Clytemnestra Quotes

Once upon a time there was a wicked witch and her name was Lilith Eve Hagar Jezebel Delilah Pandora Jahi Tamar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called goddess and her name was Kali Fatima Artemis Hera Isis Mary Ishtar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called queen and her name was Bathsheba Vashti Cleopatra Helen Salome Elizabeth Clytemnestra Medea and there was a wicked witch and she was also called witch and her name was Joan Circe Morgan le Fay Tiamat Maria Leonza Medusa and they had this in common: that they were feared, hated, desired, and worshiped.

Kings and heroes drop like flies, but queens outlive them all.

If Clytemnestra's rage was a fire, Helen's was a lamp; warm and thin in the darkness, but burning if you came too close.

I’m saying that it is hard to find a man who is really strong. Strong enough not to desire to be stronger than you.

But maybe this is how broken people keep living. They find someone as broken, fit them into the empty spaces of their hearts and, together, grow into something different.

AGAMEMNON: Oh immovable law of heaven! Oh my anguish, my relentless fate! CLYTEMNESTRA: Yours? Mine. Hers. No relenting for any of us.

Listen to me," Clytemnestra says. "Gods do not care about us. They have other concerns. That is why you should never live in the shadow of their anger. It is men you must fear. It is men who will be angry with you if you rise too high, if you are loved too much. The stronger you are, the more they will try to take you down.

It is unwise to let a man who isn't king sit on a throne for too long.

As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her better. Let her be hated forever.

Human lives are based on pain. But to have a few moments of happiness, lightning tearing the darkness of the sky, that is worth it.

CLYTEMNESTRA What ails thee, raising this ado for us? SLAVE I say the dead are come to slay the living.

Kings are often arrogant men.' Clytemnestra said. 'It is what reminds the rest of us that they are kings.

There is no peace for a woman with ambition

You can’t have justice and everyone’s approval

Is this what happens when one falls in love and marries? Clytemnestra wonders. Is this what a woman gives up? All her life, she has been taught courage, strength, resilience, but must those qualities be kept at bay with a husband?

Because she—you hear her—she's calling, and is always going to call, and it's better both of us die by the dagger without anyone seeing us, Orestes, and die a fit death.

Men who find solace only in other men are to be distrusted.

She will bow to no one. Her destiny will be what she wants it to be.

She knows that, in moments of pain, some words are spoken with a harshness that is not truly meant. But, even so, words can grow roots inside one’s heart. You can bury them, hoping they will wither and die, but roots keep finding something to latch on to.

You patronize me like some little woman with no mind to call her own. I speak with heart devoid of fear to those with wit to understand, and you can praise me or condemn me as you like, it's all the same to me.

But have you ever heard of a man who stumbles upon a naked goddess and just walks away?

Every day you try to forget, but at night, you dream of the past. This is what dreams are for. To make us remember what we were, to tie us down to our memories, whether we like it or not.

You were born free and you will always be free, no matter what others tell you. But you must see what it is around you and learn to bend it to your will before you are the one who is bent.

We are taught that marriage is the end of fun and childhood, but it is just the same. Nothing changes much in your life." "How do you know?" "I am sure of it. It is one of those things men say to make you feel responsible, while they can be children forever.

Clotilde, Miss Marple thought, was certainly no Ophelia, but she would have made a magnificent Clytemnestra---she could have stabbed a husband in his bath with exultation. But since she had never had a husband, that solution wouldn’t do. Miss Marple could not see her murdering anyone else but a husband---and there had been no Agamemnon in this house.

Three daughters of Sparta became three queens in Greece, and I love them, power in their voices and fire in their eyes, even Penelope, even the one who smiles and says she does it for her husband, I love her, I love her. But no one ever said the gods did not have favourites, and it is Clytemnestra I love best, my queen above all, the one who would be free.

But maybe this is how broken people keep living. They find someone as broken, fit him into the empty spaces of their hearts, and together grow something different.

A woman can’t afford to close her eyes for long.

It seems that Clytemnestra seals her own fate when she values her daughter’s life equally to the life of a king.

One who risks nothing is nothing,’ Clytemnestra recited. It was something her father often said.

