{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14417/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14417","id":"gutenberg_14417","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14417","summary":null,"tags":["Agamemnon, King of Mycenae (Mythological character) -- Drama","Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Classical Antiquity","Harvard Classics"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nAgamemnon\n\nby Aeschylus\n\nTRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE\n\nWITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY\nGILBERT MURRAY\nREGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\n\nTENTH THOUSAND\n\nLONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.\n\nRUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe sense of difficulty, and indeed of awe, with which a scholar\napproaches the task of translating the _Agamemnon_ depends directly on\nits greatness as poetry. It is in part a matter of diction. The\nlanguage of Aeschylus is an extraordinary thing, the syntax stiff and\nsimple, the vocabulary obscure, unexpected, and steeped in splendour.\nIts peculiarities cannot be disregarded, or the translation will be\nfalse in character. Yet not Milton himself could produce in English the\nsame great music, and a translator who should strive ambitiously to\nrepresent the complex effect of the original would clog his own powers\nof expression and strain his instrument to breaking. But, apart from\nthe diction in this narrower sense, there is a quality of atmosphere\nsurrounding the _Agamemnon_ which seems almost to defy reproduction in\nanother setting, because it depends in large measure on the position of\nthe play in the historical development of Greek literature.\n\nIf we accept the view that all Art to some extent, and Greek tragedy in\na very special degree, moves in its course of development from Religion\nto Entertainment, from a Service to a Performance, the _Agamemnon_\nseems to stand at a critical point where the balance of the two\nelements is near perfection. The drama has come fully to life, but the\nreligion has not yet faded to a formality. The _Agamemnon_ is not, like\nAeschylus\u2019 _Suppliant Women_, a statue half-hewn out of the rock. It is\na real play, showing clash of character and situation, suspense and\nmovement, psychological depth and subtlety. Yet it still remains\nsomething more than a play. Its atmosphere is not quite of this world.\nIn the long lyrics especially one feels that the guiding emotion is not\nthe entertainer\u2019s wish to thrill an audience, not even perhaps the pure\nartist\u2019s wish to create beauty, but something deeper and more\nprophetic, a passionate contemplation and expression of truth; though\nof course the truth in question is something felt rather than stated,\nsomething that pervades life, an eternal and majestic rhythm like the\nmovement of the stars.\n\nThus, if Longinus is right in defining Sublimity as \u201cthe ring, or\nresonance, of greatness of soul,\u201d one sees in part where the sublimity\nof the _Agamemnon_ comes from. And it is worth noting that the faults\nwhich some critics have found in the play are in harmony with this\nconclusion. For the sublimity that is rooted in religion tolerates some\nfaults and utterly refuses to tolerate others. The _Agamemnon_ may be\nslow in getting to work; it may be stiff with antique conventions. It\nnever approaches to being cheap or insincere or shallow or sentimental\nor showy. It never ceases to be genuinely a \u201ccriticism of life.\u201d The\ntheme which it treats, for instance, is a great theme in its own right;\nit is not a made-up story ingeniously handled.\n\nThe trilogy of the _Oresteia_, of which this play is the first part,\ncentres on the old and everlastingly unsolved problem of\n\nThe ancient blinded vengeance and the wrong that amendeth wrong.\n\nEvery wrong is justly punished; yet, as the world goes, every\npunishment becomes a new wrong, calling for fresh vengeance. And more;\nevery wrong turns out to be itself rooted in some wrong of old. It is\nnever gratuitous, never untempted by the working of Peitho\n(Persuasion), never merely wicked. The _Oresteia_ first shows the cycle\nof crime punished by crime which must be repunished, and then seeks for\nsome gleam of escape, some breaking of the endless chain of \u201cevil\nduty.\u201d In the old order of earth and heaven there was no such escape.\nEach blow called for the return blow and must do so _ad infinitum_.\nBut, according to Aeschylus, there is a new Ruler now in heaven, one\nwho has both sinned and suffered and thereby grown wise. He is Zeus the\nThird Power, Zeus the Saviour, and his gift to mankind is the ability\nthrough suffering to Learn (pp. 7 f.)\n\nAt the opening of the _Agamemnon_ we find Clytemnestra alienated from\nher husband and secretly befriended with his ancestral enemy,\nAigisthos. The air is heavy and throbbing with hate; hate which is evil\nbut has its due cause. Agamemnon, obeying the prophet Calchas, when the\nfleet lay storm-bound at Aulis, had given his own daughter, Iphigen\u00eea,\nas a human sacrifice. And if we ask how a sane man had consented to\nsuch an act, we are told of his gradual temptation; the deadly excuse\noffered by ancient superstition; and above all, the fact that he had\nalready inwardly accepted the great whole of which this horror was a\npart. At the first outset of his expedition against Troy there had\nappeared an omen, the bloody sign of two eagles devouring a mother-hare\nwith her unborn young\u2026. The question was thus put to the Kings and\ntheir prophet: Did they or did they not accept the sign, and wish to be\nthose Eagles? And they had answered Yes. They would have their\nvengeance, their full and extreme victory, and were ready to pay the\nprice. The sign once accepted, the prophet recoils from the\nconsequences which, in prophetic vision, he sees following therefrom:\nbut the decision has been taken, and the long tale of cruelty rolls on,\nculminating in the triumphant sack of Troy, which itself becomes not an\nassertion of Justice but a whirlwind of godless destruction. And\nthrough all these doings of fierce beasts and angry men the unseen Pity\nhas been alive and watching, the Artemis who \u201cabhors the Eagles\u2019\nfeast,\u201d the \u201cApollo or Pan or Zeus\u201d who hears the crying of the robbed\nvulture; nay, if even the Gods were deaf, the mere \u201cwrong of the dead\u201d\nat Troy might waken, groping for some retribution upon the \u201cSlayer of\nMany Men\u201d (pp. 15, 20).\n\nIf we ask why men are so blind, seeking their welfare thus through\nincessant evil, Aeschylus will tell us that the cause lies in the\ninfection of old sin, old cruelty. There is no doubt somewhere a\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f0c\u03c4\u03b7, a \u201cfirst blind deed of wrong,\u201d but in practice every\nwrong is the result of another. And the Children of Atreus are steeped\nto the lips in them. When the prophetess Cassandra, out of her first\nvague horror at the evil House, begins to grope towards some definite\nimage, first and most haunting comes the sound of the weeping of two\nlittle children, murdered long ago, in a feud that was not theirs. From\nthat point, more than any other, the Daemon or Genius of the House\u2014more\nthan its \u201cLuck,\u201d a little less than its Guardian Angel\u2014becomes an\nAlastor or embodied Curse, a \u201cRed Slayer\u201d which cries ever for peace\nand cleansing, but can seek them only in the same blind way, through\nvengeance, and, when that fails, then through more vengeance (p. 69).\n\nThis awful conception of a race intent upon its own wrongs, and blindly\ngroping towards the very terror it is trying to avoid, is typified, as\nit were, in the Cassandra story. That daughter of Priam was beloved by\nApollo, who gave her the power of true prophecy. In some way that we\nknow not, she broke her promise to the God; and, since his gift could\nnot be recalled, he added to it the curse that, while she should always\nforesee and foretell the truth, none should believe her. The Cassandra\nscene is a creation beyond praise or criticism. The old scholiast\nspeaks of the \u201cpity and amazement\u201d which it causes. The Elders who talk\nwith her wish to believe, they try to understand, they are really\nconvinced of Cassandra\u2019s powers. But the curse is too strong. The\nspecial thing which Cassandra tries again and again to say always\neludes them, and they can raise no finger to prevent the disaster\nhappening. And when it does happen they are, as they have described\nthemselves, weak and very old, \u201cdreams wandering in the daylight.\u201d\n\nThe characters of this play seem, in a sense, to arise out of the theme\nand consequently to have, amid all their dramatic solidity, a further\nsignificance which is almost symbolic. Cassandra is, as it were, the\nincarnation of that knowledge which Herodotus describes as the crown of\nsorrow, the knowledge which sees and warns and cannot help (Hdt. ix.\n16). Agamemnon himself, the King of Kings, triumphant and doomed, is a\nsymbol of pride and the fall of pride. We must not think of him as bad\nor specially cruel. The watchman loved him (ll. 34 f.), and the\nlamentations of the Elders over his death have a note of personal\naffection (pp. 66 ff.). But I suspect that Aeschylus, a believer in the\nmystic meaning of names, took the name Agamemnon to be a warning that\n\u1f0c\u03b3\u03b1 \u03bc\u03af\u03bc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9, \u201cthe unseen Wrath abides.\u201d _Ag\u00e2_, of course, is not exactly\nwrath; it is more like Nemesis, the feeling that something is \u1f04\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd,\n\u201ctoo much,\u201d the condemnation of _Hubris_ (pride or overgrowth) and of\nall things that are in excess. _Ag\u00e2_ is sometimes called \u201cthe jealousy\nof God,\u201d but such a translation is not happy. It is not the jealousy,\nnor even the indignation, of a personal God, but the profound\nrepudiation and reversal of Hubris which is the very law of the Cosmos.\nThrough all the triumph of the conqueror, this _Ag\u00e2_ abides.\n\nThe greatest and most human character of the whole play is\nClytemnestra. She is conceived on the grand Aeschylean scale, a scale\nwhich makes even Lady Macbeth and Beatrice Cenci seem small; she is\nmore the kinswoman of Brynhild. Yet she is full not only of character,\nbut of subtle psychology. She is the first and leading example of that\ntime-honoured ornament of the tragic stage, the sympathetic, or\nsemi-sympathetic, heroine-criminal. Aeschylus employs none of the\ndevices of later playwrights to make her interesting. He admits, of\ncourse, no approach to a love-scene; he uses no sophisms; but he does\nmake us see through Clytemnestra\u2019s eyes and feel through her passions.\nThe agony of silent prayer in which, if my conception is right, we\nfirst see her, helps to interpret her speeches when they come; but\nevery speech needs close study. She dare not speak sincerely or show\nher real feelings until Agamemnon is dead; and then she is practically\na mad woman.\n\nFor I think here that there is a point which has not been observed. It\nis that Clytemnestra is conceived as being really \u201cpossessed\u201d by the\nDaemon of the House when she commits her crime. Her statements on p. 69\nare not empty metaphor. A careful study of the scene after the murder\nwill show that she appears first \u201cpossessed\u201d and almost insane with\ntriumph, utterly dominating the Elders and leaving them no power to\nanswer. Then gradually the unnatural force dies out from her. The deed\nthat was first an ecstasy of delight becomes an \u201caffliction\u201d (pp. 72,\n76). The strength that defied the world flags and changes into a\nlonging for peace. She has done her work. She has purified the House of\nits madness; now let her go away and live out her life in quiet. When\nAigisthos appears, and the scene suddenly becomes filled with the\nwrangling of common men, Clytemnestra fades into a long silence, from\nwhich she only emerges at the very end of the drama to pray again for\nPeace, and, strangest of all, to utter the entreaty: \u201cLet us not stain\nourselves with blood!\u201d The splash of her husband\u2019s blood was visible on\nher face at the time. Had she in her trance-like state actually\nforgotten, or did she, even then, not feel that particular blood to be\na stain?\n\nTo some readers it will seem a sort of irrelevance, or at least a\nblurring of the dramatic edge of this tragedy, to observe that the\ntheme on which it is founded was itself the central theme both of Greek\nTragedy and of Greek Religion. The fall of Pride, the avenging of wrong\nby wrong, is no new subject selected by Aeschylus. It forms both the\ncommonest burden of the moralising lyrics in Greek tragedy and even of\nthe tragic myths themselves; and recent writers have shown how the same\nidea touches the very heart of the traditional Greek religion. \u201cThe\nlife of the Year-Daemon, who lies at the root of so many Greek gods and\nheroes, is normally a story of Pride and Punishment. Each year arrives,\nwaxes great, commits the sin of Hubris and must therefore die. It is\nthe way of all Life. As an early philosopher expresses it, \u201cAll things\npay retribution for their injustice one to another according to the\nordinance of Time.\u201d[1]\n\nTo me this consideration actually increases the interest and beauty of\nthe _Oresteia_, because it increases its greatness. The majestic art,\nthe creative genius, the instinctive eloquence of these plays\u2014that\neloquence which is the mere despair of a translator\u2014are all devoted to\nthe expression of something which Aeschylus felt to be of tremendous\nimport. It was not his discovery; but it was a truth of which he had an\nintense realization. It had become something which he must with all his\nstrength bring to expression before he died, not in a spirit of\nself-assertion or of argument, like a discoverer, but as one devoted to\nsomething higher and greater than himself, in the spirit of an\ninterpreter or prophet.\n\n [1] See my _Four Stages of Greek Religion_, p. 47. Cornford, _From\n Religion to Philosophy_, Chapter I. See also the fine pages on the\n Agamemnon in the same writer\u2019s _Thucydides Mythistoricus_, pp. 144,\n ff. (E. Arnold 1907). G. M.\n\n\n\n\nAGAMEMNON\n\n\nCHARACTERS IN THE PLAY\n\nAGAMEMNON, _son of Atreus and King of Argos and Mycenae;\nCommander-in-Chief of the Greek armies in the War against Troy._\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA, _daughter of Tyndareus, sister of Helen; wife to\nAgamemnon._\n\nAIGISTHOS, _son of Thyestes, cousin and blood-enemy to Agamemnon, lover\nto Clytemnestra._\n\nCASSANDRA, _daughter of Priam, King of Troy, a prophetess; now slave to\nAgamemnon._\n\nA WATCHMAN.\nA HERALD.\nCHORUS of Argive Elders, faithful to AGAMEMNON.\n\nCHARACTERS MENTIONED IN THE PLAY\n\nMENEL\u00c2\u00dcS, _brother to Agamemnon, husband of Helen, and King of Sparta.\nThe two sons of Atreus are called the Atreidae._\n\nHELEN, _most beautiful of women; daughter of Tyndareus, wife to\n_MENEL\u00c2\u00dcS_; beloved and carried off by Paris._\n\nPARIS, _son of Priam, King of Troy, lover of Helen.\nAlso called_ ALEXANDER.\n\nPRIAM, _the aged King of Troy._\n\n_The Greeks are also referred to as Achaians, Argives, Danaans; Troy is\nalso called Ilion._\n\n_The play was produced in the archonship of Philocles_ (458 B.C.). _The\nfirst prize was won by Aeschylus with the \u201cAgamemnon\u201d,\n\u201cLibation-Bearers\u201d, \u201cEumenides\u201d, and the Satyr Play \u201cProteus\u201d_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE AGAMEMNON\n\n\n_The Scene represents a space in front of the Palace of Agamemnon in\nArgos, with an Altar of Zeus in the centre and many other altars at the\nsides. On a high terrace of the roof stands a_ WATCHMAN. _It is night_.\n\nWATCHMAN.\nThis waste of year-long vigil I have prayed\nGod for some respite, watching elbow-stayed,\nAs sleuthhounds watch, above the Atreidae\u2019s hall,\nTill well I know yon midnight festival\nOf swarming stars, and them that lonely go,\nBearers to man of summer and of snow,\nGreat lords and shining, throned in heavenly fire.