An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides

by Aeschylus

  But Justice shines in shabby houses and honors the virtuous life.

  From golddrenched halls and unclean hands she turns away—toward holiness. Not wealth, not pomp, not praise.

  Justice guides us all.

  [Enter AGAMEMNON, with KASSANDRA behind at a distance.]

  CHORUS : Enter king, sacker of Troy, son of Atreus—how should I address you?

  How can I show you just the right amount of deference and courtesy?

  Many people cherish a show of feeling.

  They’re quite wrong.

  You can always find someone to groan along with your misfortune (while the sting doesn’t reach his heart) or join in your joy (note the fake smile).

  But no smart shepherd is deceived by a fawning flock or its watery love.

  Now I have to admit when you sent an army after Helen I wrote you off as a loose cannon.

  But I also admit, you did it! You won! And you’ll learn in time if you ask the right questions who kept your city safe for you and who did not.

  AGAMEMNON : First Argos and the gods of Argos I think it right to greet—those gods who had a share in my return and the justice I took from Priam’s town.

  They didn’t wait for legal arguments but cast their vote straight into the urn of blood.

  So much for Troy.

  There was an urn of hope but it was empty.

  Look, smoke still floats above that city, you can see it.

  Storms of ruin there. The ashes stink with wealth.

  For this victory we must pay the gods everlasting gratitude.

  We threw a noose around Troy’s arrogance and—for a woman’s sake—

  ground the city to powder.

  We are the wild beast of Argos, descended from horses, sheathed in shields, that overleapt the towers of Troy, a rawflesheating lion to lap the blood of kings!

  That’s what I have to say to the gods.

  Now you (old men): I hear and I agree with your anxieties.

  I see your point.

  Few men can praise a friend’s success without resentment—

  there is a poison settles on the heart and makes it twice as painful when a man in distress has to look on another rejoicing.

  I know. I am acquainted with the mirror of society—

  why, all those men who posed as loyal friends to me?

  No more than ghosts or shadows. Odysseus alone turned out to be a steady tracehorse—

  alive or dead as he may be.

  For all the rest: we’ll call an assembly.

  Deliberate.

  Where things go well, we’ll plan how to prolong it.

  Where there is need of medicine and healing, we’ll cauterize or cut.

  Clear out that disease!

  So now into my house, my hearth, and greet the gods.

  They sent me forth, they bring me back.

  May Victory, who came with me, abide and stay.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Gentlemen, citizens, elders of Argos, you, I am not ashamed to tell you of my husbandloving ways.

  Shyness diminishes with age.

  The fact is, life got hard for me when he was off at Troy.

  It’s a terrible thing for a woman to sit alone in a house, listening to rumors and tales of disaster one after another arriving—

  why, had this man sustained as many wounds as people told me, he’d be fuller of holes than a net!

  To die as often as they reported he’d need three bodies and three cloaks of earth—one for each burial.

  So often did nasty rumors reach me, I hung up a noose for my neck more than once.

  Other people had to cut me down.

  That’s why our boy—yours and mine—

  Orestes, is not standing here, as he should be.

  Don’t worry. Strophios has him, our Phokian ally, who warned me of problems, your danger beneath Troy but also anarchy at home—

  the people throwing off your government.

  They love to kick a man who’s down.

  I’m telling the truth. This is not an excuse.

  As for me, my torrents of tears have dried away.

  Not one drop left.

  My poor eyes ache with weeping and watching all the night—

  I watched for those beacon fires myself.

  No one else kept vigil as I did.

  And the lightest buzzing of a gnat would wake me if I fell into a dream.

  There I saw you catastrophized in more ways than there were moments of sleep.

  So now, with all that over, with my mind grief free, I salute my man: he is the watchdog of the palace, forestay of the ship, pillar of the roof, only son of his father, land appearing to sailors lost at sea, fine weather after storms, fresh stream to a thirsty traveler.

  Is it not sweet to escape necessity!

  We’ve had our share of evils!

  Envy begone!

  And now, dear one, as a special favor to me, I pray you descend from your car without setting foot on the ground—

  O King, this foot that wasted Troy!

  [To servants.]

  What are you waiting for? You have your orders—strew the ground with fabrics, now!

  Make his path crimsoncovered!

  purplepaved! redsaturated!

  So Justice may lead him to the home he never hoped to see.

  Everything else I’ll arrange myself with my usual sleepless vigilance—exactly right, gods willing.

  AGAMEMNON : Offspring of Leda, guard of my house, you have made a speech to match my absence—long.

