TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE<\/p>\n
WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY<\/p>\n
GILBERT MURRAY<\/p>\n
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD<\/p>\n
TENTH THOUSAND<\/p>\n
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.<\/p>\n
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.<\/p>\n\n\n
AGAMEMNON, son of Atreus and King of Argos and Mycenae;\nCommander-in-Chief of the Greek armies in the War against Troy.<\/i><\/p>\n
CLYTEMNESTRA, daughter of Tyndareus, sister of Helen; wife to Agamemnon.<\/i><\/p>\n
AIGISTHOS, son of Thyestes, cousin and blood-enemy to Agamemnon lover to Clytemnestra.<\/i><\/p>\n
CASSANDRA, daughter of Priam, King of Troy, a prophetess; now slave to Agamemnon.<\/i><\/p>\n
A WATCHMAN.<\/p>\n
A HERALD.<\/p>\n
CHORUS of Argive Elders, faithful to AGAMEMNON.<\/p>\n\n
MENEL\u00c2\u00dcS, brother to Agamemnon, husband of Helen, and King of Sparta.\nThe two sons of Atreus are called the Atreidae.<\/i><\/p>\n
HELEN, _most beautiful of women; daughter of Tyndareus, wife to MENEL\u00c2\u00dcS<\/i>; beloved and carried off by Paris._<\/p>\n
PARIS, son of Priam, King of Troy, lover of Helen.\nAlso called<\/i> ALEXANDER.<\/p>\n
PRIAM, the aged King of Troy.<\/i><\/p>\n
The Greeks are also referred to as Achaians, Argives, Danaans; Troy is also called Ilion.<\/i><\/p>\n
The play was produced in the archonship if Philocles<\/i> (458 B.C.). The first prize was won by Aeschylus with the \"Agamemnon\", \"Libation-Bearers\", \"Eumenides\", and the Satyr Play \"Proteus\"<\/i>.<\/p>\n\nTHE AGAMEMNON<\/h2>\n
The Scene represents a space in front of the Palace of Agamemnon in Argos, with an Altar of Zeus in the centre and many other altars at the sides. On a high terrace of the roof stands a<\/i> WATCHMAN. It is night<\/i>.<\/p>\n\nWATCHMAN<\/h3>\n
This waste of year-long vigil I have prayed\nGod for some respite, watching elbow-stayed,\nAs sleuthhounds watch, above the Atreidae's hall,\nTill well I know yon midnight festival\nOf swarming stars, and them that lonely go,\nBearers to man of summer and of snow,\nGreat lords and shining, throned in heavenly fire.\nAnd still I await the sign, the beacon pyre\nThat bears Troy's capture on a voice of flame\nShouting o'erseas. So surely to her aim\nCleaveth a woman's heart, man-passioned!\nAnd when I turn me to my bed\u2014my bed\nDew-drenched and dark and stumbling, to which near\nCometh no dream nor sleep, but alway Fear\nBreathes round it, warning, lest an eye once fain\nTo close may close too well to wake again;\nThink I perchance to sing or troll a tune\nFor medicine against sleep, the music soon\nChanges to sighing for the tale untold\nOf this house, not well mastered as of old.\nHowbeit, may God yet send us rest, and light\nThe flame of good news flashed across the night.<\/p>\n
[He is silent, watching. Suddenly at a distance in the night there is\na glimmer of fire, increasing presently to a blaze.<\/i>]<\/p>\n
Ha!\n0 kindler of the dark, O daylight birth\nOf dawn and dancing upon Argive earth\nFor this great end! All hail!\u2014What ho, within!\nWhat ho! Bear word to Agamemnon's queen\nTo rise, like dawn, and lift in answer strong\nTo this glad lamp her women's triumph-song,\nIf verily, verily, Ilion's citadel\nIs fallen, as yon beacons flaming tell.\nAnd I myself will tread the dance before\nAll others; for my master's dice I score\nGood, and mine own to-night three sixes plain.<\/p>\n
[Lights begin to show in the Palace<\/i>.]<\/p>\n
Oh, good or ill, my hand shall clasp again\nMy dear lord's hand, returning! Beyond that\nI speak not. A great ox hath laid his weight\nAcross my tongue. But these stone walls know well,\nIf stones had speech, what tale were theirs to tell.\nFor me, to him that knoweth I can yet\nSpeak; if another questions I forget.<\/p>\n
[Exit into the Palace. The women's \"Olol\u00fbg\u00ea\" or triumph-cry, is heard within and then repeated again and again further off in the City. Handmaids and Attendants come from the Palace, bearing torches, with which they kindle incense on the altars. Among them comes<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA, who throws herself on her knees at the central Altar in an agony of prayer.\u00a0<\/i>Presently from the further side of the open space appear the<\/i> CHORUS of<\/i> ELDERS and move gradually into position in front of the Palace. The day begins to dawn.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
Ten years since Ilion's righteous foes,\nThe Atreidae strong,\nMenela\u00fcs and eke Agamemnon arose,\nTwo thrones, two sceptres, yoked of God;\nAnd a thousand galleys of Argos trod\nThe seas for the righting of wrong;\nAnd wrath of battle about them cried,\nAs vultures cry,\nWhose nest is plundered, and up they fly\nIn anguish lonely, eddying wide,\nGreat wings like oars in the waste of sky,\nTheir task gone from them, no more to keep\nWatch o'er the vulture babes asleep.\nBut One there is who heareth on high\nSome Pan or Zeus, some lost Apollo\u2014\nThat keen bird-throated suffering cry\nOf the stranger wronged in God's own sky;\nAnd sendeth down, for the law transgressed,\nThe Wrath of the Feet that follow.<\/p>\n
So Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend,\nZeus who Prevaileth, in after quest\nFor One Belov\u00e8d by Many Men\nOn Paris sent the Atreidae twain;\nYea, sent him dances before the end\nFor his bridal cheer,\nWrestlings heavy and limbs forespent\nFor Greek and Trojan, the knee earth-bent,\nThe bloody dust and the broken spear.\nHe knoweth, that which is here is here,\nAnd that which Shall Be followeth near;\nHe seeketh God with a great desire,\nHe heaps his gifts, he essays his pyre\nWith torch below and with oil above,\nWith tears, but never the wrath shall move\nOf the Altar cold that rejects his fire.<\/p>\n
We saw the Avengers go that day,\nAnd they left us here; for our flesh is old\nAnd serveth not; and these staves uphold\nA strength like the strength of a child at play.\nFor the sap that springs in the young man's hand\nAnd the valour of age, they have left the land.\nAnd the passing old, while the dead leaf blows\nAnd the old staff gropeth his three-foot way,\nWeak as a babe and alone he goes,\nA dream left wandering in the day.<\/p>\n
[Coming near the Central Altar they see<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA, who is still\nrapt in prayer<\/i>.]<\/p>\n
But thou, O daughter of Tyndareus,\nQueen Clytemnestra, what need? What news?\nWhat tale or tiding hath stirred thy mood\nTo send forth word upon all our ways\nFor incensed worship? Of every god\nThat guards the city, the deep, the high,\nGods of the mart, gods of the sky,\nThe altars blaze.\nOne here, one there,\nTo the skyey night the firebrands flare,\nDrunk with the soft and guileless spell\nOf balm of kings from the inmost cell.\nTell, O Queen, and reject us not,\nAll that can or that may be told,\nAnd healer be to this aching thought,\nWhich one time hovereth, evil-cold,\nAnd then from the fires thou kindlest\nWill Hope be kindled, and hungry Care\nFall back for a little while, nor tear\nThe heart that beateth below my breast.<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA rises silently, as though unconscious of their presence, and goes into the House. The<\/i> CHORUS take position and begin their first Stasimon, or Standing-song.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
(The sign seen on the way; Eagles tearing a hare with young<\/i>)<\/p>\n
It is ours to tell of the Sign of the War-way given,\nTo men more strong,\n(For a life that is kin unto ours yet breathes from heaven\nA spell, a Strength of Song:)\nHow the twin-throned Might of Achaia, one Crown divided\nAbove all Greeks that are,\nWith avenging hand and spear upon Troy was guided\nBy the Bird of War.\n'Twas a King among birds to each of the Kings of the Sea,\nOne Eagle black, one black but of fire-white tail,\nBy the House, on the Spear-hand, in station that all might see;\nAnd they tore a hare, and the life in her womb that grew,\nYea, the life unlived and the races unrun they slew.\nSorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail!<\/p>\n
(How Calchas read the sign; his Vision of the Future<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
And the War-seer wise, as he looked on the Atreid Yoke\nTwain-tempered, knew\nThose fierce hare-renders the lords of his host; and spoke,\nReading the omen true.\n\"At the last, the last, this Hunt hunteth Ilion down,\nYea, and before the wall\nViolent division the fulness of land and town\nShall waste withal;\nIf only God's eye gloom not against our gates,\nAnd the great War-curb of Troy, fore-smitten, fail.\nFor Pity lives, and those wing\u00e8d Hounds she hates,\nWhich tore in the Trembler's body the unborn beast.\nAnd Artemis abhorreth the eagles' feast.\"\nSorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail!<\/p>\n
(He prays to Artemis to grant the fulfilment of the Sign, but, as his vision increases, he is afraid and calls on Paian, the Healer, to hold her back<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
\"Thou beautiful One, thou tender lover\nOf the dewy breath of the Lion's child;\nThou the delight, through den and cover,\nOf the young life at the breast of the wild,\nYet, oh, fulfill, fulfill The sign of the Eagles' Kill!\nBe the vision accepted, albeit horrible\u2026.\nBut I-\u00ea, I-\u00ea! Stay her, O Paian, stay!\nFor lo, upon other evil her heart she setteth,\nLong wastes of wind, held ship and unventured sea,\nOn, on, till another Shedding of Blood be wrought:\nThey kill but feast not; they pray not; the law is broken;\nStrife in the flesh, and the bride she obeyeth not,\nAnd beyond, beyond, there abideth in wrath reawoken\u2014\nIt plotteth, it haunteth the house, yea, it never forgetteth\u2014\nWrath for a child to be.\"\nSo Calchas, reading the wayside eagles' sign,\nSpake to the Kings, blessings and words of bale;\nAnd like his song be thine,\nSorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail<\/i>!<\/p>\n
(Such religion belongs to old and barbarous gods, and brings no peace. I turn to Zeus, who has shown man how to Learn by Suffering<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Zeus! Zeus, whate'er He be,\nIf this name He love to hear\nThis He shall be called of me.\nSearching earth and sea and air<\/p>\n
Refuge nowhere can I find\nSave Him only, if my mind\nWill cast off before it die\nThe burden of this vanity.<\/p>\n
One there was who reigned of old,\nBig with wrath to brave and blast,\nLo, his name is no more told!\nAnd who followed met at last\nHis Third-thrower, and is gone.\nOnly they whose hearts have known\nZeus, the Conqueror and the Friend,\nThey shall win their vision's end;<\/p>\n
Zeus the Guide, who made man turn\nThought-ward, Zeus, who did ordain\nMan by Suffering shall Learn.\nSo the heart of him, again\nAching with remembered pain,\nBleeds and sleepeth not, until\nWisdom comes against his will.\n'Tis the gift of One by strife\nLifted to the throne of life.<\/p>\n
(AGAMEMNON accepted the sign. Then came long delay, and storm while the fleet lay at Aulis.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
So that day the Elder Lord,\nMarshal of the Achaian ships,\nStrove not with the prophet's word,\nBowed him to his fate's eclipse,\nWhen with empty jars and lips\nParched and seas impassable\nFate on that Greek army fell,\nFronting Chalcis as it lay,\nBy Aulis in the swirling bay.<\/p>\n
(Till at last Calchas answered that Artemis was wroth and demanded the death of<\/i> AGAMEMNON'S daughter. The King's doubt and grief<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
And winds, winds blew from Strymon River,\nUnharboured, starving, winds of waste endeavour,\nMan-blinding, pitiless to cord and bulwark,\nAnd the waste of days was made long, more long,\nTill the flower of Argos was aghast and withered;\nThen through the storm rose the War-seer's song,\nAnd told of medicine that should tame the tempest,\nBut bow the Princes to a direr wrong.\nThen \"Artemis\" he whispered, he named the name;\nAnd the brother Kings they shook in the hearts of them,\nAnd smote on the earth their staves, and the tears came.<\/p>\n
But the King, the elder, hath found voice and spoken:\n\"A heavy doom, sure, if God's will were broken;\nBut to slay mine own child, who my house delighteth,\nIs that not heavy? That her blood should flow\nOn her father's hand, hard beside an altar?\nMy path is sorrow wheresoe'er I go.\nShall Agamemnon fail his ships and people,\nAnd the hosts of Hellas melt as melts the snow?\nThey cry, they thirst, for a death that shall break the spell,\nFor a Virgin's blood: 'tis a rite of old, men tell.\nAnd they burn with longing.\u2014O God may the end be well!\"<\/p>\n
(But ambition drove him, till he consented to the sin of slaying his daughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrifice.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
To the yoke of Must-Be he bowed him slowly,\nAnd a strange wind within his bosom tossed,\nA wind of dark thought, unclean, unholy;\nAnd he rose up, daring to the uttermost.\nFor men are boldened by a Blindness, straying\nToward base desire, which brings grief hereafter,\nYea, and itself is grief;\nSo this man hardened to his own child's slaying,\nAs help to avenge him for a woman's laughter\nAnd bring his ships relief!<\/p>\n
Her \"Father, Father,\" her sad cry that lingered,\nHer virgin heart's breath they held all as naught,\nThose bronze-clad witnesses and battle-hungered;\nAnd there they prayed, and when the prayer was wrought\nHe charged the young men to uplift and bind her,\nAs ye lift a wild kid, high above the altar,\nFierce-huddling forward, fallen, clinging sore\nTo the robe that wrapt her; yea, he bids them hinder\nThe sweet mouth's utterance, the cries that falter,\n\u2014His curse for evermore!\u2014<\/p>\n
With violence and a curb's voiceless wrath.\nHer stole of saffron then to the ground she threw,\nAnd her eye with an arrow of pity found its path\nTo each man's heart that slew:\nA face in a picture, striving amazedly;\nThe little maid who danced at her father's board,\nThe innocent voice man's love came never nigh,\nWho joined to his her little paean-cry\nWhen the third cup was poured\u2026.<\/p>\n
What came thereafter I saw not neither tell.\nBut the craft of Calchas failed not.\u2014'Tis written, He\nWho Suffereth Shall Learn; the law holdeth well.\nAnd that which is to be,\nYe will know at last; why weep before the hour?\nFor come it shall, as out of darkness dawn.\nOnly may good from all this evil flower;\nSo prays this Heart of Argos, this frail tower\nGuarding the land alone.<\/p>\n
[As they cease,<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA comes from the Palace with Attendants. She has finished her prayer and sacrifice, and is now wrought up to face the meeting with her husband. The Leader approaches her<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Before thy state, O Queen, I bow mine eyes.\n'Tis written, when the man's throne empty lies,\nThe woman shall be honoured.\u2014Hast thou heard\nSome tiding sure? Or is it Hope, hath stirred\nTo fire these altars? Dearly though we seek\nTo learn, 'tis thine to speak or not to speak.<\/p>\n\n
Glad-voiced, the old saw telleth, comes this morn,\nThe Star-child of a dancing midnight born,\nAnd beareth to thine ear a word of joy\nBeyond all hope: the Greek hath taken Troy.<\/p>\n\n
How?\nThy word flies past me, being incredible.<\/p>\n\n
Ilion is ours. No riddling tale I tell.<\/p>\n\n
Such joy comes knocking at the gate of tears.<\/p>\n\n
Aye, 'tis a faithful heart that eye declares.<\/p>\n\n
What warrant hast thou? Is there proof of this?<\/p>\n\n
There is; unless a God hath lied there is.<\/p>\n\n
Some dream-shape came to thee in speaking guise?<\/p>\n\n
Who deemeth me a dupe of drowsing eyes?<\/p>\n\n
Some word within that hovereth without wings?<\/p>\n\n
Am I a child to hearken to such things?<\/p>\n\n
Troy fallen?\u2014But how long? When fell she, say?<\/p>\n\n
The very night that mothered this new day.<\/p>\n\n
And who of heralds with such fury came?<\/p>\n\n
A Fire-god, from Mount Ida scattering flame.\nWhence starting, beacon after beacon burst\nIn flaming message hitherward. Ida first\nTold Hermes' Lemnian Rock, whose answering sign\nWas caught by towering Athos, the divine,\nWith pines immense\u2014yea, fishes of the night\nSwam skyward, drunken with that leaping light,\nWhich swelled like some strange sun, till dim and far\nMakistos' watchmen marked a glimmering star;\nThey, nowise loath nor idly slumber-won,\nSpring up to hurl the fiery message on,\nAnd a far light beyond the Eur\u00eepus tells\nThat word hath reached Messapion's sentinels.\nThey beaconed back, then onward with a high\nHeap of dead heather flaming to the sky.\nAnd onward still, not failing nor aswoon,\nAcross the As\u00f4pus like a beaming moon\nThe great word leapt, and on Kithairon's height\nUproused a new relay of racing light.\nHis watchers knew the wandering flame, nor hid\nTheir welcome, burning higher than was bid.\nOut over Lake Gorg\u00f4pis then it floats,\nTo Aigiplanctos, waking the wild goats,\nCrying for \"Fire, more Fire!\" And fire was reared,\nStintless and high, a stormy streaming beard,\nThat waved in flame beyond the promontory\nRock-ridged, that watches the Saronian sea,\nKindling the night: then one short swoop to catch\nThe Spider's Crag, our city's tower of watch;\nWhence hither to the Atreidae's roof it came,\nA light true-fathered of Idaean flame.\nTorch-bearer after torch-bearer, behold\nThe tale thereof in stations manifold,\nEach one by each made perfect ere it passed,\nAnd Victory in the first as in the last.\nThese be my proofs and tokens that my lord\nFrom Troy hath spoke to me a burning word.<\/p>\n\n
Woman, speak on. Hereafter shall my prayer\nBe raised to God; now let me only hear,\nAgain and full, the marvel and the joy.<\/p>\n\n
Now, even now, the Achaian holdeth Troy!\nMethinks there is a crying in her streets\nThat makes no concord. When sweet unguent meets\nWith vinegar in one phial, I warrant none\nShall lay those wranglers lovingly at one.\nSo conquerors and conquered shalt thou hear,\nTwo sundered tones, two lives of joy or fear.\nHere women in the dust about their slain,\nHusbands or brethren, and by dead old men\nPale children who shall never more be free,\nFor all they loved on earth cry desolately.\nAnd hard beside them war-stained Greeks, whom stark\nBattle and then long searching through the dark\nHath gathered, ravenous, in the dawn, to feast\nAt last on all the plenty Troy possessed,\nNo portion in that feast nor ordinance,\nBut each man clutching at the prize of chance.\nAye, there at last under good roofs they lie\nOf men spear-quelled, no frosts beneath the sky,\nNo watches more, no bitter moony dew\u2026.\nHow bless\u00e8d they will sleep the whole night through!\nOh, if these days they keep them free from sin\nToward Ilion's conquered shrines and Them within\nWho watch unconquered, maybe not again\nThe smiter shall be smit, the taker ta'en.\nMay God but grant there fall not on that host\nThe greed of gold that maddeneth and the lust\nTo spoil inviolate things! But half the race\nIs run which windeth back to home and peace.\nYea, though of God they pass unchalleng\u00e8d,\nMethinks the wound of all those desolate dead\nMight waken, groping for its will\u2026.\nYe hear\nA woman's word, belike a woman's fear.\nMay good but conquer in the last incline\nOf the balance! Of all prayers that prayer is mine.<\/p>\n\n
O Woman, like a man faithful and wise\nThou speakest. I accept thy testimonies\nAnd turn to God with praising, for a gain\nIs won this day that pays for all our pain.<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA returns to the Palace. The<\/i> CHORUS take up their\nposition for the Second Stasimon<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nAN ELDER<\/h3>\n
0 Zeus, All-ruler, and Night the Aid,\nGainer of glories, and hast thou thrown\nOver the towers of Ilion\nThy net close-laid,\nThat none so nimble and none so tall\nShall escape withal\nThe snare of the slaver that claspeth all?<\/p>\n\n
And Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend\nI also praise, who hath wrought this end.\nLong since on Paris his shaft he drew,\nAnd hath aim\u00e8d true,\nNot too soon falling nor yet too far,\nThe fire of the avenging star.<\/p>\n\n
(This is God's judgement upon Troy. May it not be too fierce! Gold cannot save one who spurneth Justice<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
The stroke of Zeus hath found them! Clear this day\nThe tale, and plain to trace.\nHe judged, and Troy hath fallen.\u2014And have men said\nThat God not deigns to mark man's hardihead,\nTrampling to earth the grace\nOf holy and delicate things?\u2014Sin lies that way.\nFor visibly Pride doth breed its own return\nOn prideful men, who, when their houses swell\nWith happy wealth, breathe ever wrath and blood.\nYet not too fierce let the due vengeance burn;\nOnly as deemeth well\nOne wise of mood.<\/p>\nNever shall state nor gold\nShelter his heart from aching\nWhoso the Altar of Justice old\nSpurneth to Night unwaking.\n
(The Sinner suffers in his longing till at last Temptation overcomes him; as longing for Helen overcame Paris<\/i>)<\/p>\n
The tempting of misery forceth him, the dread\nChild of fore-scheming Woe!\nAnd help is vain; the fell desire within\nIs veil\u00e8d not, but shineth bright like Sin:\nAnd as false gold will show\nBlack where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade\nHis honour in God's ordeal. Like a child,\nForgetting all, he hath chased his wing\u00e8d bird,\nAnd planted amid his people a sharp thorn.\nAnd no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard,\nThe man so base-beguiled\nThey cast to scorn.<\/p>\n
Paris to Argos came;\nLove of a woman led him;\nSo God's altar he brought to shame,\nRobbing the hand that fed him.<\/p>\n
(Helen's flight; the visions seen by the King's seers; the phantom of Helen and the King's grief<\/i>)<\/p>\n
She hath left among her people a noise of shield and sword,\nA tramp of men armed where the long ships are moored;\nShe hath ta'en in her goings Desolation as a dower;\nShe hath stept, stept quickly, through the great gated Tower,\nAnd the thing that could not be, it hath been!\nAnd the Seers they saw visions, and they spoke of strange ill:\n\"A Palace, a Palace; and a great King thereof:\nA bed, a bed empty, that was once pressed in love:\nAnd thou, thou, what art thou? Let us be, thou so still,\nBeyond wrath, beyond beseeching, to the lips reft of thee!\"\nFor she whom he desireth is beyond the deep sea,\nAnd a ghost in his castle shall be queen.<\/p>\n
Images in sweet guise\nCarven shall move him never,\nWhere is Love amid empty eyes?\nGone, gone for ever!<\/p>\n
(His dreams and his suffering; but the War that he made caused greater and wider suffering.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
But a shape that is a dream, 'mid the phantoms of the night,\nCometh near, full of tears, bringing vain vain delight:\nFor in vain when, desiring, he can feel the joy's breath\n\u2014Nevermore! Nevermore!\u2014from his arms it vanisheth,\nOn wings down the pathways of sleep.<\/p>\n
In the mid castle hall, on the hearthstone of the Kings,\nThese griefs there be, and griefs passing these,\nBut in each man's dwelling of the host that sailed the seas,\nA sad woman waits; she has thoughts of many things,\nAnd patience in her heart lieth deep.<\/p>\n
Knoweth she them she sent,\nKnoweth she? Lo, returning,\nComes in stead of the man that went\nArmour and dust of burning.<\/p>\n
(The return of the funeral urns; the murmurs of the People.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
And the gold-changer, Ares, who changeth quick for dead,\nWho poiseth his scale in the striving of the spears,\nBack from Troy sendeth dust, heavy dust, wet with tears,\nSendeth ashes with men's names in his urns neatly spread.\nAnd they weep over the men, and they praise them one by one,\nHow this was a wise fighter, and this nobly-slain\u2014\n\"Fighting to win back another's wife!\"\nTill a murmur is begun,\nAnd there steals an angry pain\nAgainst Kings too forward in the strife.<\/p>\n
There by Ilion's gate\nMany a soldier sleepeth,\nYoung men beautiful; fast in hate\nTroy her conqueror keepeth.<\/p>\n
(For the Shedder of Blood is in great peril, and not unmarked by God. May I never be a Sacker of Cities!<\/i>)<\/p>\n
But the rumour of the People, it is heavy, it is chill;\nAnd tho' no curse be spoken, like a curse doth it brood;\nAnd my heart waits some tiding which the dark holdeth still,\nFor of God not unmarked is the shedder of much blood.\nAnd who conquers beyond right \u2026 Lo, the life of man decays;\nThere be Watchers dim his light in the wasting of the years;\nHe falls, he is forgotten, and hope dies.\nThere is peril in the praise\nOver-praised that he hears;\nFor the thunder it is hurled from God's eyes.<\/p>\n
Glory that breedeth strife,\nPride of the Sacker of Cities;\nYea, and the conquered captive's life,\nSpare me, O God of Pities!<\/p>\n\n
\u2014The fire of good tidings it hath sped the city through,\nBut who knows if a god mocketh? Or who knows if all be true?\n'Twere the fashion of a child,\nOr a brain dream-beguiled,\nTo be kindled by the first\nTorch's message as it burst,\nAnd thereafter, as it dies, to die too.<\/p>\n
\u2014'Tis like a woman's sceptre, to ordain\nWelcome to joy before the end is plain!<\/p>\n
\u2014Too lightly opened are a woman's ears;\nHer fence downtrod by many trespassers,\nAnd quickly crossed; but quickly lost\nThe burden of a woman's hopes or fears.<\/p>\n
[Here a break occurs in the action, like the descent of the curtain in a modern theatre. A space of some days is assumed to have passed and we find the Elders again assembled<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Soon surely shall we read the message right;\nWere fire and beacon-call and lamps of light\nTrue speakers, or but happy lights, that seem\nAnd are not, like sweet voices in a dream.\nI see a Herald yonder by the shore,\nShadowed with olive sprays. And from his sore\nRent raiment cries a witness from afar,\nDry Dust, born brother to the Mire of war,\nThat mute he comes not, neither through the smoke\nOf mountain forests shall his tale be spoke;\nBut either shouting for a joyful day,\nOr else\u2026. But other thoughts I cast away.\nAs good hath dawned, may good shine on, we pray!<\/p>\n
\u2014And whoso for this City prayeth aught\nElse, let him reap the harvest of his thought!<\/p>\n
[Enter the<\/i> HERALD, running. His garments are torn and war-stained. He falls upon his knees and kisses the Earth, and salutes each Altar in turn.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nHERALD<\/h3>\n
Land of my fathers! Argos! Am I here \u2026\nHome, home at this tenth shining of the year,\nAnd all Hope's anchors broken save this one!\nFor scarcely dared I dream, here in mine own\nArgos at last to fold me to my rest\u2026.\nBut now\u2014All Hail, O Earth! O Sunlight blest!\nAnd Zeus Most High!\n[Checking himself as he sees the altar of Apollo.<\/i>]\nAnd thou, O Pythian Lord;\nNo more on us be thy swift arrows poured!\nBeside Scamander well we learned how true\nThy hate is. Oh, as thou art Healer too,\nHeal us! As thou art Saviour of the Lost,\nSave also us, Apollo, being so tossed\nWith tempest! \u2026 All ye Daemons of the Pale!\nAnd Hermes! Hermes, mine own guardian, hail!\nHerald beloved, to whom all heralds bow\u2026.\nYe Bless\u00e8d Dead that sent us, receive now\nIn love your children whom the spear hath spared.\nO House of Kings, O roof-tree thrice-endeared,\nO solemn thrones! O gods that face the sun!\nNow, now, if ever in the days foregone,\nAfter these many years, with eyes that burn,\nGive hail and glory to your King's return!\nFor Agamemnon cometh! A great light\nCometh to men and gods out of the night.\nGrand greeting give him\u2014aye, it need be grand\u2014\nWho, God's avenging mattock in his hand,\nHath wrecked Troy's towers and digged her soil beneath,\nTill her gods' houses, they are things of death;\nHer altars waste, and blasted every seed\nWhence life might rise! So perfect is his deed,\nSo dire the yoke on Ilion he hath cast,\nThe first Atreides, King of Kings at last,\nAnd happy among men! To whom we give\nHonour most high above all things that live.\nFor Paris nor his guilty land can score\nThe deed they wrought above the pain they bore.\n\"Spoiler and thief,\" he heard God's judgement pass;\nWhereby he lost his plunder, and like grass\nMowed down his father's house and all his land;\nAnd Troy pays twofold for the sin she planned.<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Be glad, thou Herald of the Greek from Troy!<\/p>\n\n
