#Klytaimestra

[ladyescapism]

The Aristeia of Klytaimestra

Hey everyone! This is outside of my normal posts, but I have an assignment for a class that I want to share. For part of my final for my class on Ancient Epics, I wrote a short work of fiction based of a minor character. I chose Klytaimestra (Greek spelling). Anyways, I thought it turned to pretty good and wanted to share with more people than my professor. Hope you like it, too!

TW: blood, human sacrifice, childbirth, suicidal thoughts, suicidal actions, murder

WC: 1,335

She had not changed her dress yet. The dark splotches had dried, the color fading from screaming red to something darker. The stains seemed vulgar against the pale blue robes she had selected for the wedding. The robes she had thoughtfully chosen, never thinking of mistrusting the plans of her husband – her King. She had known happiness, watching the wedding party gather. She did not doubt that Agamemnon wanted to raise himself. He would not pass over the chance to have the great Achilles as a son. It brought her some comfort knowing that her grandchildren would have his blood, his legacy to call their own. 

            The white marble of the entrance to his palace was so similar to the altar where he killed her girl. That’s what Iphigeneia was. Just a girl. She was barely old enough to wed and he killed her. She stood there, too blinded by happiness at the thought of her daughter making a good match in marriage to see the glint of the dagger. She could not move quick enough in the pale blue robes to take the blow herself. Her fool husband had killed a deer, her fool sister was seduced, her fool kinsman had stood there – and for all their foolishness her girl had been slaughtered. In the end, her beloved daughter garnered no more honor than a common beast of the hills. 

            Klytaimestra did not recall being taken back to the ship. She did not recall if the seas were calm or if they raged. She did not recall the walk from the harbor to the palace. Her eyes found the vase placed on a painted table. Her mother had painted that vase. Klytaimestra’s mother had liked to paint. It drove the servants mad that Leda’s clothes were so often covered in paint. Her father did not care that his honored wife painted. If it made her happy, why not indulge her?

            Leda painted that vase as part of her dowry. Not an object of great value to entice a suitor to become a husband, just something beautiful to take with her when she left their home. It told the story of how her parents married. It showed her brothers, always missing each other. It showed her sister, the honored Helen, being born. It showed Klytaimestra picking wildflowers. It was the story of the family she came from as she left to make a family of her own. Iphigeneia had asked about it once, and she had explained each image, just as her mother had in the hours before her wedding to Agamemnon. He had never asked about it. If he knew that her mother had painted it or that it told the story of her family, she did not know. 

            The rage overcame her in an instant. It was her family that drew the attention of the Gods, not her. Her mother caught the eye of almighty Zeus. It was Helen and Pollux who hailed from the blood of Zeus. Not her. She didn’t deserve this. 

            Before she could think, Klytaimestra lunged for the table with the vase showing her cursed family. The pieces of the vase scattered to every corner of the room as it shattered against the white marble floor. 

            A sharp piece of the clay found its way into her hand as she took to the tapestry hanging on the wall - weaved in honor of some wedding or another. She couldn’t remember such insignificant details as she destroyed the work, threads fraying in the wake of her clay dagger. 

            It didn’t matter. None of it did. 

            Nothing in his grand entrance was to survive, she decided. Nothing in his house. She was going to destroy everything and everyone that had ever borne witness to her life. Blinded by rage and by tears, she rampaged through the house, sending vases shattering and servants running. 

            Minutes or hours passed; she couldn’t tell. Exhausted none the less, she found her way to her mother’s wrecked vase. The shards bit into her knees and into her hands as she fell to them. Finally, Klytaimestra let herself wail. 

            Even the Gods turned away at the sound. 

            Later, she would be told that she shook the walls with her cries. That she sounded like a dying animal herself as she wept for her girl. But Klytaimestra did not remember any of that. She remembered looking down at her hands, seeing the blood pooling in her palms. She had bled for Iphigeneia before. On that long, cold night when she learned what pain could be. All of the body shredding pain replaced quickly with a love like no other – the love of a lonely woman bringing a perfect daughter into the world. And it was that baby she saw, both new and screaming, grown and lifeless being held in her arms. Agamemnon, too, had done the same thing both times Klytaimestra held their girl. He took one glance and turned away. 

