“Il prezzo di altre morti”. Problemi interpretativi e funzione drammatica di Aesch. Agam. 1331-1342

The so called ‘fourth stasimon’ of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (vv. 1331-42) has rarely attracted the interest of the interpreters of the play; the majority of them consider it a scarcely relevant transitional passage between Cassandra’s prophecies and the death cry of the King. However, the short anapestic song picks up some of the most relevant themes developed in the three preceding stasima and makes them interact with the new knowledge provided by Cassandra about the significance of Agamemnon’s impending death. The anapests depict the terrible crisis of the Old Men of Argos, who must now admit the failure of their attempts to place the king’s destiny within the frame of reassuring ethic and religious conceptions. Moreover, through the particular nature of the final question, the Chorus creates a bond between its experience as an internal spectator of the dramatic action and that of the external spectators in the theatre, who are deeply involved in the sense of anguish caused by the apparent triumph of violence at the end of the play.