Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra appears in Homer's Odyssey, and several classical plays including Seneca's Agamemnon, Sophocles's Electra, Euripides's Electra and Iphigeneia at Aulis. She is the title figure in a ballet by Martha Graham and is represented by painters such as John Collier and Lord Frederick Leighton. Clytemnestra is most famous, however, for her pivotal role in Aeschylus's dramatic trilogy, the Oresteia, as the murderer of her husband, King Agamemnon.

Daughter of Leda and Tyndareus, King of Sparta, Clytemnestra was also the half sister of Helen, who, unlike Clytemnestra, was immortal because her father Zeus seduced Leda in the form of a swan. Cly-temnestra married King Agamemnon, but legends vary concerning the circumstances. For instance, in Iphigeneia at Aulis, Clytemnestra reveals that she was the wife of Tantalus when ...