THE AGAMEMNON
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Aeschylus and Murray, Gilbert
CASSANDRA. One word, one dirge-song would I utter yet O’er mine own corpse. To this last shining Sun I pray that, when the Avenger’s work is done, His enemies may remember this thing too, This little thing, the woman slave they slew!
O world of men, farewell! A painted show Is all thy glory; and when life is low The touch of a wet sponge out-blotteth all. Oh, sadder this than any proud man’s fall!
[She goes into the House.]
CHORUS. Great Fortune is an hungry thing, And filleth no heart anywhere, Though men with fingers menacing Point at the great house, none will dare, When Fortune knocks, to bar the door Proclaiming: “Come thou here no more!” Lo, to this man the Gods have given Great Ilion in the dust to tread And home return, emblazed of heaven; If it is writ, he too shall go Through blood for blood spilt long ago; If he too, dying for the dead, Should crown the deaths of alien years, What mortal afar off, who hears, Shall boast him Fortune’s Child, and led Above the eternal tide of tears?
[A sudden Cry from within.]
VOICE. Ho! Treason in the house! I am wounded: slain.
LEADER. Hush! In the castle! ’Twas a cry Of some man wounded mortally.
VOICE. Ah God, another! I am stricken again.
LEADER. I think the deed is done. It was the King Who groaned…. Stand close, and think if anything….
[The Old Men gather together under the shock, and debate confusedly.]
ELDER B. I give you straight my judgement. Summon all The citizens to rescue. Sound a call!
ELDER C. No, no! Burst in at once without a word! In, and convict them by their dripping sword!
ELDER D. Yes; that or something like it. Quick, I say, Be doing! ’Tis a time for no delay.
ELDER E. We have time to think. This opening … They have planned Some scheme to make enslavement of the land.
ELDER F. Yes, while we linger here! They take no thought Of lingering, and their sword-arm sleepeth not!
ELDER G. I have no counsel. I can speak not. Oh, Let him give counsel who can strike a blow!
ELDER H. I say as this man says. I have no trust In words to raise a dead man from the dust.
ELDER I. How mean you? Drag out our poor lives, and stand Cowering to these defilers of the land?
ELDER J. Nay, ’tis too much! Better to strive and die! Death is an easier doom than slavery.
ELDER K. We heard a sound of groaning, nothing plain, How know we—are we seers?—that one is slain?
ELDER L. Oh, let us find the truth out, ere we grow Thus passionate! To surmise is not to know.
LEADER. Break in, then! ’Tis the counsel ye all bring, And learn for sure, how is it with the King.
[They cluster up towards the Palace Door, as though to force an entrance, when the great Door swings open, revealing CLYTEMNESTRA, who stands, axe in hand, over the dead bodies of AGAMEMNON and CASSANDRA. The body of AGAMEMNON is wrapped in a rich crimson web. There is blood on CLYTEMNESTRA’S brow, and she speaks in wild triumph.]
CLYTEMNESTRA. Oh, lies enough and more have I this day Spoken, which now I shame not to unsay. How should a woman work, to the utter end, Hate on a damnèd hater, feigned a friend; How pile perdition round him, hunter-wise, Too high for overleaping, save by lies? To me this hour was dreamed of long ago; A thing of ancient hate. ’Twas very slow In coming, but it came. And here I stand Even where I struck, with all the deed I planned Done! ’Twas so wrought—what boots it to deny?— The man could neither guard himself nor fly. An endless web, as by some fisher strung, A deadly plenteousness of robe, I flung All round him, and struck twice; and with two cries His limbs turned water and broke; and as he lies I cast my third stroke in, a prayer well-sped To Zeus of Hell, who guardeth safe his dead! So there he gasped his life out as he lay; And, gasping, the blood spouted … Like dark spray That splashed, it came, a salt and deathly dew; Sweet, sweet as God’s dear rain-drops ever blew O’er a parched field, the day the buds are born! … Which things being so, ye Councillors high-born, Depart in joy, if joy ye will. For me, I glory. Oh, if such a thing might be As o’er the dead thank-offering to outpour, On this dead it were just, aye, just and more, Who filled the cup of the House with treacheries Curse-fraught, and here hath drunk it to the lees!
