antistrophe 2
Then time worked on it, and it showed
what its parents had been. It gave
those who had brought it up
730
the thanks of carnage and ruin in their flocks:
to the feast it prepared no one was invited,
and the home was polluted with blood.
Helpless, the pain for the household,
a slaughtering curse in its power.
Through a god’s will, the new child reared
in the house was Disaster’s priest himself.
strophe 3
I think a spirit of windless calm arrived
740
in Ilium at the start—
jewel of wealth, soothing bad omens,
arrow shot soft from the eyes,
flower of love that gnawed at the heart.
Then she swerved off, then she made the marriage
bitter in its fulfillment.
What a sad house where she stayed, where she kept company.
There swept to Priam’s sons
a Fury,*26 a bride who brought weeping,
under the escort of Zeus the guest-god.
antistrophe 3
750
This saying, now grown old, has lived among mortals forever:
When a man’s great prosperity has reached its prime,
it will be fertile, it will not die childless.
Out of good fortune the shoot
rising is ravenous misery.
On my own here, apart, I think my own thoughts;
since an unholy act
gives birth to more in their turn,
760
and they have the look of their lineage.
But the destiny of houses true to justice
is a child of beauty, always.
strophe 4
An ancient arrogance begets its own
to grow in mortal misery; sooner or later
when the time comes that is ordained,
this fresh rancor is born,
this spirit enduring all battles, all wars,
770
unholy insolence full of
Black Ruin for the palace—
the image of its parents.
antistrophe 4
In houses dim with cooking smoke, Justice shines,
honoring the life
of righteousness. Precincts that filthy hands have hung
with cloth of gold, she turns from
in disgust and moves along to holy places.
780
She doesn’t honor money when its
power counterfeits praise.
No, she guides all things to their fitting end.
(Agamemnon enters on foot and slowly moves forward; Cassandra, dressed as a priestess of Apollo, is brought into sight on a chariot but remains silent and impassive throughout the following scene.)
CHORUS: Tell me, my king, sacker of Troy, Atreus’ offspring,
how shall I speak to you, how shall I revere you?—
not falling short of your favor, not going beyond it.
Much of mankind gives first honor to what
only appears to be—but this trespasses on justice.
790
Everyone’s ready to groan along with misery.
But the teeth of the pain don’t sink into their own hearts.
Oh, they tune their features perfectly to joy,
forcing a smile onto their dreary faces
[…]
Whoever, though, knows his flock well
can’t be deceived by the eyes of a man
whose purpose is specious, who fawns,
though his affection’s thin as water.
Well—in my eyes, when you sent your expedition
800
for Helen’s sake—no, I won’t hide it from you—
you hardly were acting a part that invited applause;
there was no skill in your hand as it steered your spirit.
[…] the willing courage
you tended for your men, even as they were dying.
Now, though, it’s not at my mind’s, not at arms’ length
that I smile at you […
…]*27 hardship to those who have reached a good ending.
In time you’ll make your inquiries, and then you’ll know
which of us citizens tending your city like a house
were just, and which ones were—unwarranted.
810
AGAMEMNON: Argos and this land’s gods, accessories
in my return, and in my punishment
of Priam’s city, must be first accosted.
In the gods’ court, the case stood on the facts.
Every vote went one way, into the blood-urn,
and told me, Kill the men and sack the city.
There were no chits to fill up the opposing
jar, and the Hope attending it was helpless.
The city’s still conspicuous—from smoke.
The cyclones of destruction live, while ashes
820
in their sad dying breathe wealth’s oily fragrance.
For this we owe the gods our thanks, recalling
our vengeance on the riotousness of rape.
For a woman’s sake, the sharp-toothed Argive beast
nesting inside the horse,*28 the shield-slung army,
roused itself, sprang, and smashed the town to dust
around the time the Pleiades set. A lion
in its raw hunger bounded past the tower
and licked up all the tyrant blood it wanted.
It is the gods my long preamble serves.
830
(to the Chorus) I’ve heard and bear in mind your thoughts as well;
I voice the same concerns, I take your case,
since few men have it in them to respect—
and not resent—one of their own who’s lucky.
Malice lodged in the heart is a disease,
a blight that doubles pain in the infected:
they feel the weight of their own misery
and groan to see prosperity in others.
I know of what I speak, from long experience:
people are just a mirror. Those who’ve seemed
840
kindest were phantoms’ shadows in the end—
except Odysseus: he was forced to sail,
but yoked beside my traces, he proved willing;
for that I give him—dead or living—credit.