So glad, I am ready, if God will, to die!<\/p>\n\n
Did love of this land work thee such distress?<\/p>\n\n
The tears stand in mine eyes for happiness.<\/p>\n\n
Sweet sorrow was it, then, that on you fell.<\/p>\n\n
How sweet? I cannot read thy parable.<\/p>\n\n
To pine again for them that loved you true.<\/p>\n\n
Did ye then pine for us, as we for you?<\/p>\n\n
The whole land's heart was dark, and groaned for thee.<\/p>\n\n
Dark? For what cause? Why should such darkness be?<\/p>\n\n
Silence in wrong is our best medicine here.<\/p>\n\n
Your kings were gone. What others need you fear?<\/p>\n\n
'Tis past! Like thee now, I could gladly die.<\/p>\n\n
Even so! 'Tis past, and all is victory.\nAnd, for our life in those long years, there were\nDoubtless some grievous days, and some were fair.\nWho but a god goes woundless all his way?\u2026.\nOh, could I tell the sick toil of the day,\nThe evil nights, scant decks ill-blanketed;\nThe rage and cursing when our daily bread\nCame not! And then on land 'twas worse than all.\nOur quarters close beneath the enemy's wall;\nAnd rain\u2014and from the ground the river dew\u2014Wet,\nalways wet! Into our clothes it grew,\nPlague-like, and bred foul beasts in every hair.\nWould I could tell how ghastly midwinter\nStole down from Ida till the birds dropped dead!\nOr the still heat, when on his noonday bed\nThe breathless blue sea sank without a wave!\u2026.\nWhy think of it? They are past and in the grave,\nAll those long troubles. For I think the slain\nCare little if they sleep or rise again;\nAnd we, the living, wherefore should we ache\nWith counting all our lost ones, till we wake\nThe old malignant fortunes? If Good-bye\nComes from their side, Why, let them go, say I.\nSurely for us, who live, good doth prevail\nUnchallenged, with no wavering of the scale;\nWherefore we vaunt unto these shining skies,\nAs wide o'er sea and land our glory flies:\n\"By men of Argolis who conquered Troy,\nThese spoils, a memory and an ancient joy,\nAre nailed in the gods' houses throughout Greece.\"\nWhich whoso readeth shall with praise increase\nOur land, our kings, and God's grace manifold\nWhich made these marvels be.\u2014My tale is told.<\/p>\n\n
Indeed thou conquerest me. Men say, the light\nIn old men's eyes yet serves to learn aright.\nBut Clytemnestra and the House should hear\nThese tidings first, though I their health may share.<\/p>\n
[During the last words<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA has entered from the Palace<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Long since I lifted up my voice in joy,\nWhen the first messenger from flaming Troy\nSpake through the dark of sack and overthrow.\nAnd mockers chid me: \"Because beacons show\nOn the hills, must Troy be fallen? Quickly born\nAre women's hopes!\" Aye, many did me scorn;\nYet gave I sacrifice; and by my word\nThrough all the city our woman's cry was heard,\nLifted in blessing round the seats of God,\nAnd slumbrous incense o'er the altars glowed\nIn fragrance.\nAnd for thee, what need to tell\nThy further tale? My lord himself shall well\nInstruct me. Yet, to give my lord and king\nAll reverent greeting at his homecoming\u2014\nWhat dearer dawn on woman's eyes can flame\nThan this, which casteth wide her gate to acclaim\nThe husband whom God leadeth safe from war?\u2014\nGo, bear my lord this prayer: That fast and far\nHe haste him to this town which loves his name;\nAnd in his castle may he find the same\nWife that he left, a watchdog of the hall,\nTrue to one voice and fierce to others all;\nA body and soul unchanged, no seal of his\nBroke in the waiting years.\u2014No thought of ease\nNor joy from other men hath touched my soul,\nNor shall touch, until bronze be dyed like wool.\nA boast so faithful and so plain, I wot,\nSpoke by a royal Queen doth shame her not.<\/p>\n
[Exit<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA.]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Let thine ear mark her message. 'Tis of fair\nSeeming, and craves a clear interpreter\u2026.\nBut, Herald, I would ask thee; tell me true\nOf Menelaus. Shall he come with you,\nOur land's belov\u00e8d crown, untouched of ill?<\/p>\n\n
I know not how to speak false words of weal\nFor friends to reap thereof a harvest true.<\/p>\n\n
Canst speak of truth with comfort joined? Those two\nOnce parted, 'tis a gulf not lightly crossed.<\/p>\n\n
Your king is vanished from the Achaian host,\nHe and his ship! Such comfort have I brought.<\/p>\n\n
Sailed he alone from Troy? Or was he caught\nBy storms in the midst of you, and swept away?<\/p>\n\n
Thou hast hit the truth; good marksman, as men say!\nAnd long to suffer is but brief to tell.<\/p>\n\n
How ran the sailors' talk? Did there prevail\nOne rumour, showing him alive or dead?<\/p>\n\n
None knoweth, none hath tiding, save the head\nOf Helios, ward and watcher of the world.<\/p>\n\n
Then tell us of the storm. How, when God hurled\nHis anger, did it rise? How did it die?<\/p>\n\n
It likes me not, a day of presage high\nWith dolorous tongue to stain. Those twain, I vow,\nStand best apart. When one with shuddering brow,\nFrom armies lost, back beareth to his home\nWord that the terror of her prayers is come;\nOne wound in her great heart, and many a fate\nFor many a home of men cast out to sate\nThe two-fold scourge that worketh Ares' lust,\nSpear crossed with spear, dust wed with bloody dust;\nWho walketh laden with such weight of wrong,\nWhy, let him, if he will, uplift the song\nThat is Hell's triumph. But to come as I\nAm now come, laden with deliverance high,\nHome to a land of peace and laughing eyes,\nAnd mar all with that fury of the skies\nWhich made our Greeks curse God\u2014how should this be?\nTwo enemies most ancient, Fire and Sea,\nA sudden friendship swore, and proved their plight\nBy war on us poor sailors through that night\nOf misery, when the horror of the wave\nTowered over us, and winds from Strymon drave\nHull against hull, till good ships, by the horn\nOf the mad whirlwind gored and overborne,\nOne here, one there, 'mid rain and blinding spray,\nLike sheep by a devil herded, passed away.\nAnd when the bless\u00e8d Sun upraised his head,\nWe saw the Aegean waste a-foam with dead,\nDead men, dead ships, and spars disasterful.\nHowbeit for us, our one unwounded hull\nOut of that wrath was stolen or begged free\nBy some good spirit\u2014sure no man was he!\u2014\nWho guided clear our helm; and on till now\nHath Saviour Fortune throned her on the prow.\nNo surge to mar our mooring, and no floor\nOf rock to tear us when we made for shore.\nTill, fled from that sea-hell, with the clear sun\nAbove us and all trust in fortune gone,\nWe drove like sheep about our brain the thoughts\nOf that lost army, broken and scourged with knouts\nOf evil. And, methinks, if there is breath\nIn them, they talk of us as gone to death\u2014\nHow else?\u2014and so say we of them! For thee,\nSince Menela\u00fcs thy first care must be,\nIf by some word of Zeus, who wills not yet\nTo leave the old house for ever desolate,\nSome ray of sunlight on a far-off sea\nLights him, yet green and living \u2026 we may see\nHis ship some day in the harbour!\u2014'Twas the word\nOf truth ye asked me for, and truth ye have heard!<\/p>\n
[Exit<\/i> HERALD. The<\/i> CHORUS take position for the Third Stasimon<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
(Surely there was mystic meaning in the name<\/i> HELENA, meaning which was fulfilled when she fled to Troy.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Who was He who found for thee\nThat name, truthful utterly\u2014\nWas it One beyond our vision\nMoving sure in pre-decision\nOf man's doom his mystic lips?\u2014\nCalling thee, the Battle-wed,\nThee, the Strife-encompass\u00e8d,\nHELEN? Yea, in fate's derision,\nHell in cities, Hell in ships,\nHell in hearts of men they knew her,\nWhen the dim and delicate fold\nOf her curtains backward rolled,\nAnd to sea, to sea, she threw her\nIn the West Wind's giant hold;\nAnd with spear and sword behind her\nCame the hunters in a flood,\nDown the oarblade's viewless trail\nTracking, till in Simo\u00efs' vale\nThrough the leaves they crept to find her,\nA Wrath, a seed of blood.<\/p>\n
(The Trojans welcomed her with triumph and praised Alexander till at last their song changed and they saw another meaning in Alexander's name also.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
So the Name to Ilion came\nOn God's thought-fulfilling flame,\nShe a vengeance and a token\nOf the unfaith to bread broken,\nOf the hearth of God betrayed,\nAgainst them whose voices swelled\nGlorying in the prize they held\nAnd the Spoiler's vaunt outspoken\nAnd the song his brethren made\n'Mid the bridal torches burning;\nTill, behold, the ancient City\nOf King Priam turned, and turning\nTook a new song for her learning,\nA song changed and full of pity,\nWith the cry of a lost nation;\nAnd she changed the bridegroom's name:\nCalled him Paris Ghastly-wed;\nFor her sons were with the dead,\nAnd her life one lamentation,\n'Mid blood and burning flame.<\/p>\n
(Like a lion's whelp reared as a pet and turning afterwards to a great beast of prey,<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Lo, once there was a herdsman reared\nIn his own house, so stories tell,\nA lion's whelp, a milk-fed thing\nAnd soft in life's first opening\nAmong the sucklings of the herd;\nThe happy children loved him well,\nAnd old men smiled, and oft, they say,\nIn men's arms, like a babe, he lay,\nBright-eyed, and toward the hand that teased him\nEagerly fawning for food or play.<\/p>\n
Then on a day outflashed the sudden\nRage of the lion brood of yore;\nHe paid his debt to them that fed\nWith wrack of herds and carnage red,\nYea, wrought him a great feast unbidden,\nTill all the house-ways ran with gore;\nA sight the thralls fled weeping from,\nA great red slayer, beard a-foam,\nHigh-priest of some blood-curs\u00e8d altar\nGod had uplifted against that home.<\/p>\n
(So was it with Helen in Troy.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
And how shall I call the thing that came\nAt the first hour to Ilion city?\nCall it a dream of peace untold,\nA secret joy in a mist of gold,\nA woman's eye that was soft, like flame,\nA flower which ate a man's heart with pity.<\/p>\n
But she swerved aside and wrought to her kiss a bitter ending,\nAnd a wrath was on her harbouring, a wrath upon her friending,\nWhen to Priam and his sons she fled quickly o'er the deep,\nWith the god to whom she sinned for her watcher on the wind,\nA death-bride, whom brides long shall weep.<\/p>\n
(Men say that Good Fortune wakes the envy of God; not so; Good Fortune may be innocent, and then there is no vengeance<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
A grey word liveth, from the morn\nOf old time among mortals spoken,\nThat man's Wealth waxen full shall fall\nNot childless, but get sons withal;\nAnd ever of great bliss is born\nA tear unstanched and a heart broken.<\/p>\n
But I hold my thought alone and by others unbeguiled;\n'Tis the deed that is unholy shall have issue, child on child,\nSin on sin, like his begetters; and they shall be as they were.<\/p>\n
But the man who walketh straight, and the house thereof, tho' Fate\nExalt him, the children shall be fair.<\/p>\n
(It is Sin, it is Pride and Ruthlessness, that beget children like themselves till Justice is fulfilled upon them.)<\/i><\/p>\n
But Old Sin loves, when comes the hour again,\nTo bring forth New,\nWhich laugheth lusty amid the tears of men;\nYea, and Unruth, his comrade, wherewith none\nMay plead nor strive, which dareth on and on,\nKnowing not fear nor any holy thing;\nTwo fires of darkness in a house, born true,\nLike to their ancient spring.<\/p>\n
But Justice shineth in a house low-wrought\nWith smoke-stained wall,\nAnd honoureth him who filleth his own lot;\nBut the unclean hand upon the golden stair\nWith eyes averse she flieth, seeking where\nThings innocent are; and, recking not the power\nOf wealth by man misgloried, guideth all\nTo her own destined hour.<\/p>\n
[Here amid a great procession enter<\/i> AGAMEMNON on a Chariot. Behind him on another Chariot is<\/i> CASSANDRA. The<\/i> CHORUS approach and make obeisance. Some of<\/i> AGAMEMNON'S men have on their shields a White Horse, some a Lion. Their arms are rich and partly barbaric<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
All hail, O King! Hail, Atreus' Son!\nSacker of Cities! Ilion's bane!\nWith what high word shall I greet thee again,\nHow give thee worship, and neither outrun\nThe point of pleasure, nor stint too soon?\nFor many will cling. To fair seeming\nThe faster because they have sinned erewhile;\nAnd a man may sigh with never a sting\nOf grief in his heart, and a man may smile\nWith eyes unlit and a lip that strains.\nBut the wise Shepherd knoweth his sheep,\nAnd his eyes pierce deep\nThe faith like water that fawns and feigns.<\/p>\n
But I hide nothing, O King. That day\nWhen in quest of Helen our battle array\nHurled forth, thy name upon my heart's scroll\nWas deep in letters of discord writ;\nAnd the ship of thy soul,\nIll-helmed and blindly steered was it,\nPursuing ever, through men that die,\nOne wild heart that was fain to fly.\nBut on this new day,\nFrom the deep of my thought and in love, I say\n\"Sweet is a grief well ended;\"\nAnd in time's flow Thou wilt learn and know\nThe true from the false,\nOf them that were left to guard the walls\nOf thine empty Hall unfriended.<\/p>\n
[During the above<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA has appeared on the Palace steps, with a train of Attendants, to receive her Husband<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nAGAMEMNON<\/h3>\n
To Argos and the gods of Argolis\nAll hail, who share with me the glory of this\nHome-coming and the vengeance I did wreak\nOn Priam's City! Yea, though none should speak,\nThe great gods heard our cause, and in one mood\nUprising, in the urn of bitter blood,\nThat men should shriek and die and towers should burn,\nCast their great vote; while over Mercy's urn\nHope waved her empty hands and nothing fell.\nEven now in smoke that City tells her tale;\nThe wrack-wind liveth, and where Ilion died\nThe reek of the old fatness of her pride\nFrom hot and writhing ashes rolls afar.\nFor which let thanks, wide as our glories are,\nBe uplifted; seeing the Beast of Argos hath\nRound Ilion's towers piled high his fence of wrath\nAnd, for one woman ravished, wrecked by force\nA City. Lo, the leap of the wild Horse\nin darkness when the Pleiades were dead;\nA mailed multitude, a Lion unfed,\nWhich leapt the tower and lapt the blood of Kings!<\/p>\n
Lo, to the Gods I make these thanksgivings.\nBut for thy words: I marked them, and I mind\nTheir meaning, and my voice shall be behind\nThine. For not many men, the proverb saith,\nCan love a friend whom fortune prospereth\nUnenvying; and about the envious brain\nCold poison clings, and doubles all the pain\nLife brings him. His own woundings he must nurse,\nAnd feels another's gladness like a curse.<\/p>\n
Well can I speak. I know the mirrored glass\nCalled friendship, and the shadow shapes that pass\nAnd feign them a King's friends. I have known but one\u2014\nOdysseus, him we trapped against his own\nWill!\u2014who once harnessed bore his yoke right well \u2026\nBe he alive or dead of whom I tell\nThe tale. And for the rest, touching our state\nAnd gods, we will assemble in debate\nA concourse of all Argos, taking sure\nCounsel, that what is well now may endure\nWell, and if aught needs healing medicine, still\nBy cutting and by fire, with all good will,\nI will essay to avert the after-wrack\nSuch sickness breeds.<\/p>\n
Aye, Heaven hath led me back;\nAnd on this hearth where still my fire doth burn\nI will go pay to heaven my due return,\nWhich guides me here, which saved me far away.\nO Victory, now mine own, be mine alway!<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA, at the head of her retinue, steps forward. She controls\nher suspense with difficulty but gradually gains courage as she proceeds.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Ye Elders, Council of the Argive name\nHere present, I will no more hold it shame\nTo lay my passion bare before men's eyes.\nThere comes a time to a woman when fear dies\nFor ever. None hath taught me. None could tell,\nSave me, the weight of years intolerable\nI lived while this man lay at Ilion.\nThat any woman thus should sit alone\nIn a half-empty house, with no man near,\nMakes her half-blind with dread! And in her ear\nAlway some voice of wrath; now messengers\nOf evil; now not so; then others worse,\nCrying calamity against mine and me.\nOh, had he half the wounds that variously\nCame rumoured home, his flesh must be a net,\nAll holes from heel to crown! And if he met\nAs many deaths as I met tales thereon,\nIs he some monstrous thing, some G\u00earyon\nThree-souled, that will not die, till o'er his head,\nThree robes of earth be piled, to hold him dead?\nAye, many a time my heart broke, and the noose\nOf death had got me; but they cut me loose.\nIt was those voices alway in mine ear.<\/p>\n
For that, too, young Orestes is not here\nBeside me, as were meet, seeing he above\nAll else doth hold the surety of our love;\nLet not thy heart be troubled. It fell thus:\nOur loving spear-friend took him, Strophius\nThe Phocian, who forewarned me of annoy\nTwo-fronted, thine own peril under Troy,\nAnd ours here, if the rebel multitude\nShould cast the Council down. It is men's mood\nAlway, to spurn the fallen. So spake he,\nAnd sure no guile was in him.<\/p>\n
But for me,\nThe old stormy rivers of my grief are dead\nNow at the spring; not one tear left unshed.\nMine eyes are sick with vigil, endlessly\nWeeping the beacon-piles that watched for thee\nFor ever answerless. And did I dream,\nA gnat's thin whirr would start me, like a scream\nOf battle, and show me thee by terrors swept,\nCrowding, too many for the time I slept.<\/p>\n
From all which stress delivered and free-souled,\nI greet my lord: O watchdog of the fold,\nO forestay sure that fails not in the squall,\nO strong-based pillar of a towering hall;\nO single son to a father age-ridden;\nO land unhoped for seen by shipwrecked men;\nSunshine more beautiful when storms are fled;\nSpring of quick water in a desert dead \u2026.\nHow sweet to be set free from any chain!<\/p>\n
These be my words to greet him home again.\nNo god shall grudge them. Surely I and thou\nHave suffered in time past enough! And now\nDismount, O head with love and glory crowned,\nFrom this high car; yet plant not on bare ground\nThy foot, great King, the foot that trampled Troy.\nHo, bondmaids, up! Forget not your employ,\nA floor of crimson broideries to spread\nFor the King's path. Let all the ground be red\nWhere those feet pass; and Justice, dark of yore,\nHome light him to the hearth he looks not for!\nWhat followeth next, our sleepless care shall see\nOrdered as God's good pleasure may decree.<\/p>\n
[The attendants spread tapestries of crimson and gold from the Chariot to the Door of the Palace.<\/i> AGAMEMNON does not move<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nAGAMEMNON<\/h3>\n
Daughter of Leda, watcher of my fold,\nIn sooth thy welcome, grave and amply told,\nFitteth mine absent years. Though it had been\nSeemlier, methinks, some other, not my Queen,\nHad spoke these honours. For the rest, I say,\nSeek not to make me soft in woman's way;\nCry not thy praise to me wide-mouthed, nor fling\nThy body down, as to some barbarous king.\nNor yet with broidered hangings strew my path,\nTo awake the unseen ire. 'Tis God that hath\nSuch worship; and for mortal man to press\nRude feet upon this broidered loveliness \u2026\nI vow there is danger in it. Let my road\nBe honoured, surely; but as man, not god.\nRugs for the feet and yonder broidered pall \u2026\nThe names ring diverse!\u2026 Aye, and not to fall\nSuddenly blind is of all gifts the best\nGod giveth, for I reckon no man blest\nEre to the utmost goal his race be run.\nSo be it; and if, as this day I have done,\nI shall do always, then I fear no ill.<\/p>\n\n
Tell me but this, nowise against thy will \u2026<\/p>\n\n
My will, be sure, shall falter not nor fade.<\/p>\n\n
Was this a vow in some great peril made?<\/p>\n\n
Enough! I have spoke my purpose, fixed and plain.<\/p>\n\n
Were Priam the conqueror \u2026 Think, would he refrain?<\/p>\n\n
Oh, stores of broideries would be trampled then!<\/p>\n\n
Lord, care not for the cavillings of men!<\/p>\n\n
The murmur of a people hath strange weight.<\/p>\n\n
Who feareth envy, feareth to be great.<\/p>\n\n
'Tis graceless when a woman strives to lead.<\/p>\n\n
When a great conqueror yields, 'tis grace indeed,<\/p>\n\n
So in this war thou must my conqueror be?<\/p>\n\n
Yield! With good will to yield is victory!<\/p>\n\n
Well, if I needs must \u2026 Be it as thou hast said!\nQuick! Loose me these bound slaves on which I tread,\nAnd while I walk yon wonders of the sea\nGod grant no eye of wrath be cast on me\nFrom far!<\/p>\n
[The Attendants untie his shoes<\/i>.]<\/p>\n
For even now it likes me not\nTo waste mine house, thus marring underfoot\nThe pride thereof, and wondrous broideries\nBought in far seas with silver. But of these\nEnough.\u2014And mark, I charge thee, this princess\nOf Ilion; tend her with all gentleness.\nGod's eye doth see, and loveth from afar,\nThe merciful conqueror. For no slave of war\nIs slave by his own will. She is the prize\nAnd chosen flower of Ilion's treasuries,\nSet by the soldiers' gift to follow me.\nNow therefore, seeing I am constrained by thee\nAnd do thy will, I walk in conqueror's guise\nBeneath my Gate, trampling sea-crimson dyes.<\/p>\n
[As he dismounts and sets foot on the Tapestries<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA'S women utter again their Cry of Triumph. The people bow or kneel as he passes.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
There is the sea\u2014its caverns who shall drain?\u2014\nBreeding of many a purple-fish the stain\nSurpassing silver, ever fresh renewed,\nFor robes of kings. And we, by right indued,\nPossess our fill thereof. Thy house, O King,\nKnoweth no stint, nor lack of anything.\nWhat trampling of rich raiment, had the cry\nSo sounded in the domes of prophesy,\nWould I have vowed these years, as price to pay\nFor this dear life in peril far away!\nWhere the root is, the leafage cometh soon\nTo clothe an house, and spread its leafy boon\nAgainst the burning star; and, thou being come,\nThou, on the midmost hearthstone of thy home,\nOh, warmth in winter leapeth to thy sign.\nAnd when God's summer melteth into wine\nThe green grape, on that house shall coolness fall\nWhere the true man, the master, walks his hall.<\/p>\n
Zeus, Zeus! True Master, let my prayers be true!\nAnd, oh, forget not that thou art willed to do!<\/p>\n
[She follows<\/i> AGAMEMNON into the Palace. The retinues of both King and Queen go in after them.<\/i> CASSANDRA remains<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
Strophe 1.<\/h4>\n
What is this that evermore,\nA cold terror at the door\nOf this bosom presage-haunted,\nPale as death hovereth?\nWhile a song unhired, unwanted,\nBy some inward prophet chanted,\nSpeaks the secret at its core;\nAnd to cast it from my blood\nLike a dream not understood\nNo sweet-spoken Courage now\nSitteth at my heart's dear prow.<\/p>\n
Yet I know that manifold\nDays, like sand, have waxen old<\/p>\n
Since the day those shoreward-thrown\nCables flapped and line on line\nStanding forth for Ilion\nThe long galleys took the brine<\/p>\n\n
\u2014Woe to him who fears not fate!\n'Tis the ship that forward straight\nSweepeth, strikes the reef below;\nHe who fears and lightens weight,\nCasting forth, in measured throw,\nFrom the wealth his hand hath got \u2026\nHis whole ship shall founder not,\nWith abundance overfraught,\nNor deep seas above him flow.\n\u2014Lo, when famine stalketh near,\nOne good gift of Zeus again\nFrom the furrows of one year\nEndeth quick the starving pain;<\/p>\n\n
\u2014One there was of old who showed\nMan the path from death to day;\nBut Zeus, lifting up his rod,\nSpared not, when he charged him stay.<\/p>\n
\u2014Save that every doom of God\nHath by other dooms its way\nCrossed, that none may rule alone,\nIn one speech-outstripping groan\nForth had all this passion flown,\nWhich now murmuring hides away,\nFull of pain, and hoping not\nEver one clear thread to unknot\nFrom the tangle of my soul,\nFrom a heart of burning coal.<\/p>\n
[Suddenly<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA appears standing in the Doorway.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Thou likewise, come within! I speak thy name,\nCassandra;<\/p>\n
[CASSANDRA trembles, but continues to stare in front of her, as though not hearing<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA.]<\/p>\n
seeing the Gods\u2014why chafe at them?\u2014\nHave placed thee here, to share within these walls\nOur lustral waters, 'mid a crowd of thralls\nWho stand obedient round the altar-stone\nOf our Possession. Therefore come thou down,\nAnd be not over-proud. The tale is told\nHow once Alcmena's son himself, being sold,\nWas patient, though he liked not the slaves' mess.\nAnd more, if Fate must bring thee to this stress,\nPraise God thou art come to a House of high report\nAnd wealth from long ago. The baser sort,\nWho have reaped some sudden harvest unforeseen,\nAre ever cruel to their slaves, and mean\nIn the measure. We shall give whate'er is due.<\/p>\n
[CASSANDRA is silent.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
To thee she speaks, and waits \u2026 clear words and true!\nOh, doom is all around thee like a net;\nYield, if thou canst\u2026. Belike thou canst not yet.<\/p>\n\n
Methinks, unless this wandering maid is one\nVoiced like a swallow-bird, with tongue unknown\nAnd barbarous, she can read my plain intent.\nI use but words, and ask for her consent.<\/p>\n\n
Ah, come! Tis best, as the world lies to-day.\nLeave this high-throned chariot, and obey!<\/p>\n\n
How long must I stand dallying at the Gate?\nEven now the beasts to Hestia consecrate\nWait by the midmost fire, since there is wrought\nThis high fulfilment for which no man thought.\nWherefore, if 'tis thy pleasure to obey\nAught of my will, prithee, no more delay!\nIf, dead to sense, thou wilt not understand\u2026\nThou show her, not with speech but with brute hand!<\/p>\n
[To the Leader of the<\/i> CHORUS.]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
The strange maid needs a rare interpreter.\nShe is trembling like a wild beast in a snare.<\/p>\n\n
'Fore God, she is mad, and heareth but her own\nFolly! A slave, her city all o'erthrown,\nShe needs must chafe her bridle, till this fret\nBe foamed away in blood and bitter sweat.\nI waste no more speech, thus to be defied.<\/p>\n
[She goes back inside the Palace<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
I pity thee so sore, no wrath nor pride\nIs in me.\u2014Come, dismount! Bend to the stroke\nFate lays on thee, and learn to feel thy yoke.<\/p>\n
[He lays his hand softly on<\/i> CASSANDRA'S shoulder<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nCASSANDRA<\/h3>\n(moaning to herself<\/i>)\n
Otototoi \u2026 Dreams. Dreams.\nApollo. O Apollo!<\/p>\n\n
Why sob'st thou for Apollo? It is writ,\nHe loves not grief nor lendeth ear to it.<\/p>\n\n
Otototoi \u2026 Dreams. Dreams.\nApollo. O Apollo!<\/p>\n\n
Still to that god she makes her sobbing cry\nWho hath no place where men are sad, or die.<\/p>\n\n
Apollo, Apollo! Light of the Ways of Men!\nMine enemy!\nHast lighted me to darkness yet again?<\/p>\n\n
How? Will she prophesy about her own\nSorrows? That power abides when all is gone!<\/p>\n\n
