1 00:00:01,460 --> 00:00:11,930 This is Agamemnon, my husband, but of course, the work of my right hand, a just architect, this is how things are. 2 00:00:11,930 --> 00:00:16,010 Clytemnestra has been a popular figure in Greek myth from Homer to the present day, 3 00:00:16,010 --> 00:00:23,480 featuring in plays by all three great traditions and appearing more recently in opera, ballet and even a spaghetti Western adaptation. 4 00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:28,010 However, it is her depiction in Escalus Oresteia that dominates the tradition. 5 00:00:28,010 --> 00:00:34,250 A trilogy dramatising brutal revenge killings within the cast house of Atrius, sister of Helen of Troy, 6 00:00:34,250 --> 00:00:39,140 Clytemnestra kills her husband Agamemnon on his return from the Trojan War with her lover Jesus, 7 00:00:39,140 --> 00:00:44,960 his cousin, only to be later murdered herself by her son, Orestes Iman's Harvard. 8 00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:53,390 And joining me today on In Our Spare Time are Nili Aaronovitch, my tutorial partner and fellow literary humanities finalist at Corpus Christi College, 9 00:00:53,390 --> 00:00:56,840 and Emily Clifford, a master's student in Greek, also at Corpus, 10 00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:02,030 who is currently focussing her research on themes of art and vision in e-commerce tragedies. 11 00:01:02,030 --> 00:01:08,990 I thought it would be great if we could start by just looking at the background to the Oresteia story and then perhaps you could fill us in on that. 12 00:01:08,990 --> 00:01:13,760 Well, I suppose that immediately before the is that we've had 10 years of war. 13 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:19,250 Troyes, the city of Troy, has been besieged by the Greeks and then eventually beaten by the Greeks, 14 00:01:19,250 --> 00:01:23,570 which is something we discover in the first scene of the play. 15 00:01:23,570 --> 00:01:34,130 But before that, before Agamemnon that husbanded quiet investors set out for Troy, he had sacrificed Iphigenia, 16 00:01:34,130 --> 00:01:40,580 his daughter and her daughter so that they could get the wins that the army needed to get to Troy. 17 00:01:40,580 --> 00:01:44,810 It's something that's obviously burning in her mind. I see. 18 00:01:44,810 --> 00:01:48,240 And what are the Devean traditions about the sacrifice of a virgin? 19 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:55,000 I had one interesting variant of the story is that it's not entirely clear whether or not the daughter was actually sacrificed. 20 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:03,920 So I think what we need to believe for the Agamemnon is that quite a master believes that her daughter has actually been killed. 21 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:09,500 But there is a variant version where the goddess Artemis sort of steps in at the last minute 22 00:02:09,500 --> 00:02:17,150 and whisks her away to Taurus and replaces her with a with a sacrificial animal of some sort. 23 00:02:17,150 --> 00:02:21,800 So full of anger, the death of her daughter, Iphigenia Clytemnestra is waiting. 24 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:26,480 How long for her husband to come back from Troy? Ten years. 25 00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:30,800 Ten years. A long time. And so is that when does the play begin? 26 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:35,660 Is does it begin with him walking through the door or what sort of a scene we set at the start? 27 00:02:35,660 --> 00:02:39,230 That's an interesting question because he has been away for ten years. 28 00:02:39,230 --> 00:02:47,090 But when the play begins, the pilot gets word that the war is over and by the by noon, he's home. 29 00:02:47,090 --> 00:02:52,760 So there's a kind of dramatic licence sort of taking place in terms of the timing. 30 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:57,230 But no, he doesn't appear and he doesn't speak until halfway through the play. 31 00:02:57,230 --> 00:03:06,860 The first half is conversation between Herold's who are announcing his entrance, as is, I think, traditional when someone comes back from somewhere. 32 00:03:06,860 --> 00:03:14,150 So how does a master behave in that first part of the play? Do you think we're invited to feel sympathy for her position? 33 00:03:14,150 --> 00:03:20,930 She's actually already proven to be pretty devious because she doesn't reveal Rachel, anger, emergency. 34 00:03:20,930 --> 00:03:29,270 What you have here, you have on this stage when she enters the chorus of Old Man, you haven't been able to go to war. 35 00:03:29,270 --> 00:03:39,380 And then later the Herald. And she doesn't at least in my view, she doesn't really reveal her anger and bitterness, at least openly. 36 00:03:39,380 --> 00:03:48,560 Maybe she just received a gleanings that instead she appears to be a sort of delighted wife who's discovered that Troy has fought. 37 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:55,670 And I suppose we see her exaltation at the victory and the fact that her husband is going to come home. 38 00:03:55,670 --> 00:04:00,780 Actually, we we would know through dramatic irony is actually for very different reasons. 39 00:04:00,780 --> 00:04:09,810 The one of the chorus. Yeah. And did you think we get a sense of that through the way the chorus responds to her behaviour? 40 00:04:09,810 --> 00:04:19,950 I mean, she and, of course, enjoy quite a combative relationship, and although she doesn't speak openly about her anger against Agamemnon, 41 00:04:19,950 --> 00:04:32,340 nor does she talk about the denial in any detail, her reaction to the chorus's questions to her is incredibly hostile, they say to her. 42 00:04:32,340 --> 00:04:37,040 Is it some rumour that's got you so excited about about the end of the war? 43 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:41,050 And she says, What do you take me for a child? She's not so much hostile to Agamemnon. 44 00:04:41,050 --> 00:04:47,520 By adopting this male position early on the play as the ruler and as in charge of the chorus, 45 00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:52,320 she is setting herself up to be his his rival and not his wife. 46 00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:57,300 Yeah, and how is that compounded by her relationship with Jesus? 47 00:04:57,300 --> 00:05:04,090 I'd say it's complicated by her relationship with the guys. This because. She set up, as Lenny was saying, 48 00:05:04,090 --> 00:05:10,000 she set up sort of from the very start as a powerful figure and essentially the 49 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:16,000 steward of the palace who later become to be rivalling her husband like a madman. 50 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:21,490 And that kind of runs right through until almost the end of the play when she reveals that she has this lover, 51 00:05:21,490 --> 00:05:27,040 I guess this who is basically the cousin of her husband anyway. 