\nAnd still I await the sign, the beacon pyre\nThat bears Troy\u2019s capture on a voice of flame\nShouting o\u2019erseas. So surely to her aim\nCleaveth a woman\u2019s heart, man-passioned!\nAnd when I turn me to my bed\u2014my bed\nDew-drenched and dark and stumbling, to which near\nCometh no dream nor sleep, but alway Fear\nBreathes round it, warning, lest an eye once fain\nTo close may close too well to wake again;\nThink I perchance to sing or troll a tune\nFor medicine against sleep, the music soon\nChanges to sighing for the tale untold\nOf this house, not well mastered as of old.\nHowbeit, may God yet send us rest, and light\nThe flame of good news flashed across the night.\n\n[_He is silent, watching. Suddenly at a distance in the night there is\na glimmer of fire, increasing presently to a blaze._]\n\nHa!\nO kindler of the dark, O daylight birth\nOf dawn and dancing upon Argive earth\nFor this great end! All hail!\u2014What ho, within!\nWhat ho! Bear word to Agamemnon\u2019s queen\nTo rise, like dawn, and lift in answer strong\nTo this glad lamp her women\u2019s triumph-song,\nIf verily, verily, Ilion\u2019s citadel\nIs fallen, as yon beacons flaming tell.\nAnd I myself will tread the dance before\nAll others; for my master\u2019s dice I score\nGood, and mine own to-night three sixes plain.\n\n[_Lights begin to show in the Palace_.]\n\nOh, good or ill, my hand shall clasp again\nMy dear lord\u2019s hand, returning! Beyond that\nI speak not. A great ox hath laid his weight\nAcross my tongue. But these stone walls know well,\nIf stones had speech, what tale were theirs to tell.\nFor me, to him that knoweth I can yet\nSpeak; if another questions I forget.\n\n[_Exit into the Palace. The women\u2019s \u201cOlol\u00fbg\u00ea\u201d or triumph-cry, is heard\nwithin and then repeated again and again further off in the City.\nHandmaids and Attendants come from the Palace, bearing torches, with\nwhich they kindle incense on the altars. Among them comes_\nCLYTEMNESTRA, _who throws herself on her knees at the central Altar in\nan agony of prayer._]\n\n[_Presently from the further side of the open space appear the_ CHORUS\n_of_ ELDERS _and move gradually into position in front of the Palace.\nThe day begins to dawn._]\n\nCHORUS.\nTen years since Ilion\u2019s righteous foes,\nThe Atreidae strong,\nMenela\u00fcs and eke Agamemnon arose,\nTwo thrones, two sceptres, yoked of God;\nAnd a thousand galleys of Argos trod\nThe seas for the righting of wrong;\nAnd wrath of battle about them cried,\nAs vultures cry,\nWhose nest is plundered, and up they fly\nIn anguish lonely, eddying wide,\nGreat wings like oars in the waste of sky,\nTheir task gone from them, no more to keep\nWatch o\u2019er the vulture babes asleep.\nBut One there is who heareth on high\nSome Pan or Zeus, some lost Apollo\u2014\nThat keen bird-throated suffering cry\nOf the stranger wronged in God\u2019s own sky;\nAnd sendeth down, for the law transgressed,\nThe Wrath of the Feet that follow.\n\nSo Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend,\nZeus who Prevaileth, in after quest\nFor One Belov\u00e8d by Many Men\nOn Paris sent the Atreidae twain;\nYea, sent him dances before the end\nFor his bridal cheer,\nWrestlings heavy and limbs forespent\nFor Greek and Trojan, the knee earth-bent,\nThe bloody dust and the broken spear.\nHe knoweth, that which is here is here,\nAnd that which Shall Be followeth near;\nHe seeketh God with a great desire,\nHe heaps his gifts, he essays his pyre\nWith torch below and with oil above,\nWith tears, but never the wrath shall move\nOf the Altar cold that rejects his fire.\n\nWe saw the Avengers go that day,\nAnd they left us here; for our flesh is old\nAnd serveth not; and these staves uphold\nA strength like the strength of a child at play.\nFor the sap that springs in the young man\u2019s hand\nAnd the valour of age, they have left the land.\nAnd the passing old, while the dead leaf blows\nAnd the old staff gropeth his three-foot way,\nWeak as a babe and alone he goes,\nA dream left wandering in the day.\n\n[_Coming near the Central Altar they see_ CLYTEMNESTRA, _who is still\nrapt in prayer_.]\n\nBut thou, O daughter of Tyndareus,\nQueen Clytemnestra, what need? What news?\nWhat tale or tiding hath stirred thy mood\nTo send forth word upon all our ways\nFor incensed worship? Of every god\nThat guards the city, the deep, the high,\nGods of the mart, gods of the sky,\nThe altars blaze.\nOne here, one there,\nTo the skyey night the firebrands flare,\nDrunk with the soft and guileless spell\nOf balm of kings from the inmost cell.\nTell, O Queen, and reject us not,\nAll that can or that may be told,\nAnd healer be to this aching thought,\nWhich one time hovereth, evil-cold,\nAnd then from the fires thou kindlest\nWill Hope be kindled, and hungry Care\nFall back for a little while, nor tear\nThe heart that beateth below my breast.\n\n[CLYTEMNESTRA _rises silently, as though unconscious of their presence,\nand goes into the House. The_ CHORUS _take position and begin their\nfirst Stasimon, or Standing-song,_]\n\nCHORUS.\n(_The sign seen on the way; Eagles tearing a hare with young_.)\n\nIt is ours to tell of the Sign of the War-way given,\nTo men more strong,\n(For a life that is kin unto ours yet breathes from heaven\nA spell, a Strength of Song:)\nHow the twin-throned Might of Achaia, one Crown divided\nAbove all Greeks that are,\nWith avenging hand and spear upon Troy was guided\nBy the Bird of War.\n\u2019Twas a King among birds to each of the Kings of the Sea,\nOne Eagle black, one black but of fire-white tail,\nBy the House, on the Spear-hand, in station that all might see;\nAnd they tore a hare, and the life in her womb that grew,\nYea, the life unlived and the races unrun they slew.\n_Sorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail_!\n\n(_How Calchas read the sign; his Vision of the Future_.)\n\nAnd the War-seer wise, as he looked on the Atreid Yoke\nTwain-tempered, knew\nThose fierce hare-renders the lords of his host; and spoke,\nReading the omen true.\n\u201cAt the last, the last, this Hunt hunteth Ilion down,\nYea, and before the wall\nViolent division the fulness of land and town\nShall waste withal;\nIf only God\u2019s eye gloom not against our gates,\nAnd the great War-curb of Troy, fore-smitten, fail.\nFor Pity lives, and those wing\u00e8d Hounds she hates,\nWhich tore in the Trembler\u2019s body the unborn beast.\nAnd Artemis abhorreth the eagles\u2019 feast.\u201d\n_Sorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail_!\n\n (_He prays to Artemis to grant the fulfilment of the Sign, but, as his\n vision increases, he is afraid and calls on Paian, the Healer, to hold\n her back_.)\n\n\u201cThou beautiful One, thou tender lover\nOf the dewy breath of the Lion\u2019s child;\nThou the delight, through den and cover,\nOf the young life at the breast of the wild,\nYet, oh, fulfill, fulfill The sign of the Eagles\u2019 Kill!\nBe the vision accepted, albeit horrible\u2026.\nBut I-\u00ea, I-\u00ea! Stay her, O Paian, stay!\nFor lo, upon other evil her heart she setteth,\nLong wastes of wind, held ship and unventured sea,\nOn, on, till another Shedding of Blood be wrought:\nThey kill but feast not; they pray not; the law is broken;\nStrife in the flesh, and the bride she obeyeth not,\nAnd beyond, beyond, there abideth in wrath reawoken\u2014\nIt plotteth, it haunteth the house, yea, it never forgetteth\u2014\nWrath for a child to be.\u201d\nSo Calchas, reading the wayside eagles\u2019 sign,\nSpake to the Kings, blessings and words of bale;\nAnd like his song be thine,\n_Sorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail_!\n\n(_Such religion belongs to old and barbarous gods, and brings no peace.\nI turn to Zeus, who has shown man how to Learn by Suffering_.)\n\nZeus! Zeus, whate\u2019er He be,\nIf this name He love to hear\nThis He shall be called of me.\nSearching earth and sea and air\n\nRefuge nowhere can I find\nSave Him only, if my mind\nWill cast off before it die\nThe burden of this vanity.\n\nOne there was who reigned of old,\nBig with wrath to brave and blast,\nLo, his name is no more told!\nAnd who followed met at last\nHis Third-thrower, and is gone.\nOnly they whose hearts have known\nZeus, the Conqueror and the Friend,\nThey shall win their vision\u2019s end;\n\nZeus the Guide, who made man turn\nThought-ward, Zeus, who did ordain\nMan by Suffering shall Learn.\nSo the heart of him, again\nAching with remembered pain,\nBleeds and sleepeth not, until\nWisdom comes against his will.\n\u2019Tis the gift of One by strife\nLifted to the throne of life.\n\n(AGAMEMNON _accepted the sign. Then came long delay, and storm while\nthe fleet lay at Aulis._)\n\nSo that day the Elder Lord,\nMarshal of the Achaian ships,\nStrove not with the prophet\u2019s word,\nBowed him to his fate\u2019s eclipse,\nWhen with empty jars and lips\nParched and seas impassable\nFate on that Greek army fell,\nFronting Chalcis as it lay,\nBy Aulis in the swirling bay.\n\n(_Till at last Calchas answered that Artemis was wroth and demanded the\ndeath of_ AGAMEMNON\u2019S _daughter. The King\u2019s doubt and grief_.)\n\nAnd winds, winds blew from Strymon River,\nUnharboured, starving, winds of waste endeavour,\nMan-blinding, pitiless to cord and bulwark,\nAnd the waste of days was made long, more long,\nTill the flower of Argos was aghast and withered;\nThen through the storm rose the War-seer\u2019s song,\nAnd told of medicine that should tame the tempest,\nBut bow the Princes to a direr wrong.\nThen \u201cArtemis\u201d he whispered, he named the name;\nAnd the brother Kings they shook in the hearts of them,\nAnd smote on the earth their staves, and the tears came.\n\nBut the King, the elder, hath found voice and spoken:\n\u201cA heavy doom, sure, if God\u2019s will were broken;\nBut to slay mine own child, who my house delighteth,\nIs that not heavy? That her blood should flow\nOn her father\u2019s hand, hard beside an altar?\nMy path is sorrow wheresoe\u2019er I go.\nShall Agamemnon fail his ships and people,\nAnd the hosts of Hellas melt as melts the snow?\nThey cry, they thirst, for a death that shall break the spell,\nFor a Virgin\u2019s blood: \u2019tis a rite of old, men tell.\nAnd they burn with longing.\u2014O God may the end be well!\u201d\n\n(_But ambition drove him, till he consented to the sin of slaying his\ndaughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrifice._)\n\nTo the yoke of Must-Be he bowed him slowly,\nAnd a strange wind within his bosom tossed,\nA wind of dark thought, unclean, unholy;\nAnd he rose up, daring to the uttermost.\nFor men are boldened by a Blindness, straying\nToward base desire, which brings grief hereafter,\nYea, and itself is grief;\nSo this man hardened to his own child\u2019s slaying,\nAs help to avenge him for a woman\u2019s laughter\nAnd bring his ships relief!\n\nHer \u201cFather, Father,\u201d her sad cry that lingered,\nHer virgin heart\u2019s breath they held all as naught,\nThose bronze-clad witnesses and battle-hungered;\nAnd there they prayed, and when the prayer was wrought\nHe charged the young men to uplift and bind her,\nAs ye lift a wild kid, high above the altar,\nFierce-huddling forward, fallen, clinging sore\nTo the robe that wrapt her; yea, he bids them hinder\nThe sweet mouth\u2019s utterance, the cries that falter,\n\u2014His curse for evermore!\u2014\n\nWith violence and a curb\u2019s voiceless wrath.\nHer stole of saffron then to the ground she threw,\nAnd her eye with an arrow of pity found its path\nTo each man\u2019s heart that slew:\nA face in a picture, striving amazedly;\nThe little maid who danced at her father\u2019s board,\nThe innocent voice man\u2019s love came never nigh,\nWho joined to his her little paean-cry\nWhen the third cup was poured\u2026.\n\nWhat came thereafter I saw not neither tell.\nBut the craft of Calchas failed not.\u2014\u2019Tis written, He\nWho Suffereth Shall Learn; the law holdeth well.\nAnd that which is to be,\nYe will know at last; why weep before the hour?\nFor come it shall, as out of darkness dawn.\nOnly may good from all this evil flower;\nSo prays this Heart of Argos, this frail tower\nGuarding the land alone.\n\n[_As they cease,_ CLYTEMNESTRA _comes from the Palace with Attendants.\nShe has finished her prayer and sacrifice, and is now wrought up to\nface the meeting with her husband. The Leader approaches her_.]\n\nLEADER.\nBefore thy state, O Queen, I bow mine eyes.\n\u2019Tis written, when the man\u2019s throne empty lies,\nThe woman shall be honoured.\u2014Hast thou heard\nSome tiding sure? Or is it Hope, hath stirred\nTo fire these altars? Dearly though we seek\nTo learn, \u2019tis thine to speak or not to speak.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nGlad-voiced, the old saw telleth, comes this morn,\nThe Star-child of a dancing midnight born,\nAnd beareth to thine ear a word of joy\nBeyond all hope: the Greek hath taken Troy.\n\nLEADER.\nHow?\nThy word flies past me, being incredible.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nIlion is ours. No riddling tale I tell.\n\nLEADER.\nSuch joy comes knocking at the gate of tears.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAye, \u2019tis a faithful heart that eye declares.\n\nLEADER.\nWhat warrant hast thou? Is there proof of this?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nThere is; unless a God hath lied there is.\n\nLEADER.\nSome dream-shape came to thee in speaking guise?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nWho deemeth me a dupe of drowsing eyes?\n\nLEADER.\nSome word within that hovereth without wings?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAm I a child to hearken to such things?\n\nLEADER.\nTroy fallen?\u2014But how long? When fell she, say?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nThe very night that mothered this new day.\n\nLEADER.\nAnd who of heralds with such fury came?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nA Fire-god, from Mount Ida scattering flame.\nWhence starting, beacon after beacon burst\nIn flaming message hitherward. Ida first\nTold Hermes\u2019 Lemnian Rock, whose answering sign\nWas caught by towering Athos, the divine,\nWith pines immense\u2014yea, fishes of the night\nSwam skyward, drunken with that leaping light,\nWhich swelled like some strange sun, till dim and far\nMakistos\u2019 watchmen marked a glimmering star;\nThey, nowise loath nor idly slumber-won,\nSpring up to hurl the fiery message on,\nAnd a far light beyond the Eur\u00eepus tells\nThat word hath reached Messapion\u2019s sentinels.\nThey beaconed back, then onward with a high\nHeap of dead heather flaming to the sky.\nAnd onward still, not failing nor aswoon,\nAcross the As\u00f4pus like a beaming moon\nThe great word leapt, and on Kithairon\u2019s height\nUproused a new relay of racing light.\nHis watchers knew the wandering flame, nor hid\nTheir welcome, burning higher than was bid.\nOut over Lake Gorg\u00f4pis then it floats,\nTo Aigiplanctos, waking the wild goats,\nCrying for \u201cFire, more Fire!\u201d And fire was reared,\nStintless and high, a stormy streaming beard,\nThat waved in flame beyond the promontory\nRock-ridged, that watches the Saronian sea,\nKindling the night: then one short swoop to catch\nThe Spider\u2019s Crag, our city\u2019s tower of watch;\nWhence hither to the Atreidae\u2019s roof it came,\nA light true-fathered of Idaean flame.\nTorch-bearer after torch-bearer, behold\nThe tale thereof in stations manifold,\nEach one by each made perfect ere it passed,\nAnd Victory in the first as in the last.\nThese be my proofs and tokens that my lord\nFrom Troy hath spoke to me a burning word.\n\nLEADER.\nWoman, speak on. Hereafter shall my prayer\nBe raised to God; now let me only hear,\nAgain and full, the marvel and the joy.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nNow, even now, the Achaian holdeth Troy!\nMethinks there is a crying in her streets\nThat makes no concord. When sweet unguent meets\nWith vinegar in one phial, I warrant none\nShall lay those wranglers lovingly at one.\nSo conquerors and conquered shalt thou hear,\nTwo sundered tones, two lives of joy or fear.