the wealth of the Atreid house. She wishes that the Alastor will leave the Atreid house, in case they are content with a small fortune. Thus, according to the apopempe, Clytemnestra is expressing the belief that the curse of the Atreid family depends on the accomulation of a vast wealth (cf. similarly the chorus in Sept. 766 – 771). As Di Benedetto (1984: 392) has observed, Clytemnestra’s renunciation of a portion of the Atreid wealth ‘si pone dunque su una linea di moderazione e di saggezza’. On Clytemnestra’s renunciation of a portion of the Atreid wealth, cf. now the thoughtful suggestion of Raeburn and Thomas (2011: xxxii). On Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s different view of the role of wealth in the Atreid family, ch. 1, III. 4.  Cf. e. g. Conacher (1987: 50 – 51); Käppel (1998: 171); Foley (2001: 220 – 224).

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Clytemnestra as a strong and autonomous woman (she organizes the magnificent return of Agamemnon to Argos all by herself (Ag. 280 – 316); in the carpet scene, she provides the conditions for Agamemnon’s entry into the Atreid palace without anyone helping her).⁷⁰ Moreover, Aegisthus’ final revelation that he had planned the murder of Agamemnon as a revenge for the cena thyestea (Ag. 1604, 1636 – 1637) does not confirm the idea that Clytemnestra is the passive executor of the plans of her lover, and buckles under the dynamics of the curse the Atreid family. Of course, for Aegisthus, the murder of Agamemnon means the fulfilment of his own revenge. However, this does not seem to imply that the murder of Agamemnon, from Clytemnestra’s perspective as well, takes revenge for the cena thyestea: a common goal does not necessarily mean a common cause. As Romilly (1967: 98) has pointed out: ‘Clytemnestre parle des fautes d’Agamemnon, et avant tout du meurtre d’Iphigénie (1415sqq., 1524sqq.; 1551sqq.); et Egisthe parle du meurtre des enfants de Thyeste, lui qui est le fils de Thyeste’.⁷¹ In this sense, as Peradotto (1969: 249), following Fraenkel, has noticed, it is appropriate to speak about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia as ‘the first sufficient cause’ (Ag. 223: πρωτοπήμων) for Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon. In defense of a reading of Clytemnestra’s violent deed as the compensation of the cena thyestea, we could be tempted to argue that Clytemnestra, by appealing to the Alastor and linking the murder of Agamemnon to the cena thyestea, finally reveals the real dynamics of her murderous action, i. e. the punishment of Atreus’ crime. This, however, appears misleading. When Clytemnestra claims that the Alastor, as avenger of the cena thyestea, is the author of the murder of Agamemnon, the chorus does not believe her. As has been observed, with the word συλλήπτωρ (Ag. 1507) the chorus even speculates that Clytemnestra has taken an active part in the murder of Agamemnon (she is not ἀναίτιος) and that therefore she has not submitted to the power of the Alastor:⁷² Ag. 1505 – 1508: ὡς μὲν ἀναίτιος εἶ τοῦδε φόνου τίς ὁ μαρτυρήσων; πῶ πῶ; πατρόθεν δὲ συλλήπτωρ γένοιτ’ ἂν ἀλάστωρ

Following the chorus here, by explaining her murderous action as a punishment of the cena thyestea, Clytemnestra might in fact be trying to avoid responsibility

 Cf. similarly Euben (1982: 26); Sevieri (1991: 17); Scott-Morrell (1997: 147).  Cf. similarly Romilly (1977: 36).  Cf. e. g. Gantz (1982: 13); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 80); Seidensticker (2009: 244); Raeburn and Thomas (2011: xxxvii).

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for her deeds.⁷³ It is not by chance that the chorus defines the Alastor as the collaborator (Ag. 1507: συλλήπτωρ) of Clytemnestra. Indeed, the chorus does not establish a direct link between the avenging power of the Alastor, the crime of Atreus and Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon. First of all, in its last reference to the curse (Ag. 1565 – 1566: τίς ἂν γονὰν ἀραῖον ἐκβάλοι δόμων/κεκόλληται γένος πρὸς ἄται), the chorus names the curse in the context of its answer to Clytemnestra, who is explaining the murder of Agamemnon as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s death (Ag. 1551– 1559). Yet, it does not mention the crime of Atreus. Moreover, in the lines which follow (Ag. 1560 – 1561), the old men of Argos agree, at least in part, with Clytemnestra about the murder of Agamemnon being a legitimate act of revenge for the death of Iphigeneia. Accordingly, their stance indicates that they link the death of Agamemnon and the power of the curse to Clytemnestra’s revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice rather than to her revenge for the cena thyestea. As Winnington-Ingram (1983: 112) has aptly observed, Clytemnestra ‘is actuated by motives extraneous to the bloody history of the house of Atreus’. More than that, not only is the chorus silent about the connection between the crime of Atreus, the power of the Alastor and Clytemnestra’s murder; it also puts the power of the curse (Ag. 1565 – 1566: τίς ἂν γονὰν ἀραῖον ἐκβάλοι δόμων;/ κεκόλληται γένος πρὸς ἄται) in close relation to Zeus’ lex talionis (Ag. 1563 – 1564: μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνωι Διὸς/ παθεῖν τὸν ἔρξαντα· θέσμιον γάρ). The folly of mutual killings in the Atreid family seems, then, to be an effect of Zeus’ divine law. In other words, for the chorus Zeus enacts the law according to which the one who kills has to be killed, and this divine law of Zeus, not the cena thyestea, is hunting the Atreid family with the violence of the chain of inter-familial murders (Iphigeneia→Agamemnon →Clytemnestra). Similar remarks can be put forward in relation to passage 1460 – 1487, in the long lyrical-epirrhematic exchange of the chorus with Clytemnestra in the exodos. Here, the chorus mentions the curse of the Atreid house three times (Ag. 1460 – 1461: ἦ τις ἦν τότ’ ἐν δόμοις/ Ἔρις; 1468: δαῖμον, ὃς ἐμπίτνεις δώμασι; 1481– 1482: ἦ μέγαν †οἴκοις τοῖσδε†/ δαίμονα), attributing it to the avenging craft of Zeus (Ag. 1486 – 1487: παναιτίου πανεργέτα/τί γὰρ βροτοῖς ἄνευ Διὸς τελεῖται;). Again, however, the chorus does not mention the cena thyestea. It positions the ruin of the Atreid house in relation to Helen’s adultery, and it links the power of the Alastor to the actions of women:

 Cf. e. g. Daube (1938: 190); Vickers (1973: 385); Dover (1973: 61); Conacher (1974: 329); Rosenmeyer (1982: 240); Di Benedetto (1984: 391); O’Daly (1985: 19); Konishi (1990: 130); Thiel (1993: 393); Lawrence (2013: 35, 99).

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Ag. 1455 – 1461: ἰώ· παράνους Ἑλένα, μία τὰς πολλάς, τὰς πάνυ πολλὰς ψυχὰς ὀλέσασ’ ὑπὸ Τροίαι, νῦν †δὲ τελείαν† πολύμναστον ἐπηνθίσω δι’ αἷμ’ ἄνιπτον· ἦ τις ἦν τότ’ ἐν δόμοις Ἔρις ἐρίδματος ἀνδρὸς οἰζύς Ag. 1468 – 1471: δαῖμον, ὃς ἐμπίτνεις δώμασι καὶ διφυίοισι Τανταλίδαισιν, κράτος ἰσόψυχον ἐκ γυναικῶν καρδιόδηκτον ἐμοὶ κρατύνεις

In the lines that immediately follow passage 1468 – 1471, Clytemnestra agrees with the chorus that the Atreid house is haunted by the curse of the Alastor. However, just like the chorus, she does not connect the power of the Alastor with the cena thyestea: Ag. 1475 – 1480: νῦν δ’ ὤρθωσας στόματος γνώμην, τὸν τριπάχυντον δαίμονα γέννης τῆσδε κικλήσκων· ἐκ τοῦ γὰρ ἔρως αἱματολοιχὸς νείραι τρέφεται· πρὶν καταλῆξαι τὸ παλαιὸν ἄχος, νέος ἰχώρ

There is more to say about the chorus’ representation of Clytemnestra as the collaborator of the Alastor. Such a characterisation seems to be coherent with Clytemnestra’s denial of her marital relationship with Agamemnon: Ag. 1498 – 1499: †μηδ’ ἐπιλεχθῆις† Ἀγαμεμνονίαν εἶναί μ’ ἄλοχον

We have two issues to consider here. First, if we grant that Clytemnestra explains the dynamics of her revenge on Agamemnon by her assimilation to the Alastor, and that she refuses to be seen as his wife, we can argue that the action of the Alastor embodies for Clytemnestra her maternal vengeful power: even if she is not Agamemnon’s wife, she is still Iphigeneia’s avenging mother.⁷⁴ Second, we  I differ from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 112), according to whom Clytemnestra, in appealing to the Alastor, links her murderous action, as mother of Iphigeneia, to her marital status as wife of Agamemnon, since in lines 1521 ff. she is referring to Iphigeneia as hers and Agamemnon’s child. First, as we have seen (cf. pp. 18–20), in passage 1521– 1525, Clytemnestra talks about Iphigeneia as exclusively her daughter. Second, the idea according to which in her appeal to the Alastor Clytemnestra is relating her position as avenging mother to her status as wife, looks problematic: Clytemnestra expressis verbis denies that she is Agamemnon’s wife.

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are in the position to detect a striking similarity between the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s representation of the murder of Agamemnon. For the chorus, Agamemnon has been killed by the Alastor and Clytemnestra, his collaborator. Quite the same, for Clytemnestra, Agamemnon has been murdered by the mother of Iphigeneia acting in cooperation with a supernatural being. Yet, following this interpretation, it can be argued that Clytemnestra, in contrast to the chorus in Ag. 1507– 1508 (πατρόθεν δὲ συλλή-/πτωρ), sees the action of the Alastor as closely connected to the female history of the genealogical line of the Atreid family. If, according to Clytemnestra’s explanation of Agamemnon’s murder, the avenging mother is the collaborator of the Alastor, the Alastor is taking punishment, together with Clytemnestra in her role as mother, also for the violence done to the mother-daughter bond, i. e. to the female line of the Atreid family. Further remarks on Clytemnestra’s denial of her marital status with Agamemnon are possible. Clytemnestra’s refusal is coherent with her discourse in Ag. 1401– 1406. Here as well, she explains her killing of Agamemnon as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, refusing to identify herself as his wife (cf. p. 12). To sum up, we can assume that Clytemnestra, when she appeals to the Alastor and uses the word ἄλοχος (Ag. 1499) to deny her marital relation with Agamemnon, is claiming in fact the autonomy of her acts and her position as mother in regard to her female status and actions as wife.⁷⁵ In this interpretation, Clytemnestra’s denial of her marital bond with Agamemnon does not display her revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice as a mere excuse for sex. When she denies being Agamemnon’s wife, she is not arguing that her explanation of his murder – as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice – is a cover up of her murderous action in order to protect her adulterous relationship with Aegisthus. Clytemnestra’s self-representation as mother (and, accordingly, her refusal to be Agamemnon’s wife) and Clytemnestra’s representation as wife of Agamemnon do not overlap. Further comments are possible about Clytemnestra’s appeal to the Alastor and about the cena thyestea. Cassandra’s representation of the murder of the king as the result of the power of the curse, and the revenge upon Atreus’ crime (Ag. 1095 – 1097, 1188 – 1193, 1219 – 1226) is not a proof that Clytemnestra is acting as an instrument of Aegisthus’ revenge, and, therefore, as the violent agent of the Alastor of the Atreids.⁷⁶ Indeed, this representation of the murder of Agamemnon is coherent with Cassandra’s representation of Clytemnestra as  I disagree, then, with those critics who see a problem in Clytemnestra’s denial of her marital status and her self-representation as mother. Cf. e. g. Fraenkel (ad loc.); Podlecki (1983: 33); Geisser (2002: 314).  Similarly, cf. Hammond (1965: 42– 43), especially on lines 1188 – 1193.

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a bad mother and an adulterous wife (cf. ch. 1, II. 1): as an instrument of Aegisthus’ murderous plan, Clytemnestra surely does not act as an avenging mother, but as a polyandrous and murderous woman. Yet, Clytemnestra is not Cassandra. Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation of Agamemnon’s murder does not have to coincide with Cassandra’s. Clytemnestra, as a mother avenging the death of her daughter, and Cassandra, as a concubine speaking about the death of her master, focus on Agamemnon’s death in a quite different way from one another: a consequence of the power of the Alastor in the case of Cassandra; a consequence of the power of the avenging mother who acts with the help of the Alastor of the Atreid family in the case of Clytemnestra. Coherent with this self-representation as an avenging mother who acts with the help of supernatural forces, Cytemnestra does not just depict herself as the personification of the Alastor of the Atreids. In the exodos, in the front of the chorus, as she claims the righteousness of her violent deed, Clytemnestra talks about the murder of Agamemnon as the fulfilment of justice operated by an avenging mother (τέλειον τῆς ἐμῆς παιδὸς Δίκην) who acts as an agent of the Erinys (Ἐρινύν): Ag. 1432– 1433: μὰ τὴν τέλειον τῆς ἐμῆς παιδὸς Δίκην, Ἄτην Ἐρινύν θ’, αἷσι τόνδ’ ἔσφαξ’ ἐγώ

As Seaford has similarly pointed out (2003: 160), towards the end of the play, Aegisthus’ description of the garments used by Clytemnestra in order to kill Agamemnon is consistent with such a representation of the murder of the king as an action of an Erinys. In his speech, Aegisthus describes Clytemnestra’s murderous garments as ‘carpet of the Furies’ (Ag. 1580: πέπλοις Ἐρινύων). Further remarks on Clytemnestra as an avenging mother and a mater monstruosa are possible. In the long lyrical-epirrhematic exchange with the chorus, in the context of the defence of her violent deed, Clytemnestra describes the murder of Agamemnon as plotted a long time before (Ag. 1377– 1378: ἐμοὶ δ’ ἀγὼν ὅδ’ οὐκ ἀφρόντιστος πάλαι/νείκης παλαιᾶς ἦλθε) and affirms that her revenge is the work of her right hand, artificer of justice (Ag. 1405 – 1406: τῆσδε δεξιᾶς χερός/ ἔργον, δικαίας τέκτονος). Here, she seems to balance her maternal revenge and the supernatural force of the wrath of the house equally. Indeed, the phrases ‘δικαίας τέκτονος’ and ‘νείκης παλαιᾶς ἦλθε’ pick up closely Chalchas’ description of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia as the maker of discord rooted in the family (Ag. 151: νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον). Now, Chalchas’ description of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice aligns the wrath of the house to the avenging power of Clytemnestra. As we infer from passage 150 – 155, for Calchas, Iphigeneia’s death is nothing but the cause of the strife between

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Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the trigger of Clytemnestra’s revenge. We have to consider two points here. First, the seer calls the discord aroused by Iphigeneia’s sacrifice ‘οὐ δεισήνορα’, i. e. a discord ‘that does not fear the husband’. Second, he links (γὰρ) this discord to Clytemnestra’s avenging power (μίμνει … μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος):⁷⁷ Ag. 150 – 155: … σπευδομένα θυσίαν ἑτέραν ἄνομόν τιν’ ἄδαιτον, νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον, οὐ δεισήνορα·μίμνει γὰρ φοβερὰ παλίνορτος οἰκονόμος δολία, μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος

For several reasons, the phrase ‘μίμνει … Μῆνις τεκνόποινος’ might be read in reference to the murder of Agamemnon as the result of the co-operation between Clytemnestra’s maternal vengeful power and supernatural forces. If we read the word μῆνις with a capital letter, we have to assume that an avenging deity is at work in the Atreid family. Yet, since classical Greek does not distinguish between capital and small letters, it is also possible to read μῆνις as an allusion both to

 I differ from Furley (1986: 117) who refers οὐ δεισήνορα to θυσίαν, renders it with ‘fearless of men’ and argues that lines 154– 155 are to be read as an allusion not to Clytemnestra’s murderous action, but to the cena thyestea and the avenging action of the Alastor of the Atreid house. However, οὐ δεισήνορα can hardly be referred to θυσίαν: δεισήνορα specifically refers to an attack against a man (cf. D-P and Fraenkel ad loc.) and has therefore to be linked with νεικέων. I also differ from Käppel (1998: 87– 93). Käppel refers δεισήνορα, through enallage, to νεικέων and translates it as ‘der vor dem (Ehe)Mann nicht Halt macht’. Nonetheless, he argues that lines 154– 155 allude to the cena thyestea and to the curse of the Atreid family. He translates νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον as ‘Streitursache, die mit dem Haus mitgewachesen ist (d. h. mit ihm seit jeher verwachsen)’, refers it to θυσίαν and comes to the conclusion that: ‘Wenn nun das Opfer als eine Ursache von Streit charakterisiert wird, die mit dem Haus verwachsen ist, dann hat sie auch schon zu dem Zeitpunkt existiert, zu dem das Opfer vollzogen wird’. This means that the cause of dispute (νεικέων τέκτονα) is not the sacrifice of Iphigeneia: the cause of dispute exists already before Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, as his cause is said to be σύμφυτον. Therefore, the cause of dispute has to be the cena thyestea, and lines 154– 155 do not refer to Clytemnestra. This interpretation is hard to follow. By θυσίαν is certainly meant the sacrifice which Artemis demands, i. e. the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Given that the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (θυσίαν) is said to be ‘innate maker of strife’ (D-P ad loc.) (νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον), νεικέων can only mean the strife between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon (for obvious reasons, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia cannot be the cause the cena thyestea!). Accordingly, lines 154– 155 are to be read as referring to Clytemnestra. On this matter, cf. most recently Sommerstein (2008: 19 n. 33): ‘In Chalchas’ oracular words … the coming sacrifice of Iphigeneia is half-identified with the wrath it will generate, which in turn is half identified with the person … in whom that wrath will reside’. On the fight between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, cf. notably the carpet scene: Ag. 940 (μάχης), 941 (τὸ νικᾶσθαι), 942 (νίκην τήνδε δήριος).

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divine wrath and to Clytemnestra’s maternal vengeful anger.⁷⁸ As Hoffmann has pointed out (1992: 129), the pun τεκνόποινος (avenger of children, or avenged by children) with τεκνοποιός (children-making) supports this reading: the expression ‘μῆνις τεκνοποιός’ seems to work as a hint to Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and to her violent action as a mother. Moreover, the anger of the Erinyes in Eumenides and their characterisation as ‘κακῶν μνήμονες’ (Eum. 382– 383) both suggest that the expression ‘μνάμων Μῆνις’ might imply a reference to Clytemnestra.⁷⁹ Finally, Clytemnestra’s self-representation as οἰκονόμος of the Atreid household (Ag. 609 – 610) seems to suggest the idea that Calchas may refer to her, as he describes the wrath of the house as οἰκονόμος, i. e. as manager of the household. Against the background of a process of assimilation of Clytemnestra to supernatural beings (the Alastor, the Menis, the Erinyes), her act of vengeance for the death of Iphigeneia consigns her, as a mother, to a position of dreadful longing. Unable to accept or even to control the grief she feels being separated from the creature she has given birth to, the pain of Clytemnestra, like the pain of Hecuba or Demeter, makes her a dangerous, uncontrollable, dreadful and furious being, devoted to pain and wrath.⁸⁰ Thus, an experience of insoluble pain is at the base of Clytemnestra’s turn to violence, transforming her from a mater dolorosa into a mater monstruosa. We have a vivid portrayal of Clytemnestra as a mater monstruosa at line 1388 – 1392, in the context of the speech she delivers immediately after the murder of Agamemnon and Cassandra: οὕτω τὸν αὑτοῦ θυμὸν †ὁρμαίνει† πεσών, κἀκφυσιῶν ὀξεῖαν αἵματος σφαγήν βάλλει μ’ ἐρεμνῆι ψακάδι φοινίας δρόσου, χαίρουσαν οὐδὲν ἧσσον ἢ διοσδότωι γάνει σπορητὸς κάλυκος ἐν λοχεύμασιν

Here, the language of Clytemnestra displays a strong evocative power. It may suggest the idea of impregnation by the male. Just as the ground needs the rain in

 Cf. Hammond (2009: 46), pace Fraenkel (ad loc.). On Clytemnestra as personification of menis, cf. also Neustadt (1929: 243); Lesky (1966a: 98); Loraux (1990: 76 – 77); Rademaker (2005: 105).  On the expression ‘κακῶν μνήμονες’ recalling ‘μνάμων Μῆνις’, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 171 n. 59); LSN: 228, 232. I therefore disagree with Lebeck (1971: 34). According to Lebeck, the expression ‘μνάμων Μῆνις’ refers to the cena thyestea and the curse of the Atreids, the expression ‘οἰκονόμος δολία’ to Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon. For a very detailed criticism of Lebeck’s critical position, cf. Erp Taalman Kip (1990: 53 – 60).  On maternal pain, wrath and revenge we should recall Loraux (1990).

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order to produce crops (Ag. 1391– 1392), the female needs the male semen in order to give life to the embryo. However, in the case of Clytemnestra, this exchange is sterile. More than that, the image of Clytemnestra as a woman soaked in male blood suggests perverse sexual intercourse, and an upset in the natural order of fecundity. Why such perversion? One possible explanation is that Clytemnestra’s pleasure reflects the perverse nature of a woman enjoying a horrible act of killing and an irreparable crime, which makes the chorus fear for the future:⁸¹ Ag. 1533 – 1534: δέδοικα δ’ ὄμβρου κτύπον δομοσφαλῆ τὸν αἱματηρόν …

This is a plausible reading, but it simplifies the complexity of the passage, since it tends to suppress Clytemnestra’s motherhood in favour of her sexuality, aligning her role as mother to that of wife and object of her husband’s desire. I suggest that the perversion of Clytemnestra might be read also as the perversion of a mother who, avenging the death of her daughter, acts as an agent of the deadly Erinyes. The text supports this line of interpretation. Lines 1390 – 1391 suggest the association of Clytemnestra with the figure of the Erinyes (βάλλει μ’ ἐρεμνῆι ψακάδι φοινίας δρόσου/ χαίρουσαν οὐδὲν ἧσσον). As the Erinyes suck and drink human blood (Ag. 1189; Cho. 577– 578; Eum. 184, 253), so Clytemnestra is delighted at the sight of Agamemnon’s blood. Furthermore, as Heath has noticed (1999: 20 n. 9), the expression ‘ἐν λοχεύμασιν’ (Ag. 1392) shifts the attention to Clytemnestra’s role as mother: in Greek the plural λοχεύματα designates childbirth (cf. LSJ). In what follows, after a summary of sections one to six, I explore further the play’s representation of Clytemnestra as a hellish mother, looking at Cassandra’s rhetoric of motherhood.

7 Conclusions Looking at Clytemnestra’s revenge for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in sections one to six, we have seen that: 1. critics have often simplified the complexity of Clytemnestra’s discourse on the murder of Agamemnon, reducing her role as mother and wife to her

 Cf. similarly Goheen (1955: 134); Seidensticker (1995: 160); Sommerstein (1996: 246); Wohl (1998: 107– 108); Foley (2001: 211); Ypsilanti (2003: 368); Porter (2005a: 3); Pelling (2005: 98); Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 203).

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role as wife. Yet, on a closer reading of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation, her reasons for killing are polyvalent: – as a mother, she explains the murder of Agamemnon as the revenge for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and not as the violent act of a wife against her husband; – as a wife, she explains the murder of Agamemnon as a means to protect her adulterous relationship with Aegisthus, and to take revenge for Agamemnon’s union with Cassandra and other captive women; according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge: – Iphigeneia is the fruit of her womb. Therefore mother and daughter are tied together by an inviolable bond of maternal consanguinity and philia; – Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter because this sacrifice will allow him to fulfill his identity as a warrior; – Iphigeneia’s sacrifice breaks the biological continuum of daughter and mother through an act of paternal warlike violence; – to Clytemnestra the murder of Agamemnon represents a fulfillment of the justice of her maternal philia against paternal violence of war; it expresses and upholds the inviolable character of the biological bond of philia between mother and daughter; – the mother is a philos of her daughter (relative by maternal blood) but not of her husband (relative by social ties through marriage); – the mother, being the origin of life, is also the mistress and the guardian of the household; – Agamemnon kills by using dolos; – female mind is bound together with female reproductive power; in respect to Clytemnestra’s revenge for Iphigeneia, and to her killing of Agamemnon, her attempt to separate her role as mother from her role as wife and, accordingly, her overvaluation of maternal consanguinity and maternal power are exposed to the danger of failing. Clytemnestra pretends to be the only genetic parent of her child, and thus claims the right to kill the father of her daughter. Accordingly, she is transformed from a mater dolorosa into a mater monstruosa who acts as a personification of the Alastor, an Erinys and the treacherous wrath of the Atreid family.

II Cassandra, the chorus and Iphigeneia’s sacrifice As I suggested in the previous pages, if we read Agamemnon from the narrative perspective of Clytemnestra as an avenging mother and a wife, we are entitled to

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recognize a certain legitimacy in her revenge. As Foley (2001: 233) argued, we might ask (quote):⁸² 1) ‘Why should a mother tolerate what the chorus itself describes as the horrific, perverted, and unwilling sacrifice of her daughter?’ 2) ‘Why should Clytemnestra accept a marriage made by others in which her husband has become an enemy to herself, when she can choose a spouse who protects her interests and pleases her?’ At the same time, as we have seen, Clytemnestra’s separation between her role as mother and her role as wife inevitably undercuts the legitimacy of her rhetoric of explanation for the murder of Agamemnon as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. In what follows, I discuss the play’s problematisation of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge further, focusing on the chorus’ and Cassandra’s rhetoric of motherhood.

1 Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and a bad mother In the course of her long dramatic exchange with the chorus (Ag. 1072– 1330), Cassandra talks twice about Orestes’ coming matricide as an act of retribution for Agamemnon’s and her own death: Ag. 1279 – 1280: οὐ μὴν ἄτιμοί γ’ ἐκ θεῶν τεθνήξομεν· ἥξει γὰρ ἡμῶν ἄλλος αὖ τιμάορος Ag. 1318 – 1320: ὅταν γυνὴ γυναικὸς ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ θάνηι ἀνήρ τε δυσδάμαρτος ἀντ’ ἀνδρὸς πέσηι· ἐπιξενοῦμαι ταῦτα δ’ ὡς θανουμένη

This stated necessity of Orestes’ revenge is grounded in an interpretation of the killing of Agamemnon, which consistently differs from Clytemnestra’s explanation of her murderous action. Following Cassandra’s discourse at lines 1318 – 1320, Clytemnestra is a polyandrous woman/wife (γυνή; δυσδάμαρτος) who dared to kill her man (ἀνδρός).⁸³

 Cf. similarly Euben (1982: 26): ‘Moreover, as I have suggested, what she does is importantly a response to what Agamemnon has done to her. His choice for glory at the expense of house and family is an assault on the wife-mother-woman whose dignity resides there’.  On Cassandra and her depiction of Clytemnestra as a female killer of the male, cf. also Ag. 1109 – 1111; 1125 – 1126; 1231. On Cassandra and Clytemnestra’s adultery, cf. also Ag. 1258 – 1259. On the word γυνή in line 1318, cf. p. 50.

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This depiction of Clytemnestra affects the way in which she is represented as mother. Being a woman who betrays and murders her husband amounts to being a mother necis auctor who acts against her philoi and therefore deserves to die: Ag. 1102– 1103: μέγ’ ἐν δόμοισι τοῖσδε μήδεται κακὸν ἄφερτον φίλοισιν … Ag. 1235 – 1236: θύουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’ ἄσπονδόν τ’ Ἄρη φίλοις πνέουσαν … Ag. 1283: κάτεισιν, ἄτας τάσδε θριγκώσων φίλοις

Lines 1235 – 1236 are particularly interesting and deserve further comment. The occurrence of the word μητέρα has puzzled the sensibilities of critics for a long time, and several emendations have been suggested (cf. Fraenkel ad loc.). Essentially, scholars considered the allusion to Clytemnestra’s motherhood to be misleading: at this point of the plot, shortly before Agamemnon’s killing, one would rather expect an allusion to the role of Clytemnestra as the (bad) wife of her husband. Fraenkel, however, defends the transmitted text, suggesting an obvious (and, because of the τε, quite natural) reading which phrases ‘θύουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’’ in strict relation to the phrase ‘Ἄρη φίλοις πνέουσαν’. According to him, the representation of Clytemnestra as a ‘sacrificing mother of Hades’ (θύουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’) and ‘breathing Ares against her philoi’ (Ἄρη φίλοις πνέουσαν) highlights a dramatic continuity between Agamemnon and Choephoroi. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra is depicted as a mother acting against her children (she, ‘mother of the realm of destruction, destroying mother’, murders Agamemnon, the father of Orestes and Electra); in Choephoroi, Clytemnestra’s hellish dogs (Cho. 924: μητρὸς ἐγκότους κύνας, 1054: μητρὸς ἔγκοτοι κύνες) are the monstrous creatures which pursue the matricidal son Orestes.⁸⁴ To Fraenkel’s remarks we can add further reasons why μητέρα should be maintained. When Cassandra uses the words θύουσαν and φίλοις in relation to μητέρα, she is repeating two words (θύειν, φίλος) of primary importance in Clytemnestra’s discourse on motherhood and maternal revenge (Ag. 1417– 1418: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’). This repetition reveals some important differences in the presentation of the dramatic events. According to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood, the murder of Agamemnon is a legitimate retribution for the warlike violence of a father against the exclusive fruit of her womb (cf. above I. 2– 3). Read with Cassandra, Agamemnon’s death represents, instead, the action of a bad mother or a mother-echthros who kills her husband, bereaves her children of their dear father, and acts against her philoi.

 On these lines as looking ahead to Choephoroi, cf. also Zeitlin (1966: 649 – 651 with n. 15).

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Following this line of argumentation, Cassandra’s discourse confronts the reader with a definition of the term φίλος that plays a crucial role in the Choephoroi’s discourse on motherhood and wifehood. In depicting Clytemnestra as a mother-echthros who kills the children’s father, Cassandra, like the nurse, Electra, and Orestes, represents the bond of philia as inclusive of the father-child bond, and as exclusive of the mother-child bond. Moreover, talking about Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife, Cassandra includes in the philia-relationship the marital bond between wife and husband that Clytemnestra clearly violates: being an adulterous woman, Clytemnestra is an enemy of her husband. Thus, Cassandra’s emphasis on Clytemnestra as a promiscuous wife and as a bad mother introduces a shift both in the representation of motherhood and in the representation of blood ties and power relations: – for Clytemnestra: mother = woman giving life => adulterous wife ≠ bad mother; philia is between mother and child, not between wife and husband – for Cassandra: mother = wife of the husband and the children’s father => adulterous wife = bad mother; philia is between wife and husband as between father and children ↓ – according to Clytemnestra’s discourse: mother = origin of life and power – according to Cassandra’s discourse: father = origin of life and power As we will see, this is precisely the shift that contextualises Orestes’, Electra’s and Apollo’s representation of Agamemnon as the only genetic parent and as the subject of power in the family and in society (husband, genitor, head of the family, warrior and king). Now, since Cassandra always tells the truth (Ag. 1241: ἀληθόμαντιν), her discourse on Clytemnestra in her role as mother and wife cannot simply be disregarded as false. However, at the same time, Cassandra is never believed by anyone (Ag. 1212: ἔπειθον οὐδέν’ οὐδέν). Accordingly, her discourse might not be fully persuasive. It might raise a doubt: how possibly might a mother be just the wife of the father? In fact, we notice how the prophetic authority of Cassandra’s discourse anticipates the dissent of half the Athenian jury from Apollo’s bias and Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo. It does not matter if the repudiation of Clytemnestra’s motherhood is coming from Apollo or from his prophetess; human beings in Aeschylus (can) resist the divine force of speech. Just as Clytemnestra is a mother necis auctor, Orestes is a μητροκτόνον φίτυμα (Ag. 1281). The choice of this image is hardly accidental, and it seems im-

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portant to me to maintain this metaphor in the translated text.⁸⁵ As we have seen, when Clytemnestra speaks of motherhood and uses the words φίλος and ἔρνος (Ag. 1417– 1418: φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’; 1525: ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος), she represents her daughter as her philos and as the fruit of her maternal womb. By contrast, when Cassandra speaks of the mother-son relation, relying on imagery quite similar to that used by Clytemnestra (ἔρνος → φίτυμα), mother and child are tied together by a bond of death. As we will see (cf. pp. 136 – 138), this opposition (motherhood as a relation of life/death between mother and child) can also be traced through Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ discourse on motherhood. Cassandra does not appropriate in a different way from Clytemnestra only the words φίλος, θύειν and μήτηρ. She does the same for the word κύων. The dog, that in the words of Clytemnestra is the mother-philos of her daughter and the mistress of the Atreid household (cf. pp. 24– 26), in the words of Cassandra becomes a hateful dog (μισητῆς κυνός) that kills, by means of deceptive speech, the king who was victorious at Troy:⁸⁶ Ag. 1227– 1230: νεῶν δ’ ἄπαρχος Ἰλίου τ’ ἀναστάτης οὐκ οἶδεν οἵα γλῶσσα μισητῆς κυνός, λέξασα κἀκτείνασα φαιδρόνους δίκην, ἄτης λαθραίου τεύξεται κακῆι τύχηι

Cassandra’s image of Clytemnestra as a treacherous dog defines a negative discourse on Clytemnestra’s mind. As Fraenkel (ad loc.) observes, Cassandra’s hint to Clytemnestra’s φαιδρότης of mind is clearly ironic, an element which looks forward to Clytemnestra’s depiction in Eumenides as a mother κελαινόφρων (Eum. 459): the black-minded mother (cf. pp. 181–182). Now, using deception and cunning intelligence in the act of killing, Clytemnestra does not distinguish herself much from Agamemnon. With Goldhill (LSN: 87): ‘She is also called παντότολμος (1237) which refers back to the description of Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia τὸ παντότολμον φρονεῖν μετέγνω (221) and this emphasises the parallelism between their actions’. It is not a minor detail. The assimilation of Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s mind underscores the le For a different position, cf. Dumortier (1975a: 130). One might note that the depiction of Orestes as a tree marks a continuity with Agamemnon’s representation by Clytemnestra as a tree casting shade (Ag. 966 – 967: ῥίζης γὰρ οὔσης φυλλὰς ἵκετ’ ἐς δόμους/σκιὰν ὑπερτείνασα σειρίου κυνός): like father, like son.  The murder of Agamemnon is described as Clytemnestra’s treacherous action also in Ag. 1129 by Cassandra, in Ag. 1495, 1519 by the chorus and finally in Ag. 1636 by Aegisthus. Note that Thomson (1934: 75 – 76) takes μισητῆς as being an ‘intrusive gloss’. However, cf. Fraenkel (ad loc.).

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gitimacy of Clytemnestra’s opposition between mother and father that we have seen at work in her speech at lines 1417– 1425 (cf. above, I. 5). Moreover, Cassandra’s use of the adjective παντότολμος looks forward to Electra’s criticism of Clytemnestra’s mind (cf. pp. 86, 122– 124). The chorus shares with Cassandra her views on Clytemnestra. For the old men of Argos as well, Agamemnon’s death represents the murderous action of a wife and a woman against her husband and against the man with power:⁸⁷ Ag. 1454: πρὸς γυναικὸς δ’ ἀπέφθισεν βίον Ag. 1461: Ἔρις ἐρίδματος ἀνδρὸς οἰζύς Ag. 1543 – 1544: … κτείνασ’ ἄνδρα τὸν αὑτῆς ἀποκωκῦσαι Ag. 1643 – 1646: τί δὴ τὸν ἄνδρα τόνδ’ ἀπὸ ψυχῆς κακῆς οὐκ αὐτὸς ἠνάριζες, ἀλλὰ σὺν γυνή, χώρας μίασμα καὶ θεῶν ἐγχωρίων, ἔκτειν’;

Specifically, the chorus represents the killing of Agamemnon as the deed of a lazy and adulterous wife against her husband and victorious leader of the Greeks in Troy: Ag. 1625 – 1627: γύναι, σὺ τοὺς ἥκοντας ἐκ μάχης μένων οἰκουρὸς εὐνὴν ἀνδρὸς αἰσχύνων ἅμα ἀνδρὶ στρατηγῶι τόνδ’ ἐβούλευσας μόρον;

Here, the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἀνήρ as maritus (εὐνὴν ἀνδρός) and vir fortis (ἀνδρὶ στρατηγῶι) implies an appropriation of the word γυνή as indicating the female who is both sexually and economically dependent on her husband (εὐνὴν ἀνδρὸς αἰσχύνων; μένων οἰκουρὸς). As we shall see, this discourse on Clytemnestra’s wifehood will return in Choephoroi with Orestes and Electra’s representation of Clytemnestra as a mother non-giving and non-nurturing life, and as a female usurper of Agamemnon’s power. Now, as a betrayer and as a killer of her husband and king, Clytemnestra is for the chorus, as well as for Cassandra, an enemy of the Atreid family whose murderous action has to be punished:⁸⁸

 The chorus also refers to Clytemnestra’s position as Agamemnon’s wife in Ag. 260. On this line, cf. p. 68. Like the chorus, the watchman too, in speaking of Clytemnestra, points to her marital status (Ag. 26 – 27: Ἀγαμέμνονος γυναικὶ σημαίνω τορῶς/εὐνῆς ἐπαντείλασαν ὡς τάχος δόμοις).  The chorus claims the necessity of Orestes’ revenge also in Ag. 1535 – 1536, 1646 – 1648, 1667.

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Ag. 1429 – 1430: ἄντιτον ἔτι σε χρὴ στερομέναν φίλων τύμμα τύμμα τεῖσαι

In these lines, using the word φίλος after the killing of Agamemnon, the chorus seems to claim a relationship of philia between Agamemnon as man and Clytemnestra as wife, ascribing the horror of Clytemnestra’s murderous action to the transgression of the social bond of marriage. However, the chorus’ attempt to separate her role as mother from her role as wife, which is at work in this characterisation of Clytemnestra simply as a bad wife, is fraught with the risk to fail. Once again, this separation pushes us to ask whether a) the repudiation of the blood connection between mother and child, and b) the definition of the mother as merely the wife of the husband, justify matricide and the legitimacy of Agamemnon’s power as father. I turn to this vulnerability of the discourse of Cassandra and the chorus in the next section.

2 Problematising Clytemnestra’s representation as a bad mother and a bad wife Cassandra’s use of the word γυνή in line 1318 problematises the normalisation of women into wives (ὅταν γυνὴ γυναικὸς ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ θάνηι): if Clytemnestra is a woman and the wife of Agamemnon, Cassandra, on the contrary, is a woman but not Agamemnon’s wife. On the ekkuklema, the destabilisation of Cassandra’s self-representation as gune of Agamemnon is revealed by the parallelism between her lying corpse on the side of Agamemnon (Ag. 1372 ff.) and the lying corpse of Clytemnestra on the side of Aegisthus (Cho. 973 ff.).⁸⁹ Moreover, when Cassandra prophesizes Orestes’ revenge for her death and for the murder of Agamemnon in terms of the end of violence in the Atreid family (Ag. 1279 – 1280), she also describes her death as a sacrifice:  I differ therefore from Foley (2001: 92) who notes that Cassandra ‘gradually fills the structural role of “proper” wife abandoned by Clytemnestra’. As Foley, cf. Doyle (2008: 87– 89); VogelEhrensperger (2012: 194). On the depiction of Cassandra as the wife of Agamemnon, cf. the seminal paper of Seaford on tragic weddings (1987: 127– 128), McNeil (2005) and now Debnar (2010: 133 – 136). In her article, McNeil discusses at length the reason why the fabric of the carpet scene visually reminds us of bridal cloths and, therefore, why the whole scene alludes to the erotic triangle ‘Agamemnon-Cassandra-Clytemnestra’. On Cassandra as concubine of Agamemnon and the ambiguity of this status, cf. also the thoughtful suggestions of Wohl (1998: 113 – 116) and Roisman (2004: 103 – 104). On Cassandra’s self-representation as wife and its problematic aspects, cf. also Ag. 1179, with Morgan (1994: 127– 128) and Lavery (2004: 16 – 19) on this line.

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Ag. 1277– 1278: βωμοῦ πατρώιου δ’ ἀντ’ ἐπίξηνον μένει, θερμῶι κοπείσης φοίνιον προσφάγματι

In the words of the prophetess – just like in the reply of the chorus (Ag. 1297– 1298) – a reminiscence of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia seems to be at work. The sacrifice is preliminary (Ag. 1278: προσφάγματι, cf. parodos: 227: προτέλεια ναῶν); the altar is the one of the father (Ag. 1277: βωμοῦ πατρώιου, cf. parodos: 210 – 211: ῥείθροις πατρώιους χέρας πέλας βω-/μοῦ, 231– 234: φράσεν … πατὴρ … ὕπερθε βωμοῦ … λαβεῖν); a stream of blood flows over the altar (Ag. 1278: θερμῶι … προσφάγματι, cf. parodos: 209 – 210: παρθενοσφάγοισιν/ῥείθροις); Cassandra heads for the sacrifice as a beast would (Ag. 1298: βοὸς δίκην, cf. parodos: 232: δίκαν χιμαίρας).⁹⁰ The assimilation of the death of Cassandra to that of Iphigeneia recalls to mind Agamemnon’s violence against his daughter, and Clytemnestra’s vendetta for her daughter. Thus, it questions the very suppression of Clytemnestra’s motherhood, which we have seen at work in Cassandra’s representation of Clytemnestra as a hellish mother and an enemy of her children. At the same time, it challenges the bond of philia between father and children. A similar, significant proliferation of meaning in Cassandra’s language returns in the image of Clytemnestra as a sacrificing mother of Hades (Ag. 1235: θύουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’). Mazon posited this image to be a reference to Clytemnestra’s position as a mother avenging the sacrifice of her daughter (cf. Fraenkel ad loc.). By this interpretation, the veiled allusion to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia seems to problematise Clytemnestra’s representation merely as a hellish mother and the echthros of her children. As in lines 1235 and 1277– 1278, a reminiscence of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia seems to be implied in verses 1117– 1118 as well: … στάσις δ’ ἀκόρετος γένει κατολολυξάτω θύματος λευσίμου

I am not certain – as claimed by D-P (ad loc.) – that θύματος ‘on Cassandra’s lips … is pure metaphor’. The image of a sacrifice that needs to be punished through stoning (λευσίμου) foretells the possible wrath of people against Clytemnestra  For the expression ‘βωμοῦ πατρώιου’ as recalling the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, cf. Zeitlin (1965: 471): ‘The father’s altar, however, is a still richer allusion, referring to another death at a father’s altar (Iphigenia)’. Note that the chorus’ language, in Cassandra’s scene, hints at Iphigeneia’s sacrifice also in passage 1121– 1122 where the expression ‘κροκοβαφὴς σταγών’ echoes the expression ‘κρόκου βαφάς’ in Ag. 239. On this parallelism, cf. Lebeck (1964: 40 – 41); Zeitlin (1965: 472 n. 21; 1966: 649 n. 12); Lynn-George (1993: 7 n. 23); Delneri (2001: 62); Mitchell-Boyask (2006: 283); Debnar (2010: 135).

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and Aegisthus (cf. Ag. 1615 – 1616: οὔ φημ’ ἀλύξειν ἐν δίκηι τὸ σὸν κάρα/δημορριφεῖς, σάφ’ ἴσθι, λευσίμους ἀράς), as well as the necessity of Orestes’ revenge. At the same time, as Zeitlin has aptly observed (1965: 472 n. 21), the image of sacrifice seems to look back at the revenge of Clytemnestra, who punishes the sacrifice of her daughter. An allusion to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice seems to be at work also in passage 1167– 1169. Here, Cassandra laments the total destruction of Troy and the sacrifices made by her father: ἰὼ πόνοι πόνοι πόλεος ὀλομένας τὸ πᾶν· ἰὼ πρόπυργοι θυσίαι πατρὸς πολυκανεῖς βοτῶν ποιονόμων …

The expression ‘θυσίαι πατρός’ sounds like a reminder of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia on behalf of her father. Seen this way, in lines 1117– 1118, 1167– 1169, 1235 and 1277– 1278, the semantic overuse of words related to the figure of the father and to the sphere of sacrifice calls to mind the action of Clytemnestra in her role as mother avenging the death of her daughter. Thus, it forces us to ask whether Clytemnestra’s deed really represents just the action of a hellish mother and an adulterous wife against her husband and the beloved father of his children. Also the chorus’ expression ‘στερομέναν φίλων’ (Ag. 1429), in the last confrontation with Clytemnestra, can be read as textual evidence of how difficult it is to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternal role and to stress the justice of Orestes’ revenge by using language. It is not easy at all – paraphrasing a verse of Cassandra (Ag. 1272: φίλων ὑπ’ ἐχθρῶν οὐ διχορρόπως †μάτην†) – to distinguish friends from enemies in this play. Does the chorus just say that Clytemnestra has lost her philoi since she killed her husband, and bereaved, as a mother-echthros, her children of their beloved father? It seems plausible to assume as well that these words are looking forward to Clytemnestra’s expression of pain for Orestes’ death, and to her claim of having been bereft of her son and philos in Cho. 694 – 695 (cf. ch. 2, III. 5):⁹¹ τόξοις πρόσωθεν εὐσκόποις χειρουμένη φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με τὴν παναθλίαν

 We can conclude with Goldhill (1984a: 173) that ‘the boundaries we attempted to draw are transgressed by the constituting relations of difference (and deferral) between terms inscribed in a series each occurrence (repetition) of which is set in the extending and shifting series of the sentence(s), speech(es), scene(s) of which it is a constituent part’.

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This ambiguity in the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος becomes even more evident if we consider that the chorus, foreseeing Orestes’ revenge upon his mother, cannot deny the blood connection between Clytemnestra and Orestes: Ag. 1509 – 1511: βιάζεται δ’ ὁμοσπόροις ἐπιρροαῖσιν αἱμάτων μέλας Ἄρης …

It is exactly through this difficulty to represent blood ties (the word αἷμα links the father and the mother figure; the word ὁμόσπορος refers only to the former) that the play opens up a space for questioning the chorus’ and Cassandra’s attempts to repudiate Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and to portray Agamemnon as the only genetic parent and the subject of power in the family (genitor, husband) and in society (head of the family, king, warrior). By reading a text that constantly re-writes its own terms, what entitles me as a reader to interpret the speeches of Clytemnestra about motherhood and maternal revenge without also re-reading them in the light of Cassandra’s and the chorus’ discourse, and vice versa? Some remarks on the word κύων pertain to these questions. The first time we find this word is in the prologue (Ag. 3: κυνὸς δίκην). The watchman is talking about his year-long guard as he slept on the roof of the house like a watchdog: Ag. 2– 3: φρουρᾶς ἐτείας μῆκος, ἣν κοιμώμενος στέγαις Ἀτρειδῶν ἄγκαθεν, κυνὸς δίκην

Later on, he mourns the fate of the house, which is no longer stable as in the past: Ag. 18 – 19: κλαίω τότ’ οἴκου τοῦδε συμφορὰν στένων οὐχ ὡς τὰ πρόσθ’ ἄριστα διαπονουμένου

Now, what does the watchman actually mean as he says that he was waiting on the roof like a watchdog? Different answers can be suggested. The more obvious one refers to the Homeric tradition and the figure of Argos (Od. 17, 300 – 327). In this case, the image of the watchman awaiting his master like a dog becomes a symbol of unyielding fidelity. Yet, in Greek, the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ has an additional meaning: as Loraux has noticed (1990a: 259 – 263), the adverbial usage of δίκην implies the idea of order, justice, rule. Bearing in mind the meaning of ‘justice of the dog’, it seems plausible to read the watchman’s self-representation as a watchdog in terms of an allusion to the revenge of Clytemnestra,

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the mother-watchdog against Agamemnon, her enemy (Ag. 607– 608: δωμάτων κύνα/ἐσθλὴν ἐκείνωι, πολεμίαν τοῖς δύσφροσιν). In this case, the Atreid house is not in order, since Agamemnon kills Iphigeneia. Similarly, the words of the watchman may echo Clytemnestra’s portrayal of Agamemnon as watchdog of the Atreid house (Ag. 896: ἄνδρα τόνδε τῶν σταθμῶν κύνα). Yet, in echoing line 896, the watchman’s words ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ may as well allude to the son’s revenge for the death of his watchdog father – with the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ as ‘the justice due to the father’.⁹² There is more. We can observe that the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ echoes as well Cassandra’s words ‘μισητῆς κυνός’ in Ag. 1228. In this case, the justice of the dog is to be understood as the intolerable revenge of Clytemnestra, the evil mother and adulterous wife, against Agamemnon. Nonetheless, the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ can also be a reminder of the image of the ‘winged dogs of Zeus’ in the parodos (Ag. 135: πτανοῖσιν κυσὶ πατρὸς). With this image, Calchas refers to the two eagles (Ag. 114) which, in the portent sent to the Atreids, will devour a pregnant hare (Ag. 119). As has been argued, the eagles, which become dogs, stand for Agamemnon and Menelaos, and the hare for Iphigeneia and/or Troy.⁹³ Again, in this case, the Atreid house is not in order, since Agamemnon has sacrificed his own daughter for the purpose of sailing to Troy. Now, how can we read the watchman’s phrase ‘κυνὸς δίκην’, and make sense of the narrated events? In other words, which position within the text can I take as a reader? As we cannot set an unambiguous meaning for the expression ‘κυνὸς δίκην’, we can hardly say whether it refers to the legitimacy of Clytemnestra’s vengeance of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, to the killing of Agamemnon as the intolerable action of a wife against the children’s father and the victorious king in Troy, or to the legitimacy of Orestes’ vengeance. Accordingly, we can hardly opt for a reading of the play that justifies inter-familial violence as a central step towards the authorisation of the Father as the origin of life and power (matricide as according to the chorus and Cassandra), or as a step towards the defence of both maternal consanguinity and authority (murder of Agamemnon as according to Clytemnestra). Looking back at the second stasimon and at the parable of the lion cub, then, we might question what the justice of the son (Ag. 724: τέκνου δίκαν) is like: destabilising its discourse on blood ties

 For a reading of ‘κυνὸς δίκην’ as ‘the justice of the dog’, cf. also Wilson (2006: 190 – 194). Metzger (2005: 39 – 41), in discussing ‘κυνὸς δίκην’, only interprets the δίκην-phrase as expressing qualities, i. e. ‘like a dog’. On the adverbial use of δίκην, cf. also Lavery (2004: 6 – 9).  On the image of the eagles, cf. Zeitlin (1965: 481– 483). For a review of the scholarly interpretations of the portent of the eagles, cf. Lawrence (1976); Conacher (1987: 76 – 83); Käppel (1998: 105 – 100). On Artemis’ wrath, cf. pp. 21– 22.

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and power relations, the play puts into crisis the very notion of the justice of the mother and the father. This impasse in defining a fulfilment of justice in relation to the search for an authoritative discourse on blood and power relations is also at the basis of the tragic discourse of Choephoroi and Eumenides, as I argue in ch. two and three.

3 Conclusions In sections one and two, we have seen that: 1. according to Cassandra, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife and the treacherous killer of her husband, and, therefore, a bad mother, and an enemy to her children. Matricide is a necessary act; 2. according to the chorus, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife, a squanderer of Agamemnon’s wealth, the killer of her husband and vir fortis, and therefore an enemy to her husband and children. Orestes’ revenge is a necessary act; 3. Cassandra always tells the truth, but is never believed. Yet, in the case of her discourse on Clytemnestra as mother and wife, she may not tell the whole truth, and for this reason she might not be believed by the reader of the play. Her characterisation of Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife and a bad mother or a mother non-mother faces us with the attempt to separate her role as mother from her role as wife, in order to justify matricide. However, this attempt is fraught with the risk of failing. Indeed, Cassandra’s language does not have the power to represent matricide as an act of dike; 4. the play’s discourse on inter-familial violence functions as an open question. In the case of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation for the murder of Agamemnon as a defence of maternal consanguinity and maternal rights against paternal violence, the play’s discourse does not turn the murder of Agamemnon into a legitimate act of violence; in the case of Cassandra’s and the chorus’ explanation of Clytemnestra’s murderous deed as the act of a bad wife against her husband, the play’s discourse does not represent Orestes’ matricide as a legitimate act of violence. The play is so open to different interpretations, that the very definition of a critical level for its language and narrative is called into question by the reader.

