To be Yoked, or not to be Yoked
"To be, or not to be," is the question according to Shakespeare's Hamlet . Does someone always have a choice? The simple answer is yes, but that is not always the case depending one a person's situation. In The Oresteia : Agamemnon by Aeschylus, the analogy of humans being yoke like horses is employed to illustrate that the humans are the gods' possessions and that they cannot win against the gods or Fate because there is a hierarchy that cannot be disrupted. In the text, Agamemnon states, “No one chooses/ the yoke of slavery, not of one’s free will-…” ( Ag. , 950-951). The “yoke” in this instance refers to the power that the gods have over men. Free will is not available to the people in Agamemnon. If one is yoke, that mean they must obey their commander’s orders whether or not they want to because they are harnessed and can only go where they are led. The chorus sings, “Atreus’ sturdy yoke of sons/ l...