Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.). Agamemnon.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Lines 1500–1964
The monarch’s fate and mine—enough of life.
Ah friends!
Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,
That not as birds that shun the bush and scream
I moan in idle terror. This attest
When for my death’s revenge another dies,
A woman for a woman, and a man
Falls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.
Grant me this boon—the last before I die.
Though for my death—and then I speak no more.
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls
To slay their kindred’s slayers, quit withal
The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.
A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,
One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away—
And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.[Exit into the palace.
With bliss is never satiate,
And none, before the palace high
And stately of prosperity,
Cries to us with a voice of fear,
Away! ’tis ill to enter here!
By grace of heaven, old Priam’s town,
And praised as god he stands once more
On Argos’ shore!
Yet now—if blood shed long ago
Cries out that other blood shall flow—
His life-blood, his, to pay again
The stern requital of the slain—
Peace to that braggart’s vaunting vain,
Who, having heard the chieftain’s tale,
Yet boasts of bliss untouched by bale![A loud cry from within.
Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die.
“Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!”
And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.
Swiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.
Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong.
They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.
Who wills to act, ’tis his to counsel how.
I have no words to bring his life again.
These house-defilers and their tyrant sway?
Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.
Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain?
Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.
To know aright, how stands it with our lord![The scene opens, disclosing Clytemnestra, who comes forward. The body of Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver; the corpse of Cassandra is laid beside him.
The glozing word that led me to my will—
Hear how I shrink not to unsay it all!
How else should one who willeth to requite
Evil for evil to an enemy
Disguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,
Not to be overleaped, a net of doom?
This is the sum and issue of old strife,
Of me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.
All is avowed, and as I smote I stand
With foot set firm upon a finished thing!
I turn not to denial: thus I wrought
So that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.
Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,
I trapped him with inextricable toils,
The ill abundance of a baffling robe;
He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed
Each limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,
Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,
Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.
And thus he fell, and as he passed away,
Spirit with body chafed; each dying breath
Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,
And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood
Fell upon me; and I was fain to feel
That dew—not sweeter is the rain of heaven
To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.
I bid you to rejoice, if such your will:
Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,
And well I ween, if seemly it could be,
’Twere not ill done to pour libations here,
Justly—ay, more than justly—on his corpse
Who filled his home with curses as with wine,
And thus returned to drain the cup he filled.
To vaunt thus loudly o’er a husband slain.
And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout,
Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you,
Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,
Even as ye list,—I reck not of your words.
Lo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,
My husband once—and him this hand of mine,
A right contriver, fashioned for his death.
Behold the deed!
What venomed essence of the earth
To thee such passion gave,
Nerving thine hand
To set upon thy brow this burning crown,
The curses of thy land?
Our king by thee cut off, hewn down!
Go forth—they cry—accursèd and forlorn,
To hate and scorn!
The city’s hate, the ban of all my realm!
Ye had no voice of old to launch such doom
On him, my husband, when he held as light
My daughter’s life as that of sheep or goat,
One victim from the thronging fleecy fold!
Yea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,
The well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,
To lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.
That deed of his, I say, that stain and shame,
Had rightly been atoned by banishment;
But ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judge
This deed of mine that doth affront your ears.
Storm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,
That I am ready, if your hand prevail
As mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway:
If God say nay, it shall be yours to learn
By chastisement a late humility.
Thy confidence, thy vaunting loud;
Thy soul, that chose a murd’ress’ fate,
Is all with blood elate—
Maddened to know
The blood not yet avenged, the damnèd spot
Crimson upon thy brow.
But Fate prepares for thee thy lot—
To meet thine end!
By the great vengeance for my murdered child,
By Atè, by the Fury unto whom
This man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,
I do not look to tread the hall of Fear,
While in this hearth and home of mine there burns
The light of love—Ægisthus—as of old
Loyal, a stalwart shield of confidence—
As true to me as this slain man was false,
Wronging his wife with paramours at Troy,
Fresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there!
Behold him dead—behold his captive prize,
Seeres and harlot—comfort of his bed,
True prophetess, true paramour—I wot
The sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,
Full oft, of every rower, than was she
See, ill they did, and ill requites them now.
His death ye know: she as a dying swan
Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,
Close to his side, and to my couch has left
A sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.
Not bearing agony too great,
Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain—
Would bid mine eyelids keep
The morningless and unawakening sleep!
For life is weary, now my lord is slain,
The gracious among kings!
Hard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,
And for a woman’s sake, on Ilian land—
Now is his life hewn down, and by a woman’s hand!
Who bad’st the tides of battle roll,
O’erwhelming thousands, life on life,
’Neath Ilion’s wall!
And now lies dead the lord of all.
The blossom of thy storied sin
Bears blood’s inexpiable stain,
O thou that erst, these halls within,
Wert unto all a rock of strife,
A husband’s bane!
Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,
Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban
The name of Helen, nor recall
How she, one bane of many a man,
Sent down to death the Danaan lords,
To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,
And wrought the woe that shattered all.
Upon the double stock of Tantalus,
Lording it o’er me by a woman’s will,
Stern, manful, and imperious—
A bitter sway to me!
Thy very form I see,
Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,
Exulting o’er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain!
The brooding race-fiend, triply fell!
From him it is that murder’s thirst,
Blood-lapping, inwardly is nursed—
Ere time the ancient scar can sain,
New blood comes welling forth again.
That fiend of whom thy voice has cried,
Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,
An all-devouring doom!
Zeus the high cause and finisher of all!—
Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed
All things, by him fulfilled!
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee?
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,
And lo! I see thee lie,
And thro’ a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die!
A death of shame—ah woe on woe!
A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!
I bid thee reckon me no more
As Agamemnon’s spouse.
