In the Oresteia, Clytaemnestra and Electra, mother and daughter, have very different sexual natures, though both women are devoted to revenge. Clytaemnestra takes revenge on her husband, Agamemnon, not simply because she has a lover but because Agamemnon had killed her first husband and her child. Her vengeance is thus bound with her sexuality and with the way Agamemnon had forced her to submit to him. Electra is non-sexual in her behavior--though she has been married off by her mother, she does not consummate the marriage. Her entire being is shaped to revenge for the death of her father, and she torments her brother until he fulfills what she sees as his duty and kills Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra.
It is the Watchman who first speaks of Clytaemnestra and does so in a way that shows he believes all is right with her and her husband. At the same time, he sees her as somewhat tyrannical given that she has had him lying on the roof for a year waiting to see the beacon light:
I say the news aloud to Agamemnon's queen,
that she may rise up from her bed of state with speed
to raise the rumor of gladness welcoming this beacon (35-36).
The Watchman would welcome Agamemnon home, for he believes the kingdom is not being ruled as it should be. The Chorus of elders also yearns for the return of the king and would have followed him into battle had they not been too old. They also express the idea that certain events are inevitable, and though they do not say so here, this applies to the inevitability of the revenge Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus bring to the house of Atreus. The story of this house is well known, so the elders will not be surprised when the past does catch up to Agamemnon. At this point, however, they speak to Clytaemnestra as does the Watchman, as if she will be filled with joy that her husband is returning, and she in turn speaks in much the same way early in the play Agamemnon:
But now, how best to speed...