Clytemnestra - A Short Story

When we arrived on the shores of Aulis, Iphigenia refused to let go of my hand. Despite her excitement for her marriage, and my hesitance, she was still a child. I would not let go of her hand. We exited the ship, slaves and soldiers bowing before us. I wish Agamemnon would free them. Those poor women. I held hope that my daughter would never become like them. 

Iphigenia was set to marry Achilles, the finest soldier in all of Greece. He was impenetrable, with hair gold as the sun and a fiery will that could kill any Trojan. I was told that he would be a fine husband because he was a fine soldier. A soldier doesn't make a good husband. My husband wasn't a good one. Iphigenia deserved better than that. 

That was what I feared. Iphigenia was merely a child, a young girl that was not ready for what those men, the dogs of war, had to give her. Rather, what they wanted to take from her. I truly didn’t want her to get married, but Agamemnon forced my hand.  

I was also concerned with my husband’s offending of Artemis. When he killed her most prized stag, she ripped the winds from Aulis and prevented them from sailing to Troy. He himself did not reveal it to me, but his gossiping slaves revealed it on our way to Aulis. They would surely be punished by him. I wish he wouldn’t keep secrets from me. Before the war, he dared not to keep a secret from his queen. Now, I was lucky to even hear news through gossip. 

When we arrived at the base of the army, there was an altar prepared, and soldiers gathered around. A weepy Patroclus stood behind Achilles, who nervously made his way to my daughter. He offered her his hand, the hand that was shakily in mine. Iphigenia removed her hand and turned to me with an innocent smile. The same smile she offered me when she would attend her classes, head off to ride her horse, play with her sisters, and greet her father. It was a smile I burned in my mind. 

Achilles led her to the altar, his smile drooping with sadness. I was led to stand beside my husband. When I took his hand, I immediately missed the softness of my daughter’s. His hands were rough, scarred and callused with war and age. I refused to let it go, however. I offered a tight squeeze, letting him know that I still loved him. I missed him. How I missed him. I wished that Orestes, Chrysothemis, and Electra could have been there to witness their beautiful sister’s joyous day. 

As the ceremony started, Agamemnon turned away, shielding his eyes from the sight. I joined him in his tears, merely weeping at my daughter suddenly growing up and out of our home. He ripped himself away from my hand, shuffling away from the ceremony and falling to his knees against the sands of Aulis. I thought it was dramatic. 

When the blood spilled, I remember nothing but a scream escaping me. I attempted to move towards Achilles, ready to claw his eyes out for his part in this plot of her death. But I failed to realize that a scream had escaped him too. Blood on his tunic, in his messy golden hair. He shook with fear, his knees wobbling as the screams of Agamemnon echoed behind us. 

I wept like a child, weakly fighting against the soldiers as they restrained me from reaching my poor daughter. Blood spilled from her now-white neck, ruining her new white chiton. She was frail, cold, and worse, lifeless. I screamed at the sky, angry at the gods for ripping her from us. My poor girl, my greatest labor. I shook my head, refusing it to be true. Surely Agamemnon could not have sacrificed his daughter, his beloved daughter, for a war. He could not have possibly cared more for the war than his own daughter. And Artemis could not possibly reward him for this. 

A gentle breeze grazed my skin, my black curls sweeping across my lips and into my eyes. The cheers of the soldiers drowned out my screams of horror.