Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  [53] But why suddenly is the summer night prolonged to winter’s span? or what holds the setting stars in the sky? Are we delaying Phoebus? [Preparing to go.] Give back the day now to the universe. [Ghost vanishes.]

  CHORUS

  [57] O Fortune, who dost bestow the throne’s high boon with mocking hand, in dangerous and doubtful state thou settest the too exalted. Never have sceptres obtained calm peace or certain tenure; care on care weighs them down, and ever do fresh storms vex their souls. Not so on Libyan quicksands does the sea rage and roll up wave on wave; not so, stirred from their lowest depths, surge Euxine’s waters, hard by the icy pole, where, undipped in the azure waves, Boötes follows his shining wain, as does Fortune roll on the headlong fates of kings. To be feared they long, and to be feared they dread; kindly night gives them no safe retreat, and sleep, which conquers care, soothes not their breasts.

  [77] What palace has not crime answering crime hurled headlong? What palace do impious arms not vex? Law, shame, the sacred bonds of marriage, all flee from courts. Hard in pursuit comes grim Bellona of the bloody hand, and she who frets the proud, Erinys, forever dogging homes too high, which any hour brings low from high estate.

  [87] Though arms be idle and treachery give o’er, great kingdoms sink of their own weight, and Fortune gives way ‘neath the burden of herself. Sails swollen with favouring breezes fear blasts too strongly theirs; the tower which rears its head to the very clouds is beaten by rainy Auster; the grove, spreading dense shade around, sees ancient oak-trees riven; ’tis the high hills that the lightnings strike; large bodies are more to disease exposed, and while common herds stray o’er vagrant pastures, the head highest upreared is marked for death.

  [101] Whatever Fortune has raised on high, she lifts but to bring low. Modest estate has longer life; then happy he whoe’er, content with the common lot, with safe breeze hugs the shore, and, fearing to trust his skiff to the wider sea, with unambitious oar keeps close to land.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [108] Why, sluggish soul, dost safe counsel seek? Why waver? Already the better way is closed. Once thou mightest have guarded thy chaste bed and thy widowed sceptre with pure, wifely faith; gone are good fashions, right doing, honour, piety, faith, – and modesty, which, once ’tis gone, knows no return. Fling loose the reins and, forward bent, rouse onward all iniquity; through crime ever is the safe way for crime. Devise now in thine own heart a woman’s wiles, – what any faithless wife, beside herself with blind passion, what step-mother’s hands have dared, or what she dared, that maid ablaze with impious love, who fled her Phasian realm in that Thessalian bark; dare sword, dare poison; or else flee from Mycenae with the partner of thy guilt, in stealthy bark. But why timidly talk of stealth, of exile, and of flight? Such things thy sister did; thee some greater crime becomes.

  NURSE

  [125] Queen of the Greeks, Leda’s illustrious child, what ponderest thou in silence, what mad deed, ungoverned in thy purpose, art planning with restless soul? Though thy say no word, thy face discovers all thy anguish. Wherefore, whate’er it be, give thyself time and room; what reason cannot, delay has ofttimes cured.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  ]131] Passions rack me too strong to endure delay; flames are burning my very marrow and my heart; here fear blent with anguish plies the spur, and my breast throbs with jealousy; there base love forces its yoke upon my mind and forbids me to give way. And midst such fires that beset my soul, shame, weary indeed and conquered and utterly undone, still struggles on. By shifting fllods am I driven, as when here wind, there tide harries the deep, and the waters halt uncertain to which foe they will yield. Wherefore I have let go the rudder from my hands – where wrath, where smart, where hope shall carry me, there will I go; to the waves have I given my bark. Where reason fails, ’tis best to follow chance.

  NURSE

  [145] Blind is he and rash who follows chance.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [146] When fortune is at its worst, why fear its hazard?

  NURSE

  [147] Sae is thy sin and hidden, if thou allow it so.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [148] Open to view is a royal house’s every sin.

  NURSE

  [149] Dost repent the old crime, yet plan the new?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [150] Surely ’tis folly to stop midway in sin.

  NURSE

  [151] Whoso piles crime on crime, makes greater what he dreads.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [152] Both knife and cautery oft take the place of drugs.

  NURSE

  [153] Desperate remedies no one tries at first.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [154] In midst of ills, we must snatch at headlong ways.

