not to weep, in such a depth of grief.6
What is the trap that Agamemnon, the king and father, has fallen into? Spirit seems to be impotent, symbolized by the lack of wind. And as the Chorus has announced: “…events fester, and divinity is sick.” Agamemnon is caught in man’s willful striving for power in the name of Greece, and so his daughter is sacrificed in the name of this end to be the soul of Greece. And this requires her death as human. The king, as the visible manifestation of the divine principle, endorses values that are consciously recognized by the culture. In this culture, the feminine is reduced in value to being merely the object of masculine ends. Hence in the drama the women have no real power. Helen, as a beauty object, is seduced. Clytemnestra, as wife, is to obey her husband’s rule. As a mother, she does have some rule in the home, but when it comes to saving her daughter’s life, she is powerless. Iphigenia, as daughter, is to be sacrificed for the political power of the state. As she says to Agamemnon when she pleads for her life, “…my tears are my one magic; I’ll use them, for I can weep.”7 But her pure innocence and her tears are of no avail when political power is the highest value. Thus, the culture’s devaluation of the feminine, which King Agamemnon endorses, leads to the sacrifice of his daughter. And although Iphigenia is pure and noble and forgives her father when she sees the finality of his position, with her submission to her fate she finally acknowledges this devaluation of the feminine. She sacrifices herself for Greece and declares “One man is of more value than a host of women.” Accepting the soul projection of her father, she says:
…let my father pace around the altar, following the sun. I come to give to all Hellenes deliverance and victory! Lead me, a maiden born to overthrow great Troy and all her people.8
Iphigenia, in becoming the soul of Greece, gives up her own feminine identity and the value of her tears “…since at the altar is no place for tears.”9 But although she submits and forgives, her mother, left in rage and grief, cannot forgive. And so the story of the family is continued when, in other plays, Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon to revenge Iphigenia’s death, and in retribution of his father’s death, the son, Orestes, murders his mother, Clytemnestra.10
The father-daughter sacrifice has its roots in the dominance of masculine power over the feminine. When the masculine is cut off from feminine values, when it does not allow the feminine principle to manifest itself in its own way out of its own center, when it does not allow the feminine its manifold number of forms but reduces it only to those which serve masculine ends, it loses its relation to the values of the feminine realm. It is then that the masculine becomes brute-like and sacrifices not only the outer woman but also its inner feminine side.
The image of this condition is expressed by Hexagram 12, “Standstill-Stagnation,” found in the I Ching, the Chinese Taoist book of wisdom. The I Ching’s basic image of the cosmos and of human existence is based on the relationship between the feminine and masculine principles. When these two polarities are in harmonic relationship, there is the source for growth, spirit, and creativity—for the union of masculine and feminine wisdom. But when the feminine and masculine principles are out of harmony, there is the condition for chaos and destruction.
In Hexagram 12, “Standstill-Stagnation,” the masculine principle (heaven) is above, and the feminine principle (earth) is below. About this relationship between the masculine and feminine, the I Ching says:
Heaven is above, drawing farther and farther away, while the earth below sinks farther into the depths. The creative powers are not in relation…. Heaven and earth are out of communion and all things are benumbed. What is above has no relation to what is below, and on earth confusion and disorder prevail.11
The I Ching goes on to say that with this constellation, mutual mistrust prevails in public life and fruitful activity is impossible because the relation between the two fundamental principles is wrong. Such is the relation between the masculine and feminine portrayed by Euripides in Iphigenia in Aulis. The disturbed relation between the masculine and feminine principles may exist within each person as well as between individuals, from the viewpoint of Jungian psychology. Every woman has a masculine side, often hidden in her unconscious psyche. Conversely, every man has a feminine side, which is frequently unconscious and unavailable to him. The task of personal growth for an individual is to become aware of this contrasexual side, to value it, and to express it consciously in the appropriate situation. When the contrasexual side is accepted and valued, it becomes a source of energy and inspiration, enabling a creative union of the masculine and feminine principles within the person as well as a creative relationship between men and women.
The feminine, when it is so devalued and suppressed, eventually becomes enraged and demands its due in primitive fashion, as Clytemnestra in revenge killed Agamemnon. The father-daughter sacrifice, then, not only affects the development of women but the inner development of men as well. Agamemnon is as injured and in despair, as unfree in life, as is his daughter, Iphigenia.
The split in the masculine between lust for beauty and lust for power and its corresponding split in the feminine between beautiful one (eternal girl) and dutiful one (armored amazon) is manifested in the drama between the warring brothers (Menelaus and Agamemnon) and the poorly related sisters (Helen and Clytemnestra). This fracture of opposites is entailed in the father-daughter wound. The masculine split into these two opposites in turn reduces the feminine ideal to beauty and duty. Both brothers use women; the one for pleasure, the other for power. Iphigenia, personifying the feminine potential, initially protests this situation, but eventually submits to the power goal.
The sacrifice is made to Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt, because Agamemnon killed one of Artemis’ stags without honoring her. In some myths Agamemnon even claimed to be a greater hunter than Artemis, who, in anger, stilled the winds and demanded Iphigenia’s sacrifice.12 Artemis was neglected by Agamemnon. Psychologically viewed, the neglect of a goddess shows that the aspect of the psyche which she represents has not been valued consciously. As a virgin goddess, Artemis symbolizes the virginal quality of being at one-in-herself, an inner attitude of feminine centeredness and independence.13 One of Artemis’ functions is to protect young girls at the age of puberty and teach them to be independent. This is what has been dishonored by Agamemnon and the prevailing cultural values. The feminine has had no effect on the masculine consciously. Ultimately, Agamemnon doesn’t listen to either his wife or daughter. Neither has he allowed the feminine independence, nor does he respect one of the greatest of goddesses, Artemis. He values only his own power, taking what he wants, e.g., Artemis’ stag. Perhaps Artemis demands this sacrifice to show Agamemnon what he loses by devaluing the feminine. To lose his daughter, a symbol of his own feminine potential, shows the consequences of his power attitude. If a man tramples over the feminine, he loses his relationship to it. So in one sense, the sacrifice to Artemis is necessary to honor this feminine independence.
Although Iphigenia in Aulis is a Greek drama written around 405 B.C., the same situation continues in our present day Western culture. The feminine is still reduced in many men’s eyes to dutiful wife or beautiful mistress, or a variation on these themes. Many women still find themselves living for men and not for themselves. Some women, in reaction, have begun to break away and realize themselves in the professions. But too often in order to break out of the puella dependency, they imitate the masculine model and so perpetuate the devaluation of the feminine. In contrast, other women who feel powerless and become enraged like Clytemnestra may overtly be dutiful to the system but covertly they express their anger; for example, by eliminating sex, having an affair in retaliation, charging up their husbands’ credit cards, drinking too much, becoming sick and hypochondriacal or depressed and suicidal, etc.
Perhaps the greatest wound the man suffers is not to acknowledge his own wound—to be unable to weep. Many fathers, under the illusion that they must always be right and self-justified in order to maintain their control and authority, and many men caught up in the power goals of control and achievement in our technological
