Agamemnon, Odysseus, Idomeneus.
And Diomedes, his hand on Iphigenia’s bright hair, dragging her backward, away from Achilles and Calchas, toward the sacrificial stone. Her robes are covered with dust, her hands scratching, clawing at Diomedes, trying to free herself.
“Father!” she is shouting. “Father, please!”
Clytemnestra moves forward, as fast as a lion. Some men back away, and others come at her, trying to stop her. She cuts them down, one after another. Their bodies wriggle like insects on the ground, useless.
She is almost at the altar stone when Odysseus and Agamemnon turn. They see her. Her husband’s knife is flashing in the sun, its gems catching the white light. Odysseus shakes his head.
Clytemnestra jumps forward to cut their treacherous throats, but someone takes her by the hair and pulls her backward. She hits the ground. She tries to anchor herself with her hands, but her fingers break.
“Iphigenia!” she calls, and for a moment, her daughter stops crying and thrashing and turns to her. Their eyes lock.
Then Clytemnestra feels a knee in her back, and she knows she is about to be knocked unconscious.
As her daughter disappears and everything goes to black, she wonders, How?
How is someone not killed by such sorrow?
Part IV
My sister Clytemnestra,
They told me you wanted to die, but I didn’t believe it. I almost had the envoys flogged in the megaron when they said it. “My sister would never do such a thing,” I told the fools. “You do not know her.” They told me that you wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t let anyone into your quarters. They said that you wavered between life and death.
If such a thing is true, then you must stop. We grew up thinking we understood death, but we didn’t. We would fight in the gymnasium, hunt with Tyndareus, witness the priestess’s floggings. Often enough, we would be flogged ourselves. We were starved and beaten, scolded and defeated. And yet we always believed that the strongest would never die, or the most cunning. That was a mistake. Our brother was the most cunning man I knew, yet he was killed by another. Tyndareus was strong, stronger than most men. When he fought in the gymnasium, other Spartans cheered him, and I watched, thinking no one could beat him. And yet he died.
You can do nothing about death, and you can do nothing about pain. The gods follow those who have grown too rich, beautiful, and happy, then grind them down. I told the same things to Helen years ago, when we were riding back to Sparta from that cursed town of Aphidnae. After Theseus had taken her, she wanted to die. She told me that the pain and the shame were too much to bear. I told her she had nothing to be ashamed of and that death was inevitable but she wasn’t meant to die then.
So it is with you. Your daughter is gone, but you must go back to life.
There is nothing more powerful than a strong-willed woman. That is what you have always been and must be no matter what others do to you. It is easier for a man to be strong, for we are encouraged to be so. But for a woman to be unbent, unbroken, that is admirable.
Phoebe and Hilaeira send you their love. Castor and Phoebe’s child has grown into a skilled boy, and so has my daughter. She looks like Helen, I think, though she has Hilaeira’s hair. Hermione misses her mother, but I won’t let her hate her, no matter how hard she tries. And now that Menelaus is gone, I will teach her to rule. She might be queen one day.
I know that you will be yourself again when I hear the news that the city of Mycenae is back in the hands of its “single-minded” queen.
Polydeuces
My beloved cousin,
If only you could hear the things the women of Ithaca say when they scrub the clothes by the river, you would shiver. They gather every morning, their arms filled with dirty tunics, and sit on the rocks, washing and talking. Goats climb around them, paying them no heed. Not far from them, little children play, running around with sticks, picking flowers. It would be quite a lovely scene if it weren’t for the things they tell.
They tell of the day the Greek troops sailed for Troy, of the brutal sacrifice of your daughter. Agamemnon and Menelaus, they say, gathered their ships in Aulis to launch the biggest armada to Helen’s rescue. How unkind the Fates can be—to sacrifice a princess for the rescue of a queen? Is one life really worth more than another? And if so, who is the judge of that?
In Aulis, the wind wouldn’t come, so the generals waited for a signal. The men were stranded, the air became unbearable, and the sea was as flat as a silver lid. Then the seer Calchas saw two birds diving from the sky, plunging their claws into a hare and her unborn young. He looked as the eagle kings devoured the hare and said that the army needed a sacrifice to appease Artemis. I haven’t met this Calchas, but he sounds like a monster. I always wonder what seers would do if someone told them to sacrifice their own family—would they abandon all their reverence for the gods?
Then these women say that you were tricked into going to Aulis and that my husband helped to create the plan. They say he lured you into his tent and tied you so you couldn’t fight. That he left you there in the scorching heat and went to help with the sacrifice of an innocent girl. That Iphigenia was gagged, lifted, and carried to the altar by Diomedes, that Odysseus and everyone else looked on as Agamemnon cut her throat.
I do not believe any of this. My husband can be cunning, but he can also be merciful. He sees what needs to be done and always thinks of the best, most efficient way to do it. He surely would have thought of another way rather than sacrifice the general’s daughter. I lie awake at night, thinking about it. It can’t be, I tell myself, that the man I love betrayed my cousin and massacred her daughter. You understand that I have no other choice. I can’t live thinking I have married a man who would do such a thing. What life would that be? A life of truth, I can almost hear you say. But as my mother always told me, in truth, we must suffer. In lies, we can prosper.
The women also say many things about you, things they have heard only the gods know where. They say that you rule Mycenae, that you are growing strong in the palace, that you “maneuver like a man.” I find this last one fascinating—as if women couldn’t maneuver. I know many more maneuvering women than men. I think of myself as one of them. Besides, you were born to be a ruler.
Odysseus once told me the best thing that can happen to a man—or a woman for that matter—is to be talked about. You might as well be dead otherwise; that is what he believes. I am not sure I agree, but I think you would. You never liked anonymity.
I wanted to come and see you, but if I leave this house, Ithaca’s sons will try to take the throne from me. They have already tried. They don’t want just a throne; they want a wife too. I sent them away as gracefully as I could, but they will come back. I will think of something to keep them at bay. I will maneuver them.
I know you. You must be angry and thirsty for vengeance for everyone involved in Iphigenia’s murder. But do not direct your anger at Odysseus. He loves and respects you, and I am sure he did everything he could to prevent such a tragedy. Be angry with your husband, with the bloodthirsty seer. And try to forget. You have other children. Take care of them.
You are always in my mind.
Your cousin Penelope
My dear sister,
As soon as I heard what they did to you, I almost took a ship, twenty of my best swordsmen, and left for Troy to slaughter them myself—that heartless man Father made you marry, the stinking seer, and the traitor Odysseus. I could see myself cutting them down, carving them into joints.