A) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1085-1093

Cassandra: Apollo, Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! Ah, what way is this that you have brought me? To what house?

Chorus: To that of Atreus' sons. If you do not perceive this, I'll tell it to you. And you shall not say that it is untrue.

Cassandra: No, no, rather to a god-hating house, a house that knows many a horrible butchery of kin, a slaughter-house of men and a floor swimming with blood.

 B) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 716-736: Even so a man reared in his house a lion's whelp, robbed of its mother's milk yet still desiring the breast. Gentle it was in the prelude of its life, kindly to children, and a delight to the old. Much did it get, held in arms like a nursling child, with its bright eye turned toward his hand, and fawning under compulsion of its belly's need. But brought to full growth by time it demonstrated the nature it had from its parents. Unbidden, in return [kharis] for its fostering, it prepared a feast with a slaughter of destruction [atê] inflicted on the flocks; so that the house was defiled with blood, and they that lived there could not control their anguish, and great was the carnage far and wide. A priest of Derangement [atê], by order of a god, it was reared in the house.

C) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1499-1504: Do not imagine that I am Agamemnon's spouse. A phantom resembling that corpse's wife, the ancient bitter evil spirit of Atreus, that grim banqueter, has offered him in payment, sacrificing a full-grown victim in vengeance for those slain children.

D) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1-21: I ask the gods for release from these ordeals [ponoi] of mine, throughout this long year's watch, in which, lying upon the palace roof of the descendants of Atreus, upon my bent arm, like a dog, I have learned to know well the gathering of the night's stars, those radiant potentates conspicuous in the firmament, bringers of winter and summer to mankind. So now I am still watching for the signal [sumbolon] of the flame, the gleaming fire that is to bring news from Troy and tidings of its capture. … But tonight may there come a happy release from these ordeals [ponoi] of mine! May the fire with its glad tidings flash through the gloom! Oh welcome, you blaze in the night, a light as if of day, you harbinger of the setting up of many khoroi in Argos in thanksgiving for this glad event! Iou! Iou! To Agamemnon's Queen I thus make a signal [sêmainô] to rise from her bed, and as quickly as she can to utter in a proper way [euphêmeô] in her palace halls a shout of ololu in welcome of this fire, if the city of Ilion truly is taken, as this beacon unmistakably announces. And I will join the khoros in a prelude upon my own account. … For the rest I stay silent; a great ox stands upon my tongue - yet the house itself, could it but speak, might tell a plain enough tale; since, for my part, by my own choice I have words for those who know, and to those who do not know, I am without memory.

Many of the images from today's slide show can be found in Froma I. Zeitlin's image catalogue.

For a summary of the myths of the House of Atreus and the curse on that house see "The Five Generations of the House of Atreus, and its Curse." An even more compressed outline can be found here.