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So, we mentioned tragedies having this
very compressed action.

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That's definitely true in this play, The
Agamemnon.

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Agamemnon's story is quite straight
forward and relatively easy to tell.

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We've got a very beginning scene where
there's this watchman.

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He's sitting up on top of, of a, of a,
Of a roof, and wondering what's about to

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happen.
He's got his eye out.

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He's trying to see some kind of a beacon,
There must be a beacon out there. Well,

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what he's looking for is a beacon that has
been preset on a mountain that's as far

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away from Argos as this watchman is able
to see and atop of a mountain.

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And that mountain has got a pre-positioned
fire that is positioned as far away from

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another mountain top as a person is able
to sitting on that mountain top, and so

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on, and so on, and so on.
And these mountain tops lead all the way

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back to Troy.
So, seeing there's a mountain top far away

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from Troy and seeing that Troy is burning,
That person, the first man stationed at

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the signal fire, lights a fire on his
mountain top right near by Troy.

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The one farthest away lights a single
beacon, beacon on top of his mountain top,

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and so on, and so on,
All the way around the Agean Sea until the

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fire from Troy literally leaks out and
comes over to Argos, comes over to

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Mycenae,
Agamemnon's home town.

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The fire from Troy has come and visited
them.

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This technology of a signal beacon, really
extraordinary.

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Clytaemnestra gets a word right away that
her husband has conquered Troy.

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Now, that wanting to get that signal, you
might want to have imagined that if you

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were operating from an Odysseus and
Clytem, Odysseus and Penelope kind of

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stand point, that, you know, they wanted
to find out when their loved one was going

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be home so they could have a nice reunion.
Well, in this case, no, not at all.

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Clytemnestra wants to find out when her
loved one going to be home because she set

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up things to kill him.
That, that extra technology of the beacon

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signal being used to work out her own
internal nastiness that works out inside

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this family.
We've got a back and forth, then

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Clytemnestra appears.
She has back and forth with the chorus.

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Starts talking to them about what's been
going on.

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The herald then appears and has a back and
forth with the chorus as were getting

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ready to see Agamemnon come and then,
boom, Agamemnon arrives right near the

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beginning of the play.
Isn't it?

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It's not too far end.
Agamemnon arrives, and we have a long back

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and forth discussion between Agamemnon and
his wife, Clytemnestra.

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Their greeting is a far cry from, you
know, hi, honey, I'm home. It's been ten

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years, nice to see you.
It's a back and forth kind of verbal test

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of wills.
Not right out in the open but very subtly

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in a subterranean way, they're taking each
others measure such that Clytemnestra is

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making sure that she's going to be able to
kill this guy. And Clytemnestra, or

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Agamemnon is just kind of trying to make
his way into his own house again and

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figure out where things stand.
Not very clever.

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Agamemnon is not held up in the mythical
Greek,.

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Greek in the, in Greek myth as being a
clever man.

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He's an extremely strong man, but he's
brutish.

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He's not very clever.
And as another indicator of that, he comes

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back with his prize from wartime.
His concubine new wife, Cassandra,

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And brings her right out into the open.
And, you know, here she is, Clytemnestra.

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Here's your, you know, here's, here's your
new wife friend that's going to be my new

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wife.
We'll have to find a place for her.

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Having multiple sexual dalliances as we
know from Odysseus, that just kind of

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happens.
Greek men exonerated themselves from

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thinking of that as a bad thing.
They just went ahead and had thought of

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that as just fine.
But, there clearly is a kind of line that

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Agamemnon is crossing here.
He's being a bit brutish about it.

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You don't rub it in Clytemnestra's face.
You would do it more subtly.

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But, Agamemnon just waltzes in with
Cassandra right there and they have this

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conversation.
Agamemnon and Cassandra go back and forth,

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long verbal battle, verbal battle goes
back as they kind of work their way back

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and forth.
Then, Agamemnon takes the invitation to

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trample on the Crimson path.
Well, we have a lot to talk about when we

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deal with the thematics of the play in the
coming lectures.

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Agememnon and Cassandra and Clytemnestra
then have a kind of a long back and forth

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set of conversations.
At that point, Agememnon and, and

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Clytemnestra disappear behind the door.
There they are back there.

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They disappeared behind the door.
And Cassandra then is invited in.

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Clytemnestra comes back out and says, oh,
you, young lady. Please come.

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You're welcome, too.
Cassandra then does this long slow march

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toward the door, and as she's doing it,
she's actually seeing her own death.

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Cassandra's prophesying her own death.
She sees what's going to happen behind

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that door, and it's going to involve her,
and it's going to be very ugly.

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More to say on that, too, when we deal
with the thematics.

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Then, awful things happen behind the door.
The doors burst open and Aegisthus comes

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booming out and we have a back and forth
with the chorus as we try to figure out

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what just happened and how we're supposed
to value that.

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It's a complex situation with lots of
nasty stuff that's going on,

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And what we're supposed to make of all
that.

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This scene is famous depicted in lots of
different representations graphically.

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It's something that Greeks clearly some
time thinking about it arrests the

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imagination.
The story of Agamemnon here emerging from

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his bath.
You can see he still has his robes around

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him.
Again, recovering this theme, and we will

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talk about it more the cleansing that's
attempted to happen in Agamemnon's family

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line turns into a, a murder.
A bath becomes a blood bath.

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Aegisthus then thrust, thrust the sword
into him.

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This, wonderful mixing ball has a whole
series of, of vignettes aspects of the

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story of Agamemnon's house, all in a giant
circle.

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And that circular pattern is used by the,
the artist that makes the bowl.

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At one piece, we have Aegisthus taking out
Agamemnon.

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Cassandra is nearby and here she's
carrying her double ax, while she's aiming

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her double axe right there at her own son.
Her son who's involved in killing her, the

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father Agamemnon, with the daughter
Electra nearby.

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The sons, fathers, mothers, brothers,
sisters, all of them are just on top of

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each other.
And the crime that's stuck inside this

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family, seems to have no way of getting
out.

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The spare action of this particular part
of the story in the Agamemnon is going to

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lead us to this one, a very dense close up
look at one part of the story,

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Agamemnon's killing.
Each piece of it's going to get pulled

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out.
We're going to look forward to the nasty

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things that are going to happen later on
in the Oresteia. And we're definitely

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going to look backward to all the things
that have led up to this,

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Including the story of the daughter of
Agamemnon, Iphigenia, that we haven't

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talked about yet.
Or, sorry.

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Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra
that we haven't talked about yet the story

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of Iphigenia.
All kinds of things to talk about. and get

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ready for some, some special flavors of
ugly family nastiness coming up next.