\nHere women in the dust about their slain,\nHusbands or brethren, and by dead old men\nPale children who shall never more be free,\nFor all they loved on earth cry desolately.\nAnd hard beside them war-stained Greeks, whom stark\nBattle and then long searching through the dark\nHath gathered, ravenous, in the dawn, to feast\nAt last on all the plenty Troy possessed,\nNo portion in that feast nor ordinance,\nBut each man clutching at the prize of chance.\nAye, there at last under good roofs they lie\nOf men spear-quelled, no frosts beneath the sky,\nNo watches more, no bitter moony dew\u2026.\nHow bless\u00e8d they will sleep the whole night through!\nOh, if these days they keep them free from sin\nToward Ilion\u2019s conquered shrines and Them within\nWho watch unconquered, maybe not again\nThe smiter shall be smit, the taker ta\u2019en.\nMay God but grant there fall not on that host\nThe greed of gold that maddeneth and the lust\nTo spoil inviolate things! But half the race\nIs run which windeth back to home and peace.\nYea, though of God they pass unchalleng\u00e8d,\nMethinks the wound of all those desolate dead\nMight waken, groping for its will\u2026.\nYe hear\nA woman\u2019s word, belike a woman\u2019s fear.\nMay good but conquer in the last incline\nOf the balance! Of all prayers that prayer is mine.\n\nLEADER.\nO Woman, like a man faithful and wise\nThou speakest. I accept thy testimonies\nAnd turn to God with praising, for a gain\nIs won this day that pays for all our pain.\n\n[CLYTEMNESTRA _returns to the Palace. The_ CHORUS _take up their\nposition for the Second Stasimon._]\n\nAN ELDER.\nO Zeus, All-ruler, and Night the Aid,\nGainer of glories, and hast thou thrown\nOver the towers of Ilion\nThy net close-laid,\nThat none so nimble and none so tall\nShall escape withal\nThe snare of the slaver that claspeth all?\n\nANOTHER.\nAnd Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend\nI also praise, who hath wrought this end.\nLong since on Paris his shaft he drew,\nAnd hath aim\u00e8d true,\nNot too soon falling nor yet too far,\nThe fire of the avenging star.\n\nCHORUS.\n(_This is God\u2019s judgement upon Troy. May it not be too fierce! Gold\ncannot save one who spurneth Justice_.)\n\nThe stroke of Zeus hath found them! Clear this day\nThe tale, and plain to trace.\nHe judged, and Troy hath fallen.\u2014And have men said\nThat God not deigns to mark man\u2019s hardihead,\nTrampling to earth the grace\nOf holy and delicate things?\u2014Sin lies that way.\nFor visibly Pride doth breed its own return\nOn prideful men, who, when their houses swell\nWith happy wealth, breathe ever wrath and blood.\nYet not too fierce let the due vengeance burn;\nOnly as deemeth well\nOne wise of mood.\n\nNever shall state nor gold\nShelter his heart from aching\nWhoso the Altar of Justice old\nSpurneth to Night unwaking.\n\n(_The Sinner suffers in his longing till at last Temptation overcomes\nhim; as longing for Helen overcame Paris._)\n\nThe tempting of misery forceth him, the dread\nChild of fore-scheming Woe!\nAnd help is vain; the fell desire within\nIs veil\u00e8d not, but shineth bright like Sin:\nAnd as false gold will show\nBlack where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade\nHis honour in God\u2019s ordeal. Like a child,\nForgetting all, he hath chased his wing\u00e8d bird,\nAnd planted amid his people a sharp thorn.\nAnd no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard,\nThe man so base-beguiled\nThey cast to scorn.\n\nParis to Argos came;\nLove of a woman led him;\nSo God\u2019s altar he brought to shame,\nRobbing the hand that fed him.\n\n(_Helen\u2019s flight; the visions seen by the King\u2019s seers; the phantom of\nHelen and the King\u2019s grief._)\n\nShe hath left among her people a noise of shield and sword,\nA tramp of men armed where the long ships are moored;\nShe hath ta\u2019en in her goings Desolation as a dower;\nShe hath stept, stept quickly, through the great gated Tower,\nAnd the thing that could not be, it hath been!\nAnd the Seers they saw visions, and they spoke of strange ill:\n\u201cA Palace, a Palace; and a great King thereof:\nA bed, a bed empty, that was once pressed in love:\nAnd thou, thou, what art thou? Let us be, thou so still,\nBeyond wrath, beyond beseeching, to the lips reft of thee!\u201d\nFor she whom he desireth is beyond the deep sea,\nAnd a ghost in his castle shall be queen.\n\nImages in sweet guise\nCarven shall move him never,\nWhere is Love amid empty eyes?\nGone, gone for ever!\n\n(_His dreams and his suffering; but the War that he made caused greater\nand wider suffering._)\n\nBut a shape that is a dream, \u2019mid the phantoms of the night,\nCometh near, full of tears, bringing vain vain delight:\nFor in vain when, desiring, he can feel the joy\u2019s breath\n\u2014Nevermore! Nevermore!\u2014from his arms it vanisheth,\nOn wings down the pathways of sleep.\n\nIn the mid castle hall, on the hearthstone of the Kings,\nThese griefs there be, and griefs passing these,\nBut in each man\u2019s dwelling of the host that sailed the seas,\nA sad woman waits; she has thoughts of many things,\nAnd patience in her heart lieth deep.\n\nKnoweth she them she sent,\nKnoweth she? Lo, returning,\nComes in stead of the man that went\nArmour and dust of burning.\n\n(_The return of the funeral urns; the murmurs of the People._)\n\nAnd the gold-changer, Ares, who changeth quick for dead,\nWho poiseth his scale in the striving of the spears,\nBack from Troy sendeth dust, heavy dust, wet with tears,\nSendeth ashes with men\u2019s names in his urns neatly spread.\nAnd they weep over the men, and they praise them one by one,\nHow this was a wise fighter, and this nobly-slain\u2014\n\u201cFighting to win back another\u2019s wife!\u201d\nTill a murmur is begun,\nAnd there steals an angry pain\nAgainst Kings too forward in the strife.\n\nThere by Ilion\u2019s gate\nMany a soldier sleepeth,\nYoung men beautiful; fast in hate\nTroy her conqueror keepeth.\n\n(_For the Shedder of Blood is in great peril, and not unmarked by God.\nMay I never be a Sacker of Cities!_)\n\nBut the rumour of the People, it is heavy, it is chill;\nAnd tho\u2019 no curse be spoken, like a curse doth it brood;\nAnd my heart waits some tiding which the dark holdeth still,\nFor of God not unmarked is the shedder of much blood.\nAnd who conquers beyond right \u2026 Lo, the life of man decays;\nThere be Watchers dim his light in the wasting of the years;\nHe falls, he is forgotten, and hope dies.\nThere is peril in the praise\nOver-praised that he hears;\nFor the thunder it is hurled from God\u2019s eyes.\n\nGlory that breedeth strife,\nPride of the Sacker of Cities;\nYea, and the conquered captive\u2019s life,\nSpare me, O God of Pities!\n\nDIVERS ELDERS.\n\u2014The fire of good tidings it hath sped the city through,\nBut who knows if a god mocketh? Or who knows if all be true?\n\u2019Twere the fashion of a child,\nOr a brain dream-beguiled,\nTo be kindled by the first\nTorch\u2019s message as it burst,\nAnd thereafter, as it dies, to die too.\n\n\u2014\u2019Tis like a woman\u2019s sceptre, to ordain\nWelcome to joy before the end is plain!\n\n\u2014Too lightly opened are a woman\u2019s ears;\nHer fence downtrod by many trespassers,\nAnd quickly crossed; but quickly lost\nThe burden of a woman\u2019s hopes or fears.\n\n[_Here a break occurs in the action, like the descent of the curtain in\na modern theatre. A space of some days is assumed to have passed and we\nfind the Elders again assembled_.]\n\nLEADER.\nSoon surely shall we read the message right;\nWere fire and beacon-call and lamps of light\nTrue speakers, or but happy lights, that seem\nAnd are not, like sweet voices in a dream.\nI see a Herald yonder by the shore,\nShadowed with olive sprays. And from his sore\nRent raiment cries a witness from afar,\nDry Dust, born brother to the Mire of war,\nThat mute he comes not, neither through the smoke\nOf mountain forests shall his tale be spoke;\nBut either shouting for a joyful day,\nOr else\u2026. But other thoughts I cast away.\nAs good hath dawned, may good shine on, we pray!\n\n\u2014And whoso for this City prayeth aught\nElse, let him reap the harvest of his thought!\n\n[_Enter the_ HERALD, _running. His garments are torn and war-stained.\nHe falls upon his knees and kisses the Earth, and salutes each Altar in\nturn._]\n\nHERALD.\nLand of my fathers! Argos! Am I here \u2026\nHome, home at this tenth shining of the year,\nAnd all Hope\u2019s anchors broken save this one!\nFor scarcely dared I dream, here in mine own\nArgos at last to fold me to my rest\u2026.\nBut now\u2014All Hail, O Earth! O Sunlight blest!\nAnd Zeus Most High!\n\n[_Checking himself as he sees the altar of Apollo._]\n\nAnd thou, O Pythian Lord;\nNo more on us be thy swift arrows poured!\nBeside Scamander well we learned how true\nThy hate is. Oh, as thou art Healer too,\nHeal us! As thou art Saviour of the Lost,\nSave also us, Apollo, being so tossed\nWith tempest! \u2026 All ye Daemons of the Pale!\nAnd Hermes! Hermes, mine own guardian, hail!\nHerald beloved, to whom all heralds bow\u2026.\nYe Bless\u00e8d Dead that sent us, receive now\nIn love your children whom the spear hath spared.\nO House of Kings, O roof-tree thrice-endeared,\nO solemn thrones! O gods that face the sun!\nNow, now, if ever in the days foregone,\nAfter these many years, with eyes that burn,\nGive hail and glory to your King\u2019s return!\nFor Agamemnon cometh! A great light\nCometh to men and gods out of the night.\nGrand greeting give him\u2014aye, it need be grand\u2014\nWho, God\u2019s avenging mattock in his hand,\nHath wrecked Troy\u2019s towers and digged her soil beneath,\nTill her gods\u2019 houses, they are things of death;\nHer altars waste, and blasted every seed\nWhence life might rise! So perfect is his deed,\nSo dire the yoke on Ilion he hath cast,\nThe first Atreides, King of Kings at last,\nAnd happy among men! To whom we give\nHonour most high above all things that live.\nFor Paris nor his guilty land can score\nThe deed they wrought above the pain they bore.\n\u201cSpoiler and thief,\u201d he heard God\u2019s judgement pass;\nWhereby he lost his plunder, and like grass\nMowed down his father\u2019s house and all his land;\nAnd Troy pays twofold for the sin she planned.\n\nLEADER.\nBe glad, thou Herald of the Greek from Troy!\n\nHERALD.\nSo glad, I am ready, if God will, to die!\n\nLEADER.\nDid love of this land work thee such distress?\n\nHERALD.\nThe tears stand in mine eyes for happiness.\n\nLEADER.\nSweet sorrow was it, then, that on you fell.\n\nHERALD.\nHow sweet? I cannot read thy parable.\n\nLEADER.\nTo pine again for them that loved you true.\n\nHERALD.\nDid ye then pine for us, as we for you?\n\nLEADER.\nThe whole land\u2019s heart was dark, and groaned for thee.\n\nHERALD.\nDark? For what cause? Why should such darkness be?\n\nLEADER.\nSilence in wrong is our best medicine here.\n\nHERALD.\nYour kings were gone. What others need you fear?\n\nLEADER.\n\u2019Tis past! Like thee now, I could gladly die.\n\nHERALD.\nEven so! \u2019Tis past, and all is victory.\nAnd, for our life in those long years, there were\nDoubtless some grievous days, and some were fair.\nWho but a god goes woundless all his way?\u2026.\nOh, could I tell the sick toil of the day,\nThe evil nights, scant decks ill-blanketed;\nThe rage and cursing when our daily bread\nCame not! And then on land \u2019twas worse than all.\nOur quarters close beneath the enemy\u2019s wall;\nAnd rain\u2014and from the ground the river dew\u2014\nWet, always wet! Into our clothes it grew,\nPlague-like, and bred foul beasts in every hair.\nWould I could tell how ghastly midwinter\nStole down from Ida till the birds dropped dead!\nOr the still heat, when on his noonday bed\nThe breathless blue sea sank without a wave!\u2026.\nWhy think of it? They are past and in the grave,\nAll those long troubles. For I think the slain\nCare little if they sleep or rise again;\nAnd we, the living, wherefore should we ache\nWith counting all our lost ones, till we wake\nThe old malignant fortunes? If Good-bye\nComes from their side, Why, let them go, say I.\nSurely for us, who live, good doth prevail\nUnchallenged, with no wavering of the scale;\nWherefore we vaunt unto these shining skies,\nAs wide o\u2019er sea and land our glory flies:\n\u201cBy men of Argolis who conquered Troy,\nThese spoils, a memory and an ancient joy,\nAre nailed in the gods\u2019 houses throughout Greece.\u201d\nWhich whoso readeth shall with praise increase\nOur land, our kings, and God\u2019s grace manifold\nWhich made these marvels be.\u2014My tale is told.\n\nLEADER.\nIndeed thou conquerest me. Men say, the light\nIn old men\u2019s eyes yet serves to learn aright.\nBut Clytemnestra and the House should hear\nThese tidings first, though I their health may share.\n\n[_During the last words_ CLYTEMNESTRA _has entered from the Palace_.]\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nLong since I lifted up my voice in joy,\nWhen the first messenger from flaming Troy\nSpake through the dark of sack and overthrow.\nAnd mockers chid me: \u201cBecause beacons show\nOn the hills, must Troy be fallen? Quickly born\nAre women\u2019s hopes!\u201d Aye, many did me scorn;\nYet gave I sacrifice; and by my word\nThrough all the city our woman\u2019s cry was heard,\nLifted in blessing round the seats of God,\nAnd slumbrous incense o\u2019er the altars glowed\nIn fragrance.\nAnd for thee, what need to tell\nThy further tale? My lord himself shall well\nInstruct me. Yet, to give my lord and king\nAll reverent greeting at his homecoming\u2014\nWhat dearer dawn on woman\u2019s eyes can flame\nThan this, which casteth wide her gate to acclaim\nThe husband whom God leadeth safe from war?\u2014\nGo, bear my lord this prayer: That fast and far\nHe haste him to this town which loves his name;\nAnd in his castle may he find the same\nWife that he left, a watchdog of the hall,\nTrue to one voice and fierce to others all;\nA body and soul unchanged, no seal of his\nBroke in the waiting years.\u2014No thought of ease\nNor joy from other men hath touched my soul,\nNor shall touch, until bronze be dyed like wool.\nA boast so faithful and so plain, I wot,\nSpoke by a royal Queen doth shame her not.\n\n[_Exit_ CLYTEMNESTRA.]\n\nLEADER.\nLet thine ear mark her message. \u2019Tis of fair\nSeeming, and craves a clear interpreter\u2026.\nBut, Herald, I would ask thee; tell me true\nOf Menela\u00fcs. Shall he come with you,\nOur land\u2019s belov\u00e8d crown, untouched of ill?\n\nHERALD.\nI know not how to speak false words of weal\nFor friends to reap thereof a harvest true.\n\nLEADER.\nCanst speak of truth with comfort joined? Those two\nOnce parted, \u2019tis a gulf not lightly crossed.\n\nHERALD.\nYour king is vanished from the Achaian host,\nHe and his ship! Such comfort have I brought.\n\nLEADER.\nSailed he alone from Troy? Or was he caught\nBy storms in the midst of you, and swept away?\n\nHERALD.\nThou hast hit the truth; good marksman, as men say!\nAnd long to suffer is but brief to tell.\n\nLEADER.\nHow ran the sailors\u2019 talk? Did there prevail\nOne rumour, showing him alive or dead?\n\nHERALD.\nNone knoweth, none hath tiding, save the head\nOf Helios, ward and watcher of the world.\n\nLEADER.\nThen tell us of the storm. How, when God hurled\nHis anger, did it rise? How did it die?\n\nHERALD.\nIt likes me not, a day of presage high\nWith dolorous tongue to stain. Those twain, I vow,\nStand best apart. When one with shuddering brow,\nFrom armies lost, back beareth to his home\nWord that the terror of her prayers is come;\nOne wound in her great heart, and many a fate\nFor many a home of men cast out to sate\nThe two-fold scourge that worketh Ares\u2019 lust,\nSpear crossed with spear, dust wed with bloody dust;\nWho walketh laden with such weight of wrong,\nWhy, let him, if he will, uplift the song\nThat is Hell\u2019s triumph. But to come as I\nAm now come, laden with deliverance high,\nHome to a land of peace and laughing eyes,\nAnd mar all with that fury of the skies\nWhich made our Greeks curse God\u2014how should this be?