{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/aesch/agamem.htm","path":"cla/aesch/agamem.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/aesch/agamem.htm","text":"Dramatis Personae\nA WATCHMAN\nCHORUS OF ARGIVE ELDERS\nCLYTEMNESTRA, wife of AGAMEMNON\nA HERALD\nAGAMEMNON, King of Argos\nCASSANDRA, daughter of Priam, and slave of AGAMEMNON\nAEGISTHUS, son of Thyestes, cousin of AGAMEMNON\nServants, Attendants, Soldiers\nBefore the palace of AGAMEMNON in Argos. In front of the palace there\nare statues of the gods, and altars prepared for sacrifice. It is\nnight. On the roof of the palace can be discerned a WATCHMAN.\nWATCHMAN I pray the gods to quit me of my toils,\nTo close the watch I keep, this livelong year;\nFor as a watch-dog lying, not at rest,\nPropped on one arm, upon the palace-roof\nOf Atreus' race, too long, too well I know\nThe starry conclave of the midnight sky,\nToo well, the splendours of the firmament,\nThe lords of light, whose kingly aspect shows-\nWhat time they set or climb the sky in turn-\nThe year's divisions, bringing frost or fire.\nAnd now, as ever, am I set to mark\nWhen shall stream up the glow of signal-flame,\nThe bale-fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale-\nTroy town is ta'en: such issue holds in hope\nShe in whose woman's breast beats heart of man.\nThus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,\nBathed with the dews of night, unvisited\nBy dreams-ah me!-for in the place of sleep\nStands Fear as my familiar, and repels\nThe soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.\nAnd if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,\nI medicine my soul with melody\nOf trill or song-anon to tears I turn,\nWailing the woe that broods upon this home,\nNot now by honour guided as of old-\nBut now at last fair fall the welcome hour\nThat sets me free, whene'er the thick night glow\nWith beacon-fire of hope deferred no more.\nAll hail! (A beacon-light is seen reddening the distant sky.) Fire\nof the night, that brings my spirit day,\nShedding on Argos light, and dance, and song,\nGreetings to fortune, hail!\nLet my loud summons ring within the ears\nOf Agamemnon's queen, that she anon\nStart from her couch and with a shrill voice cry\nA joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze,\nFor Ilion's fall; such fiery message gleams\nFrom yon high flame; and I, before the rest,\nWill foot the lightsome measure of our joy;\nFor I can say, My master's dice fell fair-\nBehold! the triple sice, the lucky flame!\nNow be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,\nThe hand of him restored, who rules our home:\nHome-but I say no more: upon my tongue\nTreads hard the ox o' the adage.\nHad it voice,\nThe home itself might soothliest tell its tale;\nI, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,\nTo others, nought remember nor discern. (He withdraws. The CHORUS\nOF ARGIVE ELDERS enters, each leaning on a staff. During their song\nCLYTEMNESTRA appears in the background, kindling the altars.)\nCHORUS (singing) Ten livelong years have rolled away,\nSince the twin lords of sceptred sway,\nBy Zeus endowed with pride of place,\nThe doughty chiefs of Atreus' race,\nWent forth of yore,\nTo plead with Priam, face to face,\nBefore the judgment-seat of War!\nA thousand ships from Argive land\nPut forth to bear the martial band,\nThat with a spirit stern and strong\nWent out to right the kingdom's wrong-\nPealed, as they went, the battle-song,\nWild as the vultures' cry;\nWhen o'er the eyrie, soaring high,\nIn wild bereaved agony,\nAround, around, in airy rings,\nThey wheel with oarage of their wings,\nBut not the eyas-brood behold,\nThat called them to the nest of old;\nBut let Apollo from the sky,\nOr Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,\nThe exile cry, the wail forlorn,\nOf birds from whom their home is torn-\nOn those who wrought the rapine fell,\nHeaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.\nEven so doth Zeus, the jealous lord\nAnd guardian of the hearth and board,\nSpeed Atreus' sons, in vengeful ire,\n'Gainst Paris-sends them forth on fire,\nHer to buy back, in war and blood,\nWhom one did wed but many woo'd!\nAnd many, many, by his will,\nThe last embrace of foes shall feel,\nAnd many a knee in dust be bowed,\nAnd splintered spears on shields ring loud,\nOf Trojan and of Greek, before\nThat iron bridal-feast be o'er!\nBut as he willed 'tis ordered all,\nAnd woes, by heaven ordained, must fall-\nUnsoothed by tears or spilth of wine\nPoured forth too late, the wrath divine\nGlares vengeance on the flameless shrine.\nAnd we in grey dishonoured eld,\nFeeble of frame, unfit were held\nTo join the warrior array\nThat then went forth unto the fray:\nAnd here at home we tarry, fain\nOur feeble footsteps to sustain,\nEach on his staff-so strength doth wane,\nAnd turns to childishness again.\nFor while the sap of youth is green,\nAnd, yet unripened, leaps within,\nThe young are weakly as the old,\nAnd each alike unmeet to hold\nThe vantage post of war!\nAnd ah! when flower and fruit are o'er,\nAnd on life's tree the leaves are sere,\nAge wendeth propped its journey drear,\nAs forceless as a child, as light\nAnd fleeting as a dream of night\nLost in the garish day!\nBut thou, O child of Tyndareus,\nQueen Clytemnestra, speak! and say\nWhat messenger of joy to-day\nHath won thine ear? what welcome news,\nThat thus in sacrificial wise\nE'en to the city's boundaries\nThou biddest altar-fires arise?\nEach god who doth our city guard,\nAnd keeps o'er Argos watch and ward\nFrom heaven above, from earth below-\nThe mighty lords who rule the skies,\nThe market's lesser deities,\nTo each and all the altars glow,\nPiled for the sacrifice!\nAnd here and there, anear, afar,\nStreams skyward many a beacon-star,\nConjur'd and charm'd and kindled well\nBy pure oil's soft and guileless spell,\nHid now no more\nWithin the palace' secret store.\nO queen, we pray thee, whatsoe'er,\nKnown unto thee, were well revealed,\nThat thou wilt trust it to our ear,\nAnd bid our anxious heart be healed!\nThat waneth now unto despair-\nNow, waxing to a presage fair,\nDawns, from the altar, to scare\nFrom our rent hearts the vulture Care.\n(strophe 1)\nList! for the power is mine, to chant on high\nThe chiefs' emprise, the strength that omens gave!\nList! on my soul breathes yet a harmony,\nFrom realms of ageless powers, and strong to save!\nHow brother kings, twin lords of one command,\nLed forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,\nUrged on their way, with vengeful spear and brand,\nBy warrior-birds, that watched the parting hour.\nGo forth to Troy, the eagles seemed to cry-\nAnd the sea-kings obeyed the sky-kings' word,\nWhen on the right they soared across the sky,\nAnd one was black, one bore a white tail barred.\nHigh o'er the palace were they seen to soar,\nThen lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,\nFar from the fields that she should range no more,\nBig with her unborn brood, a mother-hare.\nAh woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!\n(antistrophe 1)\nAnd one beheld, the soldier-prophet true,\nAnd the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,\nIn the twy-coloured eagles straight he knew,\nAnd spake the omen forth, for good and in.\nGo forth, he cried, and Priam's town shall fall.\nYet long the time shall be; and flock and herd,\nThe people's wealth, that roam before the wall,\nShall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word,\nBut O beware! lest wrath in Heaven abide,\nTo dim the glowing battle-forge once more,\nAnd mar the mighty curb of Trojan pride,\nThe steel of vengeance, welded as for war!\nFor virgin Artemis bears jealous hate\nAgainst the royal house, the eagle-pair,\nWho rend the unborn brood, insatiate-\nYea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare.\nAh woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!\n(epode)\nFor well she loves-the goddess kind and mild-\nThe tender new-born cubs of lions bold,\nToo weak to range-and well the sucking child\nOf every beast that roams by wood and wold.\nSo to the Lord of Heaven she prayeth still,\n\"Nay, if it must be, be the omen true!\nYet do the visioned eagles presage ill;\nThe end be well, but crossed with evil too!\"\nHealer Apollo! be her wrath controll'd\nNor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,\nTo war against the Danaans and withhold\nFrom the free ocean-waves their eager sails!\nShe craves, alas! to see a second life\nShed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice-\n'Twixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,\nAnd hate that knows not fear, and fell device.\nAt home there tarries like a lurking snake,\nBiding its time, a wrath unreconciled,\nA wily watcher, passionate to slake,\nIn blood, resentment for a murdered child.\nSuch was the mighty warning, pealed of yore-\nAmid good tidings, such the word of fear,\nWhat time the fateful eagles hovered o'er\nThe kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.\nIn strains like his, once more,\nSing woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!\n(strophe 2)\nZeus-if to The Unknown\nThat name of many names seem good-\nZeus, upon Thee I call.\nThro' the mind's every road\nI passed, but vain are all,\nSave that which names thee Zeus, the Highest One,\nWere it but mine to cast away the load,\nThe weary load, that weighs my spirit down.\n(antistrophe 2)\nHe that was Lord of old,\nIn full-blown pride of place and valour bold,\nHath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale told:\nAnd he that next held sway,\nBy stronger grasp o'erthrown\nHath pass'd away!\nAnd whoso now shall bid the triumph-chant arise\nTo Zeus, and Zeus alone,\nHe shall be found the truly wise.\n(strophe 3)\n'Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way\nOf knowledge: He hath ruled,\nMen shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.\nIn visions of the night, like dropping rain,\nDescend the many memories of pain\nBefore the spirit's sight: through tears and dole\nComes wisdom o'er the unwilling soul-\nA boon, I wot, of all Divinity,\nThat holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!\n(antistrophe 3)\nAnd then the elder chief, at whose command\nThe fleet of Greece was manned,\nCast on the seer no word of hate,\nBut veered before the sudden breath of Fate-\nAh, weary while! for, ere they put forth sail,\nDid every store, each minish'd vessel, fail,\nWhile all the Achaean host\nAt Aulis anchored lay,\nLooking across to Chalcis and the coast\nWhere refluent waters welter, rock, and sway;\n(strophe 4)\nAnd rife with ill delay\nFrom northern Strymon blew the thwarting blast-\nMother of famine fell,\nThat holds men wand'ring still\nFar from the haven where they fain would be!-\nAnd pitiless did waste\nEach ship and cable, rotting on the sea,\nAnd, doubling with delay each weary hour,\nWithered with hope deferred th' Achaeans' warlike flower.\nBut when, for bitter storm, a deadlier relief,\nAnd heavier with ill to either chief,\nPleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,\nThe two Atreidae smote their sceptres on the plain,\nAnd, striving hard, could not their tears restrain!\n(antistrophe 4)\nAnd then the elder monarch spake aloud-\nIll lot were mine, to disobey!\nAnd ill, to smite my child, my household's love and pride!\nTo stain with virgin blood a father's hands, and slay\nMy daughter, by the altar's side!