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In watching the story unfold, there are a
lot of themes we can tie into.

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The story is made with there's a spareness
in terms of the plot.

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There's a spareness in terms of the set
decoration and the presentation in

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antiquity.
There's also a spareness roughly in terms

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of, of the thematic elements that are
there.

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There are a few really important themes
that just keep getting worked and

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re-worked in lots of different guises to
help us unfold the details about what our,

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what's behind our story.
I'll start off with a couple of

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references, you'll see in parentheses up
here I've got line numbre of references,

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these are to the translation we're using
in the class.

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They're going to be close-ish to other
English translations and close-ish to the

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Greek, but not of them are going to line
up unless this is the translation in the

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University of Chicago series edited by
Green and Latimore.

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We have lots of references in the story to
nets and webs.

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The story that we get from, for example,
contrasting with Homer's Odyssey, we've

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got there Penelope who is weaving and
un-weaving. And recall, what she does with

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that thematically that fits into a larger
story.

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It's Penelope staling people that are
trying to break into her connection with

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Odysseus and pushing them off.
She is using the weaving and un-weaving in

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a, in a not completely intuitive way of
keeping people away.

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It's a method she used to protect herself.
Nets, such as they appear in this story,

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are going to be nets that trap those
nearby you.

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The nets webs, entanglements, all these
interweavings.

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In the Odyssey, remember, that closeness
of interweaving was a symbol of

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connection.
Both Odysseus and Penelope together were

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plot weavers.
Here, the plots and connection and

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nettedness is all going to be a sign of
too much closeness and a sign of nasty

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closeness actual, violence that gets
brought between the groups.

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The Crimson Tapestry itself is the I
think, the most prominent example of the

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kind of theme, theme of nettedness and
knots that gets turned into a net.

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Remember what happens Pene, cuz
Clytemnestra says to Agamemnon, please,

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honey.
I haven't seen you for a long time.

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Step on out of your boat with your muddy
boots and trample on this beautiful cloth

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that I've woven for your return.
Now, you can imagine, I mean, the scene is

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quite loaded with bitterness.
Clytemnestra is, yes indeed, inviting

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Agamemnon to step on this thing and you
can hear in the back of her mind, she's

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saying to herself, Yeah.
And you're just the kind of person who

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would trample over such a fine thing that
I've been making for you to trample on.

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It's as though she has been carefully
nurturing her own bitterness over a year

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as she's weaving this thing thinking, oh,
I bet he'll step on it, I bet he'll step

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on it, I bet he'll step on it.
Well, yeah indeed he does, he goes off and

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steps on it.
And it just proves, it helps quiet a

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master of that thing becomes an instrument
by which she can prove what a clod he is

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and how he does trample on fine things.
With the, the color of this tapestry is

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not just happenstance.
It's a deep rich purple dye that colors

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it.
This is a color that surely has a

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connection with blood, that's clear and
obvious in our story.

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It also, which may be obvious or, or may
not, has a close connection with royalty.

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The color purple was very hard to get.
It came from seashells off on the far

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eastern side of the Mediterranean.
Huge numbers of seashells, which were

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required to make small bits of this dye.
So, purpleness was associated with royalty

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from quite far back.
And to have an exotic beautiful tapestry

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here, died purple makes it even more
valuable.

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And also in, interesting, interestingly,
more a sign of Agamemnon's grandeur.

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So, he's being invited basically to, kind
of, you know, trample and muck up his own

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his own grandeur.
So, the closeness that gets shown up in

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these connections with nettedness and the
crimson path,

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All these show the dark side of intimacy.
Closeness can become inward turning and

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nasty,
Not supportive and, and mutually

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beneficial.
We have references to nets that are all

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over the place as represented by these
line numbers.

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There's a fishing net.
Cassandra talks about herself as fenced in

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by fatal nets.
There's a spiders web that gets mentioned.

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We talk about cords of justice.
Aeschylus seems to be going out of his

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way, to, to use imagery of cordedness and
of nettedness to talk about lots of

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different things in this story.
Each time it's worth picking these apart

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and finding connections.
Secrecy, in this story.

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We talked about how secrecy in the Odyssey
had a way of creating intimacy.

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There were secrets that were kept between
people, away from other people, and help

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them maintain a connection.
Here, the secrecy is working to produce

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connections that are not being authorized
by the normal course of events.

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The secrets that Clytemnestra and
Aegisthus hold. notice how Agamemnon is

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outside the,
He doesn't know what's happening.

