#iphigenia the wronged

[iphigenia-thewronged]

[A knock on the door. It seems someone has come for a visit.]

((-@dream-of-elias ))

~ Iphigenia peers out the window and lights up when she see’s Elias outside. She opens the door for him, waving hello. ~

Elias!! Hello!!

~ She turns around and peers into the living room, where it looks like Scare and Bownes are watching a movie together on his laptop. Bownes waves hello from the couch and Iphigenia makes a shh motion with her finger. In a more hushed tone, she says; ~

Right, we must be quiet, they are watching theatre together. Moving picture.. moving.. movie, yes, they’re watching a movie.

[bownes-anon]

Heyyy buddd uh

Bad

Bad news

Huh? What happened?

~ Right now, it seems Bownes is cooking up grilled cheese and tomato soup for Iphegenia, who’s sitting on the couch reading a book on gardening Bownes gave to her. ~

[iphigenia-thewronged]

~ She lights up a little bit at her cue to talk about this stuff. Bownes seems interested too, although he’s familiar with many Greco-Roman classics, and by extension Hellenic mythology, he’s more than curious to hear it from someone who was from that period. ~

Mhm! Lady Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, and when Lady Persephone was abducted by Lord Hades, she turned the world into a great winter in her grief. Why Lady Persephone was in the underworld, she was tricked into eating a pomegranate, six seeds specifically, and so she became bound to Lord Hades realm. Eventually, Lord Helios- or maybe it was Arethusa -told Lady Demeter who kidnapped Lady Persephone, she went to the underworld to bargain with Lord Hades. Because she had eaten six pomegranate seeds, she would stay in the underworld for six months out of the year, which is when Lady Demeter is distraught so it’s autumn and winter. The other six months of the year, it’s spring and summer because Lady Demeter is happy to be reunited with her daughter.

~ She wonders if her own mother would’ve bought the world into a great winter upon her death. And that makes her think about something else. ~

I remember my mother showed me she had commissioned an artist to paint a scene on a vase for her wedding day. It showed Lady Persephone walking with Lord Hades to the underworld. Except, she didn’t look upset.

|| @that-one-anon ||

~ There’s a gentle, rhythmic knock at Scare’s door. ~

Heya, I made some cake for my birthday, I wanted to know if you wanted to come have some?

~..Huh. I didn’t even know it was his birthday. ~

- 🦷🎀 @bownes-anon

|/ theres some scrambling and a wierd groan heard before Scare is at their door. their floor, as per usual, is a mess. its a lot more messy by the bed. \|

"Oh, yeah yeah yeah!!"

|/ their ears then turn down a bit as they realize that they didn't know. \|

"Wait its your birthday?"

[motherhenna]

"This architect of vengeance / growing strong in the house / with no fear of her husband - / here she waits [...] / the stealth, the law of the hearth, the mother - / Memory-womb of child-avenging Fury!" - Aeschylus, "Agamemnon"

[ironspdr6700]

WHY IS CLYTEMNESTRA JUST AND GUILTY AT THE SAME TIME (ACCORDING TO AESCHYLUS)?

Medical school, unfortunately, has been taking up more of my reading time than I'd like. But since we're on 14-HOURS blackouts now, it gives me time to at least read my favorite Greek tragedies in more detail. And of the big 3��� My favorite by far is Aeschylus.

I recently read some passages from Gilbert Murray's book "Aeschylus: Creator of Greek Tragedy" and I can't recommend it enough for anyone who is a fan of the Oresteia, because you read Murray first and then you re-read Aeschylus in a totally different way and all the parts that seemed incomprehensible at first make sense. I've read a lot of posts here on Tumblr that defend or demonize Agamemnon or Clytemnestra or Electra, defending one, condemning the other or claiming that they are all equally bad, but I think the problem is that we read the saga of the house of Atreus from our modern perspective. And I think that shows that we don't know how to read Greek tragedies. Tragedy… AUTHENTIC GREEK TRAGEDY AS AN ARTISTIC CREATION, according to Aristotle, should provoke TERROR and COMPASSION in the viewer at the same time. Tragic heroes are different from the rest of traditional heroes because they are not worthy of being imitated, but are trapped in a situation that none of us would want to be in. And we regret that because if we were in their place we wouldn't know how to make a better decision.

Precisely because we are a modern audience, we feel more comfortable with Euripides' theatre, his criticism of mythology and the lack of ethics of the gods (don't get me wrong, I love his Medea and the Trojan Women, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest treasures of universal literature), but we find it difficult to get into the thought of Aeschylus.

Because Aeschylus belongs to the last link of Archaic Greece, which was transformed into the Classical and rationalist Greece of Euripides, Socrates and Thucydices. Aeschylus was a deeply religious man who lived through decades of transformation: the passage from tyranny in Athens to aristocracy and then to democracy, the battles of Marathon and Salamis between the small Greek city-states against the "excessive" Persian empire and the beginning of the golden age of Athens marked his vision of the world that Divine Justice had an active participation in the world to always balance the scales.