\n'Twixt woe and woe I dwell-\nI dare not like a recreant fly,\nAnd leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally;\nFor rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,\nThe virgin's blood, shed forth to lull the adverse wind-\nGod send the deed be well!\n(strophe 5)\nThus on his neck he took\nFate's hard compelling yoke;\nThen, in the counter-gale of will abhorr'd, accursed,\nTo recklessness his shifting spirit veered-\nAlas! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst,\nWith evil craft men's souls to sin hath ever stirred!\nAnd so he steeled his heart-ah, well-a-day-\nAiding a war for one false woman's sake,\nHis child to slay,\nAnd with her spilt blood make\nAn offering, to speed the ships upon their way!\n(antistrophe 5)\nLusting for war, the bloody arbiters\nClosed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed\nThe girl-voice plead,\nPity me, Father! nor her prayers,\nNor tender, virgin years.\nSo, when the chant of sacrifice was done,\nHer father bade the youthful priestly train\nRaise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone,\nFrom where amid her robes she lay\nSunk all in swoon away-\nBade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,\nHer fair lips' speech refrain,\nLest she should speak a curse on Atreus' home and seed,\n(strophe 6)\nSo, trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,\nWith one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye.\nThose that should smite she smote\nFair, silent, as a pictur'd form, but fain\nTo plead, Is all forgot?\nHow oft those halls of old,\nWherein my sire high feast did hold,\nRang to the virginal soft strain,\nWhen I, a stainless child,\nSang from pure lips and undefiled,\nSang of my sire, and all\nHis honoured life, and how on him should fall\nHeaven's highest gift and gain!\n(antistrophe 6)\nAnd then-but I beheld not, nor can tell,\nWhat further fate befell:\nBut this is sure, that Calchas' boding strain\nCan ne'er be void or vain.\nThis wage from justice' hand do sufferers earn,\nThe future to discern:\nAnd yet-farewell, O secret of To-morrow!\nFore-knowledge is fore-sorrow.\nClear with the clear beams of the morrow's sun,\nThe future presseth on.\nNow, let the house's tale, how dark soe'er,\nFind yet an issue fair!-\nSo prays the loyal, solitary band\nThat guards the Apian land. (They turn to CLYTEMNESTRA, who leaves\nthe altars and comes forward.)\nLEADER OF THE CHORUS O queen, I come in reverence of thy sway-\nFor, while the ruler's kingly seat is void,\nThe loyal heart before his consort bends.\nNow-be it sure and certain news of good,\nOr the fair tidings of a flatt'ring hope,\nThat bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,\nI, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.\nCLYTEMNESTRA As saith the adage, From the womb of Night\nSpring forth, with promise fair, the young child Light.\nAy-fairer even than all hope my news-\nBy Grecian hands is Priam's city ta'en!\nLEADER What say'st thou? doubtful heart makes treach'rous ear.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Hear then again, and plainly-Troy is ours!\nLEADER Thrills thro' heart such joy as wakens tears.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Ay, thro' those tears thine eye looks loyalty.\nLEADER But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure?\nCLYTEMNESTRA Go to; I have-unless the god has lied.\nLEADER Hath some night-vision won thee to belief?\nCLYTEMNESTRA Out on all presage of a slumb'rous soul!\nLEADER But wert thou cheered by Rumour's wingless word?\nCLYTEMNESTRA Peace-thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.\nLEADER Say then, how long ago the city fell?\nCLYTEMNESTRA Even in this night that now brings forth the dawn.\nLEADER Yet who so swift could speed the message here?\nCLYTEMNESTRA From Ida's top Hephaestus, lord of fire,\nSent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,\nBeacon to beacon sped the courier-flame.\nFrom Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,\nOf Lemnos; thence unto the steep sublime\nOf Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.\nThence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,\nThe moving light, rejoicing in its strength,\nSped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,\nIn golden glory, like some strange new sun,\nOnward, and reached Macistus' watching heights.\nThere, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,\nThe watcher sped the tidings on in turn,\nUntil the guard upon Messapius' peak\nSaw the far flame gleam on Euripus' tide,\nAnd from the high-piled heap of withered furze\nLit the new sign and bade the message on.\nThen the strong light, far-flown and yet undimmed,\nShot thro' the sky above Asopus' plain,\nBright as the moon, and on Cithaeron's crag\nAroused another watch of flying fire.\nAnd there the sentinels no whit disowned,\nBut sent redoubled on, the hest of flame\nSwift shot the light, above Gorgopis' bay,\nTo Aegiplanctus' mount, and bade the peak\nFail not the onward ordinance of fire.\nAnd like a long beard streaming in the wind,\nFull-fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,\nAnd onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,\nBeneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,\nAnd thence leapt light unto Arachne's peak,\nThe mountain watch that looks upon our town.\nThence to th' Atreides' roof-in lineage fair,\nA bright posterity of Ida's fire.\nSo sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,\nFlame after flame, along the course ordained,\nAnd lo! the last to speed upon its way\nSights the end first, and glows unto the goal.\nAnd Troy is ta'en, and by this sign my lord\nTells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.\nLEADER To heaven, O queen, will I upraise new song:\nBut, wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear\nFrom first to last the marvel of the tale.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Think you-this very morn-the Greeks in Troy,\nAnd loud therein the voice of utter wail!\nWithin one cup pour vinegar and oil,\nAnd look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.\nSo in the twofold issue of the strife\nMingle the victor's shout, the captives' moan.\nFor all the conquered whom the sword has spared\nCling weeping-some unto a brother slain,\nSome childlike to a nursing father's form,\nAnd wail the loved and lost, the while their neck\nBows down already 'neath the captive's chain.\nAnd lo! the victors, now the fight is done,\nGoaded by restless hunger, far and wide\nRange all disordered thro' the town, to snatch\nSuch victual and such rest as chance may give\nWithin the captive halls that once were Troy-\nJoyful to rid them of the frost and dew,\nWherein they couched upon the plain of old-\nJoyful to sleep the gracious night all through,\nUnsummoned of the watching sentinel.\nYet let them reverence well the city's gods,\nThe lords of Troy, tho' fallen, and her shrines;\nSo shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.\nYea, let no craving for forbidden gain\nBid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.\nFor we need yet, before the race be won,\nHomewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.\nFor should the host wax wanton ere it come,\nThen, tho'the sudden blow of fate be spared,\nYet in the sight of gods shall rise once more\nThe great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.\nNow, hearing from this woman's mouth of mine,\nThe tale and eke its warning, pray with me,\nLuck sway the scale, with no uncertain poise,\nFor my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys.\nLEADER A gracious word thy woman's lips have told,\nWorthy a wise man's utterance, O my queen;\nNow with clear trust in thy convincing tale\nI set me to salute the gods with song,\nWho bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain. (CLYTEMNESTRA goes into\nthe palace.)\nCHORUS (singing) Zeus, Lord of heaven! and welcome night\nOf victory, that hast our might\nWith all the glories crowned!\nOn towers of Ilion, free no more,\nHast flung the mighty mesh of war,\nAnd closely girt them round,\nTill neither warrior may 'scape,\nNor stripling lightly overleap\nThe trammels as they close, and close,\nTill with the grip of doom our foes\nIn slavery's coil are bound!\nZeus, Lord of hospitality,\nIn grateful awe I bend to thee-\n'Tis thou hast struck the blow!\nAt Alexander, long ago,\nWe marked thee bend thy vengeful bow,\nBut long and warily withhold\nThe eager shaft, which, uncontrolled\nAnd loosed too soon or launched too high,\nHad wandered bloodless through the sky.\n(strophe 1)\nZeus, the high God!-whate'er be dim in doubt,\nThis can our thought track out-\nThe blow that fells the sinner is of God,\nAnd as he wills, the rod\nOf vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,\nThe gods list not to hold\nA reckoning with him whose feet oppress\nThe grace of holiness-\nAn impious word! for whenso'er the sire\nBreathed forth rebellious fire-\nWhat time his household overflowed the measure\nOf bliss and health and treasure-\nHis children's children read the reckoning plain,\nAt last, in tears and pain.\nOn me let weal that brings no woe be sent,\nAnd therewithal, content!\nWho spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power\nShall be to him a tower,\nTo guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot,\nWhere all things are forgot.\n(antistrophe 1)\nLust drives him on-lust, desperate and wild,\nFate's sin-contriving child-\nAnd cure is none; beyond concealment clear,\nKindles sin's baleful glare.\nAs an ill coin beneath the wearing touch\nBetrays by stain and smutch\nIts metal false-such is the sinful wight.\nBefore, on pinions light,\nFair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,\nWhile home and kin make moan\nBeneath the grinding burden of his crime;\nTill, in the end of time,\nCast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer\nTo powers that will not hear.\nAnd such did Paris come\nUnto Atreides' home,\nAnd thence, with sin and shame his welcome to repay,\nRavished the wife away-\n(strophe 2)\nAnd she, unto her country and her kin\nLeaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships,\nAnd bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,\nAnd overbold in sin,\nWent fleetly thro' the gates, at midnight hour.\nOft from the prophets' lips\nMoaned out the warning and the wail-Ah woe!\nWoe for the home, the home! and for the chieftains, woe!\nWoe for the bride-bed, warm\nYet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form\nOf her who loved her lord, awhile ago\nAnd woe! for him who stands\nShamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands\nThat find her not, and sees, yet will not see,\nThat she is far away!\nAnd his sad fancy, yearning o'er the sea,\nShall summon and recall\nHer wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.\nAnd sad with many memories,\nThe fair cold beauty of each sculptured face-\nAnd all to hatefulness is turned their grace,\nSeen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes!\n(antistrophe 2)\nAnd when the night is deep,\nCome visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain\nOf hopings vain-\nVoid, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight\nHas seen its old delight,\nWhen thro' the grasps of love that bid it stay\nIt vanishes away\nOn silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.