Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Clytemnestra.
The gallery
Clytemnestra
John Collier, 1882
Collier's monumental queen stands just after the deed: bloodied axe in hand, bare feet on the palace threshold, eyes fixed on the viewer as if Agamemnon still lies behind the curtain. The painting freezes Aeschylus's Clytemnestra at the instant revenge becomes fact — not frenzy, but cold resolve. Oil on canvas, Guildhall Art Gallery, London.
Clytemnestra and Agamemnon
Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, 1817
Guérin's Neoclassical night-scene shows Clytemnestra hesitating over the sleeping Agamemnon, dagger raised, while Aegisthus urges her on from the shadows. The canvas catches the Oresteia's moral hinge: the queen who has waited ten years for the returning king, and the blow that will avenge Iphigenia. Oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Clytemnestra from the Battlements of Argos Watches for the Beacon Fires Which Are to Announce the Return of Agamemnon
Frederic Leighton, c. 1874
Leighton paints the watch that opens Aeschylus's Agamemnon: Clytemnestra alone on the Argive walls, waiting for the chain of beacons that will signal Troy's fall and her husband's return. The queen's stillness is already charged with the murder to come. Oil on canvas, Leighton House Museum, London.
The Ghost of Clytemnestra Awakening the Furies
John Downman, 1781
Downman stages the Eumenides' opening: the murdered queen's shade rises to rouse the sleeping Erinyes against her son Orestes. Clytemnestra appears after death as the engine of the Oresteia's final pursuit — blood calling for blood. Oil on panel, Yale Center for British Art.
On screen
Iphigenia
Michalis Cacoyannis
Irene Papas' Clytemnestra is the mother at Aulis who will not forgive: the queen who watches Agamemnon choose the fleet over their daughter.
Electra
Michalis Cacoyannis
Papas returns as the queen who has killed her husband and now faces the children who will kill her — Clytemnestra as the Oresteia's dark centre.
Helen of Troy
John Kent Harrison
The USA Network miniseries keeps Clytemnestra in the Argive house while the war for Helen unfolds — the sister-in-law whose revenge waits at home.
In music & on stage
Iphigénie en Aulide
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Gluck gives Clytemnestra the mother's terror at Aulis — the queen who fights Agamemnon's sacrifice before the fleet can sail for Troy.
Elektra
Richard Strauss
Strauss and Hofmannsthal make Clytemnestra a nightmare of guilt and dreams — the murderess mother whose sleep Elektra will not let rest.