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They becomes divisive, the secrecy becomes
a divisive instrument not a connecting

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instrument.
We've got examples of this also in that

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fire beacon.
I recall at the beginning of the night,

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everyone kind of knows what's going on
with that.

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And when Agamemnon shows up, he doesn't
necessarily know that a signal has been

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put out and to try to catch him out,
To try to announce his arrival ahead of

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time so that his wife can now betray him.
The meaning of that signal is not going to

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be at all clear to anyone else except,
except Clytaemnestra.

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Then, further, we have a set of
meditations on the theme of medicine and

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drugs.
In Greek, the term pharmacon,

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interestingly indicates a drug.
And like the English, it has a, an

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ambivalence to it.
It could mean both poison,

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In the sense of a drug that drugs a person
to death.

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It could also, though, mean a cure.
A drug in the sense of a medicine.

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So, the term pharmicon shows up in this
double valenced way several points in the

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epic.
Or sorry, in the several points in the

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story.
You'll see it in the lines referred to

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here.
And then, also, in a couple of points

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where Clytemnestra mentions that there's
really, things are just not quite working

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out right in this story.
There's no God of healing, she tells us

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toward the end as she's making her final
walk into the into Clytemnestra's palace.

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There is no god of healing.
It's not going to be possible to find

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healing here.
And then, a further theme, a further

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development of this theme, Cassandra says
that she's, again, as she's walking in,

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Clytemnestra intends to shred me in a
bowl.

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Now, for you and I, this might not sound
like an obvious connection to medicine,

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but in antiquity, it absolutely would've
been.

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This is the normal way that drugs are
delivered.

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You take roots or other herbs, and shred
them into a bowl, and mix them all

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together and this then becomes sort of
drunk and potion, a potion that's ready

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for you to drink, and that's the mode by
which drugs are normally delivered.

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For her to say Clytemnestra intends to
shred me into a bowl, would have been

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sounded like you and I saying,
Clytemnestra intends to, you know, swallow

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me like a pill or something.
It would have been a clear and direct

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reference to medicine.
So, Cassandra here is making the death of

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Clytemnestra into some kind of a medicine
that's going to cure this whole thing.

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She is presumably going to now be having
killed her, Clytemnestra will have

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exorcised her own guilt. And, yes, now
this whole crime is going to be over.

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At each time, at each turn in the
development of the story,

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Another generation treats the, the, the,
the, the, the, what they need to do as a

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kind of medicine that's going to cure the
nastiness that's in this family.

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When Agamemnon is out on his awful is out
on his, on his campaign and is lead,

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We find out by the Choral Ode, is led to
this terrible wvent of having to kill his

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own daughter, Iphigenia.
He's told he must kill Iphigenia for the

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winds to get corrected,
He goes ahead and does it.

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The killing of Iphigenia is referred to,
yes indeed, as a pharmacon.

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As if she is going to cure things in this
story.

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She's going to heal the winds and fix
everything, that's line 200.

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She's referred to as first for slaughter's
kind of necessary.

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A journey can get started and the, and the
war can be launched.

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Well, no, she's not going to be a cure.
She's actually going to be a poison.

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When she is killed, this event is what's
going to absolutely poison Agememnon's own

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household.
Clytemnestra will turn this against him

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which she obviously has every right to do.
Now Agamemnon also the story as it unfolds

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makes contact with a lot of themes of
purification.

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This is harkening back to some of the
events that we saw earlier in the tale of

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The House of Atreus.
But definitely brought home here in, in

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Aeschylus's version of the story.
Recall when Clytemnestra wants Agamemnon

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to come into the house, please, honey. I
haven't seen you in so long.

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Come in.
Let's give you a bath." We will purify

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you, we will clean you of all the nasty
stuff that's going on out there in the

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war. And then, of course, this bath
becomes a blood bath.

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The idea that purification now actually
leads to pollution is at yet another

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addition to our string of themes in which
something thing is meant to cure or purify

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or fix things, also has the unintended
side effect of undoing things, making them

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impure making them diseased.
And nets that are supposed to keep us

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together drive us apart.
Secrecy that's supposed to create intimacy

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actually creates wedges between us.
The Agamemnon shows the inversion of a lot

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of, very common themes of connection. we
get to see the utter and complete

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nastiness the dark side of intimacy.
In this way, it's kind of a mirror of what

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we saw with Odysseus and Penelope where we
saw the good sides of intimacy, here we

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get to see all the dark sides of it.
So focusing on these pieces and the themes

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as they get drawn out gives us a chance to
see a sum of how Agamemnon pulls through

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this tale for his audience.