\nSuch are the sights, the sorrows fell,\nAbout our hearth-and worse, whereof I may not tell.\nBut, all the wide town o'er,\nEach home that sent its master far away\nFrom Hellas' shore,\nFeels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss, to-day.\nFor, truth to say,\nThe touch of bitter death is manifold!\nFamiliar was each face, and dear as life,\nThat went unto the war,\nBut thither, whence a warrior went of old,\nDoth nought return-\nOnly a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn!\n(strophe 3)\nFor Ares, lord of strife,\nWho doth the swaying scales of battle hold,\nWar's money-changer, giving dust for gold,\nSends back, to hearts that held them dear,\nScant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,\nLight to the band, but heavy to the soul;\nYea, fills the light urn full\nWith what survived the flame-\nDeath's dusty measure of a hero's frame!\nAlas! one cries, and yet alas again!\nOur chief is gone, the hero of the spear,\nAnd hath not left his peer!\nAh woe! another moans-my spouse is slain,\nThe death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,\nSlain for a woman's sin, a false wife's shame!\nSuch muttered words of bitter mood\nRise against those who went forth to reclaim;\nYea, jealous wrath creeps on against th' Atreides' name.\nAnd others, far beneath the Ilian wall,\nSleep their last sleep-the goodly chiefs and tall,\nCouched in the foeman's land, whereon they gave\nTheir breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.\n(antistrophe 3)\nTherefore for each and all the city's breast\nIs heavy with a wrath supprest,\nAs deeply and deadly as a curse more loud\nFlung by the common crowd:\nAnd, brooding deeply, doth my soul await\nTidings of coming fate,\nBuried as yet in darkness' womb.\nFor not forgetful is the high gods' doom\nAgainst the sons of carnage: all too long\nSeems the unjust to prosper and be strong,\nTill the dark Furies come,\nAnd smite with stern reversal all his home,\nDown into dim obstruction-he is gone,\nAnd help and hope, among the lost, is none!\nO'er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,\nImpends a woe condign;\nThe vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame,\nSped from the hand divine.\nThis bliss be mine, ungrudged of God, to feel-\nTo tread no city to the dust,\nNor see my own life thrust\nDown to a glave's estate beneath another's heel!\n(epode)\nBehold, throughout the city wide\nHave the swift feet of Rumour hied,\nRoused by the joyful flame:\nBut is the news they scatter, sooth?\nOr haply do they give for truth\nSome cheat which heaven doth frame?\nA child were he and all unwise,\nWho let his heart with joy be stirred.\nTo see the beacon-fires arise,\nAnd then, beneath some thwarting word,\nSicken anon with hope deferred.\nThe edge of woman's insight still\nGood news from true divideth ill;\nLight rumours leap within the bound\nThen fences female credence round,\nBut, lightly born, as lightly dies\nThe tale that springs of her surmise. (Several days are assumed to\nhave elapsed.)\nLEADER OF THE CHORUS Soon shall we know whereof the bale-fires tell,\nThe beacons, kindled with transmitted flame;\nWhether, as well I deem, their tale is true,\nOr whether like some dream delusive came\nThe welcome blaze but to befool our soul.\nFor lo! I see a herald from the shore\nDraw hither, shadowed with the olive-wreath-\nAnd thirsty dust, twin-brother of the clay,\nSpeaks plain of travel far and truthful news-\nNo dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,\nFitfully kindled from the mountain pyre;\nBut plainlier shall his voice say, All is well,\nOr-but away, forebodings adverse, now,\nAnd on fair promise fair fulfilment come!\nAnd whoso for the state prays otherwise,\nHimself reap harvest of his ill desire! (A HERALD enters. He is an\nadvance messenger from AGAMEMNON'S forces, which have just landed.)\nHERALD O land of Argos, fatherland of mine!\nTo thee at last, beneath the tenth year's sun,\nMy feet return; the bark of my emprise,\nTho' one by one hope's anchors broke away,\nHeld by the last, and now rides safely here.\nLong, long my soul despaired to win, in death,\nIts longed-for rest within our Argive land:\nAnd now all hail, O earth, and hail to thee,\nNew-risen sun! and hail our country's God,\nHigh-ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,\nWhose arrows smote us once-smite thou no morel\nWas not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,\nO king Apollo, by Scamander's side?\nTurn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now\nAnd hail, all gods who rule the street and mart\nAnd Hermes hail! my patron and my pride,\nHerald of heaven, and lord of heralds here!\nAnd Heroes, ye who sped us on our way-\nTo one and all I cry, Receive again\nWith grace such Argives as the spear has spared.\nAh, home of royalty, beloved halls,\nAnd solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn!\nBenign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet\nThe king returning after many days.\nFor as from night flash out the beams of day,\nSo out of darkness dawns a light, a king,\nOn you, on Argos-Agamemnon comes.\nThen hail and greet him well I such meed befits\nHim whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy\nWith the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong-\nAnd smote the plain, smote down to nothingness\nEach altar, every shrine; and far and wide\nDies from the whole land's face its offspring fair.\nSuch mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy-\nOur lord and monarch, Atreus' elder son,\nAnd comes at last with blissful honour home;\nHighest of all who walk on earth to-day-\nNot Paris nor the city's self that paid\nSin's price with him, can boast, Whate'er befall,\nThe guerdon we have won outweighs it all.\nBut at Fate's judgment-seat the robber stands\nCondemned of rapine, and his prey is torn\nForth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped\nA bloody harvest of his home and land\nGone down to death, and for his guilt and lust\nHis father's race pays double in the dust.\nLEADER Hail, herald of the Greeks, new-come from war.\nHERALD All hail! not death itself can fright me now.\nLEADER Was thine heart wrung with longing for thy land?\nHERALD So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.\nLEADER On you too then this sweet distress did fall-\nHERALD How say'st thou? make me master of thy word.\nLEADER You longed for us who pined for you again.\nHERALD Craved the land us who craved it, love for love?\nLEADER Yea, till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.\nHERALD Whence thy despair, that mars the army's joy?\nLEADER Sole cure of wrong is silence, saith the saw.\nHERALD Thy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men?\nLEADER Death had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.\nHERALD 'Tis true; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,\nThese many years, some chances issued fair,\nAnd some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.\nBut who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,\nThro' time's whole tenor an unbroken weal?\nI could a tale unfold of toiling oars,\nIll rest, scant landings on a shore rock-strewn,\nAll pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.\nAnd worse and hatefuller our woes on land;\nFor where we couched, close by the foeman's wall,\nThe river-plain was ever dank with dews,\nDropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,\nA curse that clung unto our sodden garb,\nAnd hair as horrent as a wild beast's fell.\nWhy tell the woes of winter, when the birds\nLay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida's snow?\nOr summer's scorch, what time the stirless wave\nSank to its sleep beneath the noon-day sun?\nWhy mourn old woes? their pain has passed away;\nAnd passed away, from those who fell, all care,\nFor evermore, to rise and live again.\nWhy sum the count of death, and render thanks\nFor life by moaning over fate malign?\nFarewell, a long farewell to all our woes!\nTo us, the remnant of the host of Greece,\nComes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe;\nThus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,\nLike him far-fleeted over sea and land.\nThe Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy,\nAnd in the temples of the gods of Greece\nHung up these spoils, a shining sign to Time.\nLet those who learn this legend bless aright\nThe city and its chieftains, and repay\nThe meed of gratitude to Zeus who willed\nAnd wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.\nLEADER Thy words o'erbear my doubt: for news of good,\nThe ear of age hath ever youth enow:\nBut those within and Clytemnestra's self\nWould fain hear all; glad thou their ears and mine. (CLYTEMNESTRA\nenters from the palace.)\nCLYTEMNESTRA That night, when first the fiery courier came,\nIn sign that Troy is ta'en and razed to earth,\nSo wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,\nThat I was chidden-Hath the beacon watch\nMade sure unto thy soul the sack of Troy?\nA very woman thou, whose heart leaps light\nAt wandering rumours!-and with words like these\nThey showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.\nYet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,\nAnd, in the strain they held for feminine,\nWent heralds thro' the city, to and fro,\nWith voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy;\nAnd in each fane they lit and quenched with wine\nThe spicy perfumes fading in the flame.\nAll is fulfilled: I spare your longer tale-\nThe king himself anon shall tell me all.\nRemains to think what honour best may greet\nMy lord, the majesty of Argos, home.\nWhat day beams fairer on a woman's eyes\nThan this, whereon she flings the portal wide,\nTo hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war?\nThis to my husband, that he tarry not,\nBut turn the city's longing into joy!\nYea, let him come, and coming may he find\nA wife no other than he left her, true\nAnd faithful as a watch-dog to his home,\nHis foemen's foe, in all her duties leal,\nTrusty to keep for ten long years unmarred\nThe store whereon he set his master-seal.\nBe steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see\nIll joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me!\nHERALD 'Tis fairly said: thus speaks a noble dame,\nNor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast. (CLYTEMNESTRA withdraws\nagain into the palace.)\nLEADER So has she spoken-be it yours to learn\nBy clear interpreters her specious word.\nTurn to me, herald-tell me if anon\nThe second well-loved lord of Argos comes?\nHath Menelaus safely sped with you?\nHERALD Alas-brief boon unto my friends it were,\nTo flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair!\nLEADER Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst-\nToo plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.\nHERALD The hero and his bark were rapt away\nFar from the Grecian fleet; 'tis truth I say.\nLEADER Whether in all men's sight from Ilion borne,\nOr from the fleet by stress of weather torn?\nHERALD Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,\nAnd one short word hath told long woes aright.\nLEADER But say, what now of him each comrade saith?\nWhat their forebodings, of his life or death?\nHERALD Ask me no more: the truth is known to none,\nSave the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun.\nLEADER Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven?\nHow rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?\nHERALD Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow's tale\nThe day of blissful news. The gods demand\nThanksgiving sundered from solicitude.\nIf one as herald came with rueful face\nTo say, The curse has fallen, and the host\nGone down to death; and one wide wound has reached\nThe city's heart, and out of many homes\nMany are cast and consecrate to death,\nBeneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,\nThe bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom-\nIf such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,\n'Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.\nBut-coming as he comes who bringeth news\nOf safe return from toil, and issues fair,\nTo men rejoicing in a weal restored-\nDare I to dash good words with ill, and say\nFor fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,\nNow swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,\nWasting the Argives worn with toil and war.\nNight and great horror of the rising wave\nCame o'er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace\nClashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow\nThro' scudding drifts of spray and raving storm\nVanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.\nAnd when at length the sun rose bright, we saw\nTh' Aegaean sea-field flecked with flowers of death,\nCorpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.\nFor us indeed, some god, as well I deem,\nNo human power, laid hand upon our helm,\nSnatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,\nAnd brought our bark thro'all, unharmed in hull:\nAnd saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,\nSo that no surge should gulf us deep in brine,\nNor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.\nSo 'scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,\nBut, under day's white light, mistrustful all\nOf fortune's smile, we sat and brooded deep,\nShepherds forlorn of thoughts that wandered wild\nO'er this new woe; for smitten was our host,\nAnd lost as ashes scattered from the pyre.\nOf whom if any draw his life-breath yet,\nBe well assured, he deems of us as dead,\nAs we of him no other fate forebode.\nBut heaven save all! If Menelaus live,\nHe will not tarry, but will surely come:\nTherefore if anywhere the high sun's ray\nDescries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,\nWho wills not yet to wipe his race away,\nHope still there is that homeward he may wend.\nEnough-thou hast the truth unto the end. (The HERALD departs.)\nCHORUS (singing, strophe 1)\nSay, from whose lips the presage fell?\nWho read the future all too well,\nAnd named her, in her natal hour,\nHelen, the bride with war for dower\n'Twas one of the Invisible,\nGuiding his tongue with prescient power.\nOn fleet, and host, and citadel,\nWar, sprung from her, and death did lour,\nWhen from the bride-bed's fine-spun veil\nShe to the Zephyr spread her sail.\nStrong blew the breeze-the surge closed oer\nThe cloven track of keel and oar,\nBut while she fled, there drove along,\nFast in her wake, a mighty throng-\nAthirst for blood, athirst for war,\nForward in fell pursuit they sprung,\nThen leapt on Simois' bank ashore,\nThe leafy coppices among-\nNo rangers, they, of wood and field,\nBut huntsmen of the sword and shield.\n(antistrophe 1)\nHeaven's jealousy, that works its will,\nSped thus on Troy its destined ill,\nWell named, at once, the Bride and Bane;\nAnd loud rang out the bridal strain;\nBut they to whom that song befell\nDid turn anon to tears again;\nZeus tarries, but avenges still\nThe husband's wrong, the household's stain!\nHe, the hearth's lord, brooks not to see\nIts outraged hospitality.\nEven now, and in far other tone,\nTroy chants her dirge of mighty moan,\nWoe upon Paris, woe and hate!\nWho wooed his country's doom for mate-\nThis is the burthen of the groan,\nWherewith she wails disconsolate\nThe blood, so many of her own\nHave poured in vain, to fend her fate;\nTroy! thou hast fed and freed to roam\nA lion-cub within thy home!\n(strophe 2)\nA suckling creature, newly ta'en\nFrom mother's teat, still fully fain\nOf nursing care; and oft caressed,\nWithin the arms, upon the breast,\nEven as an infant, has it lain;\nOr fawns and licks, by hunger pressed,\nThe hand that will assuage its pain;\nIn life's young dawn, a well-loved guest,\nA fondling for the children's play,\nA joy unto the old and grey.\n(antistrophe 2)\nBut waxing time and growth betrays\nThe blood-thirst of the lion-race,\nAnd, for the house's fostering care,\nUnbidden all, it revels there,\nAnd bloody recompense repays-\nRent flesh of kine, its talons tare:\nA mighty beast, that slays, and slays,\nAnd mars with blood the household fair,\nA God-sent pest invincible,\nA minister of fate and hell.\n(strophe 3)\nEven so to Ilion's city came by stealth\nA spirit as of windless seas and skies,\nA gentle phantom-form of joy and wealth,\nWith love's soft arrows speeding from its eyes-\nLove's rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in subtle wise.\nAh, well-a-day! the bitter bridal-bed,\nWhen the fair mischief lay by Paris' side!\nWhat curse on palace and on people sped\nWith her, the Fury sent on Priam's pride,\nBy angered Zeus! what tears of many a widowed bride!\n(antistrophe 3)\nLong, long ago to mortals this was told,\nHow sweet security and blissful state\nHave curses for their children-so men hold-\nAnd for the man of all-too prosperous fate\nSprings from a bitter seed some woe insatiate.\nAlone, alone, I deem far otherwise;\nNot bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,\nFrom which that after-growth of ill doth rise!\nWoe springs from wrong, the plant is like the seed-\nWhile Right, in honour's house, doth its own likeness breed.\n(strophe 4)\nSome past impiety, some grey old crime,\nBreeds the young curse, that wantons in our ill,\nEarly or late, when haps th'appointed time-\nAnd out of light brings power of darkness still,\nA master-fiend, a foe, unseen, invincible;\nA pride accursed, that broods upon the race\nAnd home in which dark Ate holds her sway-\nSin's child and Woe's, that wears its parents' face;\n(antistrophe 4)\nWhile Right in smoky cribs shines clear as day,\nAnd decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous way.\nFrom gilded halls, that hands polluted raise,\nRight turns away with proud averted eyes,\nAnd of the wealth, men stamp amiss with praise,\nHeedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,\nAnd to Fate's goal guides all, in its appointed wise. (AGAMEMNON\nenters, riding in a chariot and accompanied by a great procession.\nCASSANDRA follows in another chariot. The CHORUS sings its welcome.)\nHail to thee, chief of Atreus' race,\nReturning proud from Troy subdued!\nHow shall I greet thy conquering face?\nHow nor a fulsome praise obtrude,\nNor stint the meed of gratitude?\nFor mortal men who fall to ill\nTake little heed of open truth,\nBut seek unto its semblance still:\nThe show of weeping and of ruth\nTo the forlorn will all men pay,\nBut, of the grief their eyes display,\nNought to the heart doth pierce its way.\nAnd, with the joyous, they beguile\nTheir lips unto a feigned smile,\nAnd force a joy, unfelt the while;\nBut he who as a shepherd wise\nDoth know his flock, can ne'er misread\nTruth in the falsehood of his eyes,\nWho veils beneath a kindly guise\nA lukewarm love in deed.\nAnd thou, our leader-when of yore\nThou badest Greece go forth to war\nFor Helen's sake-I dare avow\nThat then I held thee not as now;\nThat to my vision thou didst seem\nDyed in the hues of disesteem.\nI held thee for a pilot ill,\nAnd reckless, of thy proper will,\nEndowing others doomed to die\nWith vain and forced audacity!\nNow from my heart, ungrudgingly,\nTo those that wrought, this word be said-\nWell fall the labour ye have sped-\nLet time and search, O king, declare\nWhat men within thy city's bound\nWere loyal to the kingdom's care,\nAnd who were faithless found.\nAGAMEMNON (still standing in the chariot) First, as is meet, a king's\nAll-hail be said\nTo Argos, and the gods that guard the land-\nGods who with me availed to speed us home,\nWith me availed to wring from Priam's town\nThe due of justice. In the court of heaven\nThe gods in conclave sat and judged the cause,\nNot from a pleader's tongue, and at the close,\nUnanimous into the urn of doom\nThis sentence gave, On Ilion and her men,\nDeath: and where hope drew nigh to pardon's urn\nNo hand there was to cast a vote therein.\nAnd still the smoke of fallen Ilion\nRises in sight of all men, and the flame\nOf Ate's hecatomb is living yet,\nAnd where the towers in dusty ashes sink,\nRise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed\nFor this must all men pay unto the gods\nThe meed of mindful hearts and gratitude:\nFor by our hands the meshes of revenge\nClosed on the prey, and for one woman's sake\nTroy trodden by the Argive monster lies-\nThe foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall,\nWhat time with autumn sank the Pleiades.\nYea, o'er the fencing wall a lion sprang\nRavening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.\nSuch prelude spoken to the gods in full,\nTo you I turn, and to the hidden thing\nWhereof ye spake but now: and in that thought\nI am as you, and what ye say, say I.\nFor few are they who have such inborn grace,\nAs to look up with love, and envy not,\nWhen stands another on the height of weal.\nDeep in his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,\nHer poison lurking doth enhance his load;\nFor now beneath his proper woes he chafes,\nAnd sighs withal to see another's weal.\nI speak not idly, but from knowledge sure-\nThere be who vaunt an utter loyalty,\nThat is but as the ghost of friendship dead,\nA shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.\nOne only-he who went reluctant forth\nAcross the seas with me-Odysseus-he\nWas loyal unto me with strength and will,\nA trusty trace-horse bound unto my car.\nThus-be he yet beneath the light of day,\nOr dead, as well I fear-I speak his praise.\nLastly, whate'er be due to men or gods,\nWith joint debate, in public council held,\nWe will decide, and warily contrive\nThat all which now is well may so abide:\nFor that which haply needs the healer's art,\nThat will we medicine, discerning well\nIf cautery or knife befit the time.\nNow, to my palace and the shrines of home,\nI will pass in, and greet you first and fair,\nYe gods, who bade me forth, and home again-\nAnd long may Victory tarry in my train! (CLYTEMNESTRA enters from\nthe palace, followed by maidens bearing crimson robes.)\nCLYTEMNESTRA Old men of Argos, lieges of our realm,\nShame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see\nThe love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear\nDies at the last from hearts of human kind.\nFrom mine own soul and from no alien lips,\nI know and will reveal the life I bore.\nReluctant, through the lingering livelong years,\nThe while my lord beleaguered Ilion's wall.\nFirst, that a wife sat sundered from her lord,\nIn widowed solitude, was utter woe\nAnd woe, to hear how rumour's many tongues\nAll boded evil-woe, when he who came\nAnd he who followed spake of ill on ill,\nKeening Lost, lost, all lost! thro' hall and bower.\nHad this my husband met so many wounds,\nAs by a thousand channels rumour told,\nNo network e'er was full of holes as he.