Gladstone's "Justice delayed is justice denied" is a legal maxim; meaning that if legal redress is available for a party that has suffered some injury but is not forthcoming in a timely fashion, it is effectively the same as having no redress at all. Meanwhile, Aeschylus expresses a Greek philosophy in Agamemnon--"The truth still holds while Zeus still holds the throne// The one who acts must suffer" (1563).To be specific, the principle that crime and its consequent punishment or justice is as unshakable as the reign of Zeus––is asserted here. The trilogy of the Oresteia, of which Agamemnon is the first part, centres on the old and everlastingly unsolved problem of "the ancient blinded vengeance and the wrong that amendeth wrong". It first shows the cycle of crime punished by crime which must be re-punished, and then seeks for some gleam of escape, some breaking of the endless chain of "evil duty". According to Aeschylus, there is a new Ruler Zeus in heaven, one who has both sinned and suffered and thereby grown wise. And his gift to mankind is the ability through suffering to learn. In this paper, I would have a comparative study of Gladstone's modern and Aeschylus' ancient attitude to ‘justice' or ‘crime and punishment'--in the context of the latter's attempt "to justify God's ways to men"--regarding a curse in the house of Atreus, leading to a bloody chain of revenge and murder which is finally broken by mercy and forgiveness of Athene for the sake of understanding human life. I would also concentrate on the relation of the Law of Dike with the forces of Fate. Therefore, the term ‘Dike' will be used synonymously with ‘justice' or revenge in this article.

In order to establish my hypothesis, I would begin with a look at the legendary background of the tragedy which is indicated partly by the chorus and Aegisthus, and fully by Cassandra. As the plot unfolds, the Law of Dike appears in the choral Ode. They trace the hand of Zeus in the notable punishment of a sin––the hand of Paris in seducing Helen. Great wrong has been done and for justice, Zeus Xenios, god of hosts and guests, send the Atreidae against Paris; for the wanton Helen. And this plan is decreed by Zeus for the righting of the wrong: "The Kings who launched this expedition are ministers of justice, servants of the will of Zeus". As its natural consequences are foreseen by Zeus, here Dike can be associated with Fate. But Fate confronts man with a choice, and if man chooses wrongly, the sin and responsibility is his. In this way, man is the architect of his own fortune.

The first part of the trilogy suggests that Agamemnon must suffer for his crimes entangled with Trojan expedition. To start with the omen, while they leave Argos, two giant eagles attack and rip apart a pregnant hare, killing her and her unborn young. Symbolically, the eagles are the Atreidae, the ministers of justice; the hare can be nothing but the innocent population of Troy, now threatened with destruction by the expedition of Zeus Xenios and his eagle-kings. The merciful Artemis loathes "the eagles' lawless feast". So she sends adverse winds to present this outrage. At least, she will prevent the expedition unless Agamemnon will pay the price which Artemis demands, assuring that it is a price which a man of courage and sense would refuse to pay.

Then, Calchas tells Agamemnon that it would be necessary for him to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to placate the angry goddess. Agamemnon and the other chieftains are horrified by this advice. Especially, as a captain Agamemnon is faced by a terrible dilemma, for he has conflicting sacred obligations to his family and his army and whichever decision he makes is bound to be sinful. At the same time, he is a tool of nemesis, and a victim of fate but responsible for it due to his free choice or grave decision. In fact, Agamemnon's folly is that with implicit choice, he never tries to move the ships/fleet to other directions after the prophecy. Rather, "when necessity's yoke was to put upon him", he chooses to ignore his feelings as a father. Iphigenia, an innocent maiden, is slaughtered on the altar. The elders disapprove of his decision, saying that his mind was warped by lust for power and prestige. But certainly, his choice is no easy one and he can only choose between two evil deeds. He can go forward, through blood, or he can take the warning and give up the expedition. But the latter one would have the association with the national crime of ‘desertion'. However, he must take the disastrous consequences of this lawless bloodshed--because of the law of Dike or justice—sooner or later. Now, fate and the family curse have circumscribed his choice.

Another justification of Agamemnon's forthcoming murder is his hubris, or crossing his limit. Clytemnestra expresses the hope that the Greeks have not committed any sacrilege in Troy that would offend the gods. In fact, though the Greek fleet was sent to Troy to punish their abduction of Helen, they must be punished for crushing the Trojan altars and temples, as the herald reports. Again, Clytemnestra's fear about the Greek's impiety can be interpreted as that she really does hope they will offend the gods, so that she would have the divine sanction in killing their leader. In this sense, her claiming to be an instrument of Dike is justified.