  But praise of me should come from others.

  Don’t pamper me with female ways, don’t fuss like some groveling barbarian, don’t strew my path with anything at all!

  You’ll draw down envy.

  That stuff is for gods.

  I am mortal. I can’t trample luxuries underfoot. Honor me as a man not a divinity.

  Anyway, who needs red carpets—my fame shouts aloud.

  Here discretion is key.

  Count no man happy until he dies happy.

  If I keep this rule, I’ll be okay.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Oh come on, relax your principles.

  AGAMEMNON : No I will not. My principles are firm.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Would you have done it for the gods to satisfy a vow?

  AGAMEMNON : Yes, if some religious expert prescribed it.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : What about Priam, if he’d won the war?

  AGAMEMNON : Oh Priam would love to walk on stuff like this.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Still you fear the blame of common men?

  AGAMEMNON : The voice of the people does have power.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Unenvied means unenviable, you know.

  AGAMEMNON : You’re like a bulldog. It’s not very feminine.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Yet a winner must acknowledge his victory.

  AGAMEMNON : And you insist on this victory?

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Yes! I do! Bend to me. Please!

  AGAMEMNON : Oh all right. Let someone loose my sandals, good slaves of my feet.

  and as I tread upon these crimson cloths let no evil eye of envy from the gods strike down on me.

  What a shame to trample the wealth of the house and ruin fabrics worth their weight in silver. Well, so it goes.

  Take this foreign girl into the house. Treat her kindly.

  God looks graciously upon a gentle master—and no one wants to be a slave.

  She is choice plunder, picked out for me by the army, my companion on the way.

  And now, since I am compelled to do your will, I shall proceed into the house walking on red carpets.

  [Exit AGAMEMNON.]

  KLYTAIMESTRA : There is the sea and who shall drain it dry?

  It breeds the purple stain, the dark red dye we use to color our garments, costly as silver.

  This house has an abundance. Thanks be to gods, no poverty here.

  Oh I would have vowed the trampling of many cloths if an oracle had ordered it, to ransom this man’s life.

  For when
the root is alive the leaves come back and shade the house against white dogstar heat.

  Your homecoming is warmth in winter.

  Or when Zeus makes wine from bitter grapes and coolness fills the house as the master walks his halls, righteous, perfect.

  Zeus, Zeus, god of things perfect, accomplish my prayers.

  Concern yourself here.

  Perfect this.

  CHORUS : Why does this fear float always in front of my heart—

  hungry for signs of the future—

  singing a prophetic song no one asked for or paid for?

  Why can’t I thrust it off like a difficult dream?

  My confidence drains away from the center of me.

  Yet it was years ago the Greek ships tossed their ropes on the beach at Troy and I saw them come home with my own eyes.

  Still at the edge of my heart the song of the Furies keeps nagging—

  no one taught me this song and it has no music, all the same it shakes me.

  My thoughts go round and round.

  I know it all means something real but I hope not! I pray not!

  Health and disease collaborate, don’t they?

  They share a wall between.

  So a man’s fortune runs a straight course then strikes a hidden reef.

  Yet if as a precaution we throw overboard a certain measure of wealth, our house doesn’t sink, our ship sails on and Zeus keeps sending up field after field of grain to stave off famine.

  But the black blood of a man once it falls to the ground who can call it back?

  Even the healer who thought he knew how was checked by Zeus.

  I am a restrained person.

  Otherwise my heart would race past my tongue to pour out everything.

  Instead I mumble,

  I gnaw myself.

  I lose hope.

  And my mind is burning.

  [Enter KASSANDRA.]

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Get yourself into the house, I’m talking to you, Kassandra.

  Now that Zeus has enrolled you in our household, made you a sharer of our water, take your stand by the altar with the other slaves.

  Come on, get down here, don’t be proud. They say even Herakles once was sold as a slave, ate slave’s bread.

  And if that is your lot, lucky you—your masters here are solid old money.

  New money people are rough on servants.

  Now you know what to expect.

  CHORUS : [To KASSANDRA.] Your turn. She’s talking to you.

  You’re not a free person:

  you’ll obey her of course. Or maybe you won’t.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Does she talk only “barbarian”—those weird bird sounds?

  Does she have a brain?

  CHORUS : [To KASSANDRA.] Your best option is to go with her.

  Do as she says. Go.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : I can’t waste time like this in the doorway.

  Already the animals stand at the hearth ready for slaughter—

  a joy we never hoped to see.

