Transcript
C. M. Furness – University of Tasmania - 27.08.2012
Interpreting the role of Cassandra in Aeschylus' Agamemnon When the audience first meets Cassandra, she enters the scene riding in a chariot alongside the returning king Agamemnon. She stands as a reminder of the Trojan war and indeed the enduring suffering of the survivors on both sides who attempt to "find" home.1 Aeschylus asks his audience to imagine the city of Troy as newly fallen by introducing the imagery of the torch-light procession during the opening of the play and by referring to it again in staging the entrance of king Agamemnon and his captured war-prize Cassandra, who is herself ritually and symbolically presented as the bride of Agamemnon.2 The audience is immediately drawn to the presence of Cassandra and is forced to consider the effect of her silence during the "carpet scene" between Agamemnon and Clytaemestra, who herself remains indifferent to the presence of the young woman.3 Cassandra highlights the character of Agamemnon during this scene by recalling parallels between herself and another "tragic" hero, Achilleus, who possesses his own truths about future events and willingly faces death, and whose actions and inaction often served as an antithesis to those of Agamemnon throughout the Iliad; remembering too that a quasi-love-triangle was at the root of their disagreement.4 The staging of this scene also allows Cassandra to stand in place of Iphigenia, the daughter sacrificed by Agamemnon, which is stated to be a driving cause for Clytaemestra's desire to seek revenge.5 The tapestry used in this scene is considered by McNeil to be a nuptial story cloth, depicting the myth of Philomela, which is later "interpreted" by Cassandra and is no-doubt relative to the tragic history of the house of Atreus and other mythic/historic love-triangles presented in the play.6 Aeschylus employs ekphrasis by incorporating this prop into the scene as a symbolic gesture of reciprocal gift-giving, kharis, believed to strengthen relations between married 1
Wilma J. Counts, "Cassandra: An Approach to Aeschylus' "Agamemnon"," The English Journal 62, no.1 (1973): 34-5. 2 Paula Debnar, "The Sexual Status of Aeschylus' Cassandra," Classical Philology 105, no. 2 (2010): 134; Lynda McNeil, "Bridal Cloths, Cover-ups, and Kharis: The 'Carpet Scene' in Aeschylus' Agamemnon," Greece and Rome 52, no. 1 (2005): 3. 3 Counts, 35; McNeil, 14. 4 Anne-Pascale, Brault, "Prophetess doomed: Cassandra and the representation of truth" (Ph.D.diss., New York University, 1990), 34; Seth L. Schein, "The Cassandra Scene in Aeschylus' 'Agamemnon'," Greece and Rome, Second Series 29, no. 1 (1982): 12. 5 Brault, 35; McNeil, 4; Robin, Mitchell-Boyask, "The Marriage of Cassandra and the Oresteia: Text, Image, Performance," Transactions of the American Philological Association 136, no. 2 (2006): 272, 281-2. 6 McNeil, 2, 9, 12, 14, 15.
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C. M. Furness – University of Tasmania - 27.08.2012 couples and by using imagery associated with weaving more-generally, itself used as a metaphor for cosmic, civic and marital harmony.7 Cassandra's mere presence complicates the reunion between Agamemnon and Clytaemestra, however, and when the iconography is interpreted as a cautionary tale, the symbolism the cloth employs serves only to highlight Clytaemestra's deception.8 The actions of Agamemnon, in "trampling" on the cloth, is also interpreted symbolically as the defilement of the marriage bed on behalf of himself with Cassandra, represented but not necessarily established in truth, and of course by Clytaemestra and Aegisthus.9 Cassandra is cast as a prophetess inspired by Apollo with "second-sight" and multi-temporal awareness, as a means of suspending dramatic time but also to make the audience and readers more alert to the play's themes through her "visions" of past, present and future events, during her brief journey across the threshold of the house.10 She is given voice of a divine nature, as prophets often are, but interestingly her relationship to the god Apollo, as seer and indeed as a lover/bride seems to have been invented by Aeschylus.11 Perhaps this is done in order to emphasise the significance of both Cassandra and Orestes as agents of the god and his role in re-defining justice at the trilogy's end.12 There are some element of confusion, however, for Cassandra is now being presented as a parthenos in silence and in speech as bride to both Agamemnon and Apollo respectively.13 Indeed, Cassandra regards Apollo as the man who has "led" her from her father's house to his.14 When Cassandra is first given voice she cries out Apollo's name in lamentation, because of her cursed delusion.15 Mitchell-Boyask believes this is in response to her "seeing" an image of the god at the entrance to the house, which both initiates Cassandra's speech and sets up further imagery associated with the supplication of Orestes at the statues of Apollo and Athena.16 Cassandra "reveals" many things through both her speech and her interpretation of past events, whilst simultaneously obscuring meaning pertaining to