Apollo, Apollo! Light of all that is!\nMine enemy!\nWhere hast thou led me? \u2026 Ha! What house is this?<\/p>\n\n
The Atreidae's castle. If thou knowest not, I\nAm here to help thee, and help faithfully.<\/p>\n\n
Nay, nay. This is the house that God hateth.\nThere be many things that know its secret; sore\nAnd evil things; murders and strangling death.\n'Tis here they slaughter men\u2026A splashing floor.<\/p>\n\n
Keen-sensed the strange maid seemeth, like a hound\nFor blood.\u2014And what she seeks can sure be found!<\/p>\n\n
The witnesses \u2026 I follow where they lead.\nThe crying \u2026 of little children \u2026 near the gate:\nCrying for wounds that bleed:\nAnd the smell of the baked meats their father ate.<\/p>\n\n
Word of thy mystic power had reached our ear\nLong since. Howbeit we need no prophets here.<\/p>\n\n
Ah, ah! What would they? A new dreadful thing.\nA great great sin plots in the house this day;\nToo strong for the faithful, beyond medicining \u2026\nAnd help stands far away.<\/p>\n\n
This warning I can read not, though I knew\nThat other tale. It rings the city through.<\/p>\n\n
O Woman, thou! The lord who lay with thee!\nWilt lave with water, and then \u2026 How speak the end?\nIt comes so quick. A hand \u2026 another hand \u2026\nThat reach, reach gropingly\u2026.<\/p>\n\n
I see not yet. These riddles, pierced with blind\nGleams of foreboding, but bemuse my mind.<\/p>\n\n
Ah, ah! What is it? There; it is coming clear.\nA net \u2026 some net of Hell.\nNay, she that lies with him \u2026 is she the snare?\nAnd half of his blood upon it. It holds well\u2026.\nO Crowd of ravening Voices, be glad, yea, shout\nAnd cry for the stoning, cry for the casting out!<\/p>\n\n
What Fury Voices call'st thou to be hot\nAgainst this castle? Such words like me not.<\/p>\n
And deep within my breast I felt that sick\nAnd saffron drop, which creepeth to the heart\nTo die as the last rays of life depart.\nMisfortune comes so quick.<\/p>\n\n
Ah, look! Look! Keep his mate from the Wild Bull!\nA tangle of raiment, see;\nA black horn, and a blow, and he falleth, full\nIn the marble amid the water. I counsel ye.\nI speak plain \u2026 Blood in the bath and treachery!<\/p>\n\n
No great interpreter of oracles\nAm I; but this, I think, some mischief spells.<\/p>\n
What spring of good hath seercraft ever made\nUp from the dark to flow?\n'Tis but a weaving of words, a craft of woe,\nTo make mankind afraid.<\/p>\n\n
Poor woman! Poor dead woman! \u2026 Yea, it is I,\nPoured out like water among them. Weep for me\u2026.\nAh! What is this place? Why must I come with thee\u2026.\nTo die, only to die?<\/p>\n\n
Thou art borne on the breath of God, thou spirit wild,\nFor thine own weird to wail,\nLike to that wing\u00e8d voice, that heart so sore\nWhich, crying alway, hungereth to cry more,\n\"Itylus, Itylus,\" till it sing her child\nBack to the nightingale.<\/p>\n\n
Oh, happy Singing Bird, so sweet, so clear!\nSoft wings for her God made,\nAnd an easy passing, without pain or tear \u2026\nFor me 'twill be torn flesh and rending blade.<\/p>\n\n
Whence is it sprung, whence wafted on God's breath,\nThis anguish reasonless?\nThis throbbing of terror shaped to melody,\nMoaning of evil blent with music high?\nWho hath marked out for thee that mystic path\nThrough thy woe's wilderness?<\/p>\n\n
Alas for the kiss, the kiss of Paris, his people's bane!\nAlas for Scamander Water, the water my fathers drank!\nLong, long ago, I played about thy bank,\nAnd was cherished and grew strong;\nNow by a River of Wailing, by shores of Pain,\nSoon shall I make my song.<\/p>\n\n
How sayst thou? All too clear,\nThis ill word thou hast laid upon thy mouth!\nA babe could read thee plain.\nIt stabs within me like a serpent's tooth,\nThe bitter thrilling music of her pain:\nI marvel as I hear.<\/p>\n\n
Alas for the toil, the toil of a City, worn unto death!\nAlas for my father's worship before the citadel,\nThe flocks that bled and the tumult of their breath!\nBut no help from them came\nTo save Troy Towers from falling as they fell!\u2026\nAnd I on the earth shall writhe, my heart aflame.<\/p>\n\n
Dark upon dark, new ominous words of ill!\nSure there hath swept on thee some Evil Thing,\nCrushing, which makes thee bleed\nAnd in the torment of thy vision sing\nThese plaining death-fraught oracles \u2026 Yet still, still,\nTheir end I cannot read!<\/p>\n\n
'Fore God, mine oracle shall no more hide\nWith veils his visage, like a new-wed bride!\nA shining wind out of this dark shall blow,\nPiercing the dawn, growing as great waves grow,\nTo burst in the heart of sunrise \u2026 stronger far\nThan this poor pain of mine. I will not mar\nWith mists my wisdom.\nBe near me as I go,\nTracking the evil things of long ago,\nAnd bear me witness. For this roof, there clings\nMusic about it, like a choir which sings\nOne-voiced, but not well-sounding, for not good\nThe words are. Drunken, drunken, and with blood,\nTo make them dare the more, a revelling rout\nIs in the rooms, which no man shall cast out,\nOf sister Furies. And they weave to song,\nHaunting the House, its first blind deed of wrong,\nSpurning in turn that King's bed desecrate,\nDefiled, which paid a brother's sin with hate\u2026.\nHath it missed or struck, mine arrow? Am I a poor\nDreamer, that begs and babbles at the door?\nGive first thine oath in witness, that I know\nOf this great dome the sins wrought long ago.<\/p>\n\n
And how should oath of mine, though bravely sworn,\nAppease thee? Yet I marvel that one born\nFar over seas, of alien speech, should fall\nSo apt, as though she had lived here and seen all.<\/p>\n\n
The Seer Apollo made me too to see.<\/p>\n\n
Was the God's heart pierced with desire for thee?<\/p>\n\n
Time was, I held it shame hereof to speak.<\/p>\n\n
Ah, shame is for the mighty, not the weak.<\/p>\n\n
We wrestled, and his breath to me was sweet.<\/p>\n\n
Ye came to the getting of children, as is meet?<\/p>\n\n
I swore to Loxias, and I swore a lie.<\/p>\n\n
Already thine the gift of prophecy?<\/p>\n\n
Already I showed my people all their path.<\/p>\n\n
And Loxias did not smite thee in his wrath?<\/p>\n\n
After that sin \u2026 no man believed me more.<\/p>\n\n
Nay, then, to us thy wisdom seemeth sure.<\/p>\n\n
Oh, oh! Agony, agony!\nAgain the awful pains of prophecy\nAre on me, maddening as they fall\u2026.\nYe see them there \u2026 beating against the wall?\nSo young \u2026 like shapes that gather in a dream \u2026\nSlain by a hand they loved. Children they seem,\nMurdered \u2026 and in their hands they bear baked meat:\nI think it is themselves. Yea, flesh; I see it;\nAnd inward parts\u2026. Oh, what a horrible load\nTo carry! And their father drank their blood.<\/p>\n
From these, I warn ye, vengeance broodeth still,\nA lion's rage, which goes not forth to kill\nBut lurketh in his lair, watching the high\nHall of my war-gone master \u2026 Master? Aye;\nMine, mine! The yoke is nailed about my neck\u2026.\nOh, lord of ships and trampler on the wreck\nOf Ilion, knows he not this she-wolf's tongue,\nWhich licks and fawns, and laughs with ear up-sprung,\nTo bite in the end like secret death?\u2014And can\nThe woman? Slay a strong and arm\u00e8d man? \u2026\nWhat fang\u00e8d reptile like to her doth creep?\nSome serpent amphisbene, some Skylla, deep\nHoused in the rock, where sailors shriek and die,\nMother of Hell blood-raging, which doth cry\nOn her own flesh war, war without alloy \u2026\nGod! And she shouted in his face her joy,\nLike men in battle when the foe doth break.\nAnd feigns thanksgiving for his safety's sake!\nWhat if no man believe me? 'Tis all one.\nThe thing which must be shall be; aye, and soon\nThou too shalt sorrow for these things, and here\nStanding confess me all too true a seer.<\/p>\n\n
The Thyestean feast of children slain\nI understood, and tremble. Aye, my brain\nReels at these visions, beyond guesswork true.\nBut after, though I heard, I had lost the clue.<\/p>\n\n
Man, thou shalt look on Agamemnon dead.<\/p>\n\n
Peace, Mouth of Evil! Be those words unsaid!<\/p>\n\n
No god of peace hath watch upon that hour.<\/p>\n\n
If it must come. Forefend it, Heavenly Power!<\/p>\n\n
They do not think of prayer; they think of death.<\/p>\n\n
They? Say, what man this foul deed compasseth?<\/p>\n\n
Alas, thou art indeed fallen far astray!<\/p>\n\n
How could such deed be done? I see no way.<\/p>\n\n
Yet know I not the Greek tongue all too well?<\/p>\n\n
Greek are the Delphic dooms, but hard to spell.<\/p>\n\n
Ah! Ah! There!\nWhat a strange fire! It moves \u2026 It comes at me.\nO Wolf Apollo, mercy! O agony! \u2026\nWhy lies she with a wolf, this lioness lone,\nTwo-handed, when the royal lion is gone?\nGod, she will kill me! Like to them that brew\nPoison, I see her mingle for me too\nA separate vial in her wrath, and swear,\nWhetting her blade for him, that I must share\nHis death \u2026 because, because he hath dragged me here!\nOh, why these mockers at my throat? This gear\nOf wreath\u00e8d bands, this staff of prophecy?\nI mean to kill you first, before I die.\nBegone!<\/p>\n
[She tears off her prophetic habiliments; and presently throws them on\nthe ground, and stamps on them.<\/i>]<\/p>\n
Down to perdition! \u2026 Lie ye so?\nSo I requite you! Now make rich in woe\nSome other Bird of Evil, me no more! [Coming to herself.<\/i>\nAh, see! It is Apollo's self, hath tore\nHis crown from me! Who watched me long ago\nIn this same prophet's robe, by friend, by foe,\nAll with one voice, all blinded, mocked to scorn:\n\"A thing of dreams,\" \"a beggar-maid outworn,\"\nPoor, starving and reviled, I endured all;\nAnd now the Seer, who called me till my call\nWas perfect, leads me to this last dismay\u2026.\n'Tis not the altar-stone where men did slay\nMy father; 'tis a block, a block with gore\nYet hot, that waits me, of one slain before.\nYet not of God unheeded shall we lie.\nThere cometh after, one who lifteth high\nThe downfallen; a branch where blossometh\nA sire's avenging and a mother's death.\nExiled and wandering, from this land outcast,\nOne day He shall return, and set the last\nCrown on these sins that have his house downtrod.\nFor, lo, there is a great oath sworn of God,\nHis father's upturned face shall guide him home.\nWhy should I grieve? Why pity these men's doom?\nI who have seen the City of Ilion\nPass as she passed; and they who cast her down\nHave thus their end, as God gives judgement sure\u2026.\nI go to drink my cup. I will endure\nTo die. O Gates, Death-Gates, all hail to you!\nOnly, pray God the blow be stricken true!\nPray God, unagonized, with blood that flows\nQuick unto friendly death, these eyes may close!<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
O full of sorrows, full of wisdom great,\nWoman, thy speech is a long anguish; yet,\nKnowing thy doom, why walkst thou with clear eyes,\nLike some god-blinded beast, to sacrifice?<\/p>\n\n
There is no escape, friends; only vain delay.<\/p>\n\n
Is not the later still the sweeter day?<\/p>\n\n
The day is come. Small profit now to fly.<\/p>\n\n
Through all thy griefs, Woman, thy heart is high.<\/p>\n\n
Alas! None that is happy hears that praise.<\/p>\n\n
Are not the brave dead blest in after days?<\/p>\n\n
O Father! O my brethren brave, I come!<\/p>\n
[She moves towards the House, but recoils shuddering.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
What frights thee? What is that thou startest from?<\/p>\n\n
Ah, faugh! Faugh!<\/p>\n\n
What turns thee in that blind\nHorror? Unless some loathing of the mind \u2026<\/p>\n\n
Death drifting from the doors, and blood like rain!<\/p>\n\n
'Tis but the dumb beasts at the altar slain.<\/p>\n\n
And vapours from a charnel-house \u2026 See there!<\/p>\n\n
'Tis Tyrian incense clouding in the air.<\/p>\n\n
So be it!\u2014I will go, in yonder room\nTo weep mine own and Agamemnon's doom.\nMay death be all! Strangers, I am no bird\nThat pipeth trembling at a thicket stirred\nBy the empty wind. Bear witness on that day\nWhen woman for this woman's life shall pay,\nAnd man for man ill-mated low shall lie:\nI ask this boon, as being about to die.<\/p>\n\n
Alas, I pity thee thy mystic fate!<\/p>\n\n
One word, one dirge-song would I utter yet\nO'er mine own corpse. To this last shining Sun\nI pray that, when the Avenger's work is done,\nHis enemies may remember this thing too,\nThis little thing, the woman slave they slew!<\/p>\n
O world of men, farewell! A painted show\nIs all thy glory; and when life is low\nThe touch of a wet sponge out-blotteth all.\nOh, sadder this than any proud man's fall! [She goes into the House.<\/i><\/p>\n\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
Great Fortune is an hungry thing,\nAnd filleth no heart anywhere,\nThough men with fingers menacing\nPoint at the great house, none will dare,\nWhen Fortune knocks, to bar the door\nProclaiming: \"Come thou here no more!\"\nLo, to this man the Gods have given\nGreat Ilion in the dust to tread\nAnd home return, emblazed of heaven;\nIf it is writ, he too shall go\nThrough blood for blood spilt long ago;\nIf he too, dying for the dead,\nShould crown the deaths of alien years,\nWhat mortal afar off, who hears,\nShall boast him Fortune's Child, and led\nAbove the eternal tide of tears?<\/p>\n[A sudden Cry from within.<\/i>]\nVOICE<\/h3>\n
Ho! Treason in the house! I am wounded: slain.<\/p>\n\n
Hush! In the castle! 'Twas a cry\nOf some man wounded mortally.<\/p>\n\n
Ah God, another! I am stricken again.<\/p>\n\n
I think the deed is done. It was the King\nWho groaned\u2026. Stand close, and think if anything\u2026.<\/p>\n
[The Old Men gather together under the shock, and debate confusedly.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nELDER B<\/h3>\n
I give you straight my judgement. Summon all\nThe citizens to rescue. Sound a call!<\/p>\n\n
No, no! Burst in at once without a word!\nIn, and convict them by their dripping sword!<\/p>\n\n
Yes; that or something like it. Quick, I say,\nBe doing! 'Tis a time for no delay.<\/p>\n\n
We have time to think. This opening \u2026 They have planned\nSome scheme to make enslavement of the land.<\/p>\n\n
Yes, while we linger here! They take no thought\nOf lingering, and their sword-arm sleepeth not!<\/p>\n\n
I have no counsel. I can speak not. Oh,\nLet him give counsel who can strike a blow!<\/p>\n\n
I say as this man says. I have no trust\nIn words to raise a dead man from the dust.<\/p>\n\n
How mean you? Drag out our poor lives, and stand\nCowering to these defilers of the land?<\/p>\n\n
Nay, 'tis too much! Better to strive and die!\nDeath is an easier doom than slavery.<\/p>\n\n
We heard a sound of groaning, nothing plain,\nHow know we\u2014are we seers?\u2014that one is slain?<\/p>\n\n
Oh, let us find the truth out, ere we grow\nThus passionate! To surmise is not to know.<\/p>\n\n
Break in, then! 'Tis the counsel ye all bring,\nAnd learn for sure, how is it with the King.<\/p>\n
[They cluster up towards the Palace Door, as though to force an entrance, when the great Door swings open, revealing<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA, who stands, axe in hand, over the dead bodies of<\/i> AGAMEMNON and<\/i> CASSANDRA. The body of<\/i> AGAMEMNON is wrapped in a rich crimson web. There is blood on<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA'S_ brow, and she speaks in wild triumph.]<\/p>\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Oh, lies enough and more have I this day\nSpoken, which now I shame not to unsay.\nHow should a woman work, to the utter end,\nHate on a damn\u00e8d hater, feigned a friend;\nHow pile perdition round him, hunter-wise,\nToo high for overleaping, save by lies?\nTo me this hour was dreamed of long ago;\nA thing of ancient hate. 'Twas very slow\nIn coming, but it came. And here I stand\nEven where I struck, with all the deed I planned\nDone! 'Twas so wrought\u2014what boots it to deny?\u2014\nThe man could neither guard himself nor fly.\nAn endless web, as by some fisher strung,\nA deadly plenteousness of robe, I flung\nAll round him, and struck twice; and with two cries\nHis limbs turned water and broke; and as he lies\nI cast my third stroke in, a prayer well-sped\nTo Zeus of Hell, who guardeth safe his dead!\nSo there he gasped his life out as he lay;\nAnd, gasping, the blood spouted \u2026 Like dark spray\nThat splashed, it came, a salt and deathly dew;\nSweet, sweet as God's dear rain-drops ever blew\nO'er a parched field, the day the buds are born! \u2026\nWhich things being so, ye Councillors high-born,\nDepart in joy, if joy ye will. For me,\nI glory. Oh, if such a thing might be\nAs o'er the dead thank-offering to outpour,\nOn this dead it were just, aye, just and more,\nWho filled the cup of the House with treacheries\nCurse-fraught, and here hath drunk it to the lees!<\/p>\n\n
We are astonied at thy speech. To fling,\nWild mouth! such vaunt over thy murdered King!<\/p>\n\n
Wouldst fright me, like a witless woman? Lo,\nThis bosom shakes not. And, though well ye know,\nI tell you \u2026 Curse me as ye will, or bless,\n'Tis all one \u2026 This is Agamemnon; this,\nMy husband, dead by my right hand, a blow\nStruck by a righteous craftsman. Aye, 'tis so.<\/p>\n\n
Woman, what evil tree,\nWhat poison grown of the ground\nOr draught of the drifting sea\nWay to thy lips hath found,\nMaking thee clothe thy heart\nIn rage, yea, in curses burning\nWhen thine own people pray?\nThou hast hewn, thou hast cast away;\nAnd a thing cast away thou art,\nA thing of hate and a spurning!<\/p>\n\n
Aye, now, for me, thou hast thy words of fate;\nExile from Argos and the people's hate\nFor ever! Against him no word was cried,\nWhen, recking not, as 'twere a beast that died,\nWith flocks abounding o'er his wide domain,\nHe slew his child, my love, my flower of pain, \u2026\nGreat God, as magic for the winds of Thrace!\nWhy was not he man-hunted from his place,\nTo purge the blood that stained him? \u2026 When the deed\nIs mine, oh, then thou art a judge indeed!\nBut threat thy fill. I am ready, and I stand\nContent; if thy hand beateth down my hand,\nThou rulest. If aught else be God's decree,\nThy lesson shall be learned, though late it be.<\/p>\n\n
Thy thought, it is very proud;\nThy breath is the scorner's breath;\nIs not the madness loud\nIn thy heart, being drunk with death?\nYea, and above thy brow\nA star of the wet blood burneth!\nOh, doom shall have yet her day,\nThe last friend cast away,\nWhen lie doth answer lie\nAnd a stab for a stab returneth!<\/p>\n\n
And heark what Oath-gods gather to my side!\nBy my dead child's Revenge, now satisfied,\nBy Mortal Blindness, by all Powers of Hell\nWhich Hate, to whom in sacrifice he fell,\nMy Hope shall walk not in the house of Fear,\nWhile on my hearth one fire yet burneth clear,\nOne lover, one Aigisthos, as of old!\nWhat should I fear, when fallen here I hold\nThis foe, this scorner of his wife, this toy\nAnd fool of each Chryseis under Troy;\nAnd there withal his soothsayer and slave,\nHis chanting bed-fellow, his leman brave,\nWho rubbed the galleys' benches at his side.\nBut, oh, they had their guerdon as they died!\nFor he lies thus, and she, the wild swan's way,\nHath trod her last long weeping roundelay,\nAnd lies, his lover, ravisht o'er the main\nFor his bed's comfort and my deep disdain.<\/p>\n\n
Would God that suddenly\nWith no great agony,\nNo long sick-watch to keep,\nMy hour would come to me,\nMy hour, and presently\nBring the eternal, the\nUnwaking Sleep,\nNow that my Shepherd, he\nWhose love watched over me,\nLies in the deep!<\/p>\n\n
For woman's sake he endured and battled well,\nAnd by a woman's hand he fell.<\/p>\n\n
What hast thou done, O Helen blind of brain,\nO face that slew the souls on Ilion's plain,\nOne face, one face, and many a thousand slain?\nThe hate of old that on this castle lay,\nBuilded in lust, a husband's evil day,\nHath bloomed for thee a perfect flower again\nAnd unforgotten, an old and burning stain\nNever to pass away.<\/p>\n\n
Nay, pray not for the hour of death, being tried\nToo sore beneath these blows\nNeither on Helen turn thy wrath aside,\nThe Slayer of Men, the face which hath destroyed\nIts thousand Danaan souls, and wrought a wide\nWound that no leech can close.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014Daemon, whose heel is set\nOn the House and the twofold kin\nOf the high Tantalidae,\nA power, heavy as fate,\nThou wieldest through woman's sin,\nPiercing the heart of me!<\/p>\n
\u2014Like a raven swoln with hate\nHe hath set on the dead his claw,\nHe croaketh a song to sate\nHis fury, and calls it Law!<\/p>\n\n
Ah, call upon Him! Yea, call\u2014\nAnd thy thought hath found its path\u2014\nThe Daemon who haunts this hall,\nThe thrice-engorged Wrath;<\/p>\n
From him is the ache of the flesh\nFor blood born and increased;\nEre the old sore hath ceased\nIt oozeth afresh.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014Indeed He is very great,\nAnd heavy his anger, He,\nThe Daemon who guides the fate\nOf the old Tantalidae:\nAlas, alas, an evil tale ye tell\nOf desolate angers and insatiable!<\/p>\n
\u2014Ah me,\nAnd yet 'tis all as Zeus hath willed,\nDoer of all and Cause of all;\nBy His Word every chance doth fall,\nNo end without Him is fulfilled;\nWhat of these things\nBut cometh by high Heaven's counsellings?<\/p>\n
[A band of Mourners has gathered within the House<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nMOURNERS<\/h3>\n
Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!\nHow shall I weep, what word shall I say?\nCaught in the web of this spider thing,\nIn foul death gasping thy life away!\nWoe's me, woe's me, for this slavish lying,\nThe doom of craft and the lonely dying,\nThe iron two-edged and the hands that slay!<\/p>\n\n
And criest thou still this deed hath been\nMy work? Nay, gaze, and have no thought\nThat this is Agamemnon's Queen.\n'Tis He, 'tis He, hath round him wrought\nThis phantom of the dead man's wife;\nHe, the old Wrath, the Driver of Men astray,\nPursuer of Atreus for the feast defiled;\nTo assoil an ancient debt he hath paid this life;\nA warrior and a crowned King this day\nAtones for a slain child.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014That thou art innocent herein,\nWhat tongue dare boast? It cannot be,\nYet from the deeps of ancient sin\nThe Avenger may have wrought with thee.<\/p>\n
\u2014On the red Slayer crasheth, groping wild\nFor blood, more blood, to build his peace again,\nAnd wash like water the old frozen stain\nOf the torn child.<\/p>\n\n
Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!\nHow shall I weep, what word shall I say?\nCaught in the web of this spider thing,\nIn foul death gasping thy life away.\nWoe's me, woe's me, for this slavish lying,\nThe doom of craft and the lonely dying,\nThe iron two-edged and the hands that slay!<\/p>\n\n
And what of the doom of craft that first\nHe planted, making the House accurst?\nWhat of the blossom, from this root riven,\nIphigen\u00eea, the unforgiven?\nEven as the wrong was, so is the pain:\nHe shall not laugh in the House of the slain,\nWhen the count is scored;\nHe hath but spoil\u00e8d and paid again\nThe due of the sword.<\/p>\n\n
I am lost; my mind dull-eyed\nKnows not nor feels\nWhither to fly nor hide\nWhile the House reels.\nThe noise of rain that falls\nOn the roof affrighteth me,\nWashing away the walls;\nRain that falls bloodily.<\/p>\n
Doth ever the sound abate?\nLo, the next Hour of Fate\nWhetting her vengeance due\nOn new whet-stones, for new\nWorkings of hate.<\/p>\n\n
Would thou hadst covered me, Earth, O Earth,\nOr e'er I had looked on my lord thus low,\nIn the pall\u00e8d marble of silvern girth!\nWhat hands may shroud him, what tears may flow?<\/p>\n
Not thine, O Woman who dared to slay him,\nThou durst not weep to him now, nor pray him,\nNor pay to his soul the deep unworth\nOf gift or prayer to forget thy blow.<\/p>\n
\u2014Oh, who with heart sincere\nShall bring praise or grief\nTo lay on the sepulchre\nOf the great chief?<\/p>\n\n
His burial is not thine to array.\nBy me he fell, by me he died,\nI watch him to the grave, not cried\nBy mourners of his housefolk; nay,<\/p>\n
His own child for a day like this\nWaits, as is seemly, and shall run\nBy the white waves of Acheron\nTo fold him in her arms and kiss!<\/p>\n\n
Lo, she who was erst reviled\nRevileth; and who shall say?\nSpoil taken from them that spoiled,\nLife-blood from them that slay!\nSurely while God ensueth\nHis laws, while Time doth run\n'Tis written: On him that doeth\nIt shall be done.<\/p>\n
This is God's law and grace,\nWho then shall hunt the race\nOf curses from out this hall?\nThe House is sealed withal\nTo dreadfulness.<\/p>\n\n
Aye, thou hast found the Law, and stept\nIn Truth's way.\u2014Yet even now I call\nThe Living Wrath which haunts this hall\nTo truce and compact. I accept<\/p>\n
All the affliction he doth heap\nUpon me, and I charge him go\nFar off with his self-murdering woe\nTo strange men's houses. I will keep<\/p>\n
Some little dower, and leave behind\nAll else, contented utterly.\nI have swept the madness from the sky\nWherein these brethren slew their kind.<\/p>\n
[As she ceases, exhausted and with the fire gone out of her,<\/i>\nAIGISTHOS, with Attendants, bursts triumphantly in<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nAIGISTHOS<\/h3>\n
O shining day, O dawn of righteousness\nFulfilled! Now, now indeed will I confess\nThat divine watchers o'er man's death and birth\nLook down on all the anguish of the earth,\nNow that I see him lying, as I love\nTo see him, in this net the Furies wove,\nTo atone the old craft of his father's hand.\nFor Atreus, this man's father, in this land\nReigning, and by Thyestes in his throne\nChallenged\u2014he was his brother and mine own\nFather From home and city cast him out;\nAnd he, after long exile, turned about\nAnd threw him suppliant on the hearth, and won\nPromise of so much mercy, that his own\nLife-blood should reek not in his father's hall.\nThen did that godless brother, Atreus, call,\nTo greet my sire\u2014More eagerness, O God,\nWas there than love!\u2014a feast of brotherhood.\nAnd, feigning joyous banquet, laid as meat\nBefore him his dead children. The white feet\nAnd finger-fring\u00e8d hands apart he set,\nVeiled from all seeing, and made separate\nThe tables. And he straightway, knowing naught,\nTook of those bodies, eating that which wrought\nNo health for all his race. And when he knew\nThe unnatural deed, back from the board he threw,\nSpewing that murderous gorge, and spurning brake\nThe table, to make strong the curse he spake:\n\"Thus perish all of Pleisthen\u00eas begot!\"\nFor that lies this man here; and all the plot\nIs mine, most righteously. For me, the third,\nWhen butchering my two brethren, Atreus spared\nAnd cast me with my broken sire that day,\nA little thing in swaddling clothes, away\nTo exile; where I grew, and at the last\nJustice hath brought me home! Yea though outcast\nIn a far land, mine arm hath reached this king;\nMy brain, my hate, wrought all the counselling;\nAnd all is well. I have seen mine enemy\nDead in the snare, and care not if I die!<\/p>\n\n
Aigisthos, to insult over the dead\nI like not. All the counsel, thou hast said,\nWas thine alone; and thine the will that spilled\nThis piteous blood. As justice is fulfilled,\nThou shalt not 'scape\u2014so my heart presageth\u2014-The\nday of cursing and the hurl\u00e8d death.<\/p>\n\n
How, thou poor oarsman of the nether row,\nWhen the main deck is master? Sayst thou so?\u2026\nTo such old heads the lesson may prove hard,\nI fear me, when Obedience is the word.\nBut hunger, and bonds, and cold, help men to find\nTheir wits.\u2014They are wondrous healers of the mind!\nHast eyes and seest not this?\u2014Against a spike\nKick not, for fear it pain thee if thou strike.<\/p>\n\n
Woman! A soldier fresh from war! To keep\nWatch o'er his house and shame him in his sleep\u2026\nTo plot this craft against a lord of spears\u2026<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA, as though in a dream, pays no heed.<\/i> AIGISTHOS\ninterupts.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nAIGISTHOS<\/h3>\n
These be the words, old man, that lead to tears!\nThou hast an opposite to Orpheus' tongue,\nWho chained all things with his enchanting song,\nFor thy mad noise will put the chains on thee.\nEnough! Once mastered thou shalt tamer be.<\/p>\n\n
