This temper surely gave Clytemnestra the ability to withstand her "wretched life" by serving as a type of emotional outlet for her anger and disappointment related to being imprisoned in her own household as the doting wife of Agamemnon who certainly experienced sexual encounters with other women as leader of the Greek armies at Troy.

Another example has Clytemnestra admitting "Thus harassed by these ever-rife reports

(i.e., that Agamemnon was dead)/Full often from my neck have forceful hands/Seized and untied the beam-suspended noose" (Swanwick, 179), a reference to attempting to hang herself from a roof beam. This indicates that Clytemnestra was indeed a very strong woman with sufficient inner strength to do away with herself because of her grief associated with Agamemnon and his alleged death at the hands of the Trojans -- "For a woman severed from her mate/To sit forlorn at home is grievous woe" (Swanwick, 179).

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