Cassandra's importance in Oresteia

Aeschlyus’s trilogy, The Oresteia, is a tragic manifesto that painfully paints a bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. In the first respective play of the trilogy, “Agamemnon,” the character of Cassandra plays a vital role to the play and the trilogy as a whole, in numerous distinct ways. Cassandra, as seer and prophetess, connects the present with the past, and more importantly, draws a foreshadowing veil of doom for the future. In her short yet powerful scene after meeting Clytaemnestra, the mischievous wife of Agamemnon, Cassandra gives a voice, a past, and a portrait to each of the three plays in the trilogy. Moreover, she is able to accomplish this remarkable feat in a divinely poignant manner. Cassandra possesses a woeful vulnerability as victim to both Apollo, her architect of prophecy, and Clytaemnestra, her murderer.

“Agamemnon,” the first play of The Oresteia follows the ill fate of the victorious King of Argos, Agamemnon. Upon arriving home from war, royal mistress, Cassandra, at his side, Agamemnon is brutally murdered by his own wife, Clytaemnestra and accomplice, Aegisthus. Clytaemnestra distraught and enraged over Agamemnon’s affair with Helen of Troy, coupled with his

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The gods have sworn a monumental oath: as his father lies

Upon the ground he draws him home with power like a prayer. Orestes is found innocent because of this very oath made by Apollo and the mighty god Zeus, himself. A seer for the seer

He brings me here to die like this. Though language has been her great weapon thus far, it breaks on the absolute silence of the prophetess. A wanderer, a fugitive

Driven off his native land, he will come home

To cope the stones of hate that menace all he loves. While Clytaemnestra works her word magic, luring Agamemnon into their dark home, Cassandra is seated in a chariot listening intently. She saw through the seemingly warm words and fraudulent gestures of kindness offered by the queen.

There will come another to avenge us,

Born to kill his mother, born

His father’s champion. horrid sacrifice of their own daughter for warfare victory, joins forces and bed with the malicious heart of Aegisthus. “The gods have sworn a monumental oath: as his father lies / upon the ground he draws him home with power like a prayer” (1306-1307). Here we are referred once again back to Theyestes’s unfortunate fate.

What outrage – the woman kills the man (1239-1241)

she will kill me –

Ai, the torture! She is mixing her drugs,

Adding a measure more of hate for me. (1226-1234)

Again, Cassandra returns to Agamemnon’s dreadful sin, the cause of his future death. It is through this initial plea that we are able to glimpse into the vulnerability of this poor prophet. The past, present, and future come together not only in the immediate play, “Agamemnon,” but in the entire trilogy.

Approximate Word count = 1742
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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