\nTwo enemies most ancient, Fire and Sea,\nA sudden friendship swore, and proved their plight\nBy war on us poor sailors through that night\nOf misery, when the horror of the wave\nTowered over us, and winds from Strymon drave\nHull against hull, till good ships, by the horn\nOf the mad whirlwind gored and overborne,\nOne here, one there, \u2019mid rain and blinding spray,\nLike sheep by a devil herded, passed away.\nAnd when the bless\u00e8d Sun upraised his head,\nWe saw the Aegean waste a-foam with dead,\nDead men, dead ships, and spars disasterful.\nHowbeit for us, our one unwounded hull\nOut of that wrath was stolen or begged free\nBy some good spirit\u2014sure no man was he!\u2014\nWho guided clear our helm; and on till now\nHath Saviour Fortune throned her on the prow.\nNo surge to mar our mooring, and no floor\nOf rock to tear us when we made for shore.\nTill, fled from that sea-hell, with the clear sun\nAbove us and all trust in fortune gone,\nWe drove like sheep about our brain the thoughts\nOf that lost army, broken and scourged with knouts\nOf evil. And, methinks, if there is breath\nIn them, they talk of us as gone to death\u2014\nHow else?\u2014and so say we of them! For thee,\nSince Menela\u00fcs thy first care must be,\nIf by some word of Zeus, who wills not yet\nTo leave the old house for ever desolate,\nSome ray of sunlight on a far-off sea\nLights him, yet green and living \u2026 we may see\nHis ship some day in the harbour!\u2014\u2019Twas the word\nOf truth ye asked me for, and truth ye have heard!\n\n[_Exit_ HERALD. _The_ CHORUS _take position for the Third Stasimon_.]\n\nCHORUS.\n(_Surely there was mystic meaning_ _in the name_ HELENA, _meaning which\nwas fulfilled when she fled to Troy._)\n\nWho was He who found for thee\nThat name, truthful utterly\u2014\nWas it One beyond our vision\nMoving sure in pre-decision\nOf man\u2019s doom his mystic lips?\u2014\nCalling thee, the Battle-wed,\nThee, the Strife-encompass\u00e8d,\nHELEN? Yea, in fate\u2019s derision,\nHell in cities, Hell in ships,\nHell in hearts of men they knew her,\nWhen the dim and delicate fold\nOf her curtains backward rolled,\nAnd to sea, to sea, she threw her\nIn the West Wind\u2019s giant hold;\nAnd with spear and sword behind her\nCame the hunters in a flood,\nDown the oarblade\u2019s viewless trail\nTracking, till in Simo\u00efs\u2019 vale\nThrough the leaves they crept to find her,\nA Wrath, a seed of blood.\n\n(_The Trojans welcomed her with triumph and praised Alexander till at\nlast their song changed and they saw another meaning in Alexander\u2019s\nname also._)\n\nSo the Name to Ilion came\nOn God\u2019s thought-fulfilling flame,\nShe a vengeance and a token\nOf the unfaith to bread broken,\nOf the hearth of God betrayed,\nAgainst them whose voices swelled\nGlorying in the prize they held\nAnd the Spoiler\u2019s vaunt outspoken\nAnd the song his brethren made\n\u2019Mid the bridal torches burning;\nTill, behold, the ancient City\nOf King Priam turned, and turning\nTook a new song for her learning,\nA song changed and full of pity,\nWith the cry of a lost nation;\nAnd she changed the bridegroom\u2019s name:\nCalled him Paris Ghastly-wed;\nFor her sons were with the dead,\nAnd her life one lamentation,\n\u2019Mid blood and burning flame.\n\n(_Like a lion\u2019s whelp reared as a pet and turning afterwards to a great\nbeast of prey,_)\n\nLo, once there was a herdsman reared\nIn his own house, so stories tell,\nA lion\u2019s whelp, a milk-fed thing\nAnd soft in life\u2019s first opening\nAmong the sucklings of the herd;\nThe happy children loved him well,\nAnd old men smiled, and oft, they say,\nIn men\u2019s arms, like a babe, he lay,\nBright-eyed, and toward the hand that teased him\nEagerly fawning for food or play.\n\nThen on a day outflashed the sudden\nRage of the lion brood of yore;\nHe paid his debt to them that fed\nWith wrack of herds and carnage red,\nYea, wrought him a great feast unbidden,\nTill all the house-ways ran with gore;\nA sight the thralls fled weeping from,\nA great red slayer, beard a-foam,\nHigh-priest of some blood-curs\u00e8d altar\nGod had uplifted against that home.\n\n(_So was it with Helen in Troy._)\n\nAnd how shall I call the thing that came\nAt the first hour to Ilion city?\nCall it a dream of peace untold,\nA secret joy in a mist of gold,\nA woman\u2019s eye that was soft, like flame,\nA flower which ate a man\u2019s heart with pity.\n\nBut she swerved aside and wrought to her kiss a bitter ending,\nAnd a wrath was on her harbouring, a wrath upon her friending,\nWhen to Priam and his sons she fled quickly o\u2019er the deep,\nWith the god to whom she sinned for her watcher on the wind,\nA death-bride, whom brides long shall weep.\n\n(_Men say that Good Fortune wakes the envy of God; not so; Good Fortune\nmay be innocent, and then there is no vengeance_.)\n\nA grey word liveth, from the morn\nOf old time among mortals spoken,\nThat man\u2019s Wealth waxen full shall fall\nNot childless, but get sons withal;\nAnd ever of great bliss is born\nA tear unstanched and a heart broken.\n\nBut I hold my thought alone and by others unbeguiled;\n\u2019Tis the deed that is unholy shall have issue, child on child,\nSin on sin, like his begetters; and they shall be as they were.\n\nBut the man who walketh straight, and the house thereof, tho\u2019 Fate\nExalt him, the children shall be fair.\n\n_(It is Sin, it is Pride and Ruthlessness, that beget children like\nthemselves till Justice is fulfilled upon them.)_\n\nBut Old Sin loves, when comes the hour again,\nTo bring forth New,\nWhich laugheth lusty amid the tears of men;\nYea, and Unruth, his comrade, wherewith none\nMay plead nor strive, which dareth on and on,\nKnowing not fear nor any holy thing;\nTwo fires of darkness in a house, born true,\nLike to their ancient spring.\n\nBut Justice shineth in a house low-wrought\nWith smoke-stained wall,\nAnd honoureth him who filleth his own lot;\nBut the unclean hand upon the golden stair\nWith eyes averse she flieth, seeking where\nThings innocent are; and, recking not the power\nOf wealth by man misgloried, guideth all\nTo her own destined hour.\n\n[_Here amid a great procession enter_ AGAMEMNON _on a Chariot. Behind\nhim on another Chariot is_ CASSANDRA. _The_ CHORUS _approach and make\nobeisance. Some of_ AGAMEMNON\u2019S _men have on their shields a White\nHorse, some a Lion. Their arms are rich and partly barbaric_.]\n\nLEADER.\nAll hail, O King! Hail, Atreus\u2019 Son!\nSacker of Cities! Ilion\u2019s bane!\nWith what high word shall I greet thee again,\nHow give thee worship, and neither outrun\nThe point of pleasure, nor stint too soon?\nFor many will cling. To fair seeming\nThe faster because they have sinned erewhile;\nAnd a man may sigh with never a sting\nOf grief in his heart, and a man may smile\nWith eyes unlit and a lip that strains.\nBut the wise Shepherd knoweth his sheep,\nAnd his eyes pierce deep\nThe faith like water that fawns and feigns.\n\nBut I hide nothing, O King. That day\nWhen in quest of Helen our battle array\nHurled forth, thy name upon my heart\u2019s scroll\nWas deep in letters of discord writ;\nAnd the ship of thy soul,\nIll-helmed and blindly steered was it,\nPursuing ever, through men that die,\nOne wild heart that was fain to fly.\nBut on this new day,\nFrom the deep of my thought and in love, I say\n\u201cSweet is a grief well ended;\u201d\nAnd in time\u2019s flow Thou wilt learn and know\nThe true from the false,\nOf them that were left to guard the walls\nOf thine empty Hall unfriended.\n\n[_During the above_ CLYTEMNESTRA _has appeared on the Palace steps,\nwith a train of Attendants, to receive her Husband_.]\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nTo Argos and the gods of Argolis\nAll hail, who share with me the glory of this\nHome-coming and the vengeance I did wreak\nOn Priam\u2019s City! Yea, though none should speak,\nThe great gods heard our cause, and in one mood\nUprising, in the urn of bitter blood,\nThat men should shriek and die and towers should burn,\nCast their great vote; while over Mercy\u2019s urn\nHope waved her empty hands and nothing fell.\nEven now in smoke that City tells her tale;\nThe wrack-wind liveth, and where Ilion died\nThe reek of the old fatness of her pride\nFrom hot and writhing ashes rolls afar.\nFor which let thanks, wide as our glories are,\nBe uplifted; seeing the Beast of Argos hath\nRound Ilion\u2019s towers piled high his fence of wrath\nAnd, for one woman ravished, wrecked by force\nA City. Lo, the leap of the wild Horse\nin darkness when the Pleiades were dead;\nA mailed multitude, a Lion unfed,\nWhich leapt the tower and lapt the blood of Kings!\n\nLo, to the Gods I make these thanksgivings.\nBut for thy words: I marked them, and I mind\nTheir meaning, and my voice shall be behind\nThine. For not many men, the proverb saith,\nCan love a friend whom fortune prospereth\nUnenvying; and about the envious brain\nCold poison clings, and doubles all the pain\nLife brings him. His own woundings he must nurse,\nAnd feels another\u2019s gladness like a curse.\n\nWell can I speak. I know the mirrored glass\nCalled friendship, and the shadow shapes that pass\nAnd feign them a King\u2019s friends. I have known but one\u2014\nOdysseus, him we trapped against his own\nWill!\u2014who once harnessed bore his yoke right well \u2026\nBe he alive or dead of whom I tell\nThe tale. And for the rest, touching our state\nAnd gods, we will assemble in debate\nA concourse of all Argos, taking sure\nCounsel, that what is well now may endure\nWell, and if aught needs healing medicine, still\nBy cutting and by fire, with all good will,\nI will essay to avert the after-wrack\nSuch sickness breeds.\n\nAye, Heaven hath led me back;\nAnd on this hearth where still my fire doth burn\nI will go pay to heaven my due return,\nWhich guides me here, which saved me far away.\nO Victory, now mine own, be mine alway!\n\n[CLYTEMNESTRA, _at the head of her retinue, steps forward. She controls\nher suspense with difficulty but gradually gains courage as she\nproceeds._]\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nYe Elders, Council of the Argive name\nHere present, I will no more hold it shame\nTo lay my passion bare before men\u2019s eyes.\nThere comes a time to a woman when fear dies\nFor ever. None hath taught me. None could tell,\nSave me, the weight of years intolerable\nI lived while this man lay at Ilion.\nThat any woman thus should sit alone\nIn a half-empty house, with no man near,\nMakes her half-blind with dread! And in her ear\nAlway some voice of wrath; now messengers\nOf evil; now not so; then others worse,\nCrying calamity against mine and me.\nOh, had he half the wounds that variously\nCame rumoured home, his flesh must be a net,\nAll holes from heel to crown! And if he met\nAs many deaths as I met tales thereon,\nIs he some monstrous thing, some G\u00earyon\nThree-souled, that will not die, till o\u2019er his head,\nThree robes of earth be piled, to hold him dead?\nAye, many a time my heart broke, and the noose\nOf death had got me; but they cut me loose.\nIt was those voices alway in mine ear.\n\nFor that, too, young Orestes is not here\nBeside me, as were meet, seeing he above\nAll else doth hold the surety of our love;\nLet not thy heart be troubled. It fell thus:\nOur loving spear-friend took him, Strophius\nThe Phocian, who forewarned me of annoy\nTwo-fronted, thine own peril under Troy,\nAnd ours here, if the rebel multitude\nShould cast the Council down. It is men\u2019s mood\nAlway, to spurn the fallen. So spake he,\nAnd sure no guile was in him.\n\nBut for me,\nThe old stormy rivers of my grief are dead\nNow at the spring; not one tear left unshed.\nMine eyes are sick with vigil, endlessly\nWeeping the beacon-piles that watched for thee\nFor ever answerless. And did I dream,\nA gnat\u2019s thin whirr would start me, like a scream\nOf battle, and show me thee by terrors swept,\nCrowding, too many for the time I slept.\n\nFrom all which stress delivered and free-souled,\nI greet my lord: O watchdog of the fold,\nO forestay sure that fails not in the squall,\nO strong-based pillar of a towering hall;\nO single son to a father age-ridden;\nO land unhoped for seen by shipwrecked men;\nSunshine more beautiful when storms are fled;\nSpring of quick water in a desert dead \u2026.\nHow sweet to be set free from any chain!\n\nThese be my words to greet him home again.\nNo god shall grudge them. Surely I and thou\nHave suffered in time past enough! And now\nDismount, O head with love and glory crowned,\nFrom this high car; yet plant not on bare ground\nThy foot, great King, the foot that trampled Troy.\nHo, bondmaids, up! Forget not your employ,\nA floor of crimson broideries to spread\nFor the King\u2019s path. Let all the ground be red\nWhere those feet pass; and Justice, dark of yore,\nHome light him to the hearth he looks not for!\nWhat followeth next, our sleepless care shall see\nOrdered as God\u2019s good pleasure may decree.\n\n[_The attendants spread tapestries of crimson and gold from the Chariot\nto the Door of the Palace._ AGAMEMNON _does not move_.]\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nDaughter of Leda, watcher of my fold,\nIn sooth thy welcome, grave and amply told,\nFitteth mine absent years. Though it had been\nSeemlier, methinks, some other, not my Queen,\nHad spoke these honours. For the rest, I say,\nSeek not to make me soft in woman\u2019s way;\nCry not thy praise to me wide-mouthed, nor fling\nThy body down, as to some barbarous king.\nNor yet with broidered hangings strew my path,\nTo awake the unseen ire. \u2019Tis God that hath\nSuch worship; and for mortal man to press\nRude feet upon this broidered loveliness \u2026\nI vow there is danger in it. Let my road\nBe honoured, surely; but as man, not god.\nRugs for the feet and yonder broidered pall \u2026\nThe names ring diverse!\u2026 Aye, and not to fall\nSuddenly blind is of all gifts the best\nGod giveth, for I reckon no man blest\nEre to the utmost goal his race be run.\nSo be it; and if, as this day I have done,\nI shall do always, then I fear no ill.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nTell me but this, nowise against thy will \u2026\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nMy will, be sure, shall falter not nor fade.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nWas this a vow in some great peril made?\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nEnough! I have spoke my purpose, fixed and plain.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nWere Priam the conqueror \u2026 Think, would he refrain?\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nOh, stores of broideries would be trampled then!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nLord, care not for the cavillings of men!\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nThe murmur of a people hath strange weight.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nWho feareth envy, feareth to be great.\n\nAGAMEMNON.\n\u2019Tis graceless when a woman strives to lead.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nWhen a great conqueror yields, \u2019tis grace indeed,\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nSo in this war thou must my conqueror be?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nYield! With good will to yield is victory!\n\nAGAMEMNON.\nWell, if I needs must \u2026 Be it as thou hast said!\nQuick! Loose me these bound slaves on which I tread,\nAnd while I walk yon wonders of the sea\nGod grant no eye of wrath be cast on me\nFrom far!\n\n[_The Attendants untie his shoes_.]\n\nFor even now it likes me not\nTo waste mine house, thus marring underfoot\nThe pride thereof, and wondrous broideries\nBought in far seas with silver. But of these\nEnough.\u2014And mark, I charge thee, this princess\nOf Ilion; tend her with all gentleness.\nGod\u2019s eye doth see, and loveth from afar,\nThe merciful conqueror. For no slave of war\nIs slave by his own will. She is the prize\nAnd chosen flower of Ilion\u2019s treasuries,\nSet by the soldiers\u2019 gift to follow me.\nNow therefore, seeing I am constrained by thee\nAnd do thy will, I walk in conqueror\u2019s guise\nBeneath my Gate, trampling sea-crimson dyes.\n\n[_As he dismounts and sets foot on the Tapestries_ CLYTEMNESTRA\u2019S\n_women utter again their Cry of Triumph. The people bow or kneel as he\npasses._]\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nThere is the sea\u2014its caverns who shall drain?