\nHad he been slain, as oft as tidings came\nThat he was dead, he well might boast him now\nA second Geryon of triple frame,\nWith triple robe of earth above him laid-\nFor that below, no matter-triply dead,\nDead by one death for every form he bore.\nAnd thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,\nOft for self-slaughter had I slung the noose,\nBut others wrenched it from my neck away.\nHence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,\nThe pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,\nStands not beside us now, as he should stand.\nNor marvel thou at this: he dwells with one\nWho guards him loyally; 'tis Phocis' king,\nStrophius, who warned me erst, Bethink thee, queen,\nWhat woes of doubtful issue well may fall\nThy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,\nWhile here a populace uncurbed may cry,\n\"Down witk the council, down!\" bethink thee too,\n'Tis the world's way to set a harder heel\nOn fallen power.\nFor thy child's absence then\nSuch mine excuse, no wily afterthought.\nFor me, long since the gushing fount of tears\nIs wept away; no drop is left to shed.\nDim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,\nWeeping, the bale-fires, piled for thy return,\nNight after night unkindled. If I slept,\nEach sound-the tiny humming of a gnat,\nRoused me again, again, from fitful dreams\nWherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,\nThrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.\nAll this I bore, and now, released from woe,\nI hail my lord as watch-dog of a fold,\nAs saving stay-rope of a storm-tossed ship,\nAs column stout that holds the roof aloft,\nAs only child unto a sire bereaved,\nAs land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,\nAs sunshine fair when tempest's wrath is past,\nAs gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.\nSo sweet it is to 'scape the press of pain.\nWith such salute I bid my husband hail\nNor heaven be wroth therewith! for long and hard\nI bore that ire of old.\nSweet lord, step forth,\nStep from thy car, I pray-nay, not on earth\nPlant the proud foot, O king, that trod down Troy!\nWomen! why tarry ye, whose task it is\nTo spread your monarch's path with tapestry?\nSwift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,\nThat justice lead him to a home, at last,\nHe scarcely looked to see. (The attendant women spread the tapestry.)\nFor what remains,\nZeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand\nTo work as right and as the gods command.\nAGAMEMNON (still in the chariot) Daughter of Leda, watcher o'er\nmy home,\nThy greeting well befits mine absence long,\nFor late and hardly has it reached its end.\nKnow, that the praise which honour bids us crave,\nMust come from others' lips, not from our own:\nSee too that not in fashion feminine\nThou make a warrior's pathway delicate;\nNot unto me, as to some Eastern lord,\nBowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.\nStrew not this purple that shall make each step\nAn arrogance; such pomp beseems the gods,\nNot me. A mortal man to set his foot\nOn these rich dyes? I hold such pride in fear,\nAnd bid thee honour me as man, not god.\nFear not-such footcloths and all gauds apart,\nLoud from the trump of Fame my name is blown;\nBest gift of heaven it is, in glory's hour,\nTo think thereon with soberness: and thou-\nBethink thee of the adage, Call none blest\nTill peaceful death have crowned a life of weal.\n'Tis said: I fain would fare unvexed by fear.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Nay, but unsay it-thwart not thou my will!\nAGAMEMNON Know, I have said, and will not mar my word.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Was it fear made this meekness to the gods?\nAGAMEMNON If cause be cause, 'tis mine for this resolve.\nCLYTEMNESTRA What, think'st thou, in thy place had Priam done?\nAGAMEMNON He surely would have walked on broidered robes.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Then fear not thou the voice of human blame.\nAGAMEMNON Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.\nAGAMEMNON War is not woman's part, nor war of words.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Yet happy victors well may yield therein.\nAGAMEMNON Dost crave for triumph in this petty strife?\nCLYTEMNESTRA Yield; of thy grace permit me to prevail!\nAGAMEMNON Then, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose\nSwiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot;\nAnd stepping thus upon the sea's rich dye,\nI pray, Let none among the gods look down\nWith jealous eye on me-reluctant all,\nTo trample thus and mar a thing of price,\nWasting the wealth of garments silver-worth.\nEnough hereof: and, for the stranger maid,\nLead her within, but gently: God on high\nLooks graciously on him whom triumph's hour\nHas made not pitiless. None willingly\nWear the slave's yoke-and she, the prize and flower\nOf all we won, comes hither in my train,\nGift of the army to its chief and lord.\n-Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,\nI will pass in on purples to my home. (He descends from the chariot,\nand moves towards the palace.)\nCLYTEMNESTRA A Sea there is-and who shall stay its springs?\nAnd deep within its breast, a mighty store,\nPrecious as silver, of the purple dye,\nWhereby the dipped robe doth its tint renew.\nEnough of such, O king, within thy halls\nThere lies, a store that cannot fail; but I-\nI would have gladly vowed unto the gods\nCost of a thousand garments trodden thus,\n(Had once the oracle such gift required)\nContriving ransom for thy life preserved.\nFor while the stock is firm the foliage climbs,\nSpreading a shade, what time the dog-star glows;\nAnd thou, returning to thine hearth and home,\nArt as a genial warmth in winter hours,\nOr as a coolness, when the lord of heaven\nMellows the juice within the bitter grape.\nSuch boons and more doth bring into a home\nThe present footstep of its proper lord.\nZeus, Zeus, Fulfilment's lord! my vows fulfil,\nAnd whatsoe'er it be, work forth thy will! (She follows AGAMEMNON\ninto the palace.)\nCHORUS (singing, strophe 1)\nWherefore for ever on the wings of fear\nHovers a vision drear\nBefore my boding heart? a strain,\nUnbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,\nOracular of pain.\nNot as of old upon my bosom's throne\nSits Confidence, to spurn\nSuch fears, like dreams we know not to discern.\nOld, old and grey long since the time has grown,\nWhich saw the linked cables moor\nThe fleet, when erst it came to Ilion's sandy shore;\n(antistrophe 1)\nAnd now mine eyes and not another's see\nTheir safe return.\nYet none the less in me\nThe inner spirit sings a boding song,\nSelf-prompted, sings the Furies' strain-\nAnd seeks, and seeks in vain,\nTo hope and to be strong!\nAh! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,\nAre these wild throbbings of my heart and breast-\nYea, of some doom they tell-\nEach pulse, a knell.\nLief, lief I were, that all\nTo unfulfilment's hidden realm might fall.\n(strophe 2)\nToo far, too far our mortal spirits strive,\nGrasping at utter weal, unsatisfied-\nTill the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,\nThrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,\nThe gales that waft our bark on Fortune's tide!\nSwiftly we sail, the sooner an to drive\nUpon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.\nThen if the hand of caution warily\nSling forth into the sea\nPart of the freight, lest all should sink below,\nFrom the deep death it saves the bark: even so,\nDoom-laden though it be, once more may rise\nHis household, who is timely wise.\nHow oft the famine-stricken field\nIs saved by God's large gift, the new year's yield!\n(antistrophe 2)\nBut blood of man once spilled,\nOnce at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain,-\nNor chant nor charm can call it back again.\nSo Zeus hath willed:\nElse had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled\nTo bring man from the dead: the hand divine\nDid smite himself with death-a warning and a sign-\nAh me! if Fate, ordained of old,\nHeld not the will of gods constrained, controlled,\nHelpless to us-ward, and apart-\nSwifter than speech my heart\nHad poured its presage out!\nNow, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,\n'Tis hopeless to unfold\nTruth, from fear's tangled skein; and, yearning to proclaim\nIts thought, my soul is prophecy and flame. (CLYTEMNESTRA comes out\nof the palace and addresses CASSANDRA, who has remained motionless\nin her chariot.)\nCLYTEMNESTRA Get thee within thou too, Cassandra, go!\nFor Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants\nTo share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,\nBeside the altar of his guardianship,\nSlave among many slaves. What, haughty still?\nStep from the car; Alcmena's son, 'tis said,\nWas sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.\nAy, hard it is, but, if such fate befall,\n'Tis a fair chance to serve within a home\nOf ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,\nTo whom wealth's harvest came beyond his hope,\nIs as a lion to his slaves, in all\nExceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.\nPass in: thou hearest what our ways will be.\nLEADER OF THE CHORUS Clear unto thee, O maid, is her command,\nBut thou-within the toils of Fate thou art-\nIf such thy will, I urge thee to obey;\nYet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.\nCLYTEMNESTRA I wot-unless like swallows she doth use\nSome strange barbarian tongue from oversea-\nMy words must speak persuasion to her soul.\nLEADER Obey: there is no gentler way than this.\nStep from the car's high seat and follow her.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Truce to this bootless waiting here without!\nI will not stay: beside the central shrine\nThe victims stand, prepared for knife and fire-\nOfferings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.\nThou-if thou reckest aught of my command,\n'Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut\nFrom these my words, let thy barbarian hand\nFulfil by gesture the default of speech.\nLEADER No native is she, thus to read thy words\nUnaided: like some wild thing of the wood,\nNew-trapped, behold! she shrinks and glares on thee.\nCLYTEMNESTRA 'Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,\nSince she beheld her city sink in fire,\nAnd hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until\nIn foam and blood her wrath be champed away.\nSee ye to her; unqueenly 'tis for me,\nUnheeded thus to cast away my words. (CLYTEMNESTRA enters the palace.)\nLEADER But with me pity sits in anger's place.\nPoor maiden, come thou from the car; no way\nThere is but this-take up thy servitude.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou\nApollo, Apollo!\nLEADER Peace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,\nWho will not brook the suppliance of woe.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou\nApollo, Apollo!\nLEADER Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,\nWho stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Apollo, Apollo!\nGod of all ways, but only Death's to me,\nOnce and again, O thou, Destroyer named,\nThou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!\nLEADER She grows presageful of her woes to come,\nSlave tho' she be, instinct with prophecy.