  NURSE

  [155] But let the hallowed name of wedlock turn thee back.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [156] For ten years widowed, shall I still think on husband?

  NURSE

  [157] Thine offspring of him thou shouldst remember.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [158] I do remember my daughter’s wedding fires, my son-in-law, Achilles; true faith he showed a mother!

  NURSE

  [160] She freed our becalmed fleet from delay, and roused the sluggish sea from its deep repose.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [162] Oh, shame! oh, anguish! I, child of Tyndarus, of heavenly lineage, have borne a sacrifice for the Grecian fleet! Once more in memory I see my daughter’s wedding rites, which he made worthy of Pelops’ house, when, with prayer on lip, the father stood before the altars, how fit for nuptials! Calchas shuddered at his own oracles and at the recoiling altar-fires. O house that ever o’ertops crime with crime! With blood we purchased winds, and war with murder! But, say you, by this means a thousand ships spread sail together? ’Twas by no favouring god the fleet was freed; no! Aulis from port drave forth the impious ships. Thus beginning, not more happily did he wage the war. With love of a captive smitten, unmoved by prayer, he held as spoil the child of Smynthean Apollo’s aged priest, then as now mad with passion for a sacred maid. Neither Achilles, unmoved by threats, could bend him, nor he who alone sees the secrets of the universe, (for me and mine sure seer, for slave-girls of no weight), nor the plague-smit people, nor the blazing pyres. Midst the death-struggle of falling Greece, conquered, but by no foe, he languishes, has leisure for love, seeks new amours; and, lest his widowed couch ever be free from some barbaric mistress, he lusted for the Lyrnesian maid, Achilles’ spoil, nor blushed toe bear her away, torn from her lord’s embrace – he, the enemy of Paris! Now, wounded afresh, he rages with passion for the inspired Phrygian maid; and after Troy’s conquest, after Ilium’s overthrow, he comes back home, a captive’s husband Priam’s son-in-law!

  [193] Now gird thee up, my soul; no trivial strife art thou preparing. Crime must be forestalled. Sluggish, what day dost thou await? Till Phrygian wives shall wield our Pelops’ sceptre? Do the virgin daughters of thy house and Orestes, image of his father, hold thee back? Nay, ’tis the ills that that threaten them that should urge thee on; o’er them a storm of woes hangs lowering. Why, wretched woman, dost thou hesitate? Through thine own side, if not otherwise it can be done, let the sword be driven, and so slay two. Mingle thy blood with his, in thy death destroy thy husband; death hath no pang when shared with whom thou wouldest.

  NURSE

  [203] O Queen, restrain thyself, check thine impetuous wrath and think what thou art daring; the conqueror of wild Asia is at hand, Europe’s avenger, dragging in triumph captive Pergama and the Phrygians, long since subdued. Against him now with guile and stealth dost thou essay to fight, whom Achilles with his savage sword hurt not, though in grim wrath he armed his insolent hand, nor the better Ajax raging and bent on death, nor Hector, sole bulwark against the warring Greeks, nor the sure-aimed shafts of Paris, nor swarthy Memnon, nor Xanthus, rolling down corpses and arms commingled, nor Simoïs, its waves running red with blood, nor Cycnus, snowy offspring of the Ocean-god, nor warlike Rhesu
s and his Thracian horde, nor the Amazon, with her painted quiver, battle-axe in hand, and crescent shield? Him, home-returning, dost thou prepare to slay and to defile thine altars with slaughter impious? Will victorious Greece leave such a deed unavenged? Horses and arms, the sea studded with ships, set these before thine eyes, the ground flowing with streams of blood, and the whole fate of the captured house of Dardanus turned ‘gainst the Greeks. Control thy fierce passions, and do thou thyself set thine own soul at peace. [Exit.]

  [Enter AEGISTHUS.]

  AEGISTHUS

  [226] [In soliloquy.] The hour which always in my heart and soul I dreaded is here indeed, the hour of fate for me. Why, would, dost fear to face it? Why at the first onslaught dost lay down thy arms? Be sure that for thee destruction and dread doom the pitiless gods prepare. Then set thy vile life to face all punishments, and with confronting breast welcome both sword and flame, Aegisthus; for one so born, ’tis no penalty to die.