III Clytemnestra and the war against Troy In the first part of this chapter, I focus on the character of Clytemnestra as queen (Ag. 84: βασίλεια Κλυταιμήστρα, 914: Λήδας γένεθλον). Following her rhetoric of

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explanation, the killing of Agamemnon is a revenge for the excesses of the Trojan War. If we maintain that, according to Clytemnestra’s discourse, the death of Agamemnon avenges not only a wrong action against the members of the Atreid family (Iphigeneia’s sacrifice), but also an action against the members of the community of Argos and Troy (violence of the Trojan War), we have to agree that the murder of Agamemnon represents also a political act.⁹⁴ So I assume that what is political in the Oresteia, as Macleod (1982: 132; cf. LSN: 253) has written, is fundamentally ‘a concern with human beings as part of a community’.⁹⁵ Accordingly, I see the Trojan War as a political issue and the revenge for it (which amounts to Agamemnon’s death) as a political action, specifically the murder of a king. In sections one and two, I explore Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’ representation of the Trojan War; in section three, I argue that Clytemnestra’s criticism of the Greek expedition against Troy has a certain legitimacy for the chorus; in section four, I look at Agamemnon’s discourse on his past in Troy; in section five, I discuss Clytemnestra’s misuse of power; in section six I summarize my conclusions.

 For similar positions, cf. Kitto (1956: 9): ‘What Clytemnestra will do is no mere domestic murder’; Harris (1973: 146 – 147): ‘Aeschylus makes use of the interweaving of familial statues with political ones’; MacEwen (1990: 30): ‘she not only defends her family, she believes she is saving the state by killing Agamemnon’. On the overlapping of public and domestic issues in the Oresteia more generally, cf. Freyman (1976: 66); Foley (1981: 148 – 163); Fartzoff (1984); Patterson (1998: 147). On the collision of public and domestic issues in the case of Agamemnon and the Trojan War, cf. the chorus in the parodos at line 157: μόρσιμ’ ἀπ’ ὀρνίθων ὁδίων οἴκοις βασιλείοις. Further, on the Trojan War as a business of the communities of Argos and Troy, cf. WinningtonIngram (1983: 79): ‘The war has a wide perspective: it affects communities’.  The question of politics in Greek tragedy is obviously wide and has been approached in different ways. Fundamentally, we can distinguish four main trends in criticism: the historicist approach, which reads the extant plays as historical texts providing insight into the political events and issues of the democratic Athens (e. g. Podlecki 1966); the so called democratic reading of Goldhill (1987) according to which the content of tragic dramas and the public context of their performances both mirror the democratic ideology of the classical polis (cf. also e. g. the influential papers by Connor, Raaflaub and Strauss 1990; Longo and Ober and Strauss in Zeitlin and Winkler 1990; Cartledge and Goldhill in Easterling 1997; Goldhill 2000a); Griffith’s reading (1995), according to which tragedy reinforces the identity of the political elite of the democratic Athens; the ‘new ritualism’ of Seaford (1994), according to which the self-destruction of a tyrant’s household and the consequent foundation of a polis-cult narrated in the dramas reflect the tragic concern with affirming the benefit and the survival of the city’s community. For a review of these influential interpretations, cf. Carter (2007: 21– 64). For criticism of Goldhill’s position, cf. Friedrich (1996); Griffin (1998), and on this criticism Gilbert 2009 (443), with further bibliography. But see Goldhill 2000. For further bibliography on Greek tragedy and politics, cf. Debnar (2005: 21– 22) and Croally (2005: 70).

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1 The chorus on the war against Troy To the chorus, the Trojan War represents the just punishment for the crime of Paris: it was Zeus who sent Agamemnon and Menelaos to Troy in order to take revenge for Helen’s abduction (Ag. 40 – 62, 355 – 366, 699 – 716, 735 – 749).⁹⁶ Nonetheless, the chorus strongly undermines the significance of their expedition, and, as has often been observed, it seems to represent the murder of Agamemnon as a compensation for the excesses of the Trojan War.⁹⁷ In this regard, passages 461– 471 in the first stasimon, and the chorus’ passage 1331– 1342 are particularly telling. In the first place, the chorus criticises Agamemnon’s military conduct because of the large amount of lives that have been lost:⁹⁸ Ag. 461– 462: τῶν πολυκτόνων γὰρ οὐκ ἄσκοποι θεοί …

In connection to the condemnation for the death of so many people, the chorus repeatedly mentions the danger of the wealth that Agamemnon and his army have gathered by the use of violence.⁹⁹ In the lines that immediately follow

 On lines 735 – 737, cf. Grethlein (2013: 83 – 84); on line 749 and Helen’s representation as a Fury, cf. Blondell (2013: 135).  Cf. e. g. Earp (1948: 163; 1950: 50); Lesky (1966a: 98 – 99); Lebeck (1971: 37– 46); Leahy (1974: 20); Freyman (1976: 67); Romilly (1977: 35); Neitzel (1978: 421); Higgins (1978: 26); West (1979: 4); Gantz (1983: 69 – 71); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 79 – 80); Euben (1990: 72); Rosenbloom (1995: 114); Griffith (1995: 83); Sommerstein (1996: 173); Käppel (1998: 137– 140); Yarkho (1997: 192– 193); Helm (2004: 44); Himmelhoch (2005: 276); Raeburn and Thomas (2011: xxix; xxxvi); Lawrence (2013: 81). I differ from Reeves (1960: 165 – 166) who observes that ‘There is, however, not the slightest indication, in my opinion, that the chorus disapproves of the war or that Aeschylus condemns it or intends us to do so’ and from Meier (1988: 143) who claims that ‘Agamemnon büßt für Iphigenie, zugleich für den Kindermord des Atreus; aber wohl auch für das Unrecht an Troja, obwohl davon keine Rede ist’.  For a reading of lines 461– 462 in connection to Agamemnon’s hybristic conduct in Troy, cf. e. g. Langwitz-Smith (1973: 9); Scott (1978: 263 – 264); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 98). According to these scholars, the chorus’ wish that Troy might not have been taken by the Greeks (Ag. 475 – 487) implies that with the adjective πολυκτόνος the old men of Argos might refer to Agamemnon. Cf. also Knox (1952: 21). According to Knox, as the image of the πολυκτόνος lion links to Agamemnon (Ag. 734), so here πολυκτόνος might refer to him. On the excessive killing during the Trojan War, cf. also Bollack (1981: 449); Rehm (1992: 81).  The chorus problematises the significance of the punitive action of the Atreids against Paris in relation to their accumulation of an excessive wealth also in Ag. 381– 384 and 773 – 781. On passage 381– 384 as referring to Agamemnon, see n. 102 below; on passage 773 – 781, cf. e. g. Kitto (1956: 11– 12); Podlecki (1966: 67); Lloyd-Jones (1970: 11); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 99);

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this passage, the chorus refers to Zeus’ wrath in relation to the goods which have been gained wrongly: Ag. 469 – 471: … βάλλεται γὰρ †ὄσσοις† Διόθεν κεραυνός. κρίνω δ’ ἄφθονον ὄλβον

Similarly, in Ag. 1331– 1334, the chorus seems to imply that excessive wealth causes violation of dike: τὸ μὲν εὖ πράσσειν ἀκόρεστον ἔφυ πᾶσι βροτοῖσιν· δακτυλοδείκτων δ’ οὔτις ἀπειπὼν εἴργει μελάθρων, μηκέτ’ ἐσέλθηις τάδε φωνῶν

Further, in lines 1338 – 1342, the chorus claims that the bloodshed in Troy will not remain unpunished: νῦν δ’ εἰ προτέρων αἷμ’ ἀποτείσηι καὶ τοῖσι θανοῦσι θανὼν ἄλλων ποινὰς θανάτων ἐπικράνηι, τίς κἂν ἐξεύξαιτο βροτῶν ἀσινεῖ δαίμονι φῦναι τάδ’ ἀκούων;

According to Broadhead (1959: 311), the bloodshed mentioned here refers to the cena thyestea. However, this remark seems misleading. The flow of the lines above seems rather to suggest a reference to Agamemnon and the Greek expedition against Troy. As Gantz has similarly observed (1982: 13 – 14), in lines 1335 – 1336, the chorus explicitly mentions Agamemnon as the conqueror of Troy (καὶ τῶιδε πόλιν μὲν ἑλεῖν ἔδοσαν/ μάκαρες Πριάμου). In the words of the chorus, the capture of Troy represents an experience of death and destruction not just for the conquered city but for Argos as well. The Argive families of the departed warriors endure suffering (Ag. 429 – 431); warriors come back cremated to their households (Ag. 433 – 436); the foreign land covers the bodies of its conquerors (Ag. 452– 455).¹⁰⁰ As a result, the people of Argos,

Gantz (1983: 80 – 81); Seidensticker (2009: 231– 232); Raeburn and Thomas (2011: xxxix). On the mechanism koros-olbos-hybris justice, cf. Sol. Fr. 6, 3 – 4 W; Pind. Ol. I 56–57; XIII 10, P. II 25 – 29; Thgn. 153 – 158; cf. Doyle (1970); Helm (2004: 25 – 29).  For the chorus’ representation of the Trojan War as a business of the Argive families, cf. Fraenkel (1964: 337); LSN: 46. On passage 433 – 436, cf. Ouellette (1971: 307– 311); Rutherford (2010: 448 – 450).

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who have lost their relatives in war, smoulder with hatred for the Atreids (Ag. 449 – 451, 456 – 457). The chorus insists on the pain of the people of Argos. In lines 427– 431, the old Argives compare the pain of the people who have lost their relatives with the pain of Menelaus for the abduction of Helen, and come to the conclusion that the former sorrow is far greater than the second. In this context, the chorus problematises the judicial status of the Atreids as the righteous avengers of Paris. In lines 448 – 449, the old men of Argos speak of Helen as casus belli (ἀλλοτρίας διαὶ γυναι/κός), projecting upon her the image of the female as an object of exchange between men. Yet, at the same time, they also question the position of men as arbiters of female sexual behaviour: the Trojan War, with all its violence, takes place just for a woman (διαὶ γυναικός), i. e. just for the sake of winning Helen back to Greece.¹⁰¹ The futility of the Trojan expedition as a war fought for a woman emerges in the lines that immediately follow passage 448 – 449. In line 451 the chorus describes the Atreids with the adjective πρόδικος. As Fraenkel and D-P observe (ad loc.), the adjective πρόδικος calls to mind the adjective ἀντίδικος in Ag. 41. Yet, the chorus is appropriating words related to the sphere of dike in different ways. The adjective ἀντίδικος indicates Agamemnon and Menelaus going to Troy ‘to reclaim the stolen property and to exact the penalty awarded by the court’ (D-P ad loc.). The adjective πρόδικος, instead, points out that ‘Agamemnon et Ménélas se retrouvent en position de coupables’ (Bollack ad loc.): in sending their people to a war which will turn into a massacre perpetrated for a futile reason, they surely do not defend the rights of people, and surely they do not do any justice to their own duties as kings. This criticism of the Atreids as avengers of Paris’ crime returns in passage 461– 464, where the chorus, as we have seen, accuses Agamemnon of being responsible for the deaths of many and refers to the Greek leader as a fortunate man acting without justice (Ag. 464: τυχηρὸν ὄντ’ ἄνευ δίκας).¹⁰²

 Cf. the thoughtful remarks of Blondell (2013: 133 – 134): ‘It is this desire for Helen’s presence that drives the Trojan War … The Greek kings’ quest is thus motivated not only by justice but by uncontrolled passion’. For the chorus’ representation of Helen as a woman and an object of exchange between men, cf. Ag. 62, 225 – 226, 402. On line 62, cf. Lebeck (1971: 9). Notably, in Homer Helen is already represented as an object of exchange between men (Od. 11, 435 – 439). On Helen in the Odyssey, cf. Blondell (2013: 73 – 95).  I disagree with Fontenrose (1971: 75 – 78) who refers line 464, as well as line 468, to Paris, arguing that both passage 461– 464 and passage 381– 386 refer to Paris. However, cf. the discussions of Knox (1952: 18); Zeitlin (1965: 503); Romilly (1967: 97); Lebeck (1971: 37– 46); Scott (1978: 266); Kraus (1978: 65 – 66); Euben (1982: 25); Buxton (1982: 105 – 106); Winnington-Ingram (1983: 98 – 99); Fisher (1992: 274); Rosenbloom (1995: 108); Grethlein (2013: 85 – 87).

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Further remarks on the dike of the Atreids seem possible. The expression ‘φιλόμαχοι βραβῆς’ in Ag. 230 points to the question of the legitimacy of the punitive expedition against Troy. As Roux (1974: 39) has illustrated, ‘φιλόμαχοι βραβῆς’ properly means ‘war–loving justiciers’ (i. e. ‘executioner’) and in this sense it sheds a problematic light on the Atreids’ retributive justice. Similarly, the comparison of the Atreids to a furious bird outlines the dangerous violence of their punitive justice: Ag. 111– 112: πέμπει ξὺν δορὶ καὶ χερὶ πράκτορι θούριος ὄρνις Τευκρίδ’ ἐπ’ αἶαν

On a closer reading, Menelaus’ and Agamemnon’s justice turns out to be the violent deed of a bird whose disgusting act of devouring a pregnant hare is narrated at some length by Calchas in the parodos. Now, as violent executioners of Paris, the Atreids embody the avenging Erinys which has been sent to Troy (Ag. 59: πέμπει παραβᾶσιν Ἐρινύν). In the next section, I dwell further on the play’s discourse on the Trojan War, exploring Clytemnestra’s representation of the Greek punitive expedition against Troy.

2 Clytemnestra on the war against Troy We can detect a parallelism between the chorus’ discourse on the significance of the Trojan War and Clytemnestra’s representation of the Greek victory in Troy. Like the chorus, Clytemnestra too defines the capture of Troy fundamentally as an experience of death and suffering. Clytemnestra’s first speech to the city of Argos (Ag. 320 – 350) and passages 861– 876, 887– 894, in her second speech to the men of Argos, are particularly telling. In lines 320 – 350, she focuses on the pain of the Trojan women and orphans (Ag. 326 – 329), on the suffering of Greek warriors (now the victors) (Ag. 330 – 333), and on the countless dead under the walls of Troy (Ag. 346: τὸ πῆμα τῶν ὀλωλότων). In her second speech to Argos, she talks of the Trojan War as of a situation of emotional struggle for women. Lines 861– 862 are particularly interesting: τὸ μὲν γυναῖκα πρῶτον ἄρσενος δίχα ἧσθαι δόμοις ἐρῆμον ἔκπαγλον κακόν

Clytemnestra’s self-representation as a woman who has to endure being abandoned by her husband insists upon the difficulties that the female sex has to deal with, because of its dependence on the male. Now, when Clytemnestra

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speaks about her position in war as a woman (γυναῖκα), the word γυνή does not only name, as in the chorus’ case, the female as an object of exchange between men (Ag. 448 – 449: ἀλλοτρίας διαὶ γυναι/κός). It also names the female as the subject of suffering. This difference in the rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή in the context of a discourse on war makes us aware of the complex way in which Agamemnon engages with reflections on war and womanhood, and should prevent us from considering the pain of Clytemnestra as mere hypocrisy.¹⁰³ Other observations are possible. Like the chorus, Clytemnestra does not spare her criticism of a wealth that has been won regardless of the divine laws. In this respect, the first speech she delivers to Argos is again very striking. Here, she warns the Greek army that it would never come back home, in case it destroys and sacks the temples of Troy: Ag. 338 – 344: εἰ δ’ εὐσεβοῦσι τοὺς πολισσούχους θεούς τοὺς τῆς ἁλούσης γῆς θ’ ἱδρύματα, οὔ τἂν ἑλόντες αὖθις ἀνθαλοῖεν ἄν· ἔρως δὲ μή τις πρότερον ἐμπίπτηι στρατῶι πορθεῖν ἃ μὴ χρή κέρδεσιν νικωμένους· δεῖ γὰρ πρὸς οἴκους νοστίμου σωτηρίας, κάμψαι διαύλου θάτερον κῶλον πάλιν

Here, according to Kitto and Porter, Clytemnestra portrays the death of Agamemnon as a consequence of the wrongs committed at Troy.¹⁰⁴ Critics, however, have

 On passages 861– 876 (and 887– 894) as deceptive speeches, cf. e. g. Konishi (1990: 93 – 94); Käppel (1998: 150 n. 252); Foley (2001: 209). On Clytemnestra and her rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή as a female subject of suffering and the object of her man, cf. Cho. 920: ἄλγος γυναιξὶν ἀνδρὸς εἴργεσθαι, τέκνον. On war and female pain, cf. notably the simile in Od. 8, 521– 531.  Cf. Kitto (1956: 5) : ‘Here we have the explanation of what is always implied later in the play, that Clytemnestra avenges on Agamemnon not only the outrage that he has done on her, but also the wrong that he has done to Greece and to Troy, in slaughtering so many of their sons’; Porter (1971: 468): ‘not only is she bringing private justice to Agamemnon for the sacrifice of Iphigenia, but also she is working with the gods to bring public justice to him for his other acts of arrogance and impiety – for destroying countless Greeks and Trojans for the sake of a promiscuous woman, for sacking the altars and temples of the gods in Troy’. Similarly Rehm (1992: 81): ‘With these two extraordinary speeches, Clytemnestra forces us to see that the fate of Troy and that of Argos are bound inextricably together’. Therefore, I differ from Fontenrose (1971: 79): ‘And finally we must observe that Agamemnon’s martial deeds, however appraised, are neither Clytemnestra’s nor Aegisthus’ reason for killing him’ and Benardete (2000: 69): ‘She punished Agamemnon for the sacrifice of her daughter, but she never connected that crime with the

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not taken these lines seriously, and they disregarded them as ‘naive Dramaturgie’ (Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1914: 168), as ‘a mouthpiece for Aeschylean iambics’ (Dawe 1963: 50), as ‘the vivid portrayal of inverted power relations’, inappropriate for a woman (McClure 1997: 116), or as a masterpiece of female hypocrisy (D-P on line 338; Griffith 2001: 124). In particular, according to D-P and Griffith, Clytemnestra’s hope that the Greek army will not indulge in hybris conceals her wish that the Greeks will actually commit outrages against the gods at Troy.¹⁰⁵ In what follows, I defend Kitto’s and Porter’s reading of this passage, trying to explain, in more detail, why it seems plausible to assume that Clytemnestra is drawing up a balance-sheet of the war, and why her analysis of the war’s excesses cannot be simply disregarded as a fulsome and transgressive speech.¹⁰⁶ First of all, the idea of Clytemnestra’s hypocrisy seems to rely on the scholars’ resistance to acknowledging that female characters may possess any ability for political analysis. For example, in the case of Heracles in Philoctetes (Ph. 1440 – 1441), his warning to the Greek army has never raised a discussion about sincerity or hypocrisy. Against this view, it can be said that Heracles is well disposed to the Greeks, whereas Clytemnestra is clearly in contrast with Agamemnon. Yet, her hostility to him does not necessarily imply her enmity towards the Greek army as well. We may argue that Clytemnestra’s language is not deceptive at all; rather, as Ouellette (1994: 189) suggested, it seems constantly to evoke what is absent.¹⁰⁷ Indeed, in these lines, she is speaking about something that exists (the Greek army) and something that has actually happened (the sack of Troy), but also, at the same time, about something that may happen but has not yet: when she speaks in Argos about the sack of Troy, she cannot be aware that her suspicions have already come true. Her evocation of what might have happened underpins her ability to put into words, in an objective manner, an actually true event that has already happened in Troy as she speaks.

injustice of the Trojan war’. On Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon as punishment for the wrong committed at Troy, cf. also Seidensticker (2009: 244).  For a similar view, cf. Lloyd-Jones (1962: 193); Fontenrose (1971: 78); Euben (1982: 25; 1990: 71).  Cf. Betenski (1978: 12): ‘Every reader recognizes that the linguistic splendor of the choral odes in Agamemnon is open to many levels of interpretation … ; but this is also true of Clytemnestra’s speeches. And yet her speeches tend to be labeled “hypocritical” or even “fulsome” and left at that, a clear intrusion of readers’ moral judgments where literary judgement should be operating’.  On the power of imagination of Clytemnestra’s speech about the Trojan War, cf. also Earp (1950: 57); Fraenkel (1964: 336); Sevieri (1991: 27).

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Even the chorus’ reply to Clytemnestra seems to question an interpretation of her criticism of the war as mere hypocrisy. As has been observed, when the chorus claims that Clytemnestra has spoken sensible words like a wise man, it valorises her speech:¹⁰⁸ Ag. 351: γύναι, κατ’ ἄνδρα σώφρον’ εὐφρόνως λέγεις

Now, if Clytemnestra’s speech is concealing the wish that the Greek soldiers would never come home, I do not understand why the chorus should praise her words. The old men, like the warriors, are members of the community of Argos; so how could they praise Clytemnestra’s words, knowing she is lying? We can suppose that the chorus is charmed by her manner of speaking, and that it has been persuaded by her deceptive language. Yet, although deception might indeed be at work, dismissing Clytemnestra’s words as merely deceitful appears misleading.¹⁰⁹ We actually have good reasons for taking the chorus’ valorisation of her words seriously: Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’ positions on the issue of war do not differ very much; both of them condemn the violence of war. As Higgins has aptly observed (1978: 26 – 27), ‘Klytaimnestra, always clever, knows better than Agamemnon the perils of war’. Criticizing the excesses of the Trojan War, Clytemnestra claims that dike will punish Agamemnon for his conduct at Troy: Ag. 910 – 911: εὐθὺς γενέσθω πορφυρόστρωτος πόρος, ἐς δῶμ’ ἄελπτον ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται Δίκη

She speaks these lines at the beginning of the carpet scene. As has been pointed out, the image of the red carpet might be read as a symbol of the bloodshed in war.¹¹⁰ It seems possible, then, to assume that with the word Δίκη Clytemnestra is referring to the impending death of Agamemnon as a compensation for the countless deaths which occurred during the war against Troy.

 Cf. Katz (1994: 89): ‘Once again, the chorus valorizes Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the male sphere’. On the chorus’ valorisation of Clytemnestra’s manner of speech in line 351, cf. also Winnington-Ingram (1983: 103).  Cf. Rademaker (2005: 111) who observes that the words σώφρον’ and εὐφρόνως (Ag. 351) shall be read as a reference to her adultery with Aegisthus.  On the carpet as a symbol of the death of Agamemnon and/or of the dead in Troy, cf. Goheen (1955: 115 – 126); Alexanderson (1969: 17– 18); Lebeck (1971: 86); Lanahan (1974: 25); West (1979: 4); Albini (1993: 178); Zierl (1994: 172); Macintosh (1994: 82); Rosenbloom (1995: 109); Zak (1995: 62– 63); Scott Morrell (1997: 161– 162); McClure (1997b: 128); Foley (2001: 210); Gould (2001: 184); Helm (2004: 44); Seidensticker (2009: 255); Lawrence (2013: 84).

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Towards the end of the play, the last line of passage 1521– 1529, where Clytemnestra explains to the chorus that the murder of Agamemnon is a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, points in this direction too: θανάτωι τείσας ἅπερ ἦρξεν

D-P (ad loc.) start from the assumption that Clytemnestra establishes the bloodshed started off by Agamemnon as a central theme: ‘Agamemnon was the aggressor; it is an essential part of Clytemnestra’s defence that he began the shedding of blood’. Yet, D-P do not specify whose blood was shed. Taking for granted that Agamemnon has led an army to Troy and sacrificed his daughter for the sake of war, it seems plausible that the bloodshed mentioned here might refer to the deaths of war and to the death of Iphigeneia. In this sense, Clytemnestra is stating the righteousness of her vendetta: Agamemnon, as leader of the Greek expedition, is responsible for the loss of many human lives, and has to be punished after coming back home. Taking into consideration Clytemnestra’s discourse on the excesses of the Greek expedition against Troy, it should not appear surprising how repeatedly she puts into question the legitimacy of Agamemnon’s power as the victor in Troy. In this regard, the speech delivered by Clytemnestra shortly before the arrival of Agamemnon in Argos, immediately before the carpet scene, is particularly interesting. Here, Clytemnestra is full of sweet praises for Agamemnon. She describes him with phrases such as ‘ἄνακτος αὐτοῦ’ (Ag. 599), ‘ἀπὸ στρατείας ἄνδρα σώσαντος θεοῦ’ (Ag. 603), ‘ἐράσμιον πόλει’ (Ag. 605). Yet, in these lines, we can detect a rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἄναξ and ἀνήρ, which questions Agamemnon’s male authority as warrior and king. Thus, Agamemnon is not entirely Clytemnestra’s anax, since she is a queen; he is not really safe with the help of the gods, since he will stay alive only for a short while; Agamemnon is not beloved by his city, since the people harbor hatred against their king (Ag. 449 – 451, 456 – 457). Interestingly enough, as the dramatic action progresses, in contrast to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἄναξ and ἀνήρ, and to her attempt to tackle the authoritative position of Agamemnon as the subject of power, we are faced with Agamemnon’s normative use of the word ἀνήρ and γυνή in the carpet scene: Ag. 918 – 919: … μὴ γυναικὸς ἐν τρόποις ἐμέ ἅβρυνε … Ag. 925: λέγω κατ’ ἄνδρα, μὴ θεόν, σέβειν ἐμέ Ag. 940: οὔτοι γυναικός ἐστιν ἱμείρειν μάχης

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Clytemnestra resists this appropriation of the words ἀνήρ and γυνή. When, a few lines later, in the same scene (Ag. 972), she addresses Agamemnon with the expression ‘ἀνδρὸς τελείου’, she does not seem to use the word ἀνήρ in the meaning of vir fortis and rex. In the first place, Agamemnon is portrayed as an object (τελείου: perfect victim ready for sacrifice), and not as a subject of power.¹¹¹ Therefore, we can hardly maintain that Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the word ἀνήρ allows a reading of this expression as a normalisation of asymmetric gender distinctions. Moreover, it is hard to explain why Clytemnestra, who strongly criticises the violence of the Trojan War, should seriously depict Agamemnon as a perfect warrior and a king ‘without spot or blemish’ (cf. LSJ). Yet, as D-P (ad loc.) and McClure (1997b: 135 – 137) argued, from her perspective, what is not true for Agamemnon is obviously true for Zeus: the god is τελείος (Ag. 973: Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε, τὰς ἐμὰς εὐχὰς τέλει). There is more to say about the carpet scene and Clytemnestra’s criticism of Agamemnon’s position as the victorious king at Troy. In lines 904– 905, Clytemnestra expresses the desire that the phthonos would stay away, since many sufferings have already been endured: φθόνος δ’ ἀπέστω·πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ πρὶν κακά ἠνειχόμεσθα …

Of course, the opposite is true: the phthonos should not stay away; it must strike Agamemnon, granting success to the murder plot against him. It seems plausible at this point to link the phthonos mentioned by Clytemnestra with the suffering and the king’s conduct in Troy. Indeed, in the lines that immediately follow, Clytemnestra calls the Atreid the destroyer of Troy, and asks him not to put his feet on the ground: Ag. 906 – 907:

… μὴ χαμαὶ τιθείς τὸν σὸν πόδ’, ὦναξ, Ἰλίου πορθήτορα

As Lebeck (1971: 75) has observed, Clytemnestra’s use of the word πόδα, in relation to Agamemnon’s description as the destroyer of Troy (πορθήτορα), establishes a relation between the fall of Troy and the image, in the first stasimon, of a foot that treads on grounds where it is not supposed to.Probably, then, she is not praising Agamemnon’s military successes at all, but criticising his heroic deeds instead.

 Cf. Neustadt (1929: 261); Zeitlin (1965: 480); LSN: 78; McClure (1997b: 134), with extended bibliography at n. 42.

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Line 939 of the carpet scene makes space for similar remarks. Again, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of a word related to phthonos seems like an eloquent echo of her criticism of Agamemnon’s role as king and as leader of the Greek expedition against Troy: ὁ δ’ ἀφθόνητός γ’ οὐκ ἐπίζηλος πέλει

When she asserts that the one who is not envied (ἀφθόνητός) cannot be enviable (ἐπίζηλος), she may be ironic. Nobody in Argos really envies Agamemnon’s position – that seems certain, at least at this point in the play. Indeed, the chorus has already taken distance from the success of the Atreids, since it may arouse the anger of the gods (Ag. 471: κρίνω δ’ ἄφθονον ὄλβον). Moreover, it has already mentioned the painful wrath of the people against the Atreids (Ag. 450: φθονερὸν δ’ ὑπ’ ἄλγος), who enforced their right to avenge the abduction of Helen (Ag. 451: προδίκοις Ἀτρείδαις). Finally, in the exodos, the brief dramatic exchange between Clytemnestra and the chorus about Helen (Ag. 1453 – 1467) can be read as a criticism of Agamemnon’s past in Troy. The chorus accuses Helen, as a woman, of being the cause of the deaths during the Trojan War (Ag. 1453 – 1457); Clytemnestra answers that she is not supposed to be held responsible for the deaths at Troy (Ag. 1464– 1465: μηδ’ εἰς Ἑλένην κότον ἐκτρέψηις/ὡς ἀνδρολέτειρ’). As Conacher (1974: 328) has pointed out, Clytemnestra, in her reply to the chorus, might be criticizing Agamemnon’s military conduct and his power as victorious king: ‘She means, of course, to turn the blame back on Agamemnon’.¹¹² Moreover, refusing to see Helen as a woman and destroyer of men, Clytemnestra tacitly implies that the violence of the war against Troy has a male origin. Following these remarks on Clytemnestra’s devastating balance sheet of the war, and on her criticism of Agamemnon’s authority as king of Argos and victor at Troy, I would like to stress that it is not just the character of Agamemnon that ‘exists, acts and suffers, in the context of war’.¹¹³ Like him, Clytemnestra too is a protagonist in the Aeschylean ‘problematica polemologica’.¹¹⁴ She is not just a

 Similarly, cf. Blondell (2013: 130 – 131).  The quotation is from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 94) who assumes that only Agammenon is a protagonist in the story of the Trojan War.  For the expression ‘problematica polemologica’, cf. Furiani (1990: 9). However, according to my interpretation of Clytemnestra’s characterisation as queen, I do not share Furiani’s idea that ‘le figure femminili umane che si inseriscono nella problematica polemologica eschilea hanno parte ovviamente ridotta rispetto a quelle maschili’. On war and female characters in Aeschylus,

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wife who has been abandoned during the long years of the war (Ag. 861– 876, 887– 894; Cho. 920), or a mother who has lost her daughter because of the war against Troy. In other words, she is not just a female victim of male warfare. According to her representation of Agamemnon’s death as a compensation for the violence of the Greek victory at Troy, she undoubtedly plays an active part in the history of the Trojan War. How does all that affect the characterisation of Clytemnestra as queen, and our understanding of the play? I turn to this question in the next section.

3 The voice of the other Rule by men or rule by women F. I. Zeitlin, ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny’ Female submissiveness is normative in the Oresteia P. Burian and A. Shapiro, Aeschylus: the Oresteia

It has been observed that Clytemnestra’s criticism of the Trojan War and of Agamemnon’s military conduct is inappropriate in regard to her female status, and represents an unequivocal violation of correct male speech.¹¹⁵ In support of this critical position, it could be noted that in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, as already in Il. 6, war is not a business for women. Yet, as I argue at some length in this section, the Agamemnon does not completely exclude the authority of Clytemnestra’s female voice from its own discourse on war. First of all, Clytemnestra is depicted as a queen (Ag. 84: βασίλεια Κλυταιμήστρα, 914: Λήδας γένεθλον). In compliance with her public position as queen, she is allowed to wield power in Argos in the absence of the male ruler. As the chorus explicitly states in its

cf. as well Marinis (2012) and his detailed analysis of the chorus’ emotional re-actions in the Seven against Thebes.  Cf. e. g. Pomeroy (1975: 98 – 99); Bonnafé (1989: 157); Sevieri (1991: 29 – 31); McClure (1997; 1999: 73 – 80); McHardy (1997); Halliwell (1997: 130 – 134); Foley (2001: 208 – 209); Reynolds (2005: 121). On Greek tragedy and the transgressiveness of female characters, cf. Shaw (1975), and for an extended criticism of Shaw, cf. Foley (1982). On Greek tragedy and the transgressiveness of female politics, cf. also Loraux (2002: 19 – 53). Taking the Electra of Sophocles as a case study, Loraux argues that the main function of tragedy is the expression of grief, and that tragedy, therefore, is eminently antipolitical: as Electra’s female act of mourning shows, ‘the place of mourning is on stage, not in the city-stage’ (p. 53). However, on the politics of mourning in Greek tragedy, cf. Foley (2001: 21– 55, 145 – 171), with extended bibliography, and for most recent contributions Goldhill (2012: 109 – 133). On the representation of emotions in Greek tragedy as strongly related to the political dimension of the staged plays, cf. also Goldhill (2003).

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first speech to Clytemnestra, it is legitimate to honour the power of a woman, if her man has left the throne unoccupied during the war: Ag. 258 – 260: ἥκω σεβίζων σόν Κλυταιμήστρα κράτος· δίκη γάρ ἐστι φωτὸς ἀρχηγοῦ τίειν γυναῖκ’ ἐρημωθέντος ἄρσενος θρόνου

Moreover, a comparison with Penelope makes it difficult to point out the anomaly of Clytemnestra’s position as a ruling woman. In fact, the Aeschylean Clytemnestra does not differ so much from the Homeric Penelope. In Homer as well, news have to be reported to queen Penelope, as long as her husband king is abroad (Od. 16, 332– 337). The anomaly of Clytemnestra in her role as queen has, then, to be found elsewhere, namely, I would suggest, in her representation as a woman who feels and thinks like a man (Ag. 11: γυναικὸς ἀνδρόβουλον ἐλπίζον κέαρ). So we can speak, with reference to Clytemnestra, of women’s ‘ambiguous status between culture and nature’ (Ortner 1972: 28), i. e. of a liminal situation where a female is not excluded from the world of politics, but has actually access to it through a process of acquisition of the dominant male habit and the male political praxis. Seen this way, it is not by chance that Clytemnestra claims for herself cognitive skills and public power (Ag. 277, 312, 594, 614, 912– 913, 943, 1401, 1423 – 1424; cf. as well 258, 351, 483 – 485), that she uses war vocabulary (Ag. 350, 612, 1377– 1378; cf. as well 1235 – 1237), and ascribes to herself the qualities of a warrior (Ag. 607– 608, 613 – 614). Second, the striking similarities we have seen between Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’ criticism of the Trojan War shall prevent us from dismissing her voice as simply transgressive. In fact, listening to her female voice invites us to read Agamemnon as ‘the drama of the other’, that is to say as a play in which the ‘questioning of the authority of collective wisdom’ is carried out by outside characters: just as the chorus of old men is unfit to wage a war (Ag. 72– 82), so Clytemnestra, as a female, is excluded from fighting and from the world of war.¹¹⁶ Line 348 in Clytemnestra’s first speech to the city of Argos supports this interpretation: τοιαῦτά τοι γυναικὸς ἐξ ἐμοῦ κλύεις

Here, Clytemnestra’s need of justification for her female position might signal her awareness that the powerful voice of men is precisely what cannot question

 So Goldhill (1996) on the chorus in Greek tragedy and its dramatic function; the quotations are from pp. 253 and 255 (italics mine).

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dominant male values.¹¹⁷ Following this reading, I differ from McClure (1999: 75) who assumes that ‘Clytemnestra undercuts her mastery of masculine speech by calling attention to her feminine gender … she portrays herself as typically feminine as a means of arousing the sympathy of her listeners’. What matters here is not the characters’ or the audience’s or the reader’s sympathy with Clytemnestra. What really matters is the authority and power of speech: who is saying what? Thus, I maintain that it is important to take Clytemnestra’s public manner of speech on the war seriously, in order to explore the complex way in which the trilogy engages with the question of gender relations and male and female attitudes towards violence. In the light of these remarks, it seems reasonable to discuss Clytemnestra’s public manner of speech according to a bipartite conceptualization of women as the Same and the Other: Clytemnestra is speaking from the position of the Same and the Other, since, as a female, she is legitimately taking part in the public debate on the Trojan War.¹¹⁸ Here, we touch upon a crucial point for an analysis of the political discourse of the trilogy with the passage from Agamemnon to Choephoroi and Eumenides. As I will argue, in Choephoroi and Eumenides the characters’ attempt to undermine the verbal authority of Clytemnestra’s discourse on the Trojan War functions as an important element for projecting the image of a female usurper of male power on the queen’s figure, and, accordingly, for justifying matricide. In the light of this dramaturgical shift, we might ask whether or not Zeitlin’s proposal (1978: 151– 153) to read the Oresteia strictly as a matriarchal myth (or as a myth where women rule through or after the killing of men) can be applied without reservations to Clytemnestra. Zeitlin’s analysis is, of course, brilliant. It is certainly true that Clytemnestra only rules as a tyrant after the murder of Agamemnon. Yet, it is also true that she speaks and acts as a queen before he dies. This fact has an important consequence: Clytemnestra is not just a paradigm of the ‘radical other’, i. e. the paradigmatic anti-model of the virtuous female gender behaviour. As a tyrant, she is clearly transgressive. However, we can hardly say the same thing for her characterisation as queen and for her criticism of the Trojan War. In other words, Clytemnestra as a female character does not seem merely to transgress normative gender relations from the outset: she

 For similar positions, cf. Gagarin (1976: 93 – 94) and Foley (2001: 209). We shall note that, like Clytemnestra, also Cassandra questions the legitimacy of the Trojan War. She confesses that she feels ready to die, having seen how her city and its conquerors are destroyed with the help of the gods (Ag. 1286 – 1288). On these lines, cf. Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 186).  On this conceptualisation of women, notably in Latin literature, cf. Hallett (1989). On the representation of the other in Greek tragedy as the self, cf. Loraux (2002: 49 – 53).

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does not act only in the role of a tyrant; she also acts in the role of a queen capable of a (at least in part) legitimate criticism of male behaviour. There is more on Clytemnestra’s public way of speech and the supposed transgressiveness of her female voice. When she is finished with her speech on the Trojan War, the chorus answers her back that she has talked plausibly, as a man would do: Ag. 351: γύναι, κατ’ ἄνδρα σώφρον’ εὐφρόνως λέγεις

The approval of Clytemnestra’s public speech by the chorus might simply be induced by her female power of persuasion and manipulation. After all, at the end of the first stasimon (Ag. 479 – 487), the chorus dismisses the legitimacy of female power and the reliability of female intelligence.¹¹⁹ According to the old men of Argos, the female mind is childish (Ag. 479: τίς ὧδε παιδνὸς ἢ φρενῶν κεκομμένος); women in power are too quickly pleased with supposed successes (Ag. 483 – 484: γυναικὸς αἰχμᾶι πρέπει/πρὸ τοῦ φανέντος χάριν ξυναινέσαι); female ordinance is too persuasive (Ag. 485: πιθανὸς ἄγαν ὁ θῆλυς ὅρος).¹²⁰ Still, the narrative of the chorus seems to be much more complex to me. As I intend to show, speaking about the female mind and women’s power, the chorus does not validate a discourse of exclusion (i. e., woman: irrational, unfit to rule; man: origin of rationality and power). Rather, it performs the limits of this gesture of separation, leading us to ask ourselves how to deal with the female mind and female public power. When the chorus in Ag. 479 ff. questions the reliability of the female mind and issues its vehement denunciation of female inability to rule, Clytemnestra has already announced the fall of Troy and delivered her speech on the dangers for the Greek army that might arise from the excesses of the Trojan War. After initial scepticism about the news of victory, and doubts about Clytemnestra’s intelligence (Ag. 268: πῶς φήις; πέφευγε τούπος ἐξ ἀπιστίας; 274: πότερα δ’ ὀνείρων φάσματ’ εὐπιθῆ σέβεις; 276: ἀλλ’ ἦ σ’ ἐπίανέν τις ἄπτερος φάτις), the chorus, as we have seen, acknowledges the value of Clytemnestra’s speech on the war and praises her words, saying that she has spoken wisely, like a man (Ag. 351: γύναι, κατ’ ἄνδρα σώφρον’ εὐφρόνως λέγεις). In the first stasimon, which follows shortly after, the old Argives talk about the hybris of the war against Troy, express their renewed doubts about the Greek triumph (Ag. 369 – 384, 461– 474) and, in passage 483 – 487, utter their invective against female power. In this part of the play, the unsteadiness of the chorus in its evaluation of Cly-

 On this reading, cf. e. g. Pomeroy (1975: 98 – 99); McClure (1997: 117– 119).  On line 485, cf. O’Sullivan (1989).

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temnestra’s public speaking is quite striking, and certainly cannot be accidental. We can assume that the chorus seems to fear that the Trojan War, as Clytemnestra suggested, might indeed be saturated with hybris and that the conduct of Agamemnon and his army could arouse the anger of the gods. The reason why they treat her words as unreliable (Ag. 479 – 482) is the fear that she might be right about the anger of the gods awaiting the Greeks. For the same reason they deny her female capacity to rule (Ag. 483 – 487). A manipulation of words seems to be at stake here, and not the notion that women lack intelligence and are unfit to rule. The plot development supports this line of interpretation. The next episode begins with the entry of a new character, the messenger. Since he reports further news about the fall of Troy and the wrongs committed against the conquered city (Ag. 522 – 532, 577– 579), the elders of Argos admit that they no longer doubt the victory of the Greeks: Ag. 583: νικώμενος λόγοισιν οὐκ ἀναίνομαι

Clytemnestra responds immediately, reproaching the chorus. She points out that she was the first to announce the destruction of Troy: Ag. 587– 589: ἀνωλόλυξα μὲν πάλαι χαρᾶς ὕπο, ὅτ’ ἦλθ’ ὁ πρῶτος νύχιος ἄγγελος πυρός, φράζων ἅλωσιν Ἰλίου τ’ ἀνάστασιν

Moreover, she complains to the chorus for having been accused of female vulnerability to deception, claiming instead her strength of mind and her female capacity of commanding: Ag. 590 – 596: καί τίς μ’ ἐνίπτων εἶπε· ‘φρυκτωρῶν διά πεισθεῖσα Τροίαν νῦν πεπορθῆσθαι δοκεῖς; ἦ κάρτα πρὸς γυναικὸς αἴρεσθαι κέαρ.’ λόγοις τοιούτοις πλαγκτὸς οὖσ’ ἐφαινόμην· ὅμως δ’ ἔθυον, καὶ γυναικείωι νόμωι ὀλολυγμὸν ἄλλος ἄλλοθεν κατὰ πτόλιν ἔλασκον εὐφημοῦντες …

Clearly, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή does not construct the female as an unreasonable being. In this sense, it differs consistently from the chorus’ appropriation of the same word in lines 483 – 484 as a being unable of right thinking (γυναικὸς αἰχμᾶι πρέπει/πρὸ τοῦ φανέντος χάριν ξυναινέσαι). However, the chorus, at least to some extent, shares the discourse on female intelligence and female command issued by Clytemnestra in this passage,

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and comments by saying to the herald that she has spoken plausibly, as the herald himself can judge with help from skilful interpreters: Ag. 615 – 616: αὕτη μὲν οὕτως εἶπε μανθάνοντί σοι, τοροῖσιν ἑρμηνεῦσιν εὐπρεπῶς λόγον

With ‘εὐπρεπῶς λόγον’ the chorus might have in mind Clytemnestra’s long praise of Agamemnon (Ag. 600 – 614), which, as we have seen, is quite ambiguous (cf. pp. 24– 26, 64). Taking into account that this praise of Agamemnon is, on a different level, a strong criticism of his authority, and that the chorus understands its ambiguity (it claims that Clytemnestra has spoken plausibly for any skilful interpreter), we can say that the chorus agrees with Clytemnestra’s words at least in part. What is important is that these lines put an end to the long period of disbelief of the chorus. Now, when it recognizes that the queen has spoken plausibly (εἶπε … εὐπρεπῶς λόγον), it also seems to admit implicitly that the queen’s public way of speech asserts itself by authoritative force.¹²¹ Against this background, I find it quite hard to conceive the chorus – as McClure suggests (1997: 115) – in terms of ‘an internal, male audience which evaluates and attempts to circumscribe Clytemnestra’s speech and reveals her deviation from speech norms’. We rather see, in the words of Griffith on Antigone (2001: 136), that Agamemnon as well does not display any ‘comfortable confirmation of preexisting distinctions of gender, of predictable mannerisms of speech,  I differ from Goldhill (LSN: 33 – 42, esp. 39 ff.) who in the diction of Agamemnon marks a clear dichotomy between showing (Clytemnestra’s female language based on visual signs: her dreams, the fire signals from Troy) and saying (the male language of the chorus, based on reliable words and rational proofs). We might note that the chorus admits to have heard from Clytemnestra clear evidence for the Greek victory in Troy (Ag. 352– 353: ἐγὼ δ’ ἀκούσας πιστά σου τεκμήρια/θεοὺς προσειπεῖν εὖ παρασκευάζομαι), thereby confirming what she had claimed, namely that her speech is based on proof (Ag. 315: τέκμαρ τοιοῦτον σύμβολόν τέ σοι λέγω), and thus proving her defence of the rational capacities of her female mind as true (Ag. 277: παιδὸς νέας ὣς κάρτ’ ἐμωμήσω φρένας). On this issue, cf. for similar remarks Winnington-Ingram (1954: 24); on τεκμήριον as a word meaning a ‘proof of an argumentative kind’, cf. Hesk (2000: 285 with n. 112). On Clytemnestra’s way of speech as based on reliable words, cf. also the chorus in Ag. 1047: σοί τοι λέγουσα παύεται σαφῆ λόγον. As Goldhill, McClure (1999: 74). I also do not share the position expressed by Foley (2001: 210). If I understand her well, there is a contradiction between the belief in dreams confessed by Clytemnestra in Ag. 891– 894 and her previous denial of her belief in visions (Ag. 274– 275). Yet, these assertions can hardly be compared. In line 275 Clytemnestra denies her inclination to trust dreams, since she knows that Troy has fallen. In line 891 ff., instead, when she speaks about her fear of dreams, she is remembering a past circumstance, when she did not know yet what was really happening in Troy. For a further analysis of passage 891 ff., cf. McClure (1999: 79), who closely follows Foley, and Walde (2001: 110 – 111); for lines 274– 275, cf. Rousseau (1963: 108).

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or of the natural divisions between male and female’. Accordingly, the chorus does not normalize gender relations. Rather, it constantly shifts between a moment of acceptance and a moment of doubt and hesitation on the authority of Clytemnestra’s public way of speech, thereby putting into question the authority of male public speech and behaviour. There is even more to say about lines 615 – 616 and the chorus’, Clytemnestra’s and the herald’s exchange on the Trojan War and on the female mind in the second episode. In this scene, the messenger asserts the possibility of defining reality through language. Unable to understand the fear of the chorus, the herald asks the old men of Argos to explain it with words that have control over what is real: Ag. 543: πῶς δή; διδαχθεὶς τοῦδε δεσπόσω λόγου

The chorus is not able to fulfill this demand. By now, the mind of the old men is darkened by sorrow (Ag. 546 ὡς πόλλ’ ἀμαυρᾶς ἐκ φρενός ἀναστένειν), and only silence can protect them against harm (Ag. 548: πάλαι τὸ σιγᾶν φάρμακον βλάβης ἔχω). Why this refusal of the chorus to express its feelings with language? Goldhill (LSN: 51– 52) puts forward the hypothesis that ‘under the power of Clytemnestra (548 – 50 make it clear that it is repression from the authorities), φρενός is both “darkened” and “blind”. This leads to silence, the denial of logos’. This suggestion raises some difficulties. Undoubtedly, this passage implies that the chorus is tyrannised and afraid: Ag. 548 – 550: Xo. πάλαι τὸ σιγᾶν φάρμακον βλάβης ἔχω. Kη. καὶ πῶς; ἀπόντων κοιράνων ἔτρεις τινάς; Xo. ὡς νῦν, τὸ σὸν δή, καὶ θανεῖν πολλὴ χάρις

Still, we can argue that the chorus is also tormented by anguish, because it suspects that the excesses of the Trojan War and of Agamemnon’s military conduct will not go unpunished. From this point of view, it is not only the power of Clytemnestra that frightens the chorus and darkens its mind. A tergo there is also the perturbing dread that Agamemnon’s punitive expedition against Troy will arouse the anger of the gods. In this sense, it is not by chance that the messenger, immediately before passage 548 – 550, asks the chorus where its fear for the Greek army came from:¹²² Ag. 547: πόθεν τὸ δύσφρον τοῦτ’ ἐπῆν στύγος στρατοῦ;

 On the philological difficulties of line 547, cf. Dodds (1953: 11– 12).

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Following this line of argumentation, when the messenger says that the war against Troy is successful (Ag. 551: εὖ γὰρ πέπρακται) and, later on, that the chorus has heard the whole story on Troy (Ag. 582: πάντ’ ἔχεις λόγον), a tragic irony is at work. Neither is it true that everything at Troy has gone as it should (over the Greek victory hangs a cloud of violence and massacre), nor, as a consequence, that it will in Argos (in fact, Agamemnon is going to be killed by Clytemnestra in the bath of their palace). Irony seems to be at work in the chorus’ reply too: Ag. 583 – 584: νικώμενος λόγοισιν οὐκ ἀναίνομαι· ἀεὶ γὰρ ἡβᾶι τοῖς γέρουσιν εὐμαθεῖν

If we consider that the herald misunderstands in a glaring way the chorus’ allusions to the possible dangers awaiting Agamemnon and his army, it is not easy to grasp what the chorus should actually learn from the messenger’s words. In short, the chorus may give a sarcastic reply to the herald’s enthusiasm about the Greek victory at Troy and to his demand for a discourse that would have the power to define reality (δεσπόσω λόγου). The fact that the chorus does not believe in the Greek success, and does not even credit, as the messenger does, the chance to control reality through language, seems to be in sharp opposition, on the other hand, to its valorisation, in lines 615 – 616, of Clytemnestra’s public way of speech and of her criticism of Agamemnon’s position as the victorious king at Troy. In the next section, I discuss Agamemnon’s representation of his past in Troy, explaining how it differs from the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s representation of the war.

