Agamemnon and Clytemnestra (husband and wife, unfaithful)

The marriage of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra serves as the Odyssey's foundational counter-example to the ideal of conjugal fidelity. While Odysseus struggles to return to a faithful Penelope, Agamemnon's homecoming ends in murder at the hands of his own wife and her lover. This story, told and retold by several characters, establishes the stakes of Odysseus's journey and the moral framework within which the suitors' crimes and punishment are judged. It is a narrative of treachery that the poem uses to define, by negative example, what a proper wife and a proper homecoming should be.

The Crime and Its Circumstances

The murder of Agamemnon is not a spontaneous act but a carefully plotted betrayal. As Nestor recounts to Telemachus, Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra was initially resistant to the advances of Aegisthus, who had to resort to elaborate measures to win her over. He isolated her by removing the bard whom Agamemnon had left to guard her, marooning him on a desert island. Only after this did Clytemnestra go willingly to Aegisthus's house. The murder itself, as Agamemnon's ghost describes it to Odysseus in the Underworld, was a grotesque violation of hospitality: Aegisthus invited him to a feast and then butchered him "as though I were a fat beast in a slaughter house," while Clytemnestra killed the Trojan princess Cassandra beside him. Agamemnon's dying attempt to raise his hands against his wife failed as she slipped away, refusing even to close his eyes or mouth.

The Narrative as a Warning

The story of Agamemnon's murder is repeatedly invoked as a direct warning to Odysseus. In the Underworld, Agamemnon's ghost explicitly cautions Odysseus to be wary of his own wife, advising him not to tell her everything and to "steal a march upon them, for after all this there is no trusting women." This warning, however, is immediately qualified by Agamemnon himself, who acknowledges that Penelope is different: "Not that your wife, Ulysses, is likely to murder you, for Penelope is a very admirable woman, and has an excellent nature." The contrast is deliberate and structural. The poem uses Clytemnestra's treachery to heighten the suspense of Odysseus's return and to frame Penelope's fidelity as an extraordinary virtue.

Thematic Significance: Defining Fidelity and Justice

Clytemnestra's crime is presented not merely as a personal failing but as a transgression against the natural order of the household and the laws of hospitality. The ghost of Agamemnon laments that her "abominable crime has brought disgrace on herself and all women who shall come after—even on the good ones." This sweeping condemnation establishes the poem's anxiety about female fidelity. Yet the narrative also provides a model of righteous vengeance in the figure of Orestes, who kills Aegisthus and his mother to avenge his father. Telemachus is repeatedly urged to emulate Orestes, and the parallel between the two young men—both sons of absent fathers, both facing usurpers in their homes—reinforces the poem's central theme that justice, though delayed, will be served. The fate of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus thus functions as a prophecy of the suitors' own doom: those who violate the sanctity of a man's house and marriage will be destroyed.