Thou master? Is old Argos so accurst?\nThou plotter afar off, who never durst\nRaise thine own hand to affront and strike him down\u2026<\/p>\n\n
To entice him was the wife's work. I was known\nBy all men here, his old confessed blood-foe.\nHowbeit, with his possessions I will know\nHow to be King. And who obeys not me\nShall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he,\nCorn-flushed. Hunger, and hunger's prison mate,\nThe clammy murk, shall see his rage abate.<\/p>\n\n
Thou craven soul! Why not in open strife\nSlay him? Why lay the blood-sin on his wife,\nStaining the Gods of Argos, making ill\nThe soil thereof?\u2026But young Orestes still\nLiveth. Oh, Fate will guide him home again,\nAvenging, conquering, home to kill these twain!<\/p>\n\n
'Fore God, if 'tis your pleasure thus to speak and do, ye soon shall hear!\nHo there, my trusty pikes, advance! There cometh business for the spear.<\/p>\n
[A body of Spearmen, from concealment outside, rush in and dominate the\nstage.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\nLEADER<\/h3>\nHo there, ye Men of Argos! Up! Stand and be ready, sword from sheath!\n
AIGISTHOS<\/h3>\n
By Heaven, I also, sword in hand, am ready, and refuse not death!<\/p>\n\n
Come, find it! We accept thy word. Thou offerest what we hunger for.<\/p>\n
[Some of the Elders draw swords with the Leader; others have collapsed with weakness. Men from<\/i> AGAMEMNON'S retinue have gathered and prepare for battle, when, before they can come to blows,<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA breaks from her exhausted silence<\/i>.]<\/p>\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Nay, peace, O best-belov\u00e8d! Peace! And let us work no evil more.\nSurely the reaping of the past is a full harvest, and not good,\nAnd wounds enough are everywhere.\u2014Let us not stain ourselves with blood.\nYe reverend Elders, go your ways, to his own dwelling every one,\nEre things be wrought for which men suffer.\u2014What we did must needs be\ndone.\nAnd if of all these strifes we now may have no more, oh, I will kneel\nAnd praise God, bruis\u00e8d though we be beneath the Daemon's heavy heel.\nThis is the word a woman speaks, to hear if any man will deign.<\/p>\n\n
And who are these to burst in flower of folly thus of tongue and brain,\nAnd utter words of empty sound and perilous, tempting Fortune's frown,\nAnd leave wise counsel all forgot, and gird at him who wears the crown?<\/p>\n\n
To cringe before a caitiff's crown, it squareth not with Argive ways.<\/p>\n\n
Bah, I will be a hand of wrath to fall on thee in after days.<\/p>\n\n
Not so, if God in after days shall guide Orestes home again!<\/p>\n\n
I know how men in exile feed on dreams\u2026and know such food is vain.<\/p>\n\n
Go forward and wax fat! Defile the right for this thy little hour!<\/p>\n\n
I spare thee now. Know well for all this folly thou shalt feel my power.<\/p>\n\n
Aye, vaunt thy greatness, as a bird beside his mate doth vaunt and swell.<\/p>\n\n
Vain hounds are baying round thee; oh, forget them! Thou and I shall dwell\nAs Kings in this great House. We two at last will order all things well.<\/p>\n
[The Elders and the remains of<\/i> AGAMEMNON'S retinue retire sullenly, leaving the Spearmen in possession.<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA and<\/i> AIGISTHOS turn and enter the Palace.<\/i>]<\/p>\n\n\nNOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON<\/h2>\n
The chief characters in the play belong to one family, as is shown by the two genealogies:\u2014<\/p>\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TANTALUS<\/p>\nPelops\n\nAtreus Thyestes\n\nAgamemnon Menelaus Aigisthos\n(= Clytemnestra) (= Helen) (= Clytemnestra)\n\nIphigenia Electra Orestes\n
(Also, a sister of Agamemnon, name variously given, married Strophios, and was the mother of Pylades.)<\/p>\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tyndareus = Leda = Zeus<\/p>\nClytemnestra Castor Polydeuces Helen\n\n
P. 1, l. 1.]\u2014The Watchman, like most characters in Greek tragedy, comes from the Homeric tradition, though in Homer (Od. iv. 524) he is merely a servant of Aigisthos.<\/p>\n
P. 2, l. 28, Women's triumph cry.]\u2014This cry of the women recurs several times in the play: cf. p. 26, ll. 587 ff., p. 55, l. 1234. It is conventionally represented by \"olol\u00fb\"; as the cry to Apollo, Paian is \"I-\u00ea,\" l. 146, and Cassandra's sob is \"ototoi\" or \"otototoi,\" p. 47.<\/p>\n
Pp. 3 f., ll. 40 ff.]\u2014With this silent scene of Clytemnestra's, compare the long silence of Cassandra below, and the silence of Prometheus in that play until his torturers have left him. See the criticism of Aeschylus in Aristophanes, Frogs<\/i>, ll. 911-920, pp. 68, 69 in my translation.<\/p>\n
P. 5, l. 104, Sign of the War-Way.]\u2014i.e. an ominous sign seen by the army as it started on its journey. In Homer, Iliad, ll. 305-329, it is a snake which eats the nine young of a mother bird and then the mother, and is turned into stone afterwards.\u2014All through this chorus the language of the prophet Calchas is intentionally obscure and riddling\u2014the style of prophesy.<\/p>\n
P. 7, l. 146, But I-\u00ea, i-\u00ea.]\u2014(Pronounce Ee-ay<\/i>.) Calchas, catching sight in his vision of the further consequences which Artemis will exact if she fulfils the sign, calls on Apollo Paian, the Healer, to check her.<\/p>\n
P. 7, l. 160, Zeus, whate'er He be.]\u2014This conception of Zeus is expressed also in Aeschylus' Suppliant Women<\/i>, and was probably developed in the Prometheus Trilogy. See my Rise of the Greek Epic<\/i>, p. 291 (Ed. 2).<\/p>\n
It is connected with the common Greek conception of the Tritos S\u00f4t\u00ear<\/i>\u2014 the Saviour Third. First, He who sins; next, He who avenges; third, He who saves. In vegetation worship it is the Old Year who has committed Hubris, the sin of pride, in summer; the Winter who slays him; the New Year which shall save. In mythology the three successive Rulers of Heaven are given by Hesiod as Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus (cf. Prometheus<\/i>, 965 ff.), but we cannot tell if Aeschylus accepted the Hesiodic story. Cf. note on l. 246, and Clytemnestra's blasphemy at l. 1387, p. 63.<\/p>\n
P. 9, l. 192, Winds from Strymon.]\u2014From the great river gorge of\nThrace, NNE; cf. below, l. 1418.<\/p>\n
P. 9, l. 201, Artemis.]\u2014Her name was terrible, because of its suggestion. She demanded the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigen\u00eea. (See Euripides' two plays, Iphigenia in Tauris<\/i> and Iphigenia in Aulis<\/i>.) In other poets Agamemnon has generally committed some definite sin against Artemis, but in Aeschylus the death of Iphigen\u00eea seems to be merely one of the results of his acceptance of the Sign.<\/p>\n
P. 10, l. 215, 'Tis a Rite of old.]\u2014Literally \"it is Themis.\" Human\nsacrifice had had a place in the primitive religion of Greece; hence\nAgamemnon could not reject the demand of the soldiers as an obvious crime.\nSee Rise of Greek Epic<\/i>, pp. 150-157.<\/p>\n
P. 11, l. 246, The Third Cup.]\u2014Regularly poured to Zeus S\u00f4t\u00ear, the\nSaviour, and accompanied by a paean or cry of joy.<\/p>\n
P. 11, l. 256, This Heart of Argos, this frail Tower:]\u2014i.e. themselves.<\/p>\n
P. 11, l. 264, Glad-voiced.]\u2014Clytemnestra is in extreme suspense, as the return of Agamemnon will mean either her destruction or her deliverance. At such a moment there must be no ill-omened word, so she challenges fate.<\/p>\n
P. 12, l. 276, A word within that hovereth without wings.]\u2014i.e. a presentiment. \"Winged words\" are words spoken, which fly from speaker to hearer. A 'wingless' word is unspoken. The phrase occurs in Homer.<\/p>\n
Pp. 13 ff., ll. 281 ff.]\u2014Beacon Speech. There is no need to inquire curiously into the practical possibility of this chain of beacons. Greek tragedies do not care to be exact about this kind of detail. There may well have been a tradition that Agamemnon, like the Great King of Persia, used a chain of beacons across the Aegean.\u2014Note how vividly Clytemnestra's imagination is working in her excitement. She seems to see before her every leaping light in the chain, just as in the next speech she imagines the scene in Troy almost with the intensity of a vision.<\/p>\n
P. 14, l. 314, Victory in the first as in the last.]\u2014All are Victory beacons; the spirit of Victory infects them all equally. Cf. l. 854 below, where Agamemnon prays that the Victory which is now with him, or in him, may abide.<\/p>\n
P. 15, l. 348, A woman's word.]\u2014Her hatred and fear of Agamemnon, making her feel vividly the horrors of the sack and the peril overhanging the conquerors, have carried her dangerously far. She checks herself and apologizes for her womanlike anxiety. Cf. l. 1661, p. 77.<\/p>\n
P. 18, ll. 409 ff., Seers they saw visions.]\u2014A difficult and uncertain passage. I think the seers attached to the royal household (cf. Libation-Bearers,<\/i> l. 37, where they are summoned to read a dream) were rather like what we call clairvoyants. Being consulted, they look into some pool of liquid or the like; there they see gradually emerging the palace, the injured King, the deserted room, and at last a wraith of Helen herself, haunting the place.<\/p>\n
P. 21, l. 487.]\u2014This break in the action, covering a space of several days, was first pointed out by Dr. Walter Headlam. Incidentally it removes the gravest of the difficulties raised by Dr. Verrall in his famous essay upon the plot of the Agamemnon<\/i>.<\/p>\n
P. 21, l. 495, Dry dust, own brother to the mire of war.]\u2014i.e. \"I can see by the state of his clothes, caked with dry dust which was once the mire of battle, that he comes straight from the war and can speak with knowledge.\" The Herald is probably (though perhaps not quite consistently) conceived as having rushed post-haste with his news.<\/p>\n
Pp. 22 ff., HERALD.]\u2014The Herald bursts in overcome with excitement and delight, full of love for his home and everything he sees. A marked contrast to Agamemnon, ll. 810 ff. Note that his first speech confirms all the worst fears suggested by Clytemnestra. Agamemnon has committed all the sins she prayed against, and more. The terrible lines 527 ff., \"Till her Gods' Houses, etc.,\" are very like a passage in the Persae<\/i>, 811 ff., where exactly the same acts by the Persian invaders of Greece make their future punishment inevitable.<\/p>\n
P. 22, l. 509, Pythian Lord.]\u2014Apollo is often a sinister figure in tragedy. Cf. Sophocles Oedipus<\/i> , ll. 915 ff., pp. 52 ff., and the similar scene, Electra<\/i>, 655 ff. Here it is a shock to the Herald to come suddenly on the god who was the chief enemy of the Greeks at Troy. One feels Apollo an evil presence also in the Cassandra scene, 11. 1071 ff., pp. 47 ff.<\/p>\n
P. 23, l. 530, Happy among men.]\u2014The crown of his triumph! Early Greek thought was always asking the question, What is human happiness? To the Herald Agamemnon has achieved happiness if any one ever did. Cf. the well-known story of Croesus asking Solon who was the happiest man in the world (Herodotus, I. 30-33).<\/p>\n
P. 24, ll. 551 ff., Herald's second speech.]\u2014The connexion of thought is: \"After all, why should either of us wish to die? All has ended well.\" This vivid description of the actualities of war can be better appreciated now than it could in 1913.<\/p>\n
P. 25, l. 577, These spoils.]\u2014Spoils purporting to come from the Trojan\nWar were extant in Greek temples in Aeschylus' day and later.<\/p>\n
P. 26, l. 595, Our women's joy-cry.]\u2014There seems to have been in Argos an old popular festival, celebrating with joy or mockery the supposed death of a man and a woman. Homer (Od. iii. 309 f.) derives it from a rejoicing by Orestes over Aigisthos and Clytemnestra; cf. below, ll. 1316 ff., p. 59; Aeschylus here and Sophocles in the Electra<\/i>, from a celebration by Clytemnestra of the deaths of Agamemnon and Cassandra. Probably it was really some ordinary New Year and Old Year celebration to which the poets give a tragic touch. It seems to have had a woman's \"Ololugmos\" in it, perhaps uttered by men. See Kaibel's note, Soph. Electra<\/i> 277-281.<\/p>\n
P. 26, l. 612, Bronze be dyed like wool.]\u2014Impossible in the literal sense, but there is after all a way of dying a sword red!<\/p>\n
P. 27, l. 617, Menelaus.]\u2014This digression about Menelaus is due, as similar digressions generally are when they occur in Greek plays, to the poet feeling bound to follow the tradition. Homer begins his longest account of the slaying of Agamemnon by asking \"Where was Menelaus?\" (Od. iii. 249). Agamemnon could be safely attacked because he was alone. Menelaus was away, wrecked or wind-bound.<\/p>\n
P. 28, l. 642, Two-fold scourge.]\u2014Ares works his will when spear crosses spear, when man meets man. Hence \"two-fold.\"<\/p>\n
P. 29, CHORUS. The name HELENA.]\u2014There was a controversy in Aeschylus' day whether language, including names, was a matter of Convention or of Nature. Was it mere accident, and could you change the name of anything at will? Or was language a thing rooted in nature and fixed by God from of old? Aeschylus adopts the latter view: Why was this being called Helena? If one had understood God's purpose one would have seen it was because she really was<\/i> \"Helen\u00e2s\"\u2014Ship-destroyer<\/i>. (The Herald's story of the shipwreck has suggested this particular idea.) Similarly, if a hero was called Aias, and came to great sorrow, one could see that he was so called from 'Aiai,' \"Alas!\"\u2014The antistrophe seems to find a meaning in the name Paris or Alexandras, where the etymology is not so clear.<\/p>\n
Pp. 33 ff.]\u2014Entrance of Agamemnon. The metre of the Chorus indicates marching; so that apparently the procession takes some time to move across the orchestra and get into position. Cassandra would be dressed, as a prophetess, in a robe of white reaching to the feet, covered by an agr\u00eanon<\/i>, or net of wool with large meshes; she would have a staff and certain fillets or crowns. The Leader welcomes the King: he explains that, though he was against the war ten years ago, and has not changed his opinion, he is a faithful servant of the King \u2026 and that not all are equally so. He gave a similar hint to the Herald above, ll. 546-550, p. 24.<\/p>\n
P. 35, Agamemnon.]\u2014A hard, cold speech, full of pride in the earlier part, and turning to ominous threats at the end. Those who have dared to be false shall be broken.\u2014At the end comes a note of fear, like the fear in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. He is so full of triumph and success; he must be very careful not to provoke a fall.\u2014Victory, Nike, was to the Greeks a very vivid and infectious thing. It clung to you or it deserted you. And one who was really charged with Victory, like Agamemnon, was very valuable to his friends and people. Hence they made statues of Victory wingless\u2014so that she should not fly away. See Four Stages of Greek Religion<\/i>, p. 138 note.<\/p>\n
P. 36, Clytemnestra.]\u2014A wonderful speech. It seems to me that Aeschylus' imagination realized all the confused passions in Clytemnestra's mind, but that his art was not yet sufficiently developed to make them all clear and explicit. She is in suspense; does Agamemnon know her guilt or not? At least, if she is to die, she wants to say something to justify or excuse herself in the eyes of the world. A touch of hysteria creeps in; why could he not have been killed in all these years? Why must he rise, like some monster from the grave, unkillable? Gradually she recovers her calm, explains clearly the suspicious point of Orestes' absence, and heaps up her words and gestures of welcome to an almost oriental fullness (which Agamemnon rebukes, ll. 918 ff., p. 39). Again, at the end, when she finds that for the time she is safe, her real feelings almost break out.<\/p>\n
P. 38.]\u2014What is the motive of the Crimson Tapestries? I think the tangling robe must have been in the tradition, as the murder in the bath certainly was. One motive, of course, is obvious: Clytemnestra is tempting Agamemnon to sin or \"go too far.\" He tries to resist, but the splendour of an oriental homecoming seduces him and he yields. But is that enough to account for such a curious trait in the story, and one so strongly emphasized? We are told afterwards that Clytemnestra threw over her victim an \"endless web,\" long and rich (p. 63), to prevent his seeing or using his arms. And I cannot help suspecting that this endless web was the same as the crimson pall.<\/p>\n
If one tries to conjecture the origin of this curious story, it is perhaps a clue to realize that the word droit\u00ea<\/i> means both a bath and a sarcophagus, or rather that the thing called droit\u00ea, a narrow stone or marble vessel about seven feet long, was in pre-classical and post-classical times used as a sarcophagus, but in classical times chiefly or solely as a bath. If among the prehistoric graves at Mycenae some later peasants discovered a royal mummy or skeleton in a sarcophagus, wrapped in a robe of royal crimson, and showing signs of violent death\u2014such as Schliemann believed that he discovered\u2014would they not say: \"We found the body of a King murdered in a bath, and wrapped round and round in a great robe?\"<\/p>\n
P. 39 f.]\u2014Agamemnon is going through the process of temptation. He protests rather too often and yields.<\/p>\n
P. 39, l. 931, Tell me but this.]\u2014This little dialogue is very characteristic of Aeschylus. Euripides would have done it at three times the length and made all the points clear. In Aeschylus the subtlety is there, but it is not easy to follow.<\/p>\n
P. 40, l. 945, These bound slaves.]\u2014i.e. his shoes. The metaphor shows the trend of his unconscious mind.<\/p>\n
P. 41, l. 950, This princess.]\u2014This is the first time that the attention of the audience is drawn to Cassandra. She too is one of Aeschylus' silent figures. I imagine her pale, staring in front of her, almost as if in a trance, until terror seizes her at Clytemnestra's greeting in l. 1035, p. 45.<\/p>\n
P. 41, l. 964, The cry.]\u2014i.e. the cry of the possessed prophetess which rang from the inner sanctuary at Delphi and was interpreted by the priests.\u2014The last two lines of the speech are plain in their meaning but hard to translate. Literally: \"when the full, or fulfilled, man walketh his home,\u2014O Zeus the Fulfiller, fulfil my prayers.\"<\/p>\n
P. 42, l. 976.]\u2014The victim has been drawn into the house; the Chorus sing a low boding song: every audience at a Greek tragedy would expect next to hear a death cry from within, or to see a horrified messenger rush out. Instead of which the door opens and there is Clytemnestra: what does she want? \"Come thou also!\" One victim is not enough.\u2014In the next scene we must understand the cause of Clytemnestra's impatience. If she stays too long outside, some one will warn Agamemnon; if she leaves Cassandra, she with her second sight will warn the Chorus. If Cassandra could only be got inside all would be safe!<\/p>\n
P. 44, l. 1022, \"One there was of old.\"]\u2014Askl\u00eapios, the physician, restored Hippolytus to life, and Zeus blasted him for so oversetting the laws of nature.<\/p>\n
P. 45, l. 1040, Alcm\u00eana's son.]\u2014Heracles was made a slave to Omphal\u00ea, Queen of Lydia. His grumbles at his insufficient food were a theme of comedy.<\/p>\n
P. 45, l. 1049, Belike thou canst not yet.]\u2014Cf. below, ll. 1066 ff. The Elder speaks in sympathy. \"Very likely you cannot yet bring yourself to submit.\"<\/p>\n
P. 46, l. 1061, Thou show her.]\u2014It seems odd to think that this passage has for centuries been translated as if it was all addressed to Cassandra: \"But if you do not understand what I say, please indicate the same with your barbarous hand!\"\u2014What makes Cassandra at last speak? I think that the Elder probably touches her, and the touch as it were breaks the spell.<\/p>\n
P. 47, l. 1072, Cassandra.]\u2014\"Otototoi\" really takes the place of a stage direction: she utters a long low sob.\u2014The exclamation which I have translated \"Dreams!\" seems to occur when people see ghosts or visions. Alcestis<\/i>, 261; Prometheus<\/i>, 567. Cf. Phoenissae<\/i> 1296.\u2014\"Mine enemy!\" The name \"Apollon\" suggested \"apollyon,\"<\/i> Destroying \u2026 the form which is actually used in the Book of Revelation (Rev. ix. 11).<\/p>\n
Observe how, during the lyric scene, Cassandra's vision grows steadily more definite: First vague horror of the House: then the sobbing of children, slain long ago: then, a new deed of blood coming; a woman in it: a wife: then, with a great effort, an attempt to describe the actual slaying in the bath. Lastly, the sight of herself among the slain. (This last point is greatly developed by Euripides, Trojan Women<\/i>, ll. 445 ff., pp. 33 f.).<\/p>\n
The story of the Children of Thyestes is given below, ll. 1590 ff., p. 73.\nProcn\u00ea (or Philom\u00eala) was an Attic princess who, in fury against her\nThracian husband, Tereus, killed their child Itys, or Itylus, and was\nchanged into a nightingale, to weep for him for ever.<\/p>\n
P. 52, ll. 1178 ff.]\u2014Dialogue. During the lyrics Cassandra has been \"possessed\" or \"entranced\": the turn to dialogue marks a conscious attempt to control herself and state plainly her message of warning. In order to prove her power, she first tells the Elders of deeds done in the past which are known to them but cannot have been known to her. When once they are convinced of her true seercraft, she will be able to warn them of what is coming!\u2014The short 'stichom[^y]thia'[**TR: This is a y with a circumflex, not a superscript.] (line for line dialogue), dealing in awed whispers with things which can hardly be spoken, leaves the story of Cassandra still a mystery. Then her self-control breaks and the power of the God sweeps irresistibly upon her; cf. below, ll. 1256 ff.; where it comes at her like a visible shape of fire, a thing not uncommon with modern clairvoyants.<\/p>\n
P. 56, l. 1252, Thou art indeed fallen far astray]\u2014Because they had said \"what man<\/i>\"<\/p>\n
P. 56, l. 1265, These wreathed bands, this staff of prophesy.]\u2014Cf. Trojan Women<\/i>, ll. 451 ff., p. 34.<\/p>\n
P. 60, ll. 1343 ff., The death cry; the hesitation of the Elders.]\u2014This scene is often condemned or even ridiculed; I think, through misunderstanding. We knew the Old Men were helpless, like \"dreams wandering in the day.\" It is essential to the story that when the crisis comes they shall be found wanting. But they are neither foolish nor cowardly; each utterance in itself is natural and characteristic, but counsels are divided. One would like to know whether Aeschylus made them speak together confusedly, as would certainly be done on the modern stage, or whether the stately conventions of Greek tragedy preferred that each speaker should finish his say. In any case, what happens is that after a moment or two of confused counsel the Elders determine to break into the Palace, but as they are mounting the steps the great doors are flung open and Clytemnestra confronts them, standing over the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra.<\/p>\n
The illusion intended is that the Elders have entered the Palace and discovered Clytemnestra. But, as the mechanical arrangements of the Greek stage were not equal to this sudden change of scene, and since also it would, even with perfect machinery, have a tiresome interrupting effect, a slight confusion or inconsistency is allowed. We are supposed to be inside the house; but as a matter of fact the supposition is soon forgotten, and the play goes on without any attention to the particular place of the action. On Clytemnestra's speech see Introduction, p. xiii.<\/p>\n
P. 63, l. 1387, A prayer well sped to Zeus of Hell]\u2014As the third gift or libation was ritually given to Zeus the Saviour, Clytemnestra blasphemously suggests that her third and unnecessary blow was an acceptable gift to a sort of anti-Zeus, a Saviour of Death.<\/p>\n
P. 65, l. 1436, Aigisthos.]\u2014At last the name is mentioned which has been in the mind of every one!\u2014Chrys\u00ea\u00efs was a prisoner of war, daughter of Chrys\u00eas, priest of Apollo. Agamemnon was made to surrender her to her father, and from this arose his quarrel with Achilles, which is the subject of the Iliad.<\/p>\n
Pp. 67-72, ll. 1468-1573, Daemon.]\u2014The Genius or guardian spirit of the house has in this House become a Wrath, an 'Alastor' or 'Driver Astray.' See Introduction, pp. x ff.<\/p>\n
P. 68, l. 1513, MOURNERS.]\u2014This attribution of the different speeches or songs to different speakers is, of course, conjectural. Ancient dramas come down to us with no stage directions and very imperfect indications of the speakers.<\/p>\n
P, 72, l. 1579, AIGISTHOS.]\u2014The entry of Aigisthos enlivens the scene again after the brooding and bewildered end of the dialogue between Clytemnestra and the Elders. At the same time, it seems, no doubt by deliberate intention, to reduce it to commonplace. Aigisthos' self-defence is largely justified, but he is no hero.<\/p>\n
P. 73, l. 1602, Pleisthen\u00eas.]\u2014Apparently one of the ancestors of Atreus, but it is not clear where he comes in the genealogy. He may be identical with Pelops.<\/p>\n
P. 74, l. 1617, Oarsman of the nether row.]\u2014On an ancient galley, bireme or trireme, the rowers of the lower bank of oars ranked as inferior to those who used the long oars from the deck.<\/p>\n
P. 76, l. 1654.]\u2014Clytemnestra, see Introduction, p. xiii. She longs for peace, yet after all \"Had Zimri peace who slew his master?\" The end of the play leaves us waiting for the return of Orestes. In the first scene of the Libation-Bearers,<\/i> he is discovered standing by night at his father's grave.<\/p>","rendered":"THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS<\/h2>\n
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE<\/p>\n
WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY<\/p>\n
GILBERT MURRAY<\/p>\n
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD<\/p>\n
TENTH THOUSAND<\/p>\n
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.<\/p>\n
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.<\/p>\n
AGAMEMNON, son of Atreus and King of Argos and Mycenae;
\nCommander-in-Chief of the Greek armies in the War against Troy.<\/i><\/p>\n
CLYTEMNESTRA, daughter of Tyndareus, sister of Helen; wife to Agamemnon.<\/i><\/p>\n
AIGISTHOS, son of Thyestes, cousin and blood-enemy to Agamemnon lover to Clytemnestra.<\/i><\/p>\n
CASSANDRA, daughter of Priam, King of Troy, a prophetess; now slave to Agamemnon.<\/i><\/p>\n
A WATCHMAN.<\/p>\n
A HERALD.<\/p>\n
CHORUS of Argive Elders, faithful to AGAMEMNON.<\/p>\n
MENEL\u00c2\u00dcS, brother to Agamemnon, husband of Helen, and King of Sparta.
\nThe two sons of Atreus are called the Atreidae.<\/i><\/p>\n
HELEN, _most beautiful of women; daughter of Tyndareus, wife to MENEL\u00c2\u00dcS<\/i>; beloved and carried off by Paris._<\/p>\n
PARIS, son of Priam, King of Troy, lover of Helen.
\nAlso called<\/i> ALEXANDER.<\/p>\n
PRIAM, the aged King of Troy.<\/i><\/p>\n
The Greeks are also referred to as Achaians, Argives, Danaans; Troy is also called Ilion.<\/i><\/p>\n
The play was produced in the archonship if Philocles<\/i> (458 B.C.). The first prize was won by Aeschylus with the “Agamemnon”, “Libation-Bearers”, “Eumenides”, and the Satyr Play “Proteus”<\/i>.<\/p>\nTHE AGAMEMNON<\/h2>\n
The Scene represents a space in front of the Palace of Agamemnon in Argos, with an Altar of Zeus in the centre and many other altars at the sides. On a high terrace of the roof stands a<\/i> WATCHMAN. It is night<\/i>.<\/p>\nWATCHMAN<\/h3>\n
This waste of year-long vigil I have prayed
\nGod for some respite, watching elbow-stayed,
\nAs sleuthhounds watch, above the Atreidae’s hall,
\nTill well I know yon midnight festival
\nOf swarming stars, and them that lonely go,
\nBearers to man of summer and of snow,
\nGreat lords and shining, throned in heavenly fire.