Well, as to matters civic and religious,
we’ll have our formal national assembly
and set our policy. What’s going well
must hold, and we’ll see how—as policy;
but as for what requires the healing arts—
cutting or cauterizing for its own good—
850
we’ll try to drive back that disease’s pain.
Now that I’m at my hall, my hearth and home,
I’ll give the gods my hand in greeting first:
they brought me back from that far place they sent me.
May Victory—which did follow me—stand steady!
CLYTEMNESTRA: Gentlemen, citizens, honored Argive elders,
I’m not ashamed to tell you how attached
to a man I am, by nature. People’s fear
withers with time. It’s not from second hand
that I report a miserable life
860
endured the whole time this one was in Ilium.
It is a fearsome thing, first, that a wife
sits at home desolate, without her husband,
malignant noises rising all around her.
Messengers, screeching evil for her household,
keep coming, each with worse news than the last.
I must say, if my man caught all the wounds
news of which kept on sluicing to this house,
a net would have as many holes to count;
and if his de
aths had tallied with the stories,
870
he’d be a second Geryon,*29 three-bodied,
boasting a cloak of earth allotted three times—
thick above, and beneath him, just imagine—
when all three versions of his body perished.
Time and again, after such awful rumors,
they seized me forcibly and from my neck
wrenched the noose I had fastened to a roof-beam.
And so our son, that forceful guarantee
of our mutual bond, does not stand here beside me.
I know Orestes should, but don’t be startled.
880
Your ally, Strophius of Phocis, meant well
in fostering the boy, as he foresaw
harm—and both places muttered it: for you
in Ilium; here, lawless civil uproar,
the council overthrown—it’s in the blood
of humankind to kick at someone fallen.
Certainly, my excuse is hiding nothing.
Oh, but the roaring fountain of my sobbing
has been extinguished—not one drop remains.
My eyes are bad, so late at night I lay
890
weeping for you and piles of brush deprived always
of beacon fires. From my flimsy dreams
I used to startle wide awake at gnats’ wings
in their shrilling onrush. I saw more disasters
for you than my companion, sleep, had time for.
I have endured all this; empty of grief now
I can address my man: the sheepfold’s guard-dog,
strong rope that holds the mast, the stalwart pillar
of the high roof, a father’s only child,
land to the eyes of sailors past all hope,
900
the glorious daylight following a storm,
a spring’s gush for a thirsty traveler.
So pleasant is escaping all compulsion!
I think you worthy of such salutations—
and banish envy: all that we have suffered
already warrants this. Come now, darling,
step from your vehicle—but keep your feet
from the ground, great ravager of Ilium.
Maids, hurry! Carry your commission out:
cover the earth he’ll walk on with these fabrics;
910
spread purple on his passage—now! And Justice
will lead him to the home he scarcely hoped for.
As for the rest, let prudence, undefeated
by sleep, settle it justly, with the gods’ help.
AGAMEMNON: Offspring of Leda, left to guard my house:
The speech you’ve given suits my absence well,
since both were quite extended. Proper praise
is a tribute other people ought to give.
Furthermore, don’t indulge me—that’s just like
a woman. I am no barbarian
920
for you to gape and squeal at as you grovel—
and don’t spread clothing in my path to lead me
to resentment. Only gods should reap these honors,
and I’m a mortal—I’d be terrified
in setting foot on these embroidered splendors.
Revere me merely as a man, I tell you.
Word of me rises and resounds without
foot-wiping tapestries. Lack of presumption
is a god’s greatest gift. Call a man happy
who ends his life in sweet prosperity.
930
If everything were like that, I’d be fearless.
CLYTEMNESTRA: But tell me this—and give me your sincere view.
AGAMEMNON: Count on it: I won’t throw my view away.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Would you have vowed to do this, out of fear?
AGAMEMNON: Yes, as a rite an expert had prescribed.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Think: what would Priam, as the victor, do?
AGAMEMNON: Step on embroidery, I really think.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Don’t be concerned, then, when the people blame you.
AGAMEMNON: But there’s great power in the citizens’ voice.
CLYTEMNESTRA: To be unenvied is—unenviable.
940
AGAMEMNON: Surely a woman shouldn’t long for battle.
CLYTEMNESTRA: It’s gracious for the fortunate to lose.
AGAMEMNON: You’d really value victory in this clash?
