The Greek Plays
Page 9
an overload of grappling holds, sinking the body.
In the dust the knee is driven down, the spear-shaft
shattered first off, inaugural
sacrifice. This is his will, the same
for Danäans*4 and Trojans. Now it stands
where it has come, becomes what fate has set down.
Whatever’s burned and poured and wept on altars
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won’t coax away the anger tightly fastened
to gifts no fire should touch.
We remain, our destitute, our ancient flesh
left behind, since that far time, by the voyage of rescue.
We must use these canes to shepherd childlike strength.
As in fresh years the life that spurts up in the heart
is elder-weak—no War God’s posted there—
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so beyond mere old age, when the leaves have withered
to nothing, three feet walk the path;*5
and no more vigorous than a little boy
a dream goes wandering, strange sight in daytime.
You, though, Tyndareus’ daughter, Queen Clytemnestra,
what’s this that’s happened, what’s the news you’ve caught?
What message brings conviction and dispatches offerings
of perfume through the town? All the gods who govern the city
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or live in the sky or the Underworld, in houses or the marketplace,
have altars blazing with your gifts.
There—and there—one torch, then another springs up, reaching heaven.
each flame is wheedled forth with holy unguent,
tender, plainspoken, persuasive,
compounded in the royal women’s chambers.
Say what you can about all this,
and what the gods permit. Your story will heal this anguish,
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my enemy, who was thriving until now;
but now, at your display of sacrifices,
hope comes—and hope beats back the fretting,
endless hunger, the heart’s and mind’s tormentor.
strophe 1
I have the right to make it known: the road with happy omens,
powerful men leading blossoming manhood. The great age time has reared in me
still breathes persuasion, strength from the gods for singing.
Twin-throned, the Achaean magnates at the head of Greek youth,
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the marshals with one purpose,
were sent by the charging omen-bird to the Teucrians’*6 country
to collect the debt by force, at the point of a spear.
To the kings of ships the king of birds appeared:
a black one,
and a white one at its back;
verging on the palace they alighted, on the spear-hand side,
where everyone could see.
They were browsing on a hare’s heroic womb, her fruitful brood
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after they’d cut off her final, losing race.
Tell the story of grief, of grief—but may what is good have the victory.
antistrophe 1
And the army’s trusted prophet*7 saw. He recognized
Atreus’ warrior sons, with their two different hearts,
in the guests served the hare: these were the sendoff
for the fleet’s commanders. He voiced the omen’s meaning:
“Time will see the travelers here lay their hands on Priam’s city;
in front of its towers
Fate will drain off the people’s flourishing herds
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in violence.
Only look out for the gods’ malice darkening
over you, though your army has been hammered out
into a giant bit for breaking Troy. Holy Artemis’ pity seethes
at her father’s winged hunting dogs*8
offering up a miserable, cringing thing, her unborn little ones with her;
she hates the eagles’ banquet.
Tell the story of grief, of grief—but may what is good have the victory.
epode
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The lovely lady,*9 out of her great favor
toward the fresh, soft whelps of raging lions;
out of her gladness in all the clinging nurslings
of animals ranging through countryside,
demands fulfillment of the signs—
favorable, but still full of blame—from the towering birds.*10
But I call on Paean the healer:*11
don’t let her craft ship-binding, voyage-banning
winds of lingering against the Danäans,
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or chase a new sacrifice,
without law, without feasting,
a feud-builder born in the family, and not timid
toward men. The keeper of the house remains,
fearsome and unforgetting, looming, wily Nemesis for her child’s sake.”
These words rang out of Calchas,
and along with them greatly favorable things:
the fate of the king’s house seen in the birds of the journey.
Blend your own voice in:
tell the story of grief, of grief—but may what is good have the victory.
strophe 2
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Zeus, whoever he is—if he’s pleased to hear
that name in invocations,
then I address it to him:
I hold the scales up and find
nothing that is can be like him—
no, not like Zeus, if I’m truly to throw off this weight
of emptiness from my mind.
antistrophe 2
Even the god who, long ago, was great,*12
swollen with champion gall—yes, he was there,
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once, but no one now will even say so.
And the one born after him
was thrown to the mat three times, and was gone.
But the man zealous in shouting the victory of Zeus
will hit the level-headed bull’s-eye.
strophe 3
Zeus puts us on the road
to mindfulness, Zeus decrees
we learn by suffering.