And this also involves a transformation in the conception of Law and Justice in that period of Greek thought. Like the archaic idea that justice is only a synonym for revenge, it becomes a state-mediated process to maintain social peace. According to the archaic conception EVERY MURDER OF ANY MEMBER OF THE FAMILY MUST BE AVENGEANCE, it is not an option, it is an OBLIGATION. From that point of view, Clytemnestra has every right in the world to take revenge on Agamemnon for the sacrifice of Iphigenia, not even the Furies have anything against her because she is not Agamemnon's blood relative, which, superficially, would seem to close the cycle. The only problem is that this is a cycle of violence, and the more violence you add, the more times the cycle keeps repeating itself and the more the wheel of Ananke, the Need to satisfy the spilled violence, keeps turning.

Clytemnestra calls for help from Zeus, "Zeus, through whom all things come to an end", so that she can succeed in her plan. If Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon, it is because ZEUS HAS ALLOWED HER TO DO SO. In Aeschylus, no event ever happens that was not the will of Zeus. Zeus is the guarantor of destiny, the protector of supplicants, the guardian of hospitality… And he is also Zeus the Avenger, in charge of making sure that everyone pays for their crimes in due time. And Agamemnon has a long list of crimes to carry out, not just Iphigenia; as leader of the expedition against Troy, he has allowed the army to destroy everything during the siege, including the altars of the gods… the refuge for the supplicants.

"The altars and temples of their gods have disappeared; the entire race of a people has been annihilated."

Zeus, as guardian of hospitality, sent Agamemnon and Menelaus against Troy for the abduction of Helen:

"Paris, who, having been welcomed into the home of the Atreids, dishonoured the table of hospitality by the abduction of a wife."

But Agamemnon allows his army to GO TO OVER THE TOP IN REVENGE

"Paris will never boast, nor the city that was his accomplice, that the deed outweighed the punishment… he lost the stolen garment, and ruined the house of his parents along with his own country. WITH DOUBLE PUNISHMENT the sons of Priam PAID FOR THEIR GUILT."

So now it is Zeus, Suppliant and Avenger, who must again balance the scales.

"Now those who conquered my country are in turn sentenced by the gods."

As a second point in favor, Clytemnestra, at least in the first work of the trilogy, is more than just a woman, she seems more like she is possessed by a divinity:

"…say not that I am the wife of Agamemnon. That ancient and fierce spirit of vengeance that garnished the cruel feast of Atreus, that is he who, taking the appearance of the wife of him who lies there, avenged on a man the sacrifice of two children."

This was part of archaic thought, the idea of ​​demons or minor divinities that influence the thought or behavior or actions of human beings and also that the crimes of parents must be paid for by their children if they are not avenged. One of the most interesting posts I read is one that commented that, in archaic literature, one never knows exactly where human freedom begins and where divine will ends. BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT FREE WILL DOES NOT EXIST AND THEREFORE THAT HUMAN BEINGS ARE EXEMPT FROM RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

And this is where Clytemnestra also becomes guilty. First, because she murders Cassandra, a Trojan princess, a priestess, a slave who has no say.

"I am forced to suffer the yoke of slavery"

She treats her as if she were Agamemnon's lover, which highlights 1) Clytemnestra's hypocrisy, because she had also taken Aegisthus as a lover, and 2) this is more important, THE LACK OF COMPASSION. Greek tragedy must generate terror and compassion because they are the two emotions that make us human. Only the person who is authentically compassionate, that is, literally feels the suffering of others as their own, as a shared experience and inheritance, can be called an authentic human being in the highest spiritual sense of the word. Clytemnestra HAS NO PITY, on the contrary, she delights in the very violence she commits:

"She, after singing her funeral dirges like a swan, fell too, and lies there beside her lover. Delicious contentment that satisfies the pleasures of my loves!"

Clytemnestra triumphs as Iphigenia's mother, but fails as a queen, just as Agamemnon triumphs as a king but fails as Iphigenia's father. Clytemnestra does not care about the opinion of the chorus of elders, she does not care that Aegisthus establishes a tyranny and that the respect for majesty that Agamemnon did have for his subjects is transformed into fear, into threats of hunger and deprivation for those who oppose her.

It is true that Clytemnestra is justified (Justice in the most archaic sense of the word) in her revenge in the first act, but that does not give her the right to laugh, or even to feel proud of what she has just done. "For my own part, I boast of my work. If it were lawful to pour libations on a corpse, they would be just, most just on this occasion." Not even Odysseus, who murdered 108 people in his own house despite having received the approval of Zeus and Athena, takes delight in the slaughter, because "it is not godly to rejoice over the death of these men."

In the end, Clytemnestra does not seem to die for killing Agamemnon (that is Aegisthus). She dies for having killed Cassandra, as she herself prophesies:

"… when a woman pays for my life with her life, and a man atones with his blood for the blood of the unhappy husband of a bad wife… I ask you that my hateful murderers receive from my avengers the payment for the easy death of a defenseless slave."

And that is what leads Orestes to be one step closer to absolution than Clytemnestra will ever be. Orestes obeys Apollo's orders, but against his will, forced by fate, he finds neither pleasure nor satisfaction in matricide. It is the first step that will later lead him to be absolved by Athena. While Clytemnestra, even in death, has no compassion, she cannot forgive even her own son when he sees himself subjected to an unwanted fate.