52 00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:33,970 And then he comes on and claims the credit and sort of takes back the reins or appears to take back the reins. 53 00:05:33,970 --> 00:05:38,410 So it's it's actually complicated, I think, on the component. 54 00:05:38,410 --> 00:05:43,870 Yeah. It's definitely interesting to look at how her actions as a woman might be 55 00:05:43,870 --> 00:05:50,590 different to what you might expect for the position of Greek women at that time. I mean, we have no records of any Greek women in leadership roles. 56 00:05:50,590 --> 00:06:01,270 For example, I think that her that quartermasters role as the king in this speaks to a wider kind of war anxiety. 57 00:06:01,270 --> 00:06:06,280 So at the time that this was written, Athens was constantly skirmishing. 58 00:06:06,280 --> 00:06:15,970 There were or taking part in big wars. And I thought I've also written the play The Persians, which is about the war with the Persians. 59 00:06:15,970 --> 00:06:21,160 So Aeschylus and his audience are concerned about what happens when people come home from war. 60 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:27,580 How are they rehabilitated? Per's, I suppose, as a return from war and also a queenly narrator. 61 00:06:27,580 --> 00:06:32,630 I believe so. Having a woman in charge is a symptom of. 62 00:06:32,630 --> 00:06:41,870 Of the absence of order, it's a type of chaos we see again in the Odyssey where you have where Penelope's not in charge, 63 00:06:41,870 --> 00:06:50,810 but the masculine role is being fulfilled by Telemachus, who is ill equipped, and all these suitors who are doing a terrible job. 64 00:06:50,810 --> 00:06:57,540 So, again, you have this this chaos sort of vacuum of male power, which is squabbled over rather than sort of settled. 65 00:06:57,540 --> 00:07:06,590 Yeah, I think in this case, it's been resolved in having the wrong gender in charge. 66 00:07:06,590 --> 00:07:11,320 Suppose the next question would be how that interacts with her role as a mother, as a leader and a mother. 67 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:19,330 Do you think that the two come into conflict? I think they I think they come into conflict just within the context of great society, 68 00:07:19,330 --> 00:07:33,670 because a mother as a woman is essentially expected to stay indoors, to obey her husband, not to ideally not to speak more than she should. 69 00:07:33,670 --> 00:07:44,020 And so in a leadership role to master and coming out of the palace and announcing what the fire beacons have have told her, 70 00:07:44,020 --> 00:07:50,620 which is that choice for them to even conversing with the chorus in the very first place and that thereby 71 00:07:50,620 --> 00:07:55,750 setting yourself up as a leader is already transgressing what you'd expect from a woman armed as a mother. 72 00:07:55,750 --> 00:08:00,440 Yes, this this important link between Clytemnestra and control over meaning. 73 00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:08,830 So I clearly said the play actually opens with a messenger noticing that a fire has been lit. 74 00:08:08,830 --> 00:08:13,730 Now, what is quite a monstrous investment in this fire, that [INAUDIBLE] begins. 75 00:08:13,730 --> 00:08:16,120 So how does that work? 76 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:25,690 They will form a chain when one considers a fire in the distance and light their own fire, and it would continue on here until August. 77 00:08:25,690 --> 00:08:29,890 Now, her and her investment now is incredibly ambiguous. 78 00:08:29,890 --> 00:08:33,940 The watchman who first notices the fire is acutely aware of that. 79 00:08:33,940 --> 00:08:40,390 He knows that this both means the Agamemnon is coming home to his wife, which is traditionally a happy thing. 80 00:08:40,390 --> 00:08:46,090 And he also knows that that is going to be a very complicated reunion. 81 00:08:46,090 --> 00:08:54,880 So complicated, in fact, that he refuses to speculate about what he think will happen for fear that if he he talks about his fears, 82 00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:57,160 they're more likely to come true. 83 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:10,150 So I think from the offset from the first site we have of this this fire, which is very vividly described by the watchmen, we already don't know. 84 00:09:10,150 --> 00:09:11,830 Whether it portends good or bad. 85 00:09:11,830 --> 00:09:18,340 Yeah, and I suppose that's complicated by a speech later on Clytemnestra gives detailing the precise path of a beacon, 86 00:09:18,340 --> 00:09:24,490 which I personally find difficult to interpret because it just gives the track. 87 00:09:24,490 --> 00:09:30,050 I'm not not a gloss on that track. How do you read that? I speak to a certain extent. 88 00:09:30,050 --> 00:09:38,050 I, I perhaps interpret it more as shocking that she would have such a detailed knowledge of the procedure for the fire, 89 00:09:38,050 --> 00:09:47,200 which perhaps in a positive light would show that her stewardship of the extent to which she is aware of the workings of the state. 90 00:09:47,200 --> 00:09:53,140 But given that she is a woman, given that we know that she's got these plans for Agamemnon when he returns, 91 00:09:53,140 --> 00:09:57,940 it's quite alarming that she knows this much. 92 00:09:57,940 --> 00:10:07,160 And either she knows too much about the state as women or she's inventing it, which would fit, I suppose, with the theme of deception. 93 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:10,540 Yes, deception and language are very closely intertwined in this play. 94 00:10:10,540 --> 00:10:19,190 I believe perhaps took a little bit more about how that functions with ambiguous symbols like the Beacon fire, I suppose, which could portend either. 95 00:10:19,190 --> 00:10:27,730 The course talks a lot about prophecies, Cassandra, who we haven't yet, but whose is brought to Argo's by Agamemnon as a sort of. 96 00:10:27,730 --> 00:10:37,970 War provide service only speaks in prophecy, to be honest, and so she's been brought back from Troy in Georgia. 97 00:10:37,970 --> 00:10:45,310 She's one of preamps daughters and she is killed alongside Agamemnon. 98 00:10:45,310 --> 00:10:53,330 And she's. As a prophet, the weather is going to happen, which is interesting, the prophecy. 99 00:10:53,330 --> 00:11:06,800 That we associate with the Agamemnon is the one of the happy being torn apart with a young still sort of warm in her belly and so dear, it's creepy. 100 00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:12,160 Yeah, I think that, again, it's ambiguous. It could be. 101 00:11:12,160 --> 00:11:18,610 In the context, the chorus of the young could be all of those men who have died at Troy, 102 00:11:18,610 --> 00:11:27,430 the young could be Iphigenia, people dying before that generation is due to die. 103 00:11:27,430 --> 00:11:33,340 I mean, I think. But how we called the generation of World War Two the lost generation. 104 00:11:33,340 --> 00:11:37,130 Yes. It's the lost generation that that they're talking about. 105 00:11:37,130 --> 00:11:43,960 And I'm not sure whether it's so much ambiguous as polyvalent polyvalent. 