\u2014\nBreeding of many a purple-fish the stain\nSurpassing silver, ever fresh renewed,\nFor robes of kings. And we, by right indued,\nPossess our fill thereof. Thy house, O King,\nKnoweth no stint, nor lack of anything.\nWhat trampling of rich raiment, had the cry\nSo sounded in the domes of prophesy,\nWould I have vowed these years, as price to pay\nFor this dear life in peril far away!\nWhere the root is, the leafage cometh soon\nTo clothe an house, and spread its leafy boon\nAgainst the burning star; and, thou being come,\nThou, on the midmost hearthstone of thy home,\nOh, warmth in winter leapeth to thy sign.\nAnd when God\u2019s summer melteth into wine\nThe green grape, on that house shall coolness fall\nWhere the true man, the master, walks his hall.\n\nZeus, Zeus! True Master, let my prayers be true!\nAnd, oh, forget not that thou art willed to do!\n\n[_She follows_ AGAMEMNON _into the Palace._ _The retinues of both King\nand Queen go in after them._ CASSANDRA _remains_.]\n\nCHORUS.\nWhat is this that evermore, [_Strophe 1._\nA cold terror at the door\nOf this bosom presage-haunted,\nPale as death hovereth?\nWhile a song unhired, unwanted,\nBy some inward prophet chanted,\nSpeaks the secret at its core;\nAnd to cast it from my blood\nLike a dream not understood\nNo sweet-spoken Courage now\nSitteth at my heart\u2019s dear prow.\n\nYet I know that manifold\nDays, like sand, have waxen old\n\nSince the day those shoreward-thrown\nCables flapped and line on line\nStanding forth for Ilion\nThe long galleys took the brine\n\n[_Antistrophe 1._\nAnd in harbour\u2014mine own eye\nHath beheld\u2014again they lie;\nYet that lyreless music hidden\nWhispers still words of ill,\n\u2019Tis the Soul of me unbidden,\nLike some Fury sorrow-ridden,\nWeeping over things that die.\nNeither waketh in my sense\nEver Hope\u2019s dear confidence;\nFor this flesh that groans within,\nAnd these bones that know of Sin,\nThis tossed heart upon the spate\nOf a whirpool that is Fate,\nSurely these lie not. Yet deep\nBeneath hope my prayer doth run,\nAll will die like dreams, and creep\nTo the unthought of and undone.\n\n[_Strophe 2._\n\u2014Surely of great Weal at the end of all\nComes not Content; so near doth Fever crawl,\nClose neighbour, pressing hard the narrow wall.\n\n\u2014Woe to him who fears not fate!\n\u2019Tis the ship that forward straight\nSweepeth, strikes the reef below;\nHe who fears and lightens weight,\nCasting forth, in measured throw,\nFrom the wealth his hand hath got \u2026\nHis whole ship shall founder not,\nWith abundance overfraught,\nNor deep seas above him flow.\n\u2014Lo, when famine stalketh near,\nOne good gift of Zeus again\nFrom the furrows of one year\nEndeth quick the starving pain;\n\n[_Antistrophe 2._\n\u2014But once the blood of death is fallen, black\nAnd oozing at a slain man\u2019s feet, alack!\nBy spell or singing who shall charm it back?\n\n\u2014One there was of old who showed\nMan the path from death to day;\nBut Zeus, lifting up his rod,\nSpared not, when he charged him stay.\n\n\u2014Save that every doom of God\nHath by other dooms its way\nCrossed, that none may rule alone,\nIn one speech-outstripping groan\nForth had all this passion flown,\nWhich now murmuring hides away,\nFull of pain, and hoping not\nEver one clear thread to unknot\nFrom the tangle of my soul,\nFrom a heart of burning coal.\n\n[_Suddenly_ CLYTEMNESTRA _appears standing in the Doorway._]\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nThou likewise, come within! I speak thy name,\nCassandra;\n\n[CASSANDRA _trembles, but continues to stare in front of her, as though\nnot hearing_ CLYTEMNESTRA.]\n\nseeing the Gods\u2014why chafe at them?\u2014\nHave placed thee here, to share within these walls\nOur lustral waters, \u2019mid a crowd of thralls\nWho stand obedient round the altar-stone\nOf our Possession. Therefore come thou down,\nAnd be not over-proud. The tale is told\nHow once Alcm\u00eana\u2019s son himself, being sold,\nWas patient, though he liked not the slaves\u2019 mess.\nAnd more, if Fate must bring thee to this stress,\nPraise God thou art come to a House of high report\nAnd wealth from long ago. The baser sort,\nWho have reaped some sudden harvest unforeseen,\nAre ever cruel to their slaves, and mean\nIn the measure. We shall give whate\u2019er is due.\n\n[CASSANDRA _is silent._]\n\nLEADER.\nTo thee she speaks, and waits \u2026 clear words and true!\nOh, doom is all around thee like a net;\nYield, if thou canst\u2026. Belike thou canst not yet.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nMethinks, unless this wandering maid is one\nVoiced like a swallow-bird, with tongue unknown\nAnd barbarous, she can read my plain intent.\nI use but words, and ask for her consent.\n\nLEADER.\nAh, come! Tis best, as the world lies to-day.\nLeave this high-throned chariot, and obey!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nHow long must I stand dallying at the Gate?\nEven now the beasts to Hestia consecrate\nWait by the midmost fire, since there is wrought\nThis high fulfilment for which no man thought.\nWherefore, if \u2019tis thy pleasure to obey\nAught of my will, prithee, no more delay!\nIf, dead to sense, thou wilt not understand\u2026\nThou show her, not with speech but with brute hand!\n\n[_To the Leader of the_ CHORUS.]\n\nLEADER.\nThe strange maid needs a rare interpreter.\nShe is trembling like a wild beast in a snare.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\n\u2019Fore God, she is mad, and heareth but her own\nFolly! A slave, her city all o\u2019erthrown,\nShe needs must chafe her bridle, till this fret\nBe foamed away in blood and bitter sweat.\nI waste no more speech, thus to be defied.\n\n[_She goes back inside the Palace_.]\n\nLEADER.\nI pity thee so sore, no wrath nor pride\nIs in me.\u2014Come, dismount! Bend to the stroke\nFate lays on thee, and learn to feel thy yoke.\n\n[_He lays his hand softly on_ CASSANDRA\u2019S _shoulder_.]\n\nCASSANDRA (_moaning to herself_).\nOtototoi \u2026 Dreams. Dreams.\nApollo. O Apollo!\n\nSECOND ELDER.\nWhy sob\u2019st thou for Apollo? It is writ,\nHe loves not grief nor lendeth ear to it.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nOtototoi \u2026 Dreams. Dreams.\nApollo. O Apollo!\n\nLEADER.\nStill to that god she makes her sobbing cry\nWho hath no place where men are sad, or die.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nApollo, Apollo! Light of the Ways of Men!\nMine enemy!\nHast lighted me to darkness yet again?\n\nSECOND ELDER.\nHow? Will she prophesy about her own\nSorrows? That power abides when all is gone!\n\nCASSANDRA.\nApollo, Apollo! Light of all that is!\nMine enemy!\nWhere hast thou led me? \u2026 Ha! What house is this?\n\nLEADER.\nThe Atreidae\u2019s castle. If thou knowest not, I\nAm here to help thee, and help faithfully.\n\nCASSANDRA (_whispering_).\n\nNay, nay. This is the house that God hateth.\nThere be many things that know its secret; sore\nAnd evil things; murders and strangling death.\n\u2019Tis here they slaughter men\u2026A splashing floor.\n\nSECOND ELDER.\nKeen-sensed the strange maid seemeth, like a hound\nFor blood.\u2014And what she seeks can sure be found!\n\nCASSANDRA.\nThe witnesses \u2026 I follow where they lead.\nThe crying \u2026 of little children \u2026 near the gate:\nCrying for wounds that bleed:\nAnd the smell of the baked meats their father ate.\n\nSECOND ELDER (_recognizing her vision, and repelled_).\n\nWord of thy mystic power had reached our ear\nLong since. Howbeit we need no prophets here.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAh, ah! What would they? A new dreadful thing.\nA great great sin plots in the house this day;\nToo strong for the faithful, beyond medicining \u2026\nAnd help stands far away.\n\nLEADER.\nThis warning I can read not, though I knew\nThat other tale. It rings the city through.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nO Woman, thou! The lord who lay with thee!\nWilt lave with water, and then \u2026 How speak the end?\nIt comes so quick. A hand \u2026 another hand \u2026\nThat reach, reach gropingly\u2026.\n\nLEADER.\nI see not yet. These riddles, pierced with blind\nGleams of foreboding, but bemuse my mind.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAh, ah! What is it? There; it is coming clear.\nA net \u2026 some net of Hell.\nNay, she that lies with him \u2026 is she the snare?\nAnd half of his blood upon it. It holds well\u2026.\nO Crowd of ravening Voices, be glad, yea, shout\nAnd cry for the stoning, cry for the casting out!\n\nSECOND ELDER.\nWhat Fury Voices call\u2019st thou to be hot\nAgainst this castle? Such words like me not.\n\nAnd deep within my breast I felt that sick\nAnd saffron drop, which creepeth to the heart\nTo die as the last rays of life depart.\nMisfortune comes so quick.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAh, look! Look! Keep his mate from the Wild Bull!\nA tangle of raiment, see;\nA black horn, and a blow, and he falleth, full\nIn the marble amid the water. I counsel ye.\nI speak plain \u2026 Blood in the bath and treachery!\n\nLEADER.\nNo great interpreter of oracles\nAm I; but this, I think, some mischief spells.\n\nWhat spring of good hath seercraft ever made\nUp from the dark to flow?\n\u2019Tis but a weaving of words, a craft of woe,\nTo make mankind afraid.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nPoor woman! Poor dead woman! \u2026 Yea, it is I,\nPoured out like water among them. Weep for me\u2026.\nAh! What is this place? Why must I come with thee\u2026.\nTo die, only to die?\n\nLEADER.\nThou art borne on the breath of God, thou spirit wild,\nFor thine own weird to wail,\nLike to that wing\u00e8d voice, that heart so sore\nWhich, crying alway, hungereth to cry more,\n\u201cItylus, Itylus,\u201d till it sing her child\nBack to the nightingale.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nOh, happy Singing Bird, so sweet, so clear!\nSoft wings for her God made,\nAnd an easy passing, without pain or tear \u2026\nFor me \u2019twill be torn flesh and rending blade.\n\nSECOND ELDER.\nWhence is it sprung, whence wafted on God\u2019s breath,\nThis anguish reasonless?\nThis throbbing of terror shaped to melody,\nMoaning of evil blent with music high?\nWho hath marked out for thee that mystic path\nThrough thy woe\u2019s wilderness?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAlas for the kiss, the kiss of Paris, his people\u2019s bane!\nAlas for Scamander Water, the water my fathers drank!\nLong, long ago, I played about thy bank,\nAnd was cherished and grew strong;\nNow by a River of Wailing, by shores of Pain,\nSoon shall I make my song.\n\nLEADER.\nHow sayst thou? All too clear,\nThis ill word thou hast laid upon thy mouth!\nA babe could read thee plain.\nIt stabs within me like a serpent\u2019s tooth,\nThe bitter thrilling music of her pain:\nI marvel as I hear.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAlas for the toil, the toil of a City, worn unto death!\nAlas for my father\u2019s worship before the citadel,\nThe flocks that bled and the tumult of their breath!\nBut no help from them came\nTo save Troy Towers from falling as they fell!\u2026\nAnd I on the earth shall writhe, my heart aflame.\n\nSECOND ELDER.\nDark upon dark, new ominous words of ill!\nSure there hath swept on thee some Evil Thing,\nCrushing, which makes thee bleed\nAnd in the torment of thy vision sing\nThese plaining death-fraught oracles \u2026 Yet still, still,\nTheir end I cannot read!\n\nCASSANDRA. [_By an effort she regains mastery of herself, and speaks\ndirectly to the Leader_.]\n\n\u2019Fore God, mine oracle shall no more hide\nWith veils his visage, like a new-wed bride!\nA shining wind out of this dark shall blow,\nPiercing the dawn, growing as great waves grow,\nTo burst in the heart of sunrise \u2026 stronger far\nThan this poor pain of mine. I will not mar\nWith mists my wisdom.\nBe near me as I go,\nTracking the evil things of long ago,\nAnd bear me witness. For this roof, there clings\nMusic about it, like a choir which sings\nOne-voiced, but not well-sounding, for not good\nThe words are. Drunken, drunken, and with blood,\nTo make them dare the more, a revelling rout\nIs in the rooms, which no man shall cast out,\nOf sister Furies. And they weave to song,\nHaunting the House, its first blind deed of wrong,\nSpurning in turn that King\u2019s bed desecrate,\nDefiled, which paid a brother\u2019s sin with hate\u2026.\nHath it missed or struck, mine arrow? Am I a poor\nDreamer, that begs and babbles at the door?\nGive first thine oath in witness, that I know\nOf this great dome the sins wrought long ago.\n\nELDER.\nAnd how should oath of mine, though bravely sworn,\nAppease thee? Yet I marvel that one born\nFar over seas, of alien speech, should fall\nSo apt, as though she had lived here and seen all.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nThe Seer Apollo made me too to see.\n\nELDER (_in a low voice_).\n\nWas the God\u2019s heart pierced with desire for thee?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nTime was, I held it shame hereof to speak.\n\nELDER.\nAh, shame is for the mighty, not the weak.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nWe wrestled, and his breath to me was sweet.\n\nELDER.\nYe came to the getting of children, as is meet?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nI swore to Loxias, and I swore a lie.\n\nELDER.\nAlready thine the gift of prophecy?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAlready I showed my people all their path.\n\nELDER.\nAnd Loxias did not smite thee in his wrath?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAfter that sin \u2026 no man believed me more.\n\nELDER.\nNay, then, to us thy wisdom seemeth sure.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nOh, oh! Agony, agony!\nAgain the awful pains of prophecy\nAre on me, maddening as they fall\u2026.\nYe see them there \u2026 beating against the wall?\nSo young \u2026 like shapes that gather in a dream \u2026\nSlain by a hand they loved. Children they seem,\nMurdered \u2026 and in their hands they bear baked meat:\nI think it is themselves. Yea, flesh; I see it;\nAnd inward parts\u2026. Oh, what a horrible load\nTo carry! And their father drank their blood.\n\nFrom these, I warn ye, vengeance broodeth still,\nA lion\u2019s rage, which goes not forth to kill\nBut lurketh in his lair, watching the high\nHall of my war-gone master \u2026 Master? Aye;\nMine, mine! The yoke is nailed about my neck\u2026.\nOh, lord of ships and trampler on the wreck\nOf Ilion, knows he not this she-wolf\u2019s tongue,\nWhich licks and fawns, and laughs with ear up-sprung,\nTo bite in the end like secret death?\u2014And can\nThe woman? Slay a strong and arm\u00e8d man? \u2026\nWhat fang\u00e8d reptile like to her doth creep?\nSome serpent amphisbene, some Skylla, deep\nHoused in the rock, where sailors shriek and die,\nMother of Hell blood-raging, which doth cry\nOn her own flesh war, war without alloy \u2026\nGod! And she shouted in his face her joy,\nLike men in battle when the foe doth break.\nAnd feigns thanksgiving for his safety\u2019s sake!\nWhat if no man believe me? \u2019Tis all one.\nThe thing which must be shall be; aye, and soon\nThou too shalt sorrow for these things, and here\nStanding confess me all too true a seer.\n\nLEADER.\nThe Thyestean feast of children slain\nI understood, and tremble. Aye, my brain\nReels at these visions, beyond guesswork true.\nBut after, though I heard, I had lost the clue.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nMan, thou shalt look on Agamemnon dead.\n\nLEADER.\nPeace, Mouth of Evil! Be those words unsaid!\n\nCASSANDRA.\nNo god of peace hath watch upon that hour.\n\nLEADER.\nIf it must come. Forefend it, Heavenly Power!\n\nCASSANDRA.\nThey do not think of prayer; they think of death.\n\nLEADER.\nThey? Say, what man this foul deed compasseth?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAlas, thou art indeed fallen far astray!\n\nLEADER.\nHow could such deed be done? I see no way.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nYet know I not the Greek tongue all too well?