  [234] [To CLYTEMNESTRA.] Thou partner of my peril, thou, Leda’s daughter, be but my comrade still; then blood for blood shall he repay to thee, this cowardly warrior and valiant sire. But why does pallor o’erspread thy trembling cheeks, and why in thy listless face is thine eye so dull and drooping?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [239] Love for my husband conquers and turns me back. Return we thither whence ‘twere well never to have come away. E’en now let us reseek purity and truth, for never too late is trod the path to honesty; whose repents his sin is well-nigh innocent.

  AEGISTHUS

  [244] Whither art borne, mad one? Dost believe or hope that Agamemnon is still true to his marriage vows? Though there were nought in thine own heart to rouse grave fears, still would his arrogant, immoderate, o’er-inflated fortune swell his pride. Harsh to his allies was he while Troy still stood; what thinkest thou Troy has added to a spirit by its own nature fierce? Mycenae’s king he was; he will come back her tyrant; – prosperity urges pride beyond itself. With what magnificence the surging throng of harlots comes! But one stands out among the throng and holds the king in thrall, the handmaid of the fate-revealing god. Wilt thou give up and endure a sharer in thy marriage bed? But she will not. A wife’s utmost of woe is a mistress openly queening it in her husband’s house. Nor throne nor bed can brook a partnership.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [260] Aegisthus, why dost thou again drive me headlong, and fan to flame my wrath already cooling? Suppose the victor has allowed himself some liberty toward a captive maid; ’tis meet neither for wife nor mistress to take note of this. There is one law for thrones, one for the private bed. What? Does my own heart, itself conscious of base guilt, suffer me to pass harsh judgment on my husband? Let her forgive freely who forgiveness needs.

  AEGISTHUS

  [268] Sayst thou so? Canst bargain for mutual forgiveness? Are the rights of kings unknown to thee or strange? To us harsh judges, partial to themselves, they deem this the greatest pledge of kingship, if whate’er to others is unlawful is unlawful to them alone.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [273] He pardoned Helen; joined to her Menelaüs she returns, who Europe and Asia to like ruin dashed.

  AEGISTHUS

  [275] Aye, but no woman with stealthy love has stolen Atrides and captured his heart close-barred against his wife. Already thy lord seeks charge against thee, intends cause of strife. Suppose no baseness has been done by thee; what boots an honest life and sinless? Whom a master hates is condemned of guilt unheard. Spurned away, wilt thou go back to Sparta and thy Eurotas, wilt flee to thy father’s house? The rejected of kings have no escape. With false hope dost thou relieve thy fears.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [284] None knows my guilt save one faithful friend.

  AEGISTHUS

  [285] Faith never crosses the threshold of a king.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [286] With wealth will I purchase, with bribes will I blind faith.

  AEGISTHUS

  [287] Faith gained by bribes is overcome by bribes.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [288] The remnant of my old time chastity revives; why dost thou cry against it? Why with cozening words dost give me evil counsel? Deserting the king of kings, shall I wed with thee, a high-born woman with an outcast?

  AEGISTHUS

  [292] And wherefore less than Atreus’ son do I seem to thee, who am Thyestes’ son?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [293] If that is not enough, say grandson, too.

  AEGISTHUS

  [294] Phoebus was the source of my begetting; my birth shames me not.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [295] Dost thou name Phoebus as source of an incestuous birth, whom, calling back his steeds in sudden night, you drove from heaven? Why besmirch the gods? Thou, trained by guile to steal the marriage bed, whom we know only as man of unlawful love, depart at once, take from my sight the infamy of our house; this home is waiting for its king and lord.

  AEGISTHUS

  [302] Exile is not new to me; I am used to woe. If thou commandest, O queen, not alone from home and Argos do I flee: I am ready at thy bidding to plunge sword into my heart, o’erweighed with grief.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [306] [Aside.] Yet, should I, cruel daughter of Tyndareus, let this be done. [To AEGISTHUS.] Who jointly sins owes also faith to crime. Come thou with me, that the dark and threatening state of our affairs joint plans may set in order.

