Greek Tragedy

Aeschylus’Agamemnon

1 Pride
Paying for Fame
Pride, of course, goeth before a fall. But Homeric Greeks seeking a place in stories, seeking life beyond the grave in the memories of future audiences, are far from discounting the works of pride. Greeks seek as well, however, to appreciate the costs attending the pursuit of excellence. Without extraordinary ambition, yoked in action with notable capability, neither Agamemnon nor Clytaemnestra would achieve recognition, would live on and on in memories after death. Those lacking such ambition fade as shades, dissipated in cold darkness. Those manifesting arête, excellence, are necessarily few and extraordinary. Like all Greeks, such characters are flawed. Removing the likelihood of flaws, however, would remove as well the strength of ambition, of competition, of achievement. Aristotle considers those who presume to achievements beyond their character not proud, but merely vain. His concern is with those whose pride prevents them from bothering to attend to the concerns of lesser associates.

Greek Tragedy, however, arises in democratic Athens, a culture markedly different from the aristocratic past, where the heroic exploits of a chosen few define ideals. Athenian tragedy, experienced by audiences priding themselves on the collective virtue of democratic citizens, offers a dialogue between the mixed blessings of the past, and opportunities for new strategic political allegiances. Tragic heroes bring to life the Homeric grandeur of heroic aspirations, retaining Homeric attention to costs attending heroic character. Even in an Athens priding itself on intellectual vigor and subtlety, the recognition of blood-passion as a force which can surface is a requirement manifested with every sacrifice to Dionysus, the god of theatre, which precedes tragic performances. Athenians experiencing tragic action may also recognize the price they pay for constraining activities of the powerful few, while appreciating participation by all citizens in Athenian politics. The chorus in Greek tragedy appears as an intermediary between tragic heroes undergoing reversal and recognition, and modern audiences more or less committed to democratic government. Calls for Apollo to bring light and reason to Dionysian events, they look forward more rational approaches to character, government, and action. But the power of Dionysis, rather than Apollo, animates Greek tragedy. Despite philosophical exploration of first causes, the power of fate and the limits of reason remain present in Athenians.

2 Nemesis
Cursing Atreus
What goes around comes around. Clytaemnestra’s outrage follows the course of prior events. She inherits the curse Thyestes calls down on his brother. She experiences the madness attending blood-conflict within families. Following the death of their father, the brothers Atreus and Thyestes compete for prominence. Atreus was to rule for an agreed-upon time, followed by Thyestes. When Atreus refuses to relinquish power, Thysestes seduces his brother’s wife, enjoying an alternative precedence over his brother. Atreus’ recognition of his brother’s triumph fuels retribution (Nemesis). He prepares a banquet to honor Thyestes, and the guest of honor first tastes choice morsels from the banquet stew. Before others follow his lead, Atreus uncovers the heads of Thyestes’ children, the remains of the butchered meat Thyestes has enjoyed.

3 Recognition
Understanding Reversals (pictures will appear)
Atreus’ recognition – the disorienting period between his sense of honor and his subsequent lust for vengeance – moves him to call a curse upon his brother, a curse blighting progeny as compensation for his own dismembered children. Clytaemnestra, enraged by Iphigenia’s sacrifice, enjoys the company of Aegisthus, a son of Thyestes, to stage a recognition worthy of Atreus’ son Agamemnon. The chorus in Aeschylus’ play shows an awareness not only of the cohabitation of this unusual couple, but also of the backgrounds which will fuel subsequent action. Dispirited by age and war, however, they repress their approach to activities too dark to acknowledge. Their murmurings, however, anticipates the recognition they seek to delay. Driven by grief and pride, Clytaemnestra will lead Agamemnon to his ritual bath of hospitality. She with her lover Aegisthus, will open wounds, allowing time for Agamemnon to recognize his altered circumstances. They seek not merely his death, but his recognition.