\n\nLEADER.\nGreek are the Delphic dooms, but hard to spell.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAh! Ah! There!\nWhat a strange fire! It moves \u2026 It comes at me.\nO Wolf Apollo, mercy! O agony! \u2026\nWhy lies she with a wolf, this lioness lone,\nTwo-handed, when the royal lion is gone?\nGod, she will kill me! Like to them that brew\nPoison, I see her mingle for me too\nA separate vial in her wrath, and swear,\nWhetting her blade for him, that I must share\nHis death \u2026 because, because he hath dragged me here!\nOh, why these mockers at my throat? This gear\nOf wreath\u00e8d bands, this staff of prophecy?\nI mean to kill you first, before I die.\nBegone!\n\n[_She tears off her prophetic habiliments; and presently throws them on\nthe ground, and stamps on them._]\n\nDown to perdition! \u2026 Lie ye so?\nSo I requite you! Now make rich in woe\nSome other Bird of Evil, me no more!\n\n[_Coming to herself._]\n\nAh, see! It is Apollo\u2019s self, hath tore\nHis crown from me! Who watched me long ago\nIn this same prophet\u2019s robe, by friend, by foe,\nAll with one voice, all blinded, mocked to scorn:\n\u201cA thing of dreams,\u201d \u201ca beggar-maid outworn,\u201d\nPoor, starving and reviled, I endured all;\nAnd now the Seer, who called me till my call\nWas perfect, leads me to this last dismay\u2026.\n\u2019Tis not the altar-stone where men did slay\nMy father; \u2019tis a block, a block with gore\nYet hot, that waits me, of one slain before.\nYet not of God unheeded shall we lie.\nThere cometh after, one who lifteth high\nThe downfallen; a branch where blossometh\nA sire\u2019s avenging and a mother\u2019s death.\nExiled and wandering, from this land outcast,\nOne day He shall return, and set the last\nCrown on these sins that have his house downtrod.\nFor, lo, there is a great oath sworn of God,\nHis father\u2019s upturned face shall guide him home.\nWhy should I grieve? Why pity these men\u2019s doom?\nI who have seen the City of Ilion\nPass as she passed; and they who cast her down\nHave thus their end, as God gives judgement sure\u2026.\nI go to drink my cup. I will endure\nTo die. O Gates, Death-Gates, all hail to you!\nOnly, pray God the blow be stricken true!\nPray God, unagonized, with blood that flows\nQuick unto friendly death, these eyes may close!\n\nLEADER.\nO full of sorrows, full of wisdom great,\nWoman, thy speech is a long anguish; yet,\nKnowing thy doom, why walkst thou with clear eyes,\nLike some god-blinded beast, to sacrifice?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nThere is no escape, friends; only vain delay.\n\nLEADER.\nIs not the later still the sweeter day?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nThe day is come. Small profit now to fly.\n\nLEADER.\nThrough all thy griefs, Woman, thy heart is high.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAlas! None that is happy hears that praise.\n\nLEADER.\nAre not the brave dead blest in after days?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nO Father! O my brethren brave, I come!\n\n[_She moves towards the House, but recoils shuddering._]\n\nLEADER.\nWhat frights thee? What is that thou startest from?\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAh, faugh! Faugh!\n\nLEADER.\nWhat turns thee in that blind\nHorror? Unless some loathing of the mind \u2026\n\nCASSANDRA.\nDeath drifting from the doors, and blood like rain!\n\nLEADER.\n\u2019Tis but the dumb beasts at the altar slain.\n\nCASSANDRA.\nAnd vapours from a charnel-house \u2026 See there!\n\nLEADER.\n\u2019Tis Tyrian incense clouding in the air.\n\nCASSANDRA (_recovering herself again_).\n\nSo be it!\u2014I will go, in yonder room\nTo weep mine own and Agamemnon\u2019s doom.\nMay death be all! Strangers, I am no bird\nThat pipeth trembling at a thicket stirred\nBy the empty wind. Bear witness on that day\nWhen woman for this woman\u2019s life shall pay,\nAnd man for man ill-mated low shall lie:\nI ask this boon, as being about to die.\n\nLEADER.\nAlas, I pity thee thy mystic fate!\n\nCASSANDRA.\nOne word, one dirge-song would I utter yet\nO\u2019er mine own corpse. To this last shining Sun\nI pray that, when the Avenger\u2019s work is done,\nHis enemies may remember this thing too,\nThis little thing, the woman slave they slew!\n\nO world of men, farewell! A painted show\nIs all thy glory; and when life is low\nThe touch of a wet sponge out-blotteth all.\nOh, sadder this than any proud man\u2019s fall!\n\n[_She goes into the House._]\n\nCHORUS.\nGreat Fortune is an hungry thing,\nAnd filleth no heart anywhere,\nThough men with fingers menacing\nPoint at the great house, none will dare,\nWhen Fortune knocks, to bar the door\nProclaiming: \u201cCome thou here no more!\u201d\nLo, to this man the Gods have given\nGreat Ilion in the dust to tread\nAnd home return, emblazed of heaven;\nIf it is writ, he too shall go\nThrough blood for blood spilt long ago;\nIf he too, dying for the dead,\nShould crown the deaths of alien years,\nWhat mortal afar off, who hears,\nShall boast him Fortune\u2019s Child, and led\nAbove the eternal tide of tears?\n\n[_A sudden Cry from within._]\n\nVOICE.\nHo! Treason in the house! I am wounded: slain.\n\nLEADER.\nHush! In the castle! \u2019Twas a cry\nOf some man wounded mortally.\n\nVOICE.\nAh God, another! I am stricken again.\n\nLEADER.\nI think the deed is done. It was the King\nWho groaned\u2026. Stand close, and think if anything\u2026.\n\n[_The Old Men gather together under the shock, and debate confusedly._]\n\nELDER B.\nI give you straight my judgement. Summon all\nThe citizens to rescue. Sound a call!\n\nELDER C.\nNo, no! Burst in at once without a word!\nIn, and convict them by their dripping sword!\n\nELDER D.\nYes; that or something like it. Quick, I say,\nBe doing! \u2019Tis a time for no delay.\n\nELDER E.\nWe have time to think. This opening \u2026 They have planned\nSome scheme to make enslavement of the land.\n\nELDER F.\nYes, while we linger here! They take no thought\nOf lingering, and their sword-arm sleepeth not!\n\nELDER G.\nI have no counsel. I can speak not. Oh,\nLet him give counsel who can strike a blow!\n\nELDER H.\nI say as this man says. I have no trust\nIn words to raise a dead man from the dust.\n\nELDER I.\nHow mean you? Drag out our poor lives, and stand\nCowering to these defilers of the land?\n\nELDER J.\nNay, \u2019tis too much! Better to strive and die!\nDeath is an easier doom than slavery.\n\nELDER K.\nWe heard a sound of groaning, nothing plain,\nHow know we\u2014are we seers?\u2014that one is slain?\n\nELDER L.\nOh, let us find the truth out, ere we grow\nThus passionate! To surmise is not to know.\n\nLEADER.\nBreak in, then! \u2019Tis the counsel ye all bring,\nAnd learn for sure, how is it with the King.\n\n[_They cluster up towards the Palace Door, as though to force an\nentrance, when the great Door swings open, revealing_ CLYTEMNESTRA,\n_who stands, axe in hand, over the dead bodies of_ AGAMEMNON _and_\nCASSANDRA. _The body of_ AGAMEMNON _is wrapped in a rich crimson web.\nThere is blood on_ CLYTEMNESTRA\u2019S _brow, and she speaks in wild\ntriumph._]\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nOh, lies enough and more have I this day\nSpoken, which now I shame not to unsay.\nHow should a woman work, to the utter end,\nHate on a damn\u00e8d hater, feigned a friend;\nHow pile perdition round him, hunter-wise,\nToo high for overleaping, save by lies?\nTo me this hour was dreamed of long ago;\nA thing of ancient hate. \u2019Twas very slow\nIn coming, but it came. And here I stand\nEven where I struck, with all the deed I planned\nDone! \u2019Twas so wrought\u2014what boots it to deny?\u2014\nThe man could neither guard himself nor fly.\nAn endless web, as by some fisher strung,\nA deadly plenteousness of robe, I flung\nAll round him, and struck twice; and with two cries\nHis limbs turned water and broke; and as he lies\nI cast my third stroke in, a prayer well-sped\nTo Zeus of Hell, who guardeth safe his dead!\nSo there he gasped his life out as he lay;\nAnd, gasping, the blood spouted \u2026 Like dark spray\nThat splashed, it came, a salt and deathly dew;\nSweet, sweet as God\u2019s dear rain-drops ever blew\nO\u2019er a parched field, the day the buds are born! \u2026\nWhich things being so, ye Councillors high-born,\nDepart in joy, if joy ye will. For me,\nI glory. Oh, if such a thing might be\nAs o\u2019er the dead thank-offering to outpour,\nOn this dead it were just, aye, just and more,\nWho filled the cup of the House with treacheries\nCurse-fraught, and here hath drunk it to the lees!\n\nLEADER.\nWe are astonied at thy speech. To fling,\nWild mouth! such vaunt over thy murdered King!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nWouldst fright me, like a witless woman? Lo,\nThis bosom shakes not. And, though well ye know,\nI tell you \u2026 Curse me as ye will, or bless,\n\u2019Tis all one \u2026 This is Agamemnon; this,\nMy husband, dead by my right hand, a blow\nStruck by a righteous craftsman. Aye, \u2019tis so.\n\nCHORUS.\nWoman, what evil tree,\nWhat poison grown of the ground\nOr draught of the drifting sea\nWay to thy lips hath found,\nMaking thee clothe thy heart\nIn rage, yea, in curses burning\nWhen thine own people pray?\nThou hast hewn, thou hast cast away;\nAnd a thing cast away thou art,\nA thing of hate and a spurning!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAye, now, for me, thou hast thy words of fate;\nExile from Argos and the people\u2019s hate\nFor ever! Against him no word was cried,\nWhen, recking not, as \u2019twere a beast that died,\nWith flocks abounding o\u2019er his wide domain,\nHe slew his child, my love, my flower of pain, \u2026\nGreat God, as magic for the winds of Thrace!\nWhy was not he man-hunted from his place,\nTo purge the blood that stained him? \u2026 When the deed\nIs mine, oh, then thou art a judge indeed!\nBut threat thy fill. I am ready, and I stand\nContent; if thy hand beateth down my hand,\nThou rulest. If aught else be God\u2019s decree,\nThy lesson shall be learned, though late it be.\n\nCHORUS.\nThy thought, it is very proud;\nThy breath is the scorner\u2019s breath;\nIs not the madness loud\nIn thy heart, being drunk with death?\nYea, and above thy brow\nA star of the wet blood burneth!\nOh, doom shall have yet her day,\nThe last friend cast away,\nWhen lie doth answer lie\nAnd a stab for a stab returneth!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAnd heark what Oath-gods gather to my side!\nBy my dead child\u2019s Revenge, now satisfied,\nBy Mortal Blindness, by all Powers of Hell\nWhich Hate, to whom in sacrifice he fell,\nMy Hope shall walk not in the house of Fear,\nWhile on my hearth one fire yet burneth clear,\nOne lover, one Aigisthos, as of old!\nWhat should I fear, when fallen here I hold\nThis foe, this scorner of his wife, this toy\nAnd fool of each Chryseis under Troy;\nAnd there withal his soothsayer and slave,\nHis chanting bed-fellow, his leman brave,\nWho rubbed the galleys\u2019 benches at his side.\nBut, oh, they had their guerdon as they died!\nFor he lies thus, and she, the wild swan\u2019s way,\nHath trod her last long weeping roundelay,\nAnd lies, his lover, ravisht o\u2019er the main\nFor his bed\u2019s comfort and my deep disdain.\n\nCHORUS. (_Some Elders_.)\n\nWould God that suddenly\nWith no great agony,\nNo long sick-watch to keep,\nMy hour would come to me,\nMy hour, and presently\nBring the eternal, the\nUnwaking Sleep,\nNow that my Shepherd, he\nWhose love watched over me,\nLies in the deep!\n\nANOTHER.\nFor woman\u2019s sake he endured and battled well,\nAnd by a woman\u2019s hand he fell.\n\nOTHERS.\nWhat hast thou done, O Helen blind of brain,\nO face that slew the souls on Ilion\u2019s plain,\nOne face, one face, and many a thousand slain?\nThe hate of old that on this castle lay,\nBuilded in lust, a husband\u2019s evil day,\nHath bloomed for thee a perfect flower again\nAnd unforgotten, an old and burning stain\nNever to pass away.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nNay, pray not for the hour of death, being tried\nToo sore beneath these blows\nNeither on Helen turn thy wrath aside,\nThe Slayer of Men, the face which hath destroyed\nIts thousand Danaan souls, and wrought a wide\nWound that no leech can close.\n\nCHORUS.\n\u2014Daemon, whose heel is set\nOn the House and the twofold kin\nOf the high Tantalidae,\nA power, heavy as fate,\nThou wieldest through woman\u2019s sin,\nPiercing the heart of me!\n\n\u2014Like a raven swoln with hate\nHe hath set on the dead his claw,\nHe croaketh a song to sate\nHis fury, and calls it Law!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAh, call upon Him! Yea, call\u2014\nAnd thy thought hath found its path\u2014\nThe Daemon who haunts this hall,\nThe thrice-engorged Wrath;\n\nFrom him is the ache of the flesh\nFor blood born and increased;\nEre the old sore hath ceased\nIt oozeth afresh.\n\nCHORUS.\n\u2014Indeed He is very great,\nAnd heavy his anger, He,\nThe Daemon who guides the fate\nOf the old Tantalidae:\nAlas, alas, an evil tale ye tell\nOf desolate angers and insatiable!\n\n\u2014Ah me,\nAnd yet \u2019tis all as Zeus hath willed,\nDoer of all and Cause of all;\nBy His Word every chance doth fall,\nNo end without Him is fulfilled;\nWhat of these things\nBut cometh by high Heaven\u2019s counsellings?\n\n[_A band of Mourners has gathered within the House_.]\n\nMOURNERS.\nAh, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!\nHow shall I weep, what word shall I say?\nCaught in the web of this spider thing,\nIn foul death gasping thy life away!\nWoe\u2019s me, woe\u2019s me, for this slavish lying,\nThe doom of craft and the lonely dying,\nThe iron two-edged and the hands that slay!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAnd criest thou still this deed hath been\nMy work? Nay, gaze, and have no thought\nThat this is Agamemnon\u2019s Queen.\n\u2019Tis He, \u2019tis He, hath round him wrought\nThis phantom of the dead man\u2019s wife;\nHe, the old Wrath, the Driver of Men astray,\nPursuer of Atreus for the feast defiled;\nTo assoil an ancient debt he hath paid this life;\nA warrior and a crowned King this day\nAtones for a slain child.\n\nCHORUS.\n\u2014That thou art innocent herein,\nWhat tongue dare boast? It cannot be,\nYet from the deeps of ancient sin\nThe Avenger may have wrought with thee.\n\n\u2014On the red Slayer crasheth, groping wild\nFor blood, more blood, to build his peace again,\nAnd wash like water the old frozen stain\nOf the torn child.\n\nMOURNERS.\nAh, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!\nHow shall I weep, what word shall I say?\nCaught in the web of this spider thing,\nIn foul death gasping thy life away.\nWoe\u2019s me, woe\u2019s me, for this slavish lying,\nThe doom of craft and the lonely dying,\nThe iron two-edged and the hands that slay!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAnd what of the doom of craft that first\nHe planted, making the House accurst?\nWhat of the blossom, from this root riven,\nIphigen\u00eea, the unforgiven?\nEven as the wrong was, so is the pain:\nHe shall not laugh in the House of the slain,\nWhen the count is scored;\nHe hath but spoil\u00e8d and paid again\nThe due of the sword.\n\nCHORUS.\nI am lost; my mind dull-eyed\nKnows not nor feels\nWhither to fly nor hide\nWhile the House reels.\nThe noise of rain that falls\nOn the roof affrighteth me,\nWashing away the walls;\nRain that falls bloodily.\n\nDoth ever the sound abate?\nLo, the next Hour of Fate\nWhetting her vengeance due\nOn new whet-stones, for new\nWorkings of hate.\n\nMOURNERS.\nWould thou hadst covered me, Earth, O Earth,\nOr e\u2019er I had looked on my lord thus low,\nIn the pall\u00e8d marble of silvern girth!\nWhat hands may shroud him, what tears may flow?\n\nNot thine, O Woman who dared to slay him,\nThou durst not weep to him now, nor pray him,\nNor pay to his soul the deep unworth\nOf gift or prayer to forget thy blow.\n\n\u2014Oh, who with heart sincere\nShall bring praise or grief\nTo lay on the sepulchre\nOf the great chief?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nHis burial is not thine to array.