106 00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:52,390 Well, I suppose that's if the lost generation is that has brewed that also foreshadows perhaps the eventual murder of Clytemnestra herself, 107 00:11:52,390 --> 00:11:59,480 would you say? Yes, by her by her children, it's a perversion of the order, 108 00:11:59,480 --> 00:12:04,600 and that's exactly why we end up in the last place having to resort to a new kind of justice, 109 00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:11,790 to sort out whether or not a rescue house is a criminal and not that sort of. 110 00:12:11,790 --> 00:12:17,670 The inauguration of the Athenian court system, because it is so complicated, 111 00:12:17,670 --> 00:12:21,480 the situation they find themselves in, that they have to create a new way of sorting it out. 112 00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:27,750 So, yeah, so that this is based on something we haven't really talked about yet, which is the curse of the House of Atrius. 113 00:12:27,750 --> 00:12:31,980 So perhaps I mean, could you take us through that a little bit? Yes. 114 00:12:31,980 --> 00:12:40,800 So the curse, the house of you say initially we have Tantalus who have served up his own son, 115 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:45,540 Pelops to the gods, I think, to try and trick to trick use. 116 00:12:45,540 --> 00:12:48,630 And I think only one of the gods actually fallen for it. 117 00:12:48,630 --> 00:12:59,820 And each in the shoulder of pops lost a metre because she was so upset that her daughter had been seised by Hades, the God of the underworld. 118 00:12:59,820 --> 00:13:06,480 So that initially starts the issues with the house, the house of starting with payoff's. 119 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:16,500 And then I think his children are firesides and atrius. And then we get the real curse, which kind of kicks off a lot of the suffering in this play, 120 00:13:16,500 --> 00:13:24,060 which is that Atrius serves up to Celestis like Estes's own children, 121 00:13:24,060 --> 00:13:27,990 and Bias's does eat his own children, although he subsequently, 122 00:13:27,990 --> 00:13:35,100 I think the heads are brought out of parts of recognisable parts of the body of water and he recognises what's happened. 123 00:13:35,100 --> 00:13:46,290 So this theme of generations perverting the order which they're supposed to live, begins very early on in the chain and particularly within families. 124 00:13:46,290 --> 00:13:53,370 They slaughter within families has has been happening and is a sort of cyclical as 125 00:13:53,370 --> 00:13:59,190 it's a cycle of revenge and of bloodshed and killing people within your own family. 126 00:13:59,190 --> 00:14:07,470 So Cassandra, on that note, was talking about say, Cassandra says that she can actually see the dead bodies of these two sons holding 127 00:14:07,470 --> 00:14:13,710 their guts to the children of these children who are sitting in front of the palace. 128 00:14:13,710 --> 00:14:15,540 So this kind of already, 129 00:14:15,540 --> 00:14:25,530 this stain that is spreading and then continue to spread in the rest of the trilogy as people continue to take revenge upon each other. 130 00:14:25,530 --> 00:14:33,270 So how does that work with the Jesus? Because Ajith being Agamemnon's cousin is KSTP son. 131 00:14:33,270 --> 00:14:43,230 Yeah. He says that he's the reason that he has apparently instigated the whole the whole revenge plot is in revenge for, 132 00:14:43,230 --> 00:14:49,200 I guess, the murder of his brothers and his children by Atrius who the father of. 133 00:14:49,200 --> 00:14:52,650 Yeah. So where will we see a Jesus's motive there. 134 00:14:52,650 --> 00:14:56,850 But this does not really I can't see to the fact of the motivation for quite a mystery. 135 00:14:56,850 --> 00:15:05,910 Is it more sort of metaphysical reckoning as concerns that matter as close as matters is truth? 136 00:15:05,910 --> 00:15:14,460 Is this myth that the family just delineated for us is very complicated and exclusive truths in this moment. 137 00:15:14,460 --> 00:15:19,080 So when Emily was talking, I was thinking, why is Clinton after the focus of this play? 138 00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:27,150 Why haven't we heard from her gifts? Is what is so interesting about his relationship, but much more kind of canonical, you might write, 139 00:15:27,150 --> 00:15:35,600 than especially for tragedian who seem to be so for want of a better word, stayed in his innovations. 140 00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:40,960 I mean, not amusing, largely absent, but when he does appear at the end, there is a sense. 141 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:50,950 There is a strong sense of impotency, so clearly hard to master has this has a tragic quality or compelling quality that 142 00:15:50,950 --> 00:15:57,610 you have chosen to bring out in the tradition surrounding the death of Agamemnon. 143 00:15:57,610 --> 00:16:00,910 It's not clear before this point that that had to be this way. 144 00:16:00,910 --> 00:16:07,300 So Pindel had a very similar point to Aeschylus pinned on his 11th. 145 00:16:07,300 --> 00:16:11,380 Pythian sort of gives us an either or. 146 00:16:11,380 --> 00:16:17,770 He describes what happened to Agamemnon's as did happen because she was sad about him sacrificing her daughter, Iphigenia. 147 00:16:17,770 --> 00:16:24,340 Why did it happen? Because she was seduced by a as who who he himself had this revenge motive. 148 00:16:24,340 --> 00:16:32,530 So it was no one had decided what the truth was. But Escalus clearly has a version that he prefers. 149 00:16:32,530 --> 00:16:37,180 Yes. And I think it's interesting how we weave the character of Cassandra into that version, 150 00:16:37,180 --> 00:16:41,260 because it may seem that Cassandra herself is a further motive to murder, 151 00:16:41,260 --> 00:16:45,790 you know, waiting 10 years for a husband to find that he's brought home another woman. 152 00:16:45,790 --> 00:16:52,660 But I suppose perhaps the great context of gender politics might make that a more vexed question than we might consider it. 153 00:16:52,660 --> 00:16:58,610 I mean, I think you definitely have a point most of us would object to. 154 00:16:58,610 --> 00:17:05,870 Before Plotless came back from a long trip with someone new, unexpected that to a good time to be fine, 155 00:17:05,870 --> 00:17:14,150 but the tradition of war booty is different and it would have been common for people to bring home women, 156 00:17:14,150 --> 00:17:22,610 although it's interesting that other sort of returning hero, Odysseus, at no point makes any attempt to bring anyone home with him. 157 00:17:22,610 --> 00:17:26,510 In fact, it turns out entirely by himself. 158 00:17:26,510 --> 00:17:33,320 So, yeah, I think you're right. We might give a media audience of this great human a sensitivity to do the other woman. 159 00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:39,830 There is certainly a sense in which it is very Cassandre, in some level inappropriate. 