\nAnd still I await the sign, the beacon pyre
\nThat bears Troy’s capture on a voice of flame
\nShouting o’erseas. So surely to her aim
\nCleaveth a woman’s heart, man-passioned!
\nAnd when I turn me to my bed\u2014my bed
\nDew-drenched and dark and stumbling, to which near
\nCometh no dream nor sleep, but alway Fear
\nBreathes round it, warning, lest an eye once fain
\nTo close may close too well to wake again;
\nThink I perchance to sing or troll a tune
\nFor medicine against sleep, the music soon
\nChanges to sighing for the tale untold
\nOf this house, not well mastered as of old.
\nHowbeit, may God yet send us rest, and light
\nThe flame of good news flashed across the night.<\/p>\n
[He is silent, watching. Suddenly at a distance in the night there is
\na glimmer of fire, increasing presently to a blaze.<\/i>]<\/p>\n
Ha!
\n0 kindler of the dark, O daylight birth
\nOf dawn and dancing upon Argive earth
\nFor this great end! All hail!\u2014What ho, within!
\nWhat ho! Bear word to Agamemnon’s queen
\nTo rise, like dawn, and lift in answer strong
\nTo this glad lamp her women’s triumph-song,
\nIf verily, verily, Ilion’s citadel
\nIs fallen, as yon beacons flaming tell.
\nAnd I myself will tread the dance before
\nAll others; for my master’s dice I score
\nGood, and mine own to-night three sixes plain.<\/p>\n
[Lights begin to show in the Palace<\/i>.]<\/p>\n
Oh, good or ill, my hand shall clasp again
\nMy dear lord’s hand, returning! Beyond that
\nI speak not. A great ox hath laid his weight
\nAcross my tongue. But these stone walls know well,
\nIf stones had speech, what tale were theirs to tell.
\nFor me, to him that knoweth I can yet
\nSpeak; if another questions I forget.<\/p>\n
[Exit into the Palace. The women’s “Olol\u00fbg\u00ea” or triumph-cry, is heard within and then repeated again and again further off in the City. Handmaids and Attendants come from the Palace, bearing torches, with which they kindle incense on the altars. Among them comes<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA, who throws herself on her knees at the central Altar in an agony of prayer.\u00a0<\/i>Presently from the further side of the open space appear the<\/i> CHORUS of<\/i> ELDERS and move gradually into position in front of the Palace. The day begins to dawn.<\/i>]<\/p>\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
Ten years since Ilion’s righteous foes,
\nThe Atreidae strong,
\nMenela\u00fcs and eke Agamemnon arose,
\nTwo thrones, two sceptres, yoked of God;
\nAnd a thousand galleys of Argos trod
\nThe seas for the righting of wrong;
\nAnd wrath of battle about them cried,
\nAs vultures cry,
\nWhose nest is plundered, and up they fly
\nIn anguish lonely, eddying wide,
\nGreat wings like oars in the waste of sky,
\nTheir task gone from them, no more to keep
\nWatch o’er the vulture babes asleep.
\nBut One there is who heareth on high
\nSome Pan or Zeus, some lost Apollo\u2014
\nThat keen bird-throated suffering cry
\nOf the stranger wronged in God’s own sky;
\nAnd sendeth down, for the law transgressed,
\nThe Wrath of the Feet that follow.<\/p>\n
So Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend,
\nZeus who Prevaileth, in after quest
\nFor One Belov\u00e8d by Many Men
\nOn Paris sent the Atreidae twain;
\nYea, sent him dances before the end
\nFor his bridal cheer,
\nWrestlings heavy and limbs forespent
\nFor Greek and Trojan, the knee earth-bent,
\nThe bloody dust and the broken spear.
\nHe knoweth, that which is here is here,
\nAnd that which Shall Be followeth near;
\nHe seeketh God with a great desire,
\nHe heaps his gifts, he essays his pyre
\nWith torch below and with oil above,
\nWith tears, but never the wrath shall move
\nOf the Altar cold that rejects his fire.<\/p>\n
We saw the Avengers go that day,
\nAnd they left us here; for our flesh is old
\nAnd serveth not; and these staves uphold
\nA strength like the strength of a child at play.
\nFor the sap that springs in the young man’s hand
\nAnd the valour of age, they have left the land.
\nAnd the passing old, while the dead leaf blows
\nAnd the old staff gropeth his three-foot way,
\nWeak as a babe and alone he goes,
\nA dream left wandering in the day.<\/p>\n
[Coming near the Central Altar they see<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA, who is still
\nrapt in prayer<\/i>.]<\/p>\n
But thou, O daughter of Tyndareus,
\nQueen Clytemnestra, what need? What news?
\nWhat tale or tiding hath stirred thy mood
\nTo send forth word upon all our ways
\nFor incensed worship? Of every god
\nThat guards the city, the deep, the high,
\nGods of the mart, gods of the sky,
\nThe altars blaze.
\nOne here, one there,
\nTo the skyey night the firebrands flare,
\nDrunk with the soft and guileless spell
\nOf balm of kings from the inmost cell.
\nTell, O Queen, and reject us not,
\nAll that can or that may be told,
\nAnd healer be to this aching thought,
\nWhich one time hovereth, evil-cold,
\nAnd then from the fires thou kindlest
\nWill Hope be kindled, and hungry Care
\nFall back for a little while, nor tear
\nThe heart that beateth below my breast.<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA rises silently, as though unconscious of their presence, and goes into the House. The<\/i> CHORUS take position and begin their first Stasimon, or Standing-song.<\/i>]<\/p>\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
(The sign seen on the way; Eagles tearing a hare with young<\/i>)<\/p>\n
It is ours to tell of the Sign of the War-way given,
\nTo men more strong,
\n(For a life that is kin unto ours yet breathes from heaven
\nA spell, a Strength of Song:)
\nHow the twin-throned Might of Achaia, one Crown divided
\nAbove all Greeks that are,
\nWith avenging hand and spear upon Troy was guided
\nBy the Bird of War.
\n‘Twas a King among birds to each of the Kings of the Sea,
\nOne Eagle black, one black but of fire-white tail,
\nBy the House, on the Spear-hand, in station that all might see;
\nAnd they tore a hare, and the life in her womb that grew,
\nYea, the life unlived and the races unrun they slew.
\nSorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail!<\/p>\n
(How Calchas read the sign; his Vision of the Future<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
And the War-seer wise, as he looked on the Atreid Yoke
\nTwain-tempered, knew
\nThose fierce hare-renders the lords of his host; and spoke,
\nReading the omen true.
\n“At the last, the last, this Hunt hunteth Ilion down,
\nYea, and before the wall
\nViolent division the fulness of land and town
\nShall waste withal;
\nIf only God’s eye gloom not against our gates,
\nAnd the great War-curb of Troy, fore-smitten, fail.
\nFor Pity lives, and those wing\u00e8d Hounds she hates,
\nWhich tore in the Trembler’s body the unborn beast.
\nAnd Artemis abhorreth the eagles’ feast.”
\nSorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail!<\/p>\n
(He prays to Artemis to grant the fulfilment of the Sign, but, as his vision increases, he is afraid and calls on Paian, the Healer, to hold her back<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
“Thou beautiful One, thou tender lover
\nOf the dewy breath of the Lion’s child;
\nThou the delight, through den and cover,
\nOf the young life at the breast of the wild,
\nYet, oh, fulfill, fulfill The sign of the Eagles’ Kill!
\nBe the vision accepted, albeit horrible\u2026.
\nBut I-\u00ea, I-\u00ea! Stay her, O Paian, stay!
\nFor lo, upon other evil her heart she setteth,
\nLong wastes of wind, held ship and unventured sea,
\nOn, on, till another Shedding of Blood be wrought:
\nThey kill but feast not; they pray not; the law is broken;
\nStrife in the flesh, and the bride she obeyeth not,
\nAnd beyond, beyond, there abideth in wrath reawoken\u2014
\nIt plotteth, it haunteth the house, yea, it never forgetteth\u2014
\nWrath for a child to be.”
\nSo Calchas, reading the wayside eagles’ sign,
\nSpake to the Kings, blessings and words of bale;
\nAnd like his song be thine,
\nSorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail<\/i>!<\/p>\n
(Such religion belongs to old and barbarous gods, and brings no peace. I turn to Zeus, who has shown man how to Learn by Suffering<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Zeus! Zeus, whate’er He be,
\nIf this name He love to hear
\nThis He shall be called of me.
\nSearching earth and sea and air<\/p>\n
Refuge nowhere can I find
\nSave Him only, if my mind
\nWill cast off before it die
\nThe burden of this vanity.<\/p>\n
One there was who reigned of old,
\nBig with wrath to brave and blast,
\nLo, his name is no more told!
\nAnd who followed met at last
\nHis Third-thrower, and is gone.
\nOnly they whose hearts have known
\nZeus, the Conqueror and the Friend,
\nThey shall win their vision’s end;<\/p>\n
Zeus the Guide, who made man turn
\nThought-ward, Zeus, who did ordain
\nMan by Suffering shall Learn.
\nSo the heart of him, again
\nAching with remembered pain,
\nBleeds and sleepeth not, until
\nWisdom comes against his will.
\n‘Tis the gift of One by strife
\nLifted to the throne of life.<\/p>\n
(AGAMEMNON accepted the sign. Then came long delay, and storm while the fleet lay at Aulis.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
So that day the Elder Lord,
\nMarshal of the Achaian ships,
\nStrove not with the prophet’s word,
\nBowed him to his fate’s eclipse,
\nWhen with empty jars and lips
\nParched and seas impassable
\nFate on that Greek army fell,
\nFronting Chalcis as it lay,
\nBy Aulis in the swirling bay.<\/p>\n
(Till at last Calchas answered that Artemis was wroth and demanded the death of<\/i> AGAMEMNON’S daughter. The King’s doubt and grief<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
And winds, winds blew from Strymon River,
\nUnharboured, starving, winds of waste endeavour,
\nMan-blinding, pitiless to cord and bulwark,
\nAnd the waste of days was made long, more long,
\nTill the flower of Argos was aghast and withered;
\nThen through the storm rose the War-seer’s song,
\nAnd told of medicine that should tame the tempest,
\nBut bow the Princes to a direr wrong.
\nThen “Artemis” he whispered, he named the name;
\nAnd the brother Kings they shook in the hearts of them,
\nAnd smote on the earth their staves, and the tears came.<\/p>\n
But the King, the elder, hath found voice and spoken:
\n“A heavy doom, sure, if God’s will were broken;
\nBut to slay mine own child, who my house delighteth,
\nIs that not heavy? That her blood should flow
\nOn her father’s hand, hard beside an altar?
\nMy path is sorrow wheresoe’er I go.
\nShall Agamemnon fail his ships and people,
\nAnd the hosts of Hellas melt as melts the snow?
\nThey cry, they thirst, for a death that shall break the spell,
\nFor a Virgin’s blood: ’tis a rite of old, men tell.
\nAnd they burn with longing.\u2014O God may the end be well!”<\/p>\n
(But ambition drove him, till he consented to the sin of slaying his daughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrifice.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
To the yoke of Must-Be he bowed him slowly,
\nAnd a strange wind within his bosom tossed,
\nA wind of dark thought, unclean, unholy;
\nAnd he rose up, daring to the uttermost.
\nFor men are boldened by a Blindness, straying
\nToward base desire, which brings grief hereafter,
\nYea, and itself is grief;
\nSo this man hardened to his own child’s slaying,
\nAs help to avenge him for a woman’s laughter
\nAnd bring his ships relief!<\/p>\n
Her “Father, Father,” her sad cry that lingered,
\nHer virgin heart’s breath they held all as naught,
\nThose bronze-clad witnesses and battle-hungered;
\nAnd there they prayed, and when the prayer was wrought
\nHe charged the young men to uplift and bind her,
\nAs ye lift a wild kid, high above the altar,
\nFierce-huddling forward, fallen, clinging sore
\nTo the robe that wrapt her; yea, he bids them hinder
\nThe sweet mouth’s utterance, the cries that falter,
\n\u2014His curse for evermore!\u2014<\/p>\n
With violence and a curb’s voiceless wrath.
\nHer stole of saffron then to the ground she threw,
\nAnd her eye with an arrow of pity found its path
\nTo each man’s heart that slew:
\nA face in a picture, striving amazedly;
\nThe little maid who danced at her father’s board,
\nThe innocent voice man’s love came never nigh,
\nWho joined to his her little paean-cry
\nWhen the third cup was poured\u2026.<\/p>\n
What came thereafter I saw not neither tell.
\nBut the craft of Calchas failed not.\u2014’Tis written, He
\nWho Suffereth Shall Learn; the law holdeth well.
\nAnd that which is to be,
\nYe will know at last; why weep before the hour?
\nFor come it shall, as out of darkness dawn.
\nOnly may good from all this evil flower;
\nSo prays this Heart of Argos, this frail tower
\nGuarding the land alone.<\/p>\n
[As they cease,<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA comes from the Palace with Attendants. She has finished her prayer and sacrifice, and is now wrought up to face the meeting with her husband. The Leader approaches her<\/i>.]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Before thy state, O Queen, I bow mine eyes.
\n‘Tis written, when the man’s throne empty lies,
\nThe woman shall be honoured.\u2014Hast thou heard
\nSome tiding sure? Or is it Hope, hath stirred
\nTo fire these altars? Dearly though we seek
\nTo learn, ’tis thine to speak or not to speak.<\/p>\n
Glad-voiced, the old saw telleth, comes this morn,
\nThe Star-child of a dancing midnight born,
\nAnd beareth to thine ear a word of joy
\nBeyond all hope: the Greek hath taken Troy.<\/p>\n
How?
\nThy word flies past me, being incredible.<\/p>\n
Ilion is ours. No riddling tale I tell.<\/p>\n
Such joy comes knocking at the gate of tears.<\/p>\n
Aye, ’tis a faithful heart that eye declares.<\/p>\n
What warrant hast thou? Is there proof of this?<\/p>\n
There is; unless a God hath lied there is.<\/p>\n
Some dream-shape came to thee in speaking guise?<\/p>\n
Who deemeth me a dupe of drowsing eyes?<\/p>\n
Some word within that hovereth without wings?<\/p>\n
Am I a child to hearken to such things?<\/p>\n
Troy fallen?\u2014But how long? When fell she, say?<\/p>\n
The very night that mothered this new day.<\/p>\n
And who of heralds with such fury came?<\/p>\n
A Fire-god, from Mount Ida scattering flame.
\nWhence starting, beacon after beacon burst
\nIn flaming message hitherward. Ida first
\nTold Hermes’ Lemnian Rock, whose answering sign
\nWas caught by towering Athos, the divine,
\nWith pines immense\u2014yea, fishes of the night
\nSwam skyward, drunken with that leaping light,
\nWhich swelled like some strange sun, till dim and far
\nMakistos’ watchmen marked a glimmering star;
\nThey, nowise loath nor idly slumber-won,
\nSpring up to hurl the fiery message on,
\nAnd a far light beyond the Eur\u00eepus tells
\nThat word hath reached Messapion’s sentinels.
\nThey beaconed back, then onward with a high
\nHeap of dead heather flaming to the sky.
\nAnd onward still, not failing nor aswoon,
\nAcross the As\u00f4pus like a beaming moon
\nThe great word leapt, and on Kithairon’s height
\nUproused a new relay of racing light.
\nHis watchers knew the wandering flame, nor hid
\nTheir welcome, burning higher than was bid.
\nOut over Lake Gorg\u00f4pis then it floats,
\nTo Aigiplanctos, waking the wild goats,
\nCrying for “Fire, more Fire!” And fire was reared,
\nStintless and high, a stormy streaming beard,
\nThat waved in flame beyond the promontory
\nRock-ridged, that watches the Saronian sea,
\nKindling the night: then one short swoop to catch
\nThe Spider’s Crag, our city’s tower of watch;
\nWhence hither to the Atreidae’s roof it came,
\nA light true-fathered of Idaean flame.
\nTorch-bearer after torch-bearer, behold
\nThe tale thereof in stations manifold,
\nEach one by each made perfect ere it passed,
\nAnd Victory in the first as in the last.
\nThese be my proofs and tokens that my lord
\nFrom Troy hath spoke to me a burning word.<\/p>\n
Woman, speak on. Hereafter shall my prayer
\nBe raised to God; now let me only hear,
\nAgain and full, the marvel and the joy.<\/p>\n
Now, even now, the Achaian holdeth Troy!
\nMethinks there is a crying in her streets
\nThat makes no concord. When sweet unguent meets
\nWith vinegar in one phial, I warrant none
\nShall lay those wranglers lovingly at one.
\nSo conquerors and conquered shalt thou hear,
\nTwo sundered tones, two lives of joy or fear.
\nHere women in the dust about their slain,
\nHusbands or brethren, and by dead old men
\nPale children who shall never more be free,
\nFor all they loved on earth cry desolately.
\nAnd hard beside them war-stained Greeks, whom stark
\nBattle and then long searching through the dark
\nHath gathered, ravenous, in the dawn, to feast
\nAt last on all the plenty Troy possessed,
\nNo portion in that feast nor ordinance,
\nBut each man clutching at the prize of chance.
\nAye, there at last under good roofs they lie
\nOf men spear-quelled, no frosts beneath the sky,
\nNo watches more, no bitter moony dew\u2026.
\nHow bless\u00e8d they will sleep the whole night through!
\nOh, if these days they keep them free from sin
\nToward Ilion’s conquered shrines and Them within
\nWho watch unconquered, maybe not again
\nThe smiter shall be smit, the taker ta’en.
\nMay God but grant there fall not on that host
\nThe greed of gold that maddeneth and the lust
\nTo spoil inviolate things! But half the race
\nIs run which windeth back to home and peace.
\nYea, though of God they pass unchalleng\u00e8d,
\nMethinks the wound of all those desolate dead
\nMight waken, groping for its will\u2026.
\nYe hear
\nA woman’s word, belike a woman’s fear.
\nMay good but conquer in the last incline
\nOf the balance! Of all prayers that prayer is mine.<\/p>\n
O Woman, like a man faithful and wise
\nThou speakest. I accept thy testimonies
\nAnd turn to God with praising, for a gain
\nIs won this day that pays for all our pain.<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA returns to the Palace. The<\/i> CHORUS take up their
\nposition for the Second Stasimon<\/i>.]<\/p>\nAN ELDER<\/h3>\n
0 Zeus, All-ruler, and Night the Aid,
\nGainer of glories, and hast thou thrown
\nOver the towers of Ilion
\nThy net close-laid,
\nThat none so nimble and none so tall
\nShall escape withal
\nThe snare of the slaver that claspeth all?<\/p>\n
And Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend
\nI also praise, who hath wrought this end.
\nLong since on Paris his shaft he drew,
\nAnd hath aim\u00e8d true,
\nNot too soon falling nor yet too far,
\nThe fire of the avenging star.<\/p>\n
(This is God’s judgement upon Troy. May it not be too fierce! Gold cannot save one who spurneth Justice<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
The stroke of Zeus hath found them! Clear this day
\nThe tale, and plain to trace.
\nHe judged, and Troy hath fallen.\u2014And have men said
\nThat God not deigns to mark man’s hardihead,
\nTrampling to earth the grace
\nOf holy and delicate things?\u2014Sin lies that way.
\nFor visibly Pride doth breed its own return
\nOn prideful men, who, when their houses swell
\nWith happy wealth, breathe ever wrath and blood.
\nYet not too fierce let the due vengeance burn;
\nOnly as deemeth well
\nOne wise of mood.<\/p>\n
Never shall state nor gold
\nShelter his heart from aching
\nWhoso the Altar of Justice old
\nSpurneth to Night unwaking.<\/p>\n
(The Sinner suffers in his longing till at last Temptation overcomes him; as longing for Helen overcame Paris<\/i>)<\/p>\n
The tempting of misery forceth him, the dread
\nChild of fore-scheming Woe!
\nAnd help is vain; the fell desire within
\nIs veil\u00e8d not, but shineth bright like Sin:
\nAnd as false gold will show
\nBlack where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade
\nHis honour in God’s ordeal. Like a child,
\nForgetting all, he hath chased his wing\u00e8d bird,
\nAnd planted amid his people a sharp thorn.
\nAnd no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard,
\nThe man so base-beguiled
\nThey cast to scorn.<\/p>\n
Paris to Argos came;
\nLove of a woman led him;
\nSo God’s altar he brought to shame,
\nRobbing the hand that fed him.<\/p>\n
(Helen’s flight; the visions seen by the King’s seers; the phantom of Helen and the King’s grief<\/i>)<\/p>\n
She hath left among her people a noise of shield and sword,
\nA tramp of men armed where the long ships are moored;
\nShe hath ta’en in her goings Desolation as a dower;
\nShe hath stept, stept quickly, through the great gated Tower,
\nAnd the thing that could not be, it hath been!
\nAnd the Seers they saw visions, and they spoke of strange ill:
\n“A Palace, a Palace; and a great King thereof:
\nA bed, a bed empty, that was once pressed in love:
\nAnd thou, thou, what art thou? Let us be, thou so still,
\nBeyond wrath, beyond beseeching, to the lips reft of thee!”
\nFor she whom he desireth is beyond the deep sea,
\nAnd a ghost in his castle shall be queen.<\/p>\n
Images in sweet guise
\nCarven shall move him never,
\nWhere is Love amid empty eyes?
\nGone, gone for ever!<\/p>\n
(His dreams and his suffering; but the War that he made caused greater and wider suffering.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
But a shape that is a dream, ‘mid the phantoms of the night,
\nCometh near, full of tears, bringing vain vain delight:
\nFor in vain when, desiring, he can feel the joy’s breath
\n\u2014Nevermore! Nevermore!\u2014from his arms it vanisheth,
\nOn wings down the pathways of sleep.<\/p>\n
In the mid castle hall, on the hearthstone of the Kings,
\nThese griefs there be, and griefs passing these,
\nBut in each man’s dwelling of the host that sailed the seas,
\nA sad woman waits; she has thoughts of many things,
\nAnd patience in her heart lieth deep.<\/p>\n
Knoweth she them she sent,
\nKnoweth she? Lo, returning,
\nComes in stead of the man that went
\nArmour and dust of burning.<\/p>\n
(The return of the funeral urns; the murmurs of the People.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
And the gold-changer, Ares, who changeth quick for dead,
\nWho poiseth his scale in the striving of the spears,
\nBack from Troy sendeth dust, heavy dust, wet with tears,
\nSendeth ashes with men’s names in his urns neatly spread.
\nAnd they weep over the men, and they praise them one by one,
\nHow this was a wise fighter, and this nobly-slain\u2014
\n“Fighting to win back another’s wife!”
\nTill a murmur is begun,
\nAnd there steals an angry pain
\nAgainst Kings too forward in the strife.<\/p>\n
There by Ilion’s gate
\nMany a soldier sleepeth,
\nYoung men beautiful; fast in hate
\nTroy her conqueror keepeth.<\/p>\n
(For the Shedder of Blood is in great peril, and not unmarked by God. May I never be a Sacker of Cities!<\/i>)<\/p>\n
But the rumour of the People, it is heavy, it is chill;
\nAnd tho’ no curse be spoken, like a curse doth it brood;
\nAnd my heart waits some tiding which the dark holdeth still,
\nFor of God not unmarked is the shedder of much blood.
\nAnd who conquers beyond right \u2026 Lo, the life of man decays;
\nThere be Watchers dim his light in the wasting of the years;
\nHe falls, he is forgotten, and hope dies.
\nThere is peril in the praise
\nOver-praised that he hears;
\nFor the thunder it is hurled from God’s eyes.<\/p>\n
Glory that breedeth strife,
\nPride of the Sacker of Cities;
\nYea, and the conquered captive’s life,
\nSpare me, O God of Pities!<\/p>\n
\u2014The fire of good tidings it hath sped the city through,
\nBut who knows if a god mocketh? Or who knows if all be true?
\n‘Twere the fashion of a child,
\nOr a brain dream-beguiled,
\nTo be kindled by the first
\nTorch’s message as it burst,
\nAnd thereafter, as it dies, to die too.<\/p>\n
\u2014’Tis like a woman’s sceptre, to ordain
\nWelcome to joy before the end is plain!<\/p>\n
\u2014Too lightly opened are a woman’s ears;
\nHer fence downtrod by many trespassers,
\nAnd quickly crossed; but quickly lost
\nThe burden of a woman’s hopes or fears.<\/p>\n
[Here a break occurs in the action, like the descent of the curtain in a modern theatre. A space of some days is assumed to have passed and we find the Elders again assembled<\/i>.]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Soon surely shall we read the message right;
\nWere fire and beacon-call and lamps of light
\nTrue speakers, or but happy lights, that seem
\nAnd are not, like sweet voices in a dream.
\nI see a Herald yonder by the shore,
\nShadowed with olive sprays. And from his sore
\nRent raiment cries a witness from afar,
\nDry Dust, born brother to the Mire of war,
\nThat mute he comes not, neither through the smoke
\nOf mountain forests shall his tale be spoke;
\nBut either shouting for a joyful day,
\nOr else\u2026. But other thoughts I cast away.
\nAs good hath dawned, may good shine on, we pray!<\/p>\n
\u2014And whoso for this City prayeth aught
\nElse, let him reap the harvest of his thought!<\/p>\n
[Enter the<\/i> HERALD, running. His garments are torn and war-stained. He falls upon his knees and kisses the Earth, and salutes each Altar in turn.<\/i>]<\/p>\nHERALD<\/h3>\n
Land of my fathers! Argos! Am I here \u2026
\nHome, home at this tenth shining of the year,
\nAnd all Hope’s anchors broken save this one!
\nFor scarcely dared I dream, here in mine own
\nArgos at last to fold me to my rest\u2026.
\nBut now\u2014All Hail, O Earth! O Sunlight blest!
\nAnd Zeus Most High!
\n[Checking himself as he sees the altar of Apollo.<\/i>]
\nAnd thou, O Pythian Lord;
\nNo more on us be thy swift arrows poured!
\nBeside Scamander well we learned how true
\nThy hate is. Oh, as thou art Healer too,
\nHeal us! As thou art Saviour of the Lost,
\nSave also us, Apollo, being so tossed
\nWith tempest! \u2026 All ye Daemons of the Pale!
\nAnd Hermes! Hermes, mine own guardian, hail!
\nHerald beloved, to whom all heralds bow\u2026.
\nYe Bless\u00e8d Dead that sent us, receive now
\nIn love your children whom the spear hath spared.
\nO House of Kings, O roof-tree thrice-endeared,
\nO solemn thrones! O gods that face the sun!
\nNow, now, if ever in the days foregone,
\nAfter these many years, with eyes that burn,
\nGive hail and glory to your King’s return!
\nFor Agamemnon cometh! A great light
\nCometh to men and gods out of the night.
\nGrand greeting give him\u2014aye, it need be grand\u2014
\nWho, God’s avenging mattock in his hand,
\nHath wrecked Troy’s towers and digged her soil beneath,
\nTill her gods’ houses, they are things of death;
\nHer altars waste, and blasted every seed
\nWhence life might rise! So perfect is his deed,
\nSo dire the yoke on Ilion he hath cast,
\nThe first Atreides, King of Kings at last,
\nAnd happy among men! To whom we give
\nHonour most high above all things that live.
\nFor Paris nor his guilty land can score
\nThe deed they wrought above the pain they bore.
\n“Spoiler and thief,” he heard God’s judgement pass;
\nWhereby he lost his plunder, and like grass
\nMowed down his father’s house and all his land;
\nAnd Troy pays twofold for the sin she planned.<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Be glad, thou Herald of the Greek from Troy!<\/p>\n
So glad, I am ready, if God will, to die!<\/p>\n
Did love of this land work thee such distress?<\/p>\n
The tears stand in mine eyes for happiness.<\/p>\n
Sweet sorrow was it, then, that on you fell.<\/p>\n
How sweet? I cannot read thy parable.<\/p>\n
To pine again for them that loved you true.<\/p>\n
Did ye then pine for us, as we for you?<\/p>\n
The whole land’s heart was dark, and groaned for thee.<\/p>\n
Dark? For what cause? Why should such darkness be?<\/p>\n
Silence in wrong is our best medicine here.<\/p>\n
Your kings were gone. What others need you fear?<\/p>\n
‘Tis past! Like thee now, I could gladly die.<\/p>\n
Even so! ‘Tis past, and all is victory.
\nAnd, for our life in those long years, there were
\nDoubtless some grievous days, and some were fair.
\nWho but a god goes woundless all his way?\u2026.
