Clytemnestra

The Odyssey refers repeatedly to the murder of Agamemnon. In Book III Nestor tells Telemachus how Aegisthus seduced Clytemnestra while Agamemnon was at Troy, and how the two of them killed the king when he came home. In Book IV Menelaus hears the story from Proteus, and in Book XI Agamemnon’s shade tells Odysseus the details: Clytemnestra helped Aegisthus, and Agamemnon died at a feast like an ox at a manger.

The poem never lets Clytemnestra speak. She is reported, judged, and contrasted with Penelope. Her story is a warning: a household without its master can be taken over, and a wife can become the agent of her husband’s death.

In Odyssey XI Agamemnon tells Odysseus not to trust a woman too readily, and he contrasts Clytemnestra with Penelope. The contrast is structural: Penelope waits, deceives the suitors, and preserves the household; Clytemnestra takes a lover, kills her husband, and is killed by her son. The poem uses the pair to think about fidelity, power, and the danger of returning home.

Later tragedy, especially Aeschylus’s Oresteia, gives Clytemnestra a voice and a motive—the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the burden of rule, the memory of a husband’s absence. The Odyssey does not. It keeps her as the negative image against which Penelope is measured.