160 00:17:39,830 --> 00:17:47,120 So is that perhaps the reason is she came to because of her being in the wrong place at the wrong time, then more than pure hatred? 161 00:17:47,120 --> 00:17:55,320 I think it's a combination of many things. And it's it's complex because on the one hand, she is in the wrong place at the wrong time. 162 00:17:55,320 --> 00:18:01,760 It is unlucky for her that she is in the past when quite a monster is near 163 00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:07,100 the bottom line on how she kills them when they're both in the bath together. 164 00:18:07,100 --> 00:18:10,760 So, yeah, seems like the kind of crime of passion in an odd way. 165 00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:16,760 But it does also because it was premeditated. It seems it's premeditated. 166 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:20,160 It it seems that this probably would have happened. 167 00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:26,420 It's impossible to say that probably would have happened had even if Cassandra had not come, come back with my mom. 168 00:18:26,420 --> 00:18:29,690 And so on the one hand, she's in the wrong place at the wrong time. 169 00:18:29,690 --> 00:18:35,270 But she also does foretell her own doom and will die with obviously skipping several years 170 00:18:35,270 --> 00:18:42,140 into the future and a later played by refugees that try to teach more children women. 171 00:18:42,140 --> 00:18:55,030 She also foretells what's going to happen to her even as far back as Stroy has fallen, which suggests that there's some greater fate at play here and. 172 00:18:55,030 --> 00:19:03,250 It it doesn't seem that she is at fault in any way, it's just some part, some sort of Mercilus hand of fate. 173 00:19:03,250 --> 00:19:05,500 Yes, I suppose it just compounds the irony, though, 174 00:19:05,500 --> 00:19:12,550 that the primary motivation of the killing seems to be anger at sort of an influence to top that off with further slaughter of an innocent. 175 00:19:12,550 --> 00:19:17,980 I suppose it's just a commentary on the harshness of fate really more than anything else. 176 00:19:17,980 --> 00:19:26,770 Yeah, I was I was thinking that when both you were talking about the the many motives for Titanosaurus murder, 177 00:19:26,770 --> 00:19:34,570 and I can see that Virginia potentially Cassandra, then I guess this is own motives. 178 00:19:34,570 --> 00:19:39,400 And then you get the oil, say, the curse of the house of H.S. and I think. 179 00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:45,430 The fact they were denied any sort of clear reason for exactly why things have happened and what's driving people, 180 00:19:45,430 --> 00:19:56,830 it may well be an interesting psychological enquiry into people under pressure, emotional pressure and control of their thought process. 181 00:19:56,830 --> 00:20:02,740 But it may also just be a very terrifying vision of a world where things are determined, 182 00:20:02,740 --> 00:20:09,160 but will say there are human agents at play and therefore things just spiral out of control. 183 00:20:09,160 --> 00:20:14,920 Now, I think this murder has been 10 years in the making. 184 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:20,650 You very much like a master decides to go Agamemnon the moment before Jini died. 185 00:20:20,650 --> 00:20:24,610 And so Cassandra is an inconvenience. 186 00:20:24,610 --> 00:20:31,090 And in fact, in the Agamemnon, prime minister meets Cassandra and says, get off the chariot and come inside. 187 00:20:31,090 --> 00:20:36,340 And Trumpton. No, I don't want to. 188 00:20:36,340 --> 00:20:41,920 Or rather, she says something that makes no sense. The only thing she speaks Trojan for a long time, 189 00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:48,760 but which would be a different language in the time of the plague seems to be a different yes to what they speak. 190 00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:57,790 And she stays in the chariot and quite often goes inside. And it's left to the chorus to find out why this why Cassandra is so reluctant. 191 00:20:57,790 --> 00:21:01,640 And eventually they persuade her to go inside the palace. 192 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:08,510 They don't deceive her. She knows she's going to die, but they sort of talk it into meeting, meeting what's going to happen. 193 00:21:08,510 --> 00:21:16,750 Yeah, quartermasters not interested, although I suppose that maybe we should see the character perhaps as functioning more of a guarantor of her fate. 194 00:21:16,750 --> 00:21:21,910 Then you both of you discussing earlier the what the power that word seem to have in this play as a predictor, 195 00:21:21,910 --> 00:21:24,160 where if you say something, it's more likely to happen. 196 00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:33,190 So perhaps articulating a prophecy in this way is more than simply stating a fact in terms of prophecy. 197 00:21:33,190 --> 00:21:34,540 This is a trilogy. 198 00:21:34,540 --> 00:21:43,690 The Oresteia briefly, I think we've mentioned this, but just to confirm the Agamemnon, the collaterally and then the humanity right through. 199 00:21:43,690 --> 00:21:53,080 And it's an established trilogy. They would have been performed at the same time, unlike what we call the Theban trilogy with all about Oedipus. 200 00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:58,990 Yes. It has a common theme, but it's not a trilogy, your style is a trilogy, 201 00:21:58,990 --> 00:22:09,670 and having Cassandra talk about prophetically about about fate and things like that prepares us for the next two plays, especially because her. 202 00:22:09,670 --> 00:22:13,990 Her guardian is Apollo, and he becomes very important in the humanities. 203 00:22:13,990 --> 00:22:22,030 So it's significant, I suppose the humanities is quite an important place for giving a final assessment on Titanosaurus character, 204 00:22:22,030 --> 00:22:29,700 because it seems to take the form of a court case deciding whether or not to acquit her son for killing her. 205 00:22:29,700 --> 00:22:41,010 Yeah, it's interesting, the latest production of the first time that I saw was at the Olmeda and the conceit of it was the arrest these. 206 00:22:41,010 --> 00:22:45,930 Throughout the play is recalling what happened from Virginia's death to his killing of 207 00:22:45,930 --> 00:22:53,040 Cassandre with a school psychologist who's trying to determine if he is fit to stand trial. 208 00:22:53,040 --> 00:23:01,680 So it's fascinating because I suppose the throughout the play, I believe he's pursued by theories that are perhaps a way of looking at madness then. 209 00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:05,610 And yes, I mean, I think there are definitely parallels for sure. 210 00:23:05,610 --> 00:23:09,210 And it does become a trial of quite a master instead, 211 00:23:09,210 --> 00:23:20,730 because they're deciding did she behave so painlessly or was she so toxic as a mother and in what she did that he deserves not to be 212 00:23:20,730 --> 00:23:27,750 put on trial for her death in the first place so that it's not so much a case of did she behave so wrongly that she deserves to die? 213 00:23:27,750 --> 00:23:33,090 But did she behave in so, so unnaturally as to drive arrestees to do this? 214 00:23:33,090 --> 00:23:37,980 I see. So are sort of different types of of her being culpable. 