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Apollo, Apollo!\nGod of all ways, but only Death's to me,\nO thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named!\nWhat way hast led me, to what evil home?\nLEADER Know'st thou it not? The home of Atreus' race:\nTake these my words for sooth and ask no more.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Home cursed of God! Bear witness unto me,\nYe visioned woes within-\nThe blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin-\nThe strangling noose, and, spattered o'er\nWith human blood, the reeking floor!\nLEADER How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,\nKeen-scented unto blood and death she hies!\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Ah! can the ghostly guidance fail,\nWhereby my prophet-soul is onwards led?\nLook! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,\nTheir sodden limbs on which their father fed!\nLEADER Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,-\nBut for those deeds we seek no prophet's tongue-\nCASSANDRA (chanting) God! 'tis another crime-\nWorse than the storied woe of olden time,\nCureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here-\nA shaming death, for those that should be dear\nAlas! and far away, in foreign land,\nHe that should help doth stand!\nLEADER I knew th' old tales, the city rings withal-\nBut now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) O wretch, O purpose fell!\nThou for thy wedded lord\nThe cleansing wave hast poured-\nA treacherous welcome\nHow the sequel tell?\nToo soon 'twill come, too soon, for now, even now,\nShe smites him, blow on blow!\nLEADER Riddles bcyond my rede--I peer in vain\nThro' the dim films that screen the prophecy\nCASSANDRA (chanting) God! a new sight! a net, a snare of hell,\nSet by her hand--herself a snare more fell\nA wedded wife, she slays her lord,\nHelped by another hand!\nYe powers, whose hate\nOf Atreus' home no blood can satiate,\nRaise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!\nCHORUS (chanting) Why biddest thou some hend, I know not whom,\nShriek o'er the house? Thine is no cheering word.\nBack to my heart in frozen fear I feel\nMy wanning life-blood run-- The blood that round the wounding steel\nEbbs slow, as sinks life's parting sun--\nSwift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Away, away--keep him away--\nThe monarch of the herd, the pasture's pride,\nFar from his mate! In treach'rous wrath,\nMuffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe\nShe gores his fenceless side! Hark ! in the brimming bath,\nThe heavy plash--the dying cry--\nHark--in the laver--hark, he falls by treachery!\nCHORUS (chanting) I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,\nYet something warns me that they tell of ill,\nO dark prophetic speech, Ill tidings dost thou teach\nEver, to mortals here below! Ever some tale of awe and woe\nThro' all thy windings manifold Do we unriddle and unfold!\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Ah well-a-day! the cup of agony,\nWhereof I chant, foams with a draught for me\nAh lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here--\nWas't but to die with thee whose doom is near?\nCHORUS (chanting) Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,\nAnd wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,\nAs piteous as the ceaseless tale\nWherewith the brown melodious bird\nDoth ever Itys! Itys! wail,\nDeep-bowered in sorrow, all its little life-time's day!\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Ah for thy fate, O shrill-voiced nightingale!\nSome solace for thy woes did Heaven afford,\nClothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart from wail--\nBut for my death is edged the double-biting sword!\nCHORUS (chanting) What pangs are these, what fruitless pain,\nSent on thee from on high?\nThou chantest terror's frantic strain,\nYet in shrill measured melody.\nHow thus unerring canst thou sweep along\nThe prophet's path of boding song?\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Woe, Paris, woe on thee! thy bridal joy\nWas death and fire upon thy race and Troy!\nAnd woe for thee, Scamander's flood!\nBeside thy banks, O river fair,\nI grew in tender nursing care\nFrom childhood unto maidenhood!\nNow not by thine, but by Cocytus' stream\nAnd Acheron's banks shall ring my boding scream.\nCHORUS (chanting) Too plain is all, too plain!\nA child might read aright thy fateful strain.\nDeep in my heart their piercing fang\nTerror and sorrow set, the while I heard\nThat piteous, low, tender word,\nYet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.\nCASSANDRA (chanting) Woe for my city, woe for Ilion's fall!\nFather, how oft with sanguine stain\nStreamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slain\nThat heaven might guard our wall!\nBut all was shed in vain.\nLow lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,\nAnd I--ah burning heart!--shall soon lie low as well.\nCHORUS (chanting) Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!\nAlas, what power of ill\nSits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell\nIn tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?\nSome woe--I know not what--must close thy pious wail.\nCASSANDRA (more calmly) List! for no more the presage of my soul,\nBride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil;\nBut as the morning wind blows clear the east,\nMore bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,\nAnd as against the low bright line of dawn\nHeaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,\nSo in the clearing skies of prescience\nDawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,\nAnd I will speak, but in dark speech no more.\nBear witness, ye, and follow at my side--\nI scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.\nWithin this house a choir abidingly\nChants in harsh unison the chant of ill;\nYea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,\nMan's blood for wine, and revel in the halls,\nDeparting never, Furies of the home.\nThey sit within, they chant the primal curse,\nEach spitting hatred on that crime of old,\nThe brother's couch, the love incestuous\nThat brought forth hatred to the ravisher.\nSay, is my speech or wild and erring now,\nOr doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?\nThey called me once, The prophetess of lies,\nThe wandering hag, the pest of every door--\nAttest ye now, She knows in very sooth\nThe house's curse, the storied infamy.\nLEADER Yet how should oath--how loyally soe'er\nI swear it--aught avail thee? In good sooth,\nMy wonder meets thy claim: I stand amazed\nThat thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,\nDost as a native know and tell aright\nTales of a city of an alien tongue.\nCASSANDRA That is my power--a boon Apollo gave.\nLEADER God though he were, yearning for mortal maid?\nCASSANDRA Ay! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.\nLEADER Such finer sense suits not with slavery.\nCASSANDRA He strove to win me, panting for my love.\nLEADER Came ye by compact unto bridal joys?\nCASSANDRA Nay--for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.\nLEADER Wert thou already dowered with prescience?\nCASSANDRA Yea--prophetess to Troy of all her doom.\nLEADER How left thee then Apollo's wrath unscathed?\nCASSANDRA I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.\nLEADER Not so--to us at least thy words seem sooth.\nCASSANDRA Woe for me, woe! Again the agony--\nDread pain that sees the future all too well\nWith ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.\nBehold ye--yonder on the palace roof\nThe spectre-children sitting--look, such things\nAs dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,\nHorrible shadows, that a kinsman's hand\nHath marked with murder, and their arms are full--\nA rueful burden--see, they hold them up,\nThe entrails upon which their father fed!\nFor this, for this, I say there plots revenge\nA coward lion, couching in the lair--\nGuarding the gate against my master's foot--\nMy master--mine--I bear the slave's yoke now,\nAnd he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,\nKnows not the fawning treachery of tongue\nOf this thing false and dog-like--how her speech\nGlozes and sleeks her purpose, till she win\nBy ill fate's favour the desired chance,\nMoving like Ate to a secret end.\nO aweless soul! the woman slays her lord--\nWoman? what loathsome monster of the earth\nWere fit comparison? The double snake--\nOr Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman s bane,\nGirt round about with rocks? some hag of hell,\nRaving a truceless curse upon her kin?\nHark even now she cries exultingly\nThe vengeful cry that tells of battle turned--\nHow fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored!\nNay then, believe me not: what skills belief\nOr disbelief ? Fate works its will--and thou\nWilt see and say in ruth, Her tale was true.\nLEADER Ah--'tis Thyestes' feast on kindred flesh--\nI guess her meaning and with horror thrill,\nHearing no shadow'd hint of th' o'er-true tale,\nBut its full hatefulness: yet, for the rest,\nFar from the track I roam, and know no more.\nCASSANDRA 'Tis Agamemnon's doom thou shalt behold.\nLEADER Peace hapless woman, to thy boding words!\nCASSANDRA Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.\nLEADER Ay-- were such a doom at hand-- which God forbid!\nCASSANDRA Thou prayest idly--these move swift to slay.\nLEADER What man prepares a deed of such despite?\nCASSANDRA Fool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.\nLEADER Deviser and device are dark to me.\nCASSANDRA Dark! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.\nLEADER Ay--but in thine, as in Apollo's strains,\nFamiliar is the tongue, but dark the thought.\nCASSANDRA Ah, ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now--\nWoe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!\nLo, how the woman-thing, the lioness\nCouched with the wolf--her noble mate afar--\nWill slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch,\nShe drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord,\nWith double death--his recompense for me!\nAy, 'tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,\nThat she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel!\nYe wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,\nYe showed me prophetess yet scorned of all--\nI stamp you into death, or e'er I die--\nDown, to destruction! Thus I stand revenged--\nGo, crown some other with a prophet's woe.\nLookl it is he, it is Apollo's self\nRending from me the prophet-robe he gave.\nGod! while I wore it yet, thou saw'st me mocked\nThere at my home by each malicious mouth--\nTo all and each, an undivided scorn.\nThe name alike and fate of witch and cheat--\nWoe, poverty, and famine--all I bore;\nAnd at this last the god hath brought me here\nInto death's toils, and what his love had made,\nHis hate unmakes me now: and I shall stand\nNot now before the altar of my home,\nBut me a slaughter-house and block of blood\nShall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.\nYet shall the gods have heed of me who die,\nFor by their will shall one requite my doom.\nHe, to avenge his father's blood outpoured,\nShall smite and slay with matricidal hand.\nAy, he shall come--tho' far away he roam,\nA banished wanderer in a stranger's land--\nTo crown his kindred's edifice of ill,\nCalled home to vengeance by his father's fall:\nThus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.