Clytemnestra dances for herself; Helen dances for others.

There was such hatred in Clytemnestra's eyes, which never left his face - it was an intoxicant unlike any the tyrant had seen before. "I'll have that.' He thought. ''I'll break that.

Maybe those men wouldn't have done anything to Artemis.' Clytemnestra says. 'Maybe they just wanted to see her body. But have you ever heard of a man who stumbles upon a naked goddess and just walks away?

CLYTEMNESTRA. Nay, peace, O best-belovèd! Peace! And let us work no evil more. Surely the reaping of the past is a full harvest, and not good, And wounds enough are everywhere.—Let us not stain ourselves with blood.

Is this what happens when one falls in love and marries? Clytemnestra wonders. Is this what a woman gives up? All her life, she has been taught courage, strength, resilience, but must those qualities be kept at bay with a husband?

She loved only her lover and Iphigenia in the narrowness of her cold breast.

But vengeance works best when it’s aided by patience.

That is how easy loyalty is for some. They are satisfied with crumbs.

Sometimes you have to make life difficult for others before they make it impossible for you.

Young men often lie with their companions' he says. 'Why shouldn't women do the same?

Lucky women never get past the envy of the gods.

I'm saying that it is hard to find a man who is really strong. Strong enough to not desire to be stronger than you.

But nothing can ever stay the same. You can’t step twice into the same river.

Heroes like him are made of greed and cruelty: they take and take until the world around them is stripped of its beauty.

Our lives are about to change,” he says, “and we should let them.

It is hard to tell if they are frightened or just in awe. What is the difference anyway?

But you don’t get rid of a rat by praying to the gods.

The lion comes home and finds the wolf ready to welcome him.

You can’t have justice and everyone’s approval.

She sees that her mother can be two different people and that the best version appears when her father isn't around.

If Clytemnestra’s rage was a fire, Helen’s was a lamp, warm and thin in the darkness, but burning if you came too close.

Clytemnestra could not with propriety have been portrayed as a frail seduced woman—she must appear with the features of that heroic age, so rich in bloody catastrophes, in which all passions were violent, and men, both in good and evil, surpassed the ordinary standard of later and more degenerated ages. What is more revolting—what proves a deeper degeneracy of human nature, than horrid crimes conceived in the bosom of cowardly effeminacy? If such crimes are to be portrayed by the poet, he must neither seek to palliate them, nor to mitigate our horror and aversion of them.

She is reminded of Castor’s words, when they were little. When the tide recedes and leaves something on the sand, one mustn’t worry. Sooner or later the water will climb again and take it back.

Cassandra did not resist. After the first year of being pulled by the hair into Agamemnon's bed, hand at her throat, tongue wet, she had learned that screaming changed nothing. By the time Clytemnestra killed her, seven years later, Cassandra had given up on speech altogether, knowing no one would believe her, and no one would care. Thus died the prophetess of Troy, plaything of gods and men.

But one thing is certain: those daughters of Leda are a plague on their menfolk. Did Odysseus worry that he would receive a similar welcome here on Ithaca? That I, the devout Penelope, would treat him as Clytemnestra had treated her husband? The idea is preposterous. My name is a byword for patience and loyalty, no matter which bard sings it. But that is my Odysseus. And your Odysseus. Always finding things out the hard way.

Men who find solace only in other men are to be distrusted,” Castor told Clytemnestra and Helen one morning as they were watching Theseus and Pirithous fight in the gymnasium. “They don’t respect anyone else, let alone a woman.

Agamemnon, Calchas, and Odysseus, on the other hand, know that one doesn’t grow powerful thanks to the gods: they take matters into their own hands and fight to have their names written into eternity. It is no wonder they have survived for so long: they are cruel and cunning. Although they are very different from one another, they have something in common—they believe they are special because no one but them sees the horrible things that need to be done. They believe others shy away from the brutal nature of life but that they are clever enough to see and act upon it.

He shakes his head. ‘Your father once told me that our life is nothing more than a fight among those who have the power, those who want it and the people who find themselves in the middle – casualties, sacrifices, call them whatever you want.