215 00:23:37,980 --> 00:23:44,970 And what's the verdict there? I mean, is the same as humanity cleared by decisive victory? 216 00:23:44,970 --> 00:23:49,470 No, I mean, it's a hung jury and I think a female does make an appearance, but it's always brilliant, 217 00:23:49,470 --> 00:23:54,150 actually, in the it's they've got wigs on and gowns and it's it's quite fun. 218 00:23:54,150 --> 00:23:57,660 So conjecturing here that she's a terrible mother to arrestees. 219 00:23:57,660 --> 00:24:05,570 Do we see remnants of her sort of mothering skills with other children and other plays in the tradition? 220 00:24:05,570 --> 00:24:17,330 What is at this end in the Agamemnon? I guess the focus is mostly on her as a potential overly loving mother of Iphigenia that in later plays, 221 00:24:17,330 --> 00:24:22,400 for example, in the electrical, say, suffocations, the lecture. 222 00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:31,970 And then she's portrayed as a monster, Mother Teresa, who is as much presiding palace Penya lover, 223 00:24:31,970 --> 00:24:38,990 I guess this is treating her daughter is essentially a slave to serve the household. 224 00:24:38,990 --> 00:24:46,220 And there's a lot of tension. I mean, it's not. Of course, I think it's more complex than just her as a horrific mother. 225 00:24:46,220 --> 00:24:57,710 There is a lot of psychological tension between Electra's own feelings about the murder of her father and her relationship with her mother, 226 00:24:57,710 --> 00:25:09,740 part Envestra. So this is weird dichotomy between Titanosaurus identity as a mother of Iphigenia and then an inadequate mother of a lecture. 227 00:25:09,740 --> 00:25:20,600 And we have three plays that deal with the refugees. Costner and I can't remember which one it is, but in one of them she's told the You've died. 228 00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,900 She deceived and she celebrates. 229 00:25:23,900 --> 00:25:33,080 And I think she says, you know, you never stop loving your children no matter what I do, no matter if God predicted to be your eventual murderer. 230 00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:38,390 It's also the scene where she offers she she buys her breasts universities to try and prevent him from killing her, 231 00:25:38,390 --> 00:25:43,010 which is appealing to her, to his identity as a son. 232 00:25:43,010 --> 00:25:44,690 To have sympathy on the mother. 233 00:25:44,690 --> 00:25:50,540 We probably ought to discuss presentations of her as having a kind of deviant, bestial sexuality throughout the tradition, 234 00:25:50,540 --> 00:25:56,630 which are quite, quite dominant, especially in that sort of interfamily a way. 235 00:25:56,630 --> 00:26:02,960 Well, in the Book of Mormon, she's described at various points as essentially a monster. 236 00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:09,620 So she's compared to the monster Skidder. He was a sea monster with dogs from the groyne below. 237 00:26:09,620 --> 00:26:13,460 She says she used to tear apart ships in the Odyssey. 238 00:26:13,460 --> 00:26:21,560 And she's also described as a lioness, say a competitor for the king, the lion king of Agamemnon. 239 00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:29,750 She's described as a lioness figure. She would say that she was inappropriately savage for an ancient woman. 240 00:26:29,750 --> 00:26:33,320 Yes. And I believe that at the very end of the Agamemnon, 241 00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:42,660 she describes pleasure that she derives from killing Agamemnon and Cassandra in a way that some have postulated is almost sexual as well. 242 00:26:42,660 --> 00:26:48,860 When she she talks, when she first greets, I remember she talks about the rumours she heard about about his death of Troy. 243 00:26:48,860 --> 00:26:52,910 You know, the type of news that filters home that that's not true. 244 00:26:52,910 --> 00:27:00,620 And she talks about wounds inflicted. And there is a dark kind of appreciation of the slaughter that she's describing. 245 00:27:00,620 --> 00:27:05,840 She talks about memos full of holes and it's unsettling. 246 00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:11,510 And I think the verb used that full of holes, doesn't it? Is there a passive verb meaning to penetrate? 247 00:27:11,510 --> 00:27:19,670 So what she means is sort of fully penetrated, which obviously suggests a kind of female sexual transgression in reversing the 248 00:27:19,670 --> 00:27:25,310 kind of normal narrative of what happens in heterosexual sexual intercourse. 249 00:27:25,310 --> 00:27:31,340 No, certainly. I mean, as a woman in a heterosexual relationship in Greece, you would always be the passive. 250 00:27:31,340 --> 00:27:37,080 We can see that from the male, female or male relationships because the man penetrating has to be older. 251 00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:43,010 Otherwise, to be penetrated by younger men would be disgraceful. As a woman, you always penetrated. 252 00:27:43,010 --> 00:27:49,010 That is your role. She's talking about penetrating. I suppose it ties into the claims of kingship as well. 253 00:27:49,010 --> 00:27:54,200 Penetration and power very, very closely, very closely intertwined. 254 00:27:54,200 --> 00:28:03,560 So far. To talk about it isn't necessarily weirdly sexual, but it is pointing to a version of the normal scheme of things. 255 00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:11,030 I suppose it's worth highlighting. She's but she's also talking about messages that are ambivalent that could be true or could not be true. 256 00:28:11,030 --> 00:28:17,540 And perhaps what this means in terms of her role as the font of communication in this play and the 257 00:28:17,540 --> 00:28:23,510 way the female roles interception naturally do or don't cohere in the great classical tradition. 258 00:28:23,510 --> 00:28:31,550 And really, perhaps you could speak a bit more about that. Yeah, see, there's two ways in which I interpreted that. 259 00:28:31,550 --> 00:28:34,910 And the first one, which is just Nasreddin immediately, 260 00:28:34,910 --> 00:28:43,340 is that women are traditionally associated with deception and that's often interpreted as them. 261 00:28:43,340 --> 00:28:51,080 I guess maybe the male suspicion of what they're doing when they're indoors, where they're meant to be potentially weaving, 262 00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:55,550 say weaving becomes one of the images that's associated with women and with men is deception. 263 00:28:55,550 --> 00:29:04,730 You get some words of weaving while sort of spinning together on complex contrivances. 