Meanwhile, the elders attribute Troy's fall to the wrath of Zeus. He always punishes mortal impiety and pride. And Paris sinned by violating the sacred obligations of a guest. So he is repaid by the law of justice, for the dowry that Helen brought to him and his countrymen was death. It should be mentioned that according to the law, Dike must come to the sinner, that doer must suffer. But the Trojans also have to pay for Paris' sin because they did not agree to return Helen to the Greeks. In the meantime, because of sacrilege, the Greek fleet endures a powerful storm when they depart Troy that batter their fleet and sink many ships. Menelaus' ship is also lost by the operation of the law of Dike or justice.

On the other hand, Agamemnon is guilty in the eyes of his own countrymen. Because of his stubbornness to rescue a wanton woman, many young people of Argos have to join the war and every ship brings back the ashes of many of them. The chorus fears that Agamemnon will be punished for inflicting this burden on his people. Resentment like this amounts to a public curse, indeed. The gods, they say, take note of those who are responsible for bloodshed and punish them. In other words, Clytemnestra avenges on Agamemnon not only for the outrage that he has done on her, but also the wrong that he has done to Greece and Troy, in slaughtering so many of their sons. Moreover, Agamemnon's bringing home Cassandra is the last insult to Clytemnestra, who has been deprived of his love for ten years. In this regard, Cassandra's murdering Agamemnon is justified on the basis of an early philosophy--"all things pay retribution for their injustice one to another according to the ordinance of Time".

Again, before seeing the infliction of Dike upon Agamemnon, it is necessary to have a glance at his inheritance of family curse from Atreus. Atreus, the father of Agamemnon, had quarrelled with his brother Thyestes. As Thyestes had seduced Atreus' wife and plotted against his throne, Atreus banished him. When Thyestes came back under the pretence of a suppliant, his wife was spared by his brother but only that he might undergo a more severe ghastly wound by committing a serious sin. Atreus pretended to celebrate his home-coming, but had Thyestes' two children killed and served them to their father as a dish at a special feast. Thus Thyestes turned into hateful one in the eyes of the citizens. When Thyestes came to learn what had happened, he cursed the whole House of Atreus. By the way, Thyestes' only son Aegisthus survives to avenge the crime which subsequently falls upon Agamemnon. About moral justice, the chorus says it had been prophesised--"The killer will be killed". We can sense a ‘curse' on the house much earlier of the tragedy too when the chorus says–––

"The act of evil

Breads others to follow,

Young sins in its own likeness."

This is obvious reference to the fate of Agamemnon's family whose sufferings pass down from generation to generation. The main point of the ode is that retribution comes to all sinners. Here, the filial obligation which drives Aegisthus to plot vengeance on the son Atreus is exactly the same as that which will lie upon Orestes, which he will fulfil in the subsequent part of Oresteia.

Now comes the hero's sin of hubris or arrogance. When Agamemnon enters the city, Clytemnestra announces that she will give him a triumphal reception. She orders her maidens to spread a luxurious crimson tapestry on the ground for him to walk on. But crimson carpet is a symbol of divinity and suggestive of sin. And such excessive splendour as spreading a tapestry on the ground to walk on is fitting only for the gods. The man who is presumptuous enough to imitate their glory is guilty of irreverence and insolence. Agamemnon also rebukes his wife for it, saying that were he to walk on it, he would display unseemly pride and incur the wrath of the gods:

"Such state becomes the gods

and none beside

I am a mortal, a man; i cannot trample upon

these tinted splendours without fear thrown in my path." (922-24)

But Clytemnestra coaxes him until he steps down onto the tapestry, being puffed up with self-esteem. Thus, with his ‘free choice' Agamemnon defies the divine colour of red by walking on it with his unwashed feet. So, he again becomes subject to the law of Dike for hubris/pride as a tragic flaw. He also does not seem sincere in giving credit to the gods or his human allies for helping him to achieve his great victory against the Trojan. In this occasion, Clytemnestra's aim is to make Agamemnon commit one final sin, for such a disrespectful act will make the gods angry against him and enlist their support for her. Here we come across the justification of God's ways to men. Eventually, Clytemnestra calls on Zeus to answer to her prayers and help her carry out what she plans; i.e. to avenge her blood-relation Iphigenia. We have a minister of justice or Dike in Clytemnestra, appointed by Zeus to avenge a crime in a way that makes his guilt manifest and his punishment certain; while earlier Zeus himself used Agamemnon as agent or tool of Dike or justice against the breakers of his law of guest and host.