\nAnd now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,\nSince first mine Ilion has found its fate\nAnd I beheld, and those who won the wall\nPass to such issue as the gods ordain?\nI too will pass and like them dare to die! (She turns and looks upon\nthe palace door.) Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail!\nGrant me one boon--a swift and mortal stroke,\nThat all unwrung by pain, with ebbing blood\nShed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.\nLEADER Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,\nLong was thy prophecy: but if aright\nThou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,\nDost thou approach the altar of thy doom,\nAs fronts the knife some victim, heaven controlled?\nCASSANDRA Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.\nLEADER Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.\nCASSANDRA The day is come--flight were small gain to me!\nLEADER O brave endurance of a soul resolved!\nCASSANDRA That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.\nLEADER All fame is happy, even famous death.\nCASSANDRA Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye! (She moves\nto enter the house, then starts back.)\nLEADER What fear is this that scares thee from the house?\nCASSANDRA Pah!\nLEADER What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?\nCASSANDRA Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.\nLEADER How? 'tis the smell of household offerings.\nCASSANDRA 'Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.\nLEADER Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?\nCASSANDRA Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud\nThe monarch's fate and mine-- enough of life.\nAh friends!\nBear to me witness, since I fall in death,\nThat not as birds that shun the bush and scream\nI moan in idle terror. This attest\nWhen for my death's revenge another dies,\nA woman for a woman, and a man\nFalls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.\nGrant me this boon--the last before I die.\nLEADER Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.\nCASSANDRA Once more one utterance, but not of wail,\nThough for my death--and then I speak no more.\nSun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,\nTo thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls\nTo slay their kindred's slayers, quit withal\nThe death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.\nAh state of mortal man! in time of weal,\nA line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,\nOne wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away--\nAnd this I deem less piteous, of the twain. (She enters the palace.)\nCHORUS (singing) Too true it is! our mortal state\nWith bliss is never satiate,\nAnd none, before the palace high\nAnd stately of prosperity,\nCries to us with a voice of fear,\nAway! 'tis ill to enter here!\nLo! this our lord hath trodden down,\nBy grace of heaven, old Priam's town,\nAnd praised as god he stands once more\nOn Argos' shore!\nYet now--if blood shed long ago\nCries out that other blood shall flow--\nHis life-blood, his, to pay again\nThe stern requital of the slain--\nPeace to that braggart's vaunting vain,\nWho, having heard the chieftain's tale,\nYet boasts of bliss untouched by bale! (A loud cry is heard from\nwithin.)\nVOICE OF AGAMEMNON O I am sped--a deep, a mortal blow.\nLEADER Listen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony?\nVOICE OF AGAMEMNON O! O! again, another, another blow!\nLEADER The bloody act is over--I have heard the monarch's cry--\nLet us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die.\nONE OF THE CHORUS 'Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,\n\"Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!\"\nANOTHER Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,\nAnd drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.\nANOTHER Such will is mine, and what thou say'st I say:\nSwiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.\nANOTHER Ay, for tis plain, this prelude of their song\nForetells its close in tyranny and wrong.\nANOTHER Behold, we tarry--but thy name, Delay,\nThey spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.\nANOTHER I know not what 'twere well to counsel now--\nWho wills to act, 'tis his to counsel how.\nANOTHER Thy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain,\nI have no words to bring his life again.\nANOTHER What? e'en for life's sake, bow us to obey\nThese house-defilers and their tyrant sway ?\nANOTHER Unmanly doom! 'twere better far to die--\nDeath is a gentler lord than tyranny.\nANOTHER Think well--must cry or sign of woe or pain\nFix our conclusion that the chief is slain?\nANOTHER Such talk befits us when the deed we see--\nConjecture dwells afar from certainty.\nLEADER I read one will from many a diverse word,\nTo know aright, how stands it with our lord! (The central doors of\nthe palace open, disclosing CLYTEMNESTRA, who comes forward. She has\nblood smeared upon her forehead. The body of AGAMEMNON lies, muffled\nin a long robe, within a silver-sided laver; the corpse of CASSANDRA\nis laid beside him.)\nCLYTEMNESTRA Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oft\nThe glozing word that led me to my will--\nHear how I shrink not to unsay it all!\nHow else should one who willeth to requite\nEvil for evil to an enemy\nDisguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,\nNot to be overleaped, a net of doom?\nThis is the sum and issue of old strife,\nOf me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.\nAll is avowed, and as I smote I stand\nWith foot set firm upon a finished thing!\nI turn not to denial: thus I wrought\nSo that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.\nEven as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,\nI trapped him with inextricable toils,\nThe ill abundance of a baffling robe;\nThen smote him, once, again--and at each wound\nHe cried aloud, then as in death relaxed\nEach limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,\nOnce more I smote him, with the last third blow,\nSacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.\nAnd thus he fell, and as he passed away,\nSpirit with body chafed; each dying breath\nFlung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,\nAnd the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood\nFell upon me; and I was fain to feel\nThat dew-- not sweeter is the rain of heaven\nTo cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.\nElders of Argos--since the thing stands so,\nI bid you to rejoice, if such your will:\nRejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,\nAnd well I ween, if seemly it could be,\n'Twere not ill done to pour libations here,\nJustly-- ay, more than justly-- on his corpse\nWho filled his home with curses as with wine,\nAnd thus returned to drain the cup he filled.\nLEADER I marvel at thy tongue's audacity,\nTo vaunt thus loudly o'er a husband slain.\nCLYTEMNESTRA Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will,\nAnd strive to sway me: but my heart is stout,\nNor fears to speak its uttermost to you,\nAlbeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,\nEven as ye list,-- I reck not of your words.\nLo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,\nMy husband once-- and him this hand of mine,\nA right contriver, fashioned for his death.\nBehold the deed!\nCHORUS (chanting) Woman, what deadly birth,\nWhat venomed essence of the earth\nOr dark distilment of the wave,\nTo thee such passion gave,\nNerving thine hand\nTo set upon thy brow this burning crown,\nThe curses of thy land?\nOur king by thee cut off, hewn down!\nGo forth-- they cry-- accurscd and forlorn,\nTo hate and scorn!\nCLYTEMNESTRA O ye just men, who speak my sentence now,\nThe city's hate, the ban of all my realm!\nYe had no voice of old to launch such doom\nOn him, my husband, when he held as light\nMy daughter's life as that of sheep or goat,\nOne victim from the thronging fleecy fold!\nYea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,\nThe well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,\nTo lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.\nThat deed of his, I say, that stain and shame,\nHad rightly been atoned by banishment;\nBut ye. who then were dumb, are stern to judge\nThis deed of mine that doth afront your ears.\nStorm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,\nThat I am ready, if your hand prevail\nAs mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway:\nIf God say nay, it shall be yours to learn\nBy chastisement a late humility.\nCHORUS (chanting) Bold is thy craft, and proud\nThy confidence, thy vaunting loud;\nThy soul, that chose a murd'ress' fate,\nIs all with blood elate--\nMaddened to know\nThe blood not yet avenged, the damn'ed spot\nCrimson upon thy brow.\nBut Fate prepares for thee thy lot--\nSmitten as thou didst smite, without a friend,\nTo meet thine end!\nCLYTEMNESTRA Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear--\nBy the great vengeance for my murdered child,\nBy Ate, by the Fury unto whom\nThis man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,\nI do not look to tread the hall of Fear,\nWhile in this hearth and home of mine there burns\nThe light of love--Aegisthus--as of old\nLoyal, a stalwart shield of confidence--\nAs true to me as this slain man was false,\nWronging his wife with paramours at Troy,\nFresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there!\nBehold him dead-- behold his captive prize,\nSeeress and harlot-- comfort of his bed,\nTrue prophetess, true paramour-- I wot\nThe sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,\nFull oft, of every rower, than was she.\nSee, ill they did, and ill requites them now.\nHis death ye know: she as a dying swan\nSang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,\nClose to his side, and to my couch has left\nA sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.\n(strophe 1)\nCHORUS (singing) Ah woe and well-a-day! I would that Fate--\nNot bearing agony too great,\nNor stretching me too long on couch of pain--\nWould bid mine eyelids keep\nThe morningless and unawakening sleep!\nFor life is weary, now my lord is slain,\nThe gracious among kings!\nHard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,\nAnd for a woman's sake, on Ilian land--\nNow is his life hewn down, and by a woman's hand.\nO Helen, O infatuate soul,\nWho bad'st the tides of battle roll,\nO'erwhelming thousands, life on life,\n'Neath Ilion's wall!\nAnd now lies dead the lord of all.\nThe blossom of thy storied sin\nBears blood's inexpiable stain,\nO thou that erst, these halls within,\nWert unto all a rock of strife,\nA husband's bane!\nCLYTEMNESTRA (chanting) Peace! pray not thou for death as though\nThine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,\nNor turn thy wrath aside to ban\nThe name of Helen, nor recall\nHow she, one bane of many a man,\nSent down to death the Danaan lords,\nTo sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,\nAnd wrought the woe that shattered all.\n(antistrophe 1)\nCHORUS Fiend of the race! that swoopest fell\nUpon the double stock of Tantalus,\nLording it o'er me by a woman's will,\nStern, manful, and imperious--\nA bitter sway to me!\nThy very form I see,\nLike some grim raven, perched upon thc slain,\nExulting o'er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain!\nCLYTEMNESTRA (chanting) Right was that word--thou namest well\nThe brooding race-fiend, triply fell!\nFrom him it is that murder's thirst,\nBlood-lapping, inwardly is nursed--\nEre time the ancient scar can sain,\nNew blood comes welling forth again.\n(strophe 2)\nCHORUS Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,\nThat fiend of whom thv voice has cried,\nAlas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,\nAn all-devouring doom!\nAh woe, ah Zeus! from Zeus all things befall--\nZeus the high cause and finisher of all!--\nLord of our mortal state, by him are willed\nAll things, by him fulfilled!\n(refrain 1)\nYet ah my king, my king no more!\nWhat words to say, what tears to pour\nCan tell my love for thee?\nThe spider-web of treachery\nShe wove and wound, thy life around,\nAnd lo! I see thee lie,\nAnd thro' a coward, impious wound\nPant forth thv life and die!\nA death of shame--ah woe on woe!\nA treach'rous hand, a cleaving blow!\nCLYTEMNESTRA (chanting) My guilt thou harpest, o'er and o'er!\nI bid thee reckon me no more\nAs Agamemnon's spouse.\nThe old Avenger, stern of mood\nFor Atreus and his feast of blood,\nHath struck the lord of Atreus' house,\nAnd in the semblance of his wife\nThe king hath slain.--\nYea, for the murdered children's life,\nA chieftain's in requital ta'en.\n(antistrophe 2)\nCHORUS Thou guiltless of this murder, thou!\nWho dares such thought avow?\nYet it may be, wroth for the parent's deed,\nThe fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.\nDark Ares, god of death, is pressing on\nThro' streams of blood by kindred shed,\nExacting the accompt for children dead,\nFor clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.\n(refrain 2)\nYet ah my king, my king no more!\nWhat words to say, what tears to pour\nCan tell my love for thee?\nThe spider-web of treachery\nShe wove and wound, thy life around,\nAnd lo! I see thee lie,\nAnd thro' a coward, impious wound\nPant forth thy life and die!\nA death of shame--ah woe on woe!\nA treach'rous hand, a cleaving blow!\nCLYTEMNESTRA (chanting) I deem not that the death he died\nHad overmuch of shame:\nFor this was he who did provide\nFoul wrong unto his house and name:\nHis daughter, blossom of my womb,\nHe gave unto a deadly doom,\nIphigenia, child of tears!\nAnd as he wrought, even so he fares.\nNor be his vaunt too loud in hell;\nFor by the sword his sin he wrought,\nAnd by the sword himself is brought\nAmong the dead to dwell.\n(strophe 3)\nCHORUS Ah whither shall I fly?\nFor all in ruin sinks the kingly hall;\nNor swift device nor shift of thought have I,\nTo 'scape its fall.\nA little while the gentler rain-drops fail;\nI stand distraught--a ghastly interval,\nTill on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail\nOf blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel\nOn whetstone new and deadlier than of old,\nThe steel that smites, in Justice' hold,\nAnother death to deal.\nO Earth! that I had lain at rest\nAnd lapped for ever in thy breast,\nEre I had seen my chieftain fall\nWithin the laver's silver wall,\nLow-lying on dishonoured bier!\nAnd who shall give him sepulchre,\nAnd who the wail of sorrow pour?\nWoman, 'tis thine no more!\nA graceless gift unto his shade\nSuch tribute, by his murd'ress paid!\nStrive not thus wrongly to atone\nThe impious deed thy hand hath done.\nAh, who above the god-like chief\nShall weep the tears of loyal grief?\nWho speak above his lowly grave\nThe last sad praises of the brave?\nCLYTEMNESTRA (chanting) Peace! for such task is none of thine\nBy me he fell, by me he died,\nAnd now his burial rites be mine!\nYet from these halls no mourners' train\nShall celebrate his obsequies;\nOnly by Acheron's rolling tide\nHis child shall spring unto his side,\nAnd in a daughter's loving wise\nShall clasp and kiss him once again!\nCHORUS Lo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg'd by sorrow--\nAnd who the end can know?\nThe slayer of to-day shall die to-morrow--\nThe wage of wrong is woe.\nWhile Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,\nHis law is fixed and stern;\nOn him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured--\nThe tides of doom return.\nThe children of the curse abide within\nThese halls of high estate--\nAnd none can wrench from off the home of sin\nThe clinging grasp of fate.\nCLYTEMNESTRA (chanting) Now walks thy word aright, to tell\nThis ancient truth of oracle;\nBut I with vows of sooth will pray\nTo him, the power that holdeth sway\nO'er all the race of Pleisthenes--\nTho' dark the deed and deep the guilt,\nWith this last blood, my hands have split,\nI pray thee let thine anger cease!\nI pray thee pass from us away\nTo some new race in other lands,\nThere, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay\nThe lives of men by kindred hands.\nFor me 'tis all sufficient meed,\nTho' little wealth or power were won,\nSo I can say, 'Tis past and done.\nThe bloody lust and murderous,\nThe inborn frenzy of our house,\nIs ended, by my deed! (AEGISTHUS and his armed attendants enter.)\nAEGISTHUS Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail!\nI dare at length aver that gods above\nHave care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.\nI, I who stand and thus exult to see\nThis man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,\nSlain in the requital of his father's craft.\nTake ye the truth, that Atreus, this man's sire,\nThe lord and monarch of this land of old,\nHeld with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,\nBrother with brother, for the prize of sway,\nAnd drave him from his home to banishment.\nThereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole\nAnd clung a suppliant to the hearth divine,\nAnd for himself won this immunity--\nNot with his own blood to defile the land\nThat gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire\nOf him who here lies dead, this welcome planned--\nWith zeal that was not love he feigned to hold\nIn loyal joy a day of festal cheer,\nAnd bade my father to his board, and set\nBefore him flesh that was his children once.\nFirst, sitting at the upper board alone,\nHe hid the fingers and the feet, but gave\nThe rest--and readily Thyestes took\nWhat to his ignorance no semblance wore\nOf human flesh, and ate: behold what curse\nThat eating brought upon our race and name!\nFor when he knew what all unhallowed thing\nHe thus had wrought, with horror's bitter cry\nBack-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,\nOn Pelops' house a deadly curse he spake--\nAs darkly as I spurn this damned food,\nSo perish all the race of Pleisthenes!\nThus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,\nAnd I--who else?--this murder wove and planned;\nFor me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,\nOf the three children youngest, Atreus sent\nTo banishment by my sad father's side:\nBut Justice brought me home once more, grown now\nTo manhood's years; and stranger tho' I was,\nMy right hand reached unto the chieftain's life,\nPlotting and planning all that malice bade.\nAnd death itself were honour now to me,\nBeholding him in Justice' ambush ta'en.\nLEADER Aegisthus, for this insolence of thine\nThat vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.\nOf thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain\nThe chieftain, by thine own unaided plot\nDevised the piteous death: I rede thee well,\nThink not thy head shall 'scape, when right prevails,\nThe people's ban, the stones of death and doom.\nAEGISTHUS This word frcm thee, this word from one who rows\nLow at the oars beneath, what time we rule,\nWe of the upper tier ? Thou'lt know anon,\n'Tis bitter to be taught again in age,\nBy one so young, submission at the word.\nBut iron of the chain and hunger's throes\nCan minister unto an o'erswoln pride\nMarvellous well, ay, even in the old.\nHast eyes and seest not this? Peace-- kick not thus\nAgainst the pricks, unto thy proper pain!\nLEADER Thou womanish man, waiting till war did cease,\nHome-watcher and defiler of the couch,\nAnd arch-deviser of the chieftain's doom!\nAEGISTHUS Bold words again! but they shall end in tears.\n'The very converse, thine, of Orpheus' tongue:\nHe roused and led in ecstasy of joy\nAll things that heard his voice melodious;\nBut thou as with the futile cry of curs\nWilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace!\nOr strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.\nLEADER Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down--\nThou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,\nBut not with thine own hand to smite the blow!\nAEGISTHUS That fraudful force was woman's very part,\nNot mine, whom deep suspicion from of old\nWould have debarred. Now by his treasure's aid\nMy purpose holds to rule the citizens.\nBut whoso will not bear mv guiding hand,\nHim for his corn-fed mettle I will drive\nNot as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,\nBut to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.\nFamine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,\nShall look on him and shall behold him tame.\nLEADER Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight\nTo deal in murder, while a woman's hand,\nStaining and shaming Argos and its gods,\nAvailed to slay him? Ho, if anywhere\nThe light of life smite on Orestes' eyes,\nLet him, returning by some guardian fate,\nHew down with force her paramour and her!\nAEGISTHUS How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly understand.\nLEADER Up to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand.\nSwift, your right hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for\nstrife--\nAEGISTHUS Lo! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or\nlife.\nLEADER 'Twas thy word and we accept it: onward to the chance of war!\nCLYTEMNESTRA Nay, enough, enough, my champion! we will smite and\nslay no more.\nAlready have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt:\nEnough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.\nPeace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed,\nLest ill valour meet our vengeance--'twas a necessary deed.\nBut enough of toils and troubles--be the end, if ever, now,\nEre thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.\n'Tis a woman's word of warning, and let who will list thereto.\nAEGISTHUS But that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms\nof the tongue,\nAnd in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,\nAnd forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler's word--\nLEADER Ruler? but 'tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard lord!\nAEGISTHUS I will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway.\nLEADER Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way.\nAEGISTHUS Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return.\nLEADER Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while 'tis thy\nturn.\nAEGISTHUS Thou shalt pay, be w ell assured, heavy quittance for thy\npride.\nLEADER Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock, his mate\nbeside!\nCLYTEMNESTRA Heed not thou too highly of them--let the cur-pack growl\nand yell:\nI and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well. (AEGISTHUS\nand CLYTEMNESTRA move towards the palace, as the CHORUS sullenly withdraws.)\nTHE END","title":"Agamemnon","type":"page"}