Agamemnon- Clytemnestra's claims of faithfulness

The second time Clytemnestra enters the play she seems to be speaking vehemently of her devotion to Agamemnon these years he’s been away at war. She says that people mocked and scorned her saying to her that just because there are lights in the distance it doesn’t mean that Troy has fallen. Women were thought silly to have high hopes. She goes on further in her monologue (page 65) to claim that no one has touched her all these years. Saying “No thought of ease nor joy from other men hath touched my soul, nor shall touch, until bronze be dyed like wool.” I wonder if this is referencing the bronze as the war weapons, and when they might turn useless- as in the end of the war, or if it’s referencing an impossibility (bronze into wool), in which she’s claiming her unfaithfulness would be. The lady doth protest too much, methinks… The Leader in this play has the same hunch because when she leaves he says of her message “Tis of fair seeming, and craves a clear interpreter.” 

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  1. I also found thing part of the story interesting. I was surprised to see that Clytemnestra was taking such as huge role as governor of the people while Agamemnon was gone for war. It seemed as a foreshadow of the ending of the Trojan war. I also was thinking after reading that Agamemnon killed their daughter as scarifies that maybe this was a foreshadow of that event to come.

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