From the Greek religious perspective, Agamemnon's yielding is not only a folly; it is a sin. To the Greek, the essence of piety was humility or the conscious acknowledgement that the gods are greater than man and that man's greatness is held by their sufferance. We have found that Agamemnon in his first speech arrogantly allowed Heaven a share in his glory as conqueror. Besides, to walk on purple would symbolize, to the Greek view, Agamemnon's appropriation of the whole glory of victory and becoming a visible defiance of the gods. But from humanistic point of view, I would say that it is nothing but the kingly ambition of his nature which tempts him to make this visible claim before his wife and his subjects.

However, Agamemnon is about to approach an altar to pray, knowing well that he is addressing an offended deity. The chorus, left alone, is now thoroughly aroused to the sense of impending catastrophe. Now the question arises: Can evil not be averted? The answer is: Yes––by one who is ready to pay due respect to the gods. But the king's lack of respect reminds them again that he is already in debt, for the blood of his own daughter. Not only that, by taking Cassandra as his share of the Trojan spoil, Agamemnon has violated what Apollo left untouched. Thereby, Dike in the form of revenge from Apollo is inevitable to the sinner Agamemnon who has snatched away a god's beloved Cassandra from her altar and home.

Now, regarding Dike we hear Cassandra's prophecy. Before that, it is remarkable that by incurring Apollo's wrath, she herself is punished. Further, she is a human symbol of Agamemnon's wickedness––he has stained her family and violated her sacred oath of chastity. As the shedding of blood is irremediable to Dike, Cassandra's presence underlines the reasons why the gods will allow Agamemnon to be murdered. However, in definite prophetic statement, she brings before us the crimes that this house has seen and will see, all of the crimes of the same nature: bloody retribution for an earlier crime. Aeschylus uses this supernaturally gifted person to draw again and again the connection between crime and retribution or justice, linking past, present and future in the house of Atreus. In Barnard M. Knox's view, "Cassandra presents us mysterious vision".

Also, Cassandra's string of prophecies dramatically heightens the sense of imminent disaster that has steadily been built since the very beginning of the play. Some disaster will befall the house and very soon, it is a forgone conclusion. But tragedy grinds on the inexorable, on Fate; and once the machine is in motion, it can be delayed but not stopped. We hear more of the sickly, ill-fated house of Atreus, a favourite among ancient Greek tragedies. Its early history, which Cassandra speaks in one of her prophecies and we have already discussed at the beginning, is appropriately dark and unnatural. And in addition to Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia, these old sins still hang over the house. Therefore, Cassandra foresees no hope for reconciliation or an end to the curse, for she believes that all men inevitably are made to suffer at the hands of the gods. She forecasts Agamemnon's death at the hands of Clytemnestra who is bound to avenge her daughter's blood and Aegisthus who is plotting with Clytemnestra to average his brothers' murder by Agamemnon's father.

Next we come across Aegisthus, who is both a victim by Agamemnon and an agent of Dike against Agamemnon. But on the way to his intrigue against Agamemnon, he commits a sin of adultery with Clytemnestra by breaking the divine relation and law of marriage. Besides, he comes to the palace stealthily, mistreats Orestes into exile and usurps Agamemnon's crown illegally. Therefore, as a sinner, he will suffer in the hand of Orestes who is forced by the law of Dike or nemesis; i.e. to avenge kin's blood. However, when Aegisthus enters, as the most despicable and shameful among the avengers, he enters with the words "bringer of retribution" on his lips: "Now at last I can say that the gods above avenge the suffering of men". In fact, these guilty people are carrying out the designs of the gods, and the Erinyes, the agents of the gods, are working in them.