The old Avenger, stern of mood
For Atreus and his feast of blood,
Hath struck the lord of Atreus’ house,
And in the semblance of his wife
The king hath slain.—
Yea, for the murdered children’s life,
A chieftain’s in requital ta’en.
Who dares such thought avow?
The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.
Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on
Thro’ streams of blood by kindred shed,
Exacting the accompt for children dead,
For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee?
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,]
And lo! I see thee lie,
And thro’ a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die!
A death of shame—ah woe on woe!
A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!
Had overmuch of shame:
For this was he who did provide
Foul wrong unto his house and name:
His daughter, blossom of my womb,
He gave unto a deadly doom,
Iphigenia, child of tears!
And as he wrought, even so he fares.
Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell;
For by the sword his sin he wrought,
And by the sword himself is brought
Among the dead to dwell.
For all in ruin sinks the kingly hall;
Nor swift device nor shift of thought have I,
To ’scape its fall.
A little while the gentler raindrops fail;
I stand distraught—a ghastly interval,
Of blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel
On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,
The steel that smites, in Justice’ hold,
Another death to deal.
O Earth! that I had lain at rest
And lapped for ever in thy breast,
Ere I had seen my chieftain fall
Within the laver’s silver wall,
Low-lying on dishonoured bier!
And who shall give him sepulchre,
And who the wail of sorrow pour?
Woman, ’tis thine no more!
A graceless gift unto his shade
Such tribute, by his murd’ress paid!
Strive not thus wrongly to atone
The impious deed thy hand hath done.
Ah who above the godlike chief?
Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?
Who speak above his lowly grave
The last sad praises of the brave?
By me he fell, by me he died,
And now his burial rites be mine!
Yet from these halls no mourners’ train
Shall celebrate his obsequies;
Only by Acheron’s rolling tide
His child shall spring unto his side,
And in a daughter’s loving wise
Shall clasp and kiss him once again!
And who the end can know?
The slayer of today shall die tomorrow—
The wage of wrong is woe.
While Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,
On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured—
The tides of doom return.
The children of the curse abide within
These halls of high estate—
And none can wrench from off the home of sin
The clinging grasp of fate.
This ancient truth of oracle;
But I with vows of sooth will pray
To him, the power that holdeth sway
O’er all the race of Pleisthenes—
Tho’ dark the deed and deep the guilt,
With this last blood my hands have spilt,
I pray thee let thine anger cease!
I pray thee pass from us away
To some new race in other lands,
There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay
The lives of men by kindred hands.
Tho’ little wealth or power were won,
So I can say, ’Tis past and done.
The bloody lust and murderous,
The inborn frenzy of our house,
Is ended, by my deed![Enter Ægisthus.
I dare at length aver that gods above
Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.
I, I who stand and thus exult to see
This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,
Slain in requital of his father’s craft.
Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man’s sire,
The lord and monarch of this land of old,
Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,
And drave him from his home to banishment.
Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole
And clung a suppliant to the heart divine,
And for himself won this immunity—
Not with his own blood to defile the land
That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire
Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned—
With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold
In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,
And bade my father to his board, and set
Before him flesh that was his children once.
First, sitting at the upper board alone,
He hid the fingers and the feet, but gave
The rest—and readily Thyestes took
What to his ignorance no semblance wore
Of human flesh, and ate: behold what curse
That eating brought upon our race and name!
For when he knew what all-unhallowed thing
He thus had wrought, with horror’s bitter cry
Back-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,
On Pelops’ house a deadly curse he spake—
As darkly as I spurn this damnèd food,
So perish all the race of Pleisthenes!
Thus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,
And I—who else?—this murder wove and planned;
For me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,
Of the three children youngest, Atreus sent
To banishment by my sad father’s side:
But Justice brought me home once more, grown now
To manhood’s years; and stranger tho’ I was,
My right hand reached unto the chieftain’s life,
Plotting and planning all that malice bade.
And death itself were honour now to me,
Beholding him in Justice’ ambush ta’en.
That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.
The chieftain, by thine own unaided plot
Devised the piteous death: I rede thee well,
Think not thy head shall ’scape, when right prevails,
The people’s ban, the stones of death and doom.
Low at the oars beneath, what time we rule,
We of the upper tier? Thou’lt know anon,
’Tis bitter to be taught again in age,
By one so young, submission at the word.
But iron of the chain and hunger’s throes
Can minister unto an o’erswoln pride
Marvellous well, ay, even in the old.
Hast eyes, and seest not this? Peace—kick not thus
Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain!
Home-watcher and defiler of the couch,
And arch-deviser of the chieftain’s doom!
The very converse, thine, of Orpheus’ tongue:
He roused and led in ecstasy of joy
All things that heard his voice melodious;
But thou as with the futile cry of curs
Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace!
Or strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.
Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,
But not with thine own hand to smite the blow!
Not mine, whom deep suspicion from of old
Would have debarred. Now by his treasure’s aid
My purpose holds to rule the citizens.
But whoso will not bear my guiding hand,
Him for his corn-fed mettle I will drive
Not as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,
But to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.
Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,
Shall look on him and shall behold him tame.
To deal in murder, while a woman’s hand,
Staining and shaming Argos and its gods,
Availed to slay him? Ho, if anywhere
The light of life smite on Orestes’ eyes,
Let him, returning by some guardian fate,
Hew down with force her paramour and her!
Swift, your right hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for strife—
Already have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt:
Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.
Peace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed,
Lest ill valour meet our vengeance—’twas a necessary deed.
But enough of toils and troubles—be the end, if ever, now,
Ere thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.
’Tis a woman’s word of warning, and let who will list thereto.
And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,
And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler’s word—
I and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well.[Exeunt.