4 Agamemnon on the war against Troy Agamemnon talks about the Trojan War in the welcome speech he delivers to the city of Argos. I start my discussion with a brief examination of lines 832– 833: παύροις γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ἐστι συγγενὲς τόδε, φίλον τὸν εὐτυχοῦντ’ ἄνευ φθόνων σέβειν

In this passage, Agamemnon praises the chorus because it does not envy a friend blessed by fortune. Agammemnon’s self-representation as a lucky man reflects

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his dangerous rhetoric of appropriation of the word φθόνος.¹²³ Probably, he is not ἄνευ φθόνων, and, therefore, hardly a lucky man. Indeed, as Kitto has noticed (1956: 22), the expression ‘ἄνευ φθόνων’ might echo the chorus’ appropriation of the adjective φθονερόν in Ag. 450 – 451, and suggests that people in Argos foment painful wrath against him:¹²⁴ Ag. 450 – 451: … φθονερὸν δ’ ὑπ’ ἄλγος ἕρπει προδίκοις Ἀτρείδαις

Similar remarks suit passage 946 – 952 of the carpet scene: καὶ τοῖσδέ μ’ ἐμβαίνονθ’ ἁλουργέσιν θεῶν μή τις πρόσωθεν ὄμματος βάλοι φθόνος· πολλὴ γὰρ αἰδὼς δωματοφθορεῖν ποσίν φθείροντα πλοῦτον ἀργυρωνήτους θ’ ὑφάς. τούτων μὲν οὕτω·τὴν ξένην δὲ πρευμενῶς τήνδ’ ἐσκόμιζε·τὸν κρατοῦντα μαλθακῶς θεὸς πρόσωθεν εὐμενῶς προσδέρκεται

Here, Agamemnon hopes that nobody will turn their punishing eye (ὄμματος φθόνος) against him while walking on the carpet: gods look favourably (θεὸς πρόσωθεν εὐμενῶς προσδέρκεται) upon those who make a gentle use of the power that comes with victory (τὸν κρατοῦντα μαλθακῶς).¹²⁵ Ostensibly, then, Agamemnon considers the danger of divine wrath to be related to the waste of the house goods, but not to the excesses of the war. Moreover, when he uses the word ἁλουργέσιν in reference to the carpet, the wealth of the house rests on the will of the gods.¹²⁶ In contrast, when Clytemnestra, in this scene, uses the words εἱμάτων βαφάς/dyed (Ag. 960) to name the red carpet, the wealth of the Atreid house becomes a sinister symbol of the bloodshed in Aulis and Troy:¹²⁷

 Note also Agamemnon’s representation as a fortunate man by the herald and his rhetoric of appropriation of ἀνήρ as vir fortis and rex in Ag. 530: ἄναξ Ἀτρείδης πρέσβυς εὐδαίμων ἀνήρ. On this line, cf. Dawe (1963: 50) and Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 89 n. 386).  For the anger of people in Argos, cf. also Ag. 456 – 457. On passage 450 – 451, cf. p. 59.  For the word κράτος as victory, power of victory, cf. Il. 1, 509; 15, 216; 18, 308.  With D-P (ad loc.), Fraenkel (ad loc.), Dover (1977: 57– 58), Kraus (1978: 61) and Meridor (1987: 41 n. 22), I read θεῶν as a genitive of origin dependent on ἁλουργέσιν. For θεῶν as dependent on φθόνος, cf. Easterling (1973:11 n. 2); Neitzel (1977: 204– 205).  On Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words εἱμάτων βαφάς and κηκῖδα as naming blood and death, cf. Lebeck (1964: 38 – 41; 1971: 85 – 86); Lynn-George (1993: 7 n. 23); McClure (1997b: 133). On Clytemnestra’s similar appropriation of the word εἱμάτων, cf. Ag. 1383:

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Ag. 958 – 960: ἔστιν θάλασσα· τίς δέ νιν κατασβέσει; τρέφουσα πολλῆς πορφύρας ἰσάργυρον κηκῖδα παγκαίνιστον, εἱμάτων βαφάς

The pun ‘εἱμάτων βαφάς’ (dyes for fabrics) and ‘αἵματος βαφάς’ (dyes of blood) supports this interpretation. In this regard, one might consider the expression ‘πορφυρᾶι βαφῆι’ in Pers. 317, where πορφυρᾶι stands as a synonym for blood. There is more to say about Agamemnon’s speech to Argos and his view of the Trojan War. Agamemnon uses the word δίκη in order to justify the violence of the war as determined by divine necessity:¹²⁸ Ag. 813 – 816: … δίκας γὰρ οὐκ ἀπὸ γλώσσης θεοί ………… ψήφους ἔθεντο

Thus, it is not surprising that he hints at the destruction of Troy’s goods without problematising the sack of the city, and that he describes himself as a victorious lion, eager for blood:¹²⁹ Ag. 819 – 820: ἄτης θύελλαι ζῶσι, δυσθνήισκουσα δέ σποδὸς προπέμπει πίονας πλούτου πνοάς Ag. 827– 828: ὑπερθορὼν δὲ πύργον ὠμηστὴς λέων ἅδην ἔλειξεν αἵματος τυραννικοῦ

Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word δίκη shows that his representation of the Trojan War differs consistently from Clytemnestra’s discourse on the facts in Troy. In the carpet scene, when Clytemnestra uses the word δίκη in relation to Agamemnon’s entry in the Atreid palace (Ag. 910 – 911: εὐθὺς γενέσθω πορφυρόστρωτος πόρος/ ἐς δῶμ’ ἄελπτον ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται Δίκη), she alludes to the punishment of the war’s excesses (cf. p. 63). πλοῦτον εἵματος κακόν, with Neustadt (1929: 263 – 264); Fowler (1967: 27); Petrounias (1976: 150) and Ferrari (1997: 10 – 11) on this line. For the same rhetoric of appropriation of the words κηκίς and βαφή, cf. Orestes at Cho. 1012– 1013 (φόνου δὲ κηκὶς ξὺν χρόνωι ξυμβάλλεται/ πολλὰς βαφὰς), with Neustadt (1929: 264) on these lines. On the carpet as symbol of the blood shed in war, cf. n. 110.  On the violence of the Greek expedition against Troy as generated by divine necessity, cf. also the herald in Ag. 524– 528 and 581– 582. On passage 525 – 528, cf. Kitto (1956: 15 – 16), defending the transmitted text. On the verb κατασκάψαντα (Ag. 525) as meaning the total destruction of a city, cf. Connor (1985: 85 with n. 17 and 96 – 99).  Similarly on these lines, cf. Higgins (1978: 26); Foley (2001: 210); Vogel-Ehrensperger (2012: 106 – 107); Lawrence (2013: 83).

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Finally, when Agamemnon appropriates the word γυνή as casus belli, he does not question, as the chorus does, the position of women as a means of exchange between men and, accordingly, the legitimacy of the war he fought. The chorus refers to Helen with an expression that problematises the expedition against Troy as a war fought both because of a woman and for a woman (Ag. 448 – 449: ἀλλοτρίας διαὶ γυναι/κός). Agamemnon, instead, represents the punishment of Paris’ crime as a righteous action.¹³⁰ Thus, he states that his military campaign was waged because of a woman (γυναικὸς οὕνεκα) and that the gods were helping the Greeks to punish the arrogant abduction of Helen (ἀρπαγὰς ὑπερκόπους): Ag. 822– 824: ἐπείπερ χἀρπαγὰς ὑπερκόπους ἐπραξάμεσθα, καὶ γυναικὸς οὕνεκα πόλιν διημάθυνεν Ἀργεῖον δάκος

In this context, Agamemnon’s rhetoric of appropriation of the adjective ὑπέρκοπος is particularly telling. By describing the crime of Paris as an arrogant act, Agamemnon tacitly describes himself as a just punisher. Yet, the echo of lines 468 – 469 (τὸ δ’ ὑπερκόπως κλύειν/εὖ βαρύ) is of course huge, and raises the question of whether Agamemnon plays the role of an arrogant executioner or not.¹³¹ The authority of Agamemnon’s status as king and warrior is undercut by the fact that Agamemnon’s, the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s representation of the Trojan War does not coincide. Yet, the text invites us to question both Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s discourse on war and power. I turn to this point in the next section.

5 The misuse of power There are no exceptions to the rule that everyone thinks they’re an exception to the rule Banksy

As we have seen, the chorus shares Clytemnestra’s criticism of the Trojan War. Nonetheless, we can argue that it also expresses doubts about her representation  On Agamemnon talking about Helen as casus belli, cf. Earp (1950: 51) and Dawe (1963: 48). On the legitimacy of the Trojan War as a war fought for a woman, cf. also the herald at lines 534– 535.  On line 468 as referring to Agamemnon, cf. Di Benedetto (1977: 174).

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of Agamemnon’s murder as a compensation for the violence of the Trojan War. Before the murder of Agamemnon, the chorus welcomes him as its victorious king (Ag. 782: ἄγε δὴ, βασιλεῦ, Τροίας πτολίπορθ’), and admits that some citizen of Argos plotted against him (Ag. 799 – 809).¹³² After Agamemnon is killed, the old men of Argos question the many deaths in Troy (Ag. 1338 – 1342; cf. p. 58). Yet, they see the victory at Troy as the fulfilment of a divine plan (Ag. 1335 – 1336: καὶ τῶιδε πόλιν μὲν ἑλεῖν ἔδοσαν/ μάκαρες Πριάμου), and Agamemnon as a man honoured by the gods (Ag. 1337: θεοτίμητος).¹³³ Moreover, in the exodos, full of despair for the loss of Agamemnon (Ag. 1462– 1463: μηδὲν θανάτου μοῖραν ἐπεύχου/τοῖσδε βαρυνθείς), the chorus is fervently hoping that Orestes will return and avenge his father’s assassination (Ag. 1646 – 1648); it speaks of Clytemnestra’s death as an act of dike (Ag. 1535 – 1536: Δίκα δ’ ἐπ’ ἄλλο πρᾶγμα θήγεται βλάβης/πρὸς ἄλλαις θηγάναισι Μοίρας), it remembers Agamemnon as the most kindly guardian (Ag. 1452: φύλακος εὐμενεστάτου); it repeatedly professes loyalty to its dead king (Ag. 1491 = 1515: φρενὸς ἐκ φιλίας τί ποτ’ εἴπω;) and mourns the heroic deeds (Ag. 1545 – 1546: ἔργων μεγάλων) of a divine man (Ag. 1547: ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ θείωι). Furthermore, in the long lyrical-epirrhematic exchange of the chorus with Clytemnestra, this representation of Agamemnon as rex and vir fortis corresponds to the projection of a negative image on Clytemnestra as a woman and a wife plotting against the ἀνήρ, i. e. her husband and vir fortis. To Clytemnestra, who jubilates over the corpse of Agamemnon, the chorus answers back that she utters insolent words about the man in power: Ag. 1399 – 1400: θαυμάζομέν σου γλῶσσαν, ὡς θρασύστομος, ἥτις τοιόνδ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ κομπάζεις λόγον

Clytemnestra resists this criticism. In passage 1401– 1406 she performs three distinctive speech-acts. She defends the reliability of her mind; she refuses, as we have seen (cf. p. 12), to be identified as Agamemnon’s wife, defending the authority of her female status as mother and queen; and she claims the justice of her revenge: πειρᾶσθέ μου γυναικὸς ὡς ἀφράσμονος· ἐγὼ δ’ ἀτρέστωι καρδίαι πρὸς εἰδότας λέγω·σὺ δ’ αἰνεῖν εἴτε με ψέγειν θέλεις, ὁμοῖον· οὗτός ἐστιν Ἀγαμέμνων, ἐμός

 For a detailed analysis of the welcome speech that the chorus delivers to Agamemnon, cf. Harriott (1982: 9 – 13).  Cf. similarly the herald’s description of Agamemnon as the most praiseworthy man of his time (Ag. 531– 532: ἀξιώτατος βροτῶν/τῶν νῦν).

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πόσις, νεκρὸς δέ, τῆσδε δεξιᾶς χερός ἔργον, δικαίας τέκτονος. τάδ’ ὧδ’ ἔχει

Yet, even after the death of Agamemnon, the chorus does not seem to be completely dismissing Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation for the murder of the king as a punishment for the violence of the Trojan War. When Clytemnestra, during her last dramatic exchange with the chorus, recalls Iphigeneia’s sacrifice again (Ag. 1555 – 1559), the old men of Argos assert that it is hard to judge whether it is worse to kill a daughter or to kill a husband and king, coming to the conclusion that, according to the law of Zeus, the ravager has to be ravaged, and the killer has to be killed:¹³⁴ Ag. 1560 – 1564: ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ’ ἀντ’ ὀνείδους, δύσμαχα δ’ ἐστὶ κρῖναι· φέρει φέροντ’, ἐκτίνει δ’ ὁ καίνων· μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνωι Διὸς παθεῖν τὸν ἔρξαντα …

Interestingly enough, by stating that it is hard to choose sides between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, the chorus moves again from a moment of acceptance of the undisputed authority of the king’s male power to a moment of doubt and hesitation about the opportunity to validate power as merely masculine. Accordingly, it seems to sum up in five words (ὄνειδος ἥκει τόδ’ ἀντ’ ὀνείδους) the unsolvable conflict of Eumenides between the Erinyes (for the maternal authority) and Orestes, Athena and Apollo (for the paternal authority). In this sense, these uncertainties in the narrative of the chorus anticipate the dramatic situation of Orestes’ absolution in dubio pro reo and strongly affect the reader’s position-taking within the text. To conclude, it seems important to read Clytemnestra’s assertions at the very end of the play, in Ag. 1656 (πημονῆς δ’ ἅλις γ’ ὑπάρχει μηδὲν αἱματώμεθα), 1659 (εἰ δέ τοι μόχθων γένοιτο τῶνδ’ †ἅλις†, δεχοίμεθ’ ἂν) and 1661 (ὧδ’ ἔχει λόγος γυναικός, εἴ τις ἀξιοῖ μαθεῖν), against the background of the chorus’ narrative of doubt and hesitation in regard to Agamemnon’s male power. Clytemnestra speaks these lines while trying to prevent Aegisthus from using violence against the old men of Argos. She states that there is enough suffering in the Atreid family already, that she would accept a cure for it if there was one, and that anyone might learn from her female words. Clytemnestra’s refusal to use violence

 On the expression ‘φέρει’ ‘φέροντ’’, cf. the extended discussion of Neitzel (1979a) and Seaford (2003: 149).

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against the chorus is perhaps in relation to the reluctance of the old men of Argos to deny legitimacy to Agamemnon’s murder as a compensation for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice and the resulting wrong committed at Troy: why should Clytemnestra use violence against somebody who is not an enemy to her? In this perspective, line 1661 seems particularly interesting. Clytemnestra’s hint at the possibility of learning from her (εἴ τις ἀξιοῖ μαθεῖν) recalls the words she addressed to the chorus in Ag. 1425 (γνώσηι διδαχθεὶς ὀψὲ γοῦν τὸ σωφρονεῖν). Moreover, the expression ‘λόγος γυναικός’ points out the same rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή in line 348 (τοιαῦτά τοι γυναικὸς ἐξ ἐμοῦ κλύεις): ostensibly, her need to mark her female position suggests that acquiring knowledge from her (μαθεῖν) is like recognizing the authority of the voice of the other.¹³⁵ What shall the chorus learn from Clytemnestra? The chorus might recognize precisely what Clytemnestra asked it to learn (διδαχθείς) in line 1425, namely that a father cannot kill his daughter and break the bond between mother and daughter: killing a daughter does not belong to the sphere of sophronein, i. e. to acting and talking in the right way (cf. above, I. 5). However, even though she is able to teach the chorus a lesson about inter-familial violence, Clytemnestra is and remains a dreadful figure, i. e. the murderess of Agamemnon.¹³⁶ In Aeschylus, we are confronted with the futility of understanding the mechanisms of violence: comprehending the implications of violence does not protect against it. As the blood story of the Atreid family shows, violence engenders more violence, and its trace is indelible: the wrongdoer becomes the victim and vice versa. In the chapter on Eumenides (cf. ch. 3, 4– 5), I turn to this impossibility of marking boundaries for the use of violence in the Oresteia. In the next chapter I explore Clytemnestra’s characterisation as mother, queen and wife in Choephoroi. As in this chapter, in the following one too, I discuss how the characters and the chorus constantly fail in their attempt to project a negative image on Clytemnestra as an adulterous wife, and therefore as a mother non-mother, a tyrant, a female whose mind is darkened, trying at the same time to explain how this failure affects our interpretation of Orestes’ matricide and our position within the text.

 Accordingly, in contrast to McClure (1999: 99 – 100), I argue that in line 1661 there is more than just the evidence for Clytemnestra’s bilingualism, notably her shift from a male way of speech to a female one.  On Clytemnestra teaching the chorus about violence, cf. Freyman (1976: 71) who notes that in lines 1658 (πρὶν παθεῖν ἔρξαντα) and 1661 (εἴ τις ἀξιοῖ μαθεῖν) she is repeating the chorus’ principle of the pathei mathos.

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6 Conclusions In sections one to five, we have seen that: 1. in discussing Clytemnestra’s characterisation as queen, critics do not allow a validation of her public power. In fact, when critics say that Clytemnestra’s power is transgressive, they are merely pursuing the same critical level that leads them to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternity in favour of her characterisation merely as the adulterous wife of her husband Agamemnon. Yet, as the narrative of the chorus shows, the play engages with a constant problematisation, and not merely with a condemnation, of the authority of her female public acts: ‒ following the chorus, the tragic discourse of Agamemnon on the Trojan War displays a positive evaluation of Clytemnestra’s public mode of speech as queen and, accordingly, a valorisation of her female mind; ‒ according to the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή in Ag. 483, Clytemnestra as a woman is unable to rule, and her female mind is unreliable. Such a usage of the word γυνή is in sharp opposition to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the same word and to her claim to female rationality in Ag. 592, as well as to the chorus’ valorisation of Clytemnestra’s public speech in Ag. 615–616; ‒ when the chorus uses the words δίκη and the word γυνή to refer to the legitimacy of the Trojan War and its cause, its use of language, as in the case of Clytemnestra, problematises Agamemnon’s past in Aulis and Troy; ‒ despite the striking similarities between the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s discourse on the Trojan War, the chorus, after the murder of Agamemnon, clearly expresses doubts about the legitimacy of Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation for the murder of Agamemnon as a punishment for the wrong committed at Troy. The chorus represents the vengeance for its dead king as an act of retributive justice (Ag. 1535: Δίκα δ’ ἐπ’ ἄλλο πρᾶγμα θήγεται βλάβης). Nonetheless, in its last confrontation with the queen, it ends up questioning Agamemnon’s warlike violence (the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the vengeance for Helen’s abduction) and, at the same time, Clytemnestra’s explanation of the murder of Agamemnon as an act of retributive justice for the violence committed at Aulis and Troy (Ag. 1560 – 1564); 2. Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word γυνή in Ag. 1661 mirrors the same usage in Ag. 348, and claims the legitimacy of her position as a female subject capable of understanding what sophronein is.

Choephoroi My reading of Choephoroi follows two distinct lines of argumentation. First, I argue that Choephoroi tends to de-legitimise Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation for her killing of Agamemnon in Agamemnon, which is considered a central step towards the justification of matricide. The essential feature of this discourse is to be found in the attempt to project the image of a mother-echthros on Clytemnestra, that is to say the figure of a mother who does not give life to her children (non-tokeus) and does not nurture them (non-tropheus). Along with this depiction of Clytemnestra, the text of Choephoroi explores once again, and on a deeper level, the mechanisms of suppression of Clytemnestra’s biological motherhood that we have already seen at work in Cassandra’s representation of Clytemnestra as a promiscuous wife and a bad mother. My analysis proceeds again from the use of language by the dramatis personae. In the first part of the chapter, I explore Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a mother non-tropheus. In sections one to four, I discuss the rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords τρέφειν, φρήν, πόνος, πονεῖν and πατήρ by the nurse, Clytemnestra, Orestes and Electra; in section five, I sum up my conclusions. In the second part of the chapter, I discuss Clytemnestra’s depiction as a mother nontokeus: in sections one and two, I focus on Orestes’, Electra’s and the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords τίκτειν, φιλεῖν, ἀνήρ, πατήρ and δίκη, and, in section three, I sum up again my conclusions. Then, I discuss the characters’ failure to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternal role of giving and nurturing life, and to reduce her female status to her marital role as wife. In part three, I first explore Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a mother-philos. In section one, I look at Orestes’ and Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords μήτηρ, ἀνήρ, γυνή, φίλος and δίκη. In section two to six, I focus on Orestes’, Electra’s and the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords τίκτειν, φίλος, σώφρων, εὔφρων, δόλος, μήτηρ, πατήρ, ἀνήρ and γυνή. In section seven, I sum up my conclusions. In the fourth part of the chapter, I proceed to a close analysis of the text of Clytemnestra’s dream. Here, I show that the functions of trephein and tiktein are not easily erased from the play’s portrait of Clytemnestra as mother of her children. My discussion of Choephoroi aims to explain why the language of the play is marked by the difficulty to define who a mother is, and where dike is when a mother dies. Again, as in the case of my reading of Agamemnon, I claim that Choephoroi can be read as an open text that calls into question the very meanings it produces, as well as the reader’s position within the text.

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I Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tropheus Clytemnestra is no longer truly thought of as a mother F. McHardy, Revenge in Athenian Culture

1 The nurse on trephein In her long speech (Cho. 734– 765), the nurse insists upon how hard she had to work to raise Orestes. Her memories are precise. She remembers being awakened repeatedly by the cries of baby Orestes, as he had to eat, drink, or do a wee: Cho. 750 – 753: ὃν ἐξέθρεψα μητρόθεν δεδεγμένη καὶ νυκτιπλάγκτων ὀρθίων κελευμάτων < > καὶ πολλὰ καὶ μοχθήρ’ ἀνωφέλητ’ ἐμοὶ τλάσηι … Cho. 755 – 757: οὐ γάρ τι φωνεῖ παῖς ἔτ’ ὢν ἐν σπαργάνοις εἰ λιμὸς ἢ δίψη τις ἢ λιψουρία ἔχει· νέα δὲ νηδὺς αὐτάρκης τέκνων

These lines introduce a basic question in the context of the tragic discourse of Choephoroi: what is maternal love, and therefore, what makes Clytemnestra a mother? The answer seems obvious: a mother really is a mother if she nurses her baby. Now, since according to the wet nurse Orestes was not raised by his mother, Clytemnestra, despite her claim of having fed Orestes (Cho. 896 – 898), cannot be considered his mother-tropheus. According to this reading, the nurse’s revelations fit the narrative line that turns Clytemnestra into a bad mother, and they contribute significantly to a conception of matricide as an act that, in this case, is at least partly legitimate.¹³⁷ We could object that the nurse’s revelations simply mirror the practice, frequent in antiquity, of entrusting babies to wet nurses, and therefore they can hardly be read as an attempt to undercut Clytemnestra’s motherhood. Yet, if we read the Oresteia as a play of words and not as a document that reproduces a historical reality, I think it is interesting to explore how the nurse’s assertions are in sharp opposition to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood, and how they affect the play’s discourse on motherhood and matricide. When the wet nurse speaks about her relationship with the little Orestes, she never uses the verb τίκτειν. This omission might correspond to her status of non-

 Cf. e. g. Goheen (1955: 132); Albini (1977: 81– 82); Zeitlin (1978: 157); Margon (1983: 297).

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biological mother, who mothered and nurtured Orestes as he was a baby (Cho. 749 – 750: φίλον δ’ Ὀρέστην … ὃν ἐξέθρεψα), but who has not given life to him. On a closer reading, this emphasis on maternal care (φίλον … ἐξέθρεψα) seems to redefine the terms of motherhood through the dichotomy of trephein/ tiktein, allowing us to draw some important conclusions. First, in the motherchild relation the biological experience of pregnancy and labour (tiktein) is of little or no importance in comparison to breast-feeding and mothering (trephein). Second, it is not the biological experience of motherhood, but the task of mothering and nursing that bonds mother and child in the first place. Lines 753 – 754 leave little doubt in this regard: … τὸ μὴ φρονοῦν γὰρ ὡσπερεὶ βοτὸν τρέφειν ἀνάγκη, πῶς γὰρ οὔ; τρόπωι φρενός

Here, the nurse appropriates the verb τρέφειν in the sense of ‘nurturing, mothering’, and claims that the maternal duties of breast-feeding and taking care of the baby, who has no intelligence, are an absolute necessity. The reason is clear. Caring for a baby, unable to think (Cho. 753: τὸ μὴ φρονοῦν), is a sign of intelligence (Cho. 754: τρόπωι φρενός), and, as the scholiast suggests, of maternal care (ἐπιμέλεια ψυχῆς). In line with this idea, I accept the transmitted text and read the expression ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ as ‘by way of intelligence’ (LSJ; cf. Garvie ad loc.). Thus, I maintain that the Greek ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ means ‘the way intelligence would require it’. Furthermore, I maintain that φρενός has to refer to the mother. When the nurse says that an intelligent mother nurtures her child, she implicitly admits that this is not the case for Clytemnestra.¹³⁸ Accordingly, the nurse’s re-

 The expression ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ has posed some philological problems. Garvie (ad hoc.) refuses LSJ’s reading as ‘by way of intelligence’: ‘LSJ, s. v. τρόπος II. I, render “by way of intelligence, i. e. in lieu of the intelligence which is lacking to the child”. But the explanation does not follow from the translation, which is itself dubious. If anything, it should mean, “in the way in which a mind would do it”, or “as if it were a mind”, and this is nonsense’. But why should ‘in the way in which a mind would do it’ be interpreted as ‘as if it were a mind’? Garvie corrects the text in τροφοῦ φρενί, as proposed by Thomson (1936: 111), arguing that ‘what we require is an antithesis between the baby who has no φρήν and someone else who does’, suggesting for passage 753 – 754 the following translation: ‘that which has no reason must be nurtured like an animal – of course it must – by the reason of its nurse’. But why do we have to refer φρήν to the nurse and not to Clytemnestra? Note that in referring φρήν to the nurse, Garvie is following Thomson (1936: 111): ‘In other words, since a baby has no wit of its own, it is dependent on the nurse’s, just as an ox is dependent on the driver’s’. On the meaning of φρήν and related terms in Aeschylus, cf. the detailed discussions of Yarkho (1972), esp. pp. 182– 183 for these lines in Choephoroi; Petrounias (1976: 237– 243).

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marks on φρήν contribute to the depiction of Clytemnestra as a mother non-tropheus. Following this line of argumentation, the nurse’s discourse on mothering shapes a representation of motherhood that is radically different from Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood. As we have seen, in Agamemnon, when Clytemnestra speaks about the mother-child relation, she sees her daughter as exclusively hers, as a duplicate of her maternal body and as the object of her maternal love. Accordingly, she conceives the female mind as strictly connected to the female power of reproduction. Conversely, when the wet nurse speaks of her love for Orestes and maternal phronein, she does not take into account the mother’s body and her power of giving life: according to the nurse, love for a child and maternal intelligence are limited to nursing or trephein. Bearing in mind Clytemnestra’s and the nurse’s diverging discourses on mothering and motherhood, it is remarkable that the nurse, while talking about τρέφειν and maternal mind, compares the child to an animal (Cho. 753: ὡσπερεὶ βοτόν). Clytemnestra too assimilates her child to an animal, as she speaks of maternal love in strict relation to the mother’s ability to give life. To express this assimilation, Clytemnestra uses, like the nurse, the word βοτόν (Ag. 1415 – 1418: ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον…/φιλτάτην ἐμοί/ὠδῖν’). As their appropriation of the word βοτόν shows, the nurse and Clytemnestra see the child the very same way: as a grazing animal. Yet, such a representation of the child does not imply the same view on the maternal role for both of them. For Clytemnestra, motherhood is the biological experience of giving (tiktein) and nurturing life in utero (trephein); for the nurse motherhood is the cultural experience of nursing and mothering. As Bacon (2001: 56) has aptly observed: ‘The nurse describes her maternal activities not in terms of nature but as exercising the crafts (cheironaxias, Cho. 761) of laundress, fuller, and nurse in order to help an infant “like a beast” (boton, Cho. 753) grow into a human being’. Further remarks on the expression ‘τρόπωι φρενός’ and maternal intelligence are possible. These words recall to mind the image of the ‘μητρὸς εὐφρόνης’, which in turn implies the imagery of the mother ‘μητρὸς εὔφρονος’ in Ag. 265 (cf. p. 34). According to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words μήτηρ and εὐφρόνη, a mother is a cheerful and reasonable being. This is not the case in the nurse’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words φρήν and τρέφειν: when she uses these terms to talk about maternal care and maternal mind, she seems to insinuate that Clytemnestra is a wicked, unreasonable woman since she did not take care of the child’s hygienic and alimentary dependence on his mother (obviously, from a historical point of view, having a nurse was a common praxis in Athens, and therefore hardly a sign of wickedness).

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The attempt to undermine the mind of Clytemnestra works as an important element in her representation as a mother-echthros, and it is not just a feature of the nurse’s speech. Similar remarks are possible also for Orestes and Electra. Orestes emphasises with a rhetorical question the unjust disposition of his mother’s mind: Cho. 996: τόλμης ἕκατι κἀκδίκου φρονήματος;

Electra asserts that Clytemnestra cannot be called a ‘mother’, since she has a wicked attitude of mind towards her children: Cho. 190 – 191: ἐμή γε μήτηρ, οὐδαμῶς ἐπώνυμον φρόνημα παισὶ δύσθεον πεπαμένη

I explore further Electra’s rhetoric of motherhood in relation to her criticism of Clytemnestra’s mind at pp. 122– 125. In what follows, I look at Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τρέφειν and at the differences inherent in Clytemnestra’s and the nurse’s use of this verb.

2 Clytemnestra on trephein Clytemnestra uses the verb τρέφειν in lines 908 and 928, first as she opens, and then as she ends her stichomythic dialogue with Orestes. In front of her matricidal son, Clytemnestra appeals to her faculty of trephein attempting to coerce Orestes to have pity for his mother’s life. However, there is more, in this appeal of Clytemnestra. I begin with some remarks about line 908: ἐγώ σ’ ἔθρεψα, σὺν δὲ γηράναι θέλω

As Clytemnestra employs the verb τρέφειν, she does not refer merely to the activities of breast-feeding and raising a child, as according to LSJ, Italie and Dindorf. In fact, we can assume that Clytemnestra is also pointing to the maternal activity of nurturing the baby in the womb with maternal blood.¹³⁹ We are in

 My reading of line 908 relies on Demont (1978), who shows that in the Corpus hippocraticum, and already in Homer, τρέφειν means ‘faire prendre corps’. Cf. also Benveniste (1966: 293) who argues that τρέφειν means ‘favoriser (par des soins appropriés) le développement de ce qui est soumis à croissance’. For τρέφειν in the meaning of ‘to rear in utero’, cf. Sept. 752– 755. Furthermore, my use of the term ‘activity’ to name maternal care is not accidental. Referring to pregnancy, labour and mothering as ‘activity’, I maintain that we are talking about women’s

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the position to establish a continuity between Clytemnestra’s self-representation as mother in Agamemnon and in Choephoroi. As in Agamemnon, according to her rhetoric of appropriation of the words ὠδίς and ἔρνος (cf. 1, I. 2– 3), in Choephoroi too, according to her appropriation of the verb τρέφειν, she repeatedly insists upon the exclusive power of women’s body to give and nurture life.¹⁴⁰ The polysemy of Clytemnestra’s appropriation of the verb τρέφειν returns in line 928. Again, she appropriates the verb τρέφειν in the meaning of ‘breastfeeding, bringing up’ (cf. LSJ, Italie, Dindorf), and, as I assume, of ‘nourishing a child in the womb’:¹⁴¹ οἲ ’γώ, τεκοῦσα τόνδ’ ὄφιν ἐθρεψάμην

We cannot help but notice a striking difference in the double usage of this verb. In line 908, ἔθρεψα in the active voice means ‘I nourished you (in my womb) to your benefit’; in line 928 ἐθρεψάμην in the middle voice means ‘I nourished him (in my womb) to my damage’.¹⁴² This is an important point. According to Clytem-

work, and I cannot accept therefore Beauvoir’s (1949: 24– 27) position, according to which giving birth and breast-feeding are not activities, but natural functions. On raising babies as an activity and unpaid work I shall mention Fouque (1994: 296 – 297) and Nancy Fraser’s brilliant essay on state walfare, ‘What’s critical about Critical Theory? The case of Habermas and Gender’, now reprinted in ‘Unruly Practices’ (1989).  Accordingly, I differ from Simon (1988: 52) who maintains that Clytemnestra’s characterisation as mother is ambivalent: ‘the picture of Clytaemestra’s ambivalent maternity is also consonant with her portrayal in The Agamemnon as the mother of Iphigenia. It is Iphigenia slain who arouses her maternal assertion, not an evocation of Iphigenia as a babe or young girl whom she tended and raised’.  Obviously, if one reads τεκοῦσα as ‘after I bare him’, the main verb ἐθρεψάμην can only mean ‘to breast-feed; to raise up’. Of course, nourishing in utero precedes birth. Yet, the Greek admits the reading of τεκοῦσα and ἐθρεψάμην as referring, paratactically, to the two biological activities of the mother (to give birth and to nourish (in utero) her baby). Indeed, as a participle aorist, τεκοῦσα is not supposed to indicate an action prior to the main verb ἐθρεψάμην. Cf. e. g. Smyth (1936): ‘Ah me, this is the serpent I bare and suckled’; Lloyd-Jones (1982): ‘Ah woe, that I bore and I reared this snake’; Battezzato in Di Benedetto (1999): ‘Ahimè, è un serpente questo che io ho fatto nascere e ho nutrito’; Burian and Shapiro (2003): ‘Ah, you are the snake I bore and suckled!’; Steiner (2007): ‘Weh mir, diese Schlange habe ich geboren und aufgezogen?’; Sommerstein (2008): ‘Ah me, this is the snake I bore and nourished!’. Similalry, in line 913 (τεκοῦσα γάρ μ’ ἔρριψας ἐς τὸ δυστυχές) the participle aorist τεκοῦσα is not supposed to indicate an action prior to the main verb τεκοῦσα.  Cf. Untersteiner (ad loc.), who follows Porzig 1926. For the verb ἐθρεψάμην as expressing the positions of the speaking person in relation to his actions, cf. also Moussy (1969: 60): ‘Il ne s’agit plus alors de l’intérêt que le sujet prend à l’action, mais de celui que la personne qui parle, la mère de l’enfant, manifeste pour les soins dont elle souhaite que son fils soit l’objet’.

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nestra’s discourse on the mother-daughter bond in Agamemnon, her relationship with Iphigeneia is a symbiotic bond of philia. The same cannot be said for the relationship between Orestes and Clytemnestra. For Clytemnestra, Orestes is the beloved creature to whom she gave life (Cho. 928: τεκοῦσα τόνδ’), but, at the same time, he is also a snake she nurtured in her womb (Cho. 928: ἐθρεψάμην ὄφιν).¹⁴³ The complexity of this mother-son relation mirrors a similar complexity in the action of the son against his mother. On the one hand, Clytemnestra is an echthros of Orestes, and his matricide is therefore legitimate. On the other hand, Clytemnestra is a philos of her son, and matricide amounts to a horrifying act of violence. There is an additional reason here to draw attention to Clytemnestra using the verb τρέφειν also in the meaning of ‘nourishing, bringing up in the womb’. In Eumenides, Orestes asks himself whether he stands in a relation of biological consanguinity to Clytemnestra or not: Eum. 606: ἐγὼ δὲ μητρὸς τῆς ἐμῆς ἐν αἵματι;

The Erinyes answer him that his mother brought him up in her womb, and that maternal blood ties mother and son together in a very strong bond of philia. Interestingly, the Erinyes, like Clytemnestra in Choephoroi, make use of the verb τρέφειν: Eum. 607– 608: πῶς γάρ σ’ ἔθρεψεν ἐντός, ὦ μιαιφόνε, ζώνης; ἀπεύχηι μητρὸς αἷμα φίλτατον;

Apollo’s theory of patrilinear generation (Eum. 657 ff.) is in contrast to such positions endorsed by the Erinyes. According to his rhetoric of appropriation of the verbs τίκτειν and τρέφειν, the formation and gestation of the foetus in utero does

 I separate τόνδ’ and ὄφιν (respecting the metrical caesura). Garvie (ad loc.) argues that this is artificial. Yet, as I argue, the separation of τόνδ’ and ὄφιν pinpoints the complexity of Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ relationship. Read this way, I differ from Dumortier (1975a: 97– 98) who in glossing line 928 focuses on Clytemnestra merely in her role as wife and argues that she is speaking as a killing wife: ‘Lorsque l’épouse meurtrière tombera sous les coups de son fils, il lui souviendra de ses visions nocturnes: οἲ ’γώ, τεκοῦσα τόνδ’ ὄφιν ἐθρεψάμην 928’. It is important to notice that Orestes, like Clytemnestra, recognizes that his mother’s body gave him life. On this issue, cf. below pp. 144– 146. I also differ from Zeitlin (1978: 158) who, if I am not wrong, argues that Orestes’ repudiation of Clytemnestra’s motherhood mirrors Clytemnestra’s suppression of her mother-child bond with him: ‘The next step, paradoxically, will be her undervaluation, even rejection, of the mother-child bond, as in the case of Electra and Orestes. Child, in response, will undervalue and reject mother’.

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not mean a process of creation of life. Children are biological extensions of their fathers, not of their mothers; it is the father figure that generates life: Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων …

Moreover, Apollo denies the elementary biological fact that a mother gives life to her child by nourishing (trephein) him in utero:¹⁴⁴ Eum. 663 – 666:

… πέλας μάρτυς πάρεστι παῖς Ὀλυμπίου Διός οὐδ’ ἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη, ἀλλ’ οἷον ἔρνος οὔτις ἂν τέκοι θεά

We need to bear in mind that Apollo speaks these lines as the most important performance in his defense of Orestes. We have to stress two important points. First, we see how the position of the god, expounding a patrilinear theory of procreation, is opposing both Clytemnestra’s matrilineal view of procreation in Agamemnon and in Choephoroi as well as the Furies’ defence of matrilinearity in Eumenides. In all three plays of the trilogy, then, theories of procreation play a crucial role in the characters’ rhetoric of explanation of their deeds: Apollo acquits Orestes because he is the son of Agamemnon and not of Clytemnestra; in Agamemnon and Choephoroi, Clytemnestra is in need of a matrilineal theory of procreation, in order to defend the rightneousness of the murder of Agamemnon, and to defend herself against her matricidal son; in Eumenides, the Furies defend blood kinship with the mother, in order to pursue Orestes. Second, Apollo’s suppression of the biological power of the mother in favour of the definition of the father as the only genetic parent of the child is in line with the god’s cultural definition of the mother as ‘the wife of the father for whom she has borne children’ (cf. pp. 163 – 165). As Bacon (2001: 56 – 57) has aptly pointed out: ‘The father has the role of nature. In Apollo’s words, “the parent is he who mounts”

 Accordingly, I differ from Winnington-Ingram (1983: 123 – 124): ‘If the mother is not tokeus, she is still trophos. It will be noted how often this root is found in earlier stages of the debate. “Am I of my mother’s blood?” asks Orestes (606). “How then did she nurture you beneath her girdle?” replies the Coryphaeus. Apollo gives an answer, but leaves the fact untouched. … The mother carries the child, nourishes it in the womb, gives birth to it in pain, suckles it at the breast: all these things remain untouched by Apollo’s argument’. It is certainly true that Apollo recognizes the mother’s role as trophos of the child and denies her role as tokeus (Eum. 657 ff.). Yet, as we see at lines 663 – 666, the god refers to Athena’s example to state that a mother is not trophos of his children. On this issue, cf. ch. 3, 3. For τρέφειν here in the meaning of ‘nutrire in utero’, cf. Italie.

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(Eum. 660). … Apollo’s ruling that the mother has the role of culture is part of the trilogy’s insistence on the importance of cultural laws (xenia, marriage etc.)’. To conclude, we might note that a comparison between the rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τρέφειν by Clytemnestra and the nurse shows that they use this verb in quite a different way: Clytemnestra in the sense of nourishing in utero, breast-feeding, bringing up; the nurse only in the sense of breast-feeding, bringing up. Why this difference? How does it shape the Choephoroi and its vision of the maternal role? Relying on Loraux, we seem entitled to say that it sheds the image of an unjust mother on Clytemnestra, i. e. the image of a mother who, by claiming the power of her body to give and to nurture life, resists the equation ‘mother = wife of the children’s father’.¹⁴⁵ Thus, Clytemnestra’s assertions about maternal trephein contribute to her representation as an echthros of the Atreid family, and help to legitimate the action of the matricidal son. However, as I show later on (cf. pp. 113–114), the implications of the nurse’s speech, aimed at denying Clytemnestra’s maternal role of giving and nurturing life in utero, expose their vulnerability: as a mother, Clytemnestra is a woman both tropheus and tokeus in regard to her children. Therefore, the nurse’s speech does not have just a normative function. It also introduces a doubt in the play’s discourse on motherhood: is it true that a mother is neither tokeus nor tropheus of her child? We have to consider that the nurse’s discourse is posing a question about Clytemnestra’s maternal role. Read this way, as the nurse affirms that she received Orestes from her mother (Cho. 750: μητρόθεν δεδεγμένη), we are in the position to say that her use of the word μήτηρ is implicitly indicating the difficulty to suppress the normative and emotive power of the word. Illustrating such a hardness to signify who a mother is, Choephoroi anticipates the dramatic situation in Eumenides and the conflict between Apollo and the Furies about the mother’s role (wife of the children’s father, or woman giving and nurturing life?). In the following section, I explore the play’s discourse on Clytemnestra as a mother non-tropheus further, focusing on Agamemnon’s characterisation as a father-tropheus.

 Cf. Loraux (1990: 108): ‘Parce que, au cœur même de la justice, il y a la droite filiation, seule mérite le titre de “Juste” la mère qui sait ce que reproduction veut dire: que reproduire le père, c’est en fournir une copie conforme sans que, sur l’enfant, demeure la moindre trace de celle qui l’a nourri et mis au monde’ (italics mine).

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3 Agamemnon as father-tropheus Immediately after the recognition between himself and his sister, Orestes, while he is praying, addresses himself to Zeus in the hope of winning the god’s help in avenging the death of his father. He compares the position of Clytemnestra as the killer of Agamemnon to the case of an echidna that kills the eagle in its coils: Cho. 246– 251: Ζεῦ Ζεῦ, θεωρὸς τῶνδε πραγμάτων γενοῦ, ἰδοῦ δὲ γένναν εὖνιν αἰετοῦ πατρὸς θανόντος ἐν πλεκταῖσι καὶ σπειράμασιν δεινῆς ἐχίδνης· τοὺς δ’ ἀπωρφανισμένους νῆστις πιέζει λιμός· οὐ γὰρ ἐντελεῖς θήραν πατρώιαν προσφέρειν σκηνήμασιν

The fight between the eagle and the snake is a familiar motif in Greek literature. We find it for the first time in Homer (Il. 12, 200 ff.), and it is mentioned by Aristotle (HA 609a4–5). In Aeschylus, the conflict between eagle and snake turns into a metaphor for the inter-familial conflict in the Atreid household. As orphans (Cho. 249: τοὺς δ’ ἀπωρφανισμένους), Agamemnon’s children are excluded from the chance to inherit the property of their father (Cho. 250: νῆστις πιέζει λιμός), and are like little eagles (Cho. 247– 248: ἰδοῦ δὲ γένναν εὖνιν αἰετοῦ πατρὸς/ θανόντος) that are not old enough (Cho. 250: οὐ γὰρ ἐντελεῖς) to bring the prey haunted by their father to the nest (Cho. 251: θήραν πατρώιαν προσφέρειν σκηνήμασιν).¹⁴⁶ On this account, Orestes’ murderous violence against his mother can be read as the action of a son who intends to restate the authority of his father as the one true tropheus of the family members. The idea that the wealth of the house depends on the father figure reflects the common social practice in Athens, according to which, notably, women did not run properties (except, of course, for the epikleros). Still, this insistence on paternal wealth may tell us much more. Saying that the father’s wealth maintains the family is like trying to re-define filiation as a social fact based on the role of the mother as wife of her husband. In other words, it is not Clytemnestra, as mother giving life and nurturer of her children, but Agamemnon, in his social role as genitor by virtue of the laws of marriage, inheritance and succession, who guarantees the preservation and the continuity of the family.¹⁴⁷ In the stichomy-

 On the imagery of the eagles as derived from the Archilochean fable of the eagle and the fox, cf. Janko (1980). On the animal symbolism in this passage as mirroring the symbolism in Agamemnon, cf. Fowler (1967: 55 – 56).  Cf. Cho. 1, 76 – 77, 126, 235, 237; 479 – 480; 487; 864– 865. On the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word πατήρ as head of the household, cf. also Eum. 654 (ἔπειτ’ ἐν Ἄργει

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thia between Orestes and Clytemnestra, line 921 definitely points in this direction. According to his rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τρέφειν and the word ἀνήρ, he was not nourished in utero by Clytemnestra’s maternal blood and nurtured by maternal milk, as Clytemnestra has claimed in Cho. 908 and 928; he was nurtured by the work of his father as aner, that is to say as husband, miles and vir fortis:¹⁴⁸ Cho. 921: τρέφει δέ γ’ ἀνδρὸς μόχθος ἡμένας ἔσω

Thus, we are able to recognize that the definition of the father as nurturer of the family implies a struggle about what the word ἔσω is supposed to mean in the case of the mother. Where should we place maternal ἔσω? Is ἔσω the mother’s womb in relation to her body and her faculty to give and to nurture life (as according to Clytemnestra’s discourse), or is it the mother’s social position in the household as the wife nourished by her husband (as according to Orestes’ discourse)?¹⁴⁹ Posing this question on Clytemnestra’s maternal role (woman giving δώματ’ οἰκήσει πατρός;) and sections 3 and 6 in the chapter on Eumenides. For a similar line of argumentation, cf. Goldhill (LSN: 147): ‘the redefinition of the role of the mother, the female, asserts also the redefinition of the model of narrative towards its authorisation of/by the word of the father’. On πατήρ in Greek as denoting the social and religious role of the man with children, cf. Chantraine (1947: 235) and Strauss (1993: 24– 28); on the role of the father figure in Greek tragedy, cf. Caldwell (1970), esp. pp. 88 – 92 on the Oresteia, and the brilliant paper of Griffith (1998).  Cf. Italie who assumes for τρέφειν the meaning of ‘victum praebere’. For a similar analysis, cf. Sommerstein (1996: 267): ‘the mother may nurture (trephein) the child (908, cf. 898), but the father by his labour supports (trephein) the mother and everyone else (921): ultimately it is by his efforts that the oikos can survive’. In this regard, Orestes’ matricide seems to confirm the female economic dependence on men, cf. Euben (1990: 93): ‘It is also true that the trilogy can be interpreted as commending the sexual division of labor’. On the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἀνήρ as father-tropheus, rex, miles and vir fortis, cf. Cho. 345 – 349, 363 – 364, 430 – 435, 479, 505, 556, 572, 627, 808, 1070, 1072. For Agamemnon’s toils and his power as victorious king and the source of the survival of the Atreid family, cf. also Cho. 301–305.  Accordingly, I differ from Foley (2001: 231– 232), who in her discussion of line 921 sees the struggle on the definition of ἔσω merely as a struggle for the supremacy of paternal ponos over maternal gala: ‘The sufferings of a wife in war … are now trivialized by Orestes, who will not accept an equivalence between the one who sits at home and the toil of the husband in the public world (trephei de g’andros mochthos hēmenas esō, 921; see also 919, which again stresses the ponos or labor of the father in contrast to the activity of those inside). It is now the father who is the provider of nurture (trephei) that is often the mother’s special province (eutraphes gala, 898)’. This is not by chance: Foley (2001: 232 n. 109) does not consider the fact that Clytemnestra appropriates the verb τρέφειν in Cho. 908 and 928 also as ‘to nurture in the womb with maternal blood’: ‘Clytemnestra does not accept Orestes’ claim. She insists on her nurture [milk], but now sees that she has raised a snake (ethrepsamēn, 928)’. As Foley, neither Sommerstein in his

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life, or wife of the husband?), Orestes’ attempts to suppress Clytemnestra’s motherhood and to represent her as dependent on her husband Agamemnon anticipate the conflict between the Furies and Apollo on the definition of bloodlines and power relations as paternal.¹⁵⁰ Orestes’ attempt to redefine what is supposed to be ἔσω in the case of his mother constitutes the conceptual core of line 919 too, as he reproaches Clytemnestra for the slothful inactivity of women: Cho. 919: μὴ ἔλεγχε τὸν πονοῦντ’ ἔσω καθημένη

Two locutions are of fundamental importance here: πονοῦντα vs. ἔσω καθημένη. This polarity can be read as the essential dualism between the sexes: the male toils of war are in contrast to female unproductiveness.¹⁵¹ Now, when Orestes uses the verb πονεῖν to praise Agamemnon’s martial deeds and to denigrate the indolence of women, he seems to redefine the Trojan War as a glorious task, and therefore to wipe every criticism (μὴ ἔλεγχε) of the Troika (τὸν πονοῦντ’) away. Thus, Orestes’ discourse on ponos and female indolence seems to undermine Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of explanation of the murder of Agamemnon as a punishment for the wrongs committed in Troy (cf. ch. 1, III. 2).¹⁵² On this

commentary on Eumenides (on Eum. 607– 608) considers the meaning of nutrire in utero for Cho. 908 and 928, and thus notes that Clytemnestra could have appealed to the stronger argument that she gave life to Orestes: ‘Clytaemestra had claimed that Orestes had no right to kill her, because she had nurtured him with her milk (Ch. 896 – 8, 908, 928; cf. Ch. 527– 33, 543 – 6). That, however, was not the strongest claim she could have made … Now we are reminded that she had nurtured him earlier still, before birth, with her blood’. This attempt to redefine the maternal ἔσω will return in Eumenides with Apollo’s speech and its definition of the mother’s position in the family as the wife of her husband and, accordingly, with the expropriation of the womb of its faculty of giving life; cf. pp. 162–165.  Cf. Zeitlin (1978: 157) who brilliantly argues: ‘Son must slay mother; father must be avenged, but in so doing, son’s alliance with paternal power and interests must simultaneously be seen as repudiation of the mother’. On the repudiation of motherhood as central step toward the legitimisation of paternal power, cf. Irigaray (1984: 100): ‘Dimension qu’il faut renier en paroles et en actes pour accomplir le salut de la famille et de la cité’.  Cf. Loraux (1989: 56 – 57): ‘Mais habilité pour la guerre, le citoyen l’est d’abord en tant qu’il porte le nom du mâle: anēr. Et, tout naturellement, ponos sert à marquer l’opposition cardinale qui, plus que toutes les autres peut-être, fonde la société grecque: je veux dire l’opposition des rôles sexuels. Du côté du mâle est le ponos: normative chez Xénophon, l’idée se fait simple constatation chez l’auteur du traité hippocratique Du régime ou chez celui du Système des glandes, qui opposent le régime viril, placé sous le signe de la fatigue et de l’endurcissement, à la “facilité” du régime oisif des femmes’. On ponos, cf. as well Loraux 1982.  On the verb πονεῖν as referring to Agamemnon’s warlike toil in opposition to female indolence, cf. Di Benedetto (1999: 44).

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account, we have two important points to stress. First, in the tragic machinery of death, Orestes’ matricide can be seen as an act of retributive justice that withdraws the authority of Clytemnestra’s discourse on the Trojan War in Agamemnon, and aims to restore the father’s heroism and to rehabilitate his power as victorious king.¹⁵³ Second, as Goldhill (LSN: 143) has observed, through the rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s ponos, the opposition of philos (= father) vs. echthros (= mother) seems to take on military implications.¹⁵⁴ Electra and Orestes share the same view on ponos. In the speech she delivers on the tomb of her father, during the first scene, Electra reproaches Clytemnestra for the wastage of Agamemnon’s wealth. According to Electra’s appropriation of the word πόνος, Clytemnestra’s wastefulness is in strict opposition to Agamemnon’s heroic toils: Cho. 135– 137: κἀγὼ μὲν ἀντίδουλος, ἐκ δὲ χρημάτων φεύγων Ὀρέστης ἐστίν, οἱ δ’ ὑπερκόπως ἐν τοῖσι σοῖς πόνοισι χλίουσιν μέγα

Given this discourse of Electra and Orestes about Agamemnon’s martial deeds and Clytemnestra’s indolence, it seems important to add to the opposition trephein/tiktein the opposition trephein = ponos/tiktein as a constituent element of the Choephoroi’s discourse on motherhood. Following the ongoing analysis, we have seen that the meaning of the verb τρέφειν in Choephoroi is gradually narrowed and redefined. To Clytemnestra, τρέφειν means ‘raising up in the womb, breast-feeding, bringing up’. To the nurse, it means ‘breast-feeding, bringing up’; to Orestes and Electra, ‘maintaining the family’. In particular, as lines 135 – 137 and 919 – 921 show, for Orestes and Electra only the power bestowed upon Agamemnon by his warlike ponos can guarantee the continuation of the genealogical line, glory and prestige of the Atreid household.¹⁵⁵

 Cf. Goldhill (LSN: 194): ‘the “initiation” of Orestes, then, is not so much (though partly) into his role within the oikos, of reasserting his κράτος, as also reasserting the role of the oikos with regard to the wider society’. Compare Kitto (1956: 56): ‘When Orestes prays to Agamemnon δὸς κράτος τῶν σῶν δόμων … he is praying for the renewal of order, “degree”, in the state of Argos as well as in the house of its King’. Similarly, cf. e. g. Gagarin (1976: 99); Meier (1988: 147– 148); Strauss (1993: 77); McHardy (2008: 108).  In this regard, lines 354– 360 are particularly interesting as well. Here, the chorus defines Orestes as philos of his father philos (Cho. 354– 355: φίλος φίλοισι τοῖς ἐκεῖ καλῶς θανοῦ/σιν), pointing precisely to Agamemnon’s position as the victorious king at Troy: Cho. 355 – 359: κατὰ χθονὸς ἐμπρέπων/σεμνότιμος ἀνάκτωρ/πρόπολός τε τῶν μεγίστων/χθονίων ἐκεῖ τυράννων.  On Electra’s and Orestes’ authorisation of the power of Agamemnon as genitor, victorious king in war and head of the family, cf. also Föllinger (2007: 18 – 19).

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In the next section, I look at further implications of Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a mother non-tropheus.