            With the fragment was still in her hand, biting into her skin as she gripped it, she would destroy everything in his house. She looked at the piece, then looked to the belly that had swollen twice now, each time bringing a life into the world. She was in his house. 

            Wouldn’t it be fitting if that was how she died? Carving out the insides that grew his children? 

            Klytaimestra sobered with two words ringing in her head: not yet.

~ ~ ~ 

            They will tell you that she took her husband’s own kinsman to bed for no reason than to whore. That she saw the opportunity to act, and like a senseless woman, took it – just like her mother and sister. They will never know that she loathed his touch and her body revolted most times when he finished with her. 

            They will tell you that she hated her own son. That in her desire for Aigisthos she ignored him, leaving him to be raised by the few men left at the palace to raise as his father would. They will not tell you that Orestes grew to resemble his father – in looks and temper. And that looking at him drove her to near madness. 

            They will tell you it was greed the drove them to act. Maybe that was the case for Aigisthos. That he lusted for all Agamemnon had in life – power, lands, mistresses. They will not tell you that Klytaimestra couldn’t have cared less if he coveted Agamemnon’s very own skin. He was simply a means to an end.

            They will tell you that their lies were so prefect that no one – even the most faithful of servants could not see the plots being laid. The servants never noticed the hole in her heart where her love should be, nor the marks their king had left. Faithful indeed. 

            After ten years of raging, word finally came. Agamemnon and all his ships were setting sail for home. Ten years of planning his death, and nothing could go wrong. Klytaimestra didn’t plan on staying to see if the whole of the realm burned with his death. She did not know that Hades would let her soul be at peace after what she did. But winter had come, and perhaps his Goddess could be moved – knowing the rage of a mother without a daughter. 

            The trap is of no real consequence. He died. That’s all that mattered to Klytaimestra. Before she could lift the vial of bitter poison to her lips and see her darling Iphigeneia again, Orestes landed a coward’s killing blow. He took his sword to strike through her back to the place he once grew and out again. Mother and father, husband and wife. Together they lay dying, their blood flowing together on the white marble floor. 

            They will tell you that Klytaimestra’s final gaze fell upon the husband she killed. 

What they will not tell you is that she died with a smile on her bloodless face. 

[trvgcdiv]

#SpartanGIrlGang & fertility: summary

TW for discussions of pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, and early infancy death (and implied rape)

All of the #SpartanGirlGang have fertility issues, well. Maybe I shouldn't put Klytaimestra here, but they all struggled to get their beloved male heirs at least lmao

Starting with Pen because I never start with her, but. Hers is the most obvious, with no successful births until nearly a decade of marriage. Despite this, for all appearances it looks like Odysseus remained faithful to Penelope the whole time.

Klytaimestra is particularly fruitful, with her three daughters, but it still took nearly a decade for Orestes' birth. It's my firm belief that Klytie took it upon herself to "take care of" any bedmate of her husband—no matter how unwilling—and any production of such a union thereof. Knowing both their personalities, there were many such women who had no choice in either respect.

Helen was in an in-between sitch. She gave birth to Hermione fairly quckly—clearly got pregnant right after marriage—but otherwise... nothing. Maybe a pregnancy or two, only one of which came to term and didn't survive a year. Menelaos, too, had a reaction between both extremes. Neither a monogamist (few Achaeans of his time and society were) nor adulterous by nature, he did fall to the pressure of producing a male heir with another which... well, it certainly didn't help the already existing friction in their marriage (due to said fertility issues)

[abissusandiuno]

KLYTAIMESTRA

Now you're making sense—

to call upon the thricegorged evil demon of this family.

Deep in its nerves is a lust to lick blood and no wound heals

before the next starts oozing.

- Agamemnon, Aiskhylos - translated by Anne Carson

[eternal--returned]

KLYTAIMESTRA: And this man has the libation he deserves. He filled this house like a mixing bowl to the brim with evils, now he has drunk it down.

Aeschylus (translated by Anne Carson) ֍ Agamemnon, An Oresteia (2009)

[konigsberg]

would you consider (if you havent already) making a rec list for books/authors/poets/etc? your breadth of classics knowledge and the source material you draw inspiration from always intrigues me.