\nBy me he fell, by me he died,\nI watch him to the grave, not cried\nBy mourners of his housefolk; nay,\n\nHis own child for a day like this\nWaits, as is seemly, and shall run\nBy the white waves of Acheron\nTo fold him in her arms and kiss!\n\nCHORUS.\nLo, she who was erst reviled\nRevileth; and who shall say?\nSpoil taken from them that spoiled,\nLife-blood from them that slay!\nSurely while God ensueth\nHis laws, while Time doth run\n\u2019Tis written: On him that doeth\nIt shall be done.\n\nThis is God\u2019s law and grace,\nWho then shall hunt the race\nOf curses from out this hall?\nThe House is sealed withal\nTo dreadfulness.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nAye, thou hast found the Law, and stept\nIn Truth\u2019s way.\u2014Yet even now I call\nThe Living Wrath which haunts this hall\nTo truce and compact. I accept\n\nAll the affliction he doth heap\nUpon me, and I charge him go\nFar off with his self-murdering woe\nTo strange men\u2019s houses. I will keep\n\nSome little dower, and leave behind\nAll else, contented utterly.\nI have swept the madness from the sky\nWherein these brethren slew their kind.\n\n[_As she ceases, exhausted and with the fire gone out of her,_\nAIGISTHOS, _with Attendants_, _bursts triumphantly in._]\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nO shining day, O dawn of righteousness\nFulfilled! Now, now indeed will I confess\nThat divine watchers o\u2019er man\u2019s death and birth\nLook down on all the anguish of the earth,\nNow that I see him lying, as I love\nTo see him, in this net the Furies wove,\nTo atone the old craft of his father\u2019s hand.\nFor Atreus, this man\u2019s father, in this land\nReigning, and by Thyestes in his throne\nChallenged\u2014he was his brother and mine own\nFather From home and city cast him out;\nAnd he, after long exile, turned about\nAnd threw him suppliant on the hearth, and won\nPromise of so much mercy, that his own\nLife-blood should reek not in his father\u2019s hall.\nThen did that godless brother, Atreus, call,\nTo greet my sire\u2014More eagerness, O God,\nWas there than love!\u2014a feast of brotherhood.\nAnd, feigning joyous banquet, laid as meat\nBefore him his dead children. The white feet\nAnd finger-fring\u00e8d hands apart he set,\nVeiled from all seeing, and made separate\nThe tables. And he straightway, knowing naught,\nTook of those bodies, eating that which wrought\nNo health for all his race. And when he knew\nThe unnatural deed, back from the board he threw,\nSpewing that murderous gorge, and spurning brake\nThe table, to make strong the curse he spake:\n\u201cThus perish all of Pleisthen\u00eas begot!\u201d\nFor that lies this man here; and all the plot\nIs mine, most righteously. For me, the third,\nWhen butchering my two brethren, Atreus spared\nAnd cast me with my broken sire that day,\nA little thing in swaddling clothes, away\nTo exile; where I grew, and at the last\nJustice hath brought me home! Yea though outcast\nIn a far land, mine arm hath reached this king;\nMy brain, my hate, wrought all the counselling;\nAnd all is well. I have seen mine enemy\nDead in the snare, and care not if I die!\n\nLEADER.\nAigisthos, to insult over the dead\nI like not. All the counsel, thou hast said,\nWas thine alone; and thine the will that spilled\nThis piteous blood. As justice is fulfilled,\nThou shalt not \u2019scape\u2014so my heart presageth\u2014-The\nday of cursing and the hurl\u00e8d death.\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nHow, thou poor oarsman of the nether row,\nWhen the main deck is master? Sayst thou so?\u2026\nTo such old heads the lesson may prove hard,\nI fear me, when Obedience is the word.\nBut hunger, and bonds, and cold, help men to find\nTheir wits.\u2014They are wondrous healers of the mind!\nHast eyes and seest not this?\u2014Against a spike\nKick not, for fear it pain thee if thou strike.\n\nLEADER (_turning from him to_ CLYTEMNESTRA).\n\nWoman! A soldier fresh from war! To keep\nWatch o\u2019er his house and shame him in his sleep\u2026\nTo plot this craft against a lord of spears\u2026\n\n[CLYTEMNESTRA, _as though in a dream, pays no heed._ AIGISTHOS\n_interupts._]\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nThese be the words, old man, that lead to tears!\nThou hast an opposite to Orpheus\u2019 tongue,\nWho chained all things with his enchanting song,\nFor thy mad noise will put the chains on thee.\nEnough! Once mastered thou shalt tamer be.\n\nLEADER.\nThou master? Is old Argos so accurst?\nThou plotter afar off, who never durst\nRaise thine own hand to affront and strike him down\u2026\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nTo entice him was the wife\u2019s work. I was known\nBy all men here, his old confessed blood-foe.\nHowbeit, with his possessions I will know\nHow to be King. And who obeys not me\nShall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he,\nCorn-flushed. Hunger, and hunger\u2019s prison mate,\nThe clammy murk, shall see his rage abate.\n\nLEADER.\nThou craven soul! Why not in open strife\nSlay him? Why lay the blood-sin on his wife,\nStaining the Gods of Argos, making ill\nThe soil thereof?\u2026But young Orestes still\nLiveth. Oh, Fate will guide him home again,\nAvenging, conquering, home to kill these twain!\n\nAIGISTHOS.\n\u2019Fore God, if \u2019tis your pleasure thus to speak and do, ye soon shall\nhear!\nHo there, my trusty pikes, advance! There cometh business for the\nspear.\n\n[_A body of Spearmen, from concealment outside, rush in and dominate\nthe stage._]\n\nLEADER.\nHo there, ye Men of Argos! Up! Stand and be ready, sword from sheath!\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nBy Heaven, I also, sword in hand, am ready, and refuse not death!\n\nLEADER.\nCome, find it! We accept thy word. Thou offerest what we hunger for.\n\n[_Some of the Elders draw swords with the Leader; others have collapsed\nwith weakness. Men from_ AGAMEMNON\u2019S _retinue have gathered and prepare\nfor battle, when, before they can come to blows,_ CLYTEMNESTRA _breaks\nfrom her exhausted silence._]\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nNay, peace, O best-belov\u00e8d! Peace! And let us work no evil more.\nSurely the reaping of the past is a full harvest, and not good,\nAnd wounds enough are everywhere.\u2014Let us not stain ourselves with\nblood.\nYe reverend Elders, go your ways, to his own dwelling every one,\nEre things be wrought for which men suffer.\u2014What we did must needs be\ndone.\nAnd if of all these strifes we now may have no more, oh, I will kneel\nAnd praise God, bruis\u00e8d though we be beneath the Daemon\u2019s heavy heel.\nThis is the word a woman speaks, to hear if any man will deign.\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nAnd who are these to burst in flower of folly thus of tongue and brain,\nAnd utter words of empty sound and perilous, tempting Fortune\u2019s frown,\nAnd leave wise counsel all forgot, and gird at him who wears the crown?\n\nLEADER.\nTo cringe before a caitiff\u2019s crown, it squareth not with Argive ways.\n\nAIGISTHOS. (_sheathing his sword and turning from them_).\n\nBah, I will be a hand of wrath to fall on thee in after days.\n\nLEADER.\nNot so, if God in after days shall guide Orestes home again!\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nI know how men in exile feed on dreams\u2026and know such food is vain.\n\nLEADER.\nGo forward and wax fat! Defile the right for this thy little hour!\n\nAIGISTHOS.\nI spare thee now. Know well for all this folly thou shalt feel my\npower.\n\nLEADER.\nAye, vaunt thy greatness, as a bird beside his mate doth vaunt and\nswell.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA.\nVain hounds are baying round thee; oh, forget them! Thou and I shall\ndwell\nAs Kings in this great House. We two at last will order all things\nwell.\n\n[_The Elders and the remains of_ AGAMEMNON\u2019S _retinue retire sullenly,\nleaving the Spearmen in possession._ CLYTEMNESTRA _and_ AIGISTHOS _turn\nand enter the Palace._]\n\n\nNOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON\n\nThe chief characters in the play belong to one family, as is shown by\nthe two genealogies:\u2014\n\nI.\n\n                            TANTALUS\n                               |\n                               |\n                             Pelops\n                               |\n                               |\n                  \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n                  |                         |\n                  |                         |\n                Atreus                   Thyestes\n                  |                         |\n                  |                         |\n          \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014                 |\n          |               |                 |\n          |               |                 |\n      Agamemnon        Menelaus         Aigisthos\n   (= Clytemnestra)    (= Helen)     (= Clytemnestra)\n          |\n          |\n    \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n    |           |          |\n    |           |          |\nIphigenia    Electra    Orestes\n\n(Also, a sister of Agamemnon, name variously given, married Strophios,\nand was the mother of Pylades.)\n\nII.\n\n     Tyndareus = Leda = Zeus\n        |             |\n        |             |\n     \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014         \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n        |            |           |          |\n        |            |           |          |\nClytemnestra      Castor    Polydeuces    Helen\n\n [P. 1, l. 1.]\u2014The Watchman, like most characters in Greek tragedy,\n comes from the Homeric tradition, though in Homer (Od. iv. 524) he is\n merely a servant of Aigisthos.\n\n [P. 2, l. 28, Women\u2019s triumph cry.]\u2014This cry of the women recurs\n several times in the play: cf. p. 26, ll. 587 ff., p. 55, l. 1234. It\n is conventionally represented by \u201colol\u00fb\u201d; as the cry to Apollo, Paian\n is \u201cI-\u00ea,\u201d l. 146, and Cassandra\u2019s sob is \u201cototoi\u201d or \u201cotototoi,\u201d p.\n 47.\n\n [Pp. 3 f., ll. 40 ff.]\u2014With this silent scene of Clytemnestra\u2019s,\n compare the long silence of Cassandra below, and the silence of\n Prometheus in that play until his torturers have left him. See the\n criticism of Aeschylus in Aristophanes, _Frogs_, ll. 911-920, pp. 68,\n 69 in my translation.\n\n [P. 5, l. 104, Sign of the War-Way.]\u2014i.e. an ominous sign seen by the\n army as it started on its journey. In Homer, Iliad, ll. 305-329, it is\n a snake which eats the nine young of a mother bird and then the\n mother, and is turned into stone afterwards.\u2014All through this chorus\n the language of the prophet Calchas is intentionally obscure and\n riddling\u2014the style of prophesy.\n\n [P. 7, l. 146, But I-\u00ea, i-\u00ea.]\u2014(Pronounce _Ee-ay_.) Calchas, catching\n sight in his vision of the further consequences which Artemis will\n exact if she fulfils the sign, calls on Apollo Paian, the Healer, to\n check her.\n\n [P. 7, l. 160, Zeus, whate\u2019er He be.]\u2014This conception of Zeus is\n expressed also in Aeschylus\u2019 _Suppliant Women_, and was probably\n developed in the Prometheus Trilogy. See my _Rise of the Greek Epic_,\n p. 291 (Ed. 2).\n    It is connected with the common Greek conception of the _Tritos\n    S\u00f4t\u00ear_\u2014 the Saviour Third. First, He who sins; next, He who\n    avenges; third, He who saves. In vegetation worship it is the Old\n    Year who has committed Hubris, the sin of pride, in summer; the\n    Winter who slays him; the New Year which shall save. In mythology\n    the three successive Rulers of Heaven are given by Hesiod as\n    Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus (cf. _Prometheus_, 965 ff.), but we cannot\n    tell if Aeschylus accepted the Hesiodic story. Cf. note on l. 246,\n    and Clytemnestra\u2019s blasphemy at l. 1387, p. 63.\n\n [P. 9, l. 192, Winds from Strymon.]\u2014From the great river gorge of\n Thrace, NNE; cf. below, l. 1418.\n\n [P. 9, l. 201, Artemis.]\u2014Her name was terrible, because of its\n suggestion. She demanded the sacrifice of Agamemnon\u2019s daughter,\n Iphigen\u00eea. (See Euripides\u2019 two plays, _Iphigenia in Tauris_ and\n _Iphigenia in Aulis_.) In other poets Agamemnon has generally\n committed some definite sin against Artemis, but in Aeschylus the\n death of Iphigen\u00eea seems to be merely one of the results of his\n acceptance of the Sign.\n\n [P. 10, l. 215, \u2019Tis a Rite of old.]\u2014Literally \u201cit is Themis.\u201d Human\n sacrifice had had a place in the primitive religion of Greece; hence\n Agamemnon could not reject the demand of the soldiers as an obvious\n crime. See _Rise of Greek Epic_, pp. 150-157.\n\n [P. 11, l. 246, The Third Cup.]\u2014Regularly poured to Zeus S\u00f4t\u00ear, the\n Saviour, and accompanied by a paean or cry of joy.\n\n [P. 11, l. 256, This Heart of Argos, this frail Tower:]\u2014i.e.\n themselves.\n\n [P. 11, l. 264, Glad-voiced.]\u2014Clytemnestra is in extreme suspense, as\n the return of Agamemnon will mean either her destruction or her\n deliverance. At such a moment there must be no ill-omened word, so she\n challenges fate.\n\n [P. 12, l. 276, A word within that hovereth without wings.]\u2014i.e. a\n presentiment. \u201cWinged words\u201d are words spoken, which fly from speaker\n to hearer. A \u2018wingless\u2019 word is unspoken. The phrase occurs in Homer.\n\n [Pp. 13 ff., ll. 281 ff.]\u2014Beacon Speech. There is no need to inquire\n curiously into the practical possibility of this chain of beacons.\n Greek tragedies do not care to be exact about this kind of detail.\n There may well have been a tradition that Agamemnon, like the Great\n King of Persia, used a chain of beacons across the Aegean.\u2014Note how\n vividly Clytemnestra\u2019s imagination is working in her excitement. She\n seems to see before her every leaping light in the chain, just as in\n the next speech she imagines the scene in Troy almost with the\n intensity of a vision.\n\n [P. 14, l. 314, Victory in the first as in the last.]\u2014All are Victory\n beacons; the spirit of Victory infects them all equally. Cf. l. 854\n below, where Agamemnon prays that the Victory which is now with him,\n or in him, may abide.\n\n [P. 15, l. 348, A woman\u2019s word.]\u2014Her hatred and fear of Agamemnon,\n making her feel vividly the horrors of the sack and the peril\n overhanging the conquerors, have carried her dangerously far. She\n checks herself and apologizes for her womanlike anxiety. Cf. l. 1661,\n p. 77.\n\n [P. 18, ll. 409 ff., Seers they saw visions.]\u2014A difficult and\n uncertain passage. I think the seers attached to the royal household\n (cf. _Libation-Bearers,_ l. 37, where they are summoned to read a\n dream) were rather like what we call clairvoyants. Being consulted,\n they look into some pool of liquid or the like; there they see\n gradually emerging the palace, the injured King, the deserted room,\n and at last a wraith of Helen herself, haunting the place.\n\n [P. 21, l. 487.]\u2014This break in the action, covering a space of several\n days, was first pointed out by Dr. Walter Headlam. Incidentally it\n removes the gravest of the difficulties raised by Dr. Verrall in his\n famous essay upon the plot of the _Agamemnon_.\n\n [P. 21, l. 495, Dry dust, own brother to the mire of war.]\u2014i.e. \u201cI can\n see by the state of his clothes, caked with dry dust which was once\n the mire of battle, that he comes straight from the war and can speak\n with knowledge.\u201d The Herald is probably (though perhaps not quite\n consistently) conceived as having rushed post-haste with his news.\n\n [Pp. 22 ff., HERALD.]\u2014The Herald bursts in overcome with excitement\n and delight, full of love for his home and everything he sees. A\n marked contrast to Agamemnon, ll. 810 ff. Note that his first speech\n confirms all the worst fears suggested by Clytemnestra. Agamemnon has\n committed all the sins she prayed against, and more. The terrible\n lines 527 ff., \u201cTill her Gods\u2019 Houses, etc.,\u201d are very like a passage\n in the _Persae_, 811 ff., where exactly the same acts by the Persian\n invaders of Greece make their future punishment inevitable.