  {Exeunt.}

  CHORUS

  [310] Sing ye, O maids renowned, of Phoebus! To thee, Phoebus, the festal throng wreaths the head, to thee, waving laurel-bough, the Argive maid in wonted fashion spreads forth her virgin locks; and thou who drinkest of Erasinus’ cool waters, who of Eurotas, and who of Ismenus drinkest, silently flowing along its green banks; thou, too, though stranger in Thebes, come join in our chorus, whom Manto, reader of fate, Tiresias’ daughter, warmed with due rites to worship the gods, offspring of Latona.

  [326] Thy bow, now peace has come back, all-conquering Phoebus, loose, and thy quiver, full of swift arrows, lay down from thy shoulder and let resound, smit by thy flying fingers, the tuneful lyre. No stern, high strains in lofty measures would I have it sound, but such simply song as ’tis thy wont to modulate on lighter shell, when the learned Muse surveys thy sports. ’Tis thy right, too, on heavier strings to sound such strain as thou sangest when gods saw Titans by thunder overcome, even when mountains, on lofty mountains set, furnished pathway for grim monsters, when Pelion stood on Ossa set beneath, and cloud-capped Olympus weighed on both.

  [348] Thou, too, be near, who as wife and sister sharest the sceptre’s might, Juno the royal! We, thy chosen band, in Mycenae adore thee. Thou art the sole protector of Argos that calls on thee with anxious prayers; thou in thy hand holdest war and peace. Accept now the laurels of Agamemnon, victorious goddess. To thee the box-wood flute of many openings soundeth its solemn strains; to thee skilled maidens touch the strings in soothing melody; to thee Grecian mothers wave the votive torch; at thy shrines shall fall the bull’s white mate, which knows not the plough, whose neck the yoke ne’er scarred.

  [368] And thou, child of the great Thunderer, glorious Pallas, who oft with thy spear didst attack the Dardanian towers, to thee in mingled chorus mothers, younger and older, kneel, and at thy coming the priest throws wide the doors of the temple. To thee the throng, crowned with woven wreaths, advances; to thee aged and spent old men, their petitions heard, give thanks and with trembling hand pour wine in libation.

  [382] Thee, too, O Trivia, with mindful hearts and prayer familiar we adore. Thou biddest thy natal Delos to stand firm, Lucina, erstwhile a Cyclad, drifting hither and yon at the will of the winds; now ’tis a stable land with root firm fixed, repels the winds and gives anchorage for ships, though wont to follow them. Victorious, thou countest o’er the corpses that their mother, child of Tantalus, bemoaned; now on Sipylus’ high top she stands, a weeping statue, and to this day fresh tears the ancient marble drips. Zealously both maid and man adore the twin divinities.


  [400] And thou before all others, father and ruler, god of the thunder, by whose mere nod the farthest poles do tremble, O Jove, thou author of our race, kindly accept our gifts, and with a father’s care take thought for thine own true progeny.

  [408] But lo, a soldier, hurrying with huge steps, hastes hither with signs of joyful tidings clearly visible, (for his spear bears a laurel wreath on its iron tip,) and Eurybates, the ever faithful servant of the king, is here.

  [Enter EURYBATES with laurel-wreathed spear.]

  EURYBATES

  [392a] Ye shrines and altars of the heavenly gods, ye household deities of my fathers, after long wanderings wearied, and scarce trusting mine own eyes, I humbly give reverence. [To the people.] Pay now your vows to the high gods; the pride and glory of the Argive land returns to his own house at last, Agamemnon, victorious!

  [Enter CLYTEMNESTRA in time to hear the herald’s concluding words.]

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [397a] Blessed news this that falls upon mine ears! But where delays my husband whom I have sought through ten long years? Rests he on sea, or land?

  EURYBATES

  [400a] Unharmed, increased in glory, illustrious with praise, he hath set homeward foot upon the longed-for shore.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  [402a] With sacred rites let us hail the day, fortunate at last, and the gods, even if propitious, yet slow in granting our request. But tell me, thou, does my husband’s brother live, and where is my sister, tell.

  EURYBATES

  [406a] Better than our hopes I pray and beseech the gods; for the sea’s dubious lot forbids to speak certainty. When our scattered fleet met swollen seas, one ship could scarce descry her sister ship. Nay, e’en Atrides’ self, on the boundless ocean wandering, endured losses heavier by sea than war, and like a vanquished man, though victor, he returns, bringing but few and shattered vessels from his mighty fleet.