I'd be happy to, but I think I might (accidentally) give the impression of being more familiar with a lot of these things than I actually am haha.

I'll focus on classics or classics-related recs, but there are some things I'll throw in here because, even though they aren't classics (or classics in the sense I think you probably mean, as in directly related to ancient Greece etc.), they've influenced what I’ve written in some way. I should also be clear, I haven’t read all of these things, sometimes only pieces, or they’re things I’ve been meaning to read and keep putting off but people might be interested in. And I’m definitely not an expert. I’m not properly educated on these topics, so I’m not sure if anything I include might be considered a bad resource by someone with a background in this field.

Also, as I was putting together this list… I was gawking at the prices of so many of these. Like 90% I grabbed at my local secondhand bookstore and I would encourage anyone interested to try to get these used (Thriftbooks is an online store to look at if you don’t have a good local store, though I’m not sure where all it ships to) or from a site like Project Gutenberg etc. Libraries are always good too, of course (some might be on Archive.org, which is a place where you can check out books online). I may be able to help you find ways to get your hands on some of these sources if you’re struggling to find it.

Fiction

Aethiopica by Heliodorus (tr. Moses Hadas) - An ancient Greek novel. “The Aethiopica tells the story of an Ethiopian princess and a Thessalian prince who undergo a series of perils (battles, voyages, piracy, abductions, robbery, and torture) before their eventual happy marriage in the heroine’s homeland.” Summary from here.

An Oresteia (tr. Anne Carson) - Carson’s translations of Aiskhylos' Agamemnon, Sophokles' Elektra, and Euripides' Orestes. Literally anything Carson touches is gold, please just read everything translated or written by her here, even if you’ve read other translations. “After the murder of her daughter Iphigeneia by her husband, Agamemnon, Klytaimestra exacts a mother's revenge, murdering Agamemnon and his mistress, Kassandra. Displeased with Klytaimestra's actions, Apollo calls on her son, Orestes, to avenge his father's death with the help of his sister Elektra. In the end, Orestes is driven mad by the Furies for his bloody betrayal of family. Condemned to death by the people of Argos, he and Elektra must justify their actions ― or flout society, justice and the gods.”

Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources by Stephen G. Miller - All about the concept of arete. Exactly what it says on the tin.

The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece by John J. Winkler - Another that’s exactly what it says on the tin. “For centuries, classical scholars have intensely debated the "position of women" in classical Athens. Did women have a vast but informal power, or were they little better than slaves? Using methods developed from feminist anthropology, Winkler steps back from this narrowly framed question and puts it in the larger context of how sex and gender in ancient Greece were culturally constructed. His innovative approach uncovers the very real possibilities for female autonomy that existed in Greek society.” (My friend has another book from this collection (?) called The New Ancient World, which I want to get if I ever actually… finish reading this one. But that one is called One Hundred Years of Sexuality, I think, and there’s another called Games of Venus, which also looks very interesting so I want to mention them.)

The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) by Apuleius (tr. E.J. Kenney) - This is another that feels like it might go without saying, but whatever. This is where the story of Cupid & Psyche is told. If I understand correctly, this is the oldest (surviving, and possibly only?) extended account of Eros & Psyche’s myth, though art of the two appears much earlier so I assume Apuleius was drawing from older sources. “Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - encountering a desperate gang of robbers and being forced to perform lewd 'human' tricks on stage - until the Goddess Isis finally breaks the spell and initiates Lucius into her cult.” Actually, this is the physical copy I have and I got it just because I really wanted a physical copy, but I haven’t read it. I read a version for free online years ago when my obsession with Cupid & Psyche first took shape and I… have no clue who translated that one. But, well, here we are. You can definitely find this on Project Gutenberg, probably by a different translator, though.

Greek Fictional Letters (edited by C.D.N. Costa) - “This book explores a relatively unfamiliar and under-appreciated area of Greek literature: imaginary letters written between about 100 BC and 500 AD. Many of them are light-hearted and funny, and describe the lives of ordinary people--fisherman, farmers, courtesans. Others look at more serious and philosophical aspects of life. All the letters are translated, and the notes offer help to both expert and less informed readers.”

Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (tr. Anne Carson) - Carson’s translations of the plays Herakles, Hekabe, Hippolytos, and Alkestis. “Herakles, in which the hero swaggers home to destroy his own family; Hekabe, set after the Trojan War, in which Hektor’s widow takes vengeance on her Greek captors; Hippolytos, about love and the horror of love; and the strange tragic-comedy fable Alkestis, which tells of a husband who arranges for his wife to die in his place.”

The Iliad by Homer (tr. Robert Fagles) - Do I need to include this? I’m including this, if only to say this is the translation I have.

Medea by Euripides - This is, of course, the play depicting what happens when Jason attempts to remarry, betraying Medea. I can’t find my copy right now to specify which translation, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it anyway (the translation, not the play to be clear). Here’s a copy on Gutenberg.

The Odyssey by Homer (tr. Emily Wilson) - Again, just noting this is the translation I have more than anything.

The Voyage of Argo: The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (tr. E.V. Rieu) - Covers Jason’s quest. You can find various translations for free on Project Gutenberg.

Nonfiction

The Black Andromeda by Elizabeth McGrath - This is a paper about Princess Andromeda’s race and how it has been depicted throughout art and literature. It’s relevant to the Aethiopica and how it handles or fails to handle race.

Burial customs, the afterlife and the pollution of death in ancient Greece by Francois Pieter and Louise Cilliers - A research paper covering exactly what it says it does. I haven’t read much of this even though I really should and the parts I have read are so, so interesting.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece by Carlos Gómez - General history.

Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay by Anne Carson - All about love as the ancient Greeks conceptualized it. I beg you all to read this. This is the one I’ve posted a bunch of my notes on to twitter. “A book about romantic love, Eros the Bittersweet is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with, "It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her," Carson examines her subject from numerous points of view, creating a lyrical meditation in the tradition of William Carlos Williams's Spring and All and William H. Gass's On Being Blue.”

The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology by Marcel Detienne (tr. Janet Lloyd) - I haven’t read much of this, but I know I need to. “Rich with implications for the history of sexuality, gender issues, and patterns of Hellenic literary imagining, Marcel Detienne's landmark book recasts long-standing ideas about the fertility myth of Adonis.”

Granddaughter of the Sun: A Study of Euripides' Medea by C.A.E. Luschnig - I’ve also been posting screenshots from this as I read it because it makes me super unhinged. All about Her… “By looking at aspects of Medea that are largely overlooked in the criticism, this book aims at an open and multiple reading. It shows that stories presented in the drama of 5th century Athens are not unrelated to human beings who actually exist.”

Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion - “This collection challenges the tendency among scholars of ancient Greece to see magical and religious ritual as mutually exclusive and to ignore ‘magical’ practices in Greek religion.”

Portraits of Grief: Death, Mourning and the Expression of Sorrow on White-Ground Lêkythoi by Molly Evangeline Allen - Someone’s research on funerary vases. I haven’t read much of it, but I came across it while trying to find other info and it looked interesting.

Poetry

Ovid: The Erotic Poems (tr. Peter Green) - Ovid is a Roman poet, but I think his work might be of interest. “This collection of Ovid's poems deals with the whole spectrum of sexual desire, ranging from deeply emotional declarations of eternal devotion to flippant arguments for promiscuity.”

Ovid’s Poetry of Exile (tr. David R. Slavitt) - More of Ovid’s work.

Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works (tr. Diane J. Rayor) - Please… Please… any translations of Sappho you can get… read them…

Miscellaneous

Desire, Discord and Death: Approaches to Near Eastern Myth by Neal H. Walls - Obviously not Greek, but I feel like anyone interested in ancient mythology about queerness, love, death, and sex would find this really interesting. “The three essays presented in this volume reveal the symbolic complexity and poetic visions of ancient Near Eastern mythology. The author explores the interrelated themes of erotic desire, divine conflict, and death's realm in selected ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythological narratives using contemporary methods of literary analysis. Topics include the construction of desire in the Gilgamesh epic, a psychoanalytic approach to 'The Contendings of Horus and Seth', and gender and the exercise of power in the stormy romance of Nergal and Ereshkigal.”