\n\n [P. 22, l. 509, Pythian Lord.]\u2014Apollo is often a sinister figure in\n tragedy. Cf. Sophocles _Oedipus_ , ll. 915 ff., pp. 52 ff., and the\n similar scene, _Electra_, 655 ff. Here it is a shock to the Herald to\n come suddenly on the god who was the chief enemy of the Greeks at\n Troy. One feels Apollo an evil presence also in the Cassandra scene,\n 11. 1071 ff., pp. 47 ff.\n\n [P. 23, l. 530, Happy among men.]\u2014The crown of his triumph! Early\n Greek thought was always asking the question, What is human happiness?\n To the Herald Agamemnon has achieved happiness if any one ever did.\n Cf. the well-known story of Croesus asking Solon who was the happiest\n man in the world (Herodotus, I. 30-33).\n\n [P. 24, ll. 551 ff., Herald\u2019s second speech.]\u2014The connexion of thought\n is: \u201cAfter all, why should either of us wish to die? All has ended\n well.\u201d This vivid description of the actualities of war can be better\n appreciated now than it could in 1913.\n\n [P. 25, l. 577, These spoils.]\u2014Spoils purporting to come from the\n Trojan War were extant in Greek temples in Aeschylus\u2019 day and later.\n\n [P. 26, l. 595, Our women\u2019s joy-cry.]\u2014There seems to have been in\n Argos an old popular festival, celebrating with joy or mockery the\n supposed death of a man and a woman. Homer (Od. iii. 309 f.) derives\n it from a rejoicing by Orestes over Aigisthos and Clytemnestra; cf.\n below, ll. 1316 ff., p. 59; Aeschylus here and Sophocles in the\n _Electra_, from a celebration by Clytemnestra of the deaths of\n Agamemnon and Cassandra. Probably it was really some ordinary New Year\n and Old Year celebration to which the poets give a tragic touch. It\n seems to have had a woman\u2019s \u201cOlolugmos\u201d in it, perhaps uttered by men.\n See Kaibel\u2019s note, Soph. _Electra_ 277-281.\n\n [P. 26, l. 612, Bronze be dyed like wool.]\u2014Impossible in the literal\n sense, but there is after all a way of dying a sword red!\n\n [P. 27, l. 617, Menelaus.]\u2014This digression about Menelaus is due, as\n similar digressions generally are when they occur in Greek plays, to\n the poet feeling bound to follow the tradition. Homer begins his\n longest account of the slaying of Agamemnon by asking \u201cWhere was\n Menelaus?\u201d (Od. iii. 249). Agamemnon could be safely attacked because\n he was alone. Menelaus was away, wrecked or wind-bound.\n\n [P. 28, l. 642, Two-fold scourge.]\u2014Ares works his will when spear\n crosses spear, when man meets man. Hence \u201ctwo-fold.\u201d\n\n [P. 29, CHORUS. The name HELENA.]\u2014There was a controversy in\n Aeschylus\u2019 day whether language, including names, was a matter of\n Convention or of Nature. Was it mere accident, and could you change\n the name of anything at will? Or was language a thing rooted in nature\n and fixed by God from of old? Aeschylus adopts the latter view: Why\n was this being called Helena? If one had understood God\u2019s purpose one\n would have seen it was because she really _was_\n \u201cHelen\u00e2s\u201d\u2014_Ship-destroyer_. (The Herald\u2019s story of the shipwreck has\n suggested this particular idea.) Similarly, if a hero was called Aias,\n and came to great sorrow, one could see that he was so called from\n \u2018Aiai,\u2019 \u201cAlas!\u201d\u2014The antistrophe seems to find a meaning in the name\n Paris or Alexandras, where the etymology is not so clear.\n\n [Pp. 33 ff.]\u2014Entrance of Agamemnon. The metre of the Chorus indicates\n marching; so that apparently the procession takes some time to move\n across the orchestra and get into position. Cassandra would be\n dressed, as a prophetess, in a robe of white reaching to the feet,\n covered by an _agr\u00eanon_, or net of wool with large meshes; she would\n have a staff and certain fillets or crowns. The Leader welcomes the\n King: he explains that, though he was against the war ten years ago,\n and has not changed his opinion, he is a faithful servant of the King\n \u2026 and that not all are equally so. He gave a similar hint to the\n Herald above, ll. 546-550, p. 24.\n\n [P. 35, Agamemnon.]\u2014A hard, cold speech, full of pride in the earlier\n part, and turning to ominous threats at the end. Those who have dared\n to be false shall be broken.\u2014At the end comes a note of fear, like the\n fear in Shakespeare\u2019s Julius Caesar. He is so full of triumph and\n success; he must be very careful not to provoke a fall.\u2014Victory, Nike,\n was to the Greeks a very vivid and infectious thing. It clung to you\n or it deserted you. And one who was really charged with Victory, like\n Agamemnon, was very valuable to his friends and people. Hence they\n made statues of Victory wingless\u2014so that she should not fly away. See\n _Four Stages of Greek Religion_, p. 138 note.\n\n [P. 36, Clytemnestra.]\u2014A wonderful speech. It seems to me that\n Aeschylus\u2019 imagination realized all the confused passions in\n Clytemnestra\u2019s mind, but that his art was not yet sufficiently\n developed to make them all clear and explicit. She is in suspense;\n does Agamemnon know her guilt or not? At least, if she is to die, she\n wants to say something to justify or excuse herself in the eyes of the\n world. A touch of hysteria creeps in; why could he not have been\n killed in all these years? Why must he rise, like some monster from\n the grave, unkillable? Gradually she recovers her calm, explains\n clearly the suspicious point of Orestes\u2019 absence, and heaps up her\n words and gestures of welcome to an almost oriental fullness (which\n Agamemnon rebukes, ll. 918 ff., p. 39). Again, at the end, when she\n finds that for the time she is safe, her real feelings almost break\n out.\n\n [P. 38.]\u2014What is the motive of the Crimson Tapestries? I think the\n tangling robe must have been in the tradition, as the murder in the\n bath certainly was. One motive, of course, is obvious: Clytemnestra is\n tempting Agamemnon to sin or \u201cgo too far.\u201d He tries to resist, but the\n splendour of an oriental homecoming seduces him and he yields. But is\n that enough to account for such a curious trait in the story, and one\n so strongly emphasized? We are told afterwards that Clytemnestra threw\n over her victim an \u201cendless web,\u201d long and rich (p. 63), to prevent\n his seeing or using his arms. And I cannot help suspecting that this\n endless web was the same as the crimson pall.\n    If one tries to conjecture the origin of this curious story, it is\n    perhaps a clue to realize that the word _droit\u00ea_ means both a bath\n    and a sarcophagus, or rather that the thing called droit\u00ea, a narrow\n    stone or marble vessel about seven feet long, was in pre-classical\n    and post-classical times used as a sarcophagus, but in classical\n    times chiefly or solely as a bath. If among the prehistoric graves\n    at Mycenae some later peasants discovered a royal mummy or skeleton\n    in a sarcophagus, wrapped in a robe of royal crimson, and showing\n    signs of violent death\u2014such as Schliemann believed that he\n    discovered\u2014would they not say: \u201cWe found the body of a King\n    murdered in a bath, and wrapped round and round in a great robe?\u201d\n\n [P. 39 f.]\u2014Agamemnon is going through the process of temptation. He\n protests rather too often and yields.\n\n [P. 39, l. 931, Tell me but this.]\u2014This little dialogue is very\n characteristic of Aeschylus. Euripides would have done it at three\n times the length and made all the points clear. In Aeschylus the\n subtlety is there, but it is not easy to follow.\n\n [P. 40, l. 945, These bound slaves.]\u2014i.e. his shoes. The metaphor\n shows the trend of his unconscious mind.\n\n [P. 41, l. 950, This princess.]\u2014This is the first time that the\n attention of the audience is drawn to Cassandra. She too is one of\n Aeschylus\u2019 silent figures. I imagine her pale, staring in front of\n her, almost as if in a trance, until terror seizes her at\n Clytemnestra\u2019s greeting in l. 1035, p. 45.\n\n [P. 41, l. 964, The cry.]\u2014i.e. the cry of the possessed prophetess\n which rang from the inner sanctuary at Delphi and was interpreted by\n the priests.\u2014The last two lines of the speech are plain in their\n meaning but hard to translate. Literally: \u201cwhen the full, or\n fulfilled, man walketh his home,\u2014O Zeus the Fulfiller, fulfil my\n prayers.\u201d\n\n [P. 42, l. 976.]\u2014The victim has been drawn into the house; the Chorus\n sing a low boding song: every audience at a Greek tragedy would expect\n next to hear a death cry from within, or to see a horrified messenger\n rush out. Instead of which the door opens and there is Clytemnestra:\n what does she want? \u201cCome thou also!\u201d One victim is not enough.\u2014In the\n next scene we must understand the cause of Clytemnestra\u2019s impatience.\n If she stays too long outside, some one will warn Agamemnon; if she\n leaves Cassandra, she with her second sight will warn the Chorus. If\n Cassandra could only be got inside all would be safe!\n\n [P. 44, l. 1022, \u201cOne there was of old.\u201d]\u2014Askl\u00eapios, the physician,\n restored Hippolytus to life, and Zeus blasted him for so oversetting\n the laws of nature.\n\n [P. 45, l. 1040, Alcm\u00eana\u2019s son.]\u2014Heracles was made a slave to Omphal\u00ea,\n Queen of Lydia. His grumbles at his insufficient food were a theme of\n comedy.\n\n [P. 45, l. 1049, Belike thou canst not yet.]\u2014Cf. below, ll. 1066 ff.\n The Elder speaks in sympathy. \u201cVery likely you cannot yet bring\n yourself to submit.\u201d\n\n [P. 46, l. 1061, Thou show her.]\u2014It seems odd to think that this\n passage has for centuries been translated as if it was all addressed\n to Cassandra: \u201cBut if you do not understand what I say, please\n indicate the same with your barbarous hand!\u201d\u2014What makes Cassandra at\n last speak? I think that the Elder probably touches her, and the touch\n as it were breaks the spell.\n\n [P. 47, l. 1072, Cassandra.]\u2014\u201cOtototoi\u201d really takes the place of a\n stage direction: she utters a long low sob.\u2014The exclamation which I\n have translated \u201cDreams!\u201d seems to occur when people see ghosts or\n visions. _Alcestis_, 261; _Prometheus_, 567. Cf. _Phoenissae_\n 1296.\u2014\u201cMine enemy!\u201d The name \u201cApollon\u201d suggested \u201c_apollyon,\u201d_\n Destroying \u2026 the form which is actually used in the Book of Revelation\n (Rev. ix. 11).\n    Observe how, during the lyric scene, Cassandra\u2019s vision grows\n    steadily more definite: First vague horror of the House: then the\n    sobbing of children, slain long ago: then, a new deed of blood\n    coming; a woman in it: a wife: then, with a great effort, an\n    attempt to describe the actual slaying in the bath. Lastly, the\n    sight of herself among the slain. (This last point is greatly\n    developed by Euripides, _Trojan Women_, ll. 445 ff., pp. 33 f.).\n    The story of the Children of Thyestes is given below, ll. 1590 ff.,\n    p. 73. Procn\u00ea (or Philom\u00eala) was an Attic princess who, in fury\n    against her Thracian husband, Tereus, killed their child Itys, or\n    Itylus, and was changed into a nightingale, to weep for him for\n    ever.\n\n [P. 52, ll. 1178 ff.]\u2014Dialogue. During the lyrics Cassandra has been\n \u201cpossessed\u201d or \u201centranced\u201d: the turn to dialogue marks a conscious\n attempt to control herself and state plainly her message of warning.\n In order to prove her power, she first tells the Elders of deeds done\n in the past which are known to them but cannot have been known to her.\n When once they are convinced of her true seercraft, she will be able\n to warn them of what is coming!\u2014The short \u2018stichom[^y]thia\u2019[**TR: This\n is a y with a circumflex, not a superscript.] (line for line\n dialogue), dealing in awed whispers with things which can hardly be\n spoken, leaves the story of Cassandra still a mystery. Then her\n self-control breaks and the power of the God sweeps irresistibly upon\n her; cf. below, ll. 1256 ff.; where it comes at her like a visible\n shape of fire, a thing not uncommon with modern clairvoyants.\n\n [P. 56, l. 1252, Thou art indeed fallen far astray]\u2014Because they had\n said \u201cwhat _man_\u201d\n\n [P. 56, l. 1265, These wreathed bands, this staff of prophesy.]\u2014Cf.\n _Trojan Women_, ll. 451 ff., p. 34.\n\n [P. 60, ll. 1343 ff., The death cry; the hesitation of the\n Elders.]\u2014This scene is often condemned or even ridiculed; I think,\n through misunderstanding. We knew the Old Men were helpless, like\n \u201cdreams wandering in the day.\u201d It is essential to the story that when\n the crisis comes they shall be found wanting. But they are neither\n foolish nor cowardly; each utterance in itself is natural and\n characteristic, but counsels are divided. One would like to know\n whether Aeschylus made them speak together confusedly, as would\n certainly be done on the modern stage, or whether the stately\n conventions of Greek tragedy preferred that each speaker should finish\n his say. In any case, what happens is that after a moment or two of\n confused counsel the Elders determine to break into the Palace, but as\n they are mounting the steps the great doors are flung open and\n Clytemnestra confronts them, standing over the dead bodies of\n Agamemnon and Cassandra.\n    The illusion intended is that the Elders have entered the Palace\n    and discovered Clytemnestra. But, as the mechanical arrangements of\n    the Greek stage were not equal to this sudden change of scene, and\n    since also it would, even with perfect machinery, have a tiresome\n    interrupting effect, a slight confusion or inconsistency is\n    allowed. We are supposed to be inside the house; but as a matter of\n    fact the supposition is soon forgotten, and the play goes on\n    without any attention to the particular place of the action. On\n    Clytemnestra\u2019s speech see Introduction, p. xiii.\n\n [P. 63, l. 1387, A prayer well sped to Zeus of Hell]\u2014As the third gift\n or libation was ritually given to Zeus the Saviour, Clytemnestra\n blasphemously suggests that her third and unnecessary blow was an\n acceptable gift to a sort of anti-Zeus, a Saviour of Death.\n\n [P. 65, l. 1436, Aigisthos.]\u2014At last the name is mentioned which has\n been in the mind of every one!\u2014Chrys\u00ea\u00efs was a prisoner of war,\n daughter of Chrys\u00eas, priest of Apollo. Agamemnon was made to surrender\n her to her father, and from this arose his quarrel with Achilles,\n which is the subject of the Iliad.\n\n [Pp. 67-72, ll. 1468-1573, Daemon.]\u2014The Genius or guardian spirit of\n the house has in this House become a Wrath, an \u2018Alastor\u2019 or \u2018Driver\n Astray.\u2019 See Introduction, pp. x ff.\n\n [P. 68, l. 1513, MOURNERS.]\u2014This attribution of the different speeches\n or songs to different speakers is, of course, conjectural. Ancient\n dramas come down to us with no stage directions and very imperfect\n indications of the speakers.\n\n [P. 72, l. 1579, AIGISTHOS.]\u2014The entry of Aigisthos enlivens the scene\n again after the brooding and bewildered end of the dialogue between\n Clytemnestra and the Elders. At the same time, it seems, no doubt by\n deliberate intention, to reduce it to commonplace. Aigisthos\u2019\n self-defence is largely justified, but he is no hero.\n\n [P. 73, l. 1602, Pleisthen\u00eas.]\u2014Apparently one of the ancestors of\n Atreus, but it is not clear where he comes in the genealogy. He may be\n identical with Pelops.\n\n [P. 74, l. 1617, Oarsman of the nether row.]\u2014On an ancient galley,\n bireme or trireme, the rowers of the lower bank of oars ranked as\n inferior to those who used the long oars from the deck.\n\n [P. 76, l. 1654.]\u2014Clytemnestra, see Introduction, p. xiii. She longs\n for peace, yet after all \u201cHad Zimri peace who slew his master?\u201d The\n end of the play leaves us waiting for the return of Orestes. In the\n first scene of the _Libation-Bearers,_ he is discovered standing by\n night at his father\u2019s grave.","title":"The Agamemnon of Aeschylus: Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":21266}