\nOh, could I tell the sick toil of the day,
\nThe evil nights, scant decks ill-blanketed;
\nThe rage and cursing when our daily bread
\nCame not! And then on land ’twas worse than all.
\nOur quarters close beneath the enemy’s wall;
\nAnd rain\u2014and from the ground the river dew\u2014Wet,
\nalways wet! Into our clothes it grew,
\nPlague-like, and bred foul beasts in every hair.
\nWould I could tell how ghastly midwinter
\nStole down from Ida till the birds dropped dead!
\nOr the still heat, when on his noonday bed
\nThe breathless blue sea sank without a wave!\u2026.
\nWhy think of it? They are past and in the grave,
\nAll those long troubles. For I think the slain
\nCare little if they sleep or rise again;
\nAnd we, the living, wherefore should we ache
\nWith counting all our lost ones, till we wake
\nThe old malignant fortunes? If Good-bye
\nComes from their side, Why, let them go, say I.
\nSurely for us, who live, good doth prevail
\nUnchallenged, with no wavering of the scale;
\nWherefore we vaunt unto these shining skies,
\nAs wide o’er sea and land our glory flies:
\n“By men of Argolis who conquered Troy,
\nThese spoils, a memory and an ancient joy,
\nAre nailed in the gods’ houses throughout Greece.”
\nWhich whoso readeth shall with praise increase
\nOur land, our kings, and God’s grace manifold
\nWhich made these marvels be.\u2014My tale is told.<\/p>\n
Indeed thou conquerest me. Men say, the light
\nIn old men’s eyes yet serves to learn aright.
\nBut Clytemnestra and the House should hear
\nThese tidings first, though I their health may share.<\/p>\n
[During the last words<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA has entered from the Palace<\/i>.]<\/p>\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Long since I lifted up my voice in joy,
\nWhen the first messenger from flaming Troy
\nSpake through the dark of sack and overthrow.
\nAnd mockers chid me: “Because beacons show
\nOn the hills, must Troy be fallen? Quickly born
\nAre women’s hopes!” Aye, many did me scorn;
\nYet gave I sacrifice; and by my word
\nThrough all the city our woman’s cry was heard,
\nLifted in blessing round the seats of God,
\nAnd slumbrous incense o’er the altars glowed
\nIn fragrance.
\nAnd for thee, what need to tell
\nThy further tale? My lord himself shall well
\nInstruct me. Yet, to give my lord and king
\nAll reverent greeting at his homecoming\u2014
\nWhat dearer dawn on woman’s eyes can flame
\nThan this, which casteth wide her gate to acclaim
\nThe husband whom God leadeth safe from war?\u2014
\nGo, bear my lord this prayer: That fast and far
\nHe haste him to this town which loves his name;
\nAnd in his castle may he find the same
\nWife that he left, a watchdog of the hall,
\nTrue to one voice and fierce to others all;
\nA body and soul unchanged, no seal of his
\nBroke in the waiting years.\u2014No thought of ease
\nNor joy from other men hath touched my soul,
\nNor shall touch, until bronze be dyed like wool.
\nA boast so faithful and so plain, I wot,
\nSpoke by a royal Queen doth shame her not.<\/p>\n
[Exit<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA.]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Let thine ear mark her message. ‘Tis of fair
\nSeeming, and craves a clear interpreter\u2026.
\nBut, Herald, I would ask thee; tell me true
\nOf Menelaus. Shall he come with you,
\nOur land’s belov\u00e8d crown, untouched of ill?<\/p>\n
I know not how to speak false words of weal
\nFor friends to reap thereof a harvest true.<\/p>\n
Canst speak of truth with comfort joined? Those two
\nOnce parted, ’tis a gulf not lightly crossed.<\/p>\n
Your king is vanished from the Achaian host,
\nHe and his ship! Such comfort have I brought.<\/p>\n
Sailed he alone from Troy? Or was he caught
\nBy storms in the midst of you, and swept away?<\/p>\n
Thou hast hit the truth; good marksman, as men say!
\nAnd long to suffer is but brief to tell.<\/p>\n
How ran the sailors’ talk? Did there prevail
\nOne rumour, showing him alive or dead?<\/p>\n
None knoweth, none hath tiding, save the head
\nOf Helios, ward and watcher of the world.<\/p>\n
Then tell us of the storm. How, when God hurled
\nHis anger, did it rise? How did it die?<\/p>\n
It likes me not, a day of presage high
\nWith dolorous tongue to stain. Those twain, I vow,
\nStand best apart. When one with shuddering brow,
\nFrom armies lost, back beareth to his home
\nWord that the terror of her prayers is come;
\nOne wound in her great heart, and many a fate
\nFor many a home of men cast out to sate
\nThe two-fold scourge that worketh Ares’ lust,
\nSpear crossed with spear, dust wed with bloody dust;
\nWho walketh laden with such weight of wrong,
\nWhy, let him, if he will, uplift the song
\nThat is Hell’s triumph. But to come as I
\nAm now come, laden with deliverance high,
\nHome to a land of peace and laughing eyes,
\nAnd mar all with that fury of the skies
\nWhich made our Greeks curse God\u2014how should this be?
\nTwo enemies most ancient, Fire and Sea,
\nA sudden friendship swore, and proved their plight
\nBy war on us poor sailors through that night
\nOf misery, when the horror of the wave
\nTowered over us, and winds from Strymon drave
\nHull against hull, till good ships, by the horn
\nOf the mad whirlwind gored and overborne,
\nOne here, one there, ‘mid rain and blinding spray,
\nLike sheep by a devil herded, passed away.
\nAnd when the bless\u00e8d Sun upraised his head,
\nWe saw the Aegean waste a-foam with dead,
\nDead men, dead ships, and spars disasterful.
\nHowbeit for us, our one unwounded hull
\nOut of that wrath was stolen or begged free
\nBy some good spirit\u2014sure no man was he!\u2014
\nWho guided clear our helm; and on till now
\nHath Saviour Fortune throned her on the prow.
\nNo surge to mar our mooring, and no floor
\nOf rock to tear us when we made for shore.
\nTill, fled from that sea-hell, with the clear sun
\nAbove us and all trust in fortune gone,
\nWe drove like sheep about our brain the thoughts
\nOf that lost army, broken and scourged with knouts
\nOf evil. And, methinks, if there is breath
\nIn them, they talk of us as gone to death\u2014
\nHow else?\u2014and so say we of them! For thee,
\nSince Menela\u00fcs thy first care must be,
\nIf by some word of Zeus, who wills not yet
\nTo leave the old house for ever desolate,
\nSome ray of sunlight on a far-off sea
\nLights him, yet green and living \u2026 we may see
\nHis ship some day in the harbour!\u2014’Twas the word
\nOf truth ye asked me for, and truth ye have heard!<\/p>\n
[Exit<\/i> HERALD. The<\/i> CHORUS take position for the Third Stasimon<\/i>.]<\/p>\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
(Surely there was mystic meaning in the name<\/i> HELENA, meaning which was fulfilled when she fled to Troy.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Who was He who found for thee
\nThat name, truthful utterly\u2014
\nWas it One beyond our vision
\nMoving sure in pre-decision
\nOf man’s doom his mystic lips?\u2014
\nCalling thee, the Battle-wed,
\nThee, the Strife-encompass\u00e8d,
\nHELEN? Yea, in fate’s derision,
\nHell in cities, Hell in ships,
\nHell in hearts of men they knew her,
\nWhen the dim and delicate fold
\nOf her curtains backward rolled,
\nAnd to sea, to sea, she threw her
\nIn the West Wind’s giant hold;
\nAnd with spear and sword behind her
\nCame the hunters in a flood,
\nDown the oarblade’s viewless trail
\nTracking, till in Simo\u00efs’ vale
\nThrough the leaves they crept to find her,
\nA Wrath, a seed of blood.<\/p>\n
(The Trojans welcomed her with triumph and praised Alexander till at last their song changed and they saw another meaning in Alexander’s name also.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
So the Name to Ilion came
\nOn God’s thought-fulfilling flame,
\nShe a vengeance and a token
\nOf the unfaith to bread broken,
\nOf the hearth of God betrayed,
\nAgainst them whose voices swelled
\nGlorying in the prize they held
\nAnd the Spoiler’s vaunt outspoken
\nAnd the song his brethren made
\n‘Mid the bridal torches burning;
\nTill, behold, the ancient City
\nOf King Priam turned, and turning
\nTook a new song for her learning,
\nA song changed and full of pity,
\nWith the cry of a lost nation;
\nAnd she changed the bridegroom’s name:
\nCalled him Paris Ghastly-wed;
\nFor her sons were with the dead,
\nAnd her life one lamentation,
\n‘Mid blood and burning flame.<\/p>\n
(Like a lion’s whelp reared as a pet and turning afterwards to a great beast of prey,<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Lo, once there was a herdsman reared
\nIn his own house, so stories tell,
\nA lion’s whelp, a milk-fed thing
\nAnd soft in life’s first opening
\nAmong the sucklings of the herd;
\nThe happy children loved him well,
\nAnd old men smiled, and oft, they say,
\nIn men’s arms, like a babe, he lay,
\nBright-eyed, and toward the hand that teased him
\nEagerly fawning for food or play.<\/p>\n
Then on a day outflashed the sudden
\nRage of the lion brood of yore;
\nHe paid his debt to them that fed
\nWith wrack of herds and carnage red,
\nYea, wrought him a great feast unbidden,
\nTill all the house-ways ran with gore;
\nA sight the thralls fled weeping from,
\nA great red slayer, beard a-foam,
\nHigh-priest of some blood-curs\u00e8d altar
\nGod had uplifted against that home.<\/p>\n
(So was it with Helen in Troy.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
And how shall I call the thing that came
\nAt the first hour to Ilion city?
\nCall it a dream of peace untold,
\nA secret joy in a mist of gold,
\nA woman’s eye that was soft, like flame,
\nA flower which ate a man’s heart with pity.<\/p>\n
But she swerved aside and wrought to her kiss a bitter ending,
\nAnd a wrath was on her harbouring, a wrath upon her friending,
\nWhen to Priam and his sons she fled quickly o’er the deep,
\nWith the god to whom she sinned for her watcher on the wind,
\nA death-bride, whom brides long shall weep.<\/p>\n
(Men say that Good Fortune wakes the envy of God; not so; Good Fortune may be innocent, and then there is no vengeance<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
A grey word liveth, from the morn
\nOf old time among mortals spoken,
\nThat man’s Wealth waxen full shall fall
\nNot childless, but get sons withal;
\nAnd ever of great bliss is born
\nA tear unstanched and a heart broken.<\/p>\n
But I hold my thought alone and by others unbeguiled;
\n‘Tis the deed that is unholy shall have issue, child on child,
\nSin on sin, like his begetters; and they shall be as they were.<\/p>\n
But the man who walketh straight, and the house thereof, tho’ Fate
\nExalt him, the children shall be fair.<\/p>\n
(It is Sin, it is Pride and Ruthlessness, that beget children like themselves till Justice is fulfilled upon them.)<\/i><\/p>\n
But Old Sin loves, when comes the hour again,
\nTo bring forth New,
\nWhich laugheth lusty amid the tears of men;
\nYea, and Unruth, his comrade, wherewith none
\nMay plead nor strive, which dareth on and on,
\nKnowing not fear nor any holy thing;
\nTwo fires of darkness in a house, born true,
\nLike to their ancient spring.<\/p>\n
But Justice shineth in a house low-wrought
\nWith smoke-stained wall,
\nAnd honoureth him who filleth his own lot;
\nBut the unclean hand upon the golden stair
\nWith eyes averse she flieth, seeking where
\nThings innocent are; and, recking not the power
\nOf wealth by man misgloried, guideth all
\nTo her own destined hour.<\/p>\n
[Here amid a great procession enter<\/i> AGAMEMNON on a Chariot. Behind him on another Chariot is<\/i> CASSANDRA. The<\/i> CHORUS approach and make obeisance. Some of<\/i> AGAMEMNON’S men have on their shields a White Horse, some a Lion. Their arms are rich and partly barbaric<\/i>.]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
All hail, O King! Hail, Atreus’ Son!
\nSacker of Cities! Ilion’s bane!
\nWith what high word shall I greet thee again,
\nHow give thee worship, and neither outrun
\nThe point of pleasure, nor stint too soon?
\nFor many will cling. To fair seeming
\nThe faster because they have sinned erewhile;
\nAnd a man may sigh with never a sting
\nOf grief in his heart, and a man may smile
\nWith eyes unlit and a lip that strains.
\nBut the wise Shepherd knoweth his sheep,
\nAnd his eyes pierce deep
\nThe faith like water that fawns and feigns.<\/p>\n
But I hide nothing, O King. That day
\nWhen in quest of Helen our battle array
\nHurled forth, thy name upon my heart’s scroll
\nWas deep in letters of discord writ;
\nAnd the ship of thy soul,
\nIll-helmed and blindly steered was it,
\nPursuing ever, through men that die,
\nOne wild heart that was fain to fly.
\nBut on this new day,
\nFrom the deep of my thought and in love, I say
\n“Sweet is a grief well ended;”
\nAnd in time’s flow Thou wilt learn and know
\nThe true from the false,
\nOf them that were left to guard the walls
\nOf thine empty Hall unfriended.<\/p>\n
[During the above<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA has appeared on the Palace steps, with a train of Attendants, to receive her Husband<\/i>.]<\/p>\nAGAMEMNON<\/h3>\n
To Argos and the gods of Argolis
\nAll hail, who share with me the glory of this
\nHome-coming and the vengeance I did wreak
\nOn Priam’s City! Yea, though none should speak,
\nThe great gods heard our cause, and in one mood
\nUprising, in the urn of bitter blood,
\nThat men should shriek and die and towers should burn,
\nCast their great vote; while over Mercy’s urn
\nHope waved her empty hands and nothing fell.
\nEven now in smoke that City tells her tale;
\nThe wrack-wind liveth, and where Ilion died
\nThe reek of the old fatness of her pride
\nFrom hot and writhing ashes rolls afar.
\nFor which let thanks, wide as our glories are,
\nBe uplifted; seeing the Beast of Argos hath
\nRound Ilion’s towers piled high his fence of wrath
\nAnd, for one woman ravished, wrecked by force
\nA City. Lo, the leap of the wild Horse
\nin darkness when the Pleiades were dead;
\nA mailed multitude, a Lion unfed,
\nWhich leapt the tower and lapt the blood of Kings!<\/p>\n
Lo, to the Gods I make these thanksgivings.
\nBut for thy words: I marked them, and I mind
\nTheir meaning, and my voice shall be behind
\nThine. For not many men, the proverb saith,
\nCan love a friend whom fortune prospereth
\nUnenvying; and about the envious brain
\nCold poison clings, and doubles all the pain
\nLife brings him. His own woundings he must nurse,
\nAnd feels another’s gladness like a curse.<\/p>\n
Well can I speak. I know the mirrored glass
\nCalled friendship, and the shadow shapes that pass
\nAnd feign them a King’s friends. I have known but one\u2014
\nOdysseus, him we trapped against his own
\nWill!\u2014who once harnessed bore his yoke right well \u2026
\nBe he alive or dead of whom I tell
\nThe tale. And for the rest, touching our state
\nAnd gods, we will assemble in debate
\nA concourse of all Argos, taking sure
\nCounsel, that what is well now may endure
\nWell, and if aught needs healing medicine, still
\nBy cutting and by fire, with all good will,
\nI will essay to avert the after-wrack
\nSuch sickness breeds.<\/p>\n
Aye, Heaven hath led me back;
\nAnd on this hearth where still my fire doth burn
\nI will go pay to heaven my due return,
\nWhich guides me here, which saved me far away.
\nO Victory, now mine own, be mine alway!<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA, at the head of her retinue, steps forward. She controls
\nher suspense with difficulty but gradually gains courage as she proceeds.<\/i>]<\/p>\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Ye Elders, Council of the Argive name
\nHere present, I will no more hold it shame
\nTo lay my passion bare before men’s eyes.
\nThere comes a time to a woman when fear dies
\nFor ever. None hath taught me. None could tell,
\nSave me, the weight of years intolerable
\nI lived while this man lay at Ilion.
\nThat any woman thus should sit alone
\nIn a half-empty house, with no man near,
\nMakes her half-blind with dread! And in her ear
\nAlway some voice of wrath; now messengers
\nOf evil; now not so; then others worse,
\nCrying calamity against mine and me.
\nOh, had he half the wounds that variously
\nCame rumoured home, his flesh must be a net,
\nAll holes from heel to crown! And if he met
\nAs many deaths as I met tales thereon,
\nIs he some monstrous thing, some G\u00earyon
\nThree-souled, that will not die, till o’er his head,
\nThree robes of earth be piled, to hold him dead?
\nAye, many a time my heart broke, and the noose
\nOf death had got me; but they cut me loose.
\nIt was those voices alway in mine ear.<\/p>\n
For that, too, young Orestes is not here
\nBeside me, as were meet, seeing he above
\nAll else doth hold the surety of our love;
\nLet not thy heart be troubled. It fell thus:
\nOur loving spear-friend took him, Strophius
\nThe Phocian, who forewarned me of annoy
\nTwo-fronted, thine own peril under Troy,
\nAnd ours here, if the rebel multitude
\nShould cast the Council down. It is men’s mood
\nAlway, to spurn the fallen. So spake he,
\nAnd sure no guile was in him.<\/p>\n
But for me,
\nThe old stormy rivers of my grief are dead
\nNow at the spring; not one tear left unshed.
\nMine eyes are sick with vigil, endlessly
\nWeeping the beacon-piles that watched for thee
\nFor ever answerless. And did I dream,
\nA gnat’s thin whirr would start me, like a scream
\nOf battle, and show me thee by terrors swept,
\nCrowding, too many for the time I slept.<\/p>\n
From all which stress delivered and free-souled,
\nI greet my lord: O watchdog of the fold,
\nO forestay sure that fails not in the squall,
\nO strong-based pillar of a towering hall;
\nO single son to a father age-ridden;
\nO land unhoped for seen by shipwrecked men;
\nSunshine more beautiful when storms are fled;
\nSpring of quick water in a desert dead \u2026.
\nHow sweet to be set free from any chain!<\/p>\n
These be my words to greet him home again.
\nNo god shall grudge them. Surely I and thou
\nHave suffered in time past enough! And now
\nDismount, O head with love and glory crowned,
\nFrom this high car; yet plant not on bare ground
\nThy foot, great King, the foot that trampled Troy.
\nHo, bondmaids, up! Forget not your employ,
\nA floor of crimson broideries to spread
\nFor the King’s path. Let all the ground be red
\nWhere those feet pass; and Justice, dark of yore,
\nHome light him to the hearth he looks not for!
\nWhat followeth next, our sleepless care shall see
\nOrdered as God’s good pleasure may decree.<\/p>\n
[The attendants spread tapestries of crimson and gold from the Chariot to the Door of the Palace.<\/i> AGAMEMNON does not move<\/i>.]<\/p>\nAGAMEMNON<\/h3>\n
Daughter of Leda, watcher of my fold,
\nIn sooth thy welcome, grave and amply told,
\nFitteth mine absent years. Though it had been
\nSeemlier, methinks, some other, not my Queen,
\nHad spoke these honours. For the rest, I say,
\nSeek not to make me soft in woman’s way;
\nCry not thy praise to me wide-mouthed, nor fling
\nThy body down, as to some barbarous king.
\nNor yet with broidered hangings strew my path,
\nTo awake the unseen ire. ‘Tis God that hath
\nSuch worship; and for mortal man to press
\nRude feet upon this broidered loveliness \u2026
\nI vow there is danger in it. Let my road
\nBe honoured, surely; but as man, not god.
\nRugs for the feet and yonder broidered pall \u2026
\nThe names ring diverse!\u2026 Aye, and not to fall
\nSuddenly blind is of all gifts the best
\nGod giveth, for I reckon no man blest
\nEre to the utmost goal his race be run.
\nSo be it; and if, as this day I have done,
\nI shall do always, then I fear no ill.<\/p>\n
Tell me but this, nowise against thy will \u2026<\/p>\n
My will, be sure, shall falter not nor fade.<\/p>\n
Was this a vow in some great peril made?<\/p>\n
Enough! I have spoke my purpose, fixed and plain.<\/p>\n
Were Priam the conqueror \u2026 Think, would he refrain?<\/p>\n
Oh, stores of broideries would be trampled then!<\/p>\n
Lord, care not for the cavillings of men!<\/p>\n
The murmur of a people hath strange weight.<\/p>\n
Who feareth envy, feareth to be great.<\/p>\n
‘Tis graceless when a woman strives to lead.<\/p>\n
When a great conqueror yields, ’tis grace indeed,<\/p>\n
So in this war thou must my conqueror be?<\/p>\n
Yield! With good will to yield is victory!<\/p>\n
Well, if I needs must \u2026 Be it as thou hast said!
\nQuick! Loose me these bound slaves on which I tread,
\nAnd while I walk yon wonders of the sea
\nGod grant no eye of wrath be cast on me
\nFrom far!<\/p>\n
[The Attendants untie his shoes<\/i>.]<\/p>\n
For even now it likes me not
\nTo waste mine house, thus marring underfoot
\nThe pride thereof, and wondrous broideries
\nBought in far seas with silver. But of these
\nEnough.\u2014And mark, I charge thee, this princess
\nOf Ilion; tend her with all gentleness.
\nGod’s eye doth see, and loveth from afar,
\nThe merciful conqueror. For no slave of war
\nIs slave by his own will. She is the prize
\nAnd chosen flower of Ilion’s treasuries,
\nSet by the soldiers’ gift to follow me.
\nNow therefore, seeing I am constrained by thee
\nAnd do thy will, I walk in conqueror’s guise
\nBeneath my Gate, trampling sea-crimson dyes.<\/p>\n
[As he dismounts and sets foot on the Tapestries<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA’S women utter again their Cry of Triumph. The people bow or kneel as he passes.<\/i>]<\/p>\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
There is the sea\u2014its caverns who shall drain?\u2014
\nBreeding of many a purple-fish the stain
\nSurpassing silver, ever fresh renewed,
\nFor robes of kings. And we, by right indued,
\nPossess our fill thereof. Thy house, O King,
\nKnoweth no stint, nor lack of anything.
\nWhat trampling of rich raiment, had the cry
\nSo sounded in the domes of prophesy,
\nWould I have vowed these years, as price to pay
\nFor this dear life in peril far away!
\nWhere the root is, the leafage cometh soon
\nTo clothe an house, and spread its leafy boon
\nAgainst the burning star; and, thou being come,
\nThou, on the midmost hearthstone of thy home,
\nOh, warmth in winter leapeth to thy sign.
\nAnd when God’s summer melteth into wine
\nThe green grape, on that house shall coolness fall
\nWhere the true man, the master, walks his hall.<\/p>\n
Zeus, Zeus! True Master, let my prayers be true!
\nAnd, oh, forget not that thou art willed to do!<\/p>\n
[She follows<\/i> AGAMEMNON into the Palace. The retinues of both King and Queen go in after them.<\/i> CASSANDRA remains<\/i>.]<\/p>\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
Strophe 1.<\/h4>\n
What is this that evermore,
\nA cold terror at the door
\nOf this bosom presage-haunted,
\nPale as death hovereth?
\nWhile a song unhired, unwanted,
\nBy some inward prophet chanted,
\nSpeaks the secret at its core;
\nAnd to cast it from my blood
\nLike a dream not understood
\nNo sweet-spoken Courage now
\nSitteth at my heart’s dear prow.<\/p>\n
Yet I know that manifold
\nDays, like sand, have waxen old<\/p>\n
Since the day those shoreward-thrown
\nCables flapped and line on line
\nStanding forth for Ilion
\nThe long galleys took the brine<\/p>\n
And in harbour\u2014mine own eye
\nHath beheld\u2014again they lie;
\nYet that lyreless music hidden
\nWhispers still words of ill,
\n‘Tis the Soul of me unbidden,
\nLike some Fury sorrow-ridden,
\nWeeping over things that die.
\nNeither waketh in my sense
\nEver Hope’s dear confidence;
\nFor this flesh that groans within,
\nAnd these bones that know of Sin,
\nThis tossed heart upon the spate
\nOf a whirpool that is Fate,
\nSurely these lie not. Yet deep
\nBeneath hope my prayer doth run,
\nAll will die like dreams, and creep
\nTo the unthought of and undone.<\/p>\n
\u2014Surely of great Weal at the end of all
\nComes not Content; so near doth Fever crawl,
\nClose neighbour, pressing hard the narrow wall.<\/p>\n
\u2014Woe to him who fears not fate!
\n‘Tis the ship that forward straight
\nSweepeth, strikes the reef below;
\nHe who fears and lightens weight,
\nCasting forth, in measured throw,
\nFrom the wealth his hand hath got \u2026
\nHis whole ship shall founder not,
\nWith abundance overfraught,
\nNor deep seas above him flow.
\n\u2014Lo, when famine stalketh near,
\nOne good gift of Zeus again
\nFrom the furrows of one year
\nEndeth quick the starving pain;<\/p>\n
\u2014But once the blood of death is fallen, black
\nAnd oozing at a slain man’s feet, alack!
\nBy spell or singing who shall charm it back?<\/p>\n
\u2014One there was of old who showed
\nMan the path from death to day;
\nBut Zeus, lifting up his rod,
\nSpared not, when he charged him stay.<\/p>\n
\u2014Save that every doom of God
\nHath by other dooms its way
\nCrossed, that none may rule alone,
\nIn one speech-outstripping groan
\nForth had all this passion flown,
\nWhich now murmuring hides away,
\nFull of pain, and hoping not
\nEver one clear thread to unknot
\nFrom the tangle of my soul,
\nFrom a heart of burning coal.<\/p>\n
[Suddenly<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA appears standing in the Doorway.<\/i>]<\/p>\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Thou likewise, come within! I speak thy name,
\nCassandra;<\/p>\n
[CASSANDRA trembles, but continues to stare in front of her, as though not hearing<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA.]<\/p>\n
seeing the Gods\u2014why chafe at them?\u2014
\nHave placed thee here, to share within these walls
\nOur lustral waters, ‘mid a crowd of thralls
\nWho stand obedient round the altar-stone
\nOf our Possession. Therefore come thou down,
\nAnd be not over-proud. The tale is told
\nHow once Alcmena’s son himself, being sold,
\nWas patient, though he liked not the slaves’ mess.
\nAnd more, if Fate must bring thee to this stress,
\nPraise God thou art come to a House of high report
\nAnd wealth from long ago. The baser sort,
\nWho have reaped some sudden harvest unforeseen,
\nAre ever cruel to their slaves, and mean
\nIn the measure. We shall give whate’er is due.<\/p>\n
[CASSANDRA is silent.<\/i>]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
To thee she speaks, and waits \u2026 clear words and true!
\nOh, doom is all around thee like a net;
\nYield, if thou canst\u2026. Belike thou canst not yet.<\/p>\n
Methinks, unless this wandering maid is one
\nVoiced like a swallow-bird, with tongue unknown
\nAnd barbarous, she can read my plain intent.
\nI use but words, and ask for her consent.<\/p>\n
Ah, come! Tis best, as the world lies to-day.
\nLeave this high-throned chariot, and obey!<\/p>\n
How long must I stand dallying at the Gate?
\nEven now the beasts to Hestia consecrate
\nWait by the midmost fire, since there is wrought
\nThis high fulfilment for which no man thought.
\nWherefore, if ’tis thy pleasure to obey
\nAught of my will, prithee, no more delay!
\nIf, dead to sense, thou wilt not understand\u2026
\nThou show her, not with speech but with brute hand!<\/p>\n
[To the Leader of the<\/i> CHORUS.]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
The strange maid needs a rare interpreter.
\nShe is trembling like a wild beast in a snare.<\/p>\n
‘Fore God, she is mad, and heareth but her own
\nFolly! A slave, her city all o’erthrown,
\nShe needs must chafe her bridle, till this fret
\nBe foamed away in blood and bitter sweat.
\nI waste no more speech, thus to be defied.<\/p>\n
[She goes back inside the Palace<\/i>.]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
I pity thee so sore, no wrath nor pride
\nIs in me.\u2014Come, dismount! Bend to the stroke
\nFate lays on thee, and learn to feel thy yoke.<\/p>\n
[He lays his hand softly on<\/i> CASSANDRA’S shoulder<\/i>.]<\/p>\nCASSANDRA<\/h3>\n
(moaning to herself<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Otototoi \u2026 Dreams. Dreams.
\nApollo. O Apollo!<\/p>\n
Why sob’st thou for Apollo? It is writ,
\nHe loves not grief nor lendeth ear to it.<\/p>\n
Otototoi \u2026 Dreams. Dreams.
