Odyssey 3.265 · Book 3, lines 265–268
She refused at first
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ἡ δʼ ἦ τοι τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀναίνετο ἔργον ἀεικὲς δῖα Κλυταιμνήστρη· φρεσὶ γὰρ κέχρητʼ ἀγαθῇσι· πὰρ δʼ ἄρʼ ἔην καὶ ἀοιδὸς ἀνήρ, ᾧ πόλλʼ ἐπέτελλεν Ἀτρεΐδης Τροίηνδε κιὼν εἴρυσθαι ἄκοιτιν.
She at first refused the shameful deed, noble Clytemnestra; for she was gifted with a good mind. And beside her too there was a singer, a man, to whom the son of Atreus gave strict charge, as he went to Troy, to guard his wife.
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Nestor is careful: Clytemnestra resisted at first. He notes both her good sense and the safeguard Agamemnon left — a poet set to watch over her while he was at Troy.
A note on this passage
A crucial qualification: Clytemnestra did not fall easily. At first she refused the shameful act outright — noble Clytemnestra, Nestor calls her, a woman of good sense. And Agamemnon had not left her unguarded: he set a singer, a poet, over her when he sailed, charged to watch his wife.
Homer makes her fall a process, not a flaw of nature. The good mind and the guardian bard are the defenses that had to be overcome, which makes Aegisthus's slow work more sinister and her final surrender a thing done to her as much as by her. That the guard is a singer is a quiet marvel — as if the poet's own art were the last wall around a faithful house.
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