4 Clytemnestra as mother non-tropheus and female tyrant Clytemnestra, mother non-tropheus, is also depicted as an avid consumer of the goods of Agamemnon, father-tropheus: after having set up a tyranny in Argos with her love-mate (Cho. 267, 377, 537, 658, 664, 700), she squanders her husband’s patrimony (Cho. 136 – 137, 919 – 921, 942– 945, 973 – 974).¹⁵⁶ The motif of female tyranny expands on a theme that was already present in Agamemnon (Ag. 1362– 1365, 1638 – 1640, 1673). In Choephoroi, the tyranny set up by Clytemnestra has brought the Atreid house to a complete ruin (Cho. 262– 263): Orestes is dispossessed of his father’s wealth (Cho. 135 – 136, 249 – 250, 277, 301, 407– 408; cf. Eum. 754– 756); Electra is forced to live in misery, as if she were a slave (Cho. 135, 444 – 450). Agamemnon’s children will have the duty to prove themselves as saviours of their father’s house (Cho. 264: σωτῆρες ἑστίας πατρός). Accordingly, when Orestes, immediately before his first dramatic exchange with Clytemnestra, uses the word γυνή in reference to her position as ruler, he appropriates the word γυνή in the opposite sense of ἀνήρ as vir fortis and rex (notice the juxtaposition of γυνή and ἄνδρα): Cho. 664: γυνὴ τόπαρχος, ἄνδρα δ’ εὐπρεπέστερον

According to Orestes, an aner is someone who is able to command; a gune, on the contrary, just misuses power.¹⁵⁷ If this is appropriate, vesting Clytemnestra with the image of a female tyrant means denying any righteousness to her action as a queen, i. e. to her vendetta as a compensation for the violence of Agamemnon’s war against Troy. This seems to be quite clear at the beginning of the play (Cho. 55 – 65). Here, the chorus first mentions the respect of the people of Argos for Agamemnon’s royal authority, and the climate of fear established by the tyr-

 Locus classicus for the stereotype of women as consumers of men’s goods is Th. 590 – 602. On this topic in Greek literature, cf. e. g. Loraux (1978: 61– 63); Carson (1990: 140). Especially on the passage in Hesiod, cf. Sussman (1978).  On male power, cf. Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἀνήρ in Cho. 672– 673: εἰ δ’ ἄλλο πρᾶξαι δεῖ τι βουλιώτερον/’ἀνδρῶν τόδ’ ἐστὶν ἔργον, οἷς κοινώσομεν. Furthermore, on the construction of the male as the subject with the power of right thinking and right acting, as well as on the construction of the female as being unable of right thinking and right speaking, cf. Orestes’, the chorus’, the nurse’s and Aegisthus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἀνήρ and γυνή in Cho. 626 – 627; 666 – 667; 735 – 736; 845; 849 – 850.

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anny of Clytemnestra (Cho. 55 – 59). Then, it expresses its criticism for Clytemnestra’s abuse of power and wealth, and the necessity to punish the usurper of Agamemnon (Cho. 59 – 65). Following the chorus in this passage, Agamemnon’s death represents a loathsome murder, plotted by an illegitimate ruler against the sovereign king of Argos and victor in Troy. In what follows, I dwell in more detail on some lines that attest the rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s heroic career and power. To begin with, lines 255 – 256 are particularly interesting. Orestes speaks these lines immediately after the recognition with his sister, in the context of the prayer he addresses to Zeus, in order to win the god’s help in taking revenge for the death of his father: καίτοι θυτῆρος καί σε τιμῶντος μέγα πατρὸς νεοσσοὺς τούσδ’ ἀποφθείρας …

According to Winnington-Ingram (1983: 134), Garvie (ad loc.) and Goldhill (LSN: 135), Orestes is referring to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. If we read, with Garvie (ad loc.), καὶ τοῦ of M’s instead of the correction καίτοι, the article τοῦ emphasises the idea that Agamemnon has honoured Zeus with Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. Now, if Agamemnon is depicted as ‘the agent of Zeus’ (LSN: 135), Orestes’ use of the word πατρός in Cho. 256, in opposition to θυτῆρος in Cho. 255 and in emphatic position at the beginning of the verse, seems to obliterate the horror of the father’s action against his daughter and to restore Agamemnon’s heroic career at Aulis and Troy. Thus, when Orestes uses the words θυτήρ and πατήρ, he is displaying a different rhetoric of appropriation from the chorus, in the parodos of Agamemnon, and from Clytemnestra. As we have seen (cf. pp. 16–18), Clytemnestra’s and the chorus’ discourses in Agamemnon point to Agamemnon’s paternal warlike violence against his daughter. Similar remarks are possible about line 918 of the stichomytia, in the exchange between Orestes and Clytemenstra. Here, Clytemnestra urges her son to recall his father’s faults: μὴ ἀλλ’ εἴφ’ ὁμοίως καὶ πατρὸς τοῦ σοῦ μάτας

Although critics persist in claiming that in Choephoroi Clytemnestra never mentions the sacrifice of her daughter, a reference to the events in Aulis seems to be at work here.¹⁵⁸ By referring to Agamemnon as pater and agent of violence, Cly-

 Cf. Föllinger (2003: 96); for an opposite position, cf. Garvie. According to Garvie, in line 918 the word μάτη applies to sexual folly. Thus, Clytemnestra might be alluding to Agamemnon’s

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temnestra, as in Agamemnon, might be criticizing him for his misuse of the parental role. Quite the opposite, Orestes’ silence about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and, as we have seen, his objection that a woman is nourished by the ponos of her man (Cho. 919 – 921) seems to function as crucial steps towards a rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s heroic career and a de-legitimisation of Clytemnestra’s action against the conqueror of Troy and the killer of his own daughter. However, Orestes’ discourse on the authorisation of the father as man of power and head of the family is exposed to the danger of failing. How can a man, who kills his own daughter, nourish his family? The allusions to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice in Choephoroi help us to illustrate some differences between the Homeric version of the Atreid myth and the Aeschylean reworking of it. Unlike the Oresteia, the Odyssey does not display a discourse that first calls into question and then rehabilitates the Trojan War. In this sense, the paradigmatic perspective from which Orestes’ mythical biography is told to the young Telemachus does not just rely upon the silence about Iphigeneia’s sacrifice and Orestes’ matricide, but also upon the lack of a narrative including a re-evaluation of the Trojan War.¹⁵⁹ Yet, although Choephoroi asserts both Agamemnon’s position as father-tropheus (i. e. head of the family, king and warrior) and Orestes’ status as Agamemnon’s heir-in-law, there is no cure in the Oresteia for the carnage in Troy and the blood shed by Clytemnestra. In Aeschylus, the Atreid family is trapped in a pitiless fight against itself and Troy. In Agamemnon the seed of dissension remains in the house (Ag. 154– 155: μίμνει γὰρ φοβερὰ παλίνορτος/οἰκονόμος δολία); there is no escape from the persecution for Agamemnon, the one who killed too many (Ag. 461– 468); the Erinyes are bred in the family (Ag. 1190: συγγόνων Ἐρινύων). In Eumenides, the law of the Erinyes always ‘remains’ (Eum. 381: μένει). As we know, in Eumenides Athena will defend the necessity of war and exalt the glory of warriors (Eum. 848 ff., 903 ff.). However, as I show in the chapter on Eumenides (cf. section 6) the notion of war is problematized also in the last drama of the trilogy.

relations with Chryseis and Cassandra. If that is not wrong, the same seems true for Clytemnestra’s use of μάτη as a hint to Iphigeneia’s sacrifice as well. Given that the word μάτη in Greek properly describes a fault made by madness (cf. LSJ), it is important here not to miss a reference to Agamemnon’s dilemma in Aulis, and to his loss of control over rational faculties (Ag. 220 – 223). On this topic, cf. ch. I. 5.  On the paradigmatic function of the Atreid myth in the Odyssey, cf. p. 14, with n. 31. On the numerous passages of the Odyssey about the value of the Trojan War, cf. for example book 8 (Demodocos on Odysseus and the Trojan horse) and book 16 (when Telemachus recognizes Odysseus, he also remembers the warlike deeds of his father).

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In the next section I explore Agamemnon’s characterisation as a father-tokeus, after a summary of what I discussed in sections one to four.

5 Conclusions In sections one to four, we have seen that: 1. according to the nurse’s speech about Orestes’ childhood, Clytemnestra did not take care of her child, nor did she feed him at her breast. In particular: – in the nurse’s discourse on mothering, we are faced with an attempt to separate the activity of trephein from the maternal agency of giving life; for the nurse, who is not a biological mother, a mother feeds and brings up her baby (trephein) but she does not give him life; – in the nurse’s discourse on mothering, there is no relation between the mother’s mind and her biological role in conceiving, bearing and raising children; 2. according to Clytemnestra’s discourse on the maternal agency of trephein, a mother nourishes her baby in the womb, feeds and raises him. Thus, the relation between mother and child is shaped by a bond of consanguinity and inviolable philia; 3. Orestes’ and Electra’s discourse on the authority of Agamemnon’s social role as genitor is bound together with a discourse on female biological agency. Agamemnon is a father-tropheus just on the condition that Clytemnestra in her role as mother is non-tropheus of her children: it is Agamemnon’s warlike toils and his position as king and warrior – not Clytemnestra’s maternal blood and milk – that maintain the family and guarantee the survival of its glory and prestige. This attempt to rehabilitate Agamemnon’s warlike heroism implies a de-legitimisation of Clytemnestra’s discourse about the Trojan War and about the authority of her action and speech as queen; 4. according to Orestes, Agamemnon did not sacrifice his daughter to fulfil his warlike ponos, but to respect the obedience which is due to the gods. Such a presentation of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice implies a rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s heroic career; 5. according to Orestes and Electra, Agamemnon is the king victorious at Troy, and Clytemnestra is the usurper of his male power. Therefore, the killing of Agamemnon is the killing of the king in power. Matricide is at least partly legitimate.

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II Clytemnestra as mother-echthros and non-tokeus 1 Agamemnon as father-tokeus and Clytemnestra as mother non-tokeus Clytemnestra is not just the mother non-tropheus of her children, and the squanderer of Agamemnon’s wealth. According to her matricidal son, she is also a mother non-tokeus. When Orestes speaks of her power to give life, using the verb τίκτειν, the experiences of pregnancy and labour undergo a monstrous transformation in his words. According to Orestes in the stichomythia with his mother, Clytemnestra gave life to her son only to throw him out into misery: Cho. 913: τεκοῦσα γάρ μ’ ἔρριψας ἐς τὸ δυστυχές

What is worse, Clytemnestra is for Orestes a mother who bartered his own son in a exchange of goods, making a source of profit out of him, in order to protect her affair with Aegisthus: Cho. 915 – 917: Oρ. Kλ. Oρ.

αἰκῶς ἐπράθην ὢν ἐλευθέρου πατρός ποῦ δῆθ’ ὁ τῖμος ὅντιν’ ἀντεδεξάμην; αἰσχύνομαί σοι τοῦτ’ ὀνειδίσαι σαφῶς

This depiction of Clytemnestra as a mother non-mother corresponds well to her characterisation as a wife betraying her man. As Zeitlin (1978: 157) has poignantly phrased, ‘Here in the Choephoroi adulterous wife is now fully equated with hostile mother’.¹⁶⁰ Indeed, as an adulterous woman, she is an enemy of her children and of her husband Agamemnon: Cho. 906 – 907: Cho. 991:

… … ἐπεὶ φιλεῖς τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον, ὃν δὲ χρῆν φιλεῖν στυγεῖς ἥτις δ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ τοῦτ’ ἐμήσατο στύγος

As Clytemnestra is a mother non-mother, so Orestes is not the son of his mother. According to his understanding of the word τέκνον, he is the son of Agamemnon, while Clytemnestra has ‘only’ carried the father’s children in her womb:  As Zeitlin, cf. Vernant (1996: 340): ‘L’épouse coupable devient mère terrible’; Patterson (1998: 143): ‘the mother who was once philos is now echthros (hostile, an enemy; 993), a clear sign of the perverted state of this household’. Now, as a hostile mother and adulterous wife, Clytemnestra is an unrestrained woman hated by the gods (Cho. 46: δύσθεος γυνά, 525: δύσθεος γυνή). Cf. the same depiction of Orestes by the Pythia and the Furies in Eum. 40: ὁρῶ δ’ ἐπ’ ὀμφαλῶι μὲν ἄνδρα θεομυσῆ, 151: ἄθεον ἄνδρα. On Clytemnestra’s adultery, cf. also Cho. 599 – 600; 764; 893 – 895; 975 – 976.

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Cho. 992: ἐξ οὗ τέκνων ἤνεγκ’ ὑπὸ ζώνην βάρος

Orestes speaks this line in the context of the talk he delivers after the matricide, beside the corpses of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Clearly, Orestes does not represent the mother-child relation in the same terms as she does. As we have seen, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words μήτηρ, ἔρνος, φίλος and ὠδίς in Agamemnon, a mother is a cheerful being, of sound mind; the child is a biological extension of his mother; a bond of philia ties relatives by blood. Instead, according to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words τίκτειν, φιλεῖν and τέκνον, Clytemnestra’s motherhood is a paradigm of aberration; children belong biologically to their fathers; the bond of philia is also externally defined (bond between wife and husband), and is normative in itself (philia has to tie a wife to her husband: Cho. 906 – 907: ἐπεὶ φιλεῖς/ τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον, ὃν δὲ χρῆν φιλεῖν στυγεῖς).¹⁶¹ Through the characterisation of Clytemnestra as genetrix of the father’s children and as an adulterous woman, enemy of her own family, we are faced with a process of normalisation of her maternal sexuality, and with an attempt to expropriate her female body of its reproductive power. This is like saying that Orestes’ discourse on adultery and child reproduction defines the proper social role of a woman within marriage as being the wife of her husband from and for whom she has borne children. Thus, Clytemnestra’s adultery threatens the social position of the male in the family. As Goldhill has similarly noticed (LSN: 111; 2004: 36), refusing her role of wife through adultery, Clytemnestra stops being a woman who gives birth to the children of her husband, the father-tokeus, becoming instead a bad mother, or a mother who escapes male control over female sexuality and female agency of reproduction.¹⁶² This infringement of the female

 Cf. similarly Foley (2001: 231): ‘Orestes refuses to permit Clytemnestra to categorize Agamemnon (or, later, her children) as enemy, not philos and husband. … Her children are not exclusively hers but also her husband’s’. I differ from Podlecki who, in his edition of Eumenides, notes at line 608 that the Erinyes’ claim that the mother nurtures her baby in the womb is reminiscent of Orestes’ words in Cho. 992– 993. As I argue in the case of Clytemnestra, and as I will in the case of the Erinyes, their claim that the child is the fruit of the maternal womb echoes Orestes’ words in Cho. 992–999, insofar as it reverses them: for Orestes a child belongs biologically to his father; but not for Clytemnestra and the Erinyes. On Orestes’ rhetoric of motherhood in Cho. 992, his rhetoric of appropriation of the word τέκνον and the difference between Clytemnestra’s and Orestes’ discourse on motherhood, cf. Garvie (ad loc.): ‘In a sense Orestes reverses the charge brought by Clytaemestra against Agamemnon who sacrificed Iphigenia (Ag. 1417 f.)’.  My point about the verb τίκτειν and the position of the father as father-tokeus (namely that the father is the only genetic parent, given the expropriation of the mother of his power of giving

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function in the family and in the community of the fathers produces a fracture in the social continuity of the family, making the revenge of Orestes imperative.¹⁶³ Following these remarks, we can see that the discourse of Orestes about the social function of women does not state merely the necessity of controlling female sexuality. It also states the need to control the relationship between female sexual pleasure and social reproduction. Yet, the definition of the father as the only genetic parent of the children (tokeus), in addition to his definition as the only guarantor of the family’s survival (tropheus), implies that he is not only responsable for the economic subsistence of his family, but also for its biological continuity.¹⁶⁴ We may conclude, then, that ‘the development of the language of familial relations’ (cf. LSN: 155) involves a semantic shift in both terms τίκτειν and τρέφειν. Against this background, there seems to be no discontinuity between Choephoroi and Eumenides. In Choephoroi we face the attempts to suppress Clytemnestra’s maternal role as tokeus and tropheus of her children, and to equate her role as mother with her role as wife. Similarly, in Eumenides, the discourses of Apollo and Athena engage with the definition of the civic ideology of motherhood, according to which the mother is the wife of the father, for whom she has borne children, whereas the father is the only genetic parent of the children and the tropheus of the family through his political and economic prestige (cf. ch. 3. 3). Electra follows the discourse of Orestes about Clytemnestra’s power of giving life closely. In the speech she delivers on the tomb of her father during the first episode, Electra affirms that Clytemnestra has sold her children in exchange for sex with Aegisthus: Cho. 132– 134: πεπραμένοι γὰρ νῦν γέ πως ἀλώμεθα πρὸς τῆς τεκούσης, ἄνδρα δ’ ἀντηλλάξατο Αἴγισθον …

life) can be argued for the term ‘parens’ as well. Cf. the brilliant paper of Thomas (1986) and Loraux (1990: 127 n. 26): ‘Yan Thomas me fait remarquer qu’il en va de même pour parens, qui, du vocabulaire de l’ accouchement, a été détourné au profit des pères’. On female sexual fidelity, cf. Cantarella (2011: 335 – 336) and Cox (2011: 232– 235), each with further bibliography.  Cf. Kitto (1956: 57): ‘Marriage is the key-stone of civilised society, and if Clytemnestra’s crime is not punished this key-stone is knocked away’. On marriage and the social reproduction of the polis, cf. Seaford (1994: 206 – 220); Cox (2011), with further bibliography at p. 243.  According to Goldhill (LSN: 149), in order to express the exclusive function of the father figure as tropheus and tokeus, the chorus uses the words πόνος ἐγγενής (Cho. 466): on the one hand ponos refers to the economic commitment of the father as in verses 919 – 921, on the other hand the adjective ἐγγενής puts the notion of ponos in the context of the sphere of filiation.

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According to Electra as well, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife (ἄνδρα δ’ ἀντηλλάξατο) and therefore a mother non-mother who has given life to her children only to make money out of them (notice the significant juxtaposition of τεκούσης, ἄνδρα). Bearing in mind this representation of Clytemnestra, there seems to be no relation of philia between mother and daughter. This suppression seems to work as a redefinition of the causes of Clytemnestra’s maternal wrath.¹⁶⁵ In this respect, lines 239 – 242 are particularly interesting: … προσαυδᾶν δ’ ἔστ’ ἀναγκαίως ἔχον πατέρα σε, καὶ τὸ μητρὸς ἐς σέ μοι ῥέπει στέργηθρον, ἡ δὲ πανδίκως ἐχθαίρεται, καὶ τῆς τυθείσης νηλεῶς ὁμοσπόρου

Electra speaks these lines on the tomb of her father, when she finds a ringlet and speculates whether it belongs to her brother Orestes or not. Here, she gives expression to her love for Agamemnon, Iphigeneia and Orestes in opposition to the allegation that her mother has good reasons to be an object of hatred. It seems reasonable, then, to suppose that there is no bond of kinship fondness between Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia. Obviously, the suppression of philia between Iphigeneia and Clytemnestra affects the way Electra appropriates the verb θύειν. In fact, also Electra depicts the sacrifice of her sister as a pitiless act (Cho. 242: τῆς τυθείσης νηλεῶς). However, considering the background of Clytemnestra’s representation as a mother-echthros, we have to assume that in Electra’s discourse Iphigeneia’s sacrifice can hardly represent, as for Clytemnestra in Agamemnon, the breach of the inviolable bond of philia and of consanguinity between mother and daughter. Passage 239 – 242 deserves further attention. In her groundbreaking paper on the images of corrupted sacrifice in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Zeitlin (1965: 492) lucidly observes that ‘the loss of maternal feelings towards Orestes and Electra works retroactively, we might say, in her attitude towards Iphigenia’. It is helpful to expand on Zeitlin’s thoughtful remark. Clytemnestra’s lack of maternal feelings towards Iphigeneia is linked to Orestes’ and Electra’s definition of the mother figure as an echthros of her family (because of Clytemnestra, Orestes is exiled; Electra lives like a slave). I think this point has important consequences, which I sum up in short:

 On Clytemnestra’s representation as a mother full of relentless wrath, cf. Cho. 421– 422: λύκος γὰρ ὥστ’ ὠμόφρων ἄσαντος ἐκ/ματρός ἐστι θυμός. On these lines, cf. Petrounias (1976: 186, 202).

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1) the definition of the mother figure as an echthros of the family implies a redefinition of the principles on which philia between relatives is based. Following Electra in line 241, Clytemnestra is hated with good reason (πανδίκως ἐχθαίρεται), but the same cannot be said for her father, her brother and her sister Iphigeneia, who are of the same seed (Cho. 242: ὁμοσπόρου). Accordingly, we can take for granted the equation philos = homosporos. Now, since obviously Clytemnestra as a mother cannot be of the same seed as her children, she can hardly be bound to them through a relation of philia. More than that, the equation philos = homosporos reveals the fact that consanguinity only exists in connection to the father figure. Indeed, as Wilgaux (2006: 343) has pointed out, in Greek this adjective implies a blood tie between father and children, according to the belief that sperm is made out of blood. We may take these remarks a step further, and say that in Choephoroi consanguinity with the father figure (or kinship relations of social consanguinity) is made possible by a negation of the biological consanguinity with the mother.¹⁶⁶ In the speech delivered by Electra, when she finds a ringlet on the tomb of her father, and speculates whether it belongs to Orestes or not, lines 189 – 200 are consistent with this representation of bloodlines as paternal. First, in lines 189 – 191, Electra states that Clytemnestra cannot be considered a mother, since she hates her children. Second, in lines 195 – 200, she asks if the ringlet found on Agamemnon’s grave belongs to an enemy (Cho. 198: ἀπ’ ἐχθροῦ), or to a relative who shares the same blood (Cho. 199: ξυγγενής).¹⁶⁷ Again, if Clytemnestra is an echthros for Electra, she is also non-suggenes. As Goldhill has similarly pointed out (LSN: 124), Electra’s definition of the opposition philos vs. echthros through the criterion of consanguinity affects her appropriation of the word πατήρ in line 197– 200:

 Cf. also Sissa (1983: 130 – 139). On the blood of the Father as the foundation of social ties, cf. Heritier-Augé (1989); Heritier (1996: 53 ff.). On the patrilinear organisation of the Atreid family, cf. also Cho. 236: δακρυτὸς ἐλπὶς σπέρματος σωτηρίου, 503: καὶ μὴ ’ξαλείψηις σπέρμα Πελοπιδῶν τόδε.  On syngeneia as kinship of blood and on suggeneis as blood relatives, cf. Loraux (1987: 25 – 30), in particular p. 25: ‘Syngeneia è la parentela di sangue: in altri termini, la più naturale di ogni ralazione, che non ha bisogno di essere codificata per essere vissuta nell’immediatezza dell’esistenza quotidiana’; Wilgaux (2011: 221): ‘all the next of kin – the suggeneis – in so far, precisely, as they “share the same blood,” regardless of whether it comes from the male or the female side’. On this topic, cf. also Musti (1963: 230 – 232); Littman (1979: 13), and for further bibliography Wilgaux (2011: 229 – 230).

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ἀλλ’ εὖ σάφ’ ἤινει τόνδ’ ἀποπτύσαι πλόκον εἴπερ γ’ ἀπ’ ἐχθροῦ κρατὸς ἦν τετμημένος, ἢ ξυγγενὴς ὢν εἶχε συμπενθεῖν ἐμοί, ἄγαλμα τύμβου τοῦδε καὶ τιμὴν πατρός

Here, as she states that a blood kin can honour the tomb of her father along with her (Cho. 199 – 200), she seems to imply that it is rather Agamemnon as father and philos, instead of Clytemnestra as mother and echthros, to be a blood relative of his children. 2) According to Orestes’ and Electra’s discourse on consanguinity with the father figure and to their discourse on adultery and the inviolability of marriage, we are in the position to conclude that their reprimand of adultery justifies the expropriation of the reproductive power of maternal blood, thus transferring the agency of giving life from the mother’s womb to the father’s blood: − in marriage, the mother = the wife of the father-tokeus (therefore, male control over maternal blood, female sexuality and female reproduction); − through adultery, the mother ≠ the wife of the father (therefore, no male control over maternal blood, female sexuality and female reproduction) However, this discourse of exclusion on Clytemnestra’s motherhood and wifehood (she is an adulterous wife and therefore a mother non-mother) is not entirely successful. To begin with, two different readings are possible for lines 132– 134. We can read the modal particle πως with ἀλώμεθα: in this case, Clytemnestra has clearly sold her children away. However, it is also legitimate to read it with πεπραμένοι: in this case, it is as if Clytemnestra has sold her children away.¹⁶⁸ When language excludes and separates, the dynamics of categorisation tremble: excluding (the mother) has always the meaning of including (her). Orestes’ attempt to separate Clytemnestra’s role as mother from her role as wife, that we have seen at work in his rhetoric of wifehood in lines 906 – 907 and 991– 993 (cf. pp. 99 – 100), is fraught with the danger of failing too. Lines 991– 993 are particularly interesting. Orestes says that his mother is an object of abomination, set against her husband and the children’s father:

 Relying on Rösler, I do not read, as Garvie does (ad loc.), lines 132– 134 as a metaphor. However, I differ from Rösler (2006: 14– 15) who reads lines 132– 134 just in one direction, namely as a proof of the fact that Clytemnestra has sold her children, and therefore is lying, as she affirms to have given Orestes to Strophius (Ag. 877– 886). Rösler’s detailed analysis does not comment the particle πως. On Clytemnestra, Orestes and Strophius, cf. p. 117.

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ἥτις δ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ τοῦτ’ ἐμήσατο στύγος ἐξ οὗ τέκνων ἤνεγκ’ ὑπὸ ζώνην βάρος, φίλον τέως νῦν δ’ ἐχθρόν, ὡς φαίνει, κακόν

Yet, as Orestes’ question in Cho. 994 illustrates, he does not know whether this is actually true or not: τί σοι δοκεῖ;

Again, the fact that we acknowlege by a gesture of separation and exclusion who Clytemnestra is pushes us to question this very certainty. More than that, it implies admitting the limits of a discourse on Clytemnestra as a mother non-mother. Indeed, a positive answer to Orestes’ question ‘τί σοι δοκεῖ;’ (and, accordingly, a reading of this expression merely as a rhetorical question) would pose further problems rather than solve them. Even if we consider true that Clytemnestra is an object of abomination, i. e. the bad wife of the children’s father, which kind of στύγος is she supposed to be? Is she a moral eel, or a viper? Cho. 994: τί σοι δοκεῖ; μύραινά γ’ εἴτ’ ἔχιδν’ ἔφυ

Echoing Cassandra’s questions in Ag. 1232– 1233 (τί νιν καλοῦσα δυσφιλὲς δάκος/ τύχοιμ’ ἄν; ἀμφίσβαιναν ἢ Σκύλλαν τινὰ), Orestes’ doubts about the monstrosity of Clytemnestra as mother and wife undercut the authority of his discourse of exclusion, insomuch as it becomes quite problematic to speak plausibly of the mother as a monster. The text insists upon this difficulty to define Clytemnestra as a mater monstruosa. In line 997 Orestes asks himself again how to name his mother:¹⁶⁹ τί νιν προσείπω … ;

Lines 1026 – 1028 are consistent with Orestes’ difficulty to represent Clytemnestra as an opprobrium: ἕως δ’ ἔτ’ ἔμφρων εἰμί, κηρύσσω φίλοις κτανεῖν τέ φημι μητέρ’ οὐκ ἄνευ δίκης, πατροκτόνον μίασμα καὶ θεῶν στύγος

 For νιν as hinting to Clytemnestra as well, cf. LSN: 100; Morgan (1994: 133), who also underlines the striking similarities between Ag. 1232– 1233 and Cho. 994 ff.

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Orestes speaks these lines in his last speech during his ultimate confrontation with the chorus. Here, as in passage 991– 993, Orestes once again describes Clytemnestra as a στύγος, i. e. as an object of abomination. Yet, his representation of his own mother as a mater monstruosa does not have the power to suppress Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and to assess matricide as a legitimate act of violence. Indeed, the litotes ‘οὐκ ἄνευ δίκης’ reveals Orestes’ caution in presenting matricide as an act of undisputed justice. Thus, it opens up to the suspicion that the killing of Clytemnestra might play as a highly problematic deed for him. This problematisation of matricide implied in Orestes’ use of the word δίκη casts a shadow of doubt on his rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἔμφρων and φίλος as well. To start with, how can a killer of his own mother claim to have control over his mind? And moreover, what does it mean to be philos of someone who killed his own mother? Here, Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος seems to give us good evidence of how difficult it is to define who is a philos and/or an echthros and, accordingly, to appropriate the word μήτηρ merely as the echthros of the children and their father.¹⁷⁰ However, if we are to follow Orestes and Electra on Clytemnestra’s motherhood and wifehood and their discourse of exclusion, matricide represents an act of retributive justice for Agamemnon’s children against the murderess of their father (Cho. 909: πατροκτονοῦσα, 974: πατροκτόνους, 1028: πατροκτόνον μίασμα): Cho. 144 Cho. 244 Cho. 497 Cho. 805 Cho. 884 Cho. 935

καὶ τοὺς κτανόντας ἀντικατθανεῖν δίκηι μόνον Κράτος τε καὶ Δίκη σὺν τῶι τρίτωι ἤτοι Δίκην ἴαλλε σύμμαχον φίλοις λύσασθ’ αἷμα προσφάτοις δίκαις αὐχὴν πεσεῖσθαι πρὸς δίκης πεπληγμένος ἔμολε μὲν Δίκα Πριαμίδαις χρόνωι

The enactment of this justice takes the shape of a struggle for Orestes and Electra (Cho. 489: μάχην, 866: τοιάνδε πάλην, 874: μάχης), and will end with a victory (Cho. 148: δίκηι νικηφόρωι, 478: ἐπὶ νίκηι, 499: εἴπερ κρατηθείς γ’ ἀντινικῆσαι θέλεις, 868: ἐπὶ νίκηι).¹⁷¹

 On this topic, cf. LSN: 115. The same line of interpretation can be applied to Cho. 100: τῆσδ’ ἔστε βουλῆς, ὦ φίλαι, μεταίτιαι; 552: τἄλλα δ’ ἐξηγοῦ φίλοις; 825 – 826: ἄ-/τα δ’ ἀποστατεῖ φίλων; 833: τοῖς θ’ ὑπὸ χθονὸς φίλοις. Here, Electra and the chorus use the word φίλος, meaning the enemy of Clytemnestra and the supporter of the vengeance for Agamemnon. Now, how can somebody, who helps children in their plot against their mother, be philos? On the difficult task to distinguish philoi from echthroi in the Choephoroi’s discourse on motherhood and matricide, cf. Electra in Cho. 110: τίνας δὲ τούτους τῶν φίλων προσεννέπω. Cf. as well p. 52.  For the imagery of victory in these lines of Choephoroi, cf. Poliakoff (1980: 253 – 255).

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Yet, as I argue in the third part of this chapter, once more the play shows how Orestes’ and Electra’s repudiation of Clytemnestra’s power of giving and nurturing life, their definition of Agamemnon as father-tropheus and tokeus and the definition of bloodlines and power relations as exclusively paternal are in fact all elements of a discursive justification of matricide, which is always exposed to the danger of failing. As in Eumenides, in Choephoroi is already present the search for a definition of dike, which: – is deeply committed to a search both for paternal genealogy and for the authorisation of the Father as the subject of power in the family (genitor, husband) and in society (head of the family, warrior and king); – pinpoints the limits of a discourse on justice based merely on the law of the Father. This crisis in Orestes’ and Electra’s definition of blood ties and power relations as only paternal destabilizes the play’s discourse on kinship and power: – are blood ties and power relations maternal? (no, they are not: mother is echthros, i. e. non-tokeus and non-tropheus); – are they paternal? (yes, they are: father is tokeus and tropheus); – are they only paternal? (no, they are not: mother is echthros, but still tropheus and tokeus). In the next section, I explore the implications of Agamemnon’s characterisation as a father-tokeus further.

2 The father-tokeus and the estrangement between mother and son In the third episode, Orestes arrives at Argos with Pylades, pretending to be a stranger coming from Daulis in Phocis (Cho. 674), and claiming to be dead (Cho. 682: τεθνεῶτ’ Ὀρέστην εἰπέ). Yet, during the dramatic exchange with his mother, Orestes is not recognized by Clytemnestra. Why this disguise, and why the failure of anagnorisis between mother and son? We obviously need a disguise, or Clytemnestra would recognize her own offspring and, as we already know from the Homeric tale, disguises never fail in Greek literature. However, as Pontani observed (2007: 221), we can also argue that Orestes’ disguise and Clytemnestra’s failure to recognize her own son are direct evidence of the estrangement between the two. What does it mean for a mother and a son, in the context of a play about matricide, to be thought of as strangers? A look at Cho. 688 – 690 might help us to answer the question. Orestes speaks these lines to Clytemenstra, pretending to be a stranger from Daulis:

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Cho. 688 – 690:

… εἰ δὲ τυγχάνω τοῖς κυρίοισι καὶ προσήκουσιν λέγων οὐκ οἶδα, τὸν τεκόντα δ’ εἰκὸς εἰδέναι

Orestes, using the verb τίκτειν (τὸν τεκόντα) in opposition to προσήκουσιν, seems to claim that between parents (προσήκουσιν) only the father is not a stranger to his son, in virtue of their biological bond (τὸν τεκόντα). Read this way, as has often been argued (Cf. Garvie ad loc.; Lebeck, 1971: 126 – 127; LSN: 165 – 166), Orestes’ disguise as a stranger or his dolos may foreshadow Apollo’s theory about the father’s role in reproduction, a bias which, strictly speaking, is like a dolos or a misleading discourse on the mother’s reproductive agency. However, does Orestes’ succeed in his deceitful punishment of Clytemnestra, as the chorus describes Orestes’ vendetta (Cho. 726: Πειθὼ δολίαν, 947: δολιόφρων Ποινά)?¹⁷² Of course, he does not. Clytemnestra’s motherhood remains a fact, and her death is the result of a problematic act which has to be punished, as the Erinyes’ persecution of Orestes clearly shows. Thus, despite the chorus’ rhetoric of explanation of matricide as a necessary act ordered by Apollo (Cho. 935 – 941), matricide represents a questionable deed, whose theological necessity and justice is hindered by the use of deception:¹⁷³ Cho. 946 – 956: ἔμολε δ’ ἇι μέλει κρυπταδίου μάχας δολιόφρων Ποινά, ἔθιγε δ’ ἐν μάχαι χερὸς ἐτήτυμος Διὸς κόρα, Δίκαν δέ νιν προσαγορεύομεν βροτοὶ τυχόντες καλῶς, ὀλέθριον πνέουσ’ ἐν ἐχθροῖς κότον. τάνπερ ὁ Λοξίας ὁ Παρνασσίας μέγαν ἔχων μυχὸν χθονὸς ἐπωρθίαξεν ἀδόλως δόλια βλαπτομέναν …

 On the phrase ‘δολιόφρων Ποινά’ and its different interpretations, cf. Garvie and Untersteiner (ad loc.). I follow Garvie, who refers it to Orestes’ vengeance.  Accordingly, I differ from McClure (1999: 100), who argues that Orestes’ use of dolos obeys a divine order: ‘through the figure of Orestes, whose task and speech represent a divinely sanctioned form of dolos’. In regard to Orestes’ dolos in Choephoroi, I also differ from Thalmann (1985: 230), who assumes that Orestes is not using dolos against his mother. For Orestes’ dolos against Clytemnestra, cf. Taplin (1977: 340 – 343); Konishi (1990: 176 – 180), and, in particular, LSN: 206.

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Reckoning with these lines about the relation between dolos and matricide, we may begin to wonder: can Apollo really be the god who proclaims without deceit (ἐπωρθίαξεν ἀδόλως), the god who has never lied in the past (Cho. 559: ἄναξ Ἀπόλλων, μάντις ἀψευδὴς τὸ πρίν) and whose prophetic art is always true (Eum. 615: μάντις ὢν δ’ οὐ ψεύσομαι)? Again, as we have seen in the case of Cassandra’s prophetic language (cf. p. 47), in the case of Apollo as well the Aeschylean text might call into question the authority of the divine word. In this regard, my observation is that deception structures the way the Atreid family resorts to violence. According to Cassandra, Aegisthus and the chorus in Agamemnon (Ag. 155, 1228 – 1229, 1519, 1636), and Orestes in Choephoroi (Cho. 556 – 557), Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon by deceit. According to Clytemnestra’s discourse on Iphigeneia’s sacrifice, Agamemnon kills his daughter with the help of dolos (cf. ch. 1, I. 4). According to the chorus’ discourse on Orestes’ matricide (Cho. 726, 947, 955), for the Atreids the fulfilment of justice goes hand in hand with the use of deception. We can pinpoint other analogies in the chain of mutual murders in the Atreid family. In the eyes of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon was guilty of dolos as he betrayed the inviolable bond of consanguinity and philia between mother and daughter by killing Iphigeneia (cf. ch. 1, I. 4). In the case of Orestes, the matricidal son uses dolos as he attempts to deny the biological relation of philia with his mother. I dwell upon the role dolos plays in the narrative of the play in my analysis of the dream scene (ch. 2, IV. 5), and in the chapter on Eumenides (cf. ch. 3. 4).

3 Conclusions The discussion in sections one and two leads to the following conclusions: 1. like Cassandra, also Electra and Orestes make an attempt to separate Clytemnestra’s role as a wife from her role as a mother: – according to Electra and Orestes, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife and therefore a mother non-tokeus and an enemy of her children. This suppression of philia between mother and children implies also a suppression of the blood connection between them. It establishes, then, a discourse about consanguinity with the father figure, and about social kinship through marriage; – according to Orestes and Electra, Agamemnon, being the father, is the only genetic parent and philos of his children; 2. by Agamemnon’s characterisation as the only tokeus of children, his authority as father seems to be strictly connected to his power as the begetting one. Thus, we notice that the tragic discourse on male social power is combined

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4.

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with a discourse on the power of reproduction. The father authority is inseparable from his genealogical prerogative of birth; with the characterisation of Agamemnon as the only tokeus of his children, and the denial of Clytemnestra’s agency of tiktein, the Choephoroi’s discourse on Clytemnestra’s role as mother and wife seems to be based on a perversion of the parental structures, a point that destabilizes the authority of the father’s definition as sole origin of life, and as the only subject of power in the family and in society; foreshadowing Apollo’s patrilinear argument on reproduction, Orestes’ disguise as a stranger, or his dolos, might be read as an attempt to deny Clytemnestra’s maternal faculty of tiktein, and the bond of consanguinity between mother and child; according to the chorus, Orestes and Electra, matricide represents an act of retributive justice that aims to instantiate the Father as the sole origin of life and power in the family and in society.

III Clytemnestra as mother-philos Ἀντίνο’, οὔ πως ἔστι δόμων ἀέκουσαν ἀπῶσαι ἥ μ’ ἔτεχ’, ἥ μ’ ἔθρεψε … Od. 2, 130 – 131

1 The adulterous wife is still a mother A woman is her mother That is the main thing A. Sexton, Housewife

In what follows, I argue that the characters’ depiction of Clytemnestra merely as an unfaithful wife does not have the power to suppress her maternal bond with her children, and to justify matricide and to instantiate the Father as the subject of power in the family and society. First, lines 88 – 90 seem to jeopardize this discourse of exclusion. Right at the beginning of the play, the opening lines of Electra’s speech to the servant women are meant to win their help for the libations in honour of her father. Yet, she is admittedly unaware of how to name Clytemnestra, as she is about to speak in defence of her father: does she have to refer to Clytemnestra as a wife (γυναικός) who should have been faithful (φίλης) to her beloved (φίλωι) husband (ἀνδρί), or does she have to name her as her mother (τῆς ἐμῆς μητρός)?

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Cho. 88 – 90: πῶς εὔφρον’ εἴπω; πῶς κατεύξωμαι πατρί; πότερα λέγουσα παρὰ φίλης φίλωι φέρειν γυναικὸς ἀνδρί, τῆς ἐμῆς μητρὸς πάρα;

In the following lines, Electra emphasizes her doubts. After her hesitation to refer to Clytemnestra as the beloved wife of Agamemnon (or as her mother), she is admittedly at a loss for words:¹⁷⁴ Cho. 91– 92: τῶνδ’ οὐ πάρεστι θάρσος, οὐδ’ ἔχω τί φῶ χέουσα τόνδε πελανὸν ἐν τύμβωι πατρός

Later, she asks again what words she has to utter; finally, almost in a crescendo, she asks whether it is better for her to remain silent on her father’s tomb, or not: Cho. 93 – 97: ἢ τοῦτο φάσκω τοὖπος, ὡς νόμος βροτοῖς, ἴσ’ ἀντιδοῦναι τοῖσι πέμπουσιν τάδε στέφη, δόσιν γε τῶν κακῶν ἐπαξίαν; ἢ σῖγ’ ἀτίμως, ὥσπερ οὖν ἀπώλετο πατήρ, τάδ’ ἐκχέασα …

As in lines 91– 97, also in line 118, Electra admits that she does not know what to say on the tomb of her father and asks the chorus for help: τί φῶ; δίδασκ’ ἄπειρον ἐξηγουμένη

Once again, Electra states her doubts. In line 122, she asks the chorus if her desire for revenge is blasphemous: καὶ ταῦτά μοὐστὶν εὐσεβῆ θεῶν πάρα;

Now, let us go back to passage 88 – 90. Like Electra, who uses the expression ‘τῆς ἐμῆς μητρός’ in line 90, Orestes too, in the course of the play, refers to Clytemnestra as his mother:  Garvie prints lines 90 – 91 after line 97, according to Diggle. I follow the line-order in M. On Electra’s uncertainty at the beginning of Choephoroi, cf. Tarkow (1979: 16 – 19). According to Tarkow, the depiction of Electra as a character unable to talk and act is modeled on the character of Menelaus in Agamemnon: Menelaus too is portrayed as relying on others ‘to solve his affairs’ (he is full of despair at the loss of Helen, but he does not do anything on his own to win her back: he does not sacrifice Iphigeneia; he is not involved in the total destruction of Troy). Regardless of whether this interpretation might be right or not, I argue that Electra’s uncertainty is deeply involved with her reluctance to suppress Clytemnestra’s motherhood.

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Cho. 899: … μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;

It is exactly when he uses the word μήτηρ that Orestes interrupts his violent action against Clytemnestra, and asks his friend Pylades what he is supposed to do:¹⁷⁵ Cho. 899: Πυλάδη, τί δράσω;

Clearly enough, when it comes to the act of matricide, Orestes is at a loss for words, and needs his friend’s help: his rhetoric of representation of his mother as an echthros is not enough, at the crucial moment of the confrontation with Clytemnestra, to kill her straight away. Why do we need Pylades? What does he add to the plot? Pylades opposes a point of certainty, descending from the force of divine words, to Orestes’ moment of doubt and hesitation: Cho. 900 – 902: ποῦ δαὶ τὸ λοιπὸν Λοξίου μαντεύματα τὰ πυθόχρηστα, πιστά τ’ εὐορκώματα; ἅπαντας ἐχθροὺς τῶν θεῶν ἡγοῦ πλέον

When the murder of the mother seems to fail on the human level (son against mother), Pylades employs a new hierarchy: gods are above humans, therefore humans have to obey gods, therefore Orestes has to kill his own mother. Read this way, the solution of Orestes’ struggle and of the suffering of the Atreid family comes from the gods. That is why Orestes’ reluctance to kill his own mother appears to be a reference to the very first line of the trilogy (Ag. 1: θεοὺς μὲν αἰτῶ τῶνδ’ ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων), as well as to the dramatic situation of Eumenides, where Orestes will be acquitted with the help of Athena. However, on a closer reading, Pylades himself does not speak of Clytemnestra as mother of Orestes. Rather, he only discusses the son-mother relationship in terms of power relations: to kill Clytemnestra means to obey the gods, and therefore to respect the hierarchy divine/human, whereas not to kill her means to disobey their orders. The silence of Pylades on Clytemnestra’s motherhood introduces again the idea that Orestes cannot kill Clytemnestra as his mother. Once more, the violence of matricide seems to consist precisely in this repeated attempt (by Pylades, the chorus, Orestes and Electra) to suppress a fact that cannot be sup-

 In this context, it is important to note that Orestes talks about his violent deed in terms of matricide only in this line, when he faces his mother; cf. Vogt (1994: 102); Seidensticker (2009: 229), with further bibliography on n. 75.

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pressed, namely that an inviolable aidos exists between Orestes as son and Clytemnestra as mother whose breast fed him: Clytemnestra – Cho. 896 – 897: … τόνδε δ’ αἴδεσαι, τέκνον, μαστόν … Orestes – Cho. 899: … μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;

From this perspective, Orestes’ hesitation to commit matricide and Pylades’ encouragement to obey the gods and kill his mother both seem to anticipate the outcome of the votes for or against Orestes in Eumenides and his acquittal in dubio pro reo. In this interpretation, Orestes’ question ‘μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;’ threatens the authority of his discourse on Clytemnestra as a mother non-mother and as a bad wife. In the next section, I discuss Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a mothertropheus.

2 Clytemnestra as mother-tropheus As we have seen (ch. 2, I. 1), according to the speech of the wet nurse, Clytemnestra cannot be considered a mother, as she did not feed or take care of her baby Orestes. However, the nurse’s case demonstrates that any woman is able to assume the duties of breast-feeding and mothering. It does not prove that every woman who takes care of a baby can also replace the biological mother: obviously, that role cannot be exchanged. It does not prove that Clytemnestra has not breastfed her baby either. Thus, as Garvie has argued (ad loc.), there is no reason to suppose that Clytemnestra is not telling the truth, when she claims to have nurtured Orestes (Cho. 896 – 898). Moreover, the wet nurse contradicts herself on the reasons why she had to take care of the baby all by herself. Here, we should consider various points. First, it is not clear if Clytemnestra actually gives custody of Orestes to the wet nurse, relinquishing her duties as mother. In line 750, the nurse says she took Orestes from his mother (μητρόθεν δεδεγμένη); in line 762, she reveals that she received the child Orestes from his father (Ὀρέστην ἐξεδεξάμην πατρί).¹⁷⁶ Now, the expression ‘μητρόθεν’ or ‘from the

 I read ἐξεδεξάμην as in the paradosis instead of Portus’ correction ἐξεθρεψάμην and I understand πατρί as a dative of person ‘from whom’. This use of dative is well attested in Homer and in classical Greek (cf. Tucker, Verrall, Untersteiner ad loc.). Blass (ad loc.) defends ἐξεθρεψάμην: ‘indes der Gegensatz 763 τεθνηκότος fordert doch das ἐκτρέφειν vorher’. However, his explanation is questionable.

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mother’ (Cho. 750) seems to suggest that Orestes had been living with his mother, or even that Clytemnestra, through the nurse, had found a way of providing food for her child.¹⁷⁷ Second, if we follow the scholiast on line 762, it is unclear why Agamemnon gave Orestes to the nurse. Did he want to protect him from his terrible mother, or to save him from the danger of a possible political turmoil in Argos (cf. Ag. 449–456, 805–809, 874– 879, 938)? The Greek is full of uncertainties. The dative πατρί, unlike the genitive πατρός that we would expect after ἐξεδεξάμην, implies the idea that ‘the child was received for as well as from the father, as the father’s trust’ (Verrall ad loc.). As in the case of the nurse’s speech, also the scene of Clytemnestra’s dream invites us to question Orestes’ representation of Clytemnestra as a mother nontropheus. Lines 545 – 546 are particularly striking: καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον θρόμβωι τ’ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα

As we will see, when Orestes uses the words φίλον and γάλα in relation to the image of blood in the maternal milk, he projects the image of a mother non-tropheus on Clytemnestra (cf. ch. 2, IV. 2), denying that breast-feeding presupposes a relation of philia between mother and child. However, Orestes’ words deconstruct their own categories. When the matricidal son speaks about the alimentary dependence of the son on his mother, he seems to anticipate Clytemnestra’s words in Cho. 896 – 898: ἐπίσχες, ὦ παῖ, τόνδε δ’ αἴδεσαι, τέκνον, μαστόν, πρὸς ὧι σὺ πολλὰ δὴ βρίζων ἅμα οὔλοισιν ἐξήμελξας εὐτραφὲς γάλα

On a closer reading, the expression ‘φίλον γάλα’ picks up the expression ‘εὐτραφὲς γάλα’, whereas the adjective θρεπτήριον refers to εὐτραφές and the adjective φίλον to the verb αἴδεσαι. As Orestes talks about Clytemnestra’s maternal breast, like his mother, he is also unable to deny that it feeds the baby and unites mother and child in a bond of philia. Thus, his attempts to suppress Clytemnestra’s biological motherhood and to define his father as the sole condition of life and power, which we have seen at work in his rhetoric of appropriation of the words φίλος, πόνος and τρέφειν, are not successful in re-defining the relation  According to this interpretation, I differ from Segal (1985: 18): ‘the Nurse’s lament at the loss of one whom she “nurtured, receiving from his mother” (Cho. 750) … it does remind us again of the mother’s rejection of the child she bore and of the destruction of the closest bonds of blood in this family’.

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between mother and child as a relation between two enemies. Therefore, to Goldhill’s question (LSN: 180) – ‘is it possible not to declare the mother-son relation φίλος τε αἰδοῖός τε?’ – I am inclined to give a negative answer. As Orestes affirms, when the recognition between his sister Electra and him takes place, Clytemnestra is φιλτάτη: Cho. 234: τοὺς φιλτάτους γὰρ οἶδα νῶιν ὄντας πικρούς

There is more to say about Clytemnestra’s representation as a mother-tropheus. From the very start of Choephoroi, it is clear to Orestes that Clytemnestra could actually murder Agamemnon, while remaining a mother-philos and tropheus of her children: Cho. 6 – 7: < > πλόκαμον Ἰνάχωι θρεπτήριον, τὸν δεύτερον δὲ τόνδε πενθητήριον

As Lebeck (1971: 97) has observed ‘The contrast of θρεπτήριον with πενθητήριον, made striking by similarity in sound and position in the line, suggests the conflict which faces Orestes, a conflict which the commos explores: the rite of mourning due his father, the debt of nurture owed his mother’. Line 321 of the kommos supports Lebeck’s remarks:¹⁷⁸ κέκληνται γόος εὐκλεὴς

When Orestes, Electra and the chorus gather around the king’s grave in order to perform the kommos, and beg Agamemnon and the chthonic gods to help them avenge him, Orestes is able only to intone a γόος εὐκλεής, i. e. a cry of future glory. It is the chorus that asks Orestes a γόος ἔνδικος (Cho. 330), i. e. a cry of mourning that conforms to justice.¹⁷⁹ Again, it seems reasonable to explain Orestes’ impasse with his resistance to put into words the sense of his impending violence against Clytemnestra, on the one hand, and with his reluctance to identify himself as a matricidal son, on the other. It is not by chance, then, that the chorus will keep silent about Clytemnestra’s motherhood in its reply to Orestes: Cho. 386 – 389: ἐφυμνῆσαι γένοιτό μοι πευκάεντ’ ὀλολυγμὸν ἀνδρὸς θεινομένου γυναικός τ’ ὀλλυμένας …

 I am following here Snearowski (1990: 50 – 59).  On the expression ‘γόος ἔνδικος’, cf. Lesky (1943: 39).

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The exhortation to matricide may succeed only if the very cause of Orestes’ conflict is removed – namely, the maternal bond between Clytemnestra and her son.¹⁸⁰ In fact, we see that a) the suppression of Clytemnestra’s maternal power to give and to nurture life, and b) her consequent characterisation as a wife (γυναικός), enemy of her husband (ἀνδρός), and murderess of him (θεινομένου), are two key-elements in the chorus’ search for a discourse that would justify matricide. However, through the voice of the chorus, the text describes a movement from a moment of acceptance (justification of matricide as the necessary killing of a bad wife) to a moment of doubt and hesitation. Indeed, given that the captive women never speak of Clytemnestra in her role as mother, how is it possible for them to speak of matricide as a legitimate action?¹⁸¹ This is a crucial moment in the chorus’ representation of matricide as a necessary deed, and in its discourse of exclusion and separation of Clytemnestra’s role as mother from her role as wife. Let us look at passage 306 – 313 at the beginning of the kommos. Here, the chorus defines matricide as a fulfilment of Zeus’ plans: Cho. 306 – 308: ἀλλ’ ὦ μεγάλαι Μοῖραι, Διόθεν τῆιδε τελευτᾶν, ἧι τὸ δίκαιον μεταβαίνει

Moreover, it claims that according to the lex talionis: 1) hostile words call for hostile words in response: Cho. 309 – 310: ἀντὶ μὲν ἐχθρᾶς γλώσσης ἐχθρὰ γλῶσσα τελείσθω …

2) the one who kills has to be killed: Cho. 312– 313: ἀντὶ δὲ πληγῆς φονίας φονίαν πληγὴν τινέτω …

 Cf. also passage 827– 837. The chorus denies Clytemnestra’s motherhood as it exhorts Orestes to see himself as the son of his father (Cho. 829: “τέκνον”, “ἔργωι πατρός” αὔδα) and to compare his matricidal experience to Perseus’ killing of the Gorgon (Cho. 831– 833: Περσέως δ’ ἐν φρεσὶν/καρδίαν < > σχεθὼν/τοῖς θ’ ὑπὸ χθονὸς φίλοις). For a similar discussion of line 829, cf. Neuburg (1991: 58 – 59 n. 26). On Orestes repeating the experience of Perseus, cf. Roux (1974: 79); Petrounias (1976: 166 – 167); Sider (1978: 23 – 24); Zeitlin (1978: 158 – 159); Rabinowitz (1981: 176 – 177); Loraux (1986: 90 – 92); O’Neill (1998: 222); Bacon (2001: 55 – 56). On line 829, cf. also Rabel (1980) and Vogt (1994: 102).  Cf. Eum. 154 where the Furies ask how matricide and the defence of the matricidal son could be defined as just acts: τί τῶνδ’ ἐρεῖ τις δικαίως ἔχειν;

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Yet, as a matter of fact, the hostile words of the chorus, namely its discourse on Clytemnestra as a murderous wife, and its representation of matricide as a necessary act do not succeed in denying her motherhood, and in justifying matricide. As we know from his very words, Orestes is tied to his mother by an inviolable bond of aidos (Cho. 899: μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;).¹⁸² So the attempt to turn Clytemnestra into a mother non-tropheus is not successful and the same can be said for the attempt to turn her into a mother non-tokeus. I turn to this point in the next section.