[false-guinevere]

I can’t decide if Electra looking like a gender-flipped Agamemnon or a carbon copy of Clytemnestra interests me more.

Either she’s deeply happy with her looks and even steals things of his thrown out to wear. If Agamemnon isn’t here then she’ll simply become Agamemnon. She consumes his memory and being until she can no longer tell where she begins and her father ends. Clytemnestra will not look at her and Electra’s never been more proud.

OR she absolutely despises her looks. Can barely bare to look in a mirror when all she sees is Clytemnestra. And eventually she decides she’ll become what she thinks her mother should be. She’ll be to Orestes what her mother should’ve been to her father. She is not Clytemnestra, she tells herself, as she puts on her clothes and jewelry. Orestes cannot look at her without seeing his mother’s dying face.

Both ways though, it makes her relationship with Clytemnestra even more fucked up. The personality is all Clytemnestra though.

[iphigenia-thewronged]

~ In her hands, she’s holding one of those jewelry making kits with the plastic beads. Her hands are full, which must be why she “kicked” the door to knock. ~

I hope I didn’t wake you, I just wanted to know if you wanted to make bracelets with me, Bownes got me this kit and I made one with him already!

~ She extends her wrist, showing a bracelet with pink beads and very obviously fake pearls, as well as a seashell pendant. ~

~ There’s a gentle, rhythmic knock on Elias’s bedroom’s door. It sounds almost like how Bownes would knock, but like it’s coming from someone who’s,, kicking the door? ~

May I come in?

- @iphigenia-thewronged

[Elias jolts awake, doing a very poor job of pretending to be well-rested when as he opens the door.]

hey, uh, what's up, kid?

[psstwantsomecheese]

Iphigenia being killed by her father as an offering to Artemis, the goddess of maidens

The 2 people in her life that were supposed to protect her

[potionwine]

Resigned to the fact that I am probably the only Anabella Rosfield-Lesage simp in the whole world, but just in case I’m not, could any comrades make yourself known at the front desk please

[iphigenia-thewronged]

~ Iphigenia knocks on Odessa’s door. ~

Ms. Pa- I mean, Ms. Odessa?

[iphigenia-thewronged]

~ Iphigenia is standing by the still glowing fig tree, looking up at it. She’s begun picking at her fingers a bit. She needs this to work. She knows Elias needs this to work too. And so does Scare. As much as she tries to hide it, she’s very visibly distressed, now more then ever. She watches as Elias and Altair enter the lush garden carrying Bownes’s corpse. She still can’t bring herself to look at it. ~

|| @thatconfusedanon ||

[An aggressive knock is at the door.]

Amadeus!

[Oh, great. It's Altair's best friend.]

[Quiet mumbling can be heard outside the door. It seems Elias isn't alone.]

((@dream-of-elias @iphigenia-thewronged))

| It's a good while before Altair comes up to greet Elias and Iphigenia at the door. He comes up looking like he had just come from someone's funeral, hair pulled back and in formal attire. Key to note he was smiling until he saw the dearly hated Elias. For just a moment there was some kind of glare but it mellowed out... Somewhat. |

Oh, hello you.... and Iphigenia. What brings you two..? Found anything?

| He moves aside for the two to come on inside with only the slightest gesture to beckon the both

[longagoitwastuesday]

me: u Gh Agamemnon

me reading in Dictys Cretensis that Ulysses scammed Clytemnestra and the rest to get Iphigenia for the sacrifice, and that "when Agamemnon knew what had happened, he wanted to flee, either because of his love for his daughter or because he wanted no part in so criminal a sacrifice": You go, Odysseus ✨💕🥺

[0ghostwatcher]

Clytemnestra

Queen of Mycenae

"He had it coming"

the half sister of Helen,she had a husband and a newborn baby both Killed by Agamemnon then made Clytemnestra his wife.Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis for favorable wind and cause he pissed of the goddess by killing her fawn .During period of Agamemnon's long absence in Trojan war, Clytemnestra began a love affair with Aegisthus, her husband's cousin,plotting Agamemnon's demise. Agamemnon, having arrived at his palace with his war prize, the Trojan princess Cassandra, in tow and being greeted by his wife, entered the palace for a banquet while Cassandra remained in the chariot. Clytemnestra waited until he was in the bath, and then entangled him in a cloth net and stabbed him. She after years will die in the hands of her kids

[agnesandhilda]

do you think the time my actual irl father held me at knifepoint is evident in how insane I get about iphigenia's sacrifice and the binding of isaac

[iphigenia-thewronged]

Please, I must stay. I promise, we’re gonna bring him back, he’ll still be able to look after me.

~ Poor girl is bawling her eyes out. She doesn’t want to leave. ~

~ It seems like Artemis has entered Bownes’s… Ribs’s? Scare’s? Home. Hunt stands before Iphigenia, who seems to be praying to the huntress. ~

Come on. You can’t stay here anymore.

[michaelectras]

and what if i pulled out a special type of choice of object made by men and theory of psychoanalysis and made electra complex lucifer real. what then.