\nApollo. O Apollo!<\/p>\n
Still to that god she makes her sobbing cry
\nWho hath no place where men are sad, or die.<\/p>\n
Apollo, Apollo! Light of the Ways of Men!
\nMine enemy!
\nHast lighted me to darkness yet again?<\/p>\n
How? Will she prophesy about her own
\nSorrows? That power abides when all is gone!<\/p>\n
Apollo, Apollo! Light of all that is!
\nMine enemy!
\nWhere hast thou led me? \u2026 Ha! What house is this?<\/p>\n
The Atreidae’s castle. If thou knowest not, I
\nAm here to help thee, and help faithfully.<\/p>\n
(whispering<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Nay, nay. This is the house that God hateth.
\nThere be many things that know its secret; sore
\nAnd evil things; murders and strangling death.
\n‘Tis here they slaughter men\u2026A splashing floor.<\/p>\n
Keen-sensed the strange maid seemeth, like a hound
\nFor blood.\u2014And what she seeks can sure be found!<\/p>\n
The witnesses \u2026 I follow where they lead.
\nThe crying \u2026 of little children \u2026 near the gate:
\nCrying for wounds that bleed:
\nAnd the smell of the baked meats their father ate.<\/p>\n
(recognizing her vision, and repelled<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Word of thy mystic power had reached our ear
\nLong since. Howbeit we need no prophets here.<\/p>\n
Ah, ah! What would they? A new dreadful thing.
\nA great great sin plots in the house this day;
\nToo strong for the faithful, beyond medicining \u2026
\nAnd help stands far away.<\/p>\n
This warning I can read not, though I knew
\nThat other tale. It rings the city through.<\/p>\n
O Woman, thou! The lord who lay with thee!
\nWilt lave with water, and then \u2026 How speak the end?
\nIt comes so quick. A hand \u2026 another hand \u2026
\nThat reach, reach gropingly\u2026.<\/p>\n
I see not yet. These riddles, pierced with blind
\nGleams of foreboding, but bemuse my mind.<\/p>\n
Ah, ah! What is it? There; it is coming clear.
\nA net \u2026 some net of Hell.
\nNay, she that lies with him \u2026 is she the snare?
\nAnd half of his blood upon it. It holds well\u2026.
\nO Crowd of ravening Voices, be glad, yea, shout
\nAnd cry for the stoning, cry for the casting out!<\/p>\n
What Fury Voices call’st thou to be hot
\nAgainst this castle? Such words like me not.<\/p>\n
And deep within my breast I felt that sick
\nAnd saffron drop, which creepeth to the heart
\nTo die as the last rays of life depart.
\nMisfortune comes so quick.<\/p>\n
Ah, look! Look! Keep his mate from the Wild Bull!
\nA tangle of raiment, see;
\nA black horn, and a blow, and he falleth, full
\nIn the marble amid the water. I counsel ye.
\nI speak plain \u2026 Blood in the bath and treachery!<\/p>\n
No great interpreter of oracles
\nAm I; but this, I think, some mischief spells.<\/p>\n
What spring of good hath seercraft ever made
\nUp from the dark to flow?
\n‘Tis but a weaving of words, a craft of woe,
\nTo make mankind afraid.<\/p>\n
Poor woman! Poor dead woman! \u2026 Yea, it is I,
\nPoured out like water among them. Weep for me\u2026.
\nAh! What is this place? Why must I come with thee\u2026.
\nTo die, only to die?<\/p>\n
Thou art borne on the breath of God, thou spirit wild,
\nFor thine own weird to wail,
\nLike to that wing\u00e8d voice, that heart so sore
\nWhich, crying alway, hungereth to cry more,
\n“Itylus, Itylus,” till it sing her child
\nBack to the nightingale.<\/p>\n
Oh, happy Singing Bird, so sweet, so clear!
\nSoft wings for her God made,
\nAnd an easy passing, without pain or tear \u2026
\nFor me ’twill be torn flesh and rending blade.<\/p>\n
Whence is it sprung, whence wafted on God’s breath,
\nThis anguish reasonless?
\nThis throbbing of terror shaped to melody,
\nMoaning of evil blent with music high?
\nWho hath marked out for thee that mystic path
\nThrough thy woe’s wilderness?<\/p>\n
Alas for the kiss, the kiss of Paris, his people’s bane!
\nAlas for Scamander Water, the water my fathers drank!
\nLong, long ago, I played about thy bank,
\nAnd was cherished and grew strong;
\nNow by a River of Wailing, by shores of Pain,
\nSoon shall I make my song.<\/p>\n
How sayst thou? All too clear,
\nThis ill word thou hast laid upon thy mouth!
\nA babe could read thee plain.
\nIt stabs within me like a serpent’s tooth,
\nThe bitter thrilling music of her pain:
\nI marvel as I hear.<\/p>\n
Alas for the toil, the toil of a City, worn unto death!
\nAlas for my father’s worship before the citadel,
\nThe flocks that bled and the tumult of their breath!
\nBut no help from them came
\nTo save Troy Towers from falling as they fell!\u2026
\nAnd I on the earth shall writhe, my heart aflame.<\/p>\n
Dark upon dark, new ominous words of ill!
\nSure there hath swept on thee some Evil Thing,
\nCrushing, which makes thee bleed
\nAnd in the torment of thy vision sing
\nThese plaining death-fraught oracles \u2026 Yet still, still,
\nTheir end I cannot read!<\/p>\n
(By an effort she regains mastery of herself, and speaks directly to the Leader<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
‘Fore God, mine oracle shall no more hide
\nWith veils his visage, like a new-wed bride!
\nA shining wind out of this dark shall blow,
\nPiercing the dawn, growing as great waves grow,
\nTo burst in the heart of sunrise \u2026 stronger far
\nThan this poor pain of mine. I will not mar
\nWith mists my wisdom.
\nBe near me as I go,
\nTracking the evil things of long ago,
\nAnd bear me witness. For this roof, there clings
\nMusic about it, like a choir which sings
\nOne-voiced, but not well-sounding, for not good
\nThe words are. Drunken, drunken, and with blood,
\nTo make them dare the more, a revelling rout
\nIs in the rooms, which no man shall cast out,
\nOf sister Furies. And they weave to song,
\nHaunting the House, its first blind deed of wrong,
\nSpurning in turn that King’s bed desecrate,
\nDefiled, which paid a brother’s sin with hate\u2026.
\nHath it missed or struck, mine arrow? Am I a poor
\nDreamer, that begs and babbles at the door?
\nGive first thine oath in witness, that I know
\nOf this great dome the sins wrought long ago.<\/p>\n
And how should oath of mine, though bravely sworn,
\nAppease thee? Yet I marvel that one born
\nFar over seas, of alien speech, should fall
\nSo apt, as though she had lived here and seen all.<\/p>\n
The Seer Apollo made me too to see.<\/p>\n
(in a low voice<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Was the God’s heart pierced with desire for thee?<\/p>\n
Time was, I held it shame hereof to speak.<\/p>\n
Ah, shame is for the mighty, not the weak.<\/p>\n
We wrestled, and his breath to me was sweet.<\/p>\n
Ye came to the getting of children, as is meet?<\/p>\n
I swore to Loxias, and I swore a lie.<\/p>\n
Already thine the gift of prophecy?<\/p>\n
Already I showed my people all their path.<\/p>\n
And Loxias did not smite thee in his wrath?<\/p>\n
After that sin \u2026 no man believed me more.<\/p>\n
Nay, then, to us thy wisdom seemeth sure.<\/p>\n
Oh, oh! Agony, agony!
\nAgain the awful pains of prophecy
\nAre on me, maddening as they fall\u2026.
\nYe see them there \u2026 beating against the wall?
\nSo young \u2026 like shapes that gather in a dream \u2026
\nSlain by a hand they loved. Children they seem,
\nMurdered \u2026 and in their hands they bear baked meat:
\nI think it is themselves. Yea, flesh; I see it;
\nAnd inward parts\u2026. Oh, what a horrible load
\nTo carry! And their father drank their blood.<\/p>\n
From these, I warn ye, vengeance broodeth still,
\nA lion’s rage, which goes not forth to kill
\nBut lurketh in his lair, watching the high
\nHall of my war-gone master \u2026 Master? Aye;
\nMine, mine! The yoke is nailed about my neck\u2026.
\nOh, lord of ships and trampler on the wreck
\nOf Ilion, knows he not this she-wolf’s tongue,
\nWhich licks and fawns, and laughs with ear up-sprung,
\nTo bite in the end like secret death?\u2014And can
\nThe woman? Slay a strong and arm\u00e8d man? \u2026
\nWhat fang\u00e8d reptile like to her doth creep?
\nSome serpent amphisbene, some Skylla, deep
\nHoused in the rock, where sailors shriek and die,
\nMother of Hell blood-raging, which doth cry
\nOn her own flesh war, war without alloy \u2026
\nGod! And she shouted in his face her joy,
\nLike men in battle when the foe doth break.
\nAnd feigns thanksgiving for his safety’s sake!
\nWhat if no man believe me? ‘Tis all one.
\nThe thing which must be shall be; aye, and soon
\nThou too shalt sorrow for these things, and here
\nStanding confess me all too true a seer.<\/p>\n
The Thyestean feast of children slain
\nI understood, and tremble. Aye, my brain
\nReels at these visions, beyond guesswork true.
\nBut after, though I heard, I had lost the clue.<\/p>\n
Man, thou shalt look on Agamemnon dead.<\/p>\n
Peace, Mouth of Evil! Be those words unsaid!<\/p>\n
No god of peace hath watch upon that hour.<\/p>\n
If it must come. Forefend it, Heavenly Power!<\/p>\n
They do not think of prayer; they think of death.<\/p>\n
They? Say, what man this foul deed compasseth?<\/p>\n
Alas, thou art indeed fallen far astray!<\/p>\n
How could such deed be done? I see no way.<\/p>\n
Yet know I not the Greek tongue all too well?<\/p>\n
Greek are the Delphic dooms, but hard to spell.<\/p>\n
Ah! Ah! There!
\nWhat a strange fire! It moves \u2026 It comes at me.
\nO Wolf Apollo, mercy! O agony! \u2026
\nWhy lies she with a wolf, this lioness lone,
\nTwo-handed, when the royal lion is gone?
\nGod, she will kill me! Like to them that brew
\nPoison, I see her mingle for me too
\nA separate vial in her wrath, and swear,
\nWhetting her blade for him, that I must share
\nHis death \u2026 because, because he hath dragged me here!
\nOh, why these mockers at my throat? This gear
\nOf wreath\u00e8d bands, this staff of prophecy?
\nI mean to kill you first, before I die.
\nBegone!<\/p>\n
[She tears off her prophetic habiliments; and presently throws them on
\nthe ground, and stamps on them.<\/i>]<\/p>\n
Down to perdition! \u2026 Lie ye so?
\nSo I requite you! Now make rich in woe
\nSome other Bird of Evil, me no more! [Coming to herself.<\/i>
\nAh, see! It is Apollo’s self, hath tore
\nHis crown from me! Who watched me long ago
\nIn this same prophet’s robe, by friend, by foe,
\nAll with one voice, all blinded, mocked to scorn:
\n“A thing of dreams,” “a beggar-maid outworn,”
\nPoor, starving and reviled, I endured all;
\nAnd now the Seer, who called me till my call
\nWas perfect, leads me to this last dismay\u2026.
\n‘Tis not the altar-stone where men did slay
\nMy father; ’tis a block, a block with gore
\nYet hot, that waits me, of one slain before.
\nYet not of God unheeded shall we lie.
\nThere cometh after, one who lifteth high
\nThe downfallen; a branch where blossometh
\nA sire’s avenging and a mother’s death.
\nExiled and wandering, from this land outcast,
\nOne day He shall return, and set the last
\nCrown on these sins that have his house downtrod.
\nFor, lo, there is a great oath sworn of God,
\nHis father’s upturned face shall guide him home.
\nWhy should I grieve? Why pity these men’s doom?
\nI who have seen the City of Ilion
\nPass as she passed; and they who cast her down
\nHave thus their end, as God gives judgement sure\u2026.
\nI go to drink my cup. I will endure
\nTo die. O Gates, Death-Gates, all hail to you!
\nOnly, pray God the blow be stricken true!
\nPray God, unagonized, with blood that flows
\nQuick unto friendly death, these eyes may close!<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
O full of sorrows, full of wisdom great,
\nWoman, thy speech is a long anguish; yet,
\nKnowing thy doom, why walkst thou with clear eyes,
\nLike some god-blinded beast, to sacrifice?<\/p>\n
There is no escape, friends; only vain delay.<\/p>\n
Is not the later still the sweeter day?<\/p>\n
The day is come. Small profit now to fly.<\/p>\n
Through all thy griefs, Woman, thy heart is high.<\/p>\n
Alas! None that is happy hears that praise.<\/p>\n
Are not the brave dead blest in after days?<\/p>\n
O Father! O my brethren brave, I come!<\/p>\n
[She moves towards the House, but recoils shuddering.<\/i>]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
What frights thee? What is that thou startest from?<\/p>\n
Ah, faugh! Faugh!<\/p>\n
What turns thee in that blind
\nHorror? Unless some loathing of the mind \u2026<\/p>\n
Death drifting from the doors, and blood like rain!<\/p>\n
‘Tis but the dumb beasts at the altar slain.<\/p>\n
And vapours from a charnel-house \u2026 See there!<\/p>\n
‘Tis Tyrian incense clouding in the air.<\/p>\n
(recovering herself again<\/i>)<\/p>\n
So be it!\u2014I will go, in yonder room
\nTo weep mine own and Agamemnon’s doom.
\nMay death be all! Strangers, I am no bird
\nThat pipeth trembling at a thicket stirred
\nBy the empty wind. Bear witness on that day
\nWhen woman for this woman’s life shall pay,
\nAnd man for man ill-mated low shall lie:
\nI ask this boon, as being about to die.<\/p>\n
Alas, I pity thee thy mystic fate!<\/p>\n
One word, one dirge-song would I utter yet
\nO’er mine own corpse. To this last shining Sun
\nI pray that, when the Avenger’s work is done,
\nHis enemies may remember this thing too,
\nThis little thing, the woman slave they slew!<\/p>\n
O world of men, farewell! A painted show
\nIs all thy glory; and when life is low
\nThe touch of a wet sponge out-blotteth all.
\nOh, sadder this than any proud man’s fall! [She goes into the House.<\/i><\/p>\nCHORUS<\/h3>\n
Great Fortune is an hungry thing,
\nAnd filleth no heart anywhere,
\nThough men with fingers menacing
\nPoint at the great house, none will dare,
\nWhen Fortune knocks, to bar the door
\nProclaiming: “Come thou here no more!”
\nLo, to this man the Gods have given
\nGreat Ilion in the dust to tread
\nAnd home return, emblazed of heaven;
\nIf it is writ, he too shall go
\nThrough blood for blood spilt long ago;
\nIf he too, dying for the dead,
\nShould crown the deaths of alien years,
\nWhat mortal afar off, who hears,
\nShall boast him Fortune’s Child, and led
\nAbove the eternal tide of tears?<\/p>\n
[A sudden Cry from within.<\/i>]<\/p>\nVOICE<\/h3>\n
Ho! Treason in the house! I am wounded: slain.<\/p>\n
Hush! In the castle! ‘Twas a cry
\nOf some man wounded mortally.<\/p>\n
Ah God, another! I am stricken again.<\/p>\n
I think the deed is done. It was the King
\nWho groaned\u2026. Stand close, and think if anything\u2026.<\/p>\n
[The Old Men gather together under the shock, and debate confusedly.<\/i>]<\/p>\nELDER B<\/h3>\n
I give you straight my judgement. Summon all
\nThe citizens to rescue. Sound a call!<\/p>\n
No, no! Burst in at once without a word!
\nIn, and convict them by their dripping sword!<\/p>\n
Yes; that or something like it. Quick, I say,
\nBe doing! ‘Tis a time for no delay.<\/p>\n
We have time to think. This opening \u2026 They have planned
\nSome scheme to make enslavement of the land.<\/p>\n
Yes, while we linger here! They take no thought
\nOf lingering, and their sword-arm sleepeth not!<\/p>\n
I have no counsel. I can speak not. Oh,
\nLet him give counsel who can strike a blow!<\/p>\n
I say as this man says. I have no trust
\nIn words to raise a dead man from the dust.<\/p>\n
How mean you? Drag out our poor lives, and stand
\nCowering to these defilers of the land?<\/p>\n
Nay, ’tis too much! Better to strive and die!
\nDeath is an easier doom than slavery.<\/p>\n
We heard a sound of groaning, nothing plain,
\nHow know we\u2014are we seers?\u2014that one is slain?<\/p>\n
Oh, let us find the truth out, ere we grow
\nThus passionate! To surmise is not to know.<\/p>\n
Break in, then! ‘Tis the counsel ye all bring,
\nAnd learn for sure, how is it with the King.<\/p>\n
[They cluster up towards the Palace Door, as though to force an entrance, when the great Door swings open, revealing<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA, who stands, axe in hand, over the dead bodies of<\/i> AGAMEMNON and<\/i> CASSANDRA. The body of<\/i> AGAMEMNON is wrapped in a rich crimson web. There is blood on<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA’S_ brow, and she speaks in wild triumph.]<\/p>\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Oh, lies enough and more have I this day
\nSpoken, which now I shame not to unsay.
\nHow should a woman work, to the utter end,
\nHate on a damn\u00e8d hater, feigned a friend;
\nHow pile perdition round him, hunter-wise,
\nToo high for overleaping, save by lies?
\nTo me this hour was dreamed of long ago;
\nA thing of ancient hate. ‘Twas very slow
\nIn coming, but it came. And here I stand
\nEven where I struck, with all the deed I planned
\nDone! ‘Twas so wrought\u2014what boots it to deny?\u2014
\nThe man could neither guard himself nor fly.
\nAn endless web, as by some fisher strung,
\nA deadly plenteousness of robe, I flung
\nAll round him, and struck twice; and with two cries
\nHis limbs turned water and broke; and as he lies
\nI cast my third stroke in, a prayer well-sped
\nTo Zeus of Hell, who guardeth safe his dead!
\nSo there he gasped his life out as he lay;
\nAnd, gasping, the blood spouted \u2026 Like dark spray
\nThat splashed, it came, a salt and deathly dew;
\nSweet, sweet as God’s dear rain-drops ever blew
\nO’er a parched field, the day the buds are born! \u2026
\nWhich things being so, ye Councillors high-born,
\nDepart in joy, if joy ye will. For me,
\nI glory. Oh, if such a thing might be
\nAs o’er the dead thank-offering to outpour,
\nOn this dead it were just, aye, just and more,
\nWho filled the cup of the House with treacheries
\nCurse-fraught, and here hath drunk it to the lees!<\/p>\n
We are astonied at thy speech. To fling,
\nWild mouth! such vaunt over thy murdered King!<\/p>\n
Wouldst fright me, like a witless woman? Lo,
\nThis bosom shakes not. And, though well ye know,
\nI tell you \u2026 Curse me as ye will, or bless,
\n‘Tis all one \u2026 This is Agamemnon; this,
\nMy husband, dead by my right hand, a blow
\nStruck by a righteous craftsman. Aye, ’tis so.<\/p>\n
Woman, what evil tree,
\nWhat poison grown of the ground
\nOr draught of the drifting sea
\nWay to thy lips hath found,
\nMaking thee clothe thy heart
\nIn rage, yea, in curses burning
\nWhen thine own people pray?
\nThou hast hewn, thou hast cast away;
\nAnd a thing cast away thou art,
\nA thing of hate and a spurning!<\/p>\n
Aye, now, for me, thou hast thy words of fate;
\nExile from Argos and the people’s hate
\nFor ever! Against him no word was cried,
\nWhen, recking not, as ’twere a beast that died,
\nWith flocks abounding o’er his wide domain,
\nHe slew his child, my love, my flower of pain, \u2026
\nGreat God, as magic for the winds of Thrace!
\nWhy was not he man-hunted from his place,
\nTo purge the blood that stained him? \u2026 When the deed
\nIs mine, oh, then thou art a judge indeed!
\nBut threat thy fill. I am ready, and I stand
\nContent; if thy hand beateth down my hand,
\nThou rulest. If aught else be God’s decree,
\nThy lesson shall be learned, though late it be.<\/p>\n
Thy thought, it is very proud;
\nThy breath is the scorner’s breath;
\nIs not the madness loud
\nIn thy heart, being drunk with death?
\nYea, and above thy brow
\nA star of the wet blood burneth!
\nOh, doom shall have yet her day,
\nThe last friend cast away,
\nWhen lie doth answer lie
\nAnd a stab for a stab returneth!<\/p>\n
And heark what Oath-gods gather to my side!
\nBy my dead child’s Revenge, now satisfied,
\nBy Mortal Blindness, by all Powers of Hell
\nWhich Hate, to whom in sacrifice he fell,
\nMy Hope shall walk not in the house of Fear,
\nWhile on my hearth one fire yet burneth clear,
\nOne lover, one Aigisthos, as of old!
\nWhat should I fear, when fallen here I hold
\nThis foe, this scorner of his wife, this toy
\nAnd fool of each Chryseis under Troy;
\nAnd there withal his soothsayer and slave,
\nHis chanting bed-fellow, his leman brave,
\nWho rubbed the galleys’ benches at his side.
\nBut, oh, they had their guerdon as they died!
\nFor he lies thus, and she, the wild swan’s way,
\nHath trod her last long weeping roundelay,
\nAnd lies, his lover, ravisht o’er the main
\nFor his bed’s comfort and my deep disdain.<\/p>\n
(Some Elders<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Would God that suddenly
\nWith no great agony,
\nNo long sick-watch to keep,
\nMy hour would come to me,
\nMy hour, and presently
\nBring the eternal, the
\nUnwaking Sleep,
\nNow that my Shepherd, he
\nWhose love watched over me,
\nLies in the deep!<\/p>\n
For woman’s sake he endured and battled well,
\nAnd by a woman’s hand he fell.<\/p>\n
What hast thou done, O Helen blind of brain,
\nO face that slew the souls on Ilion’s plain,
\nOne face, one face, and many a thousand slain?
\nThe hate of old that on this castle lay,
\nBuilded in lust, a husband’s evil day,
\nHath bloomed for thee a perfect flower again
\nAnd unforgotten, an old and burning stain
\nNever to pass away.<\/p>\n
Nay, pray not for the hour of death, being tried
\nToo sore beneath these blows
\nNeither on Helen turn thy wrath aside,
\nThe Slayer of Men, the face which hath destroyed
\nIts thousand Danaan souls, and wrought a wide
\nWound that no leech can close.<\/p>\n
\u2014Daemon, whose heel is set
\nOn the House and the twofold kin
\nOf the high Tantalidae,
\nA power, heavy as fate,
\nThou wieldest through woman’s sin,
\nPiercing the heart of me!<\/p>\n
\u2014Like a raven swoln with hate
\nHe hath set on the dead his claw,
\nHe croaketh a song to sate
\nHis fury, and calls it Law!<\/p>\n
Ah, call upon Him! Yea, call\u2014
\nAnd thy thought hath found its path\u2014
\nThe Daemon who haunts this hall,
\nThe thrice-engorged Wrath;<\/p>\n
From him is the ache of the flesh
\nFor blood born and increased;
\nEre the old sore hath ceased
\nIt oozeth afresh.<\/p>\n
\u2014Indeed He is very great,
\nAnd heavy his anger, He,
\nThe Daemon who guides the fate
\nOf the old Tantalidae:
\nAlas, alas, an evil tale ye tell
\nOf desolate angers and insatiable!<\/p>\n
\u2014Ah me,
\nAnd yet ’tis all as Zeus hath willed,
\nDoer of all and Cause of all;
\nBy His Word every chance doth fall,
\nNo end without Him is fulfilled;
\nWhat of these things
\nBut cometh by high Heaven’s counsellings?<\/p>\n
[A band of Mourners has gathered within the House<\/i>.]<\/p>\nMOURNERS<\/h3>\n
Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!
\nHow shall I weep, what word shall I say?
\nCaught in the web of this spider thing,
\nIn foul death gasping thy life away!
\nWoe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying,
\nThe doom of craft and the lonely dying,
\nThe iron two-edged and the hands that slay!<\/p>\n
And criest thou still this deed hath been
\nMy work? Nay, gaze, and have no thought
\nThat this is Agamemnon’s Queen.
\n‘Tis He, ’tis He, hath round him wrought
\nThis phantom of the dead man’s wife;
\nHe, the old Wrath, the Driver of Men astray,
\nPursuer of Atreus for the feast defiled;
\nTo assoil an ancient debt he hath paid this life;
\nA warrior and a crowned King this day
\nAtones for a slain child.<\/p>\n
\u2014That thou art innocent herein,
\nWhat tongue dare boast? It cannot be,
\nYet from the deeps of ancient sin
\nThe Avenger may have wrought with thee.<\/p>\n
\u2014On the red Slayer crasheth, groping wild
\nFor blood, more blood, to build his peace again,
\nAnd wash like water the old frozen stain
\nOf the torn child.<\/p>\n
Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!
\nHow shall I weep, what word shall I say?
\nCaught in the web of this spider thing,
\nIn foul death gasping thy life away.
\nWoe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying,
\nThe doom of craft and the lonely dying,
\nThe iron two-edged and the hands that slay!<\/p>\n
And what of the doom of craft that first
\nHe planted, making the House accurst?
\nWhat of the blossom, from this root riven,
\nIphigen\u00eea, the unforgiven?
\nEven as the wrong was, so is the pain:
\nHe shall not laugh in the House of the slain,
\nWhen the count is scored;
\nHe hath but spoil\u00e8d and paid again
\nThe due of the sword.<\/p>\n
I am lost; my mind dull-eyed
\nKnows not nor feels
\nWhither to fly nor hide
\nWhile the House reels.
\nThe noise of rain that falls
\nOn the roof affrighteth me,
\nWashing away the walls;
\nRain that falls bloodily.<\/p>\n
Doth ever the sound abate?
\nLo, the next Hour of Fate
\nWhetting her vengeance due
\nOn new whet-stones, for new
\nWorkings of hate.<\/p>\n
Would thou hadst covered me, Earth, O Earth,
\nOr e’er I had looked on my lord thus low,
\nIn the pall\u00e8d marble of silvern girth!
\nWhat hands may shroud him, what tears may flow?<\/p>\n
Not thine, O Woman who dared to slay him,
\nThou durst not weep to him now, nor pray him,
\nNor pay to his soul the deep unworth
\nOf gift or prayer to forget thy blow.<\/p>\n
\u2014Oh, who with heart sincere
\nShall bring praise or grief
\nTo lay on the sepulchre
\nOf the great chief?<\/p>\n
His burial is not thine to array.
\nBy me he fell, by me he died,
\nI watch him to the grave, not cried
\nBy mourners of his housefolk; nay,<\/p>\n
His own child for a day like this
\nWaits, as is seemly, and shall run
\nBy the white waves of Acheron
\nTo fold him in her arms and kiss!<\/p>\n
Lo, she who was erst reviled
\nRevileth; and who shall say?
\nSpoil taken from them that spoiled,
\nLife-blood from them that slay!
\nSurely while God ensueth
\nHis laws, while Time doth run
\n‘Tis written: On him that doeth
\nIt shall be done.<\/p>\n
This is God’s law and grace,
\nWho then shall hunt the race
\nOf curses from out this hall?
\nThe House is sealed withal
\nTo dreadfulness.<\/p>\n
Aye, thou hast found the Law, and stept
\nIn Truth’s way.\u2014Yet even now I call
\nThe Living Wrath which haunts this hall
\nTo truce and compact. I accept<\/p>\n
All the affliction he doth heap
\nUpon me, and I charge him go
\nFar off with his self-murdering woe
\nTo strange men’s houses. I will keep<\/p>\n
Some little dower, and leave behind
\nAll else, contented utterly.
\nI have swept the madness from the sky
\nWherein these brethren slew their kind.<\/p>\n
[As she ceases, exhausted and with the fire gone out of her,<\/i>
\nAIGISTHOS, with Attendants, bursts triumphantly in<\/i>.]<\/p>\nAIGISTHOS<\/h3>\n
O shining day, O dawn of righteousness
\nFulfilled! Now, now indeed will I confess
\nThat divine watchers o’er man’s death and birth
\nLook down on all the anguish of the earth,
\nNow that I see him lying, as I love
\nTo see him, in this net the Furies wove,
\nTo atone the old craft of his father’s hand.