Regarding the Greek attitude that the "doer (of sin) must suffer"––both Aegisthus and Clytemnestra justify their killing of Agamemnon. Clytemnestra insists that the murder was justified––partly because of the sacrifice of Iphigenia and his infidelity with Cassandra and other women at Troy, but also because she has acted as an agent of the gods and helped to fulfil the curse on the House of Atreus. To Aegisthus, the terrible crime against his family has been avenged. It seems to me that Clytemnestra does not love Aegisthus from heart; rather she has aligned with him only for the demand of vengeance. Thus Aeschylus, through Cassandra and her visions, makes of this building a visible symbol of the agony of humanity, as it waits for light, healing, finality and release from toils, for a Dike or justice that will be bearable. It is made clear to us that to achieve Dike or justice, Zeus avails himself of guilty human passions. The chorus says, "Justice leads all things to the appointed end"; and like the end appointed for Agamemnon is death, they rebuke the killers and declare that when Orestes returns, he will exact vengeance for his father's murder as well. In chorus' words: "This remains while Zeus remains on his throne, that the doer must pay. It is the law".

The statement in title that ‘justice delayed is not justice Agamemnon'––is apparent in this situation. Following the death of Agamemnon, the chorus, as representative of the state or society, finds itself in a state of chaos and disarray or despair. As the throne legally belongs to Orestes who is in a way exiled, they warn that the citizens of Argos will rise up against the sinners. They wonder whether it was necessary and if the gods ordained it. In fact this is as it should be. Clytemnestra has the vain hope that the Dike or revenge now achieved shall be final. But Dike is inexorable: "Neither by burnt offerings nor libations nor tears will you soften the hard hearts of the gods".

Agamemnon ends on a note of hostility and tension. Nothing has been resolved by the murder. The ‘justice' that Aegisthus inflicts on Agamemnon is murder, preceded by the corruption of his wife and followed by the usurpation of his crown and the banishment of his son. The Dike that he exacts from Agamemnon is the same in kind as the Dike that Agamemnon exacted from Paris and Clytemnestra from Agamemnon: it is the punishment of crime by worse crime. It is different only in degree. In fact, the black Erinyes have presided over all those acts of Dike. But as Dike or revenge is achieved only through hubris and in the cruel form of shedding kin's blood, there is no visible end to this chain of violent justice. Nothing else can wash away a bloodstain but more blood, which in turn requires more blood in order to be cleaned. Explication of the crime committed in Agamemnon forms the subject of the next two plays of the Oresteia, where actual justice comes through penance, understanding and mercy. In brief, in Choephori Agamemnon's son Orestes avenges his father by killing his mother and Aegisthus; and finally in Eumenides the bloodthirsty Harpies haunt Orestes until his final absolution by Athena's divine justice or Dike. Here, penance and forgiveness of Orestes comes through his suffering and understanding. Thus, the ‘doer' can get justice in a different way for the advancement of civilization.

To conclude, Dike or justice for the classical Greek civilization is not merely a moral quality; it is natural law. In Agamemnon it is opposed to Gladstone's legal maxim of the modern world. So it is inexorable and if it is delayed for the time being, it does not necessarily mean that it is denied for ever. It must be operated today or tomorrow, in one way or another. Paris has violated the law of guest and host by abducting Menelaus' wife Helen. For that, Agamemnon as Menelaus' brother and an instrument of Dike has punished him and his country that refused to return Helen. But to do so Agamemnon himself has sinned by sacrificing his daughter out of free choice and by destroying the altars and temples of Troy and showing hubris by treading crimson tapestry. Besides, his father killed the brothers and banished the father of Aegisthus along with himself and thus he bears a family curse. Therefore, with Aegisthus' help, Clytemnestra, who is also insulted by her husband's mistress Cassandra, murders Agamemnon to avenge her daughter Iphigenia. However, both will have to pay for their murder and adultery in Orestes' hand in the subsequent plays of Oresteia. From the above circumstances of the bloody chain of revenge and murder, we can agree with Kitto that Agamemnon ends in black despair and chaos. It is built on law: that Dike must come to the sinner; that the doer must suffer. Hence, "justice delayed is not justice denied in Agamemnon".

Works Cited

Aeschylus. The Oresteian Trilogy. Trans. Philip Vellacott. London: Penguin, 1956.

Kitto, H.D.F. Form and Meaning in Drama. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1956.

Milch, Robert J. Agamemnon The Choephori The Eumenides. New York: Cliffs, 1965.

Ray, N. Aeschylus Agamemnon: A Critical Study. Dhaka: Friends, 2007.

www.sparknotes.com/agamemnon/