264 00:29:04,730 --> 00:29:07,670 And that's particularly interesting because in the play, 265 00:29:07,670 --> 00:29:16,280 the way one of the symbolic ways in which quite a Nestor overcomes a moment as she she convinced him to step on some and tapestries. 266 00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:20,750 And then, of course, she also traps him in some nets before she kills him. 267 00:29:20,750 --> 00:29:24,710 And that's come up several times throughout the play, 268 00:29:24,710 --> 00:29:32,460 both based in relation to what she's done in the course of Faten, that nets are also full of holes and the holidays. 269 00:29:32,460 --> 00:29:37,700 Yeah, I think she actually says that when she's describing how she she sort of imagined that 270 00:29:37,700 --> 00:29:41,090 her husband would have been full of holes and she describes as as full of holes, as a gnat. 271 00:29:41,090 --> 00:29:52,070 So they they do keep coming up. And that's probably connected to her her gender role as a deceitful female of that second way in which I 272 00:29:52,070 --> 00:30:00,440 think it's also interesting as a sort of ongoing theme of words and stories and can we can we trust stories? 273 00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:10,460 Are stories real? So, of course, her words are not real when she she tells them that she is crying herself to sleep, would be able to sleep. 274 00:30:10,460 --> 00:30:13,910 She's a beautiful wife. He's welcoming her husband. Hey. 275 00:30:13,910 --> 00:30:20,960 But you also have the messenger who does tell broadly the truth. 276 00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:26,090 But he also says, I'm not going to tell you about how bad the war was because that's not what will bring you pleasure. 277 00:30:26,090 --> 00:30:30,690 That's not what you will what you want to hear this time. And is watching a tragedy. 278 00:30:30,690 --> 00:30:36,710 Perhaps we're thinking precisely what has been fabricated, woven together to give us pleasure. 279 00:30:36,710 --> 00:30:40,610 Maybe it brings us pleasure through pity and fear. 280 00:30:40,610 --> 00:30:46,160 But the overwhelming reason to be watching the tragedy is for is for pleasure. 281 00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:56,360 And then a positive given that presented the number of people presenting words in very careful ways to persuade the contextual actors, 282 00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,690 along with the link that that gives the link between weaving a narrative. 283 00:30:59,690 --> 00:31:05,960 I mean, modestly speaking, we don't think of painted art on its own of necessarily having a narrative. 284 00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:10,700 It often seems like a freeze frame perhaps, or the picture you might be able to include, say, 285 00:31:10,700 --> 00:31:16,880 on on a tapestry or a quilt might not seem as if it can tell a linear story necessarily. 286 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:23,240 Do you think that's the case in painted narratives of the ancient world, or is there more of a theme atomisation? 287 00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:30,560 I mean, it's complicated because a lot of the live pictures of Agamemnon being killed on vases, 288 00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:38,210 vases around you can create more of a temporal quality of them, I suppose, in that it takes time for the art to travel. 289 00:31:38,210 --> 00:31:44,120 Exactly. Well, and also like the phrase around a temple. Yeah, you literally have to follow it around. 290 00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:51,080 And then sometimes the freeze will depict a procession and a procession is sequential. 291 00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:52,810 Serenata, you have to follow. 292 00:31:52,810 --> 00:32:03,780 So the way where the Greeks have that art means that they had they have more opportunity to to present temporal narrative. 293 00:32:03,780 --> 00:32:08,110 But you have both temporal narrative, but you also have a kind of a temple. 294 00:32:08,110 --> 00:32:12,470 That's the way to put it. But you have multiple instances happening within one image. 295 00:32:12,470 --> 00:32:17,780 You can catch essentially the whole story in one go. Yeah. So I'm just thinking of examples. 296 00:32:17,780 --> 00:32:25,220 Temple Pediments, I think it's Artemis bottles of coffee where you have the slaying of the Gorgon, 297 00:32:25,220 --> 00:32:27,710 but you also have the horse that leapt out of the Pegasus. 298 00:32:27,710 --> 00:32:32,990 He leapt out of the Gorgons head and that the child that leapt out of her head, that while the head is still on. 299 00:32:32,990 --> 00:32:37,100 So you have kind of multiple temporal moments in the story. 300 00:32:37,100 --> 00:32:39,930 So I suppose that sort of narrative by context, isn't it, 301 00:32:39,930 --> 00:32:44,420 in that you can't really you can't actually show all of the events in sequence that happened. 302 00:32:44,420 --> 00:32:50,150 So you just show a lot of events together, I suppose, so that people can select it from a tradition that they're familiar with. 303 00:32:50,150 --> 00:32:57,830 Yeah, and I think that's that could easily be a criminal tragedy because traditionally they they happened in one day. 304 00:32:57,830 --> 00:33:03,320 You mean the events of the play take place one day or so in the Agamemnon, 305 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:13,280 you have the sun coming up at the end of the start and frequent mentions of the stage of the day throughout. 306 00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:17,540 Yeah, there's certainly a way in which kind of a snapshot is why this is a trilogy. 307 00:33:17,540 --> 00:33:23,100 So interesting what days was was chosen by. 308 00:33:23,100 --> 00:33:26,630 Interesting, interesting to days where a lot of them suffer. 309 00:33:26,630 --> 00:33:30,270 Yeah, and I suppose that's also we can. 310 00:33:30,270 --> 00:33:39,360 Assume an element of familiarity with various mythological narratives in the audience, and so this isn't their first introduction to the story, 311 00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:48,840 not like we've discussed before, it's there in The Odyssey if they're in it, and they'd be familiar with its own values. 312 00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:58,510 It's a very popular myth. So do you sympathise with Clytemnestra? 313 00:33:58,510 --> 00:34:06,200 It's a difficult question because the trope of of wife killing husband is so. 314 00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:14,480 Many times referenced and in my sort of research, rather than reading the Agamemnon or any of the associated plays, 315 00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,920 I, I looked up Black Widows, which is a wife who kills a husband. 316 00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:25,580 I found this really interesting case that that created an entire media circus about a 317 00:34:25,580 --> 00:34:30,980 woman who killed both of her husbands and then tried to frame her daughter for it. 318 00:34:30,980 --> 00:34:36,740 And I know we've not talked much about Electra, but it seems like a similar case of someone. 