The Moral Effect Brought About By A Purification Of The Passions
The word “purgation” (Catharsis) seems to imply a pathological effect brought onto the soul, analogous to that of medicine on the body, productive of a condition of emotional balance, and ultimately of the pleasure arising from a state of calm. A tragic theme must be one of human suffering evoking “pity and fear”. Such a one is the Oresteian trilogy of Aeschylus.
Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, King of Troy, and the sister of Paris whose seduction of Helen started the Trojan War. When Troy fell, Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, took Cassandra as a spoil of war and kept her as a slave-mistress.
In Aeschylus Agamemnon, when Agamemnon makes his triumphant entry into his kingdom, Mycenae, in a chariot, Cassandra is at her side. His queen Clytemnestra had already planned to murder him to avenge his sacrificing their innocent daughter Iphigenia. Feigning wifely joy she greets him and he yields to her persuasion to walk on the rich tapestry. Agamemnon then asks that Cassandra be treated kindly as the gods watch to see the conqueror who uses his power with restraint and justice. As Clytemnestra and Agamemnon enter the palace, Cassandra remains outside.
Presently Clytemnestra comes out of the palace and asks Cassandra to come inside and promises to treat her with kindness. But Cassandra does not reply. Finally, Clytemnestra gets angry and goes inside again.
Cassandra bursts forth into wildly prophetic and enigmatic utterances. She recalls the outrageous history of, and the curse on, the House of Atreus, and prophesies the murder of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. She describes Agamemnon as being snared in a “net of death” and being slain by Clytemnestra. But the Chorus cannot comprehend her and can read nothing but madness in Cassandra s ravings. She tells how she obtained her prophetic powers: in return for this gift from Apollo she promised to become his mistress, but as she broke her promise Apollo decreed that no one would believe her prophesies. She soon goes on to predict her murder also by Clytemnestra. She adds that these killings would not go unavenged, that there is one (i.e., Orestes) who is now “an outlaw and wanderer” who was born to slay his mother and to “wreak death for his father s blood”.
As her prophesy ends, she casts out her staff and circlet of flowers, the symbols of a seer. She resigns herself to her fate and goes slowly into the palace. Suddenly from inside the palace there is heard Agamemnon s agonized cry that he has been stabbed once, then twice.
The doors of the palace are thrown open to reveal the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra, with Clytemnestra exulting over them. She declares that she has murdered Agamemnon for killing their daughter Iphigenia and also for keeping Cassandra as his concubine.
Cassandra is a human symbol of Agamemnon s wickedness. He has slain her family, destroyed her home in Troy and violated her in disregard of her sacred oath of chastity. But though ill-fated, Cassandra is a woman of courage and conviction. She is doomed to death, but she goes to her death with stoical fortitude. She impresses us as a tragic character who readily evokes both pity and fear from us.
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