How Does Clytemnestra Make A Formal Speech In Agamemnon

In the Agamemnon, Clytemnestra makes a formal speech to the chorus describing her love and concern for her husband. Describe the elements of deceit in the speech. In Aeschylus’s Greek myth Oresteia, Clytemnestra makes a speech shortly before her husband, Agamemnon, is murdered. The speech is spoken right upon the return of Agamemnon from the war of troy. The speech she gives is deceitful and foreshadows many events to come in the myth. The speech is also full of double entendres and appearances of loss and death. Clytemnestra tricks the chorus and Agamemnon with her tricky play on words and techniques of deceit. Clytemnestra use of images, metaphors, and ambiguous phrases is only some of the treacherous skills that she brings to the
table as we see throughout the myth. Clytemnestra’s cleaver language is used for a cowardly purpose.
She uses many shrewd images, which are misinterpreted by not only the chorus but Agamemnon as well. This speech is interpreted by Agamemnon and the chorus to be a praise and a relief that her husband made it home safely. In the beginning of her speech she says “It is evil and a thing of terror when a wife sits in the house forlorn with no man by, and hears rumors that like a fever die to break again, and men come in with news of fear, and on their heels another messenger, with worse news to cry aloud here in this house,” (Agamemnon, 861-866). When she was that the rumors she hears spread like dieses, she implores an image of death and downfall. Throughout the rest of her speech she brings up rumors of death and even says that “Had Agamemnon taken all the wounds of the tale whereof was carried home to me, he had been cut full of gashes like a fishing net,” (Agamemnon, 866-868). Notice how she may seem to be praising Agamemnon but still points out how he has holes like a net. Clytemnestra also lets us know that the rumors going around the city were so intolerable that she “had to be released against her will, from the noose of suicide, more than once” (Agamemnon, 874-875). After her speech she tells the servants to strew the path of his feet with the fabrics of crimson. Agamemnon walking in the crimson tapestries is a very big metaphor. This action shows that Agamemnon has a lot of pride in himself and
he is also affronting the gods. There is also a male and female conflict that can be seen in Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. The color crimson also foreshadows to Agamemnon’s death because the color crimson is related to flowing blood. Clytemnestra’s speech was cleaver crafted to have many metaphors and double meanings, which foreshadows the death of Agamemnon. Clytemnestra also uses double meanings when she discusses her purpose. At the beginning of the speech she says “Grave gentlemen of Argolis assembled here, I take no shame to speak aloud before you all the love I bear my husband. In the lapse of time modesty fades; it is human.” (Agamemnon, 855-858). Even though she says that she loves her husband, she is not using the word love in a romantic sense. Instead she means love as a strong emotional attachment, which could also be hate. She also complains about how life was intolerable while her husband was away fighting at Troy. What she means by this is that she couldn’t bear to have Agamemnon so far away that she couldn’t go through with her revenge. Clytemnestra continues on with her speech and talks about the anger of the people, which implies that there is anger everywhere and even in Clytemnestra’s house, which Agamemnon is about to come back home to. Clytemnestra continues with her speech and says “For me: the rippling springs that were my tears have dried utterly up, nor left one drop within. I keep the pain upon my eyes where late at night I wept over the beacons long ago set for your sake, untended left forever.” (Agamemnon, 887-891). Agamemnon and the Chorus take this as a good since she is no longer sad. Clytemnestra really means that she is now ready to take revenge for all of the losses she has suffered. She then continues to say her “mind is free from pain” and that her “mind never sleeps” (Agamemnon, 895, 912). These quotes were then followed by her saying that she will set things right which means that revenge is coming and soon. All of this underscores that Clytemnestra was taken over by the Furies to have revenge against Agamemnon. Clytemnestra has an interesting way to deceit the chorus and Agamemnon.
She uses ambiguous wording and then uses metaphors. She uses this deceit so that the chorus cannot interpret it correctly. Her telling us about her “exhausted grief” from waiting on Agamemnon shows us that she is just being a worried wife at home (Agamemnon, 895). She gave a thrilled praise to Agamemnon when he arrives at home. She seems at a loss of words when he arrives home because she is so thrilled buy in reality she does not care to see him anymore and she is only thrilled because now the revenge can take place. In Clytemnestra’s speech, she fails to say that she is actually relieved or that she is pleased with his return home. Her words play Agamemnon and the Chorus and they fail to ask any questions to her speech but rather just misinterpret what she is saying. What Clytemnestra says and what she means are two very different things and one of the reasons the chorus does not understand what she means is because of her deceit, which is a fourfold compellation of lies and
misdirection. Clytemnestra’s speech is full of double meanings, which is another useful tool that she uses to trick the chorus. Everyone but the readers and Cassandra are fooled by the play on words that are layered in her speech. Later the chorus speaks and says, “Still the spirit sings, drawing deep from within this unlyric threnody of the Fury. Hope is gone utterly, the sweet strength is far away. Surely it is real, this whirl of drifts that spin the stricken heart” (Agamemnon, 990-996). This shows what the chorus has learned over her speech. They also say, “Why must this persistent fear beat its wings so ceaselessly and so close against my mantic heart? Why this strain unwanted, unrepaired, thus prophetic?” (Agamemnon, 975-979). This shows that the chorus does not want to feel terror in themselves after the speech given by Clytemnestra. Because of Clytemnestra’s ability to trick people with words the Chorus is rendered bind to see the real truth of Clytemnestra’s speech. Agamemnon shows great deception and metaphors. It is full of double meanings and creative language and mainly by Clytemnestra. She uses many tactics so that the readers know the truth but at the same time she is able to trick the Chorus and Agamemnon. Later in the story when Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon the Chorus is left in shock because they thought that she was in love with Agamemnon. This give Clytemnestra an overall victory with her ability to trick the Chorus and then blindside them by murdering her husband. Clytemnestra’s ability to deceive the chorus is what really makes her a master at murdering her husband.