319 00:34:36,740 --> 00:34:42,500 You saw the daughter's relationship with the father. Yes. With lethal consequences. 320 00:34:42,500 --> 00:34:47,930 And it's come back up again. This all happened in 2007, but this woman died in prison over the summer. 321 00:34:47,930 --> 00:34:56,240 And again, it's been brought up and people have some refreshed interest in this kind of crime. 322 00:34:56,240 --> 00:35:06,650 So do we sympathise with quite Envestra? We're seeing it through the lens of a lot of baggage, a biblical pop culture. 323 00:35:06,650 --> 00:35:12,030 Women killing their husbands is as taboo now as it was then, but with many different connotations. 324 00:35:12,030 --> 00:35:15,170 So do I sympathise with her? 325 00:35:15,170 --> 00:35:28,050 Yes, because I think if I strip away that kind of internalised misogyny, fear of of these kind of Black Widow devious types, then. 326 00:35:28,050 --> 00:35:34,530 What I see is a mother who was ruined by the death of her daughter at the hands of her husband, 327 00:35:34,530 --> 00:35:41,200 and we talked about whether she's a good mother or not. How can you be a good mother when you let your husband kill your daughter? 328 00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:47,490 And I'm not saying that in a pejorative way. What I mean is how do you continue to mother after that? 329 00:35:47,490 --> 00:35:49,630 How can you. 330 00:35:49,630 --> 00:35:59,860 Take on the role of a good mother when your husband has killed your child and that has been sanctioned and when she left him, she says, well, 331 00:35:59,860 --> 00:36:07,480 I'm not crying with joy because you're back, because when my tears were exhausted, she's wanting to imply the exhausted over worry for him. 332 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:13,870 And whereas actually, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that she has been crying for 10 years, but not for him. 333 00:36:13,870 --> 00:36:18,550 So, yes, I do have sympathy for folks like Mr. Wow. 334 00:36:18,550 --> 00:36:24,190 I mean, I suppose just to confirm the gendered element of these Black Widow figures, 335 00:36:24,190 --> 00:36:28,630 I mean, the O.J. Simpson trial is the obvious other place to look at spouse killings, 336 00:36:28,630 --> 00:36:33,220 which I mean, a recent documentary made it very, very clear that it's likely that he did it. 337 00:36:33,220 --> 00:36:37,490 Obviously, I shouldn't speculate, given that theoretically justice has been served. 338 00:36:37,490 --> 00:36:44,890 He absolutely did it. He certainly beat women and it takes a misplaced blow to beat him to death. 339 00:36:44,890 --> 00:36:49,240 So he as good as did it if he didn't do it. 340 00:36:49,240 --> 00:36:56,530 I think one of the most uncomfortable things that makes us can confront is abuse for typical 341 00:36:56,530 --> 00:37:04,900 behaviour for genders and the way that acting typically constitutes being a frightening person. 342 00:37:04,900 --> 00:37:13,810 Do you think maybe you comment on that to an ancient audience, particularly in each audience, probably mostly composed of men. 343 00:37:13,810 --> 00:37:21,850 They would hate to see a woman taking charge, speaking out, speaking her mind at her exultation speech at the end, 344 00:37:21,850 --> 00:37:33,320 when she describes the of joy with which she kills her husband combined with her killing of her husband would have been particularly terrifying. 345 00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:41,100 So do you have sympathy for Mr. I was just reflecting on this because. 346 00:37:41,100 --> 00:37:45,330 I think I I sympathise with some of her motives. 347 00:37:45,330 --> 00:37:54,030 So the fact that she she has obviously experienced this sorrow over Iphigenia, her daughter. 348 00:37:54,030 --> 00:37:59,750 But I think I think I don't feel much sympathy for her characterisation in that play. 349 00:37:59,750 --> 00:38:08,190 I don't feel that there's much emphasis on her sorrow on the story of Iphigenia within the plane. 350 00:38:08,190 --> 00:38:16,410 I think my sympathy comes to have much more in other places. For example, in a fictional are less, which is later played by different parties, 351 00:38:16,410 --> 00:38:21,090 essentially about that moment where Agamemnon decides to kill off it or not. 352 00:38:21,090 --> 00:38:24,000 And I think in that world where you, Rapides, 353 00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:33,270 is exploring the trauma that Agamemnon feels in making that decision and then the impact that has on Clytemnestra and on and on his daughter, 354 00:38:33,270 --> 00:38:38,460 I feel my sympathy comes to through much more forthright in that he was in the agamemnon's. 355 00:38:38,460 --> 00:38:44,130 She is incredibly powerful, dominant, exultant. 356 00:38:44,130 --> 00:38:49,950 In the moment of the killing, she sort of drenched in blood and pleased with that. 357 00:38:49,950 --> 00:38:56,130 So do you think the fact that you feel more sympathy from Euripides Clytemnestra figure says anything about the 358 00:38:56,130 --> 00:39:01,170 traditional roles we give to those two traditions and one perhaps being a little more progressive than the other? 359 00:39:01,170 --> 00:39:12,330 I wouldn't put it like that. So I think my sympathy in in Chinatown is because he is focussing on a very different 360 00:39:12,330 --> 00:39:16,500 moment in the story and he's chosen to kind of unpack a lot of different emotions. 361 00:39:16,500 --> 00:39:21,330 I also have sympathy that Agamemnon and and I have sympathy for all of them. 362 00:39:21,330 --> 00:39:27,240 Essentially, the reason that I feel different is because it's looking at a different set, 363 00:39:27,240 --> 00:39:33,180 a different drama and a different moment, a different set of alternatives. 364 00:39:33,180 --> 00:39:37,770 I would actually disagree with the view that Aeschylus was not innovative. 365 00:39:37,770 --> 00:39:40,980 He's credited with introducing the second actor. What does that mean? 366 00:39:40,980 --> 00:39:45,390 There are only two actors on stage all the course also on stage. They're not called actors. 367 00:39:45,390 --> 00:39:51,850 They're called the chorus. You also might have had a number of voices passed. And that might be what's particularly exciting about the work. 368 00:39:51,850 --> 00:40:01,110 Sandra, for example, because in the we have three actors. We have Sandra on stage at the same time as Clytemnestra and at the same time as Agamemnon. 369 00:40:01,110 --> 00:40:07,170 And potentially for a lot of the audience, it's hard to know. We have to speculate, experienced a lot of plays, but potentially for the audience, 370 00:40:07,170 --> 00:40:11,760 that would have been a totally astounding moment where Cassandra actually speaks up and gives a prophecy 371 00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:19,080 because they may well have thought she was another voiceless actor who was tended to only use to. 372 00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:24,150 So would the same actors rotate parts then if there was more than two characters in the play? 373 00:40:24,150 --> 00:40:32,640 Yeah, exactly. So you can sometimes reconstruct who would have played who because you can study who must be on stage at a particular time. 374 00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:36,690 Someone exists probably because they're going to change their Massachusett costume. 