\nFor Atreus, this man’s father, in this land
\nReigning, and by Thyestes in his throne
\nChallenged\u2014he was his brother and mine own
\nFather From home and city cast him out;
\nAnd he, after long exile, turned about
\nAnd threw him suppliant on the hearth, and won
\nPromise of so much mercy, that his own
\nLife-blood should reek not in his father’s hall.
\nThen did that godless brother, Atreus, call,
\nTo greet my sire\u2014More eagerness, O God,
\nWas there than love!\u2014a feast of brotherhood.
\nAnd, feigning joyous banquet, laid as meat
\nBefore him his dead children. The white feet
\nAnd finger-fring\u00e8d hands apart he set,
\nVeiled from all seeing, and made separate
\nThe tables. And he straightway, knowing naught,
\nTook of those bodies, eating that which wrought
\nNo health for all his race. And when he knew
\nThe unnatural deed, back from the board he threw,
\nSpewing that murderous gorge, and spurning brake
\nThe table, to make strong the curse he spake:
\n“Thus perish all of Pleisthen\u00eas begot!”
\nFor that lies this man here; and all the plot
\nIs mine, most righteously. For me, the third,
\nWhen butchering my two brethren, Atreus spared
\nAnd cast me with my broken sire that day,
\nA little thing in swaddling clothes, away
\nTo exile; where I grew, and at the last
\nJustice hath brought me home! Yea though outcast
\nIn a far land, mine arm hath reached this king;
\nMy brain, my hate, wrought all the counselling;
\nAnd all is well. I have seen mine enemy
\nDead in the snare, and care not if I die!<\/p>\n
Aigisthos, to insult over the dead
\nI like not. All the counsel, thou hast said,
\nWas thine alone; and thine the will that spilled
\nThis piteous blood. As justice is fulfilled,
\nThou shalt not ‘scape\u2014so my heart presageth\u2014-The
\nday of cursing and the hurl\u00e8d death.<\/p>\n
How, thou poor oarsman of the nether row,
\nWhen the main deck is master? Sayst thou so?\u2026
\nTo such old heads the lesson may prove hard,
\nI fear me, when Obedience is the word.
\nBut hunger, and bonds, and cold, help men to find
\nTheir wits.\u2014They are wondrous healers of the mind!
\nHast eyes and seest not this?\u2014Against a spike
\nKick not, for fear it pain thee if thou strike.<\/p>\n
(turning from him to<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA)<\/p>\n
Woman! A soldier fresh from war! To keep
\nWatch o’er his house and shame him in his sleep\u2026
\nTo plot this craft against a lord of spears\u2026<\/p>\n
[CLYTEMNESTRA, as though in a dream, pays no heed.<\/i> AIGISTHOS
\ninterupts.<\/i>]<\/p>\nAIGISTHOS<\/h3>\n
These be the words, old man, that lead to tears!
\nThou hast an opposite to Orpheus’ tongue,
\nWho chained all things with his enchanting song,
\nFor thy mad noise will put the chains on thee.
\nEnough! Once mastered thou shalt tamer be.<\/p>\n
Thou master? Is old Argos so accurst?
\nThou plotter afar off, who never durst
\nRaise thine own hand to affront and strike him down\u2026<\/p>\n
To entice him was the wife’s work. I was known
\nBy all men here, his old confessed blood-foe.
\nHowbeit, with his possessions I will know
\nHow to be King. And who obeys not me
\nShall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he,
\nCorn-flushed. Hunger, and hunger’s prison mate,
\nThe clammy murk, shall see his rage abate.<\/p>\n
Thou craven soul! Why not in open strife
\nSlay him? Why lay the blood-sin on his wife,
\nStaining the Gods of Argos, making ill
\nThe soil thereof?\u2026But young Orestes still
\nLiveth. Oh, Fate will guide him home again,
\nAvenging, conquering, home to kill these twain!<\/p>\n
‘Fore God, if ’tis your pleasure thus to speak and do, ye soon shall hear!
\nHo there, my trusty pikes, advance! There cometh business for the spear.<\/p>\n
[A body of Spearmen, from concealment outside, rush in and dominate the
\nstage.<\/i>]<\/p>\nLEADER<\/h3>\n
Ho there, ye Men of Argos! Up! Stand and be ready, sword from sheath!<\/p>\n
By Heaven, I also, sword in hand, am ready, and refuse not death!<\/p>\n
Come, find it! We accept thy word. Thou offerest what we hunger for.<\/p>\n
[Some of the Elders draw swords with the Leader; others have collapsed with weakness. Men from<\/i> AGAMEMNON’S retinue have gathered and prepare for battle, when, before they can come to blows,<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA breaks from her exhausted silence<\/i>.]<\/p>\nCLYTEMNESTRA<\/h3>\n
Nay, peace, O best-belov\u00e8d! Peace! And let us work no evil more.
\nSurely the reaping of the past is a full harvest, and not good,
\nAnd wounds enough are everywhere.\u2014Let us not stain ourselves with blood.
\nYe reverend Elders, go your ways, to his own dwelling every one,
\nEre things be wrought for which men suffer.\u2014What we did must needs be
\ndone.
\nAnd if of all these strifes we now may have no more, oh, I will kneel
\nAnd praise God, bruis\u00e8d though we be beneath the Daemon’s heavy heel.
\nThis is the word a woman speaks, to hear if any man will deign.<\/p>\n
And who are these to burst in flower of folly thus of tongue and brain,
\nAnd utter words of empty sound and perilous, tempting Fortune’s frown,
\nAnd leave wise counsel all forgot, and gird at him who wears the crown?<\/p>\n
To cringe before a caitiff’s crown, it squareth not with Argive ways.<\/p>\n
(sheathing his sword and turning from them<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Bah, I will be a hand of wrath to fall on thee in after days.<\/p>\n
Not so, if God in after days shall guide Orestes home again!<\/p>\n
I know how men in exile feed on dreams\u2026and know such food is vain.<\/p>\n
Go forward and wax fat! Defile the right for this thy little hour!<\/p>\n
I spare thee now. Know well for all this folly thou shalt feel my power.<\/p>\n
Aye, vaunt thy greatness, as a bird beside his mate doth vaunt and swell.<\/p>\n
Vain hounds are baying round thee; oh, forget them! Thou and I shall dwell
\nAs Kings in this great House. We two at last will order all things well.<\/p>\n
[The Elders and the remains of<\/i> AGAMEMNON’S retinue retire sullenly, leaving the Spearmen in possession.<\/i> CLYTEMNESTRA and<\/i> AIGISTHOS turn and enter the Palace.<\/i>]<\/p>\n
\nNOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON<\/h2>\n
The chief characters in the play belong to one family, as is shown by the two genealogies:\u2014<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TANTALUS<\/p>\n
Pelops<\/p>\n
Atreus Thyestes<\/p>\n
Agamemnon Menelaus Aigisthos
\n(= Clytemnestra) (= Helen) (= Clytemnestra)<\/p>\n
Iphigenia Electra Orestes<\/p>\n
(Also, a sister of Agamemnon, name variously given, married Strophios, and was the mother of Pylades.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Tyndareus = Leda = Zeus<\/p>\n
Clytemnestra Castor Polydeuces Helen<\/p>\n
P. 1, l. 1.]\u2014The Watchman, like most characters in Greek tragedy, comes from the Homeric tradition, though in Homer (Od. iv. 524) he is merely a servant of Aigisthos.<\/p>\n
P. 2, l. 28, Women’s triumph cry.]\u2014This cry of the women recurs several times in the play: cf. p. 26, ll. 587 ff., p. 55, l. 1234. It is conventionally represented by “olol\u00fb”; as the cry to Apollo, Paian is “I-\u00ea,” l. 146, and Cassandra’s sob is “ototoi” or “otototoi,” p. 47.<\/p>\n
Pp. 3 f., ll. 40 ff.]\u2014With this silent scene of Clytemnestra’s, compare the long silence of Cassandra below, and the silence of Prometheus in that play until his torturers have left him. See the criticism of Aeschylus in Aristophanes, Frogs<\/i>, ll. 911-920, pp. 68, 69 in my translation.<\/p>\n
P. 5, l. 104, Sign of the War-Way.]\u2014i.e. an ominous sign seen by the army as it started on its journey. In Homer, Iliad, ll. 305-329, it is a snake which eats the nine young of a mother bird and then the mother, and is turned into stone afterwards.\u2014All through this chorus the language of the prophet Calchas is intentionally obscure and riddling\u2014the style of prophesy.<\/p>\n
P. 7, l. 146, But I-\u00ea, i-\u00ea.]\u2014(Pronounce Ee-ay<\/i>.) Calchas, catching sight in his vision of the further consequences which Artemis will exact if she fulfils the sign, calls on Apollo Paian, the Healer, to check her.<\/p>\n
P. 7, l. 160, Zeus, whate’er He be.]\u2014This conception of Zeus is expressed also in Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women<\/i>, and was probably developed in the Prometheus Trilogy. See my Rise of the Greek Epic<\/i>, p. 291 (Ed. 2).<\/p>\n
It is connected with the common Greek conception of the Tritos S\u00f4t\u00ear<\/i>\u2014 the Saviour Third. First, He who sins; next, He who avenges; third, He who saves. In vegetation worship it is the Old Year who has committed Hubris, the sin of pride, in summer; the Winter who slays him; the New Year which shall save. In mythology the three successive Rulers of Heaven are given by Hesiod as Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus (cf. Prometheus<\/i>, 965 ff.), but we cannot tell if Aeschylus accepted the Hesiodic story. Cf. note on l. 246, and Clytemnestra’s blasphemy at l. 1387, p. 63.<\/p>\n
P. 9, l. 192, Winds from Strymon.]\u2014From the great river gorge of
\nThrace, NNE; cf. below, l. 1418.<\/p>\n
P. 9, l. 201, Artemis.]\u2014Her name was terrible, because of its suggestion. She demanded the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigen\u00eea. (See Euripides’ two plays, Iphigenia in Tauris<\/i> and Iphigenia in Aulis<\/i>.) In other poets Agamemnon has generally committed some definite sin against Artemis, but in Aeschylus the death of Iphigen\u00eea seems to be merely one of the results of his acceptance of the Sign.<\/p>\n
P. 10, l. 215, ‘Tis a Rite of old.]\u2014Literally “it is Themis.” Human
\nsacrifice had had a place in the primitive religion of Greece; hence
\nAgamemnon could not reject the demand of the soldiers as an obvious crime.
\nSee Rise of Greek Epic<\/i>, pp. 150-157.<\/p>\n
P. 11, l. 246, The Third Cup.]\u2014Regularly poured to Zeus S\u00f4t\u00ear, the
\nSaviour, and accompanied by a paean or cry of joy.<\/p>\n
P. 11, l. 256, This Heart of Argos, this frail Tower:]\u2014i.e. themselves.<\/p>\n
P. 11, l. 264, Glad-voiced.]\u2014Clytemnestra is in extreme suspense, as the return of Agamemnon will mean either her destruction or her deliverance. At such a moment there must be no ill-omened word, so she challenges fate.<\/p>\n
P. 12, l. 276, A word within that hovereth without wings.]\u2014i.e. a presentiment. “Winged words” are words spoken, which fly from speaker to hearer. A ‘wingless’ word is unspoken. The phrase occurs in Homer.<\/p>\n
Pp. 13 ff., ll. 281 ff.]\u2014Beacon Speech. There is no need to inquire curiously into the practical possibility of this chain of beacons. Greek tragedies do not care to be exact about this kind of detail. There may well have been a tradition that Agamemnon, like the Great King of Persia, used a chain of beacons across the Aegean.\u2014Note how vividly Clytemnestra’s imagination is working in her excitement. She seems to see before her every leaping light in the chain, just as in the next speech she imagines the scene in Troy almost with the intensity of a vision.<\/p>\n
P. 14, l. 314, Victory in the first as in the last.]\u2014All are Victory beacons; the spirit of Victory infects them all equally. Cf. l. 854 below, where Agamemnon prays that the Victory which is now with him, or in him, may abide.<\/p>\n
P. 15, l. 348, A woman’s word.]\u2014Her hatred and fear of Agamemnon, making her feel vividly the horrors of the sack and the peril overhanging the conquerors, have carried her dangerously far. She checks herself and apologizes for her womanlike anxiety. Cf. l. 1661, p. 77.<\/p>\n
P. 18, ll. 409 ff., Seers they saw visions.]\u2014A difficult and uncertain passage. I think the seers attached to the royal household (cf. Libation-Bearers,<\/i> l. 37, where they are summoned to read a dream) were rather like what we call clairvoyants. Being consulted, they look into some pool of liquid or the like; there they see gradually emerging the palace, the injured King, the deserted room, and at last a wraith of Helen herself, haunting the place.<\/p>\n
P. 21, l. 487.]\u2014This break in the action, covering a space of several days, was first pointed out by Dr. Walter Headlam. Incidentally it removes the gravest of the difficulties raised by Dr. Verrall in his famous essay upon the plot of the Agamemnon<\/i>.<\/p>\n
P. 21, l. 495, Dry dust, own brother to the mire of war.]\u2014i.e. “I can see by the state of his clothes, caked with dry dust which was once the mire of battle, that he comes straight from the war and can speak with knowledge.” The Herald is probably (though perhaps not quite consistently) conceived as having rushed post-haste with his news.<\/p>\n
Pp. 22 ff., HERALD.]\u2014The Herald bursts in overcome with excitement and delight, full of love for his home and everything he sees. A marked contrast to Agamemnon, ll. 810 ff. Note that his first speech confirms all the worst fears suggested by Clytemnestra. Agamemnon has committed all the sins she prayed against, and more. The terrible lines 527 ff., “Till her Gods’ Houses, etc.,” are very like a passage in the Persae<\/i>, 811 ff., where exactly the same acts by the Persian invaders of Greece make their future punishment inevitable.<\/p>\n
P. 22, l. 509, Pythian Lord.]\u2014Apollo is often a sinister figure in tragedy. Cf. Sophocles Oedipus<\/i> , ll. 915 ff., pp. 52 ff., and the similar scene, Electra<\/i>, 655 ff. Here it is a shock to the Herald to come suddenly on the god who was the chief enemy of the Greeks at Troy. One feels Apollo an evil presence also in the Cassandra scene, 11. 1071 ff., pp. 47 ff.<\/p>\n
P. 23, l. 530, Happy among men.]\u2014The crown of his triumph! Early Greek thought was always asking the question, What is human happiness? To the Herald Agamemnon has achieved happiness if any one ever did. Cf. the well-known story of Croesus asking Solon who was the happiest man in the world (Herodotus, I. 30-33).<\/p>\n
P. 24, ll. 551 ff., Herald’s second speech.]\u2014The connexion of thought is: “After all, why should either of us wish to die? All has ended well.” This vivid description of the actualities of war can be better appreciated now than it could in 1913.<\/p>\n
P. 25, l. 577, These spoils.]\u2014Spoils purporting to come from the Trojan
\nWar were extant in Greek temples in Aeschylus’ day and later.<\/p>\n
P. 26, l. 595, Our women’s joy-cry.]\u2014There seems to have been in Argos an old popular festival, celebrating with joy or mockery the supposed death of a man and a woman. Homer (Od. iii. 309 f.) derives it from a rejoicing by Orestes over Aigisthos and Clytemnestra; cf. below, ll. 1316 ff., p. 59; Aeschylus here and Sophocles in the Electra<\/i>, from a celebration by Clytemnestra of the deaths of Agamemnon and Cassandra. Probably it was really some ordinary New Year and Old Year celebration to which the poets give a tragic touch. It seems to have had a woman’s “Ololugmos” in it, perhaps uttered by men. See Kaibel’s note, Soph. Electra<\/i> 277-281.<\/p>\n
P. 26, l. 612, Bronze be dyed like wool.]\u2014Impossible in the literal sense, but there is after all a way of dying a sword red!<\/p>\n
P. 27, l. 617, Menelaus.]\u2014This digression about Menelaus is due, as similar digressions generally are when they occur in Greek plays, to the poet feeling bound to follow the tradition. Homer begins his longest account of the slaying of Agamemnon by asking “Where was Menelaus?” (Od. iii. 249). Agamemnon could be safely attacked because he was alone. Menelaus was away, wrecked or wind-bound.<\/p>\n
P. 28, l. 642, Two-fold scourge.]\u2014Ares works his will when spear crosses spear, when man meets man. Hence “two-fold.”<\/p>\n
P. 29, CHORUS. The name HELENA.]\u2014There was a controversy in Aeschylus’ day whether language, including names, was a matter of Convention or of Nature. Was it mere accident, and could you change the name of anything at will? Or was language a thing rooted in nature and fixed by God from of old? Aeschylus adopts the latter view: Why was this being called Helena? If one had understood God’s purpose one would have seen it was because she really was<\/i> “Helen\u00e2s”\u2014Ship-destroyer<\/i>. (The Herald’s story of the shipwreck has suggested this particular idea.) Similarly, if a hero was called Aias, and came to great sorrow, one could see that he was so called from ‘Aiai,’ “Alas!”\u2014The antistrophe seems to find a meaning in the name Paris or Alexandras, where the etymology is not so clear.<\/p>\n
Pp. 33 ff.]\u2014Entrance of Agamemnon. The metre of the Chorus indicates marching; so that apparently the procession takes some time to move across the orchestra and get into position. Cassandra would be dressed, as a prophetess, in a robe of white reaching to the feet, covered by an agr\u00eanon<\/i>, or net of wool with large meshes; she would have a staff and certain fillets or crowns. The Leader welcomes the King: he explains that, though he was against the war ten years ago, and has not changed his opinion, he is a faithful servant of the King \u2026 and that not all are equally so. He gave a similar hint to the Herald above, ll. 546-550, p. 24.<\/p>\n
P. 35, Agamemnon.]\u2014A hard, cold speech, full of pride in the earlier part, and turning to ominous threats at the end. Those who have dared to be false shall be broken.\u2014At the end comes a note of fear, like the fear in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. He is so full of triumph and success; he must be very careful not to provoke a fall.\u2014Victory, Nike, was to the Greeks a very vivid and infectious thing. It clung to you or it deserted you. And one who was really charged with Victory, like Agamemnon, was very valuable to his friends and people. Hence they made statues of Victory wingless\u2014so that she should not fly away. See Four Stages of Greek Religion<\/i>, p. 138 note.<\/p>\n
P. 36, Clytemnestra.]\u2014A wonderful speech. It seems to me that Aeschylus’ imagination realized all the confused passions in Clytemnestra’s mind, but that his art was not yet sufficiently developed to make them all clear and explicit. She is in suspense; does Agamemnon know her guilt or not? At least, if she is to die, she wants to say something to justify or excuse herself in the eyes of the world. A touch of hysteria creeps in; why could he not have been killed in all these years? Why must he rise, like some monster from the grave, unkillable? Gradually she recovers her calm, explains clearly the suspicious point of Orestes’ absence, and heaps up her words and gestures of welcome to an almost oriental fullness (which Agamemnon rebukes, ll. 918 ff., p. 39). Again, at the end, when she finds that for the time she is safe, her real feelings almost break out.<\/p>\n
P. 38.]\u2014What is the motive of the Crimson Tapestries? I think the tangling robe must have been in the tradition, as the murder in the bath certainly was. One motive, of course, is obvious: Clytemnestra is tempting Agamemnon to sin or “go too far.” He tries to resist, but the splendour of an oriental homecoming seduces him and he yields. But is that enough to account for such a curious trait in the story, and one so strongly emphasized? We are told afterwards that Clytemnestra threw over her victim an “endless web,” long and rich (p. 63), to prevent his seeing or using his arms. And I cannot help suspecting that this endless web was the same as the crimson pall.<\/p>\n
If one tries to conjecture the origin of this curious story, it is perhaps a clue to realize that the word droit\u00ea<\/i> means both a bath and a sarcophagus, or rather that the thing called droit\u00ea, a narrow stone or marble vessel about seven feet long, was in pre-classical and post-classical times used as a sarcophagus, but in classical times chiefly or solely as a bath. If among the prehistoric graves at Mycenae some later peasants discovered a royal mummy or skeleton in a sarcophagus, wrapped in a robe of royal crimson, and showing signs of violent death\u2014such as Schliemann believed that he discovered\u2014would they not say: “We found the body of a King murdered in a bath, and wrapped round and round in a great robe?”<\/p>\n
P. 39 f.]\u2014Agamemnon is going through the process of temptation. He protests rather too often and yields.<\/p>\n
P. 39, l. 931, Tell me but this.]\u2014This little dialogue is very characteristic of Aeschylus. Euripides would have done it at three times the length and made all the points clear. In Aeschylus the subtlety is there, but it is not easy to follow.<\/p>\n
P. 40, l. 945, These bound slaves.]\u2014i.e. his shoes. The metaphor shows the trend of his unconscious mind.<\/p>\n
P. 41, l. 950, This princess.]\u2014This is the first time that the attention of the audience is drawn to Cassandra. She too is one of Aeschylus’ silent figures. I imagine her pale, staring in front of her, almost as if in a trance, until terror seizes her at Clytemnestra’s greeting in l. 1035, p. 45.<\/p>\n
P. 41, l. 964, The cry.]\u2014i.e. the cry of the possessed prophetess which rang from the inner sanctuary at Delphi and was interpreted by the priests.\u2014The last two lines of the speech are plain in their meaning but hard to translate. Literally: “when the full, or fulfilled, man walketh his home,\u2014O Zeus the Fulfiller, fulfil my prayers.”<\/p>\n
P. 42, l. 976.]\u2014The victim has been drawn into the house; the Chorus sing a low boding song: every audience at a Greek tragedy would expect next to hear a death cry from within, or to see a horrified messenger rush out. Instead of which the door opens and there is Clytemnestra: what does she want? “Come thou also!” One victim is not enough.\u2014In the next scene we must understand the cause of Clytemnestra’s impatience. If she stays too long outside, some one will warn Agamemnon; if she leaves Cassandra, she with her second sight will warn the Chorus. If Cassandra could only be got inside all would be safe!<\/p>\n
P. 44, l. 1022, “One there was of old.”]\u2014Askl\u00eapios, the physician, restored Hippolytus to life, and Zeus blasted him for so oversetting the laws of nature.<\/p>\n
P. 45, l. 1040, Alcm\u00eana’s son.]\u2014Heracles was made a slave to Omphal\u00ea, Queen of Lydia. His grumbles at his insufficient food were a theme of comedy.<\/p>\n
P. 45, l. 1049, Belike thou canst not yet.]\u2014Cf. below, ll. 1066 ff. The Elder speaks in sympathy. “Very likely you cannot yet bring yourself to submit.”<\/p>\n
P. 46, l. 1061, Thou show her.]\u2014It seems odd to think that this passage has for centuries been translated as if it was all addressed to Cassandra: “But if you do not understand what I say, please indicate the same with your barbarous hand!”\u2014What makes Cassandra at last speak? I think that the Elder probably touches her, and the touch as it were breaks the spell.<\/p>\n
P. 47, l. 1072, Cassandra.]\u2014”Otototoi” really takes the place of a stage direction: she utters a long low sob.\u2014The exclamation which I have translated “Dreams!” seems to occur when people see ghosts or visions. Alcestis<\/i>, 261; Prometheus<\/i>, 567. Cf. Phoenissae<\/i> 1296.\u2014”Mine enemy!” The name “Apollon” suggested “apollyon,”<\/i> Destroying \u2026 the form which is actually used in the Book of Revelation (Rev. ix. 11).<\/p>\n
Observe how, during the lyric scene, Cassandra’s vision grows steadily more definite: First vague horror of the House: then the sobbing of children, slain long ago: then, a new deed of blood coming; a woman in it: a wife: then, with a great effort, an attempt to describe the actual slaying in the bath. Lastly, the sight of herself among the slain. (This last point is greatly developed by Euripides, Trojan Women<\/i>, ll. 445 ff., pp. 33 f.).<\/p>\n
The story of the Children of Thyestes is given below, ll. 1590 ff., p. 73.
\nProcn\u00ea (or Philom\u00eala) was an Attic princess who, in fury against her
\nThracian husband, Tereus, killed their child Itys, or Itylus, and was
\nchanged into a nightingale, to weep for him for ever.<\/p>\n
P. 52, ll. 1178 ff.]\u2014Dialogue. During the lyrics Cassandra has been “possessed” or “entranced”: the turn to dialogue marks a conscious attempt to control herself and state plainly her message of warning. In order to prove her power, she first tells the Elders of deeds done in the past which are known to them but cannot have been known to her. When once they are convinced of her true seercraft, she will be able to warn them of what is coming!\u2014The short ‘stichom[^y]thia'[**TR: This is a y with a circumflex, not a superscript.] (line for line dialogue), dealing in awed whispers with things which can hardly be spoken, leaves the story of Cassandra still a mystery. Then her self-control breaks and the power of the God sweeps irresistibly upon her; cf. below, ll. 1256 ff.; where it comes at her like a visible shape of fire, a thing not uncommon with modern clairvoyants.<\/p>\n
P. 56, l. 1252, Thou art indeed fallen far astray]\u2014Because they had said “what man<\/i>“<\/p>\n
P. 56, l. 1265, These wreathed bands, this staff of prophesy.]\u2014Cf. Trojan Women<\/i>, ll. 451 ff., p. 34.<\/p>\n
P. 60, ll. 1343 ff., The death cry; the hesitation of the Elders.]\u2014This scene is often condemned or even ridiculed; I think, through misunderstanding. We knew the Old Men were helpless, like “dreams wandering in the day.” It is essential to the story that when the crisis comes they shall be found wanting. But they are neither foolish nor cowardly; each utterance in itself is natural and characteristic, but counsels are divided. One would like to know whether Aeschylus made them speak together confusedly, as would certainly be done on the modern stage, or whether the stately conventions of Greek tragedy preferred that each speaker should finish his say. In any case, what happens is that after a moment or two of confused counsel the Elders determine to break into the Palace, but as they are mounting the steps the great doors are flung open and Clytemnestra confronts them, standing over the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra.<\/p>\n
The illusion intended is that the Elders have entered the Palace and discovered Clytemnestra. But, as the mechanical arrangements of the Greek stage were not equal to this sudden change of scene, and since also it would, even with perfect machinery, have a tiresome interrupting effect, a slight confusion or inconsistency is allowed. We are supposed to be inside the house; but as a matter of fact the supposition is soon forgotten, and the play goes on without any attention to the particular place of the action. On Clytemnestra’s speech see Introduction, p. xiii.<\/p>\n
P. 63, l. 1387, A prayer well sped to Zeus of Hell]\u2014As the third gift or libation was ritually given to Zeus the Saviour, Clytemnestra blasphemously suggests that her third and unnecessary blow was an acceptable gift to a sort of anti-Zeus, a Saviour of Death.<\/p>\n
P. 65, l. 1436, Aigisthos.]\u2014At last the name is mentioned which has been in the mind of every one!\u2014Chrys\u00ea\u00efs was a prisoner of war, daughter of Chrys\u00eas, priest of Apollo. Agamemnon was made to surrender her to her father, and from this arose his quarrel with Achilles, which is the subject of the Iliad.<\/p>\n
Pp. 67-72, ll. 1468-1573, Daemon.]\u2014The Genius or guardian spirit of the house has in this House become a Wrath, an ‘Alastor’ or ‘Driver Astray.’ See Introduction, pp. x ff.<\/p>\n
P. 68, l. 1513, MOURNERS.]\u2014This attribution of the different speeches or songs to different speakers is, of course, conjectural. Ancient dramas come down to us with no stage directions and very imperfect indications of the speakers.<\/p>\n
P, 72, l. 1579, AIGISTHOS.]\u2014The entry of Aigisthos enlivens the scene again after the brooding and bewildered end of the dialogue between Clytemnestra and the Elders. At the same time, it seems, no doubt by deliberate intention, to reduce it to commonplace. Aigisthos’ self-defence is largely justified, but he is no hero.<\/p>\n
P. 73, l. 1602, Pleisthen\u00eas.]\u2014Apparently one of the ancestors of Atreus, but it is not clear where he comes in the genealogy. He may be identical with Pelops.<\/p>\n
P. 74, l. 1617, Oarsman of the nether row.]\u2014On an ancient galley, bireme or trireme, the rowers of the lower bank of oars ranked as inferior to those who used the long oars from the deck.<\/p>\n
P. 76, l. 1654.]\u2014Clytemnestra, see Introduction, p. xiii. She longs for peace, yet after all “Had Zimri peace who slew his master?” The end of the play leaves us waiting for the return of Orestes. In the first scene of the Libation-Bearers,<\/i> he is discovered standing by night at his father’s grave.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t