THE AGAMEMNON
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Aeschylus and Murray, Gilbert
—Ah me, And yet ’tis all as Zeus hath willed, Doer of all and Cause of all; By His Word every chance doth fall, No end without Him is fulfilled; What of these things But cometh by high Heaven’s counsellings?
[A band of Mourners has gathered within the House.]
MOURNERS. Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King! How shall I weep, what word shall I say? Caught in the web of this spider thing, In foul death gasping thy life away! Woe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying, The doom of craft and the lonely dying, The iron two-edged and the hands that slay!
CLYTEMNESTRA. And criest thou still this deed hath been My work? Nay, gaze, and have no thought That this is Agamemnon’s Queen. ’Tis He, ’tis He, hath round him wrought This phantom of the dead man’s wife; He, the old Wrath, the Driver of Men astray, Pursuer of Atreus for the feast defiled; To assoil an ancient debt he hath paid this life; A warrior and a crowned King this day Atones for a slain child.
CHORUS. —That thou art innocent herein, What tongue dare boast? It cannot be, Yet from the deeps of ancient sin The Avenger may have wrought with thee.
—On the red Slayer crasheth, groping wild For blood, more blood, to build his peace again, And wash like water the old frozen stain Of the torn child.
MOURNERS. Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King! How shall I weep, what word shall I say? Caught in the web of this spider thing, In foul death gasping thy life away. Woe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying, The doom of craft and the lonely dying, The iron two-edged and the hands that slay!
CLYTEMNESTRA. And what of the doom of craft that first He planted, making the House accurst? What of the blossom, from this root riven, Iphigenîa, the unforgiven? Even as the wrong was, so is the pain: He shall not laugh in the House of the slain, When the count is scored; He hath but spoilèd and paid again The due of the sword.
CHORUS. I am lost; my mind dull-eyed Knows not nor feels Whither to fly nor hide While the House reels. The noise of rain that falls On the roof affrighteth me, Washing away the walls; Rain that falls bloodily.
Doth ever the sound abate? Lo, the next Hour of Fate Whetting her vengeance due On new whet-stones, for new Workings of hate.
MOURNERS. Would thou hadst covered me, Earth, O Earth, Or e’er I had looked on my lord thus low, In the pallèd marble of silvern girth! What hands may shroud him, what tears may flow?
Not thine, O Woman who dared to slay him, Thou durst not weep to him now, nor pray him, Nor pay to his soul the deep unworth Of gift or prayer to forget thy blow.
—Oh, who with heart sincere Shall bring praise or grief To lay on the sepulchre Of the great chief?
CLYTEMNESTRA. His burial is not thine to array. By me he fell, by me he died, I watch him to the grave, not cried By mourners of his housefolk; nay,
His own child for a day like this Waits, as is seemly, and shall run By the white waves of Acheron To fold him in her arms and kiss!
CHORUS. Lo, she who was erst reviled Revileth; and who shall say? Spoil taken from them that spoiled, Life-blood from them that slay! Surely while God ensueth His laws, while Time doth run ’Tis written: On him that doeth It shall be done.
This is God’s law and grace, Who then shall hunt the race Of curses from out this hall? The House is sealed withal To dreadfulness.
CLYTEMNESTRA. Aye, thou hast found the Law, and stept In Truth’s way.—Yet even now I call The Living Wrath which haunts this hall To truce and compact. I accept
All the affliction he doth heap Upon me, and I charge him go Far off with his self-murdering woe To strange men’s houses. I will keep
Some little dower, and leave behind All else, contented utterly. I have swept the madness from the sky Wherein these brethren slew their kind.
[As she ceases, exhausted and with the fire gone out of her, AIGISTHOS, with Attendants, bursts triumphantly in.]
