Resumo de Agamemnon

This is the opening play in the Oresteian Trilogy, which deals with life and adventures of Orestes, son of Agamemnon.
The Trojan War has been going on for ten years. It started when Paris, Prince of Troy, betraying the hospitality of Menelaus, King of Sparta, eloped with his wife, the beautiful Helen. Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon, King of Argos, led a host of Greek armies to lay siege to Troy and avenge the injury to Menelaus. For ten long years the Grecian hosts had besieged the walls of Troy, but when the play opens Troy has finally fallen and Menelaus is now avenged, and goes back with Helen. All the greeks, including Agamemnon, are now returning to their homes. However, during these ten years Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's queen, has been living with a lover, Aegisthus, blood enemy of Agamemnon. Now when the watchman rushes down from the roof of the palace to announce the imminent return of the rightful king, Clytemnestra makes plans for his reception. Almost on the heels of the announcement Agamemnon himself arrives with many captives and booty. Clytemnestra greets him with great show of affection, honors him as a conquering king returning home triumphant, and bids him come within to refresh himself from his travels.
Cassandra, the seeress daughter of the Trojan King, is among the captives too. Agamemnon had taken her as his concubine. Scarcely have Clytemnestra and Agamemnon entered the palace when Cassandra falls into a trance and foretells the murder of both Agamemnon and herself by the faithless queen. Then she enters the palace from behind whose closed doors almost at once comes a scream and then a dying moan. Shortly the doors are thrown open to reveal the double murder and Clytemnestra appears to justify her deed before the Argive elders. She reminds them that ten years before Agamemnon had sacrificed her daughter, Iphigenia, to propitiate the gods and gain calm seas for the Grecian fleet. She calls to their attention the fact that he returned home flaunting another woman in her face. Her deed, she claims, is no murder but just retribution.
The people of Argos, however, have always resented Aegisthus as an interloper. Though they would like to punish her themselves, they decide to wait for rightful vengeance, which belongs to Orestes, Agamemnon?s son, who will shortly approach manhood, and become his mother?s judge and executioner.

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