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McNeil, 2, 7, 8, 11, 16, 17. McNeil, 2, 11, 14. 9 Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 64 (Richmond Lattimore translation); McNeil, 8, 9 14. 10 Brault, 33, 35; Debnar, page 134; Mitchell-Boyask, 279; Schein, 11-13, 15. 11 Debnar, 132-3; Mitchell-Boyask, 273; Schein, 12. 12 Aeschylus, 68; Brault, 10; Debnar, 132; Mitchell-Boyask, 288, 291-2. 13 Mitchell-Boyask, 269-270, 273-4. 14 Mitchell-Boyask, 274. 15 Aeschylus, 66; Debnar, 132; Mitchell-Boyask, 276. 16 Debnar, 142; Mitchell-Boyask, 285-9. 8
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C. M. Furness – University of Tasmania - 27.08.2012 future events, by drawing on themes from the mythic past, current events (on and off stage) and events yet to occur; she is therefore representative of divine or absolute truth to be set in juxtaposition to the typically female-deception and all-consuming vengeance as characterised by Clytaemestra.17 Her "visions" draw the attention of the chorus and the audience to the images of accumulative suffering in the house of Atreus and offers them interpretive understanding in sympathising with her own suffering, her description of the tragic love-triangle of Atreus/Aerope/Thyestes, reference to the Furies as a chorus who reside within/above the cursed household and by introducing the avenger Orestes into the continuous cycle of violence.18 Perhaps the most significant element of the characterisation of Cassandra is her own self-awareness and conscious acceptance of her role within the play, fulfilled only in death; for she fully understands that Apollo has brought her to this house for death, in fact she describes that imminent proceeding in vivid detail.19 Debnar is of the belief, that through her characterisation and the staging of the Cassandra scene, Aeschylus expected his audience to identify the young woman with other mythic/historic virginal figures and her depiction as a captured priestess and the bride/slave of Agamemnon played directly on parallels between the status of both brides/slaves in the Greek world and their formal and ritualised incorporation into the household, themes which are undoubtedly re-visited during the incorporation of the Erinyes into a new sacrificial community in the Eumenides20 Cassandra is not persuaded by Clytaemestra, as Agamemnon is, and she makes her journey across the threshold of her own free will and rather importantly after she has divested herself of the prophetic robes of Apollo, making her murder/sacrifice on behalf of Clytaemestra one which is corrupt; in a sense Clytaemestra's gender role is reversed and she becomes another Agamemnon by committing groundless murder in "sacrificing" a young woman.21 This transgression in turn leads to sacrificial vengeance being denied Clytaemestra and foreshadows the intervention of Athena and indeed civil law in the reconciliation of male/female themes within the new cosmic, civil and religious order where marriage rites too are subsumed by the Erinyes.22
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Brault, 7-9; Counts, 35; McNeil, 16; Mitchell-Boyask, 272; Schein, 14. Aeschylus, 66, 68; Counts, 33; McNeil, 16; Mitchell-Boyask, 272, 290, 293-4; Schein, 14-15. 19 Aeschylus, 69; Mitchell-Boyask, 272, 276; Schein, 11-2. 20 Debnar, 134-5, 138-9, 145; Mitchell-Boyask, 279, 283-4. 21 Debnar, 136; Mitchell-Boyask, 278, 280; Schein, 13. 22 Aeschylus, 66; Brault, 9; Debnar, 142-3; McNeil, 11; Mitchell-Boyask, 293-4. 18
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C. M. Furness – University of Tasmania - 27.08.2012
Bibliography Brault, Pascale-Anne. "Prophetess doomed: Cassandra and the representation of truth." Ph.D.diss. New York University, 1990.
Counts, Wilma J. "Cassandra: An Approach to Aeschylus' "Agamemnon"." The English Journal 62, no.1 (1973): 33-36.
Debnar, Paula. "The Sexual Status of Aeschylus' Cassandra." Classical Philology 105, no. 2 (2010): 129-145.
Lattimore, Richmond, trans. Agamemnon. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2007.
McNeil, Lynda. "Bridal Cloths, Cover-ups, and Kharis: The 'Carpet Scene' in Aeschylus' Agamemnon," Greece and Rome 52, no. 1 (2005): 1-17.
Mitchell-Boyask, Robin. "The Marriage of Cassandra and the Oresteia: Text, Image, Performance." Transactions of the American Philological Association 136, no. 2 (2006): 269-297.
Schein, Seth L. "The Cassandra Scene in Aeschylus' 'Agamemnon'." Greece and Rome, Second Series 29, no. 1 (1982): 11-16.
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