Erotism: Death and Sensuality by Georges Bataille (tr. Mary Dalwood) - I haven’t read much of this and I know based on Bataille’s fiction (my man was really on some shit)… this is sure to be really unhinged. But it’s all about life, death, religion, and sex. “Bataille challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ranges from Emily Bronte to Sade,from St. Therese to Claude Levi-Strauss and Dr. Kinsey.  The subjects he covers include prostitution, mythical ecstasy, cruelty, and organized war. Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is ‘a psychological quest not alien to death.’” I feel like… there probably needs to be trigger warnings for this one, but who knows what lol. This is actually the main book I’ve been using to help me learn French too, which is… a choice on my part for real, but that’s getting really off topic.

[dapurinthos]

don't you love the colour of klytaimestra's tomb?

[butchkaramazov]

2023 JSTOR Wrapped: top ten JSTOR articles of 2023

(via @finelythreadedsky)

Greenwood, L.H.G. “The Shape of Greek Tragedy.” Greece & Rome, Vol. 6, No. 16 (Oct., 1936), pp. 31-40.

Donald, Mills H. “ODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS: TWO HOMERIC SIMILES RECONSIDERED.” The Classical Outlook, Vol. 58, No. 4 (MAY-JUNE 1981), pp. 97-99.

Ebbott, Mary. “Tell Me How It Hurts: An Intersection of Poetry and Pain in the “lliad”.” New England Review, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2016), pp. 31-46.

Kitts, Margo. “SACRIFICIAL VIOLENCE IN THE ILIAD.” Journal of Ritual Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2002), pp. 19-39.

Kitts, Margo. “KILLING, HEALING, AND THE HIDDEN MOTIF OF OATH-SACRIFICE IN ILIAD 21.” Journal of Ritual Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1999), pp. 42-57.

Blondell, Ruby. ““Bitch That I Am:” Self-Blame and Self-Assertion in the Iliad.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-2014), Vol. 140, No. 1 (Spring 2010), pp. 1-32.

Hame, Kerri J. “Female Control of Funeral Rites in Greek Tragedy: Klytaimestra, Medea, and Antigone.” Classical Philology, Vol. 103, No. 1 (January 2008), pp. 1-15.

Norcia, Megan A. “The Imperial Food Chain: Eating as an Interface of Power in Women Writers' Geography Primers.” Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2005), pp. 253-268.

King, C. Richard. “The (Mis)uses of Cannibalism in Contemporary Cultural Critique.” Diacritics, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 106-123.

Tucker, Aviezer. “Sins of our Fathers: A Short History of Religious Child Sacrifice.” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, Vol. 51, No. 1 (1999), pp. 30-47.

[measureformeasure]

i woudl like to know because i am curious.

[berattelse]

It's as if the whole family were there, knee-deep in blood, and Elektra is killing her mother with her father's words. Why would Sophokles do this? To emphasize Elektra's awful command of language as a weapon? To remind us of Klytaimestra's crime and close the cycle of vengeance in this house? To reopen Agamemnon's wounds and suggest that vengeance here will never end? To trump Aiskhylos? To pay homage to Aiskhylos? Perhaps all these at once. Sophokles is a complex poet working in a complex tradition. His audience enjoys all kinds of play with masks. All kinds of uses of urns. They do not come to the theater for comfort.

Carson, Anne. Introduction to "Elektra" by Sophokles. An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos, Elektra by Sophokles, Orestes by Euripides, trans. by Anne Carson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

[dearest-lady-disdain]

they killed cassandra first. ok, who? klytaimestra and aighitos? nope, they actually slaughtered agamemnon beforehand

[dapurinthos]

he's just everyone in the fucking oresteia, isn't he. he's agamemnon killing iphigeneia (to komari), he's klytaimestra with aigisthos killing agamemnon (killing the jedi order with sidious), he's orestes hounded by the furies (the tirra'taka and his own mind). he's elektra trying to avenge herself on klytaimestra (his behaviour with gora and ramil).

for fuck's sake dooku. you ARE the ur-disaster of the disaster lineage.

