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[hauntmethen]

Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigeneia, now described in superb, swift strokes, is a brutal parody of the Olympian ritual of marriage. According to legend Iphigeneia was brought to Aulis on the pretence of marriage, and here she appears the bride in saffron robes; but the robes become her winding-sheet - her slaughter becomes the proteleia, sacrifices preliminary to the bloody wedding of the armies, a symbol of all our fruitful unions torn by war. She actually consecrates the lethal brides to come, Helen and Clytaemnestra, for her sacrifice is a genuine chthonic rite. It seems to soothe the winds, the spirits of the dead, but it will only bring the dead to life.

— Robert Fagles. A Reading of ‘The Oresteia’