  So you get a move on, or you’ll miss the whole ceremony.

  If you really don’t understand a word I’m saying make some sign with your hand.

  CHORUS : Of an interpreter she seems, this stranger, to have need.

  For her way of turning is that of a newcaught animal’s.

  KLYTAIMESTRA : Oh she’s mad. Hearkens only to her own mad mind.

  Brought from a captured city yet she knows not how to take the bit—

  she frets her inside mouth away in foam of blood.

  I’ll not be insulted further.

  [Exit KLYTAIMESTRA.]

  CHORUS : But I, for I pity you, will not get angry.

  Poor creature, come down from there.

  Here is necessity. Here is a yoke for you to bear.

  KASSANDRA : OTOTOI POPOI DA!

  Apollo!

  O!pollo!

  Woepollo!

  O!

  CHORUS : Why do you mix up Apollo with “woe”?

  This god does not ever near sorrow go.

  KASSANDRA : OTOTOI POPOI DA!

  Apollo!

  O!pollo!

  Woepollo!

  O!

  CHORUS : She calls on the god in an unlucky way.

  This god has no part in anyone’s death day.

  KASSANDRA : Apollo

  Apollo

  god of the ways

  god of my ruin oh

  yes you destroy me oh

  yes it is absolute this time

  CHORUS : She looks about to prophesy and tell her side.

  The god is stretching a slave’s mind wide.

  KASSANDRA : Apollo

  Apollo

  god of the ways

  god of my ruin where

  have you brought me what

  house have you got me to

  CHORUS : The house of Atreus, look and you’ll see.

  You can trust me.

  KASSANDRA : Godhated so

  then too

  much knowing together self-

  murder man-

  chop blood-

  slop floor

  CHORUS : She’s keen as a hound tracking a smell.

  She’ll find blood, she’ll tell.

  KASSANDRA : Evidence

  evidence

  here

  they shriek children

  roasted on spits a father-gorged

  live—

  flesh-feast

  CHORUS : Of course we’ve heard of your talents before.

  But we’re not in the market for prophets anymore.

  KASSANDRA : [scream] what

  [scream] how

  [scream] what in the world

  is this [scream] strange

  new [scream]

  big as the house

  evil in the house

  who can lift it who can heal it

  help is a world away

  CHORUS : Some of this I don’t get.

  Some of it is old hat.

  KASSANDRA : [scream] woman

  will you

  wash your man in the bath

  how can I

  soon it will

  there she goes

  hand over hand is

  reaching

  out

  CHORUS : Riddles all together with oracles tossed.

  I’m still lost.

  KASSANDRA : [scream] [scream] [scream] [scream] what is this

  appearing a

  net of hell no

  the wife is the net he’s

  married to murder here

  comes insatiable vengeance

  howling the sacrifice

  into

  place

  CHORUS : Who is this spirit of vengeance you call to?

  Your words make me falter.

  It races my heart the yellow fear

  as when death is near.

  KASSANDRA : [scream] [scream] look

  there look

  there keep

  the bull from the cow she

  nets him she gores

  him with

  her deadly black

  horn he

  falls he’s

  down he bathes in

  death are you listening to

  me

  CHORUS : Prophecy usually goes right over my head.

  Still it sounds grim what she said.

  Oh what good do prophets ever bring?

  They tinge with terror the simplest thing.

  KASSANDRA : [scream] [scream] evil life evil luck evil I am just this sound look the

  cup of my pain is already poured

  out why

  did you bring me

  here was

  it for this

  was it for this

  was it for

  CHORUS : You’re mad—godstruck godswept godnonsensical and you keep making that sound, it’s not musical.

  Like the nightingale who wails her lost child, you’re inexhaustibly wild.

  Sorrow this, sorrow that, sorrow
this, sorrow that.

  KASSANDRA : But yes think oh think of the clear nightingale—

  gods put round her a wing a life with no sting but for me waits schismos of the double-edged sword: schismos means

  a cleaving a cutting a splitting a chopping in two

  CHORUS : Where does it come from this godawful panic, this rash hysterical

  clang of your prophetic voice rushing over the edge?

  KASSANDRA : O marriage of Paris so deadly for everyone else

  O river of home my Skamander

  I used to dream by your waters now soon enough back and forth on the banks of the river of hell

  I will walk with my song torn open

  CHORUS : Why are you suddenly speaking clear as day?

  A newborn child could construe what you say.

  It gives me a bloody pain to hear all the griefs you name.

  KASSANDRA : [scream] [scream] [scream] for my ruined city