So Clytemnestra is a byword in the ancient world, and ever since, for a bad wife, the worst wife even. But for wronged, silenced, unvalued daughters, she is something of a hero: a woman who refuses to be quiet when her child is killed, who disdains to accept things and move on, who will not make the best of what she has. She burns like the beacon she waits for at the beginning of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. And if that means men think twice about drinking from a wine cup with her murderous rage depicted upon it, so be it. She would – at least in Aeschylus’ depiction – relish their fear.