A king is always a king, even when far from home, thinks Clytemnestra. What about a queen? What makes a girl a queen? Surely she is a woman who can protect herself and her people, who gives justice to those who deserve it and punishes those who betray her.

Penelope’s face is luminous. “My father used to tease me and say that I would marry some forgotten king on a forgotten island.” Clytemnestra nudges her. “Well, you are.” Penelope laughs. “Who knows about Ithaca? Who will remember Odysseus?” “Probably no one. The clever ones are always forgotten.

Listen to me,” Clytemnestra says. “Gods do not care about us. They have other concerns. That is why you should never live in the shadow of their anger. It is men you must fear. It is men who will be angry with you if you rise too high, if you are too much loved. The stronger you are, the more they will try to take you down.

In the car, my father asked if I agreed with him that there was nothing worse, ethically, than betrayal, and that women were particularly prone to betraying people. Clytemnestra, for example, had betrayed Agamemnon when he had one foot out of the bath, fulfilling the prophecy that Agamemnon would die neither on land nor at sea.

A mother's life is sacred. Even a badly behaved mother's life is sacred—witness my foul cousin Clytemnestra, adulteress, butcher of her husband, tormentor of her children—and nobody said I was a badly behaved mother. But I did not appreciate the barrage of surly monosyllables and resentful glances I was getting from my own son.

She sees that her mother can be two different people and that the best version appears when her father isn't around.

Men who find solace only in other men are to be distrusted.

It is noble to be gentle, to save others from pain. But it is also dangerous. Sometimes you have to make life difficult for others before they make it impossible for you.

Spartan girls never cry, let alone for such a reason.

It hurts her to see that lies come easily to her now. Once it was decency, courage, goodness. But that was another lifetime.

She will fight her own battle when the time comes. And the palace will be her bloody battlefield.

She gazes at Agamemnon and says, “I do not forget.

You will be despised by many, hated by others, and punished. But in the end, you will be free.

Pain passes over his face, but she doesn’t turn away. She likes to see his sorrow because it feels intimate, something he wouldn’t show to anyone else.

A peal of mirth almost escaped me at the notion of shaming the blood-soaked House of Atreus, as if it had even been clean.

know many more maneuvering women than men. I think of myself as one of them. Besides, you were born to be a ruler.

There are no birds singing, no figures moving. It seems as if the land has stopped to rest.

I want to be with someone who is different, someone who makes me look at the world with pleasure, who shows me its wonders and secrets.

Better to be envied than to be no one.

I like to see the world from its edges while you wish to be in the center, taking part in the action.

When she speaks, her voice hisses, like a heated blade quenched in water.

When you are fighting a much stronger animal, intelligence isn’t enough.

Some men want only the things they cannot have.

The more one wants to forget, the more one can’t help but remember.

It is strange: she who is such a light is always seeking someone to show her the way.

…our lives are short and miserable, but sometimes we can be lucky enough to find someone who cures our loneliness.

It sounds unpleasant, like an overripe fruit. She lets it rot in the air until she feels nauseous.

They are such cowards that a single man can unsettle them so.

…that power alone doesn't buy you a kingdom.

It is as if in sleep they are fighting shadows, but at least they are doing it together.

Lucky women never get past the envy of the gods.

Her mother, on the other hand, believes that forests hide the gods’ secrets. Caves to her are shelters, minds that have thought and lived the lives of the creatures they have hosted over time.

(...) well, there's a girl I used to know, and I wasn't sure if I should find her and talk to her or if I should just forget about it. (...) Oh! You must go to her and implore her. You must call her your Terpsichore, your Echo, your Clytemnestra. You must write poems for her, mighty odes - I shall help you write them - and thus - and only thus - shall you win your true love's heart.

He relaxes and his expression shifts back to the usual amusement. ‘Good … Maybe in another life I would have married you,’ he adds carelessly. She watches him but his smile is impenetrable. ‘You wouldn’t have been able to handle me,’ she says. ‘I am too fierce for you.’ He laughs. ‘And your husband?’ ‘He likes the fire. He isn’t afraid to burn.’ She says it lightly, with a smile, but she knows it is true.

