This is the first play in the trilogy, the ORESTEIA. Aeschylus
flourished around 500 B.C. He was a soldier who fought
at Marathon (and
possibly elsewhere as well), an aristocrat and a man of genius in the
theatre. He
introduced the second actor in the Greek tragedies, and he
reduced the importance of the Chorus. Much that we take for granted in
the modern theatre, Aeschylus introduced and practiced through many
years of competitions, and, some might say, perfected. Of the ninety
(90) plays we know he wrote, seven (7) are known to survive today.
This play opens with a faithful servant, an old man, watching for the
signal fires that are to burn when Troy is conquered. They do, and the
city is ablaze with sacrificial fires. A herald comes to tell that it's
true also, but that there was a great storm and many ships were lost.
But Agamemnon, the king, comes, and his wife
Clytemnestra lauds herself
as the faithful watching wife. She has a red carpet laid down for him
-- he doesn't want to walk on it, lest it offend the gods. She insists,
and he gives in, after removing his sandals. Clytemnestra comes out to
insist that his captive mistress, Cassandra, come in and join the
household sacrifices. Cassandra prophecies past and future and goes in
to meet her death. Then Clytemnestra comes out with her bundle netted
-- husband and slave (she was a captive Trojan princess and priestess
of Apollo). The queen brags about how her husband died in vengeance for
her young virgin daughter, Iphigenia, whom her husband had sacrificed
to gain favorable winds to go to sack Troy. Aegisthus, her lover, comes
and takes over, saying it is in revenge for his two infant brothers,
whom Agamemnon's father slew and fed to their (and his) father,
Agamemnon's brother.