In the heart is no sleep; there drips instead
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pain that remembers wounds. And to unwilling
minds circumspection comes.
But this is the gods’ favor, I suppose,
claiming by violence the place of awe, the helmsman’s bench.
antistrophe 3
Then the revered commander
of the Achaean fleet,
faulting no prophet,
blended his spirit with the blasts of chance;
when the Achaean army’s jars were emptied
in suffering weather when there was no sailing,
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on the shore facing Chalcis,*13
by the circling, roaring tides, in the country of Aulis;
strophe 4
and winds that came out of Strymon
meant evil leisure, hunger, painful anchorage,
sent men off wandering, ate away at the cables,
bent time back double:
the precious Argive army
was worn to fragments. For the punishing weather
a different remedy, then,
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one that fell harder on the chieftains,
rang from the prophet’s mouth.
Artemis was his warrant. The sons of Atreus
beat on the ground with their staffs,
tears escaping their eyes.
antistrophe 4
The older of the two, the chieftain, spoke now—these were his words:
“It is grim Death not to obey—
but the same if I cut my child down, jewel of my house—
my hands stained—they’re her father’s hands—with runnels
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of a slaughtered you
ng girl’s blood
by the altar. But which choice is safe for me?
How can I jump ship, fail
this allied expedition?
It swells with huge lust
for an offering of virgin blood to stop the winds—
but Righteousness forbids it.
May that guide me well.”
strophe 5
But when he put on necessity’s harness,
his spirit swerved—now, it was ungodly,
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unclean, unhallowed; from then on
he turned against thinking anything outrageous.
Folly, sorry conniver of shame,
fills mortals with recklessness—it’s her from the onset.
Bare-faced, he officiated
at his daughter’s death, to move a relief force
toward punishing a woman,
and to anoint the ships with sacrifice.
antistrophe 5
Her pleading, her shrieking for her father,
the girl’s short life—these were worth nothing
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to the lovers of battle, her judges.
Her father prayed first, then he told the attendants
to lift her high up, over the altar, like a goat—
though, frantic, she clung to his legs in their robes—
to keep her facing the ground,
and to guard her exquisite mouth,
keeping in sounds
of a curse for his house.
strophe 6
With a bit forced in, a power that silenced her.
Now her robes—dyed with saffron—poured to the ground
and each man who offered her up
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she pierced with a pitiful gaze—
she was like a painting’s central figure—struggling
to speak to them, since often
in her father’s generous banqueting hall
she’d sung a hymn full of blessing, in the chaste voice of a virgin,
when the father she loved poured out the third libation;
with loving reverence she sang.
antistrophe 6
The rest I didn’t see; I have no tale to tell;
but Calchas’ skills find proof in what’s fulfilled.
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Anyway, Justice tips the scales; some learn through pain.
You’ll know the future when it’s born;
you might as well rejoice
before its time, as mourn before its time.
With dawn, the truth is coming, in those rays.
But let what follows now be some good ending—that’s the wish
of the Apian land’s sole defense,
its bulwark that stands close beside me here.
(Clytemnestra has by this point entered from the palace.)
I’ve come, awed by your power, Clytemnestra.
I know respect is due the chieftain’s wife
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as long as there’s a desolate, unmanned throne.
If you have some dear news or not—perhaps
these busy rites serve hope alone—I would
be pleased to hear—but silence won’t offend me.
CLYTEMNESTRA: May Dawn arrive with good news—you must know
the saying—from the pleasant Night, her mother.
The joy for you is greater than your hopes:
the city of Priam’s captured by the Argives.
CHORUS: What? That’s beyond belief, beyond my grasp.
CLYTEMNESTRA: The Achaeans now hold Troy. Are those words plain?
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CHORUS: Bliss, stealing over me, draws out a tear.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Your eye gives evidence of your firm favor.
CHORUS: But what convinced you? Is there any proof?
CLYTEMNESTRA: Of course there is—unless a god has tricked me.
CHORUS: Do signs in dreams have so much hold on you?
CLYTEMNESTRA: A dozing mind does not supply my views.
CHORUS: Perhaps, then, some raw rumor urged you on.
CLYTEMNESTRA: You sneer! My mind’s not like a little girl’s!
CHORUS: How long ago, then, did they sack the city?
CLYTEMNESTRA: During the night from which this day was born.