3 Clytemnestra as mother-tokeus As we have seen, when Orestes uses the verb τίκτειν in Cho. 913 (τεκοῦσα γάρ μ’ ἔρριψας ἐς τὸ δυστυχές), he is reproaching Clytemnestra for being a bad mother, or a mother non-mother (cf. p. 99). However, according to her, Orestes has not been sold off. He was sent to Strophius, a friend of the Atreid family, for fear of political turmoils in Argos (Ag. 874– 879).¹⁸³ Interestingly enough, like Clytemnestra, also the Argive elders and Agamemnon mention this danger (Ag. 449 – 456, 805 – 809, 938). Moreover, when Orestes himself mentions the name of Strophius (Cho. 679), he seems to confirm the account of the events of his childhood that had been given by Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon (Ag. 877 ff.).¹⁸⁴ Lines 983 – 989 too seem to pinpoint the failure of Orestes to undermine Clytemnestra’s power to give life. Orestes speaks this passage in the context of the speech he delivers on the corpses of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. He hopes that one day the sun will witness the justice of his matricide: ἐκτείνατ’ αὐτὸ καὶ κύκλωι παρασταδὸν στέγαστρον ἀνδρὸς δείξαθ’, ὡς ἴδηι πατήρ, οὐχ οὑμός, ἀλλ’ ὁ πάντ’ ἐποπτεύων τάδε Ἥλιος, ἄναγνα μητρὸς ἔργα τῆς ἐμῆς, ὡς ἂν παρῆι μοι μάρτυς ἐν δίκηι ποτὲ

 On γλῶσσα as referring to a discourse of exclusion and separation of Clytemnestra’s status as wife from her status as mother, cf. p. 48. On the inviolable bond of aidos between mother and child, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 141): ‘Orestes is to act within a society for which the parent is a supreme object of aidos’.  Cf. the similar situation for Telemachus in Ithaca (Od. 16, 418 – 447).  Cf. Pontani (2007: 207– 208): ‘the name of Orestes’ host … represents not only one of the threads connecting the second play of the trilogy to the first, but also the only ἐμφανὲς τέκμαρ (Cho. 667) to Orestes’ entire tale’. Similarly, cf. Mejer (1979: 118).

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ὡς τόνδ’ ἐγὼ μετῆλθον ἐνδίκως φόνον τὸν μητρός …

Yet, as Goldhill (LSN: 248) has similarly pointed out, Orestes does not deny Clytemnestra’s maternal power of reproduction, or her role as mother. As we know, it is Apollo who denies it. In this respect, some questions arise. How does the matricidal son appropriate the words μήτηρ and ἐνδίκως in Cho. 988 – 989? Do we have to maintain that here, with the word μήτηρ, Orestes is referring to Clytemnestra as his mother non-mother, and as an adulterous wife, as he clearly does in line 986 (ἄναγνα μητρὸς ἔργα)? Or should we rather assume that he is talking about Clytemnestra as the murderess of her husband, and as his mother-philos and tokeus at the same time? Furthermore, given this possible shift in Orestes’ use of the word μήτηρ, how are we supposed to understand his definition of matricide as an act of dike (ἐνδίκως φόνον τὸν μητρός)? Does matricide simply represent the killing of a bad wife, as in Apollo’s discourse in Eumenides, or is it rather the killing of a mother giving life, as the Furies maintain? The difficulty to establish a fixed meaning for μήτηρ in line 989 reflects the reluctance on the part of Orestes to murder his own mother in Cho. 899 (Πυλάδη, τί δράσω; μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;), putting into crisis his representation of Clytemnestra as a bad mother and an adulterous wife. This reading of passage 983 – 989 fits to passage 197– 201 as well, which we have already read as an attempt to deny consanguinity with the mother (cf. pp. 103–104): … εὖ σάφ’ ἤινει τόνδ’ ἀποπτύσαι πλόκον εἴπερ γ’ ἀπ’ ἐχθροῦ κρατὸς ἦν τετμημένος, ἢ ξυγγενὴς ὢν εἶχε συμπενθεῖν ἐμοί, ἄγαλμα τύμβου τοῦδε καὶ τιμὴν πατρός. ἀλλ’ εἰδότας μὲν τοὺς θεοὺς καλούμεθα

Here, Electra relies on the gods to decide about the children’s consanguinity with their mother, and about the characterisation of the mother figure as an echthros. ¹⁸⁵ This reference to the necessity of a divine ruling on the mother’s function in kinship relations foreshadows the coming controversy between the Fur-

 According to Garvie (ad loc.), with line 201 ‘the speech begins again … with the finding of the new evidence’. Therefore, it can be objected that Electra is not referring to the gods as the ones who know whether consanguinity exists between the mother and her children. However, in passage 201– 204 Electra is not providing any new evidence, but lamenting instead the miserable fate of her family. In this sense, it can plausibly be argued that Electra in line 201 relies on the gods for the decision on maternal consanguinity.

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ies, Apollo and Athena. It also shows that Electra, as a daughter, is unable to affirm or to deny her consanguinity with Clytemnestra, and therefore to speak plausibly of her mother as an echthros. As Goldhill (LSN: 124) has aptly observed: ‘the opposition συγγενής/ἐχθρός is not sufficient to answer Electra’s incertitude – it cannot, as suggested, εὖ σάφ’ ἤινει (197)’. The suspicion arises that killing Clytemnestra might in fact imply, as the chorus claims, to break the biological bond of consanguinity between mother and child (Cho. 1038: φεύγων τόδ’ αἷμα κοινόν) and to incur into a miasma (Cho. 1017: ἄζηλα νίκης τῆσδ’ ἔχων μιάσματα). It is worth commenting that the Greek in verse 1038 expresses a relation of consanguinity between mother and child: the controversy on Orestes’ acquittal will be primarily about the bond of blood between mother and child (cf. section 3 in the chapter on Eumenides). Hence, I have the impression that Wilgaux (2006: 342; 2011: 221– 222), in his important papers on social and natural kinship in ancient Greece, has forgotten Orestes’ trouble, when he writes that terms referring to maternal blood are extremely rare in Greek. There is even more to say about the play’s denial of the maternal bond that ties up Clytemnestra with her children. Some remarks on Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τίκτειν in line 419 of the kommos point out the difficulty to deny the maternal role of Clytemnestra: πάθομεν ἄχεα πρός γε τῶν τεκομένων;

According to Italie, when Electra uses the verb τίκτειν, Clytemnestra is represented in her function as mother giving life.¹⁸⁶ The distinction between echthros (the mother non-tropheus and non-tokeus) and philos (the father tropheus and tokeus) is not enough, then, to eliminate the assimilation of the reproductive agency of mother and father from the text. In Greek this assimilation is expressed by the plural τῶν τεκομένων – probably something more than a polished replacement of the colloquial genitive singular τῆς τεκούσης, and not just a periphrasis for Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.¹⁸⁷ Again, in the kommos, the chorus’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τίκτειν in line 329 – 330 confronts us with the same impasse:

 Cf. Italie who quotes this line for τίκτειν in the meaning of ‘gignere de matre’. The verb τεκομένων has to refer to Clytemnestra also because in line 422 Electra talks about Clytemnestra as her mother. On this point, cf. Freyman (1976: 66 with n. 3). For τίκτειν here as referring to Clytemnestra, cf. also Föllinger (2007: 20).  For these readings, cf. Lesky (1943: 87); Young (1971: 308); Amigues (1982: 33).

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πατέρων δὲ καὶ τεκόντων γόος …

According to Goldhill (LSN: 142), the genitives πατέρων and τεκόντων, dependent on γόος in line 330, may refer to ‘the possible separation of “biological” and “social” definitions of paternity’. This is hard to deny, since in Greek the word πατήρ defines the social and religious functions of a man with children. However, I think that these lines are open to an alternative interpretation. The genitive πατέρων, in juxtaposition to τεκόντων, seems to define motherhood and fatherhood respectively on the basis of male and female reproductive power, and thus to assimilate the mother and the father in their respective role as genetic parent. It is important to maintain that here τεκόντων has to refer also to Clytemnestra’s motherhood. Indeed, the verb τίκτειν occurs repeatedly in the Oresteia in reference to Clytemnestra, since this verb is used primarily for the mother.¹⁸⁸ Again, the attempt to deny Clytemnestra’s maternal role through the dichotomy of philos (father-tropheus and tokeus) vs. echthros (mother non-tropheus and non-tokeus) does not seem to function. Rather, the boundary between motherhood and fatherhood seems to be thin and faint. The conclusions we have drawn for line 329 hold true for line 385 of the kommos as well. In this case, Orestes uses the dative plural τοκεῦσι in order to refer to both mother and father:¹⁸⁹ … τοκεῦσι δ’ ὅμως τελεῖται

Orestes’ language, as in the case of the chorus, is unable to suppress easily the motherhood of Clytemnestra. The assimilation of the mother’s and of the father’s reproductive agency, implied in ‘πατέρων δὲ καὶ τεκόντων’ (Cho. 329) and ‘τοκεῦσι’ (Cho. 385) returns at lines 681– 682, with the expression ‘πρὸς τοὺς τεκόντας’: πρὸς τοὺς τεκόντας πανδίκως μεμνημένος τεθνεῶτ’ Ὀρέστην εἰπέ …

 Cf. Chantraine (1947: 245 – 246). As in the Oresteia, also in Pindar’s odes the verb τίκτειν is referred primarly of the mother; cf. Segal (1986: 177 with n. 24). For τίκτειν here as referring to mother and father, cf. Italie who quotes τεκόντων in the meaning of ‘parentes’.  For τοκεῦσι as referring also to Clytemnestra’s motherhood, cf. Lebeck (1971: 118). Accordingly, I differ from Lesky (1943: 67) and Schadewaldt (1970: 264 n. 52) who refers it only to Agamemnon. Italie does not quote this line.

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Orestes speaks these lines to Clytemnestra, while, under the guise of a stranger from Daulis, he affirms he has been told to report the news of Orestes’ death to his parents. Coming from Orestes, the occurance of the verb τίκτειν (τοὺς τεκόντας) refers to both Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and sounds like a reminder of the atrocity of his impending matricide.¹⁹⁰ This may become clearer by considering that πανδίκως, in strict relation to τοὺς τεκόντας, foreshadows the dramatic situation of Eumenides: here, the definition of kinship’s relations through marriage, and the negation of consanguinity between mother and child become the object of a judicial controversy between the Furies, Orestes, Apollo and Athena. As for Orestes, also for Electra Clytemnestra is a mother-tokeus. Interestingly enough, Electra, like Clytemnestra in Agamemnon (Ag. 1417– 1418: ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοί/ὠδῖν’), uses the word ὠδίς to express her mother’s power to give life:¹⁹¹ Cho. 211: πάρεστι δ’ ὠδὶς καὶ φρενῶν καταφθορά

Electra speaks this line on Agamemnon’s tomb, in the context of the speech she delivers after having found a ringlet: she represents Clytemnestra as a mater monstruosa and asks herself whether the ringlet belongs to Orestes or not. Yet, as her representation of Clytemnestra as a mother giving life (ὠδίς) shows, Electra’s rhetoric does not have the power to deny Clytemnestra’s motherhood entirely. This might explain why in the kommos, when she begs paternal help to get her revenge, she speaks of Clytemnestra as an enemy, not as her mother: Cho. 142– 143: ἡμῖν μὲν εὐχὰς τάσδε, τοῖς δ’ ἐναντίοις λέγω φανῆναι σοῦ, πάτερ, τιμάορον

The reluctance of Electra is emphasised in the text through the juxtaposition of the words μητρός in lines 140 – 141 (αὐτῆι τέ μοι δὸς σωφρονεστέραν πολὺ/ μητρὸς γενέσθαι) and ἐναντίοις in lines 142– 143 (τοῖς δ’ ἐναντίοις/λέγω φανῆναι σοῦ, πάτερ). Electra uses the word μήτηρ in order to normalise the role of Clytemnestra as a mother, implying that she is supposed to be the faithful spouse of her husband and nothing more.¹⁹² Yet, as we have seen in Cho. 88 – 90 (cf. pp. 110 – 111), she is not able to use the word μήτηρ to name her mother as the object of her revenge. When it comes to the killing of her mother, Electra keeps signifi Cf. Italie who quotes this line for τίκτειν in the meaning of ‘parentes’.  On ὠδίς as a hint to Clytemnestra’s motherhood, cf. Lebeck (1971: 109).  For σώφρων in the meaning of castus here, cf. Italie. For σώφρων as referring to female sexuality, cf. Goldhill (LSN: 117); Carson (1990: 142– 143).

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cantly silent about Clytemnestra’s motherhood. Her silence corresponds to the repetition of the word πατήρ to refer to Agamemnon: Cho. 139: κατεύχομαί σοι, καὶ σὺ κλῦθί μου, πάτερ Cho. 143: λέγω φανῆναι σοῦ, πάτερ, τιμάορον

It is particularly relevant to notice that Electra’s use of the word πατήρ in lines 139 and 143 is closely related to her demand to be more σώφρων than her mother in lines 140–141. Given that for Electra being σώφρων depends on her father, with the word πατήρ she seems to consider Agamemnon the administrator of her sexuality. However, there is more to say about Electra’s use of the word σώφρων in the expression ‘σωφρονεστέραν μητρός’, and about its reference to female sexuality. I face this issue in the next section.

4 Maternal sophronein In lines 140–141, as we have seen, Electra makes a wish to be more σώφρων than her mother is, i. e. to be more ‘of sound mind, shameful’ (LSJ) than Clytemnestra. What can we plausibly say about Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the adjective σωφρονεστέραν? In the first place, we see that Electra’s questions about her mother’s state of mind are clearly related to Clytemnestra’s deviant sexuality: it is exactly because Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife that she might not be σώφρων. In fact, Electra’s construction of her mother as a paradigmatic instance of the female as not σώφρων presupposes a normative discourse on female sexuality: since she has no shame, she is not reasonable. Now, a comparison between Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν in Agamemnon and Electra’s appropriation of the adjective σώφρων points to a shift in the use of these words. According to Clytemnestra, a mother is endorsed with σωφρονεῖν, since she gives life to her child. Therefore, for Clytemnestra, the female mind is bound together with female reproductive agency (cf. ch. 1, I. 5). On the contrary, Electra’s discourse does not link the female mind and female reproductive agency together, and, what is more, it criticises her mother’s state of mind because of her deviant sexual behaviour. This is an important point. Electra’s discourse on her mother’s state of mind paves the way to the Eumenides’ discourse on fatherhood and paternal authority. As we will see in the chapter on Eumenides, in the last play of the trilogy the father figure is conceived

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as the origin of life and rationality, given that the mother is understood as an irrational being that plays no role in the reproduction of children.¹⁹³ However, it is remarkable that Electra uses the expression ‘σωφρονεστέραν μητρός’ as she is praying, looking for help in avenging her father’s death. In this context, her wish to be more σώφρων (i. e. of sound mind, shameful) than her mother, obviously, cannot be fulfilled.¹⁹⁴ Her failed achievement is indicative: it demonstrates how difficult it is to define a coherent discourse, capable of justifying matricide. The line of interpretation I am following for passage 140 – 143 can be applied to line 88 as well (cf. pp. 110–111), πῶς εὔφρον’ εἴπω; πῶς κατεύξωμαι πατρί;

Here, Electra is searching for reasonable words that might help her to win support from her father in the revenge on Clytemnestra. Nonetheless, her quest is doomed to fail: as a daughter desiring the death of her mother, Electra cannot act and speak in a reasonable way. In fact, Electra’s language in these lines problematises her representation as mourning daughter for her father. Surely, Electra’s funeral rites are not corrupt (unlike the rites performed by Clytemnestra). However, the similarities between Clytemnestra and the mourning Electra (she is as unreasonable as Clytemnestra is), shed a negative light on the supposed legitimacy of the rites she is accomplishing for her dead father.¹⁹⁵ Therefore, we end up with two reading options: either Electra is non-εὔφρων like her mother, or, when she uses the word εὔφρων, she is simply constructing a negative discourse on Clytemnestra’s state of mind. I am inclined towards the second possibility. The absence of Agamemnon from the stage supports this choice. Electra uses words to construct a negative characterisation of Clytemnestra, and to deny the reliability of her female mind. Yet, she does not have any words that might make Agamemnon appear again, legitimatising her discourse of revenge.  Electra’s discourse on Clytemnestra and her maternal mind echoes the Homeric paradigm of female mind. The Homeric epos, as we know, does not envisage the adjective σώφρων. However, as Zeitlin has shown in her brilliant paper ‘Figuring fidelity in Homer’s Odyssey’ (p. 44, n. 56), Penelope embodies the prototype of fidelity precisely because she is ἐχέφρων, that is to say able to keep a good mind, a good sense (e. g., Od. 24, 196 – 198).  Similarly, cf. Lebeck (1971: 103): ‘on the lips of Electra … the traditional pity … of this prayer is sacrilege’; Rademaker (2005: 112): ‘Clytemnestra also lacked σωφροσύνη in that sense, because she insisted on revenge for Iphigenia. And Electra herself is as unprepared to accept this type of σωφροσύνη as were Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’.  For, I differ from Hame (2004) who sees in Electra’s mourning a clear evidence of the health of the Atreid household, when it was run by Agamemnon.

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Despite Orestes’ statement towards the end of the kommos – about Agamemnon not being dead, even if he is a dead person (Cho. 504: οὕτω γὰρ οὐ τέθνηκας οὐδέ περ θανών) – as a matter of fact the king is and remains dead, and as such he is not able to help his daughter to kill her mother. Surely, we could object that putting Electra’s and Clytemnestra’s mind and their use of language on the same level is misleading. Electra is struggling for a proper use of language (in fact, she asks how she could pronounce reasonable words); in Agamemnon, Clytemnestra admits that she has spoken shamefully:¹⁹⁶ Ag. 855 – 857:

ἄνδρες πολῖται, πρέσβος Ἀργείων τόδε, οὐκ αἰσχυνοῦμαι τοὺς φιλάνορας τρόπους λέξαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς … Ag. 1372– 1373: πολλῶν πάροιθεν καιρίως εἰρημένων τἀναντί’ εἰπεῖν οὐκ ἐπαισχυνθήσομαι

We have to consider two points here. First, even though Clytemnestra admits that her way of speech is transgressive, her rhetoric of explanation for the killing of Agamemnon still has a certain legitimacy, as I argue in the first chapter. Second, it is precisely the struggle of Electra for a proper use of words that can be interpreted as a sign of weakness in her discursive suppression of the motherhood of Clytemnestra. In this sense, her language destabilizes the legitimation of matricide, as well as the definition of Agamemnon as father and subject of power. Orestes struggles for a proper use of words too, when, at the beginning of the kommos, he asks himself which words he is supposed to utter to refer to his father:¹⁹⁷ Cho. 315 – 318: ὦ πάτερ αἰνόπατερ, τί σοι φάμενος ἢ τί ῥέξας τύχοιμ’ ἄγκαθεν οὐρίσας ἔνθα σ’ ἔχουσιν εὐναί;

Yet, despite his search for a proper language, and the request for paternal support, Agamemnon will not help his son to plot against the bad mother Clytemnestra: he is and remains dead.¹⁹⁸ Again, the absence of Agamemnon from the

 On lines 855 – 857 as paradigmatic for Clytemnestra’s bilingualism and transgression of correct linguistic behaviour for women, cf. McClure (1999: 77– 78).  The expression ‘πάτερ αἰνόπατερ’ seems to recall by contrast the Homeric expression ‘μῆτερ δύσμητερ’ in Od. 23, 97.  The same can be said for Orestes’ certainty in Eumenides that his father will help him during the trial (Eum. 598, 647– 648). For Orestes asking the help of his father, cf. also Cho. 489:

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stage performs something that is hardly accomplished with words, namely the definition of an authoritative discourse both about Clytemnestra as a mother not giving life, and about Agamemnon as father and subject of power in the family and in society. In the next section, I discuss Clytemnestra’s reaction to the news of Orestes’ death, exploring further her characterisation as a mother-philos of her child.

5 Clytemnestra as mother-philos and the death of her son The third episode, as we have seen (cf. ch. 2, II. 2), attests the biological estrangement between Clytemnestra and Orestes: when he deceptively announces his own death, Orestes takes for granted that the father figure is the only genetic parent of children. Furthermore, if we consider true the nurse’s assertions about Clytemnestra being actually pleased for Orestes’ death (Cho. 737– 740), we have to suppose that Clytemnestra is lying, when she expresses her grief at the death of her son (Cho. 691– 699). In fact, unlike the case of the nurse, who really loved Orestes, in the case of Clytemnestra we might detect that she disturbingly pretends her maternal feeling. From this point of view, the text of Choephoroi seems very easy to read. The nurse tells the truth; Clytemnestra lies. As Pontani (2007: 208 – 209 with n. 17) has similarly observed: – Clytemnestra is not a mother; – Orestes does not commit matricide, rather he kills an adulterous wife, murderess of her own husband, the king of Argos; – if we see matricide as the killing of an adulterous wife and a mother, we are stating a complexity in Choephoroi that the Aeschylean text does not display. There is much to object to this interpretation. As we have seen, according to Electra’s and Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of words such as τρέφειν, τίκτειν, σώφρων, εὔφρων and φίλος, Clytemnestra is an adulterous wife and a bad mother. Yet, Orestes and Electra lose control over these words, giving rise to a discourse on Clytemnestra as a mother, at least in part, philos. I maintain that it is important to examine Clytemnestra’s reaction to the news of the death of her son against the background of her depiction as a mother-philos. As such,

ὦ γαῖ’, ἄνες μοι πατέρ’ ἐποπτεῦσαι μάχην; 495: ἆρ’ ἐξεγείρηι τοῖσδ’ ὀνείδεσιν, πάτερ. Arguing that Agamemnon in the kommos cannot help Orestes, I differ from Sewell-Rutter (2007: 160): ‘The presence of the father Agamemnon, a presence very strongly felt in this part of the drama (315 – 18, 332– 5, 434– 7 and passim), helps the young man steel himself for an atrocious deed’.

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her despair in reaction to the alleged (but de facto false) report of Orestes’ death is not surprising: Cho. 694– 695: τόξοις πρόσωθεν εὐσκόποις χειρουμένη φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με τὴν παναθλίαν

According to Michelini, Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος in these lines is a sound evidence of her adulterous love for Aegisthus, and of her fake maternal feelings for Orestes.¹⁹⁹ Quoting Michelini (1979: 156 – 157): ‘She claims to be bereft of “dear ones” (philoi), presumably through the deaths of two children. But the word philos is awkwardly ambiguous … She substituted for her proper husband a man who should have been an echthros (“enemy”), thus estranging her remaining philoi, Agamemnon’s living children. The potential irony of 695 becomes actual very soon after, when Klytaimestra contradicts herself, boasting that she will consult Aigisthos on this matter, since she “has no lack of philoi” (717). The paradox of exchanges and confusions in love and hate is Klytaimestra’s unresolvable dilemma; it appears at the last in Orestes’ words (907– 908)’. I do not agree with these remarks, for two different reasons. First, we have to distinguish between specific discourses on motherhood in this drama, and take them equally seriously. Therefore, Orestes’ words in lines 906 – 907 can hardly be read as a confirmation of Clytemnestra’s hypocrisy in lines 694– 695. According to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος (cf. ch. 2, II. 1), Clytemnestra is first and foremost a female betrayer of her husband in the first place, and thus the echthros of the Atreid family and a mater monstruosa. According to her rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος, instead, her adulterous love (Cho. 717: σπανίζοντες φίλων) does not eliminate her maternal love for her children (Cho. 695: φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με τὴν παναθλίαν). Hence, Clytemnestra does not dissimulate her love for the wrong man behind her rhetorical love for her children. Rather, she manipulates the word φίλος by speaking of herself as a woman and as a mother: when she expresses love for her dead child, she hides her feelings for Aegisthus (and, therefore, she is deprived of any friends); when she speaks about her feelings for Aegisthus, she hides her love for her dead children (therefore, she has friends). So, an explanation for the apparent

 On Clytemnestra’s sincerity, cf. e. g. Dawe (1963: 53 – 54); Lesky (1972: 126); Otis (1981: 76 – 77); Rosenmeyer (1982: 240 – 241); Winnington-Ingram (1946: 59; 1983: 216 – 218); Margon (1983: 297); Garvie (ad loc.); Konishi (1990: 181 n. 69); Käppel (1998: 221); Di Benedetto (1999: 430 n. 122); Untersteiner (ad loc.); Föllinger (2003: 96 – 97). On her hypocrisy, cf. e. g. Bennett Anderson (1932: 306); Zeitlin (1965: 491; 1978: 157); Conacher (1987: 119 – 120); Pontani (2007: 222).

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anomaly of Clytemnestra’s speech in lines 694– 695 does not seem to be found in the context of her sincerity or hypocrisy. Rather, we should read her reaction by taking into account Orestes and Clytemnestra’s different rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος. Furthermore, the similarities between the chorus’ expression ‘στερομέναν φίλων’ in Ag. 1429 and Clytemnestra’s expression ‘φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με’ in Cho. 695 display the continuity in her representation as an outraged mother in both Agamemnon and Choephoroi. This should prevent us from seeing a hint of hypocrisy in her self-depiction as a mater dolorosa. ²⁰⁰ I would go even further, and say that this alleged hypocrisy is again the result of a critical level that manipulates Clytemnestra’s maternal pain into an excuse for sex. That said, there is no point in assuming that the consistency of the text has to be saved, and that lines 691– 699 have to be spoken by Electra.²⁰¹ Certainly, these lines would make sense even on the lips of Electra. We can imagine her too, lamenting the curse of the house, expressing despair and hopelessness to get a revenge on her evil mother. However, this reading would simplify the text, erasing the textual evidence for the complex characterisation of Clytemnestra as a mother and as a wife in the play. Taking for granted that Clytemnestra is, at least in part, a philos of her son, Orestes’ revenge, despite Electra’s, the chorus’, and his own rhetoric of the justice of matricide, does not fulfil dike. Rather, it turns out to be a highly ambiguous act (Cho. 931: συμφορὰν διπλῆν), an act of justice out of unjust things (Cho. 398: δίκαν δ’ ἐξ ἀδίκων ἀπαιτῶ) and a violent accomplishment that opposes dike to dike, Ares to Ares (Cho. 461: Ἄρης Ἄρει ξυμβαλεῖ, Δίκαι Δίκα), causing a necessity for further retaliations (Cho. 313: δράσαντα παθεῖν).²⁰² Again, the tragic

 Cf. Goldhill (LSN: 168 – 169) who notes that Clytemnestra, enemy of her son, offers hospitality, without knowing it, to Orestes: a xenos, coming from Phocis (Cho. 674, 688 – 690, 700 – 703). Thus, Orestes is forced to enter a relation of xenia, and therefore of philia, with his mother in order to kill her: ‘yet by the laws of hospitality, Orestes as ξένος places himself in a relation of φιλία (705, 708) to Clytemnestra … a relation that he will transgress’.  On this discussion, cf. McDonald (1960).  On this reading, cf. LSN: 183. Further elements in the text pinpoint the ambiguity of Orestes’ violence against his mother. The chorus stresses the ambivalent character of Orestes’ matricide as an act of dike and an act against dike when it refers to Clytemnestra’s death with the oxymoron ἀνεπίμομφον ἄταν (Cho. 830) – on Aeschylean oxymora, cf. Walsh (1984: 65 – 79) and Seaford (2003). Similarly, as has been often observed, ruptures in the metereological and environmental equilibrium of nature underline the problematic aspects of Orestes’ violent action against his mother (nature: Cho. 260, 281, 585–590, 1009; wind: 186, 202, 271 ff., 591– 592; light: 51–53, 536 – 538). On this topic, cf. Peradotto (1964); Dumortier (1975a: 114– 118). In particular on the wind’s motif, cf. Rousseau (1963: 117, 134); Zeitlin (1965: 499 – 501); Scott (1966); Borthwick (1976:7); Conacher (1996: 140); for the imagery of light, Fowler (1967: 64– 65) and Petrounias

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text re-writes itself, questioning the characters’ discourse on Clytemnestra as a bad wife and a bad mother. In the next section, I bring further arguments in support of my thesis.

6 Divine command against the mother and human suffering for the mother In Cho. 930, at the end of the stichomythia with his mother, the matricidal son asserts that Clytemnestra killed the one who she ought not to, and therefore that she has to experience/to suffer a pain that she was not supposed to: ἔκανες ὃν οὐ χρῆν, καὶ τὸ μὴ χρεὼν πάθε

According to this verse, the necessity of a violent act against Clytemnestra seems to vanish and Orestes’ yearning for matricide (Cho. 299: ἵμεροι), caused by the fear that nothing would be worse than disobeying Apollo’s oracle (Cho. 269 – 296), seems like a daring theological deceit. Indeed, given that according to her matricidal son Clytemnestra has to suffer a pain that she does not deserve, how shall we understand Orestes’ firm belief that Apollo would guarantee the fulfilment of the act he ordered? Cho. 269 – 270: οὔτοι προδώσει Λοξίου μεγασθενὴς χρησμὸς κελεύων τόνδε κίνδυνον περᾶν

With his assertion that his mother suffers undeservedly, is Orestes perhaps questioning the validity of the matricide ordered by Apollo?²⁰³ More can be said about Orestes’ casting doubt upon the divine necessity of matricide. Orestes himself seems to be aware that the necessity of Clytemnestra’s death does not come from a divine order in the first place. As we can easily guess from lines 297– 298, he has to trust Apollo, but, at the same time, he has to commit matricide with or without the trust in the divine authority of the oracular response of the god:

(1976: 245 – 254). On line 931, cf. Higgins (1978: 31). For a review of metaphors of light in Homer, tragedy and Platon, cf. Tarrant (1960).  For a different and interesting analysis of the compelling ambiguity of Apollo’s oracle, cf. Goward (1999: 66 – 67). On this topic, cf. also Roberts (1984: 70 – 72). On the divine necessity of Orestes’ matricide, cf. also the chorus in Cho. 790 – 796, 949 – 952 and Eum. 203. On the divine necessity of Orestes’ matricide, cf. e. g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1914: 205); Reinhardt (1949: 112– 119); Fritz (1962: 122 – 129); Schadewaldt (1970: 278 – 284).

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τοιοῖσδε χρησμοῖς ἆρα χρὴ πεποιθέναι; κεἰ μὴ πέποιθα, τοὖργόν ἐστ’ ἐργαστέον

I would like to raise some questions on this point. In line 438 (ἔπειτ’ ἐγὼ νοσφίσας ὀλοίμαν), is it legitimate to say that Orestes’ desire to die, after having killed his mother, foreshadow the pain felt by the hero after the matricide (Cho. 1016: ἀλγῶ μὲν ἔργα καὶ πάθος γένος τε πᾶν)? I will not attempt any psychological interpretation.²⁰⁴ However, if we are to take seriously Orestes’ expression of pain for Clytemnestra’s death, his firm resolve to die after matricide, and his statement that matricide is a theological necessity – but nonetheless must be committed also in absence of the trust in an oracular command – the text of Choephoroi seems to mark a difference between Orestes, the chorus and Pylades’ approach to the killing of the mother. For the chorus and Pylades, matricide has a divine dimension: it has to be committed because Apollo orders it. This is true for Orestes as well: the order of the god has to be obeyed. Yet, for Orestes, matricide has also a human dimension: it has to be committed one way or the other, even in the absence of the trust in a divine order; yet, to murder the mother means to engender suffering and to arouse a desire to die. Thus, Orestes’ pain illustrates how hard it is to bridge the distance between the human and the divine world. In Aeschylus’ poetry, humans suffer not only because of the gods, but also in spite of them. Still, Orestes kills Clytemnestra. The brutality of such an action against a mother on the part of her own son is pinpointed by Clytemnestra’s representation as a vulnerable woman.²⁰⁵ The woman, who tries to arm herself against her son (Cho. 889: δοίη τις ἀνδροκμῆτα πέλεκυν ὡς τάχος), will be showing her breast to Orestes. Now, does she really get the axe, and if so, why and when does she lay down the weapon? The text seems to keep silent on the matter.²⁰⁶ However, despite these uncertainties, it seems open to the chance that a fundamental difference between the male and the female use of violence is in place. Clytemnestra might try to kill Orestes, but in the end, she does not; she

 On this issue, cf. Brown (1983: 16 – 17) who discusses at length why we should refrain from such interpretations of this line.  Cf. Sommerstein (2008: xii) who suggests ‘Clytaemestra’s failure to get hold of an axe or other weapon to defend herself and/or Aegisthus, so that she is killed unarmed and in cold blood’. For the discussion on Clytemnestra’s weapon, cf. Davies (1987); Sommerstein (1989a); Prag (1991); Föllinger (2003: 71– 74). For the iconographic tradition of this scene, cf. Goldman (1910: 135– 137); Prag (1985: 19, 24, 88 – 91, 96, 106 – 107, 141).  Accordingly, I differ from Rösler (2006: 19 – 20) who assumes that Clytemnestra does get the axe.

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will be killed by him. On the contrary, Agamemnon does not know whether he should sacrifice her daughter or not, but in the end he will decide in favour of Iphigeneia’s death. Orestes initially hesitates to kill his mother, but finally he does. Thus, a father and a son both kill kindred (a daughter, a mother). A mother cannot do it. Clytemnestra kills her husband and the father of her daughter; she cannot kill her own son and, more than that, she cannot deny the philia with Orestes, even after having been killed by him: Eum. 100: παθοῦσα δ’ οὕτω δεινὰ πρὸς τῶν φιλτάτων

This could be the reason why Orestes, Apollo and the Furies display a different rhetoric of appropriation of the word δίκη (the mother’s rights, the justice due to/ of the mother, the legitimacy/justice of matricide – cf. Eum. 230 – 231; 491– 492; 612– 613; 785 = 815). And, in turn, this might also be the reason why the whole tragic conflict of Eumenides takes place, along with a search for a justification both for the suppression of Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and for the definition of blood ties and power relations as based on the law of the Father.

7 Conclusions In sections one to six, we have seen that Orestes’ and Electra’s construction of Clytemnestra as a mother-echthros, i. e. a mother non-giving and non-nurturing life, and their search for an authoritative definition of the father figure as tropheus and tokeus is not completely successful in the end: – according to Orestes, Clytemnestra did actually feed her baby; – according to Electra, there is a bond of consanguinity between mother and child; – Electra’s criticism of Clytemnestra’s mind is exposed to vulnerability; – Orestes’ and Electra’s language is not successful in denying Clytemnestra’s maternal power to give and to nurture life. As a mother, Clytemnestra is and remains φιλτάτη (Cho. 234: τοὺς φιλτάτους γὰρ οἶδα νῶιν ὄντας πικρούς). Matricide, then, is a problematic act of dike; – the chorus pushes Electra and Orestes to the act of matricide by suppressing Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and by projecting the image of an adulterous wife against her husband and the children’s father on her. However, the pain of the matricidal son for the death of his mother tells us that matricide is and remains a highly problematic deed.

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IV Shall I kill the mother? The reality (of the metaphors) of son and mother In what follows, I take a closer look at the text of the dream, in order to explain why Orestes’ decision to kill his mother puts into crisis his own representation of Clytemnestra as a bad mother. My contention is that the dream-text confronts us with the failure of Orestes in decision-making (murder of the mother non-tropheus and non-tokeus as revenge due to the father-tokeus and tropheus).

1 The blood of the mother, once again Queens in Aeschylus tend to dream. Atossa dreams in the Persians (Pers. 176 – 214); Clytemnestra dreams in the Choephoroi (Cho. 523 – 539). Clytemnestra’s dream is perhaps one of the most famous scenes of the Oresteia. She dreams about giving birth to a serpent, wrapping it in swaddling clothes, and offering her own breast to feed it on blood and milk.²⁰⁷ This dream has all the features of a nightmare. It disturbs; it terrifies (Cho. 35: μυχόθεν ἔλακε περὶ φόβωι; 524: καὶ νυκτιπλάγκτων δειμάτων πεπαλμένη; 535: ἡ δ’ ἐξ ὕπνου κέκλαγγεν ἐπτοημένη; 929: ἦ κάρτα μάντις οὑξ ὀνειράτων φόβος). Something strikes Clytemnestra with horror; not least a chromatic hallucination – the whiteness of the maternal milk stained by the redness of her mother’s blood: Orestes – Cho. 532: καὶ πῶς ἄτρωτον οὖθαρ ἦν ὑπὸ στύγους; Chorus – Cho. 533: ὥστ’ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι

As far as I can tell, almost nothing has been said in the scholarship about this particular image.²⁰⁸ Where to begin? From the mother’s menstrual blood which gives life. I suspect that, as in Ag. 1417– 1418 (ch. 1, I. 2– 3), this is the issue to look at once again. According to the studies of Heritier (1996: 154– 157), the African tribe of the Samo, the Accadian physicians and the ones of early modern Europe all prescribed sexual abstinence for lactating women. The reason was not fear of unwel On the image of the serpent in western culture, cf. Sancassano (1997).  As far as I can tell, only Segal (1985: 18), Sommerstein (1996: 248), Walde (2001: 118), and Ceu Fialho (2010: 113) has written some brief remarks on the image of blood and milk in Clytemnestra’s dream. Friedman’s and Gassel’s compelling psychoanalytic analysis of the dream scene (1951: 425 – 427) focuses on the meaning of Clytemnestra’s breast, but it is silent on her milk mixed up with blood. Fowler (1967: 56 – 57) and Petrounias (1976: 165 – 166) only discuss the animal symbolism.

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come pregnancies, but rather the idea that the flood of semen during copulation might move menstrual blood up to the breast and cause milk to curdle. Thus, respect for a dietary order between mother and child denies sexual intercourse to the lactating woman. As the cases studied by Heritier, also the dream scene of Choephoroi and the image of blood in maternal milk may tell us something about both the dietary regimen for mother and child, and female sexuality. Indeed, the traces of Clytemnestra’s blood in maternal milk might be a sign of her perverse sexual intercourse (she is the adulterous woman par excellence); the image of the milk tainted with blood might be the sign that Clytemnestra cannot nourish the baby Orestes.²⁰⁹ Lines 532– 533 are in favour of this interpretation. The son-serpent bites the maternal breast as a monster would: Cho. 532: καὶ πῶς ἄτρωτον οὖθαρ ἦν ὑπὸ στύγους;

Yet, according to the chorus, the blood in Clytemnestra’s milk seems to spurt out of her breast with the feed of milk, not from a wound caused by the bite of her serpent-son: Cho. 533: ὥστ’ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι

We could, of course, make it easier, as the scholiast does: ἐν γάλακτι = ἀντί γάλακτος. Yet, in classical Greek ἐν with instrumental function (with the milk) is not

 It could be objected that Clytemnestra did not have sexual contact with Aegisthus while she was breastfeeding (Orestes is Agamemnon’s son). Therefore, the image of blood in the milk cannot hint at Clytemnestra’s adultery. It is obviously true that Orestes is the son of Agamemnon; therefore, that he was born before the adultery took place. Yet, dreams do not represent facts as they take place in reality. The confusion between what is real and what is not is precisely what characterises dreams. In this sense, in regard to the image of blood in the milk as a sign of Clytemnestra’s adultery, Clytemnestra’s dream mirrors what happens in reality (she is Aegisthus’s mistress) as well as what did not happen (the adultery did not take place when Orestes was born). The confusion between dream and reality recurs also in the case of the image of blood in the milk as a sign of Orestes’ dietary dependence from his mother. The image of the baby-serpent that suckles at the breast of his mother mirrors what did happen in reality, at least according to Clytemnestra: Clytemnestra did breastfeed her son (Cho. 896 – 898). Yet, at the same time, the image of the baby-serpent does not mirror what did happen in reality: Orestes is not a serpent, neither is Clytemnestra; there were no wound and no blood in the actual suckling. On Clytemnestra’s dream and the fuzzy boundaries between dream and reality, cf. pp. 143 – 145. It is worth commenting that the dream that Zeus sends to Agamemnon is based on the ambiguity of what is real. Aeschylus, then, is looking at the miglior fabbro. Still, Aeschylus is always antihomeric. With the dream of Homer we smile, while we do not with Aeschylus’ dream. On this topic, cf. Maiullari (2006).

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interchangeable with ἀντί (instead of milk).²¹⁰ Furthermore, there is no reason why ἐν γάλακτι should not be understood as an indication of place. Also the following translation seems to render the Greek in passage 532 – 533: Orestes – And how was the udder not harmed by the abominable thing? Chorus – Of course not! He drew from the udder a clot of blood in the milk

There is more to be said. It is worth commenting that in Greek medical tradition milk and blood are supposed to share the same nature (cf. Demont 1978: 364– 375), and that maternal womb is thought to be connected with the breast (cf. Hanson 1992: 40 with n. 55; King 1998: 34–35, 143, 218). Thus, it seems more suitable to suppose that the image of blood in maternal milk confronts us with a similar situation as the Samo’s beliefs studied by Heritier: the trace of blood in Clytemnestra’s milk might be thought of as the traces of her mother’s menstrual blood rather than the generic blood of a wound. Dumortier (1975: 23) seems to hint at something similar. On the expression ‘θρόμβον αἵματος’ in Choephoroi, he writes: ‘Plus curieuse est l’expression θρόμβος αἵματος, grumeau ou caillot de sang … Elle se retrouve souvent dans le Corpus hippocraticum. On signalera en particulier au livre II des Maladies des Femmes, θρόμβωι πεπηγότες (112), où il s’agit de caillots de sang durcis qui tombent de la matrice. Au même livre (165) l’auteur parle de caillots contenus dans la matrice’. Moreover, the expression ‘θρόμβον αἵματος’ seems to confirm as well that blood flows into milk with the feed, and not necessarily from a wound. According to Verrall (ad loc.), the clots of blood are caused by the venom of the serpent’s bite. Devereux (1976: 197– 198) follows Verrall and suggests that Orestes might be assimilated to an Erinys: as the spit of an Erinys, the bite of Orestes too is venomous and causes blood to coagulate. However, despite being clear in the text that the serpent bites the breast, no venom is mentioned, as Garvie (ad loc.) observes. Therefore, it is hard to assume that blood coagulates because of some venom coming from the serpent’s bite. Rather, we can suppose, as in the cases studied by Heritier, that blood is flowing into the milk with the feed, having already coagulated because of the sexual intercourse of the lactant Clytemnestra. To sum up, I conclude that the dream episode confronts us with an uncertain situation: the serpent bites Clytemnestra’s breast, but blood seems to spurt out of the nipple with the milk of the feed, and not from the wound caused by the bite of the serpent. Further pieces of evidence in the text seem to support these remarks. When the dream develops into Clytemnestra’s memories, the baby Orestes, according to

 Cf. Tucker and Untersteiner (ad loc.).

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her, does not have his little teeth yet, but leans instead on the mother’s breast with his gums: Cho. 897– 898: μαστόν, πρὸς ὧι σὺ πολλὰ δὴ βρίζων ἅμα οὔλοισιν ἐξήμελξας εὐτραφὲς γάλα

Then, how could the blood in Clytemnestra’s milk possibly come from the wound of a bite? It can be said that in line 545 the expression ‘μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’’ makes clear that the son-serpent bites the maternal breast (cf. Garvie ad loc.) and that the blood of a wound on the breast spots milk with red stains. Both the reference to the pain of Clytemnestra (Cho. 547: ἐπώιμωξεν πάθει), and the definition of the serpent as a monster with teeth (Cho. 530: δάκος) seem to support this conjecture. Yet, in Greek the verb ἀμφιχάσκειν, referring to feeding, denotes the baby’s act of sticking its lips and gums on the maternal nipple (cf. Tucker ad loc.). This is not all. As Orestes repeats what the chorus has asserted in Cho. 533 (ὥστ’ ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος σπάσαι), it remains unclear if blood is spurting out of a wound or, instead, is flowing into the milk with the feed: Cho. 546: θρόμβωι τ’ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα

This moment of uncertainty in the presentation of the events does not allow us to apply a clear and sharp explanation for the violence of Orestes against his mother, and for the mother’s pain. Finally, contrary to what Devereux (1976: 199) suggests, πληγάς in line 103 of Eumenides cannot be read as a reference to the wound in Clytemnestra’s breast. In Greek, πληγή is a generic word; as such, it might recall as well the wound on Clytemnestra’s throat, which is mentioned by the servant who – having found that Aegisthus was killed – asks for Clytemnestra: Cho. 884: αὐχὴν πεσεῖσθαι πρὸς δίκης πεπληγμένος

It seems important to me to maintain that the blood in Clytemnestra’s milk is not due to the bite of her serpent-son, but rather to his suckling during the feed. As a proof of the corrupted alimentary relation between mother and son, and of Clytemnestra’s deviant sexuality, the image of maternal blood within maternal milk is meant to deny the motherhood of Clytemnestra. Yet, we can also read this image in the opposite direction. If milk is to trephein what blood is to tiktein, the disgusting mixture of maternal blood and milk in Orestes’ feed is a visual sign of the failure to separate the maternal functions of tiktein and trephein. Accordingly, it requires on our part consideration of the role of Clytemnestra as

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mother-tropheus and mother-tokeus. To conclude, the image of blood clots in the milk denies and affirms at the same time Clytemnestra’s maternal power to give and to nurture life. By this interpretation, we might have found a plausible explanation for the expression ‘ἐν γάλακτι θρόμβον αἵματος’: it authorises and destabilizes the characters’ repudiation of Clytemnestra’s agency of giving and nurturing life, and therefore, the play’s construction of blood ties and power relations as based merely on the law of the Father tropheus and tokeus. In the next section, I expand on the image of milk mingled with blood in Clytemnestra’s dream.

2 The maternal continuum, once again It is seems important to read passage 1388 – 1392 of Agamemnon in close relation to the image of Orestes’ feed of blood and milk in Choephoroi. These lines in Agamemnon describe the perversion of the process of insemination (cf. pp. 42– 43). In Choephoroi, the presence of a blood clot in the mother’s milk attests that Clytemnestra is not able to feed and to bring up her own child. Thus, in her case, the biological stages of creating and preservating life are turned upside down from the very beginning right to the end: her corrupted conception is followed by an equally corrupted breast-feeding. Yet, the image of blood and milk in Clytemnestra’s dream suggests something more than the continuity between Agamemnon and Choephoroi. In fact, it indicates that things between mother and daughter might not be what they are between mother and son. Devereux (1976: 206), in his analysis of the dream scene, annotates: ‘I know of no Greek mention of baby girls who nursed violently and painfully – but admit that girl babies are seldom mentioned. This may perhaps mean that girls owe a lesser debt than boys to their mothers’.²¹¹ I do not agree with Devereux. As we have seen, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood and maternal revenge in Agamemnon, there is a bond of philia between mother and daughter, and a biological symbiosis that runs through the same female blood. In the case of Clytemnestra and Orestes, instead, the female blood does not tie mother and son in a bond of philia. Rather, the traces of maternal blood in Clytemnestra’s milk are a visual evidence of the fact that Clytemnestra cannot nurture her own child. Seen this way, the corrupted act of breast-feeding in the dream episode confirms the represen-

 Similarly, cf. Foley (2003: 113): ‘Greek art and literature by men had relatively little interest in the birth and parenting of young daughters’.

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tation of Clytemnestra as a mother non-tropheus, which we have seen at work in the nurse’s speech. This depiction of Clytemnestra as a mother non-tropheus corresponds to the representation of the mother-son relationship as a bond of death. If the traces of blood in milk are an evidence of Orestes’ frustrated desire to be nourished by his mother, then the shedding of Clytemnestra’s blood becomes a surrogate for this desire: as the scholium to line 548 suggests, hunger for milk on the part of Orestes turns into hunger for blood and death. As Segal has aptly pointed out (1985: 18), the topic of Orestes’ frustrated desire for food appears also in the Agamemnon. In the second stasimon, he is depicted as a lion cub that loves the maternal breast (Ag. 719: φιλόμαστον), but has not been raised by maternal milk (Ag. 718: ἀγάλακτον).²¹² In the light of these remarks, I shall stress more clearly the differences that pertain to the relationship between mother and daughter, and between mother and son. According to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of motherhood, her relation with Iphigeneia is featured by biological identity and philia. Her relation with Orestes, by contrast, is featured by philia and violence: a ‘legame fisico e misterioso del sangue e del latte’ (Setti in Untersteiner, p. 443). The text supports this reading. First, according to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words φίλος and γάλα, the milk of Clytemnestra does not feed her son; perhaps, for Clytemnestra as mother and for Orestes as child, maternal milk is a warranty of life: Clytemnestra – Cho. 898: οὔλοισιν ἐξήμελξας εὐτραφὲς γάλα Orestes – Cho. 545 – 546: καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον θρόμβωι τ’ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα

Second, according to Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τρέφειν, Clytemnestra’s blood gives birth to a monster, so perhaps her maternal blood gives birth to her child: Cho. 543: εἰ γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν χῶρον ἐκλιπὼν ἐμοὶ Cho. 548: … ὡς ἔθρεψεν ἔκπαγλον τέρας

Taking into consideration the familiar triangle of Clytemnestra (mother), Orestes (son) and Iphigeneia (daughter) and the violence of/against children (killing of Iphigeneia, matricide), we have to bear in mind, once again, the maternal con-

 For ἀγάλακτον as looking ahead to Orestes, cf. Knox (1952: 23); Grethlein (2013: 84). For the representation of cubs as dependent of maternal milk, cf. Ag. 141– 142 (πάντων τ’ ἀγρονόμων φιλομάστοις/θηρῶν). On food and blood in ancient Greek culture, cf. King (1995).

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tinuum and Clytemnestra’s maternal body as the condition of life. This might help us to understand why the search for an authoritative discourse on Agamemnon as father tokeus (i. e. as genetic parent and origin of life) and tropheus (i. e. head of the family, husband, warrior, king and origin of power) always results in exposing the anxiety and vulnerability related to the suppression of a matter of fact: the mother’s body gives and nurtures life. In the next section, I discuss the dream of Clytemnestra once again, trying to explain why Orestes’ attempts to suppress her motherhood and to represent kinship and power relations as based on the law of the Father is constantly fraught with the danger of failing.

3 Clytemnestra’s dream and metaphorical motherhood If reality is realisation, then the dream of Clytemnestra realises the tragic reality of Orestes as the result of a disturbing oneiric suggestion that ties and assimilates the child to its mother. Finding a confirmation in the text is easily attained. According to the chorus’ metaphorical rhetoric of appropriation of the verb τίκτειν in its report of the dream, Clytemnestra gives birth to a serpent. In a similar way, according to Orestes’ metaphorical appropriation of the verb τρέφειν and its interpretation of the dream, the matricidal son absorbs his mother’s snake nature: τεκεῖν δράκοντ’ ἔδοξεν … chorus – Cho. 527: Orestes – Cho. 548 – 550: δεῖ τοί νιν, ὡς ἔθρεψεν ἔκπαγλον τέρας, θανεῖν βιαίως·ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ κτείνω νιν, ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε

Relying on Goldhill (LSN: 156) on passage 548 – 550, Orestes is the baby-serpent of his serpent-mother: ‘ἐκδρακοντωθείς, then, suggests more than the simple identification of Orestes with the animal; it also implies Orestes as ἔκπαγλον τέρας (ἐκ-δρακοντωθείς/ἔκ-παγλον), as the object of Clytemnestra’s rearing’. Now, when Orestes sees the snake in Clytemnestra, he fails to recognize the mother who gave life to him. This failure of anagnorisis indicates that the sonsnake (Cho. 549: ἐκδρακοντωθείς), in this image avenger of the father, denies the filial relationship between mother and son.²¹³ Now, we have to draw some conclusions.

