Comparing The Persians And Agamemnon By Aeschylus
In Aeschylus' tragedies The Persians and Agamemnon, the interactions between messengers sent forward by the army and the queens ruling the land in their king's absence play a vital role in the plot structure of the 'return of the king'. The 'return of the king' revolves around a chorus, anxiously hypothesizing about what could have possibly happened to their king, a queen awaiting her son or husband's return, a messenger announcing both the king's arrival and the outcome of the king's conquests, and finally the king's return to his palace. It is up to the playwright's discretion regarding how to use these elements and in these two tragedies, the elements are employed in drastically different ways. Atossa eagerly awaits her son's return from
…show more content…
To her credit, she never explicitly asks the fate of Xerxes, rather she asks the fate of "the captains" (296) but the messenger knows what Atossa is really after: news of her son. The messenger immediately says after Atossa's probing: "Xerxes himself lives to behold the light" (299). Hearing this, Atossa cries out:
O for my palace you spoke a greater light, and after blackest night a whiter day! (300-301).
Atossa does not care for the entire army, no matter how she may phrase her initial questions. Just the news that her son is alive is enough to make her "blackest day" exponentially better (301). She does not know whether her son has been driven mentally insane, maimed, or captured. She just knows he is alive and that is enough to make her rejoice. Even after the messenger tells her in no uncertain terms that it was her egotistical son's fault the Persians fell in Greece, Atossa cannot does not put any of the blame on her son for the failure of the Persians. This reinforces the fact that her vision of reality is completely distorted and she therefore is a horrible ruler. The messenger clearly tells Atossa that Xerxes sent men to kill "any shipwrecked enemies" (451) on the island of Salamis and there his men were ambushed. Upon hearing this, Xerxes ripped his robes and poured out piercing
To her credit, she never explicitly asks the fate of Xerxes, rather she asks the fate of "the captains" (296) but the messenger knows what Atossa is really after: news of her son. The messenger immediately says after Atossa's probing: "Xerxes himself lives to behold the light" (299). Hearing this, Atossa cries out:
O for my palace you spoke a greater light, and after blackest night a whiter day! (300-301).
Atossa does not care for the entire army, no matter how she may phrase her initial questions. Just the news that her son is alive is enough to make her "blackest day" exponentially better (301). She does not know whether her son has been driven mentally insane, maimed, or captured. She just knows he is alive and that is enough to make her rejoice. Even after the messenger tells her in no uncertain terms that it was her egotistical son's fault the Persians fell in Greece, Atossa cannot does not put any of the blame on her son for the failure of the Persians. This reinforces the fact that her vision of reality is completely distorted and she therefore is a horrible ruler. The messenger clearly tells Atossa that Xerxes sent men to kill "any shipwrecked enemies" (451) on the island of Salamis and there his men were ambushed. Upon hearing this, Xerxes ripped his robes and poured out piercing