4 Recognition and Prophecy
Seeing Through Cassandra’s Eyes (pictures will appear)
Cassandra provides a telling case of recognition. Apollo, taken with her beauty, her position, her character, seduces her. But when she turns from him in passion, he bestows upon her the bitter-sweet gift of prophecy. She will foresee and foretell the future. But she is powerless to affect the events she fears: her visions gain belief only after events unfold.  Consider Cassandra approaching Argos. Clytaemnestra, of course, takes note of Agamemnon’s prize, sees her diminution as wife and queen in the presence of a rival for Agamemnon’s desires. Cassandra, along with Agamemnon, will die. But if Agamemnon may harbor some anxieties about his wife’s character and desires, Cassandra comes to see, in vivid and sensory detail, the events which will undo not only Agamemnon, but also herself. Apollo’s gift enables her to appreciate fully reversals before they actualize for others. Foretelling the future meets with disbelief. Her insight isolates her just when most in need of company.

5 Athenian Recognitions
Following Agamemnon (buildings will appear)
Athenian audiences, of course, know the plot of the story they anticipate. Participation does not provide the excitement of the thriller: whodunit is obvious. Drawn into the action, however, by words, by voices, by music, by gesture, the audience shares with the chorus not understandings, but recognitions. Like Cassandra, observers see what will happen. And like Cassandra, observers, however insightful, will not alter the course of events, the working out of nemesis. Unlike Cassandra, however, audiences do not truly see their own futures. Leaving a performance, Athenian citizens may well appreciate the architecture of their city, famous in their own day and anticipated as a prime influence for millennia on future building. In democratic Athens, some relief may attend the downfall of a king, undone by pride. But recollections of Cassandra may undermine such satisfactions. While we appreciate Agamemnon’s reversal, we cannot foresee and foretell our own fate. Athenians justifiably proud of their city, unprecedented for proportionate beauty, recall in the ritual sacrifice and celebration of Dionysus which precedes and influences tragic performances, the dark foundations of all building.

6 Drama
Practicing Rituals (pictures will appear)
An altar serves as the site where a sacrifice to Dionysus invites celebrants to experience true recognition, a state qualitatively different from ordinary sensation and reasoning. Originally a priest would call upon Dionysus to move the celebrants. Ritual actions accompanied the sacrifice, and such actions developed into a re-enactment of circumstances where recognition might occur. Aeschylus added additional participants, who presumably experienced the situations conducive to recognition. Audiences understood such occurrences as possibilities for their own recognition, but sought the actual experience in the theater, an experience qualitatively different from rational understanding. Aeschylus’ chorus observe the course of recognition, approaching their own involvement. Desiring harmony, but anticipating conflict, the chorus, like their audience, will attend to Agamemnon’s homecoming, wishing the restoration of psychic, familial and social harmony, but anticipating circumstances which inevitably will replace apparent harmony with conflict.

7 Apollo and Dionysus
Recognizing The Birth of Tragedy
Apollo and Dionysus appear in performances of Greek tragedy. Apollo, formerly the archer-god who brings health or disease in the Iliad, now appears as the sun-god, the bringer of light, of harmony, of reason. “Apollo, bring light” is the frequent call manifesting desires for order in the most disruptive of times. But Dionysus presides, not only in the essential action of the tragedy, but also in the theatre itself, where a sacrifice to him precedes and influences all subsequent action. Dionysus energizes darkness, rouses dancers with rhythm, percussion and sound, fosters and recognizes passion. In the nineteenth century Nietzche develops an account of the divided mind in The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzche’s Greeks accept the appeal of two desires, the desire for order and the desire for energy. They recognize as well the costs of each appeal. Like Freud’s superego and id, Apollo and of Dionysus offer not balance, but competing appeals. Dionysus encourages the voice of sensation and desire, Apollo the voice of reflection and reason. The sun-god Apollo offers order, reason, harmony. Attention only to his practices however rouses desires from the wine-god Dionysus. Freedom, feeling, dancing, passion repressed, overwhelm restraints. Dionysus, not Apollo, is the patron of theatre, a form which works with impassioned participants.