 The snake is usually associated with the dead. On this point, cf. Rohde (1925, index snake) and Bock (1936: esp. p. 321 with n. 1 and n. 2). In this sense, as Sancassano has similarly pointed

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First, after the episode of the nurse as a replacement for the activity of trephein, it is the dream scene that shows Clytemnestra as a snake mother with corrupted trephein and tiktein. Second, we might stress the metaphorical character of Orestes’ matricide, and the impossibility for him to murder Clytemnestra as a biological mother: through the assimilation of Orestes to the mother-serpent and his reification in the form of a serpent, the son does not kill his mother; it is precisely a baby monster that kills his monster mum. Who, then, kills whom? What are we talking about when we mention the matricidal experience of Orestes? As Kristeva (2000: 218) puts it: ‘Oreste, matricide s’il en est’. Finally, we might even doubt that it is appropriate to speak of the violent death of a mother by the hands of her own son. Rather, given that Orestes is forced to become a snake like his mother in order to kill her, it is Clytemnestra, broadly speaking, that kills herself, and not Orestes:²¹⁴ Cho. 923: σύ τοι σεαυτήν, οὐκ ἐγώ, κατακτενεῖς

out (1997a: 90), the image of Orestes as a serpent links the matricidal son to his dead father, and characterises Orestes as the avenger of Agamemnon. Therefore, the motifs of blood and milk in Clytemnestra’s dream may be read also as a hint at the votive offers for the dead Agamemnon. On this matter, cf. Walde (2001: 118).  Here, I shall mention in reference to the question ‘who kills whom?’ the extremely interesting discussion by Hammond (2009: 59 – 60) on the characters’ constant attempt to construct Orestes as something or someone different from himself: Clytemnestra herself (Cho. 923), Fate (Cho. 911), Agamemnon’s death (Cho. 927). Moreover, the negation of matricide that operates in this line is even more powerful, if we read verse 923 with line 922 (κτενεῖν ἔοικας, ὦ τέκνον, τὴν μητέρα) where, according to Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words μήτηρ and τέκνον, Orestes is not a snake, but her child. On the reversibility of Clytemnestra’s dream, cf. Kitto (1956: 50): ‘he must himself become a serpent, like his mother’; Vidal-Naquet (1977: 153): ‘Mais la relation qu’il a avec sa mère est réversible, Clytemnestre est elle-mȇme un serpent’; Winnington-Ingram (1983: 135): ‘He will be a snake as Clytemnestra was a snake’; Walde (2001: 116): ‘Die Hauptfunktion des Traumbildes besteht darin, daß es als zwischen Mutter und Sohn aufgestellter Spiegel fungieret’. Cf. also Whallon (1958: 273); Vellacott (1977: 115); Rabinowitz (1981: 177); Sevieri (1995: 15). Thus, I disagree with O’Neill (1998: 221): ‘On the other hand, in her nightmare, Clytemnestra denies her snaky nature while acknowledging to herself that the son from her womb is a serpent’. One might also note that for the captive women, Orestes is like his mother. According to the chorus, Orestes’ victory over Clytemnestra can only succeed if he becomes, like his mother, an Erinys and a being devoted to wrath (Cho. 40 – 41, 402– 404, 454– 455, 646 – 651), who will share the same disposition to anger with her. For Orestes’ assimilation of his mother’s nature, cf. also Cho. 527– 533, 541– 549, 831 ff., with Ag. 1232 ff., Cho. 249, 994, 1047– 1050 and Eum. 128 for Clytemnestra. For a general discussion on the mother-child relation and the representation of the mother as a mater monstruosa as a central step in the constitution of the male subject, cf. Irigaray (1984: 103 – 104).

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In the context of these remarks, Orestes’ interpretation of the dream of Clytemnestra (Cho. 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ καρανοῦται λόγος; 550: ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε) lets her dream become true: Orestes is the baby-snake, and as such he kills his mother-snake. This is like saying, as Loraux (1990a: 250) has observed in her article on metaphors in the Oresteia, that ‘le travail des mots tende vers la réalisation des métaphores’. However, at the same time, Orestes’ interpretation of the dream denies it exactly by fulfilling it: the baby-serpent kills his mother-serpent; yet, Clytemnestra kills herself. There is more to say. The position of Orestes killing his mother like the snake of the dream indicates that, in the case of Clytemnestra’s death, we can detect a dramatic equivalence between the tragic word (Cho. 515: ἐκ τίνος λόγου, 521: ὧδ’ ἔχει λόγος, 527: ὡς αὐτὴ λέγει, 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ καρανοῦται λόγος) and the tragic action (Cho. 512: δρᾶν, 513: ἔρδοις ἂν ἤδη, 553: τοὺς μέν τι ποιεῖν, τοὺς δὲ μή τι δρᾶν λέγω). This should not be surprising. Indeed, it is impossible for Orestes to kill Clytemnestra without using the logos at the same time, i. e. without using words as a means to interpret her dream (Cho. 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ καρανοῦται λόγος; 550: ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε). In other words, Orestes does not kill his mother after having interpreted her dream.²¹⁵ Rather, he kills her (Cho. 550: κτείνω) with his words as he identifies himself in the oneiric reality of Clytemnestra, and reifies himself in the form of a serpent born out of the woman-serpent (ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ/κτείνω νιν). It is not by chance that Garvie (ad loc.) translates κτείνω as ‘I am her killer’. When Orestes says ‘I am her killer’, language turns him into a snake – and he becomes istantly, not in the future, the matricidal son. In this sense, contrary to what has been observed, Orestes is not always killing Clytemnestra, even though in Greek κτείνω, like ἀγρεῖ in Ag. 126, is a timeless present.²¹⁶ There is a precise moment in time when the matricidal son kills his mother, and it is coincidental with Orestes’ use of the verb κτείνω. According to this analysis, Orestes’ interpretation of the dream of Clytemnestra seems to make it clear that Orestes’ matricide is first of all a matricide of the logos, which, of course, will become reality (the present tense κτείνω occurs in the place of the future, and indicates certainty).²¹⁷ So

 This temporal consequentiality is supposed by Andrisano (2004: 47): ‘Del sogno tragicamente premonitore del serpente si è fatto interprete secondo il suggerimento del Coro lo stesso Oreste, che ne ha tradotto in azione il significato profondo’.  Cf. Hammond (2009: 58): ‘the verb κτείνω is in the present tense: “I kill her”, “I am killing her”; there is a form of time in which Orestes is even now (or, is always) killing Clytemnestra’.  Accordingly, I differ from Devereux (1976: 203): ‘Orestes’ Interpretation of the Dream (540 ff.) seems, from the literary point of view, heavy-handed and unnecessary: Athenian audiences were not slow-witted’. On the interpretation of Orestes’ matricide as a matricide of the logos, cf. Lanza

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in the murderous experience of Orestes we can see both a ‘mise en discourse’ of the turn to violence against Clytemnestra, and a performative act (Orestes’ words are his act of matricide). However, we should not follow too closely Orestes’ representation of the mother-child bond as a relation between two monsters. In the case of Orestes, the truth about Clytemnestra is the result of a construction operated by his own rhetoric of motherhood. Indeed, his mother may be a serpent, but still, killing her means killing a friend: Cho. 899: … μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν;

Again, Orestes discourse of exclusion and separation (you are a serpent, not my mother) implies inclusion and connection (you may be a serpent, but still you are my mother). In the following section, I focus on Orestes’ definition of Clytemnestra as a mother non-mother further.

4 Orestes and Apollonian logos Clytemnestra’s representation in the dream as a serpent-monster and the repudiation of her maternal function will continue in Eumenides. As Clytemnestra does not give birth to her son but to her snake-monster baby, so according to Apollo the mother is meant to be a mere receptacle of the male seed; instead, it is the father who is thought of as the child’s only genetic parent (cf. ch. 3. 3): Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων …

The act of denying that the maternal womb is the origin of life becomes the heuristic act of the Father/God’s logos. In the case of the father, the logos establishes a biological supremacy over the role of the mother, who therefore becomes inferior. In other words, the logos states the exclusive agency of the Father of reproducing semen – and ideas.²¹⁸

(1995: 42) who speaks about the murder of Clytemnestra as ‘un matricidio verbale’. On the present tense as occuring in the place of the future and as indicating certainty, cf. Smyth (1980: 421– 422).  I am paraphrasing Heritier (1996: 11). It is precisely in this sense that the logos makes female biology (passive materiality) the evidence for male metaphysics (life of the sperm = creativity of the logos); cf. Sissa (1983: 92– 96).

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Let us try to refine the terms of the discussion. If fatherhood is only possible by means of the logos, the reason is that the logos itself of Apollo is the outcome of a point of departure from the the mother’s body.²¹⁹ This point of departure indicates that any production of logos proceeds from a metaphorical violence against the mother, in the sense of a rhetorical appropriation of female reproductive modalities by the male and, with Sissa, of a negation of the ontological incommensurability of the mother’s blood.²²⁰ Consequently, the logos might deliberate only by means of an absence, i. e. the recognition of a deficiency: the lack in the woman’s body of sperm/life/cognitive faculties. This might explain the reason why the mother – as said by Apollo – is in herself a foreign host to a foreign guest, i. e. a stranger to a stranger (Eum. 660: ξένωι ξένη). Following this line of interpretation, not only the logos of Orestes, but also the one of Apollo confronts us with a case of verbal matricide, which unfolds through a process of definition of the maternal body in terms not of what it is, but of what it is not: – Orestes: the body of a serpent; – Apollo: the bleeding body for the father We can find other analogies between the logos of Apollo and the one of Orestes. The latter too is engendered by a re-definition of the mother as both rationally and biologically foreign to the son: what Clytemnestra is not able to realize about her dream (or perhaps she does when it is too late: Cho. 887: οἲ ’γώ, ξυνῆκα τοὖπος ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων) is exactly the logos of Orestes in its suppression of Clytemnestra’s biological motherhood, i. e. Orestes’ identification in the serpent delivered by his mother. Therefore, for Clytemnestra the logos of Orestes creates a hiatus between the signs of her dream and their meaning: only her son, by an act of rational interpretation, is able to restore the semantic connection between them. In this sense, verse 887 indicates that Orestes’ logos is inhabited by a figure of death which Clytemnestra as mother is not able to recognize and understand.²²¹ In the next section, I show how Orestes’ metaphorical construction of his mother as a serpent and his repudiation of Clytemnestra’s motherhood risks fail-

 Cf. Derrida (1972: 100): ‘Il faut donc procéder à l’inversion générale de toutes les directions méthaphoriques, ne pas demander si un logos peut avoir un père mais comprendre que ce dont le père se prétend le père ne peut aller sans la possibilité essentielle du logos’.  I am borrowing the phrase ‘ontological incommensurability’ from Sissa (1983: 92): ‘incommensurabilità ontologica’.  I am following Cohen (1994: 15) on Othello: ‘a figure of “death” inhabits dialogue in a determining way that has been ignored’.

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ing. My discussion aims to show that the most metaphoric word (μήτηρ) is also, necessarily, the most real.

5 Orestes’ logos and biological motherhood Mutter, ich bin verloren Mutter wir sind verloren Mutter, mein Kind, das dir ähnlich sieht P. Celan, Die Gedichte aus dem Nachlass

As we have seen, the dream scene displays the monstrous nature of Clytemnestra’s motherhood, and the estrangement of the child from his mother. However, the tragic text constantly re-writes and corrects itself. When Clytemnestra demands piety to her son in the name of the breast which fed him (Cho. 896 – 898), she is in fact repeating and reversing the oneiric moment of breast-feeding the serpent: so the logos of Orestes, which metaphorically defines Clytemnestra’s motherhood as a relationship between two snake-monsters, wretchedly collapses. In front of the breast of his mother, who is still alive, the feeling of aidos seizes the matricidal son with a turmoil of doubts.²²² And the doubts will perhaps never leave Orestes. Thus, after matricide, his logos gets lost, having deceived the one who has killed with deception, according to Clytemnestra (Cho. 888: δόλοις ὀλούμεθ’). Logos and dolos, then. How exactly may the logos of Orestes be deceitful? By denying a matter of fact, that is Clytemnestra’s motherhood. When Clytemnestra finally understands her dream (Cho. 887: οἲ ’γώ, ξυνῆκα τοὖπος ἐξ αἰνιγμάτων), and recognizes it as true (Cho. 929: κάρτα μάντις οὑξ ὀνειράτων φόβος), she realizes the impending reality of her death: Cho. 922: κτενεῖν ἔοικας, ὦ τέκνον, τὴν μητέρα

The logos of Clytemnestra explains what actually happens: the serpent in the dream, namely her son, will kill her. The same cannot be said for Orestes. He also understands Clytemnestra’s dream as an expression of a reality he will

 Cf. e. g. Albini (1977: 83); Goldhill (1984a: 172); Vogt (1994: 102 with n. 18); O’Neill (1998: 222); Saxonhouse (2009: 56 – 57). Clearly, if Orestes seeks to get rid of Clytemnestra’s maternal breast through matricide (cf. Delcourt 1959: 150 ff.), he fails.

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have to face, which is the necessity of matricide. However, in his case, the logos does not produce the reality of matricide. It seems rather to deny the very reality it names (we do not have a son killing his mother, but a baby-serpent killing his mother-serpent). Thus, in the case of Orestes, the logos engenders an escape from the very reality it names. The text mentions on two different occasions the urgency for Orestes to find an escape from his condition of matricidal son: Cho. 1038: φεύγων τόδ’ αἷμα κοινόν … Cho. 1062: ἐλαύνομαι δὲ κοὐκέτ’ ἂν μείναιμ’ ἐγώ

To escape from reality: in order to use the logos and kill his mother, finally Orestes will be able to speak only about what his mother is not (a serpent), and about what for the others are mere visions (the Erinyes of the mother). Yet, that is still the maternal reality he lives in (Clytemnestra’s monstrous motherhood) at the margins of what is real in any case (Clytemnestra’s motherhood): Cho. 1053 – 1054: οὐκ εἰσὶ δόξαι τῶνδε πημάτων ἐμοί, σαφῶς γὰρ αἵδε μητρὸς ἔγκοτοι κύνες Cho. 1061: ὑμεῖς μὲν οὐχ ὁρᾶτε τάσδ’, ἐγὼ δ’ ὁρῶ

Then, it might be not easy at all, for Orestes or for the reader, to find out who Clytemnestra is in her dream – a mother and/or a serpent? Where shall we place Orestes’ matricide? On the level of what is real (Clytemnestra as a biological mother), or of what is a dream and metaphorical (Clytemnestra as a motherserpent)? What is real to Orestes? As Goldhill (LSN: 182) has poignantly put it, how can we disclose ‘the distinction between metaphor and non-metaphor in the text’?²²³ On the one hand, the meaning of Clytemnestra’s dream is quite clear to Orestes (Cho. 542: κρίνω δέ τοί νιν ὥστε συγκόλλως ἔχειν, 554: ἁπλοῦς ὁ μῦθος which echoes the chorus in Cho. 121: ἁπλωστὶ φράζουσ’): he is the ser-

 Now if Orestes’ logos is barely able to find out the principles of distinction between metaphor and non-metaphor, in the text of the dream ‘the serpent is the first deconstructor of the logos’ (Hartman 1981: 8). Accordingly, in the words of Aeschylus we might have found an explanation for the difficulty in reading him: there is theatre in the Oresteia when words begin to revolt against the dramatic logic of realizing metaphors on stage. Here, I am using and somehow inverting an analysis by Artaud (1964: 38): ‘il ne peut y avoir théâtre qu’à partir du moment où commence réellement l’impossible et où la poésie qui se passe sur la scène alimente et surchauffe des symboles réalisés’. On the difficulty in defining what the mother names and means, cf. Derrida in Glas 133b with Hartman’s discussion (1981: 81– 83). For a different and interesting interpretation of Clytemnestra’s dream, cf. Goward (1999: 66), who points to the fact that Clytemnestra’s representation in the dream as a serpent underlines the multiple meanings of matricide as an act of retributive justice and an act that has to be punished itself.

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pent-baby, and as such he is going to kill his serpent-mother (Cho. 549 – 550: ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ/κτείνω νιν). Here, the serpent metaphor of mother and baby equals to the non-metaphor of Clytemnestra as a mother and Orestes as a son. On the other hand, the killing of Clytemnestra as a mother-serpent is not possible without Orestes killing her as his own biological mother. Here, the serpent metaphor of mother and baby is not equal to the non-metaphor of Clytemnestra as a mother and of Orestes as a son. These digressions on the fuzzy boundary, in the text of the dream, between reality and metaphor and, therefore, on the problem of defining who is Clytemnestra are not far-fetched. When Orestes uses the expression ‘σὲ καὶ ματεύω’ (Cho. 892), he does not tell us whom he is looking for. Again, who is Clytemnestra to Orestes? The mother who gives life, the mother monster, the mother of his dreams, the mother-dog, the mother dead, the mother alive? I suggest that Orestes, in order to know (with the help of the logos) who is Clytemnestra, has necessarly to accept her as his human mother, that is to say he is forced to undertake an act of restitution. ²²⁴ Orestes’ act of restitution is identical to his acknowledgement that the maternal womb is the condition of life, and that the maternal body is the origin of language: he has to ‘give back’ to Clytemnestra what is properly hers, i. e. he has to recognize that his mother generates life and at the same time is the point of departure for the use of language. Here, I paraphrase Muraro (2006: 49): ‘Si tratta di pensare che l’origine della vita non è separabile dall’origine del linguaggio, nè il corpo dalla mente’.²²⁵ In what follows, I take into consideration how we might trace this theme in the text of Choephoroi’s dream, arguing that Orestes’ words cannot escape his mother’s body.²²⁶ When Orestes uses the logos to interpret the dream of Clytemnestra (Cho. 528: καὶ ποῖ τελευτᾶι καὶ καρανοῦται λόγος; 550: ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε), the matricidal son claims that the mother’s body gives life: Cho. 543 – 545: εἰ γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν χῶρον ἐκλιπὼν ἐμοὶ οὕφις †επᾶσα σπαργανηπλείζετο† καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον

Exactly this operation undermines the foundation of Orestes’ logos, that is to say the possibility for it to work without the body of the mother: in order to kill Cly-

 On the act of restitution between mother and child, cf. Muraro (2006: 131– 132 n. 1).  As Muraro, cf. Fouque (1994: 306 – 307).  It is interesting to note that the word μήτρα can be used both for the womb and for the mother, cf. Loraux (1991: 49), with further bibliography at n. 102.

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temnestra with his logos, Orestes must return to her maternal body and make her womb, which is already the condition of life, the condition of his logos as well – i. e. the condition (εἰ γάρ) of his interpretation of the dream and of his verbal construction of Clytemnestra as a serpent-mother. Accordingly, we see how Orestes’ logos is indebted to his mother too: by reproducing a logic of signs that singles out the estrangement of the mother’s body from any process of generation of life, Orestes’ logos does not have the power to efface the matter of fact that the mother’s body is the origin of life and the condition of logos.²²⁷ This is the reason why the separation from the maternal origins, which we have indicated as the necessary requirement for the functioning of Apollo’s and Orestes’ logos, marks the failure of Orestes’ logos and gives birth to his monsters – his own monsters, the Erinyes. As Kristeva (2000: 219) puts it: ‘lorsque cet accès à la symbolisation fait défaut apparaît alors le versant lugubre d’Oreste’. The implosion of Orestes’ logos brings us back to Orestes’ question at the beginning of the drama. If we read, with Verrall, verses 1048 – 1050 as an interrogative sentence (ἆ ἆ/δμοιαὶ γυναῖκες αἵδε Γοργόνων δίκην/φαιοχίτωνες καὶ πεπλεκτανημέναι/πυκνοῖς δράκουσιν;), they might be repeating verses 10 – 12: … τίς ποθ’ ἥδ’ ὁμήγυρις στείχει γυναικῶν φάρεσιν μελαγχίμοις πρέπουσα; ποίαι ξυμφορᾶι προσεικάσω;

The text established by Verrall allows me to ask some questions. Given that both before and after matricide Orestes does not know what is real, is a chronological reading of the text of Choephoroi, which fulfils a telos for the narrated events, still possible? What is the justice of dreams (Ag. 491: ὀνειράτων δίκην), what is the justice of the son (Cho. 529: παιδὸς … δίκην), in what sense is the dream of Clytemnestra τελεσφόρον for Orestes (Cho. 541)? I have no prompt answers. However, thinking about the dolos of Orestes’ logos, and the incapacity of Orestes’ logos to define who Clytemnestra is, it seems to me quite problematic to speak of the dike of Orestes’ matricide. In the next chapter, I look closely at the dispute between the Furies, Apollo and Athena in Eumenides. I argue that, as in Agamemnon and Choephoroi, also in the last play of the trilogy the Aeschylean text confronts us with the difficult task of defining who a mother is, and with the danger of withdrawing the authority of maternal power. Again, as I claim, this affects the way we discuss matricide, Orestes’ acquittal and, finally, the reader’s position within the text’s discourse

 Cf. Derrida (1972: 100): ‘Le logos redevable à un père, qu’est-ce à dire?’. On the mother as condition for rationality, cf. ch. 3. 1.

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on blood ties and power relations (do we have to understand kinship and power as maternal and/or as paternal?).

6 Conclusions In sections one to five on the text of the dream, we have seen that: 1. as in the case of the speech of the nurse, also in the case of Clytemnestra’s dream and of the image of maternal blood in maternal milk, the text of Choephoroi seems to outline an attempt to separate the mother’s functions of tiktein and trephein and to mark the failure of this separation; 2. Orestes’ logos interprets metaphorically Clytemnestra’s dream as the repudiation of her own biological motherhood: Clytemnestra as a mother-serpent does not give life to a child, but to a serpent. Clytemnestra’s violent death represents the murder of a monster; 3. Orestes’ logos does not have the power to delete Clytemnestra’s motherhood: Orestes kills his mother; 4. the heuristic faculties of Orestes’ logos operate on the borderline between reality and metaphors. His metaphorical interpretation of Clytemnestra’s motherhood as a relationship between a serpent-mother and its baby is deceiving. Even if she is a serpent, Clytemnestra is still his biological mother: in order to kill her, he has to use deception; 5. for Orestes, the maternal body of Clytemnestra is the first step to access the logos and (mis)use it; 6. the difficulty to define Clytemnestra challenges the characters’ attempt to represent her merely as a mother-echthros, destabilizing the notion of dike in close relation to the violence of matricide.

Eumenides The Eumenides is a drama preoccupied with beginnings, with origins F. I. Zeitlin, ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny’ πῶς φράσω τέλος; Ag. 1109

In the previous two chapters I argued that in Agamemnon, as in Choephoroi, every attempt to project the image of an echthros of the Atreid family on Clytemnestra (as a bad and evil-minded mother who does not take care of her husband’s children, an adulterous wife, and an usurper of king Agamemnon’s power) is constantly exposed to the risk of failing. In my reading, the last play of the trilogy confronts us with the same issue as well. On the one hand, Apollo, Athena’s and Orestes’ discourses proceed with the dramatic disestablishment of the power of Clytemnestra, both as mother and queen. This process implies the authorisation of the power of Agamemnon as father tropheus and tokeus. On the other hand, the positions endorsed by the Erinyes challenge the validity of this depiction of Agamemnon as the unique genetic parent of his children, and as source of the economical and political prestige of the Atreid household. Read this way, Eumenides destabilises the construction of blood ties and power relations as based merely on the law of the Father.²²⁸ I hope my discussion

 Cf. LSN, 147: ‘this authorisation of narrative, however, by the situating of its origin in the word of the father … can also be questioned … . It is in the dynamics of this tension between the authorisation of the word of the father and its undercutting questioning by the Erinues that the trial of Orestes and the ending of the trilogy will be constituted’; LSN: 252: ‘Can the logos of Apollo in its claim for the singleness, linearity of the relation father-child exclude the further linearity of the relation mother-child? Can the establishment of the discourse of paternity (the word-of-the-father) as the word of truth by its derivation from a fixed and single origin avoid in this proof the suggestion of its own unstableness?’; Winnington-Ingram (1983: 124): ‘When the votes are counted, they are found to be equally divided; and this verdict not only corresponds to the balance of argument, but is a sign that Orestes has been confronted with an intolerable dilemma, subjected to contradictory claims both based upon the blood-tie and backed by the law of the vendetta’. Thus, I differ from Zeitlin (1978: 149 – 151): ‘For Aeschylus, civilisation is the ultimate product of conflict between opposing forces, achieved not through a coincidentia oppositorum but through a hierarchization of values. … Through gradual and subtle transformations, social evolution is posed as a movement from female dominance to male dominance, or, as it is often figuratively phrased, from “matriarchy” to “patriarchy” ’. Similarly, on the victory of the male over female, of the father figure over the mother figure, of new gods over ancient gods, of law principles over blood feuds in the Eumenides, cf. de Beauvoir (1949: 165); Thomson (1966: 45 – 46); Millett (1971: 115); Pomeroy (1975: 97– 99); Reinhold (1976: 30); Vellacott (1977: 121); Cohen (1986: 139); Fouque (1994: 298 – 299); Rosenbloom (1995: 116); Flashar (1997: 100); Pat-

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will help us overcome the preconceived representation of Aeschylus’ poetry as an authorisation of violent separations, exclusion and hierarchies.

1 The Erinyes and maternal sophronein … bisogna essere folli per essere chiari P. P. Pasolini, Le ceneri di Gramsci

To begin with, we might ask: who are the Erinyes? As an occurrence of their name shows in tablets inscribed in linear B (e. g., KN Fp 1. 8; V 52), they are goddesses belonging to the oldest era of the Greek religion. According to Hesiod (Th. 185), they arose out of blood drops in the context of Uranos’ castration, whereas in Aeschylus they were born from the night in a distant time (Eum. 69, 321– 322, 745, 844, 877, 1033). Their Hesiodic genealogy might explain their connection with the punishment associated with inter-familiar murders (cf. Il. 9. 454, Erinyes of the father; 9. 571, 21. 412, Erinyes of the mother; 15. 204, Erinyes of the brother; Od. 2. 135, 11. 280, 17. 475, Erinyes of the mother). However, their functions transcend the mere vengeance of violent crimes. They punish perjury (Il. 19. 86 ff.; Op. 803 ff.); they send Ate to human beings (Il. 19. 86 ff., Od. 15. 231 ff.), they execute curses (Il. 9. 454– 456, 571 ff.) and fulfil justice (Aj. 1390; Heraclit., B 94 DK).²²⁹ In Agamemnon too, the Erinyes have several different functions. They punish offences against hospitality (Ag. 55 ff., 746 ff.); they prosecute adultery (Ag. 1192 ff.); they act as a legitimate instance of killing (Ag. 1432 ff., 1580 ff.), and as avengers of bloodshed (in war: Ag. 461 ff.; in the family: Ag. 1119 – 1120, Erinyes of the children). In Choephoroi, they are associated with murders within the family (Cho. 283 ff., Erinyes of the father; 924 ff., 1048 ff. Erinyes of the mother); in Eumenides, they are represented as avengers of bloodshed (Eum. 316 – 320, 337– 340), and as maternal ghosts of vengeance (Eum. 210, 496 – 498).²³⁰ Now, how do the Erinyes manifest themselves in Eumenides – τίνες ποτ’ ἐστέ; (Eum. 408)? As the Pythia reports, they are frightening, supernatural be-

terson (1998: 84); Helm (2004: 50 – 51); Baltrusch (2007: 160); Markovits (2009: 431). On the teleology of the Eumenides and feminist and Marxist critical positions, cf. Goldhill (1986: 39 – 56).  Cf. Dodds (1973a: 6 – 8; 18; 21 n. 37; 38 – 42); Sewell-Rutter (2007: 78 – 89); on the origins of the Erinyes, cf. Lloyd-Jones (1990: 203 – 207).  Cf. Brown (1983: 13 – 14 with n. 5 and n. 6; 1984: 267– 276); Sewell-Rutter (2007: 90 – 109).

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ings fearful to look at (Eum. 34: δεινὰ δ’ ὀφθαλμοῖς δρακεῖν, 52: ἐς τὸ πᾶν βδελύκτροποι). They are dark and without wings or feathers (Eum. 51– 52: ἄπτεροί γε μὴν ἰδεῖν/αὗται μέλαιναί τ’); they snore and groan with terrible sighs (Eum. 53: ῥέγκουσι δ’ οὐ πλατοῖσι φυσιάμασιν) in their sleep; they leak loathsome drops from their eyes (Eum. 54: ἐκ δ’ ὀμμάτων λείβουσι δυσφιλῆ λίβα).²³¹ This is just a partial depiction. In fact, they are so dreadful that the Pythia can only say what they are not. As Prins has noticed (1991: 178), she only describes them ‘by a negation of vision’, as we infer from lines 48 – 49: οὔτοι γυναῖκας ἀλλὰ Γοργόνας λέγω· οὐδ’ αὖτε Γοργείοισιν εἰκάσω τύποις

We can push Prins’ remark a step further. For the Pythia, seeing the Furies is something more than a mere negation of vision. According to the prophetess, seeing the Erinyes is like seeing the unknown: Eum. 57: τὸ φῦλον οὐκ ὄπωπα τῆσδ’ ὁμιλίας

Clearly, the Pythia does not see the Erinyes as Orestes does. Orestes knows who they really are, and he knows it very well, as line 1054 of Choephoroi indicates: σαφῶς γὰρ αἵδε μητρὸς ἔγκοτοι κύνες

These divergences between Orestes and the Pythia in their experience of the Furies seem quite important. What turns out to be an encounter with an estranging force for the Pythia, for Orestes amounts to the visualisation of a knowledge that proceeds from his own experience of killing, and, therefore, from his madness. I would even say that for the crazed Orestes seeing the Erinyes is precisely what validates the divine law of the pathei mathos: once he has killed, he is aware of what is triggered by violence, and therefore he is able to see and to know what, according to the Suda, is ἀπρόσωπον or faceless.²³²

 On lines 51– 52 and the meaning of ἄπτεροι and μέλαιναι, cf. Maxwell-Stuart (1973: 82– 83).  I am expounding on Brown (1983: 18 – 22), who argues that Orestes sees the Furies because he is mad. This is certainly true. However, Orestes does not simply see the Furies; he recognizes them, he knows who they are. Now, Orestes knows who the Furies are not because he is mad, but because he is a killer. Further, I shall notice that the case of Orestes who, as a crazed man and as a murderer, sees and recognizes the Furies, recalls to mind the depiction of Clytemnestra, immediately after the murder of Agamemnon. Orestes kills his mother and understands very well what violence implies. By contrast, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon and violence blinds her. Indeed, after the murder of Agamemnon, her eyes are injected with blood (Ag. 1428).

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The basic divergences in Orestes’ and the Pythia’s vision of the Furies (the former, for what they actually are and what he knows; the latter, for what they are not, and what she does not know) represent a crucial step in the Aeschylean treatment of violence and knowledge. If, as I claim, in the case of Orestes, we can speak of a realisation of the law of pathei mathos, then knowledge comes to humans through the use of violence, and inevitably manifests itself through suffering and alienation. The text supports this reading. Because he has to murder his mother, Orestes is taught in suffering (Eum. 276: ἐγὼ διδαχθεὶς ἐν κακοῖς).²³³ Moreover, he knows the right time for many things (Eum. 276 – 277: ἐπίσταμαι/πολλῶν τε καιροῦς καὶ λέγειν ὅπου δίκη).²³⁴ Finally, he is a fugitive, a wanderer banished from his land (Ag. 1282: φυγὰς δ’ ἀλήτης τῆσδε γῆς ἀπόξενος); closely chased, and dragged away by his mother’s Erinyes (Cho. 1062: ἐλαύνομαι δὲ; Eum. 139: ἕπου, μάραινε δευτέροις διώγμασιν, 338 – 339: τοῖς ὁμαρτεῖν ὄφρ’/ ἂν γᾶν ὑπέλθηι), he has to leave (Cho. 1050 = Cho. 1062: οὐκέτ’ ἂν μείναιμ’ ἐγώ). Now, we might observe that the Aeschylean speculations on violence are fundamentally optimistic: in the world of the Oresteia – at least in the case of Clytemnestra and Orestes – the use of violence occurs together with a process of learning which shows that violence always involves pain for its user, and not only for its victim. Taking into consideration the fact that the Erinyes bestow painful knowledge, I find it difficult to adopt a critical level that considers Apollo and Athena as divine agents of knowledge, wisdom and civilisation, in opposition to the Furies as enemies of social order, knowledge and wisdom.²³⁵ In this regard, the sec-

 Cf. Eum. 102: κατασφαγείσης πρὸς χερῶν μητροκτόνων; 122: φονεὺς δ’ Ὀρέστης τῆσδε μητρὸς οἴχεται; 153: τὸν μητραλοίαν; 202: ἔχρησας ὥστε τὸν ξένον μητροκτονεῖν; 256: λάθηι φύγδα βὰς ματροφόνος ἀτίτας; 268: μητροφόντας; 281: μητροκτόνον μίασμα δ’ ἔκπλυτον πέλει; 326 – 327: ματρῶιον ἅ-/γνισμα κύριον φόνου; 425: φονεὺς …. μητρὸς; 427: μητροκτονεῖν; 463: ἔκτεινα τὴν τεκοῦσαν; 493: τοῦδε μητροκτόνου; 587: τὴν μητέρ’ εἰπὲ πρῶτον εἰ κατέκτονας; 595: μητροκτονεῖν; 599: νεκροῖσί νυν πέπισθι μητέρα κτανών.  I read with Sommerstein (ad loc.) καιροῦς instead of καθαρμοῦς as in MS.  Consider for example Lattimore (1972: 88): ‘Apollo stands for everything which the Furies are not: Hellenism, civilization, intellect, and enlightenment’; Dodds (1973a: 40) who speaks of ‘the new world of rational justice’; Gagarin (1976: 83) who points out that ‘the limited and ineffectual knowledge of the first two plays is replaced by a broader and more powerful wisdom in the third’; Winnington-Ingram (1983: 172): ‘Athena represents a higher level of the divine purpose than the Furies …, being a goddess of wisdom …, with its social progress, its intellectual activity, and its creation of harmony in many forms’; Saxonhouse (2009: 53): ‘Orestes comes to Athens for his trial searching for the civilized world … . And Apollo, along with the virgin goddess Athena, stands here at the foundation of the city of the Athenians … . The order they establish is predicated, however, on denying the forces of nature and replacing them with reason’.

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ond stasimon of Eumenides is of central importance. Here, the Erinyes claim that their punitive actions against the murderers of parents represent a work of dike, and that the suffering of their vengeful interventions is a means to acquire sophrosune:²³⁶ Eum. 511– 521: ὦ Δίκα, ὦ θρόνοι τ’ Ἐρινύων’· ταῦτά τις τάχ’ ἂν πατὴρ ἢ τεκοῦσα νεοπαθὴς οἶκτον οἰκτίσαιτ’, ἐπει‐ δὴ πίτνει δόμος Δίκας. ἔσθ’ ὅπου τὸ δεινὸν εὖ καὶ φρενῶν ἐπίσκοπον δεῖ μένειν καθήμενον· ξυμφέρει σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει

As has been observed (cf. e. g. North 1966: 48 – 49, Sommerstein ad loc.), line 521 (σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει) constitutes a reformulation of the principle of pathei mathos. What seems of particular interest to me is that here for the Furies the chance to learn sophrosune through pain is related to the prohibition to kill a father (πατήρ), or a mother who gives life to her child (τεκοῦσα). Thus, for the Furies, not only the father’s, but also the mother’s genealogical authority of birth is linked to the authority of knowing how to speak and act in the right way (σωφρονεῖν).²³⁷ All this defines a continuity between Clytemnestra’s and the Furies’ rhetoric of motherhood. Clytemnestra, in Ag. 1425, uses this verb as much as the Furies do. As we have seen, also for her, learning sophrosune implies understanding that the maternal authority of birth presupposes an inviolable bond of philia between a mother and the creature of her womb (cf. ch. 1, I. 5). This appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν is not a minor detail. The link established by Clytemnestra and the Erinyes between the learning of sophrosune through the knowledge of pain, on the one hand, and the acknowledgement of the mother as the condition of life, on the other hand, compels us to look at cognitive processes as necessarily related to the mother’s body. As Goldhill’s analysis has disclosed (LSN: 215, 228 – 231, 241– 245, 266, 276 – 278), the search for authority in the Eumenides occurs as a search for the origin of birth and, accordingly, for the origin of logos (words, truth) in the father. Nonetheless, this inquiry  On this passage, cf. p. 156.  Accordingly, I read σωφρονεῖν in Eum. 521, as in Ag. 1425, in the meaning of ‘sapere’. Thus, I differ from Italie who quotes σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425 for the meaning ‘sapere’ but Eum. 521 for the meaning ‘prudentiam discernere’.

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also amounts to accounting for the mother’s mind-set and her reproductive power. In what follows, I dwell at some length on this point. The positions endorsed by Apollo about the female mind are in sharp opposition to the Furies’ and Clytemnestra’s understanding of maternal sophronein. For Apollo, the Furies are nothing but furious, mad and savage beings: Eum. 67: καὶ νῦν ἁλούσας τάσδε τὰς μάργους ὁρᾶις

As Benardete has noticed (2000: 66), this Apollonian representation of the Furies as a bunch of mad women might be considered as strictly linked to Apollo’s discourse on marriage, and on the social status of a woman (with children) as wife of her husband (Eum. 211– 224).²³⁸ For Apollo, a god who is entirely on the side of the Father and his law, the Furies, in their defence of maternal blood ties, can hardly represent an instance of knowledge.²³⁹ Yet, Apollo’s discourse seems to proceed towards a simplification of what knowledge is supposed to be. The Furies teach human beings the law of the pathei mathos or of σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει by sending to murderers a song with no lyre (Eum. 331– 333: ὕμνος ἐξ Ἐρινύων/ δέσμιος φρενῶν, ἀφόρ-/μικτος = Ag. 990 – 991: τὸν δ’ ἄνευ λύρας ὅμως ὑμνωιδεῖ/ θρῆνον), i. e. a chant of insanity (Eum. 329: τόδε μέλος, παρακοπά), of derangement and of mind-destruction (Eum. 330: παραφορὰ φρενοδαλής). If I am not completely wrong, it is like saying that murderers might reach a stage of knowledge by losing control over their minds. Whereas Apollo defines the Self through identity, and therefore through the exclusion of insanity from the activities of the logos, the Furies, according to their use of the verb σωφρονεῖν, refrain from a fixed sense of identity (Self as the Same) and handle differences (Self as the Other). We might even say that in Aeschylus madness is compulsory, as the Furies’ understanding of sophronein and the case of Agamemnon’s dilemma illustrate (cf. ch. 1, I. 5); or at least, as revealed by the condition of Orestes after the matricide, a compulsion towards the danger of losing one’s mind. In this sense, the tragic thought does not define logos as the governing instance of the mind, and therefore, Greek tragedy does not conceive logos in opposition

 On passage 211– 224 and the meaning of ὅρκος, φρουρουμένη and οἶδα, cf. Kells (1961).  For the Erinyes as defender of maternal blood ties, cf. Eum. 208: ἀλλ’ ἔστιν ἡμῖν τοῦτο προστεταγμένον; 210: τοὺς μητραλοίας ἐκ δόμων ἐλαύνομεν; 261– 263: αἷμα μητρῶιον χαμαὶ/ δυσαγκόμιστον, παπαῖ,/τὸ διερὸν πέδοι χύμενον οἴχεται; 545: πρὸς τάδε τις τοκέων σέβας εὖ προτίων; 652– 654: πῶς γὰρ τὸ φεύγειν τοῦδ’ ὑπερδικεῖς ὅρα/τὸ μητρὸς αἷμ’ ὅμαιμον ἐκχέας πέδοι/ἔπειτ’ ἐν Ἄργει δώματ’ οἰκήσει πατρός.

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to madness.²⁴⁰ Following this interpretation, ‘das Denken in Gegensätzen’, as Reinhardt (1949: 150) labels the Aeschylean way of thinking, does not feature the Furies’ discourse on sophronein. The Furies are not the opposite of Apollo and his logos; the logos of Apollo does not exclude the knowledge coming from the Furies. Rather, the knowledge of the Furies is a legitimate aspect of the logos itself. Indeed, as the law of pathei mathos originates from Zeus (Ag. 176 – 178), the lesson that the Furies impose on murderers emanates from the same god too: Eum. 334– 335: τοῦτο γὰρ λάχος διανταία Μοῖρ’ ἐπέκλωσεν ἐμπέδως ἔχειν

According to these remarks, we can detect a difference between Apollo’s and Clytemnestra’s assertion that the Erinyes are a force of evil: Apollo – Eum. 71: κακῶν δ’ ἕκατι κἀγένοντ’ … Clytemnestra – Eum. 125: τί σοι πέπρωται πρᾶγμα πλὴν τεύχειν κακά;

For Clytemnestra, the Erinyes do harm, since this is the task allotted to them by Moira. Accordingly, Clytemnestra’s use of the word κακά occurs within the framework of ‘knowledge through suffering’ as a divine law coming from Zeus. Instead, when the word κακῶν is used by Apollo, there is no hint of the fact that the Erinyes do evil as a means to impart knowledge to human beings. Keeping silent about the Olympian origins of the Erinyes’ activity of doing harm, Apollo seems to undermine their authority of knowledge, logos and truth. Yet, Apollo’s discursive strategy appears too simple. As Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo shows, the clash between Apollo’s positions and the claims of the Erinyes does not conclude with the acknowledgement of the father figure as the origin of life and logos. Thus, we might notice that part of the discourse of Eumenides places a) the origin of knowledge in suffering, and b) the origin of life and knowledge in motherhood.²⁴¹ That said, I distance myself from a whole tradition of

 Cf. Foucault (1961: iii): ‘Les grecs avaient rapport à quelque chose qu’ils appelaient ὕβρις … Mais le Logos grec n’avaient pas de contraire’. Cf. also Derrida (1963) in his essay ‘Cogito et histoire de la folie’.  Cf. Derrida quoted after Lyotard (1990: 278): ‘Maternité … Place pour la pensée, dès lors que ne décidant de rien, elle suspend. Qu’appelle-t-on pensée en latin? “Etre en suspens” (pendere), en souffrance (Cf. La fine del pensiero, Agamben)’. Cf. also Fouque (1994: 286): ‘Le mot muet de chair qui a hanté toute ma grosesse … déclenche la rêverie autour des pensées latantes d’une généalogie femelle, d’une généalogie de la pensée’.

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studies on the opposition of sex/gender (nature/culture), which essentially assumes that ‘la confezione del corpo della madre sia separabile dai suoi significati culturali. Cioè, che la madre non pensi’.²⁴² Such studies, at least on the Oresteia, have dismissed the body of the mother, and it is not by chance that they insist on the depiction of Clytemnestra as a woman whose mind is darkened. However, as I have argued with my remarks on Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν in Ag. 1425, with my analysis of Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words εὔφρων and σώφρων in Cho. 88 and 140, and as I finally hope to have clarified with my discussion of Orestes’ logos in Choephoroi, as well as with the discussion of the Erinyes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν, in the Oresteia the discourse on Clytemnestra’s motherhood does not confirm the validity of these dichotomies. Rather, it compels us to question hiérarchies violentes (Derrida). So far, I have discussed the implications of the act of seeing the Furies, and of the interrelation between seeing them and knowing them. To conclude, there is a further aspect to outline. I start with the beautiful and delicate Corbett lecture delivered by Henrichs on 26. 11. 09 at Cambridge University: ‘The Epiphanic Moment: Sight and Insight in Ancient Greek Encounters with the Divine’. Henrichs argues that revelation (φαίνεσθαι), sight (ἰδεῖν) and recognition (γιγνώσκειν) structure the epiphanic moment. As key-examples of this understanding of epiphany as a divine revelation through sight and insight, he quotes the appearance of Athena in Il. 1. 194– 200 and Od. 16. 155 – 163, the manifestation of Dionysos in h. Bacch. 1– 4, 6 – 10, 14– 18, and, finally, the omen of the eagles and its interpretation by Calchas in Ag. 104– 125. In all these passages the vocabulary of epiphany (φαίνεσθαι, ἰδεῖν, ὁρᾶν, νοεῖν, γιγνώσκειν) clearly supports the idea that epiphany ‘occurs in both myth and cult when a god reveals his presence or manifests his power to a mortal or group of mortals, who “see” or “recognize” the god’.²⁴³ Now, in Homer and in the parodos of Agamemnon the encounter with the divine entails the certainty of recognition (I see you = I recognize you; I know who you are). However, in the case of the Furies in Eumenides, there is no place for both seeing and recognizing, as two simultaneous

 Cf. Muraro (2006: 132 n. 1).  Cf. Henrichs’ entry for epiphany in OCD. See also Redfield (1975: 176): ‘When Eurycleia recognizes the scar, Penelope fails to notice, for “Athena turned aside her noos” (ixi. 479). Noos is linked to recognition and responsive understanding: we might say that vision takes in the look of a thing, noos its meaning. Ideein and noesai are not, therefore, two separate acts; rather, the noos further forms perceiving consciousness so that what is perceived is a world of recognized meanings’. On this topic, cf. also Lesher (2009: 14– 17); for epiphany in graeco-roman art, cf. Platt (2011).

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acts, one implying the other. The Pythia, as we have seen, does not know what she is looking at, as she sees the Furies; and the same goes for Athena as well:²⁴⁴ Eum. 406 – 408: καινὴν δ’ ὁρῶσα τήνδ’ ὁμιλίαν χθονὸς ταρβῶ μὲν οὐδέν, θαῦμα δ’ ὄμμασιν πάρα. τίνες ποτ’ ἐστέ; … Eum. 410 – 412: … ὁμοῖαι δ’ οὐδενὶ σπαρτῶν γένει, οὔτ’ ἐν θεαῖσι πρὸς θεῶν ὁρώμεναις, οὔτ’ οὖν βροτείοις ἐμφερεῖς μορφώμασιν Eum. 932– 933: ὅ γε μὴν κύρσας βαρέων τούτων οὐκ οἶδεν ὅθεν πληγαὶ βιότου

These passages suggest the idea that, unlike the Homeric gods, the Furies do not exist only to the extent that they are seen by someone; on the contrary, they exist whether they are perceived or not. This allows me to conclude that in order to see the Furies and be able to recognize them one requires an awareness of pain that is associated with acts of violence. This is the reason why Athena sees the Furies without being able to recognize them: only the one who has committed murder can. Thus, Athena’s awareness is absolutely different from Orestes’ – and the reason is that only by experiencing violence and pain does human knowledge become attainable. In this regard, Aeschylus’ poetry remains profoundly Homeric. The idea that humans have to suffer in order to achieve knowledge is clear, in the opening of the Odyssey: Od. 3 – 4: πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν

In what follows, I further discuss the suffering that the Erinyes dispense to human beings, focusing on the relation between the vengeful actions of the Furies and their memory.

2 The Erinyes, their painful memory and female genealogy As Athena asserts during her exchange with them, while they are lamenting the violation of their old privileges, the Erinyes are ancient goddesses endowed with wisdom:  Obviously, the audience, unlike the Pythia and Athena, sees the Furies. Thus, we might notice a gap between the sight of violence in theatre and the sight of violence by the characters in the play. On Athena seeing the Furies, cf. the beautiful pages of Easterling (2008: 227– 230); on the Furies being revealed to the spectators, cf. Brown (1982: 26 – 28) and Whallon (1995).

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Eum. 849 – 850: καὶ τῶι μὲν εἶ σὺ κάρτ’ ἐμοῦ σοφωτέρα, φρονεῖν δὲ κἀμοὶ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν οὐ κακῶς

Here, when Athena appeals to the Furies’ wisdom (σοφωτέρα), she might be trying simply to soothe their anger or perhaps to call attention to their authority as goddesses of wisdom (Eum. 838 = Eum. 871: ἐμὲ παλαιόφρονα). After all, as Sommerstein comments on line 838, age and wisdom are indeed correlated. Relying on Sommerstein, we presume that Athena conceives an ancient wisdom originating from the vengeful power of the mother figure. Being endowed with this dangerous and maternal wisdom, the Erinyes may act as protectors of the city of Athens, or as its potential destroyers. In what follows, I elaborate on how the text of Eumenides supports this reading. The idea of a wisdom proceeding from the Erinyes is stated elsewhere in the trilogy. The chorus in Choephoroi describes them as βυσσόφρων, or deep-thinking (Cho. 651). In Eumenides, as we have already seen, the Furies assert that they dispense knowledge through suffering (Eum. 521: σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει). Further, they claim that they govern the ἐκ δ’ ὑγιείας φρενῶν (Eum. 535 – 536) or, according to Sommerstein (ad loc.), sophrosune. Here, two points are particularly relevant: – in Eum. 535 – 536, the Furies’ mind and their sophronein are mentioned, as in Eum. 513 – 521, in close connection with the respect owed to parents (Eum. 545: πρὸς τάδε τις τοκέων σέβας εὖ προτίων); in Cho. 651, the Furies’ mind is closely related to the necessity to take revenge for the shed of maternal blood (Cho. 649 – 651: αἱμάτων παλαιτέρων τίνειν μύσος … Ἐρινύς);²⁴⁵ – any behaviour marked by the Furies’ sophronein is a consequence of the reverence due to the unalterable dictates of dike (Cho. 646: Δίκας δ’ ἐρείδεται πυθμήν; Eum. 543: κύριον μένει τέλος). Being agents responsible for the prohibition to shed parental and maternal blood and, accordingly, for the defence of dike and sophrosune, the Erinyes act as protectors of the city of Athens. On the contrary, in case of a violation of this prohibition, they act as the destructive vengeful forces of the mother figure. Following this line of interpretation, the Erinyes’ admonition to conduct a life according to the Delphic doctrine of ‘nothing to excess’ (Eum. 529: παντὶ μέσωι τὸ κράτος θεὸς ὤπασεν) seems to be based precisely on the notion that the ordered justice of life in a civic community is a reflection of the ordered justice of life in the fam-

 For αἱμάτων παλαιτέρων as expression for matricide, cf. Loraux (1990a: 252). For this connection in passage 513 – 521, cf. p. 151.

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ily. From where, then, are we supposed to begin? I propose to start with the Erinyes and their memory. The Erinyes, ancient goddesses of wisdom, are κακῶν μνήμονες or mindful of committed wrong acts (Eum. 382– 383). Two explanations for the presentation of the Furies as κακῶν μνήμονες can be put forward.²⁴⁶ Like Zeus, they are μάρτυρες ὀρθαί or upright witnesses (Eum. 318). The act of witnessing is closely related, as the case of the Muses demonstrates, to the function of remembering the past. Furthermore, they may not forget evil, since justice needs time to set its laws in motion (Ag. 58 – 59: ὑστερόποινον…Ἐρινύν). Yet, the memory of the Furies is something more than just an activity of recalling the past. As has often been observed, by remembering past evil, their memory eliminates the dividing barrier between the present and the past. Obviously, in the case of the Furies, ruling out that barrier is like ruling out the dividing line between life and death. From this perspective, the riddle of the dead killing the living, or the living killing the dead in Cho. 886 (τὸν ζῶντα καίνειν τοὺς τεθνηκότας λέγω), sounds like rephrasing the Erinyes’ agency of reversing present evil into past evil, and vice versa: blurring the borderline between the present and the past, the Furies’ memory marks time in tautological cycles, letting past events become present (Ag. 67– 68: ἔστι δ’ ὅπηι νῦν/ἔστι), according to what has been allotted (Ag. 68: τελεῖται δ’ ἐς τὸ πεπρωμένον).²⁴⁷ Thus, the memory of the Erinyes guards the knowledge of the telos, which is unknown to mortals. This characterization of the Erinyes as supernatural beings, who do not forget evil, and grant wisdom and knowledge, takes us back to the Zeus hymn in the parodos of Agamemnon. Just as the wisdom coming from the Furies is tied up with memory, suffering and pain, so the wisdom and knowledge coming from Zeus is a legacy of a recollection of past suffering: Ag. 176 – 181: τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώσαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν· στάζει δ’ ἀνθ’ ὕπνου πρὸ καρδίας

 In what follows, I follow Simondon (1982: 224– 225).  For a reading of verses 67– 68 as a tautology, cf. LSN: 15: ‘Here the language is again tautologous, a summation of the present which merely asserts its existence in terms of itself, juxtaposed to an expression of the future which joins a sense of “end” (not forgetting the religious overtone of teleitai) to its own fated moment, that is, which simply asserts the teleology of teleitai!’. For an association of these verses with the Erinyes and their memory, cf. Simondon (1982: 233 – 234). For general remarks on blurring the borderline between past and present in the Agamemnon, cf. Grethlein (2013: 88 – 94).