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CHORUS: What messenger could reach his goal so quickly?
CLYTEMNESTRA: Hephaestus, who sent the blazing light from Ida;
then beacon after beacon’s courier flame:*14
from Ida first, to Hermes’ crag at Lemnos.
Third came the Athos summit, which belongs
to Zeus: it, too, received the massive firebrand.
Ascending now to shoot across the sea’s back,
the journeying torch in all its power and joy
[…]*15
The pine wood, like a second sun, conveyed
the gold-gleam to the watchtower on Macistus.
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Prompt and triumphant over feckless sleep,
unslacking in its task as courier,
passing Euripus’ streams, the beacon’s light
signaled far off to watchmen on Messapion.
They sent out light in turn, sent on the message,
setting alight a rick of graying heather.
Potent against the dimming murk, the light
went leaping high across Asopus’ plain
like the beaming moon, and at Cithaeron’s scarp
roused missive fire for still another relay.
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The lookout there did not defy the light
sent from far off; the new blaze shot up stronger.
The glow shot past the lake called Gorgon’s Face;
arriving at the mountain where the goats roam,
it urged the fire-ordnance on […]
With all their strength, men raised a giant flame,
beard-shaped, to overshoot and pass beyond
the headland fronting the Saronic strait—
so bright the blaze. Darting again, it reached
Arachne’s lookout peak, this city’s neighbor;
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then it fell here, on the Atreides’ mansion.
The light we see descends from Ida’s fire.
Torchbearers served me in this regimen,
with every handoff perfectly performed.
The runners who came first and last both win.
This is my proof, the pledge of what I tell you.
My husband passed the news to me from Troy.
CHORUS: Later, the gods will have my prayers of thanks.
Please, let me hear the story from the start,
clear through, and you will wear my wonder out.
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CLYTEMNESTRA: Today—now—Troy belongs to the Achaeans.
I think the shouts don’t blend as they rise up.
Into one bowl pour vinegar and oil—
you’d say the two were factions and not friends.
So, in their separate fortunes, you would hear
two kinds of sounds, from conquering and conquered.
Some people sprawl on husbands’, brothers’ corpses,
or clutch the gray-haired dead—who in their lives
gave life to them. Already they have voices
of slaves to howl the end their loved ones found.
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Others have worked all night in ranging battle.
Famished, they’re now arrayed to break their fast
on the town’s goods, without order, without warrant,
but merely as each man drew Fortune’s lot.
In the Trojan homes that they took prisoner
they live already. They’ve escaped the frost
and dew. Like favorites of the gods, they sleep
all night—there’s no more watch for them to keep.
If they respect the gods who keep the city,
the seized land’s gods, and holy habitations,
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then victory won�
��t fight back against the victors.
But let no overreaching, plundering lust—
defeat by lucre—pitch into the army.
Homecoming is their rescue: they must round
the turning post and race back to the finish.
On course with gods, the army might return,
but if the torment of the dead should wake,
[…]
it may be, if no sudden evil strikes.
This is the woman’s news you have from me.
May the good rule—and no one see it stagger.
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I choose to profit by these many blessings.
CHORUS: Woman, you show the sense of a discreet man.
And I, now that I’ve heard good evidence,
am ready to address the gods as due.
Their kindness now is worth my suffering!
Zeus our king, and dear Night,
with such great jewels in your possession!
Onto Troy’s towers you threw a net not even water could slip through:
no one grown, no one young rose up beyond
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that seine, huge and calamitous, of slavery.
Zeus, great god of guests, I revere, who has done these things,
from the start aiming his bow at Alexander;*16
not short of the mark, and not beyond the stars
would the arrow fall down useless.
strophe 1
A blow of Zeus—they can cite that;
this at least is traceable.
He did as he decreed. It’s been said
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gods turn their backs on mortals
who trample the blessing of things set apart—
irreverent people.
A curse has dawned for the descendants
of the reckless*17
who blast outrageous arrogance from their mouths
when their homes luxuriate, turn lavish,
run over the brim of what’s best. Leave me content—
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since this is safe—with my good understanding.
There is no bulwark
for the man wealth gluts—
not when he’s kicked great Justice’s
altar out of sight.
antistrophe 1
Now ruthless Persuasion storms in,
the overpowering child of Ruin counseling ruin from the start;
and every remedy is useless. She’s not hidden—
she’s right there, bright, a grim light, a visitation.