Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:29:12.562Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1285–1289

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. W. Macleod†
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford

Extract

After these words begins Cassandra's long, halting movement into the house and towards her death.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For an excellent account of this see Taplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (1977), pp. 317–22.Google Scholar

2 For examples of this kind of word-play see PCPS 205 (1979), 56 n. 30. In the Agamemnon, note 1630–2 ***γε (‘he led after him, captivated’) … ἂξη (‘you will be led away captive’).

3 For oxymoron and related phenomena in early Greek literature see Fehling, D., Die Wiederholungsfiguren und ihr Gebrauch bei den Griechen vor Gorgias (1969), pp. 286–93, 301 f., 304.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Taplin, op. cit. pp. 312 f.

5 Cf. Reinhardt, K., Aischylos als Regisseur und Theologe (1949), pp. 97105Google Scholar; Taplin, op. cit. pp. 321 f. For another aspect of this contrast see Maia 27 (1975), 202 f. I should have noted there that both Agamemnon and Cassandra visibly trample; cf. Wilamowitz on 1267.Google Scholar

6 Od. 8. 490; cf. 4. 242. For Iliadic heroes as sufferers or endurers see also Il. 3. 157; 11. 317; 14. 85–7; 23. 607; 24. 505; Od. 3. 104.

7 E.g. Il. 6. 486–9; 12. 322–8; 14. 83–7.

8 Cleomenes is here refusing to commit suicide; two or three years later he did so, again with words of action in his mouth: Plut. Cleom. 37. 12 ϕαρεκ⋯λεσε ϕ⋯ντας ⋯ξ⋯ως αὐτo*** κα⋯ τ***νϕεϕραγμ⋯νων τελεντ***ν.