8 Aeschylus and Athens
Inventing the Future
Like the Iliad, the Agamemnon demonstrates the price attending the quest for fame. Unlike the Iliad, however, this play occurs in a worldly, self-conscious, media-savvy city, Athens. And unlike the story-telling of Homeric bards, audiences now come together to see acted out in primitive encounters, events not current, but ancient. What, then, is the purpose of exposing modern Athenians to events from the vital but primitive past? Aeschylus fought at Marathon, proud of Athenian leadership in repelling Persian forces which would constrain Greek diversity under the rule of absolute king and empire. Following victory, Aeschylus presented The Persians, a tragedy showing the fall of a great king. His Persian King, recalling the invaders of Greece Darius and Xerxes, presents reversals: how the mighty are fallen. And such reversals may please audiences recalling invasion, particularly audiences  priding themselves on powers attending democratic freedoms. But recognition, if apparent in the Persian king, works without much surprise in such audiences. The Persians presents not tragedy, but Athenian vindication. Consider the temple of Athena Nike (victory) which graces the approach to the acropolis. Athena inspires as well as protects her chosen subjects, the crafty, innovative Athenians, against the massive powers of Persian empire. Her independence seeks fellows in Athens, a place and population suited to her character and desires.

But in the Agamemnon Aeschylus deploys the crucial change necessary for tragic recognition: the audience will share in recognition when the tragic hero is a successful Greek. Opportunity and dangers now are at home. Agamemnon, no longer the enemy, discovers the costs of striving for excellence, the cost of fame. Perhaps democratic Athenians, skeptical of prior kingships, enjoy the more or less justified downfall of a proud king. But Agamemnon also incorporates the pride valued by Athenians. Without the striving for excellence, even the external forms of Athenian building, the architecture of Periclean Athens which will shape much of the Western world for millennia, would never take shape. Nietzche’s insight, that Dionysian recognition of desires encompasses competition as well as cooperation, passion as well as restraint, dying as well as living, works still in Apollonian societies, including Periclean Athens and America in the 21^st century. Faced with devastations during the civil war which would undo not only Athens, but also Greece, Thucydides presents a key event in the form of tragedy. The dialogue between Athenians and Melians shows Apollo and Dionysus at work. The island of Melos, settled by Spartan ancestors, lies scant miles off the Athenian coast. Athenians understandably demanded Melian allegiance in the war with Sparta. Melians understandably request continuing neutrality  lest they face descendents of founding fathers in battle. Athens had appealed to Greeks to join in empire, potentially profitable allegiances. If Athens remained the first among fellows, thoughtful negotiations would allow others to negotiate shares in growing resources. When Melians appealed to Athens to honor their policy allowing free choice, Athenians, decimated by war, voted to blockade the island to starve out its citizens. Upon surrender, Melian men were slaughtered, and women and children sold into slavery. Such attitudes, Thucydides implies, squandered Athenian possibilities for productive allegiances, one act of a developing tragedy. The defeat of Athenian forces in the invasion of Syracuse appears to Thucydides as the final act of this tragedy.

9 Another Weeping Woman
Pouring Unhappiness Out
Consider Clytaemnestra’s grief. The wife and queen of Agamemnon surely appreciates the plight of Hecuba and Andromache, though she may well take pride in Greek prowess. Following the death of Hector, Greek soldiers hidden within the wooden horse the Trojans believe to be a guarantor of Athena’s protection descend in darkness to open Troy’s gates. Following the sack of Troy Odysseus recognizes the dangerous potential of Astyonax to rally Trojans and Trojan sympathizers. He directs a messenger to remove the child-prince from his widowed mother and widowed grandmother, to throw him alive from Troy’s walls to be eaten by dogs and kites. This lesson to would-be resistance appears a generation after Aeschlus’ Agamemnon in Euripides’ tragedy, The Trojan Women. Euripides’ display of ancient strategies followed fast upon the Melian slaughter. Consider Melian women, husbands slaughtered, serving their killers. Consider fellow sufferers Andromache and Hecuba, Cassandra and Clytaemnestra. Consider not all weeping women, but particular weeping women at particular times and places, one at a time. How does each pour the unhappiness out? Agamemnon’s recognition of Clytaemnestra surely involves horror. But would he not finally recognize the circumstances in which her actions work? Aeschylus’ offering  invites us to leave for the moment the Apollonian potential for light and reason to experience the complementary world of embodied in timely passion. Now you pour the unhappiness out, grow black blooms in this interior world —

Pour the unhappiness out
from your too bitter heart,
which grieving will not sweeten.

Poison grows in this dark.
It is in the water of tears
Its black blooms rise.

The magnificent cause of being,
The imagination, the one reality
In this imagined world

Leaves you
With him for whom no phantasy moves,
And you are pierced by a death.