375 00:40:36,690 --> 00:40:42,600 That's just one example of how this plays the whole our star is incredibly innovative. 376 00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:47,700 We only have seven, maybe six plays that we can do by oestrus. 377 00:40:47,700 --> 00:40:54,870 And so the three of them to be incredibly innovative, I think is actually very striking. 378 00:40:54,870 --> 00:40:57,840 You also have a very unusual chorus in the humanities, 379 00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:05,730 say the course are actually kind of actively driving the drama there, of course, of fairies chasing Orestis. 380 00:41:05,730 --> 00:41:10,440 We've already talked about the very fact that he's chosen to look at the mess from a different perspective. 381 00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:16,530 So he's taken the identity of quite a master who was involved to a certain extent in 382 00:41:16,530 --> 00:41:20,880 killing Agamemnon and given her potentially a much larger role than she'd had before. 383 00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:25,590 The course in the Agamemnon appeared to spend most of the time actually giving back stories. 384 00:41:25,590 --> 00:41:30,030 Do you do you think that's the case or would you say that instead of actually driving force in this play, 385 00:41:30,030 --> 00:41:34,130 they do something almost like an artwork at moments that kind of as you know, 386 00:41:34,130 --> 00:41:41,270 we were talking about how you kind of get this explosion of different talking points and art and they also reflect on what's happened. 387 00:41:41,270 --> 00:41:45,180 They reflect what's going to happen. They took the prophecy, things that were going to happen in the past. 388 00:41:45,180 --> 00:41:51,330 They kind of bring a lot of moments together in that it's that I suppose you do have 389 00:41:51,330 --> 00:41:56,280 to two particularly interesting moments where they take a more of an active role. 390 00:41:56,280 --> 00:42:03,240 And one is when they debate whether to sort of burst in and prevent cartoonists from killing Agamemnon. 391 00:42:03,240 --> 00:42:07,650 That, I think, is that there is a lot of debate over whether they would have said all the lines or 392 00:42:07,650 --> 00:42:10,890 whether the course would have actually split into a number of voices at that point, 393 00:42:10,890 --> 00:42:20,610 because the script seems to suggest there's different views coming through in the chorus that later will see when it comes out. 394 00:42:20,610 --> 00:42:26,280 And I guess this is come out the core seem to be trying to assert some authority. 395 00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:37,590 And although they in the end do seem to succeed in in in asserting any authority and it appears cowed by this, 396 00:42:37,590 --> 00:42:42,970 they do seem to be trying to push back against the leftist. It's quite interesting. 397 00:42:42,970 --> 00:42:46,840 One thing that interests me about the course in this play is that they seem to be just old men, 398 00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:53,050 which provides quite a strong foil for a character like height. Well, all the young men are dead. 399 00:42:53,050 --> 00:42:57,370 Well, it is a necessity. At some point they address themselves. 400 00:42:57,370 --> 00:43:04,690 We say, well, our bodies were too weak to go to war, but with the power of song that defies age will be your chorus today. 401 00:43:04,690 --> 00:43:13,240 And again, I think this feeds into the themes of war and lost and lost generations and papering over the gap that should 402 00:43:13,240 --> 00:43:19,060 be filled by the most productive and vital members of society because because they've been lost in war. 403 00:43:19,060 --> 00:43:30,280 And although war was a Greek reality, I don't think they ever stop reflecting on on the heavy burden that it leaves behind the people at home. 404 00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:40,900 So what does that say about Jesus, that he's still there? He is presented as a sort of emasculated, maybe better effeminate character. 405 00:43:40,900 --> 00:43:43,990 I know he comes on at the end and sort of claims that he's masterminded the whole thing. 406 00:43:43,990 --> 00:43:50,080 He does seem to take kind of tyrannical control, essentially, of the Congress and of state. 407 00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,980 But he does come across in the myth as a sort of effeminate character, 408 00:43:53,980 --> 00:43:58,960 which would fit with the idea that he'd maintain knock on to fight and still in the play. 409 00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:03,670 It's not as if he earns the right to say to claim that tyranny. 410 00:44:03,670 --> 00:44:07,540 He doesn't come across as forceful. He doesn't come up earlier in the book. 411 00:44:07,540 --> 00:44:07,810 I mean, 412 00:44:07,810 --> 00:44:18,280 the subject of his citizenship is disputed because he I think he had to leave after what happened to his father and brothers and was raised elsewhere. 413 00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:26,270 So whether or not he would have been part of a draught if he had a clear allegiance to any particular country that he would fight is difficult. 414 00:44:26,270 --> 00:44:29,830 He seems to be like sort of one of the men left behind by not having a clear 415 00:44:29,830 --> 00:44:35,650 identity because his role as ominous as its less of a of deep seated reason. 416 00:44:35,650 --> 00:44:42,940 That is interesting as well, because they have they have often been seen to be kind of intermediaries, 417 00:44:42,940 --> 00:44:48,910 to be somewhere kind of between actors and audience to to view events themselves. 418 00:44:48,910 --> 00:44:56,530 But then they participate in the events. They see things that part of this kind of alternate Lyrica performative tradition. 419 00:44:56,530 --> 00:45:03,790 But then they're also saying sometimes they stand up and they actually participate in the drama as well and say to them, to the old man, 420 00:45:03,790 --> 00:45:14,440 that's been a pattern of old man women, just kind of marginal characters that come up as the chorus and the plays and the passions as well. 421 00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:19,540 They are the old man again, that the old men have been left behind, the ones that didn't go to war, 422 00:45:19,540 --> 00:45:25,570 that you get in the same way of women on a woman on stage and a lot of old men in the chorus and say you have 423 00:45:25,570 --> 00:45:33,070 a lot of kind of interesting other characters presented before an audience of probably a lot of young men, 424 00:45:33,070 --> 00:45:35,125 a lot of glorious.