AIGISTHOS. O shining day, O dawn of righteousness Fulfilled! Now, now indeed will I confess That divine watchers o’er man’s death and birth Look down on all the anguish of the earth, Now that I see him lying, as I love To see him, in this net the Furies wove, To atone the old craft of his father’s hand. For Atreus, this man’s father, in this land Reigning, and by Thyestes in his throne Challenged—he was his brother and mine own Father From home and city cast him out; And he, after long exile, turned about And threw him suppliant on the hearth, and won Promise of so much mercy, that his own Life-blood should reek not in his father’s hall. Then did that godless brother, Atreus, call, To greet my sire—More eagerness, O God, Was there than love!—a feast of brotherhood. And, feigning joyous banquet, laid as meat Before him his dead children. The white feet And finger-fringèd hands apart he set, Veiled from all seeing, and made separate The tables. And he straightway, knowing naught, Took of those bodies, eating that which wrought No health for all his race. And when he knew The unnatural deed, back from the board he threw, Spewing that murderous gorge, and spurning brake The table, to make strong the curse he spake: “Thus perish all of Pleisthenês begot!” For that lies this man here; and all the plot Is mine, most righteously. For me, the third, When butchering my two brethren, Atreus spared And cast me with my broken sire that day, A little thing in swaddling clothes, away To exile; where I grew, and at the last Justice hath brought me home!
Yea though outcast In a far land, mine arm hath reached this king; My brain, my hate, wrought all the counselling; And all is well. I have seen mine enemy Dead in the snare, and care not if I die!
LEADER. Aigisthos, to insult over the dead I like not. All the counsel, thou hast said, Was thine alone; and thine the will that spilled This piteous blood. As justice is fulfilled, Thou shalt not ’scape—so my heart presageth—-The day of cursing and the hurlèd death.
AIGISTHOS. How, thou poor oarsman of the nether row, When the main deck is master? Sayst thou so?… To such old heads the lesson may prove hard, I fear me, when Obedience is the word. But hunger, and bonds, and cold, help men to find Their wits.—They are wondrous healers of the mind! Hast eyes and seest not this?—Against a spike Kick not, for fear it pain thee if thou strike.
LEADER (turning from him to CLYTEMNESTRA).
Woman! A soldier fresh from war! To keep Watch o’er his house and shame him in his sleep… To plot this craft against a lord of spears…
[CLYTEMNESTRA, as though in a dream, pays no heed. AIGISTHOS interupts.]
AIGISTHOS. These be the words, old man, that lead to tears! Thou hast an opposite to Orpheus’ tongue, Who chained all things with his enchanting song, For thy mad noise will put the chains on thee. Enough! Once mastered thou shalt tamer be.
LEADER. Thou master? Is old Argos so accurst? Thou plotter afar off, who never durst Raise thine own hand to affront and strike him down…
AIGISTHOS. To entice him was the wife’s work. I was known By all men here, his old confessed blood-foe. Howbeit, with his possessions I will know How to be King. And who obeys not me Shall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he, Corn-flushed. Hunger, and hunger’s prison mate, The clammy murk, shall see his rage abate.
LEADER. Thou craven soul! Why not in open strife Slay him? Why lay the blood-sin on his wife, Staining the Gods of Argos, making ill The soil thereof?…But young Orestes still Liveth. Oh, Fate will guide him home again, Avenging, conquering, home to kill these twain!
AIGISTHOS. ’Fore God, if ’tis your pleasure thus to speak and do, ye soon shall hear! Ho there, my trusty pikes, advance! There cometh business for the spear.
[A body of Spearmen, from concealment outside, rush in and dominate the stage.]
LEADER. Ho there, ye Men of Argos! Up! Stand and be ready, sword from sheath!
AIGISTHOS. By Heaven, I also, sword in hand, am ready, and refuse not death!
LEADER. Come, find it! We accept thy word. Thou offerest what we hunger for.
[Some of the Elders draw swords with the Leader; others have collapsed with weakness. Men from AGAMEMNON’S retinue have gathered and prepare for battle, when, before they can come to blows, CLYTEMNESTRA breaks from her exhausted silence.]
CLYTEMNESTRA. Nay, peace, O best-belovèd! Peace! And let us work no evil more. Surely the reaping of the past is a full harvest, and not good, And wounds enough are everywhere.—Let us not stain ourselves with blood. Ye reverend Elders, go your ways, to his own dwelling every one, Ere things be wrought for which men suffer.—What we did must needs be done. And if of all these strifes we now may have no more, oh, I will kneel And praise God, bruisèd though we be beneath the Daemon’s heavy heel. This is the word a woman speaks, to hear if any man will deign.
AIGISTHOS. And who are these to burst in flower of folly thus of tongue and brain, And utter words of empty sound and perilous, tempting Fortune’s frown, And leave wise counsel all forgot, and gird at him who wears the crown?