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μνησιπήμων πόνος· καὶ παρ’ ἄκοντας ἦλθε σωφρονεῖν

Quite recently, Wians, in his beautiful pages on knowledge in Agamemnon, has alluded to a certain pessimism in the Aeschylean idea of acquiring knowledge through past sufferings.²⁴⁸ Personally, I do not perceive any poetic hopelessness in the formulation of the pathei mathos doctrine in Agamemnon and Eumenides. I would rather emphasise a different point that has been neglected by scholars, as far as I know. The question would be: is there a connection between the memory of the Furies (along with the suffering, the wisdom and the knowledge inherent in it) and the chance of an ordered life in the community of Athens, as expressed by the Furies in? Eum. 520 – 525 ξυμφέρει σωφρονεῖν ὑπὸ στένει. τίς δὲ μηδὲν †ἐν φάει† καρδίαν †ἀνατρέφων† ἢ βροτός πόλις θ’ ὁμοίως ἔτ’ ἂν σέβοι Δίκαν;

It has been observed that the word στένος in Eum. 521 does not refer to pain, but to compulsion: in the case of the Athenian state machinery, it is hard to imagine that the acquisition of sophronein has to pass through a process of suffering and pain.²⁴⁹ I do not necessarily concur with the critics on this remark. In my opinion, we can easily assume that the city of Athens, in order to preserve civic life, has to protect itself from pain. A look at Loraux’s research on stasis invites us to opt for this interpretation. In the book ‘La cité divisée. L’oubli dans la mémoire d’Athènes’, Loraux asks why, in the famous lines 858 to 866, towards the end of Eumenides, we find a reference to civil war.²⁵⁰ A possible reason lies in the representation of stasis in the Oresteia as violence that is engendered inside the family by the Erinyes’

 Cf. Wians (2009: 182– 194), who labels Aeschylean thought as ‘poetic pessimism’. Wians maintains that Aeschylus’ poetry is essentially pessimistic since humans are not in the position to understand the events they are involved in. However, Clytemnestra understands her dream quite well, and, after the murder of Agamemnon, she seems to understand the necessity to find a way out of the use of violence (cf. pp. 79–80).  Cf. e. g. Di Benedetto (1999: 102–103).  Cf. Loraux (1997: 34– 35). The primary literary model for the Aeschylean representation on stasis is Homer (Od. 24, 473 – 486).

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wrath (Ag. 1117– 1120), as well as in the conceptualisation of the polis as a community that includes all families. Since the origin of violence is inter-familial and the city represents the whole of all families, the Erinyes’ wrath, which strikes the life in the family, is meant to strike as well life in the polis with a series of mutual crimes. Therefore, when Athena soothes the Furies’ wrath and assigns them the duty to preserve her city from evil and from the suffering of civil discord, the memory of the Furies ‘dispensera préventivement les citoyens d’avoir à se “rappeler les maux” qu’ils se sont infligés dans la stasis’.²⁵¹ As Loraux suggests, the Erinyes’ memory works as ‘oubli du politique comme tel’: they cast the shadows of civil discord, a basic element of the political functioning of the polis in itself, into a moment of repression, negation and forgetting.²⁵² We can also add some remarks on the memory of the Furies in its relation to stasis. Their memory reminds the citizens of Athens of the dangers that may arise from maternal vengeful wrath.²⁵³ Indeed, the Furies express their grudge for the abuse of their ancient laws (specifically, of the duty to respect the inviolability of the mother’s body giving life) and threaten the city of Athens with stasis (Eum. 778 – 792 = 808 – 822; 837– 846), when Athena decrees the acquittal of Orestes. It is legitimate to argue that the preservation of the community life in the polis would never imply the disrespect for the rights of the mother figure. Again, I contend that Aeschylus’ poetry is not based on separations and exclusions. Precisely because the respect for the inviolability of the mother’s body is a necessary condition for maintaining the delicate balance of the political order in the polis, the painful memory of the Erinyes protects the city of Athens by redeeming female genealogy from oblivion. In what follows, I hope to demonstrate that the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of keywords such as φίλος, ἐχθρός, μήτηρ, πατήρ, τρέφειν and τίκτειν supports the analysis I have put forward in this section.

 Cf. Loraux (1980: 237). For a detailed discussion of the Greek vocabulary of stasis and the natural interrelation between violence in the family and violence in the polis, cf. Loraux (1987).  Cf. Loraux (1997: 38 – 40; quotation p. 38).  In Agamemnon as well maternal revenge requires maternal memory (Ag. 155). On this line and the semantic correspondences between Ag. 155 (οἰκονόμος δολία, μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος) and Eum. 382– 383 (κακῶν τε μνήμονες), cf. pp. 40–42.

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3 The legitimacy of words The juridical controversy among the Furies, Athena, Apollo and Orestes concerns the blood shed by the mother:²⁵⁴ Eum. 612– 613: ἀλλ’ εἰ δικαίως εἴτε μὴ τῆι σῆι φρενὶ δοκῶ, τόδ’ αἷμα κρῖνον, ὡς τούτοις φράσω Eum. 681– 682: κλύοιτ’ ἂν ἤδη θεσμόν, Ἀττικὸς λεώς, πρώτας δίκας κρίνοντες αἵματος χυτοῦ

In these lines, according to Orestes and Athena, the enforcement of dike depends on maternal blood. Therefore, the conditions for the possibility of democratic justice are isomorphic with a process of normalisation of the mother’s blood and its reproductive power.²⁵⁵ Yet, to value maternal blood means much more in Eumenides. I assume that, in order to define the blood of the mother, we have to opt for an interpretation of the origins as coming from the mother and/or from the father figure, along with the play of differences that this entails. Accordingly, I maintain that defining maternal blood is like engaging in an irresolvable conflict regarding the authorisation of genealogy and power as maternal and/or paternal. Just as the Odyssey’s inquiries into the term ἀνήρ are not over by the return of Odysseus to Ithaca, and by the enactment of peace contracts, in Eumenides too the search for a definition of the words πατήρ and  We might recognize in the phrase ‘τόδ’ αἷμα κρῖνον’ the rhetorical topos of the definition of the nature of the deed disputed at the trial (orismos). On this topos and Orestes’ trial, cf. Glau (1998: 312). On the lawsuit between Apollo and the Furies, cf. Eum. 224: δίκας δὲ Παλλὰς τῶνδ’ ἐποπτεύσει θεά; 243: αὐτοῦ φυλάσσων ἀναμένω τέλος δίκης; 433: κρῖνε δ’ εὐθεῖαν δίκην; 434: αἰτίας τέλος; 468: σὺ δ’ εἰ δικαίως εἴτε μὴ κρῖνον δίκην; 472: φόνου διαιρεῖν ὀξυμηνίτου δίκας; 483: φόνων δικαστὰς ὁρκίων αἰδουμένους; 573: καὶ τούσδ’, ὅπως ἂν εὖ καταγνωσθῆι δίκη; 581: τήνδε κύρωσον δίκην; 582: ὑμῶν ὁ μῦθος, εἰσάγω δὲ τὴν δίκην; 639: ὅσπερ τέτακται τήνδε κυρῶσαι δίκην; 709: διαγνῶναι δίκην; 729: σύ τοι τάχ’ οὐκ ἔχουσα τῆς δίκης τέλος; 734: λοισθίαν κρῖναι δίκην.  I do not share the critical view according to which the biological bias of Apollo and Athena does not have a central importance in the play’s discourse on dike in relation to Orestes’ matricide. Cf. Dover (1957: 236): ‘Athena’s somewhat illogical reason for voting in favour of Orestes’ and, quite recently, Leâo (2010: 53): ‘In any case, the most important thing, in my opinion, is the fact that the physiological argument used by Apollo … does not carry determining weight in the dispute. Orestes is acquitted of matricide, in the first instance, on exceptional grounds and through the special grace of the protecting divinity of Athens, in this way putting an end to the continuous succession of assassinations and installing a newer form of application of justice. This is why the trilogy does not conclude with the acquittal of Orestes, but rather with the efforts Athena makes to integrate the Erinyes into this budding order’. On critics interpreting the argument of Athena as an illogical and/or frivolous argument, cf. Hester (1981: 266 with n. 2).

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ἀνήρ is not concluded with the acknowledgement of Agamemnon as the only genetic parent of his children and as the head of the Atreid household. Read this way, the tragic discourse of Eumenides seems to indicate that ‘the paradox of Orestes’ desire for vengeance with regard to the emotive term τοκεύς, the need for redefinition of that term’ (LSN: 144) risks turning into a tragic aporia. We might advance some objections to this line of argumentation. The play ends: 1) with the acquittal of Orestes; 2) with the Furies promising the city of Athens rightful prosperity and civil concord, according to a life in respect of sophrosune (Eum. 996 – 1002); 3) with the Furies being acknowledged their new civic status as metoikoi, and therefore being included in the civic life of the city of Athenes (Eum. 1011, 1018, 1028 – 1031);²⁵⁶ 4) with the triumphant procession of torchbearers who wish for a time of peace and prosperity for the city of Athens (Eum. 1032– 1047). Yet, the Aeschylean trilogy is not a utopian play: it does not stage a success, rather the conflict that is inherent in the enforcement of the law of dike. ²⁵⁷ Indeed,  At line 1028 it is not clear if the Furies or the propompoi wear the purple clothes, typical for the metoikoi. I follow Headlam (1906: 272– 274); Bowie (1993: 27) and Bacon (2001: 54) who argues that the Furies are wearing them. For further bibliography, cf. Bacon (2001: 54 n. 14). Arguing for the inclusion of the Furies in the civic life of the city of Athens, I differ from Dolgert (2012: 271, 277– 278) who maintains that they are excluded and expelled from public life. Dolgert’s analysis is based on the meaning of θάλαμος in Eum. 1004, p. 278: ‘But this word, normally translated as chamber, thalamos, has a number of different meanings, including bridal chamber, grave, and netherworld … Athena may thus be saying that she will lead the Furies to their grave, to Hades, which implies that the Furies are being killed or at least buried alive’. This is obviously not the case: θάλαμος (cf. Sommerstein ad loc.) is terminus tecnicus for the adobe of chthonic dieties. On the incorporation of the Furies into the civic life of Athens, cf. Rechenauer (2001: 88 – 92).  On the enforcement of the law of dike in Greek tragedy, cf. Wohl (2009: 137) on Antigone: ‘Tragedy, in staging the conflict of laws as an aporia, a conflict without resolution, itself becomes the enactment of justice … But the justice it enacts is itself aporetic. It cannot be fixed or localized in a simple moral’. Surprisingly, Wohl brilliantly challenges a reading of Antigone which reduces the discourse of the play to a simple moral, but follows this reading for the Oresteia. Cf. Wohl (2009: 124 with n. 11): ‘This is a depressingly familiar strategy in Greek tragedy: otherwise irresolvable conflicts can be resolved by charting them onto gender difference, with its unambiguous and seemingly incontrovertible hierarchy of male over female. … The end of the Oresteia is the most notorious example; there, the traumatic legal and political crises of the first two plays are finally resolved by appeal to the manifest priority of the father over the mother’. I suspect that Wohl takes this critical path because she does not consider the characterisation of Clytemnestra in her role as mother and the discursive struggle in the Aeschylean trilogy for the

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Orestes is acquitted in dubio pro reo and the Furies, despite their appeasement, remain Furies (cf. section four below). Yet, we should notice that Clytemnestra does not attend the trial. Why, then, should we take the confrontation between Apollo and the Furies as an inexhaustible judicial dispute on maternal or paternal authority of birth and origins? For the following reasons: 1) Clytemnestra does not attend the trial because she has been killed already; 2) the Furies act as her legitimate voice (Eum. 131– 139); 3) Orestes’, Apollo’s, Athena’s and the Erinyes’ rhetoric of appropriation of words such as φίλος, ἐχθρός, μήτηρ, πατήρ, τρέφειν and τίκτειν in their excited dispute on the role of mother and father pinpoints substantial differences among their discourses on genealogy and authority. Given that Orestes is acquitted in dubio pro reo, these differences make us wonder whether we have to assign the authority of birth and origins to the father figure and/ or to the mother figure.²⁵⁸ Let us begin with a discussion of Apollo’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word πατήρ. Apollo uses this word right at the beginning of the play, while he promises his help to Orestes, and asks Hermes to support the matricidal son:²⁵⁹ Eum. 89: σὺ δ’, αὐτάδελφον αἷμα καὶ κοινοῦ πατρός

Here, the word πατήρ indicates a blood relative. Therefore, it hints at fatherhood as a bond of consanguinity between father and children. Now, for Apollo consanguinity with the father suppresses consanguinity with the mother. We do not have to search long for textual support to this view. When Apollo speaks of Clytemnestra’s maternal body, that body does not tie up mother and children in a

validation of the repudiation of her maternal power. In other words, reading Aeschylus, she forgets the mother figure, the mother-child bond, and accordingly, Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo. For scholars who do not read the Oresteia as utopian play, cf. Euben (1982: 31); Porter (2005: 302 with n. 5).  On this dispute as discourse, i. e. as logos, cf. Eum. 201: τοσοῦτο μῆκος ἔκτεινον λόγου, 215: ἄτιμος τῶιδ’ ἀπέρριπται λόγωι, 227: τιμὰς σὺ μὴ σύντεμνε τὰς ἐμὰς λόγωι, 303: οὐδ’ ἀντιφωνεῖς, ἀλλ’ ἀποπτύεις λόγους, 420: μάθοιμ’ ἂν, εἰ λέγοι τις ἐμφανῆ λόγον, 428: δυοῖν παρόντοιν ἥμισυς λόγου πάρα, 583: ἐξ ἀρχῆς λέγων, 590: οὐ κειμένωι πω τόνδε κομπάζεις λόγον, 592: λέγω, 642: πῶς ταῦτα τούτοις οὐκ ἐναντίως λέγεις, 662: τεκμήριον δὲ τοῦδέ σοι δείξω λόγου, 675: ψῆφον δικαίαν, ὡς ἅλις λελεγμένων, 710: εἴρηται λόγος.  On Apollo first speech I shall mention the brilliant article of Pelliccia (1993: 69 – 103) who discusses at great length the oracular character of Apollo’s language (in particular in regard to οὔτοι προδώσω in line 64 and μέμνησο in line 88). On οὔτοι προδώσω, cf. also Vogt (1998: 42).

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bond of consanguinity. Rather, it becomes for Apollo (as for the characters in Choephoroi) an object to be destroyed:²⁶⁰ Eum. 84: καὶ γὰρ κτανεῖν σ’ ἔπεισα μητρῶιον δέμας Eum. 579 – 580: … αἰτίαν δ’ ἔχω τῆς τοῦδε μητρὸς τοῦ φόνου …

Similarly, in Apollo’s speech in defence of Orestes (Eum. 660 – 666), the god’s rhetoric of appropriation of the verbs τρέφειν and τίκτειν and the word πατήρ links consanguinity to the father and not to the mother. The father – as Apollo maintains – gives life (Eum. 660: τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων; 666: ἀλλ’ οἷον ἔρνος οὔτις ἂν τέκοι θεά) and Athena’s case provides an incontrovertible proof for this discourse: Eum. 662: τεκμήριον δὲ τοῦδέ σοι δείξω λόγου Eum. 664: μάρτυς πάρεστι παῖς Ὀλυμπίου Διός

Indeed, she has not been nourished by the blood of her mother’s womb: Eum. 665: οὐκ ἐν σκότοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη

According to Apollo, the father’s genealogical authority of birth eliminates the consanguinity with the mother. For this reason, it legitimises the definition of blood ties as based both on the law of the father-tokeus and on the mother’s position in the family as wife of the children’s father.²⁶¹ The text supports this reading. In this regard, passage 622– 637 is particularly interesting. The Erinyes speak lines 622– 624 to Apollo and Orestes, during their exchange about paternal and maternal consanguinity, immediately before the jurors cast their votes. Here, the Erinyes use the words μήτηρ and πατήρ to refer to the killing of Agamemnon as the violent action of a mother against a father:

 Note that Apollo, the god who seeks to destroy the mother, is also the god who has taken control over the oracle of Delphi, breaking the maternal genealogy in the succession of its power (Eum. 1– 18). As son and prophetic interpreter of his father Zeus (Eum. 19), Apollo maintains that his oracles have always been ordered by Zeus father (Eum. 616 – 618). This is why, according to him, to defend the matricidal son is like obeying the will of Zeus (Eum. 620 – 621; cf. as well Eum. 640). In sharp opposition to Apollo’s defence of the will/oracles of the father/his father, we find the Erinyes’ definition of Apollo’s oracular power as a violation of justice (Eum. 162– 168). On passage 162– 168, cf. Pattoni (1994: 101 ff.).  Cf. Millett (1971: 114): ‘Apollo legislates, finding Clytemnestra, in taking the life of Agamemnon, husband king and father, guilty of a very grave crime indeed’.

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Eum. 623 – 624:

…τὸν πατρὸς φόνον πράξαντα μητρὸς μηδαμοῦ τιμὰς νέμειν;

Yet, Apollo corrects the Furies, arguing that Clytemnestra is the wife of her noble husband, the victorious king in Troy: Eum. 625 – 627: οὐ γάρ τι ταὐτὸν, ἄνδρα γενναῖον θανεῖν διοσδότοις σκήπτροισι τιμαλφούμενον, καὶ ταῦτα πρὸς γυναικός … Eum. 631: ἀπὸ στρατείας γάρ νιν, ἠμποληκότα Eum. 636 – 637: ἀνδρὸς μὲν ὑμῖν οὗτος εἴρηται μόρος τοῦ παντοσέμνου, τοῦ στρατηλάτου νεῶν

Orestes follows Apollo’s line of argumentation on the social definition of the mother figure as the wife of her husband, and on the validation of power as exclusively paternal. In exactly the same way as in Choephoroi (cf. ch. 2. II, 1– 2), for Orestes Clytemnestra is not his mother giving life, but a wife who killed the children’s father. Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words ἀνήρ and πατήρ in Eum. 602 (ἀνδροκτονοῦσα πατέρ’ ἐμὸν κατέκτανε), in the exchange with the Furies after Apollo’s entrance on stage, seems clear enough to me on this point: by killing Agamemnon, Clytemnestra has killed the children’s father (πατέρ’ ἐμὸν), i. e. her husband and the man with power (ἀνδρο…). I would push the similarities between Orestes’ and Apollo’s discourses even further. Right at the beginning of the play, in his first speech, Apollo’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word ἐχθρός in Eum. 66 (ἐχθροῖσι τοῖς σοῖς οὐ γενήσομαι πέπων) seems to echo Orestes’ and Electra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the word φίλος (cf. ch. 2, II. 1). The Furies are labelled as echthroi, since their rebellion against the violation of the female genealogical rights is for Apollo an illegitimate act against the law of the Father and philos. Following this line of argumentation, closure can partially be found only by Apollo’s divine authority (Orestes is acquitted in dubio pro reo), because only divine authority can mediate the relation between the mother’s body, as the biological source of life, and the laws of social organisation through marriage. Lines 658 – 659 of Apollo’s famous speech on paternal genealogy point in this direction as well: οὐκ ἔστι μήτηρ ἡ κεκλημένη τέκνου τοκεύς, τροφὸς δὲ κύματος νεοσπόρου

Here, as Apollo speaks about the mother’s agency of giving life, claiming that a mother is not the one to be called (ἡ κεκλημένη) the genetic parent of the child

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(τέκνου τοκεύς), motherhood is turned into the symbolic construct of a patriarchal discourse, established by all instances of the law of the Father engraved in a maternal body: an empty vessel whose function is the reproduction of the father’s children and the perpetuation of the community of the fathers (τροφὸς δὲ κύματος νεοσπόρου).²⁶² However, this very idea of suppressing what is a matter of fact, namely that the community of the fathers needs the mother’s body in order to reproduce itself, is nothing more than a pure speculation. In fact, when Apollo denies the biological power of the mother, he makes use of an optative. There could be – he says – a father without a mother: Eum. 663: πατὴρ μὲν ἂν γείναιτ’ ἄνευ μητρός …

Obviously, the opposite is true: there cannot be a father without a mother. Again, we see how the play’s discourse of separation and exclusion of the mother’s functions (not the woman giving life, but the wife of her husband for whom she has borne children) inevitably implies a discourse of inclusion (woman with a child = wife of the husband and the children’s father and mother giving life). In her speech in defence of Orestes, Athena is re-enacting the biological bias of Apollo against the mother’s reproductive power. Following Athena, genealogical authority belongs to the father figure. Therefore, Clytemnestra’s maternal role in the family’s system has to be identified with that of the wife of her husband and ruler of the house: Eum. 736 – 740: μήτηρ γὰρ οὔτις ἐστὶν ἥ μ’ ἐγείνατο, τὸ δ’ ἄρσεν αἰνῶ πάντα, πλὴν γάμου τυχεῖν, ἅπαντι θυμῶι, κάρτα δ’ εἰμὶ τοῦ πατρός. οὕτω γυναικὸς οὐ προτιμήσω μόρον ἄνδρα κτανούσης δωμάτων ἐπίσκοπον

In linking the pair μήτηρ-πατήρ (Eum. 736 – 738: μήτηρ γὰρ οὔτις ἐστὶν … κάρτα δ’ εἰμὶ τοῦ πατρός) with the pair ἀνήρ-γυνή (Eum. 739 – 740: γυναικὸς οὐ προτιμήσω μόρον/ ἄνδρα κτανούσης δωμάτων ἐπίσκοπον), the Greek οὕτω in Eum. 739 gives good reason to accept Athena’s equation between mother and wife of the husband and of the man with power. Yet, her discourse of exclusion risks failing as well. As Loraux (1985: 64) has lucidly shown, Athena, as a virgin

 Cf. Zeitlin (1978: 168), and for similar critical positions duBois (1988: 70 – 71); Bacon (2001: 56 n. 19). On Apollo’s bias and its relation to the presocratic medical tradition, cf. e. g. Blass (1936); Peretti (1956); Rösler (1970: 77– 87); Kember (1973); Hester (1981: 266 – 267); Kraus (1983: 201– 202); Föllinger (1996: 49); Bonnard (2004: 119 – 144).

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and warlike goddess, resembles Iphigeneia, and recalls the connection between the young girl and the world of war. Thus, Athena’s praise of fatherhood seems to be still haunted by the memories of the father’s warlike violence and of the mother’s relationship with her daughter. Some questions arise. Is Athena entirely on the side of the father? Does her discourse on the father figure have the power to suppress de facto maternal genealogy? However, if we abide by Athena’s rhetoric of appropriation of the keywords μήτηρ, πατήρ, γυνή and ἀνήρ, and with her representation of the mother as the wife of the husband, further remarks seem possible. Athena praises the male in all respects, except where marriage is concerned: Eum. 737: τὸ δ’ ἄρσεν αἰνῶ πάντα, πλὴν γάμου τυχεῖν

Line 737 has been explained in several ways. Podlecki (ad loc.) maintains that Athena refuses marriage because she is a virgin. Sommerstein (ad loc.), following Goldhill (LSN: 259, 280), refers to her liminal position of androgynous goddess in regard to gender relations, and beyond them. These interpretations seem to be corroborated by a further remark: Athena refuses marriage, since as a goddess she seems ‘to have “immortal blood” and to be “bloodless” ’.²⁶³ As I argued in the chapter on Choephoroi (cf. 2. II, 1), in the human world, marriage defines the mother’s position in the social organization of the family as mother of the father’s children, therefore symbolising the maternal blood being expropriated of its reproductive agency, as well as that same agency being transferred from women to men. Gods get married too, and humans, cherishing the joys of marriage, reiterate a divine praxis that guarantees a just life in the community of the fathers. Yet, as the case of Athena shows, a goddess might accept the authority of paternal genealogy and, at the same time, refuse marriage: for a divine being which seems ‘to have “immortal blood” and to be “bloodless” ’, power relations are not based on real blood, or on the denial of the power of mother’s blood to give life. Therefore, Athena’s rejection of marriage may emphasize her liminal position precisely by outlining the fundamental difference between human and di-

 On the absence of real blood in divine bodies, cf. Vernant (1989: 26): ‘In the human body, blood is life. But when it gushes out of a wound … then blood means death. Because the gods are alive, there is undoubtedly blood in their bodies. Yet, even when it trickles from an open wound, this divine blood cannot tip the scales toward the side of death. A blood that flows, but that does not mean the loss of life … in short, a “immortal blood”, ambroton haima – is it still blood? Since the gods bleed, one must admit that their bodies have blood in them, but it must be immediately added that this is so only on the condition that this blood is not really blood, since death … is not present in it. Letting blood that is not blood, the gods simultaneously appear to have “immortal blood” and to be “bloodless” ’.

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vine body (having real blood or not) and between human and divine power relations (paternal genealogy with or without marriage). Orestes appropriates the words μήτηρ, τίκτειν and φίλος exactly as his defenders do. For him, the name of Clytemnestra is synonymous with mother giving life: Eum. 463: ἔκτεινα τὴν τεκοῦσαν …

Yet, we do not have to wait long for Orestes’ repudiation of Clytemnestra’s maternal agency of giving life. In Eum. 606, during his exchange with the Furies on the issue of consanguinity with the mother, he asks them if he is truly of the same blood as his mother or not: ἐγὼ δὲ μητρὸς τῆς ἐμῆς ἐν αἵματι;

What Orestes does not question, as he confesses to having killed his mother, is his own view of Clytemnestra as an unreasonable being. In Eum. 459 – 460 he describes his mother as a κελαινόφρων μήτηρ, an expression usually translated as ‘black-hearted’, ‘black of heart’, ‘black-souled’ (cf. Sommerstein, Podlecki ad loc.), and therefore an expression that tends to associate Clytemnestra with the Erinyes, who are repeatedly described as daughters of the mother-night (Eum. 321– 322, 745, 844, 877, 1033). However, there is more to the Greek κελαινόφρων and to this association of Clytemnestra with the mother-night. The adjective κελαινόφρων is a composite of the terms κελαινόν and φρήν, and the latter, as we know, designates not only the soul or the heart but the mind as well. It is important to bear in mind this meaning. Clytemnestra’s characterisation as a black-minded mother reminds us of the image of the mother-night, and of the implied image of a cheerful and reasonable mother in Ag. 265 (μητρὸς εὐφρόνης with the pun μητρὸς εὐφρόνος), which we discussed in the chapter on Agamemnon (p. 34): ἕως γένοιτο μητρὸς εὐφρόνης πάρα

Now, when Orestes refers to his mother by using the phrase ‘κελαινόφρων μήτηρ’, he seems to be re-appropriating the word μήτηρ and the maternal image in Ag. 265. As for Cassandra, for the nurse and, to a certain extent, for Electra (cf. pp. 48 – 49, 85 – 86, 122– 124), for Orestes as well the word μήτηρ applies not to a reasonable and kind being, but to a creature whose mind is darkened and misused.

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Unlike Apollo, Athena and Orestes, the Furies do not frame a discourse that instantiates the Father as the origin of birth and power, and that defines blood ties and power relations as based on the law of the Father. Instead, they challenge such discourse on the supposed supremacy of father over mother: Eum. 640: πατρὸς προτιμᾶι Ζεὺς μόρον τῶι σῶι λόγωι

As Clytemnestra’s rhetoric of appropriation of the words φίλος, ὠδίς, τρέφειν and τίκτειν in Agamemnon and Choephoroi indicates, also the Erinyes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the words τρέφειν, μήτηρ, φίλος, αἷμα, τίκτειν and related terms draws attention to the role of the mother as the condition of life, to the consanguinity between mother and child and to the importance of the maternal blood as the element that binds together mother and child in an inviolable bond of philia: Eum. 230 and 261: … αἷμα μητρῶιον … Eum. 271: … τοκέας φίλους Eum. 304: ἐμοὶ τραφείς … Eum. 514: … τεκοῦσα νεοπαθὴς Eum. 605: οὐκ ἦν ὅμαιμος φωτὸς ὃν κατέκτανεν Eum. 607– 608: πῶς γάρ σ’ ἔθρεψεν ἐντός, ὦ μιαιφόνε, ζώνης; ἀπεύχηι μητρὸς αἷμα φίλτατον Eum. 653: τὸ μητρὸς αἷμ’ ὅμαιμον …

Line 514, in the second stasimon, is revealing of Clytemnestra’s function as a mother-tokeus. The Furies use the participle τεκοῦσα in sharp opposition to their own use of the word πατήρ in Eum. 513: … τις τάχ’ ἂν πατὴρ

Clearly, according to them, the power of tiktein or giving life also belongs to the mother. As the Furies’ usage of the words τρέφειν, μήτηρ, φίλος, τίκτειν, αἷμα and related terms shows, their discourse on the mother-child relation seems to elucidate the fundamental differences between being a mother and being a father. I would like to summarise the criteria for these differences. Quoting Irigaray (2000: 151): – whether one can conceive a living being in one’s own body or not; – whether one procreates within oneself, or outside oneself; – whether one can nourish another living being from one’s own body, or only through one’s own labour.

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In the next section, I turn to the Erinyes’ incorporation into Athens’ city life. My contention is that the narrative of Athena’s persuasion and of the appeasement of the Furies’ anger does not endorse the authoritative validity of the male model of justice. On the contrary, it demonstrates that the justice of Athena, who is entirely on the father’s side, necessitates the Erinyes’ dike as well. In this particular regard, as Sourvinou-Inwood (2003: 236) has aptly observed, Eumenides invites the reader to wonder how ‘the Erinyes would be dealt with’. Accordingly, I also contend that questioning dike in Eumenides leads to questioning the authorisation of blood ties and power relations as based merely on the law of the Father.

4 Athena’s persuasion, the Erinyes and/or Eumenides Così vanno le cose così devono andare chi c’é c’é e chi non c’é non c’é, chi é stato é stato e chi stato non é Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti

In consideration of my remarks in sections two and three of this chapter, can we assert that Eumenides expresses the anxieties of a myth of matriarchy, and that it promotes a patriarchal discourse whose misogyny is counteracted by the institution of the Erinyes’ cult?²⁶⁴ When, towards the end of the play, the Furies express their benign auspices for the city of Athens (Eum. 956 – 967), their wish for virgins to have husbands places the function of women into a patriarchal model according to which the female becomes a woman only through and by marriage: Eum. 959 – 960: νεανίδων δ’ ἐπηράτων ἀνδροτυχεῖς βιότους δότε …

In this sense, the domestication of the Furies by Athena seems to privilege the defence of paternal consanguinity and social bonds through marriage and patrilineal heritage. A denial of maternal blood kinship is promoted in favour of the civic self- reproduction of the polis (mother = wife of the husband and father).²⁶⁵

 Cf. Burian and Shapiro (2003: 22– 24).  Cf. Johnston (1999: 261– 264). However, I differ from Johnston insofar as she does not consider that the validation of blood ties as paternal grounds the definition of the father figure as the origin of birth and power in the family and in society. As I hope to have shown in the previous two chapters, it is not simply the repudiation of motherhood and maternal consanguinity that authorises social kinship and the power of the father figure. Rather, it is precisely the suppression of maternal consanguinity and the related re-definition of consanguinity as

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Nonetheless, do the Furies truly renounce defending the inviolability of maternal consanguinity? To answer this question, we have to consider the dramatic situation that follows Athena’s appeasement of the Furies through persuasion. After having been propitiated by Athena, the Erinyes promise to desist from stirring up civil dissension (Eum. 976 – 986). Yet, as the goddess reports, they will not actually cease to punish the faults of ancestors and to wield power, in order to fulfil the rule of dike and therefore to pursue wrongdoers:²⁶⁶ Eum. 910: τῶν δυσσεβούντων δ’ ἐκφορωτέρα πέλοις²⁶⁷ Eum. 934– 935: τὰ γὰρ ἐκ προτέρων ἀπλακήματά νιν πρὸς τάσδ’ ἀπάγει … Eum. 952– 955: περί τ’ ἀνθρώπων φανέρ’ ὡς τελέως διαπράσσουσιν, τοῖς μὲν ἀοιδάς, τοῖς δ’ αὖ δακρύων βίον ἀμβλωπὸν παρέχουσαι

Moreover, as Rabinowitz (1981: 184) has noticed, in her attempt to persuade the Furies to abandon their vengeful violence (Eum. 794: ἐμοὶ πίθεσθε μὴ βαρυστόνως φέρειν; 885: ἀλλ’ εἰ μὲν ἁγνόν ἐστί σοι Πειθοῦς σέβας), Athena only talks about the acts they are not supposed to perpetrate, without mentioning the fact that they will not actually reiterate those actions:

paternal that validates the position of Agamemnon as genetic father and subject of power (in the family: genitor, husband; in society: head of the family, king and warrior). Accordingly, I also differ from Zakin (2009: 184) who reads the conflict between Apollo and the Furies as a conflict of maternal blood kinship over paternal social kinship, but omits that Apollo’s discourse on paternal social kinship (mother = wife of the husband and father) is grounded a) in a discourse on paternal consanguinity, i. e. in the definition of the father figure as the only genetic parent and the sole origin of life and b) in the repudiation of maternal consanguinity (cf. pp. 163 – 166): ‘Whereas Apollo privileges “married love” (217) over either “kindred blood” (213) or the “right of nature” (218), the Erinyes had allied themselves with the “motherblood” that drives them (230), invoking not only kinship but also one transmitted through the maternal line’. On maternal consanguinity and maternal power in the family system, cf. Clytemnestra’s discourse on motherhood at pp. 24– 27.  Cf. Burian and Shapiro (2003: 20 – 21); Easterling (2008: 232– 233), with further bibliography.  I read δυσσεβούντων δ’ as in M. Therefore, I take ἐκφορωτέρα in the meaning of ‘more ready to weed out’. Sommerstein corrects τῶν δ’ εὐσεβούντων and argues that ἐκφορωτέρα in the meaning of ‘to weed out’ does not fit the context of Athena’s speech, who, in this passage, is talking about blessings. However, it seems important to retain δυσσεβούντων δ’ and to read ἐκφορωτέρα as ‘to weed out’: it is clear evidence that Athena is aware of the power of the Furies to curse wrongdoers and to benefit righteous men.

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Eum. 800 – 802: ὑμεῖς δὲ μήτε τῆιδε γῆι βαρὺν κότον σκήψητε, μὴ θυμοῦσθε, μηδ’ ἀκαρπίαν τεύξητ’… Eum. 829 – 831: ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν αὐτοῦ δεῖ. σὺ δ’ εὐπιθὴς ἐμοὶ γλώσσης ματαίας μὴ ’κβάληις ἔπη χθονί, καρπὸν φέροντα πάντα μὴ πράσσειν καλῶς Eum. 887– 889: … εἰ δὲ μὴ θέλεις μένειν οὐκ ἂν δικαίως τῆιδ’ ἐπιρρέποις πόλει μῆνίν τιν’ ἢ κότον τιν’ ἢ βλάβην στρατῶι

If we agree that the power of Athena’s persuasion does not affect the Erinyes’ concern for justice – which is primarily to be conceived as the punishment of inter-familial violence – we are finally in the position to conclude that fear and respect for the inviolability of the mother-child relation, and in fact of any blood tie, install the guarantee of an ordered and peaceful civic life in the city of Athens. Thus, as Harris (1973: 156) pointed out, through the Furies’ incorporation into the community of Athens the justice of Zeus ‘has a mother’s face engraved upon it’.²⁶⁸ Harris’ remark illustrates a relevant fact: the ordered life in the polis of Athens might depend strictly on the actions of female forces and on acknowledging the respect that is due to the mother. How can we blindly rely on an interpretation of Aeschylus’ poetry as mysogynist? What if we rather read the Oresteia as a tragic play that emphasises the dangerous differences inherent to sex and gender relations? In what follows, I dwell at some length on these issues. It has been observed that the Oresteia, moving from Agamemnon to Eumenides, reaches its conclusion by settling the conflict between the sexes. The release from pain and misery is provided by Athena’s power of persuasion: the words of the goddess transform the Furies, violent creatures who curse the city of Athens and its habitants, into agents of lasting concord and social cohesion.²⁶⁹ This emphasis on change and transformation raises some questions. Not only will the Furies continue to carry out their punitive functions, as I have already discussed; it is also uncertain whether Athena’s persuasion would guaran-

 Cf. similarly Saxonhouse (2009: 56): ‘But Aeschylus does not ignore what is lost in this process of building up the city. As the old gods protest their suppression, the powerful images of the earlier plays in which the familial ties of birth could not so easily tossed aside remain’.  Cf. Buxton (1982: 109): ‘In Eumenides, at last, frank and open peitho brings about reconciliation and soothes the hurts of the past’. Similarly, cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983: 168 – 169); Seaford (1994: 105, 132, 386); Mitchell-Boyask (2009: 27– 33). On the critics’ emphasis on the Furies’ change and transformation, cf. also Easterling (2008: 230 – 233), with further bibliography.

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tee a state of permanent civil concord or not. There is a crucial issue we have to contemplate: in Athena’s persuasive language the boundaries between erotic and rhetoric seduction are very blurred. Indeed, Athena’s persuasion proceeds through the eyes; the power of her language is associated with enchantment and bewitchment:²⁷⁰ … καὶ θελκτηρίους μύθους ἔχοντες μηχανὰς εὑρήσομεν θέλξειν μ’ ἔοικας … Eum. 900: Eum. 970 – 971: … στέργω δ’ ὄμματα Πειθοῦς ὅτι μοι γλῶσσαν καὶ στόμ’ ἐπώπα

Eum. 81– 82:

To some extent, these passages seem to suggest a shift between the tricky and dangerous human persuasion and Athena’s mellifluous way of speech (Eum. 886: γλώσσης ἐμῆς μείλιγμα καὶ θελκτήριον). Certainly, in Agamemnon persuasion is a ruinous and sinister force of destruction, the daughter of Ate (Ag. 385 – 386: βιᾶται δ’ ἁ τάλαινα Πειθώ/ προβούλου παῖς ἄφερτος Ἄτας). Of course, the same cannot be said of Athena’s political eloquence that does not operate for the evil but for the good of the city. However, given that Athena’s restoration of an ordered life in the polis is achieved through a shifting persuasion, we shall perhaps ask ourselves if her divine thaumaturgic operation against the Furies would really last forever. But there is more to say. As has been observed, Athena’s justice is enacted not only through language (rhetorical persuasion), but also through political action (Eum. 927– 928: τάδ’ ἐγὼ προφρόνως τοῖσδε πολίταις/ πράσσω), namely through the foundation of the court of the Areopagus: Eum. 483 – 484: φόνων δικαστὰς ὁρκίων αἰδουμένους θεσμόν, τὸν εἰς ἅπαντ’ ἐγὼ θήσω χρόνον Eum. 704– 706: κερδῶν ἄθικτον τοῦτο βουλευτήριον, αἰδοῖον, ὀξύθυμον, εὑδόντων ὕπερ ἐγρηγορὸς φρούρημα γῆς καθίσταμαι

Considering that the court of the Areopagus is established once and for all, we are in the position to say that institutional continuity is part of the solution of the struggle in the Atreid family and in the polis of Athens. Yet, the Areopagus

 Cf. Goldhill (LSN: 213, 280); Pucci (1992: 521– 522); Rizzini (1999: 90 – 95 with n. 33); Rechenauer (2001: 67, 84– 86); Markovits (2009: 438). Relying on these scholars, I differ from Kambitsis (1973) who reads the expression ‘ὄμματα Πειθοῦς’ merely as a proof that Athena’s power of persuasion has succefully transformed the Furies from agents of evil into agents of marriage and therefore into agents of social cohesion.

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cannot enforce the rule of justice: with Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo (Eum. 741: ἰσόψηφος κριθῆι, 753: ἴσον γάρ ἐστι τἀρίθμημα τῶν πάλων, 795: ἰσόψηφος δίκη), it seems rather to stand for a fracture at the very origin of the democratic system, i. e. for a division marked by rhetorical dissension. As Loraux (1990b: 91) poignantly remarks, Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo reveals a ‘situation extrême où le compte des votes est le même de deux côtés, ce qui signifie pur danger, … parce que le groupe des votants s’est divisé en deux, sans reste’.²⁷¹ Again, how does the realisation of Athena’s justice guarantee a state of permanent civil concord, through the power of words and political action, as announced by the goddess to her citizens? Eum. 927– 928: τάδ’ ἐγὼ προφρόνως τοῖσδε πολίταις πράσσω …

Whereas Athena’s justice does not seem to establish a correspondence between words and actions, the justice of the Erinyes is instead enacted by language, and their words are action and realisation and, as such, true. In the speech Athena delivers to the Furies, in order to smooth their anger, lines 829 – 830 are consistent with this representation of the Furies’ justice: … σὺ δ’ εὐπιθὴς ἐμοὶ γλώσσης ματαίας μὴ ’κβάληις ἔπη χθονί

 Cf. also Loraux (1979: 3): ‘Aux origines, la démocratie est rupture’. In this reading, the jurors are 10 or 12; that means that 5 (or 6) vote for and 5 (or 6) vote against Orestes, and Athena adds her vote in favour of Orestes. Whether Athena determines with her vote the equality of the votes or not is a much discussed topic in the scholarship. On the so called calculus Minervae, cf. e. g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1914: 183 – 185); Friedman and Gassel (1951: 431– 432); Costa (1962: 26); Thomson (1966: 55 – 56); Gagarin (1975); Vellacott (1977: 120); Hester (1981); WinningtonIngram (1983: 124– 128 n. 110); Kraus (1983: 203 – 206); Conacher (1987: 164– 166); Meier (1988: 129); Podlecki (1989: 211– 213); Loraux (1990b: 103 – 106); Seaford (1995); Flashar (1997: 100, 105); Käppel (1998: 266 – 268 with n. 134– 136); Vogt (1998: 43 – 44); Manuwald (2000: 80 – 81); Rechenauer (2001: 63 – 64); Porter (2005: 305 – 306 with n. 19); Saxonhouse (2009: 53 – 54); Leâo (2010: 53); Lawrence (2013: 97). On Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo and the danger of civic discord inherent in it, cf. also Porter (2005: 306 – 307) who notes that only gods, not humans, are persuaded by Athena: ‘In terms of “who controls the conversation” and “who is persuaded”, in this play gods both do the controlling and, in the end, are the ones persuaded’. It is worth commenting that the acquittal of Orestes in dubio pro reo brings back Orestes’ hesitation to kill his mother on the stage. As Orestes does not know what he has to do (shall he kill his mother or not? – Cho. 899), so the jurors are divided in their judgement pro or contra Orestes, i. e. pro or contra the legitimacy of matricide as an act of dike. The division of the jurors poses Orestes’ question once more: shall I kill the mother or not?

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Here, according to Athena, precisely the Furies’ words give rise to the violence of relentless discord in the community of Athens.²⁷² Hence, we might come to a twofold conclusion: 1) Athena’s realisation of democratic dike, i. e. her τέλος δίκης (Eum. 243), despite her discourse on institutional continuity, seems to be temporary, precisely because her order of justice is unable to set the destructive power of the Furies’ justice aside. In fact, the Furies can obey to Athena (εὐπιθὴς ἐμοί) – they do not have to;²⁷³ 2) Athena’s realisation of justice is temporary, insofar as it cannot suppress the power of the Furies and the authority of maternal genealogy as a key-factor for an ordered life in the community of Athens. A discussion of the similarities between the assertions of the Furies in the second stasimon (Eum. 526 – 530) and the assertion of Athena in her last speech before the casting of the votes (Eum. 696 – 697) might reinforce these conclusions. The Furies, who defend the doctrine of the virtuous means (Eum. 529: παντὶ μέσωι τὸ κράτος θεὸς ὤπασεν), refuse anarchy and despotism (Eum. 526 – 529: μήτ’ ἄναρκτον βίον/ μήτε δεσποτούμενον/ αἰνέσηις), as a way for humans to live together. Quite the same, as Kramer has aptly pointed out (1960: 33 – 34), Athena suggests that the people of the city of Athens shall live in a system that is neither anarchic nor despotic: Eum. 696 – 697: τὸ μήτ’ ἄναρχον μήτε δεσποτούμενον ἀστοῖς περιστέλλουσι βουλεύω σέβειν

Mirroring the model of justice envisioned by Athena, the Erinyes become the ministers of her dike. Above all that, they truly guarantee her order of justice. As Athena states, a necessary condition of living together in justice, free from anarchy and despotism, is the reverence for what arouses fear:²⁷⁴

 On the Erinyes’ words as actions and realisation, cf. Neustadt (1929: 248); Detienne (1967: 58 – 60). Athena is aware that the Erinyes are goddesses of realisation. Indeed, consider her attempt to question it in Eum. 430: κλύειν δίκαιος μᾶλλον ἢ πρᾶξαι θέλεις.  Similarly, cf. Kramer (1960: 34– 35): ‘In Aeschylean myth the major powers at work in the feudal realm of retribution – Zeus, the Furies and the Fates, Persuasion, Dike, Nemesis – are at work also to uphold Athena’s altar of right’.  Similarly, cf. Cohen (1986: 139): ‘Thus, as Athena makes all too clear, fear (681– 710) and force underline the transformation of the social order’. As Cohen, cf. Manuwald (2000: 81 with n. 24 and n. 25). Assuming that lines 698 – 699 refer to the Furies, I differ from Costa (1962: 29) who glosses: ‘Moreover, the nature of the authority to be respected and feared has altered and

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Eum. 698 – 699: καὶ μὴ τὸ δεινὸν πᾶν πόλεως ἔξω βαλεῖν· τίς γὰρ δεδοικὼς μηδὲν ἔνδικος βροτῶν;

Again, we find the working of Athena’s justice to be strictly constrained by the Furies’ punitive functions, along with the fear and the dangers inherent to them. Athena’s justice would not even exist without the fear of the Erinyes and their authority. This is the reason why they have not been defeated, as Athena deliberately points out while trying to appease the Furies: Eum. 795: οὐ γὰρ νενίκησθ’ …

Taking for granted that the Furies have not been either defeated, or transformed by Athena’s persuasion or by her enactment of justice, how can we interpret their contention that Athena has deceived them? Eum. 845 – 846 = 879 – 880: ἀπό με γὰρ τιμᾶν δαναιᾶν θεῶν δυσπάλαμοι παρ’ οὐδὲν ἦραν δόλοι

The Furies speaks this passage to Athena, when the goddess, after the votes have been counted, tries to soothe their anger. The Furies’ use of the word δόλος brings us back to the situation in Agamemnon and Choephoroi where deception is embedded again and again in a discourse on the reproductive agency of mother and father (cf. ch. 1, I. 4; 2, IV. 5). The Furies lament that they have been deceived, as they realize they must lose their ancient privileges as a direct consequence of Athena’s attempt to soothe their wrath through language: Athena – Eum. 836: ἔχουσ’ ἐς αἰεὶ τόνδ’ ἐπαινέσεις λόγον Furies – Eum. 845 – 846: ἀπό με γὰρ τιμᾶν δαναιᾶν θεῶν δυσπάλαμοι παρ’ οὐδὲν ἦραν δόλοι

Given that the Furies’ ancient privileges consist of the defence of parental blood, and, even more importantly, of the defence of the blood tie between mother and child, Athena’s persuasive discourse or logos can be easily understood as a repudiation of the inviolability of the maternal blood and of its power to give life. Read this way, the Furies’ contention that they have been deceived by Athena’s logos indicates how difficult it is to use language for constructing a concept of motherhood based on female biological powerlessness. Indeed, Athena’s persuasion is incapable of depriving the Furies of their punitive functions.

become more rational: it is the Areopagus as a legitimate power to punish wickedness which is τὸ δεινόν, and not the Erinyes as inflictors of supernatural punishments’.

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Saying that the Furies do not change, by the time they are incorporated in the civic life of Athens, is like saying that they remain, as in Agamemnon, ministers of Zeus’ law of drasanta pathein or ‘who does, suffers’. Therefore, we should consider if, moving from Agamemnon to Eumenides, it is plausible to track an evolution in the order of justice established by Zeus. I turn to this question in the next section.

5 Zeus, his Erinyes and the Trojan War As has often been observed, Zeus’ justice works in Agamemnon through the punitive actions of the Furies: ἢ Πὰν ἢ Ζεὺς οἰωνόθροον γόον ὀξυβόαν τῶνδε μετοίκων ὑστερόποινον πέμπει παραβᾶσιν Ἐρινύν Ag. 461– 470: τῶν πολυκτόνων γὰρ οὐκ ἄσκοποι θεοί· κελαιναὶ δ’ Ἐρινύες χρόνωι τυχηρὸν ὄντ’ ἄνευ δίκας παλιντυχεῖ τριβᾶι βίου τιθεῖσ’ ἀμαυρόν, ἐν δ’ ἀίστοις τελέθοντος οὔτις ἀλκά·τὸ δ’ ὑπερκόπως κλύειν εὖ βαρύ·βάλλεται γὰρ †ὄσσοις† Διόθεν κεραυνός Ag. 748 – 749: πομπᾶι Διὸς ξενίου, νυμφόκλαυτος Ἐρινύς

Ag. 56 – 59:

As Winnington-Ingram (1983: 158 – 161) and Wians (2009: 190) have noticed, the enactment of Zeus’ justice through the actions of the Erinyes is mentioned in Agamemnon in close relation to the Trojan War. In Ag. 56 – 59 and 748 – 749, the Erinyes are sent against Troy; in Ag. 463 – 470, they punish the bloodshed in Troy. In regard to the representation of the Trojan War in Agamemnon, and to its relation to the justice of Zeus, Zeus’ reason for allowing Agamemnon ultimately to die, having originally sent him to Troy as an Erinys (Ag. 40 – 59) in order to fulfil divine justice, has been debated at length. In response to this question, scholars have called attention to the ambivalent nature of Zeus’ justice.²⁷⁵

 Cf. e. g. Lloyd-Jones (1956: 65 – 67); D-P (1957, xi-xvi); Grube (1970). For a detailed criticism of the ambivalent nature of the justice of Zeus, cf. Golden (1961).

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How do we take a stance on these critiques? Passage 461– 470 that I quoted before is revealing on this point. The chorus claims that the gods do not fail to turn their punishing eyes against those who have killed too many. Further, it says that the Erinyes will put to death those who have been fortunate even without justice, and finally that all this descends from the order of Zeus’ justice. Seen this way, Zeus is able on the one side to send the Atreid to Troy, and on the other to let him die, all without appearing responsible for an inconsistent understanding of dike: Agamemnon dies, since as a human being he fell for hybris, turning the responsibility for the destruction and the many dead upon himself. We could perhaps maintain that Agamemnon’s hybristic behaviour and, accordingly, the violence of the war against Troy result from the justice of Zeus as well. However, why would Zeus want human beings to transgress the laws of dike? And more importantly, what textual evidence do we have in support of this hypothesis? Lines 355 – 369 might be helpful. Here, the chorus reports that Zeus has caused total ruin and subjugation for Troy’s inhabitants, without any regard of their status and their age: Ag. 355 – 361: ὦ Ζεῦ βασιλεῦ καὶ Νὺξ φιλία μεγάλων κόσμων κτεάτειρα, ἥτ’ ἐπὶ Τροίας πύργοις ἔβαλες στεγανὸν δίκτυον ὡς μήτε μέγαν μήτ’ οὖν νεαρῶν τιν’ ὑπερτελέσαι μέγα δουλείας γάγγαμον ἄτης παναλώτου

Further, the chorus claims that the origin of the violence can be traced back to the power of Zeus’ stroke: Ag. 367– 369: Διὸς πλαγὰν ἔχουσιν εἰπεῖν, πάρεστιν τοῦτό γ’ ἐξιχνεῦσαι· ἔπραξεν ὡς ἔκρανεν …

Relying on this passage, critics have often observed that the violent character of Zeus’ justice applies as indiscriminately to wrongdoers as to their victims.²⁷⁶ Yet, one can discern some shifts in this representation of Zeus’ justice. In the following lines, the chorus abandons this rhetoric of explanation very quickly, realizing that the wrongs committed in Troy were not the work of divine justice, but a consequence of Agamemnon’s violent action (cf. p. 59, n. 102):

 Cf. Kitto (1956: 6 – 8); Lawrence (1976: 103); Cohen (1986: 133). On the violence of the justice of Zeus, cf. also Willink (2004: 47– 49); Martina (2007).