LEADER. We are astonied at thy speech. To fling, Wild mouth! such vaunt over thy murdered King!
CLYTEMNESTRA. Wouldst fright me, like a witless woman? Lo, This bosom shakes not. And, though well ye know, I tell you … Curse me as ye will, or bless, ’Tis all one … This is Agamemnon; this, My husband, dead by my right hand, a blow Struck by a righteous craftsman. Aye, ’tis so.
CHORUS. Woman, what evil tree, What poison grown of the ground Or draught of the drifting sea Way to thy lips hath found, Making thee clothe thy heart In rage, yea, in curses burning When thine own people pray? Thou hast hewn, thou hast cast away; And a thing cast away thou art, A thing of hate and a spurning!
CLYTEMNESTRA. Aye, now, for me, thou hast thy words of fate; Exile from Argos and the people’s hate For ever! Against him no word was cried, When, recking not, as ’twere a beast that died, With flocks abounding o’er his wide domain, He slew his child, my love, my flower of pain, … Great God, as magic for the winds of Thrace! Why was not he man-hunted from his place, To purge the blood that stained him? … When the deed Is mine, oh, then thou art a judge indeed! But threat thy fill. I am ready, and I stand Content; if thy hand beateth down my hand, Thou rulest. If aught else be God’s decree, Thy lesson shall be learned, though late it be.
CHORUS. Thy thought, it is very proud; Thy breath is the scorner’s breath; Is not the madness loud In thy heart, being drunk with death? Yea, and above thy brow A star of the wet blood burneth! Oh, doom shall have yet her day, The last friend cast away, When lie doth answer lie And a stab for a stab returneth!
CLYTEMNESTRA. And heark what Oath-gods gather to my side! By my dead child’s Revenge, now satisfied, By Mortal Blindness, by all Powers of Hell Which Hate, to whom in sacrifice he fell, My Hope shall walk not in the house of Fear, While on my hearth one fire yet burneth clear, One lover, one Aigisthos, as of old! What should I fear, when fallen here I hold This foe, this scorner of his wife, this toy And fool of each Chryseis under Troy; And there withal his soothsayer and slave, His chanting bed-fellow, his leman brave, Who rubbed the galleys’ benches at his side. But, oh, they had their guerdon as they died! For he lies thus, and she, the wild swan’s way, Hath trod her last long weeping roundelay, And lies, his lover, ravisht o’er the main For his bed’s comfort and my deep disdain.
CHORUS. (Some Elders.)
Would God that suddenly With no great agony, No long sick-watch to keep, My hour would come to me, My hour, and presently Bring the eternal, the Unwaking Sleep, Now that my Shepherd, he Whose love watched over me, Lies in the deep!
ANOTHER. For woman’s sake he endured and battled well, And by a woman’s hand he fell.
OTHERS. What hast thou done, O Helen blind of brain, O face that slew the souls on Ilion’s plain, One face, one face, and many a thousand slain? The hate of old that on this castle lay, Builded in lust, a husband’s evil day, Hath bloomed for thee a perfect flower again And unforgotten, an old and burning stain Never to pass away.
CLYTEMNESTRA. Nay, pray not for the hour of death, being tried Too sore beneath these blows Neither on Helen turn thy wrath aside, The Slayer of Men, the face which hath destroyed Its thousand Danaan souls, and wrought a wide Wound that no leech can close.
CHORUS. —Daemon, whose heel is set On the House and the twofold kin Of the high Tantalidae, A power, heavy as fate, Thou wieldest through woman’s sin, Piercing the heart of me!
—Like a raven swoln with hate He hath set on the dead his claw, He croaketh a song to sate His fury, and calls it Law!
CLYTEMNESTRA. Ah, call upon Him! Yea, call— And thy thought hath found its path— The Daemon who haunts this hall, The thrice-engorged Wrath;
From him is the ache of the flesh For blood born and increased; Ere the old sore hath ceased It oozeth afresh.
CHORUS. —Indeed He is very great, And heavy his anger, He, The Daemon who guides the fate Of the old Tantalidae: Alas, alas, an evil tale ye tell Of desolate angers and insatiable!