Ten years was a long time to bear a grudge, but Clytemnestra never wavered. Her fury neither waxed nor waned, but burned at a constant heat. She could warm her hands on it when the nights were cold, and use it to light her way when the palace was in darkness. She would never forgive Agamemnon for murdering her eldest child, Iphigenia. Nor for the thuggish deceit of his wife and daughter with talk of a wedding.

But know this. I will have my justice. I swear it here and now. I swear it by the Furies and every other goddess who has known vengeance. I will stalk the Atreidai and crush everything they hold dear until only ashes remain.

There is nothing more powerful than a strong-willed woman. That is what you have always been and must be no matter what others do to you. It is easier for a man to be strong, for we are encouraged to be so. But for a woman to be unbent, unbroken, that is admirable.

She should pity them, she knows that, their existence made of orders and suffering, their lives like rafts pushed around by the waves. But it is easy to turn to the weakest when you are racked with pain, to hurt those who can’t defend themselves when you are unable to hurt those who have hurt you.

You are a woman. You cannot understand loyalty to the father.” They were wrong, as always. She understands Justice, the ancient spirit that lives inside each of them, ready to burst forth for every crime. It is a web, each thread stained with the blood of mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. It grows and grows, the Furies always weaving more traps.

I’m talking about women’s matters.” “Women’s--” “And the moon. What I mean is the time each month when--” “I know, I know!” I exclaimed, stopping her before she could say any more. My cheeks burned. “My nurse, Ione, told my sister and me all about that when we were ten years old. Mother repeated all of it right before my sister left Sparta to marry. They both told us that this isn’t something for men to hear.” I nodded at Milo. He looked disappointed. “Men know more about women than you think,” Eunike said. “But since you’re already so knowledgeable, how are you going to manage to hide it when you’re on the road and you--” “I won’t,” I said sharply. “It hasn’t happened to me yet. I don’t know why. My sister, my twin, she’s been a woman for at least two years. I’m still a girl.” I hated recalling how Clytemnestra had lorded it over me when she’d changed and I’d stayed the same. Worse, every month after that she made it a point to ask me whether “it” had happened to me yet, and every month I had to say no. Ione told me not to fret, that every woman walked the same path eventually, that it would come to me before I knew it. I was still waiting. “Hmmm.” The Pythia was silent for a time, then said, “This may be a blessing for you, Helen. It might even be an omen, a sign from the gods to let you know they want you to succeed.” “Do you really think so?” I asked eagerly. About time my monthly humiliation did me some good! I thought.

For a long time, she has known there are two different kinds of war. There are the battles where heroes dance and fight, with their glistening armor and precious swords, and there are those fought between walls, which are made of stabs and whispers. There is nothing dishonorable about that, nothing so different from the field. Either way, it is always what she has been taught in the gymnasium: take down your enemies and make them bleed. After all, what is a field after battle if not a stinking lake of corpses?

-- What a fool I was. "Want To Be a Little Off-Beat?" Here's ten ways, the article said. A lilac door was one. So off I tripped to the nearest hardware store to assert my unique individuality with the same tin of paint as two million other dimwits. Conned into idiocy. My mind is full of trivialities. At lunch Ian said Duncan's piece of cake is miles bigger than mine -- it's not fair, and I roared that they should quit bothering me with trivialities. So when they're at school, do I settle down with the plays of Sophocles? I do not. I think about the color of my front door. That's being unfair to myself. I took that course, Ancient Greek Drama, last winter. Yeh, I took it all right. Young academic generously giving up his Thursday evenings in the cause of adult education. Mrs. MacAindra, I don't think you've got quite the right slant on Clytemnestra. Why not? The king sacrificed their youngest daughter for success in war-- what's the queen supposed to do, shout for joy? That's not quite the point we're discussing, is it? She murdered her husband, Mrs. MacAindra, (Oh God, don't you think I know that? The poor bitch.) Yeh well I guess you must know, Dr. Thorne. Sorry. Oh, that's fine -- I always try to encourage people to express themselves. -- Young twerp. Let somebody try killing one of his daughters. But still, he had his Ph.D. What do I have? Grade Eleven. My own fault....