At Hour
25, Harvard and the Center for Hellenic Studies' community-development project we are discussing Agamemnon's Refusal of Chryses' Ransom.
If you don’t know the story you
can read more about it in the Iliad.
Chryses, the priest of Apollo comes to the Achaean camp before the walls
of Troy to ransom his daughter. The
Greeks called her Chryseis; that is Miss Chryses. Agamemnon refused the ransom and sent the
priest way with dire threats. No too
smart! His decision and threats “brought countless woes upon the Achaeans,
and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves
spoil for dogs” (Iliad 1.2) I would
like to suggest that for Agamemnon, Chryseis was not “a girl, just one girl”, but rather the latest
in a series of “daughters” he’d lost. He
simply couldn’t lose one more.
Loud rang the battle-cry they uttered in their rage,
just as eagles scream which, in lonely grief for their brood, rowing with the
oars of their wings, wheel high over their bed, because they have lost the toil
of guarding their nurslings' nest. Aeschylus (Agamemnon 47)
Helen
was barely of marrying age when she married Agamemnon’s younger brother. However, the most beautiful woman who ever
lived was kidnapped by a prince from Troy.
At the discovery of her disappearance, the poet compares Agamemnon to an
eagle that’d lost a fledgling, that is a father eagle that’d lost a child.
Not
long afterwards Agamemnon loses his own daughter Iphigenia at the Port of
Aulis. Regardless of the gory details,
Agamemnon the father lost another daughter.
In
the opening scene of the Iliad Agamemnon is faced with the loss of
Chryseis. She is replaced with golden-haired
Briseis, Miss Briseus. But later
Agamemnon makes a great “oath, that never
went he up into her bed, neither had dalliance with her” (Iliad 9.278) Is
it possible that he never touched Chryseis?
That for all his protestations of love it was actually fatherly love he
felt for Chryseis.
And
that when her father came for her Agamemnon could not face the loss of one more
daughter?
I have wondered why the condition of Chryseis was not discussed upon her return to her father. On the other hand, if Agamemnon had raped her, there was no way he could undo his deed; he could just give a compensation, which he did anyway.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you wrote this post attempting to humanize Agamemnon. I feel the poor guy is a victim of injustice - nobody likes him! Not that I do :-).
I could compare Agamemnon to Creon from the Antigone. Both are military leaders who sacrifice a child to ensure the success of the respective campaign. After that, they become incompetent leaders, to the point of challenging gods. Is it a surprise? Apparently, such loss fathers should be removed from command. They move to a parallel reality and become inadequate. And it is likely that the Erinyes are after them.
Maya,
DeleteExpect more "humanization" of Agamemnon in the next few weeks. I have more to say about the guy and I am sure others in the book club will too.
Another perspective that I am looking into is Agamemnon (and Menelaus) as furies sent to Troy by Zeus to revenge Paris' violation of the Laws of Hospitality. Which would explain Agamemnon's bouts of Ate, cause Furies only have one thing on their mind; blood.
BTW, Holway in the book Becoming Achilles stresses that captives like Chryseis and Briseis are "daughter-like". However, he does not think that this quality excludes sexual possession of the captive women.
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