![]() For a fuller, and somewhatdifferent, version of the tale, read Aeschylus' play, the Agamemnon, andthe follow-up plays, the Libation Bearers and Eumenides: the trio go underthe name of the Oresteia.īook 1 Council of the gods. Odyssey, book 4, as told by Menelaus: but the story occursmany times, first on the second page of the epic. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra now become king and queen ofMycene.Įight years later, Agamemnon's son Orestes, now come of age, returnsto Mycene, and avenges his father's death by killing both Aegisthus andClytemnestra. At the feastitself, Aegisthus and his men ambush Agamemnon, and kill him amongst thefood and drink. When Agamemnon returns home, according to Homer's version, Aegisthusinvites the victorious king of kings and his men to a feast. Aegisthus hasthe urge to revenge Agamemnon because in a dispute over th kingship Agamemnon'sfather, Atreus, killed the children (except Aegisthus himself) of Aegisthus'father, Thyestes and then served these children as dinner to Thyestes.(Note the feasting motif.) Meanwhile, back in Mycene, Aegisthus, Agamemnon'sfirst cousin, has managed to seduce Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's wife, andthe two conspire to murder Agamemnon on his return home. The Greeks now sail for Troy, and after a ten-year siege they take Troyunder Agamemnon's leadership. Hesends for Iphigenia (duping his wife Clytemnestra by telling her that Iphigeniamust come to marry Achilles), and sacrifices his daughter. Consulting the seer Calchas, Agamemnon learns that hemust sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess. Artemis is angry at the Greeks and stills the wind, so that theycannot set sail. The Greeks gather at Aulis before setting sailfor Troy. The relatives of the dead suitors attacked the heroes on thefarm of Laertes, father of Od., and a battle began, but it was ended byZeus and Athena, who patched up a hasty reconciliation. revealed himself to her after the fightingwas over. contrived to catch them unarmed and with the help of two loyalserving men (and of course Athena) they slaughtered all 108 suitors. entered hisown house unrecognized, mingled with the suitors and talked with Penelope.He and T. The voyage of T., the arrival of Od., and the recognition and reunionof father and son, were all supervised by Athena.įather and son plotted the destruction of the suitors. The suitors set an ambush, meaning to murder him, buthe eluded them and reached Ithaca just after his father arrived. wasalive but detained without means of return on the island of Calypso. Shortly before the return of Od., Telemachus visited the mainlandin search of news about his father. The suitors made themselves at home as uninvited guests in the palaceof Od. ![]() might come back,and held them off, without ever saying positively that she would nevermarry again. ![]() She was accomplished and clever, still beautiful, an heiressand presumably a widow but she clung to the hope that Od. A few years before his return, the young bachelorsof Od's kingdom, Ithaca and surrounding islands, began paying court toPenelope. left behind his wife, Penelope, andhis infant son, Telemachus. Afterten years, or in the tenth year, he was set down in his own country, aloneand secretly, though with a new set of possessions, by the Phaeacians ofScheria, who were the last peoples he visited on his wanderings. During this time, none of his family knew what had happened to him,and he lost all his ships, all his men, and the spoils from Troy. Odysseus spent 10 years fighting at Troy, and another 10 years gettinghome.
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