At the end of the play, Agamemnon, we discover that Agamemnon's death had been plotted out by Aegisthus before the king had even returned home from war. Aegisthus believed that murdering Agamemnon was the best way to get back at Atreus, Agamemnon's father. (For Atreus had fed Aegisthus' father, Thyestes, soup with children flesh in it.) Moreover, Clytaemnestra murdered Agamemnon as revenge for him killing their daughter, Iphigeneia. Clytaemnestra put it this way, "act for act, wound for wound...by the sword you did your work and by the sword you will die."
So.. I understand that Clytemnestra is avenging her daughter and Aegisthus is avenging his father, but my question is, who is going to avenge Agamemnon? Where does this cycle of revenge end? Does it ever? In ancient greek literature, so much emphasis is placed on avenging the death of fathers and other loved ones, but if this keeps going on, won't there be a never ending cycle of murders that must be avenged? Where does one draw the line and stop the cycle? Can the greeks put kleos aside to stop murder once and for all?... or is that too far fetched of a suggestion?
I commented on Alexandra's
Well now we have found out the Orestes avenges his father by killing Clytemnestra and her lover. And the cycle of revenge never really ends. Even nowadays people want to avenge someone or something sometimes. But the cycle has kind of ended because no one really kills another person and gets away with it anymore haha. So people aren't willing to go as far as they did in these books. And the Greeks can soooo not put kleos behind them to stop the murders and things. These men are really proud and for some of them, this is all they have.
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