Clytemnestra: Now Tyndareus gave me to your father not so that I or any children I might bear should die. But that man went from the house, taking my child, with the persuasion of a marriage with Achilles, to Aulis which held the fleet; and there he stretched Iphigenia over the pyre, and cut her white cheek. And if, as a cure for the capture of the city, or as a benefit to his house, or to save his other children, he had killed one on behalf of many, I would have pardoned him. But, because Helen was lustful and the one who had her as a wife did not know how to punish the betrayer—for these reasons he destroyed my child. Well, although I was wronged, I would not have been angry at this, nor would I have killed my husband. But he came back to me with a girl, raving and possessed, and put her in his bed, and had two brides at once in the same house.
The quote: Clytemnestra: A woman is a foolish thing, I don’t deny it; but, this granted, whenever a husband goes astray and rejects his own bed, the woman is likely to imitate her husband and find another love. And then in us the blame shines clearly, while the men, who caused this, are not badly spoken of.
Clytemnestra: Now if Menelaus had been secretly snatched from his home, should I have killed Orestes to save Menelaus, my sister’s husband? How would your father have endured this? And so isn’t it right for him to die when he had killed what was mine, since I would have suffered at his hands? I killed him, I turned where indeed it was possible to go—to his enemies. For which one of your father’s friends would have joined me in his murder? Speak, if you want to say anything, and make your retort with frankness, in what way your father died unfairly.
Chorus Leader: Justly spoken, but this justice is shameful.