(also one of the stories in dark legends is about a sith who goes searching for immortality, finds a twisted igor-esque creature in a lab on exegol and 'finds' how to make herself immortal. she has to kill the igor to do it, and the immortality makes her into an igor. you become what you kill.)

What do you think of the Tirra'Taka and how it symbolizes Dooku's fate? Do you invoke it often in your fics?

Ah, the Tirra’Taka! IMO, the cover of Dooku: Jedi Lost REALLY should have been an 80s Blind Guardian style metal album motif with a shirtless, shredded Dooku standing astride the Tirra’Taka, holding unconscious, beautiful Sifo-Dyas aloft, while flames and lightning and cracked groundquake holes consume the foreground. Lene Kostana is a breasty witch with flowing robes vibing in the background while the Truthseeker falls like a stylish comet from the sky. 

God did not grant me the gift to draw, because this artwork would be Too Horny.  

But yeah! Cavan Scott sure did give Dooku a psychic empathic connection with a lightning breathing Serennian dragon, abused and used by the Sith, who he loves and thinks is beautiful and ultimately destroys trying to help, and I’ll never be the same?!?

I mean, the metaphor is so on the nose. Dooku is the Tirra‘Taka. 

I like it because I like Dooku having a weird connection to specifically Serennian history and magic. I like that the planet’s Sith baggage becomes uniquely personal to him, through his relationship with this animal that he doesn’t understand, and of course, his father’s total rejection of him for being Force sensitive. And I love that the most prolific user of Force lightning in the series has a seemingly natural, organic connection to a lightning beast. I imagine the Tirra’Taka whispering dragon lullabies into his Force-sensitive dreams when he’s floating around in the womb.

And let’s not forget that the last thing Dooku does with the Tirra‘Taka is mentally bond himself with her before ultimately losing control and having to kill her. What did that, ah, do to him?? You know, Sifo-Dyas, on seeing Dooku do this, collapses on the ground in hysterical sobbing laughter and is thought by Jenza to have shattered his mind. And he’s just LOOKING at Dooku do this. What happened to Dooku, who was mentally inside the dragon, during that scene? 

As for my fics, I’ve kept it pretty subtle. I have played with the idea (mainly in Milk Run) that Dooku’s seeming extra talent for Force lightning is natural to him, a result of exposure to the Tirra’Taka in utero/infancy or being a Serennian Force sensitive. And that once he realizes this, he can use it for light side applications as well as dark - he can scramble electrical systems, or zap electro-cuffs off himself, or maybe he gets a little overpowered and feral during thunderstorms...

….actually I’m just realizing I missed the perfect opportunity to have him restart Sifo-Dyas’s stupid heart in Rabbit Heart that way, with lightning, instead of doing Space CPR. Damnit! :c 

[devilsskettle]

i’m not saying anything about how justified the events of the oresteia are, i’m just saying that i might get a little axe-happy too if my husband regularly talked about me like that (& also regularly kidnaps young women as prizes of war??? that’s pretty fucked up dude)

[trvgcdiv]

I'm so busy at work but I'll just say a silly little hc

Klytaimestra would be super into strategy games if she didn't turn her nose up at them as nerd shit (I'm leaning towards her possibly thinking they're beneath her, but it might change depending on certain things)

I feel like she'd also be super into Warhammer 40K if she'd be willing to give it a shot too

[roseredfingers]

CHORUS : Helen! wild mad Helen, you murdered so many beneath Troy. Now you’ve crowned yourself one final perfect time, a crown of blood that will not wash away. Strife walks with you everywhere you go. KLYTAIMESTRA : Oh stop whining. And why get angry at Helen? As if she singlehandedly destroyed those multitudes of men. As if she all alone made this wound in us.

—An Oresteia (Agamemnon by Aiskhylos), trans. Anne Carson

[eternal--returned]

KLYTAIMESTRA: That's not your concern. By me he fell, by me he died, I shall bury him. Not with a wailing from this house. No, Iphigeneia will open her arms and run to meet him in Hades— a father-daughter embrace, won't that be perfect!

Aeschylus (translated by Anne Carson) ֍ Agamemnon, An Oresteia (2009)

[fred-erick-frankenstein]

Klytaimestra did nothing wrong.