ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the duplication of the drama discernible in the Agamemnon. There are two parallel trains of action: the human action visibly presented on the stage, and an abstract, universal counterpart of it, revealed in the lyric. The persons on this abstract plane are what we commonly call personifications, such as Hybris, Peitho, Nemesis, Ate. It might change the instances and leave the abstract plot unaffected; Hybris runs the same course, whether it is impersonated in Agamemnon or in xerxes. The sack of Athens and the destruction of the temples were the committal acts to which xerxes was tempted by Elpis, thus precipitating his own ruin. Thus Cleon stands to Athens as Peitho or Apatê, incarnate in Clytemnestra, Timo, the Coan captive, Lampon, stood to their victims.