CLYTEMNESTRA: Listen and give in freely, and you win.
AGAMEMNON: If that’s your judgment—someone, quick, untie
these boots, the slaves beneath my feet. As I
set foot on heaven’s property, these dyed works,
I hope no envious gaze strikes from a distance.
I feel great shame in trampling on my household,
wrecking its wealth, these weavings silver bought us.
Well, be that as it may.
950
(indicates Cassandra) Bring in this stranger
with kindness. From far off a god’s gaze falls
propitiously on gentle use of power.
No one would volunteer for slavery’s yoke;
and she’s the pick, the flower of great possessions,
my present from the army, as it happened.
I am subdued, however; as you order,
I step into my halls on purple cloth.
(He steps down onto the tapestries.)
CLYTEMNESTRA: There is a sea—who’ll scorch it dry?—that feeds
a giant ooze of dye, renewed forever,*30
960
for purple clothing worth its weight in silver.
By the gods’ grace, this is on hand, my lord.
Our household isn’t trained in poverty.
I would have vowed to trample endless clothing
if orders came from any oracle’s seat,
and I could pay for this lost life’s return.
If the root lives, the house will come to leaf,
a shadow stretch to shield us from the Dog Star.*31
Back to the hearthside of your residence
you’ve come; your coming signals warmth in winter;
970
and Zeus is crafting wine from bitter grapes,
the halls already have grown cool whenever
the man of consequence walks through his home.
(Agamemnon reaches the end of the purple walkway and exits into the palace.)
Zeus, Zeus, Fulfiller, come fulfill my prayers,
look after all these things you mean to do.
strophe 1
CHORUS: Tell me, why is this terror
fixed in its hovering
here, before my prophetic heart, like a guard at a gate?
Nobody called for, nobody paid for this song of divination.
980
The boldness I would need to shove it away
(like dreams that baffle me)
is overthrown—it has lost my mind’s kingdom.
Old age has come to the moment the ropes
were tossed to the sandy shore*32
when the voyaging army
set off for Ilium.
antistrophe 1
I am the witness myself; my own eyes
take in his homecoming;
990
yet my heart learns on its own, here inside me,
a song that no lyre can play to: the dirge
of a Fury. The whole of my darling
courage is gone.
Instincts couldn’t be gibberish.
Close to my righteous mind, my heart
wheels in the whirlpools that bring these things’ fulfillment.
Still I pray: may what I forecast
1000
turn out untrue, may it not come to pass.
strophe 2
Flourishing vigor gorges
full on itself,
[…] at the limits. But sickness
is living next door and pushes the s
hared
wall between them outward.
Though a man’s fate holds a straight
course […]
Dread may throw part
of his profit overboard to save the rest,
1010
sling it out in prudence—
then his whole house will not sink,
stashed full of overfullness;
the sea will not take his small boat.
Thick grows and wide spreads Zeus’ gift, his cure,
from each year’s furrows,
killing the plague of famine.*34
antistrophe 2
But once the black life-blood strikes
the ground in front of a man,
1020
how can anyone’s spells
call it back to the body again?
Even the one with the mastery
to bring the dead up from Hades
did not win Zeus’ assent. He was not spared.*35
Gods deploy one fate to cut off
another—if not for that
I would pour out what I know—my heart would run
out of my tongue’s control—
not mutter in the dark,
1030
dismally, without hope of winding the skein
clear to the end at the moment of the crisis—
but my mind leaps in a blaze.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Come, get yourself inside—that’s you, Cassandra.
Zeus makes you share our household rites—but not
to punish you. You’ll stand with many slaves
by the altar where he’s Guardian of Goods.
Get off your vehicle—don’t be too proud.
1040
They say Alcmene’s child once went for sale
and had to tolerate the bread of slavery.*36
At any rate, though you’ve no choice in this,
there’s comfort in your owners’ ancient wealth.
Those who’ve reaped richly, when they never hoped to,
are cruel to slaves […
…] strictly by the book.
I’ve told you—so you know—how things are done here.
CHORUS: (to Cassandra) She’s finished, and she gave you clear instructions.
Here you are, tangled in the net of fate.
You might, perhaps, obey her. Or you might not.
1050
CLYTEMNESTRA: Unless there’s nothing in her head except
a strange barbarian language like a swallow’s,
the things I say to urge her should make sense.
CHORUS: (to Cassandra) Follow her. Your best choice is as she orders.
The Greek Plays Page 11