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Ag. 369 – 372: … οὐκ ἔφα τις θεοὺς βροτῶν ἀξιοῦσθαι μέλειν ὅσοις ἀθίκτων χάρις πατοῖθ’·ὁ δ’ οὐκ εὐσεβής

Moreover, Calchas’ words in the parodos seem to suggest as well that Zeus does not promote, but rather punishes the violence of the Trojan War. The prophet announces the coming victory of the Greeks in Troy (Ag. 126: χρόνωι μὲν ἀγρεῖ Πριάμου πόλιν ἅδε κέλευθος), delineating it as a result of the action of Moira (Ag. 130: μοῖρα λαπάξει πρὸς τὸ βίαιον), and yet, at the same time, warning the Greek army of future punitive actions of the gods: Ag. 131– 134: οἶον μή τις ἄγα θεόθεν κνεφάσηι προτυπὲν στόμιον μέγα Τροίας στρατωθέν …

We are finally in a position, then, to stress two main points in the representation of the Trojan War in relation to the justice of Zeus: – the chorus’ hints at the loss of many lives during the war should be read as a critique of the military excesses of the Greek expedition. It does not suggest that the old Argives conceive the justice of Zeus as an indiscriminate compulsion; – following the chorus’ discourse, Agamemnon’s victory is a glorious event, but, according to the order of dike established by Zeus, also an ambivalent act of gigantism that sooner or later will be punished by the Erinyes. As Lloyd-Jones has lucidely observed (1971: 90): ‘In Aeschylus Zeus never punishes the guiltless’. Now, it seems problematic to assume that the Oresteia’s discourse on Zeus’ concept of justice moves from an older understanding of dike as punitive justice or brute force of vengeance to the new characterisation as civic justice achieved by political persuasion.²⁷⁷ Thus, in Agamemnon and in Eumenides the Erinyes are represented as enforcers of Zeus’ justice, that is to say as agents responsible for the violent punishment of the blood being shed. Undoubtedly, peitho in Eumenides represents the power of words that should guarantee, under the supervision of Zeus Agoraios, the continuity of the judicial institutions of the linguistic community of Athens:

 For scholars holding to the idea of a progressive transformation of Zeus’ justice, cf. Porter (2005: 301 n. 1).

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Eum. 973 – 975: ἀλλ’ ἐκράτησε Ζεὺς ἀγοραῖος, νικᾶι δ’ ἀγαθῶν ἔρις ἡμετέρα διὰ παντός

Yet, the question remains: is this shift in the organisation of the system of justice meant to be definitive and permanent? The language of Aeschylus seems to warn us not to jump to hasty conclusions. Indeed, the plain similarities between the Furies’ rhetoric of appropriation of words such as δίκη, τέλος and βία and the use of the same expressions by the chorus of Agamemnon appear to indicate that the level of stability of an order of justice ensured by a judicial apparatus (the Areopagus) and its laws (the prohibition of shedding blood in stasis: Eum. 858 – 863) can be easily subverted by the large margins of instability that come along with a persuasive legal discussion (Athena is able to persuade the Furies, but they still remain Furies). This is the reason why civic justice might slide into a mechanism of justice by which the violence of wrongdoers is punished by further violence. The chance that the Furies would comply with the laws of Athens informs the very impossibility to reach a perpetual understanding by means of laws and political persuasion: despite and because of Athena’s persuasion (and of the power of Zeus Agoraios), the Furies are able to act as Furies. In fact, violence in Eumenides does not function only as a disruptive force, completely outside the civic system, but also as a constructive element, even in the innermost aspects of the life in a community: in the discourse of the play, violence has the peculiarity of rejecting civic dialogue while, at the same time, empowering the law, in order to safeguard peace through communication and rhetorical persuasion. So, in representing violence as in and outside the linguistic life of the community, the play’s discourse outlines the limits of an approach to violence according to categories of exclusion and separation (civic order = no violence). Now, let us turn to the language of the play again. In Agamemnon, when the chorus uses adjectives and verbs related to the word βία, most of the time it is referring to the violence of Zeus’ justice as compulsion and punishment of evil: Ag. 130: μοῖρα λαπάξει πρὸς τὸ βίαιον Ag. 182: δαιμόνων δέ που χάρις βίαιος Ag. 385: βιᾶται δ’ ἁ τάλαινα Πειθώ²⁷⁸

 With the hint to Zeus in Ag. 367: Διὸς πλαγὰν ἔχουσιν εἰπεῖν.

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The concept of Zeus’ justice as compulsion is stressed clearly. The gods make their move against those who have been impious, namely those who transgress the laws of dike out of an excess of wealth: Ag. 381– 384: οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἔπαλξις πλούτου πρὸς Κόρον ἀνδρὶ λακτίσαντι μέγαν Δίκας βωμὸν εἰς ἀφάνειαν

These lines look forward to the second stasimon of Eumenides: Eum. 538 – 544: ἐς τὸ πᾶν σοι λέγω, βωμὸν αἴδεσαι Δίκας, μηδέ νιν κέρδος ἰδὼν ἀθέωι ποδὶ λὰξ ἀτίσηις ποινὰ γὰρ ἐπέσται. κύριον μένει τέλος

Here, the Furies use the word δίκη in the same way the old men of Argos do, as underlined by the repetition both of the expression ‘βωμὸν Δίκας’, and of the image of injustice as a violent kick against dike itself. There are further similarities between these two passages. According to the Furies’ use of the word τέλος, justice always reaches its fulfilment (Eum. 544: κύριον μένει τέλος). According to the Argive elders and their rhetoric of appropriation of the verb κραίνειν, the justice of Zeus is realisation (Ag. 369: ἔπραξεν ὡς ἔκρανεν). Now, this infallibility of the Furies’ and Zeus’ justice seems to rely on its own immanence: as the chorus says in Agamemnon, and the Furies later repeat by using the same verb (μίμνειν), Zeus’ and the Furies’ justice never vanishes (Ag. 1563; μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνωι Διὸς; Eum. 381: μένει γὰρ).²⁷⁹ There is more to say. As Di Benedetto has noticed (1999, ad loc.), passage 1008 – 1017 in Agamemnon and passage 550 – 565 in Eumenides present a striking parallelism as well. According to the chorus in Agamemnon, the justice of Zeus hits those who own a huge fortune. Following the Furies, justice strikes a fortune that has been amassed illicitly. As far as I am concerned, I find it important to ask how we are supposed to place the Furies’ criticism of an exorbitant wealth, first with Orestes’ assumption of the inherited paternal power in Eum. 455 – 458, 754– 758 and second with Athena’s praise of military success in Eum. 397– 401. I turn to this question in the next section.

 Cf. Ag. 781: πᾶν δ’ ἐπὶ τέρμα νωμᾶι; 1485 – 1487: ὼ ἰή, διαὶ Διὸς/παναιτίου πανεργέτα/τί γὰρ βροτοῖς ἄνευ Διὸς τελεῖται; Eum. 312– 320: εὐθυδίκαιοι δ’ οἰόμεθ’ εἶναι … αὐτῶι τελέως ἐφάνημεν; 382: τε καὶ τέλειοι; 952–953: ὡς τελέως διαπράσσουσιν.

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6 The son, the father and the war against Troy With his discharge from the accusations of matricide, Orestes is consequently recognized as head of the Atreid family and member of the city of Argos: Eum. 754– 758: ὦ Παλλάς, ὦ σώσασα τοὺς ἐμοὺς δόμους, γαίας πατρώιας ἐστερημένον σύ τοι κατώικισάς με. καί τις Ἑλλήνων ἐρεῖ ‘Ἀργεῖος ἁνὴρ αὖθις, ἔν τε χρήμασιν οἰκεῖ πατρώιοις …’

These lines deserve particular attention. Orestes’ retrieval of his own role of head of the Atreid household is characterized in terms of a regained control over the father’s patrimony. The expression ‘χρήμασιν πατρώιοις’ seems to imply a connection to the criticism of the Trojan War as expressed in Agamemnon. As we have seen in chapter 1, III. 1, when the chorus of Agamemnon uses words related to the semantic field of wealth (Ag. 382: πλούτου, 471: ἄφθονον ὄλβον, 1008: χρημάτων, 1012: πλησμονᾶς), it is giving voice to its own doubts about a fortune that Agamemnon has amassed without compliance with the divine laws. Orestes’ rhetoric of appropriation of the word χρήμα, instead, is clearly constructing a positive discourse on Agamemnon’s heroism, and his acquisition of an enormous fortune. The rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s heroic career, as a crucial step of a journey at the end of which the matricidal son will be able to redeem his own identity in the Atreid family and in the community of Argos, also seems to be the central motif of line 455 – 458. In these lines, Orestes ascribes genealogical authority of birth to his father Agamemnon, and puts paternal genealogy in close relation to paternal military merits and success: Eum. 455 – 458: Ἀργεῖός εἰμι, πατέρα δ’ ἱστορεῖς καλῶς, Ἀγαμέμνον’, ἀνδρῶν ναυβατῶν ἁρμόστορα, ξὺν ὧι σὺ †Τροίαν † ἄπολιν Ἰλίου πόλιν ἔθηκας …

Here, what seems quite interesting to me is that the acknowledgement of Agamemnon’s genealogical power of birth and the praise of his warlike prestige are immediately followed by a negative representation of Clytemnestra’s mind: Eum. 459 – 460: … κελαινόφρων ἐμὴ μήτηρ …

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According to Orestes’ discourse, the acknowledgement of paternal authority goes along with a criticism of the maternal mind. From lines 631– 632 we draw similar conclusions. Apollo’s words on Agamemnon’s warlike venture are cautious. The god challenges the significance of Agamemnon’s military value, as he says that the Atreid has accomplished his military duties for the most part successfully: Eum. 631– 632: ἀπὸ στρατείας γάρ νιν, ἠμποληκότα τὰ πλεῖστ’ ἄμεινον …

Still, as for Orestes, for Apollo too Agamemnon’s toils are in sharp opposition to Clytemnestra’s perverse mind. As a murderous woman who ought to kill the hero of the Trojan War, Clytemnestra would never welcome Agamemnon with ‘sensible and kindly’ words (Eum. 632: εὔφροσιν δεδεγμένη). This pervasive irony in Apollo’s use of the word εὔφρων allows us to remark that in Eumenides, as in Choephoroi (cf. pp. 122– 124), the construction of Agamemnon as father undermines the perception of Clytemnestra as a reasonable being. As in the case of Orestes, also in the case of Athena the words she uses in relation to the sphere of wealth lead to a positive discourse on Agamemnon’s accumulation of a fortune during the war. Athena uses the word χρήματα in the context of a speech which is meant to extol the value of the war against Troy. She heard – says the goddess – a cry of help from the Scamander, as she was taking possession of the land that the Greeks gave to her as a part of the conquered goods: Eum. 397– 401: πρόσωθεν ἐξήκουσα κληδόνος βοὴν ἀπὸ Σκαμάνδρου, γῆν καταφθατουμένη, ἣν δῆτ’ Ἀχαιῶν ἄκτορές τε καὶ πρόμοι, τῶν αἰχμαλώτων χρημάτων λάχος μέγα, ἔνειμαν αὐτόπρεμνον ἐς τὸ πᾶν ἐμοί

Taking for granted that Orestes, Athena and Apollo appropriate the narrative of the Trojan War as an argumentative strategy in favour of the justice of matricide, it stands to reason that the people who did not vote for Orestes do not condone the rehabilitation of Agamemnon’s warlike authority, which is causally linked to matricide. This is like saying that a part of the jurors, with the silence of their vote, refuses the patrilineal extremism of Athena’s and Apollo’s logos, destabilizing the patriarchal model of genealogy and power promoted by them.²⁸⁰ By vot-

 I am borrowing the expression ‘patrilinear extremism’ from Loraux (1990: 109): ‘extrémisme patrilinéaire’. On the silence of the jurors and their civic dissent, cf. also the thoughtful remarks of Gurd (2004: 106).

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ing against the acquittal of Orestes, they seem in fact to turn their voting right into an act of resistance against the power of Athena’s juridical persuasion. This situation of division among the jury shows that, against Athena’s assertion in Eum. 675 (ψῆφον δικαίαν, ὡς ἅλις λελεγμένων), words and their discourses do not have the power to (re)shape the act of naming, and consequently power relations between people (the father is…to mother; the mother is…to father, etc.): it is always possible to vote/act against what is said to be just. In this sense, the votes against Orestes underline once again the difficulty of changing things in a enduring way, and of ensuring permanent freedom by means of language (i. e., political persuasion). Put simply, the votes of the jury might deliver some concrete evidence of a potentially dangerous disagreement within the juridical system of the (divine) law of the Father. After all, it is safe to maintain that the jurors’ disagreement with the order fixed by the justice of Athena replicates a corresponding disagreement on the part of the Furies. Therefore, we might detect the continuity in the Agamemnon’s and Eumenides’ discourse on power and violence. In Agamemnon, we have seen that: – according to the chorus’ and Clytemnestra’s discourses, the murder of Agamemnon is represented as a retaliation for the countless deaths in Troy, and for the accumulation of an exorbitant wealth during the war (cf. ch. 1, III. 1– 2); – according to the chorus, the murder of Agamemnon represents a problematic deed (cf. ch. 1, III. 5); in Eumenides we have seen: – the chorus’ criticism of an excessive wealth, the problematisation of Orestes’ acquittal, and therefore of the heroic career of Agamemnon, and also Orestes’ retrieval of the king’s legitimate power; – the acquittal of Orestes, in order to validate the heroic career of Agamemnon, and the consent to Orestes regaining the legitimate power of Agamemnon for himself (discourse of Apollo and Athena followed by half of the jurors). With the problematization of Orestes’ acquittal, Eumenides, like Agamemnon and Choephoroi, dramatizes the failure to constitute the maternal subject of Clytemnestra through its experience of biological and political powerlessness (in the family: wife of the husband and of the genetic father; in society: usurper of Agamemnon’s male power as king and warrior). In fact, in the trilogy, the characters’ attempt to validate a discourse on exclusion and separation based on Clytemnestra’s female role as mother and wife wretchedly collapses. A question arises: ‘Who is Orestes?’. Surely, he is the legitimate son and heir of his father Agamem-

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non, who has killed his mother to avenge his father’s murder; surely, he is not only the son of Agamemnon, the genetic father and genitor, killed by Clytemnestra, his wife and mother non-mother. Is Orestes also the son of his mother, then? Because of such uncertainties over his origins (only son of his father? Son of his mother? Son of mother and father?), Orestes remains in Eumenides, as in Agamemnon, an ἀλήτης, i. e. a nomadic subject:²⁸¹ Ag. 1282: φυγὰς δ’ ἀλήτης τῆσδε γῆς ἀπόξενος

It is through this depiction of Orestes as a nomadic subject, and through its ability to destabilize a discourse on blood ties and power relations as maternal and/ or paternal that Eumenides and the story of Orestes invite us to ‘ne jamais céder sur ce point, tenir constamment en haleine un questionnement sur l’origine, les fondements et les limites de notre appareil conceptuel, théorique ou normatif autour de la justice’.²⁸² A last question, in conclusion: who gets off in the trilogy? Nobody, I would say. By taking into account the ephemeral nature of Athena’s justice, the depiction of Orestes as a nomadic subject (from Agamemnon to Eumenides), as well as the display of Zeus’ justice through the punitive actions of the Erinyes, and finally the permanent problematization of a discourse on the father figure as condition of life and power, in the end we are left with the disturbing conjecture that despite Orestes’ acquittal there might be no way out from violence.

7 Conclusions My discussion in sections one to six has lead to the following conclusions: 1. in order to see the Furies, one has to know them; and for humans, the only way to know them is to become a murderer; 2. violence, in the discourse of Eumenides, is something more than a destructive power:

 I take the expression ‘nomadic subject’ from Braidotti’s book title (1994). On an extended analysis of this concept as referring to the post-modern subject as a subject without a linguistic, national, cultural fixed identity, cf. esp. ch. 1.  Cf. Derrida (1994: 45). Cf. also Verrall (1907: 11): ‘If we are thoroughly convinced that, whatever principles or forms of justice we may adopt, we must allow, as men, for the possibility of a case exactly balanced and therefore insoluble, – then we are ready for Aeschylean development. Compared with this, what we think of Apollo, or even of Orestes, is matter, for the moment, of no moment at all’.

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–

3. 4.

5.

6.

185

according to their own rhetoric of appropriation of the verb σωφρονεῖν, the Furies teach wisdom to human beings by making them experience pain and suffering as a consequence of the use of violence; – violence is both within (=condition of) and outside (=condition against) the system of justice of the community of Athens: Athena’s justice is achieved through political persuasion and, as such, establishes the Furies’ agreement or disagreement from within the context of the laws of Athens and, accordingly, it enacts their action as Furies or as Eumenides; Eumenides functions as an open play: despite and because of Athena’s justice, the Furies do not cease to be Furies and to defend maternal genealogy; a chronological reading of the trilogy seems problematic: – as in the Agamemnon, in the Eumenides as well the Furies are agents of Zeus’ justice, and as such they punish bloodshed; – the Furies’ criticism of excessive wealth picks up the criticism of Agamemnon’s power expressed by the chorus in Agamemnon; despite Athena’s, Apollo’s and Orestes’ rehabilitation of the king’s heroic career, his paternal power is not undisputed; according to the characters’ rhetoric of appropriation of keywords such as μήτηρ, τρέφειν, τίκτειν, σωφρονεῖν and δίκη, the authority of birth belongs to the father figure (Apollo’s, Athena’s, Orestes’ discourse) or to the mother figure (Furies’ discourse). However, against the background of Orestes’ acquittal in dubio pro reo, Eumenides destabilizes its own discourse on blood ties and power relations, leaving the reader, like Choephoroi has done before, with the disturbing question ‘Who is Orestes?’, and thereby provoking a mise en abîme of the notion of dike in relation to the violence against the mother; despite Apollo’s and Athena’s positions on the role of the mother as wife of her husband, democratic justice in Eumenides is not isomorphic with exogamous marriage, and with a process of normalisation of the reproductive agency of maternal blood through the definition of the mother as wife of her husband. Indeed, with the acquittal of Orestes in dubio pro reo, the play problematizes the definition of the father figure as the origin of birth and power according to the law of marriage (genitor, husband, head of the family, king, warrior). Therefore, democratic justice is established in the normalisation of the violence perpetrated against the mother, and against her power to give life (acquittal from matricide) only insofar as it puts it into question.

General conclusions My stance is straightforward. I argue that each and every endeavour to repudiate the biological motherhood of Clytemnestra – i. e. the blood connection with her children – in order to justify matricide inevitably fails in the trilogy. In each of the three plays, we notice the characters’ and the chorus’ attempt to deny the status of Clytemnestra as a mother, by superimposing on her the portrayal of an adulterous wife, usurper of Agamemnon’s male power, and therefore the image of a mother non-mother, a female whose mind is darkened. Nevertheless, Clytemnestra’s maternal function of giving and nurturing life can never be suppressed; consequently, matricide is necessarily a problematic act. With these observations in mind, I conclude that the Aschylean discourse on motherhood and wifehood does not function by exclusion and separation (you are a bad wife and a female tyrant, therefore you are not a mother); rather, it functions by inclusion (you may be a bad wife and a female tyrant, but you are a mother all the same). Because of this difficulty in defining Clytemnestra throughout the whole trilogy, and therefore in justifying matricide, the very notion of dike is destabilised in relation to the paternal authority of Agamemnon; a situation obliging us to ask ourselves whether kinship is actually maternal and/or paternal. In this sense, the Aeschylean work does not just settle for a mere condemnation of the female character of Clytemnestra, based on her words and actions. It rather commits to the complicated task of dealing with her female authority as mother, wife and queen to the reader. Hence, it is the story of Orestes that teaches us that punishing a female act of violence against the law of the Father, and acquitting the legitimate son who has taken revenge is a performance of dike. From this perspective, Clytemnestra is a bad mother and the adulterous wife and murderess of Agamemnon. Yet, we learn something else as well from the narrative of the play: that no justification of violence can ever be unconditional, on the part of both the reader and the characters of the play. Therefore, we might say that the story of Orestes informs us that: – the maternal criticism of the father’s warlike and inter-familial violence on the part of Clytemnestra and the Furies, as well as their claim to the inviolability of the mother’s body and of the blood connection between mother and child, are both necessary conditions in order to have peace and justice in the context of family and society; – maternal sophronein establishes (democratic) justice. To put it simply, violence against women in the poetry of Aeschylus is un/justifiable.

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187

Having read the Oresteia as a play that promotes an inexhaustible discourse of inclusion, it is my contention that it displays a conception of the Self in terms of a constant and inescapable attention for and respect of the Other and of the differences related to it. An Other whom it is our responsibility to appropriate while reading Aeschylus.

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Index of Names and Subjects adulterous wife 1, 4 f., 18, 21, 23, 28 f., 31, 36 – 38, 40 f., 43 – 46, 49, 71 f., 186 adultery 2, 18 f., 23, 28, 36, 51, 54 Aegisthus 2, 5, 14, 18 – 20, 23, 26 – 28, 30 f., 35 f., 38 f., 41, 43, 45, 48, 51 – 54, 70 Alastor 2 f., 26 – 33, 35 anagnorisis 26, 56 Apollo 1, 4 – 9, 11 f., 14, 16 – 20, 22, 24, 27 – 29, 36 – 40, 47 – 49, 59 f., 64, 70 Argos (dog) 53 Athena 1, 4, 8 – 10, 13 – 17, 19 f., 22 – 29, 31, 33, 35 – 40, 64, 70 blood 1 – 3, 5 – 8, 10 – 14, 16 – 26, 28 f., 32 – 35, 38 f., 41 f., 44 – 46, 48 – 55, 57, 60, 65 – 67, 71, 186 body 4 – 11, 13 f., 16, 18 – 22, 56, 60, 63 – 65, 186 Cassandra 1 f., 4 f., 9, 16, 18, 21, 24, 28, 30 f., 33 – 46, 60 consanguinity 7, 14, 16 – 18, 21 – 24, 28 f., 35, 37 f., 40, 45 f., 49 de Beauvoir 1 dike 1, 5, 10, 14 f., 18, 23 f., 26 – 28, 31 f., 34, 37, 39, 46, 49 – 51, 54, 64 f., 69, 186 Dindorf 86 f. dog 15 – 17, 37, 39, 44 f., 63 dolos 19 f., 27 – 29, 35, 61, 64 dream 1, 12, 28, 33, 50 – 52, 54, 56 – 65 echthros 1, 7, 9, 13, 18, 21 – 23, 25 f., 31, 37 – 39, 42, 45 Erinys/Erinyes 34 – 35, 40 f., 60, 79, 88, 97, 100, 108, 133, 138, 143 f., 170 f. Father 1 f., 6, 8, 18 f., 22 f., 26, 29, 37, 45, 49, 54, 56, 59, 186 – father-tokeus 17 – 19, 23, 26, 50 – father-tropheus 9 – 11, 14, 16 f., 26, 39

– genetic (parent) 1, 9, 19, 27, 47, 53, 89, 100 – 101, 109, 120, 125, 137, 140, 147, 161, 170, 183 – 184 Foley 1, 4, 9, 11, 13 f., 19, 26, 34, 36, 41, 47, 52, 54, 58, 60, 63, 67 Fraenkel 2, 10, 16 f., 19, 24, 27, 30, 32 f., 37, 39, 42, 49 f., 53, 66 Garvie 3, 7, 15, 19, 23, 27, 30, 32, 37, 45, 52 f., 58 genetrix 19 genitor 1, 8, 10, 13, 17, 24, 26, 38 f., 44 Goldhill 1 – 7, 11, 13 – 16, 18 – 20, 22, 25 f., 34, 37 – 40, 43, 46 f., 56, 58 f., 61 – 64 – LSN 1, 5, 7, 11 – 13, 15, 19 f., 22, 24 – 27, 33 f., 37 – 40, 46 f., 49, 56, 62 – 64 Hall 5, 9 homosporos Italie

22

5 f., 8, 10 f., 23, 38 – 40

Lebeck 7, 12, 27, 33 f., 39 f., 42, 48, 50, 54, 56, 66 Loraux 2, 5, 7 – 10, 12 – 15, 19 f., 22, 27, 33, 35, 37, 44, 58, 60, 63 marriage 6 – 10, 14 f., 17 – 21, 23, 26, 28, 35 f., 39 – 41 McClure 1, 4, 27, 43, 53 f., 56, 58, 60 f., 63, 66, 71 milk 11 f., 17, 33, 50 – 55, 57, 65 mother 1 – 65, 69, 71, 186 – genetic (parent) 44, 120, 164 – giving life (mother-tokeus) 2 – 4, 8, 10, 12 – 14, 17 – 23, 37 f., 40, 44 – mother-echthros 1 f., 5, 18, 21, 37 f., 43, 49, 65 – mother-philos 1, 29, 34, 37, 39, 44 – non-mother 3 f., 18, 21, 23 f., 32, 36 – 38, 46, 59, 71, 186 – nurturing life (mother-tropheus) 1 f., 4, 8 f., 26, 40, 49, 54, 186

Index of Names and Subjects

207

Penelope 5 f., 8, 24, 42, 59 philia 2, 5, 7, 14 f., 17 – 19, 21 f., 28, 33, 35, 38, 41 f., 46, 49, 54 f. philos, philoi 6 f., 13 – 15, 18 f., 22 f., 25, 28, 35, 38 f., 43 – 46 ponos 11 – 13, 16 f., 20 Pylades 26, 31 f., 48

trephein 1 – 5, 8 f., 11, 13, 17, 53, 57, 65 Trojan War 7, 9, 12 – 14, 16 f., 30 – 32, 35 f., 46 – 51, 53 f., 56 – 62, 64 f., 67 – 70, 72 Tucker 32, 52 f.

serpent 6, 50 – 53, 56 – 65 silence 5, 11 – 13, 16, 20, 31, 36 f., 41, 64 Sommerstein 4 – 6, 10 – 12, 15, 19 – 21, 24, 32, 34, 48, 50 sophronein 2, 6 f., 10, 12, 21, 23, 41, 71 f., 186 Strophius 23, 36

Winnington-Ingram 1, 3 f., 8 – 12, 15, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27 – 30, 33, 36, 45, 47 f., 50, 54, 57, 63 Wohl 1, 7, 12, 15, 34, 41

Telemachus 16, 36 tiktein 1, 3 f., 13, 22, 29, 53, 57, 65

Vernant 4, 6 f., 18, 20 Verrall 32 f., 38, 52, 64

Zeitlin 1 f., 7, 11 f., 14, 18 f., 21, 35, 37, 42 f., 45 – 47, 50, 56, 58, 60 Zeus 7, 10 f., 15, 17, 25, 28, 30 – 35, 38 f., 45, 48 f., 51, 56, 70

Index Locorum Aeschylus Ag. 1 Ag. 2 – 3 Ag. 11 Ag. 18 – 19 Ag. 26 – 27 Ag. 36 Ag. 40 – 59 Ag. 40 – 62 Ag. 41 Ag. 55 ff. Ag. 56 – 59 Ag. 58 – 59 Ag. 59 Ag. 62 Ag. 67 – 68 Ag. 68 Ag. 72 – 82 Ag. 84 Ag. 104 – 159 Ag. 111 – 112 Ag. 114 Ag. 119 Ag. 122 – 130 Ag. 126 Ag. 130 Ag. 131 – 134 Ag. 135 Ag. 140 Ag. 141 – 142 Ag. 150 – 155 Ag. 151 Ag. 154 – 155 Ag. 155 Ag. 176 – 178 Ag. 176 – 181 Ag. 182 Ag. 199 Ag. 209 – 210 Ag. 210 – 211 Ag. 211 Ag. 211 – 213 Ag. 214 – 217

112 53 68 53 49 21 176 57 59 148 176 157 60 59 157 157 68 55; 67 154 60 54 54 21 139; 178 178 – 179 178 54 34 136 40; 41 40 97 109; 159 153 158 179 16 20; 51 51 5 16 28

Ag. 215 Ag. 215 – 217 Ag. 215 – 225 Ag. 220 – 223 Ag. 221 Ag. 223 Ag. 224 – 227 Ag. 224 – 228 Ag. 225 – 226 Ag. 227 Ag. 228 Ag. 229 Ag. 230 Ag. 231 Ag. 231 – 234 Ag. 232 Ag. 237 Ag. 238 Ag. 239 Ag. 240 – 241 Ag. 242 Ag. 244 Ag. 245 Ag. 247 Ag. 258 – 260 Ag. 205 – 227 Ag. 206 – 208 Ag. 206 – 225 Ag. 208 Ag. 263 Ag. 265 Ag. 268 Ag. 274 – 275 Ag. 276 Ag. 277 Ag. 279 Ag. 280 – 316 Ag. 312 Ag. 316 Ag. 320 – 350 Ag. 338 – 344 Ag. 346 Ag. 348 Ag. 350

15 30 30 97 48 36 16 16 59 16; 51 21 15 60 16; 51 29; 51 20; 22; 51 21 15; 20 15; 51 15 22 16 15 – 16 20 – 21 49; 67 – 68 15 16 30 20; 25 34 10; 33 – 34; 85; 167 70 72 70 68; 72 34 35 68 10; 13 60 61 60 68; 80 – 81 68

Index Locorum

Ag. 351 Ag. 352 – 353 Ag. 355 – 369 Ag. 367 Ag. 369 – 372 Ag. 369 – 384 Ag. 381 – 384 Ag. 381 – 386 Ag. 382 Ag. 385 Ag. 385 – 386 Ag. 402 Ag. 427 – 431 Ag. 433 – 436 Ag. 448 – 449 Ag. 449 – 451 Ag. 449 – 456 Ag. 450 Ag. 450 – 451 Ag. 451 Ag. 452 – 455 Ag. 456 – 457 Ag. 461 – 471 Ag. 461 ff. Ag. 461 – 462 Ag. 461 – 464 Ag. 461 – 470 Ag. 461 – 474 Ag. 461 – 468 Ag. 463 – 470 Ag. 464 Ag. 468 – 469 Ag. 469 Ag. 469 – 471 Ag. 471 Ag. 475 – 487 Ag. 479 – 487 Ag. 483 Ag. 483 – 484 Ag. 483 – 485 Ag. 483 – 487 Ag. 491 Ag. 522 – 532 Ag. 524 – 526 Ag. 524 – 528 Ag. 530 Ag. 531 – 532

34; 63; 68 – 70 72 57; 177 179 178; 180 70 57; 180 59 181 179 172 59 58 – 59 58 59; 61; 77 59; 64 114; 117 66 75 59; 66 58 59; 64; 75 57 148 57 59 176; 177 70 97 176 59 77 58 – 59 58 66; 181 57 70 71; 81 70; 71 68 70 145 71 57 76 74 78

Ag. 534 – 535 Ag. 543 Ag. 546 Ag. 547 Ag. 548 Ag. 548 – 550 Ag. 551 Ag. 577 – 579 Ag. 581 – 582 Ag. 582 Ag. 583 Ag. 583 – 584 Ag. 587 – 589 Ag. 590 – 596 Ag. 592 Ag. 594 Ag. 599 Ag. 600 Ag. 600 – 614 Ag. 602 Ag. 602 – 604 Ag. 603 Ag. 604 Ag. 605 Ag. 606 Ag. 606 – 608 Ag. 607 Ag. 607 – 608 Ag. 609 – 610 Ag. 611 – 614 Ag. 612 Ag. 613 – 614 Ag. 615 Ag. 615 – 616 Ag. 699 – 716 Ag. 718 Ag. 719 Ag. 724 Ag. 734 Ag. 735 – 737 Ag. 735 – 749 Ag. 746 ff. Ag. 748 – 749 Ag. 749 Ag. 753 – 754 Ag. 773 – 781 Ag. 781

77 73 73 73 73 73 73 71 57; 76 73 71 74 71 71 81 68 64 10; 13; 24 72 10; 13 10 13; 64 13 64 10; 13 24; 25; 26 10 54; 68 26; 42 11 10; 68 68 73; 74 71; 73; 74; 81 57 136 136 54 57 57 57 148 176 57 84 57 180

209

210

Index Locorum

Ag. 782 Ag. 797 Ag. 799 – 809 Ag. 805 – 809 Ag. 806 Ag. 813 – 816 Ag. 819 – 820 Ag. 822 – 824 Ag. 827 – 828 Ag. 832 – 833 Ag. 849 – 850 Ag. 855 – 857 Ag. 861 – 862 Ag. 861 – 876 Ag. 874 – 879 Ag. 877 ff. Ag. 877 – 886 Ag. 887 – 894 Ag. 891 – 894 Ag. 896 Ag. 898 Ag. 906 – 907 Ag. 910 – 911 Ag. 912 – 913 Ag. 914 Ag. 918 – 919 Ag. 925 Ag. 938 Ag. 940 Ag. 941 Ag. 942 Ag. 943 Ag. 946 – 952 Ag. 958 – 960 Ag. 960 Ag. 966 – 967 Ag. 972 Ag. 973 Ag. 990 – 991 Ag. 1008 – 1017 Ag. 1047 Ag. 1072 – 1330 Ag. 1095 – 1097 Ag. 1102 – 1103 Ag. 1109 Ag. 1109 – 1111 Ag. 1117 – 1118

77 34 78 114; 117 25; 34 76 76 77 76 74 30; 34 124 60 60 – 61; 66 114; 117 117 104 60; 66 72 10; 24; 54 19 65 63; 76 68 25; 55; 67 64 64 114; 117 41; 64 41 41 68 75 76 75 48 64 65 152 180 – 181 72 45 39 46 45; 147 45 51; 52

Ag. 1117 – 1120 Ag. 1119 – 1120 Ag. 1121 – 1122 Ag. 1125 – 1126 Ag. 1129 Ag. 1167 – 1169 Ag. 1179 Ag. 1188 – 1193 Ag. 1189 Ag. 1190 Ag. 1192 ff. Ag. 1212 Ag. 1219 – 1226 Ag. 122 – 131 Ag. 1227 – 1230 Ag. 1228 Ag. 1232 Ag. 1232 – 1233 Ag. 1235 – 1236 Ag. 1235 Ag. 1235 – 1237 Ag. 1241 Ag. 1258 – 1259 Ag. 1272 Ag. 1277 – 1278 Ag. 1279 – 1280 Ag. 1281 Ag. 1282 Ag. 1283 Ag. 1286 – 1288 Ag. 1297 – 1298 Ag. 1318 Ag. 1318 – 1320 Ag. 1331 – 1334 Ag. 1331 – 1342 Ag. 1335 – 1336 Ag. 1337 Ag. 1338 – 1342 Ag. 1362 – 1365 Ag. 1372 – 1373 Ag. 1372 – 1376 Ag. 1372 ff. Ag. 1377 – 1378 Ag. 1379 Ag. 1383 Ag. 1388 – 1392 Ag. 1390 – 1391

159 148 51 45 48 52 50 39 43 97 148 47 39 21 48 54 105 105 46 51 – 52 68 47 45 52 51 – 52 45; 50 47 150; 184 46 68 51 45; 50 45 58 57 58; 78 78 58; 78 95 124 23 50 40; 68 35 75 42; 135 43

Index Locorum

Ag. 1391 – 1392 Ag. 1392 Ag. 1397 – 1418 Ag. 1399 – 1400 Ag. 1401 Ag. 1401 – 1406 Ag. 1405 Ag. 1405 – 1406 Ag. 1405 – 1406 Ag. 1412 ff. Ag. 1414 Ag. 1415 – 1416 Ag. 1415 – 1418 Ag. 1415 ff. Ag. 1417 Ag. 1417 ff. Ag. 1417 – 1418 Ag. 1417 – 1425 Ag. 1420 – 1421 Ag. 1421 – 1425 Ag. 1423 – 1425 Ag. 1425 Ag. 1426 – 1427 Ag. 1428 Ag. 1429 Ag. 1429 – 1430 Ag. 1432 – 1433 Ag. 1432 Ag. 1432 ff. Ag. 1434 – 1436 Ag. 1438 – 1447 Ag. 1452 Ag. 1453 – 1467 Ag. 1454 Ag. 1455 – 1461 Ag. 1460 – 1487 Ag. 1461 Ag. 1462 – 1463 Ag. 1464 – 1465 Ag. 1468 Ag. 1468 – 1471 Ag. 1475 – 1480 Ag. 1481 – 1482 Ag. 1485 – 1487 Ag. 1486 – 1487

42 43 11; 12 78 39; 68 39; 78 10; 12 40 35 11 12 29 85 36 10; 12; 19; 32 100 10; 16 – 18; 22; 31 – 32; 46; 48; 121; 131 31 – 32; 49 35 32 32 – 33; 68 10; 31; 32; 33; 80; 151; 154 32 – 33 149 50; 52; 127 50 40 10 148 11 10 – 11 78 66 37; 49 37 37 49 78 66 37 38 35; 38 37 180 37

Ag. 1491 Ag. 1495 Ag. 1497 – 1500 Ag. 1497 – 1504 Ag. 1498 – 1499 Ag. 1499 Ag. 1500 Ag. 1505 – 1508 Ag. 1509 – 1511 Ag. 1515 Ag. 1519 Ag. 1521 – 1524 Ag. 1521 – 1525 Ag. 1521 – 1529 Ag. 1523 Ag. 1523 – 1524 Ag. 1524 Ag. 1524 ff. Ag. 1525 Ag. 1525 ff. Ag. 1527 – 1529 Ag. 1533 – 1534 Ag. 1535 Ag. 1535 – 1536 Ag. 1543 – 1544 Ag. 1544 Ag. 1544 – 1557 Ag. 1545 – 1546 Ag. 1547 Ag. 1551 – 1559 Ag. 1551 ff. Ag. 1551 ff. Ag. 1552 – 1553 Ag. 1555 – 1559 Ag. 1556 – 1557 Ag. 1557 Ag. 1560 – 1561 Ag. 1560 – 1564 Ag. 1563 Ag. 1563 – 1566 Ag. 1567 – 1576 Ag. 1580 Ag. 1580 ff. Ag. 1587 – 1604 Ag. 1604 Ag. 1615 – 1616 Ag. 1619 – 1620

78 48 12 11; 35 12; 38 39 12 36 – 37; 39 53 78 48; 109 27 38 63 10 28 28 36 10; 11; 17; 18; 19; 48 11 18; 28 43 49; 78; 81 49; 78 49 12 12 78 78 37 11 36 35 33; 79 12 10 33; 37 79; 81 180 37 35 40 148 35 36 52 32

211

212

Index Locorum

Ag. 1625 – 1627 Ag. 1636 Ag. 1636 – 1637 Ag. 1638 – 1640 Ag. 1643 – 1646 Ag. 1646 – 1648 Ag. 1654 Ag. 1654 – 1656 Ag. 1656 Ag. 1658 Ag. 1659 Ag. 1661 Ag. 1673

49 109 36 95 49 78 11 35 79 80 79 79; 80 – 81 95

Cho. 1 Cho. 6 – 7 Cho. 10 – 12 Cho. 35 Cho. 40 – 41 Cho. 46 Cho. 51 – 53 Cho. 55 – 65 Cho. 76 – 77 Cho. 88 – 90 Cho. 88 Cho. 90 Cho. 91 – 97 Cho. 100 Cho. 110 Cho. 118 Cho. 121 Cho. 122 Cho. 126 Cho. 132 – 134 Cho. 135 – 137 Cho. 139 Cho. 140 – 141 Cho. 142 – 143 Cho. 140 – 143 Cho. 140 Cho. 143 Cho. 144 Cho. 148 Cho. 186 Cho. 189 – 200 Cho. 190 – 191 Cho. 195 – 200

92 115 145 131 138 99 127 96 92 110; 111; 121 123; 154 111 111 106 106 111 143 111 92 101; 104 94 – 95 122 121;122 121 123 154 122 106 106 127 103 86 103

Cho. 197 – 201 Cho. 198 – 200 Cho. 201 – 204 Cho. 202 Cho. 211 Cho. 234 Cho. 235 Cho. 236 Cho. 237 Cho. 239 – 242 Cho. 244 Cho. 246 – 251 Cho. 249 – 250 Cho. 250 Cho. 251 Cho. 255 – 256 Cho. 260 Cho. 262 – 264 Cho. 267 Cho. 269 – 296 Cho. 277 Cho. 281 Cho. 283 ff. Cho. 297 – 299 Cho. 301 – 305 Cho. 301 Cho. 306 – 313 Cho. 313 Cho. 315 – 318 Cho. 321 Cho. 329 – 330 Cho. 330 Cho. 332 – 335 Cho. 345 – 349 Cho. 354 – 360 Cho. 354 – 355 Cho. 355 – 360 Cho. 363 – 364 Cho. 377 Cho. 385 Cho. 386 – 389 Cho. 398 Cho. 402 – 404 Cho. 407 – 408 Cho. 419 Cho. 421 – 422 Cho. 422

118 103; 104 118 127 121 115; 130 92 103 92 102 – 103 106 91 95 91 91 96 127 95 95 127 – 128 95 127 148 128 92 95 116 127 124; 125 115 119 115; 120 125 92 94 94 94 92 95 120 115 127 138 95 119 102 119

Index Locorum

Cho. 430 – 435 Cho. 434 – 437 Cho. 438 Cho. 444 – 450 Cho. 454 – 455 Cho. 461 Cho. 466 Cho. 478 Cho. 479 – 480 Cho. 487 Cho. 489 Cho. 495 Cho. 497 Cho. 499 Cho. 503 Cho. 504 Cho. 505 Cho. 512 – 513 Cho. 515 Cho. 521 Cho. 523 – 539 Cho. 525 Cho. 527 – 528 Cho. 527 – 533 Cho. 527 Cho. 528 Cho. 529 Cho. 530 – 533 Cho. 536 – 538 Cho. 537 Cho. 541 – 549 Cho. 541 Cho. 542 Cho. 543 Cho. 543 – 545 Cho. 543 – 546 Cho. 545 Cho. 545 – 546 Cho. 546 Cho. 547 Cho. 548 Cho. 548 – 550 Cho. 550 Cho. 552 Cho. 553 Cho. 554 Cho. 556

92 125 129 95 138 127 101 106 92 92 106; 125 125 106 106 103 124 92 139 139 139 131 99 139 93; 138 137 139; 144 145 131 – 134 127 95 138 145 143 93; 136 144 93 114; 134 114; 136 134 134 136 137; 144 139; 144 106 139 143 92

Cho.556 – 557 Cho. 559 Cho. 572 Cho. 577 – 578 Cho. 585 – 590 Cho. 591 – 592 Cho. 599 – 600 Cho. 608 Cho. 626 – 627 Cho. 627 Cho. 646 Cho. 646 – 651 Cho. 658 Cho. 664 Cho. 666 – 667 Cho. 672 – 673 Cho. 674 Cho. 679 Cho. 681 – 682 Cho. 682 Cho. 688 – 690 Cho. 691 – 699 Cho. 694 – 695 Cho. 700 Cho. 700 – 703 Cho. 705 Cho. 708 Cho. 717 Cho. 726 Cho. 734 – 765 Cho. 735 – 736 Cho. 737 – 740 Cho. 749 – 750 Cho. 750 – 753 Cho. 753 – 757 Cho. 761 Cho. 762 Cho. 764 Cho. 790 – 796 Cho. 805 Cho. 808 Cho. 825 – 826 Cho. 827 – 837 Cho. 829 Cho. 830 Cho. 831 – 833 Cho. 831 ff.

109 109 92 43 127 127 99 100 95 92 138; 156 138; 156 95 95 95; 117 95 107; 127 117 120 107 107 – 108; 127 125; 127 52; 126 – 127 95 127 127 127 126 108; 109 83 95 125 83 – 84; 90; 113; 114 83 83 – 85 85 113; 114 11; 99 128 106 92 106 116 116 127 116 138

213

214

Index Locorum

Cho. 833 Cho. 845 Cho. 849 – 850 Cho. 855 – 857 Cho. 864 – 865 Cho. 866 Cho. 868 Cho. 874 Cho. 884 Cho. 886 Cho. 887 Cho. 888 Cho. 889 Cho. 892 Cho. 893 – 895 Cho. 896 – 897 Cho. 896 – 898 Cho. 897 – 898 Cho. 898 Cho. 899 Cho. 900 – 902 Cho. 906 – 907 Cho. 908 Cho. 909 Cho. 911 Cho. 913 Cho. 915 – 917 Cho. 918 Cho. 919 Cho. 919 – 921 Cho. 920 Cho. 921 Cho. 922 Cho. 923 Cho. 924 Cho. 924 ff. Cho. 927 Cho. 928 Cho. 929 Cho. 930 – 931 Cho. 935 Cho. 935 – 941 Cho. 942 – 945 Cho. 946 – 956 Cho. 947 Cho. 949 – 952

106 95 95 124 92 106 106 106 106; 134 157 141; 142 142 129 144 99 113 83; 93; 113 – 114; 132; 142 134 136 5; 112; 113; 117 – 118;140; 173 112 99 – 100; 104; 126 86 – 87; 92 – 93 106 138 87; 99; 117 99 96 92 – 93 94; 95; 97; 101 61; 66 92 138; 142 138 46 148 138 86 – 88; 92 – 93 131; 142 127 – 128 106 108 95 108 108; 109 128

Cho. 955 Cho. 973 ff. Cho. 973 – 974 Cho. 974 Cho. 975 – 976 Cho. 983 – 989 Cho. 991 Cho. 991 – 993 Cho. 992 – 999 Cho. 994 Cho. 994 ff. Cho. 996 Cho. 997 Cho. 1009 Cho. 1012 – 1013 Cho. 1016 Cho. 1017 Cho. 1026 – 1028 Cho. 1038 Cho. 1048 – 1050 Cho. 1048 ff. Cho. 1050 Cho. 1053 – 1054 Cho. 1054 Cho. 1061 – 1062 Cho. 1070 Cho. 1072

109 50 95 106 99 117 – 118 99 104; 106 100 105 105 86 105 127 75 129 119 105 – 106 119; 143 145 148 150 143 46; 149 143; 150 92 92

Eum. 1 – 19 Eum. 34 Eum. 40 Eum. 51 – 54 Eum. 57 Eum. 64 Eum. 66 Eum. 67 Eum. 69 Eum. 71 Eum. 81 – 82 Eum. 84 Eum. 88 – 89 Eum. 100 Eum. 102 Eum. 103 Eum. 122 Eum. 125 Eum. 131 – 139

163 149 99 149 149 162 164 152 148 153 172 163 162 130 150 134 150 153 162

Index Locorum

Eum. 139 Eum. 151 Eum. 153 Eum. 154 Eum. 162 – 168 Eum. 184 Eum. 201 Eum. 202 Eum. 203 Eum. 208 Eum. 210 Eum. 211 – 224 Eum. 215 Eum. 224 Eum. 227 Eum. 230 Eum. 230 – 231 Eum. 243 Eum. 253 Eum. 256 Eum. 261 – 263 Eum. 268 Eum. 271 Eum. 276 – 277 Eum. 281 Eum. 303 Eum. 304 Eum. 312 – 320 Eum. 316 – 320 Eum. 318 Eum. 321 – 322 Eum. 326 – 327 Eum. 329 Eum. 330 Eum. 331 – 333 Eum. 334 – 335 Eum. 337 – 340 Eum. 338 – 339 Eum. 381 Eum. 382 Eum. 382 – 383 Eum. 397 – 401 Eum. 406 – 408 Eum. 408 Eum. 410 – 412 Eum. 420 Eum. 425

150 99 150 116 163 43 162 150 128 152 148; 152 152 162 160 162 168 130 160; 174 43 150 152; 168 150 168 150 150 162 168 180 148 157 148; 167 150 152 152 152 153 148 150 97; 180 159; 180 42; 157 180; 182 155 148 155 162 150

Eum. 427 Eum. 428 Eum. 430 Eum. 433 – 444 Eum. 455 – 458 Eum. 459 Eum. 459 – 460 Eum. 463 Eum. 468 Eum. 472 Eum. 483 Eum. 483 – 484 Eum. 48 – 49 Eum. 491 – 492 Eum. 493 Eum. 496 – 498 Eum. 511 – 521 Eum. 513 – 521 Eum. 520 – 525 Eum. 521 Eum. 526 – 530 Eum. 529 Eum. 535 – 536 Eum. 538 – 544 Eum. 543 Eum. 544 Eum. 545 Eum. 550 – 565 Eum. 573 Eum. 579 – 580 Eum. 581 Eum. 582 Eum. 583 Eum. 587 Eum. 590 Eum. 592 Eum. 595 Eum. 598 Eum. 599 Eum. 602 Eum. 605 Eum. 606 Eum. 607 – 608 Eum. 612 – 613 Eum. 615 Eum. 616 – 618 Eum.620 – 621

150 162 174 160 180; 181 48 167; 181 150; 167 160 160 160 172 149 130 150 148 151 156; 168 158 151; 156; 158 174 157; 174 156 180 156 180 152; 156 180 160 163 160 160 162 150 162 162 150 124 150 164 168 88; 167 88; 93; 168 130; 160 109 163 163

215

216

Index Locorum

Eum. 640 Eum. 622 – 637 Eum. 623 – 624 Eum. 625 – 627 Eum. 631 – 632 Eum. 636 – 637 Eum. 639 Eum. 640 Eum. 642 Eum. 647 – 648 Eum. 652 – 654 Eum. 653 Eum. 654 Eum. 657 ff. Eum. 658 – 659 Eum. 660 – 666 Eum. 675 Eum. 681 – 682 Eum. 681 – 710 Eum. 709 Eum. 710 Eum. 729 Eum. 734 Eum. 736 – 740 Eum. 739 – 740 Eum. 741 Eum. 745 Eum. 753 Eum. 754 – 756 Eum. 754 – 758 Eum. 778 – 792 Eum. 785 Eum. 794 Eum. 795 Eum. 800 – 802 Eum. 808 – 822 Eum. 815 Eum. 829 – 831 Eum. 836 Eum. 837 – 846 Eum. 838 Eum. 844 Eum. 845 – 846 Eum. 848 ff. Eum. 849 – 850 Eum. 858 – 863

163 163 163; 164 164 164; 182 164 160 168 162 124 152 168 92 88 – 89 164 20; 89 – 90; 140 – 141; 162 – 163; 165 162; 183 160 174 – 175 160 162 160 160 165 – 166 25; 165 172 148; 167 172 95 180 – 181 159 130 170 172; 175 170 159 130 171 – 173 175 159 156 148; 167 175 97 156 179

Eum. 858 – 866 Eum. 871 Eum. 877 Eum. 879 – 880 Eum. 885 – 889 Eum. 900 Eum. 903 ff. Eum. 910 Eum. 927 – 928 Eum. 932 – 933 Eum. 934 – 935 Eum. 952 – 955 Eum. 952 – 953 Eum. 956 – 967 Eum. 959 – 960 Eum. 970 – 971 Eum. 973 – 975 Eum. 976 – 986 Eum. 992 – 995 Eum. 996 – 1002 Eum. 1011 Eum. 1018 Eum. 1028 – 1031 Eum. 1032 – 1047 Eum. 1033

158 156 148; 167 175 170 – 172 172 97 170 172 – 173 155 170 170 180 169 169 172 179 170 34 161 161 161 161 161 148; 167

Pers. 176 – 214 Pers. 317 Pers. 768 – 772

131 76 34

Sept. 752 – 755 Sept. 766 – 771

86 35

Supp. 376 – 378 Supp. 640

34 34

Aristotle HA 581 b1 – 2 HA 609a4 – 5 Po. 1450b3 – 4 Po. 1450a15 – 18

29 91 5 6

Diogenianus gramm. Paroemiae 4, 2 – 3, 1 32 Heraclitus B 94 DK

148

Index Locorum

Hesiod Op. 803 ff. Th. 185 Th. 590 – 60295

148 148

Hippocrates Mul. 1. 1, L 8. 12 22 Mul. 1. 6, L 8. 30 29 Mul. 1. 24 – 25, L 8. 62 – 68 22 Mul. 1. 72, L 8. 152 29 Mul. 2. 113, L 8. 242 29 Nat. Puer. 14 – 15, L 7. 492 – 497 22 Homer Il. 1, 194 – 200 Il. 9, 454 Il. 9, 454 – 456 Il. 9, 571 Il. 9, 571 ff. Il. 12, 200 ff. Il. 15, 204 Il. 19, 86 ff. Il. 21, 412

154 148 148 148 148 91 148 148 148

Od. 2, 113 Od. 2, 130 – 131 Od. 2, 135 Od. 3, 266 – 272 Od. 3, 309 – 310 Od. 8, 521 – 531 Od. 11, 178 Od. 11, 280 Od. 11, 435 – 439 Od. 11, 439 Od. 13, 379 – 381 Od. 15, 231 ff.

15 110 148 14 14 61 15 148 59 14 14 148

Od. 16, 73 – 75 Od. 16, 155 – 163 Od. 16, 332 – 337 Od. 16, 418 – 447 Od. 17, 300 – 327 Od. 17, 475 Od. 19, 524 – 525 Od. 20, 14 – 16 Od. 20, 33 – 35 Od. 21, 412 Od. 23, 97 Od. 23, 97 – 99 Od. 24, 191 – 202 Od. 24, 196 – 198 Od. 24, 199

15 154 68 117 53 148 15 25 14 148 124 15 14 123 14

h. Bacch., 1 – 4, 6 – 10, 14 – 18 154 Pindar Ol. I 56 – 57 Ol. XIII 10 P. II 25 – 29

58 58 58

KN Fp 1. 8 KN V 52

148 148

Solon Fr. 6, 3 – 4 W

58

Sophocles Aj. 1390 Ph. 1440 – 1441

148 62

Theognis Thgn., 153 – 158

58

217