| |
| |
CHORUS
O brave endurance of a soul resolved! | 1500 |
| |
CASSANDRA
That were ill praise, for those of happier doom. | |
| |
CHORUS
All fame is happy, even famous death. | |
| |
CASSANDRA
Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye! [She moves to enter the house, then starts back. | |
| |
CHORUS
What fear is this that scares thee from the house? | 1504 |
| |
CASSANDRA
Pah! | |
| |
CHORUS
What is this cry? some dark despair of soul? | |
| |
CASSANDRA
Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood. | |
| |
CHORUS
How? ’tis the smell of household offerings. | 1508 |
| |
CASSANDRA
’Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves. | |
| |
CHORUS
Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard? | |
| |
CASSANDRA
Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud | |
| The monarch’s fate and mine—enough of life. | 1512 |
| 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 | 1516 |
| 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. | 1520 |
| |
CHORUS
Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen. | |
| |
CASSANDRA
Once more one utterance, but not of wail, | |
| Though for my death—and then I speak no more. | |
| Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again, | 1524 |
| 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. | |
| |
| Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal, | 1528 |
| 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. | |
| |
CHORUS
Too true it is! our mortal state | 1532 |
| With bliss is never satiate, | |
| And none, before the palace high | |
| And stately of prosperity, | |
| Cries to us with a voice of fear, | 1536 |
| Away! ’tis ill to enter here! | |
| |
| Lo! this our lord hath trodden down, | |
| By grace of heaven, old Priam’s town, | |
| And praised as god he stands once more | 1540 |
| On Argos’ shore! | |
| Yet now—if blood shed long ago | |
| Cries out that other blood shall flow— | |
| His life-blood, his, to pay again | 1544 |
| 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. | 1548 |
| |
VOICE OF AGAMEMNON
O I am sped—a deep, a mortal blow. | |
| |
CHORUS
Listen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony? | |
| |
VOICE OF AGAMEMNON
O! O! again, another, another blow! | |
| |
CHORUS
The bloody act is over—I have heard the monarch’s cry— | 1552 |
| Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die. | |
| |
ONE OF THE CHORUS
’Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call, | |
| “Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!” | |
| |
ANOTHER
Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid, | 1556 |
| And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade. | |
| |
ANOTHER
Such will is mine, and what thou say’st I say: | |
| Swiftly to act! the time brooks no delay. | |
| |
ANOTHER
Ay, for ’tis plain, this prelude of their song | 1560 |
| Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong. | |
| |
ANOTHER
Behold, we tarry—but thy name, Delay, | |
| They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay. | |
| |
ANOTHER
I know not what ’twere well to counsel now— | 1564 |
| Who wills to act, ’tis his to counsel how. | |
| |
ANOTHER
Thy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain, | |
| I have no words to bring his life again. | |
| |
ANOTHER
What? e’en for life’s sake, bow us to obey | 1568 |
| These house-defilers and their tyrant sway? | |
| |
ANOTHER
Unmanly doom! ’twere better far to die— | |
| Death is a gentler lord than tyranny. | |
| |
ANOTHER
Think well—must cry or sign of woe or pain | 1572 |
| Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain? | |
| |
ANOTHER
Such talk befits us when the deed we see— | |
| Conjecture dwells afar from certainty. | |
| |
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
I read one will from many a diverse word, | 1576 |
| 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. | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oft | |
| The glozing word that led me to my will— | |
| Hear how I shrink not to unsay it all! | 1580 |
| 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? | 1584 |
| 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! | 1588 |
| 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, | 1592 |
| The ill abundance of a baffling robe; | |
| Then smote him, once, again—and at each wound | |
| He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed | |
| Each limb and sank to earth; and as he lay, | 1596 |
| 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 | 1600 |
| 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 | 1604 |
| To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain. | |
| |
| Elders of Argos—since the thing stands so, | |
| I bid you to rejoice, if such your will: | |
| Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed, | 1608 |
| 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, | 1612 |
| And thus returned to drain the cup he filled. | |
| |
CHORUS
I marvel at thy tongue’s audacity, | |
| To vaunt thus loudly o’er a husband slain. | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will, | 1616 |
| 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. | 1620 |
| 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! | 1624 |
| |
CHORUS
Woman, what deadly birth, | |
| What venomed essence of the earth | |
| Or dark distilment of the wave, | |
| To thee such passion gave, | 1628 |
| Nerving thine hand | |
| To set upon thy brow this burning crown, | |
| The curses of thy land? | |
| Our king by thee cut off, hewn down! | 1632 |
| Go forth—they cry—accursèd and forlorn, | |
| To hate and scorn! | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
O ye just men, who speak my sentence now, | |
| The city’s hate, the ban of all my realm! | 1636 |
| 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! | 1640 |
| 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, | 1644 |
| 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, | 1648 |
| 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. | 1652 |
| |
CHORUS
Bold is thy craft, and proud | |
| Thy confidence, thy vaunting loud; | |
| Thy soul, that chose a murd’ress’ fate, | |
| Is all with blood elate— | 1656 |
| Maddened to know | |
| The blood not yet avenged, the damnèd spot | |
| Crimson upon thy brow. | |
| But Fate prepares for thee thy lot— | 1660 |
| Smitten as thou didst smite, without a friend, | |
| To meet thine end! | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear— | |
| By the great vengeance for my murdered child, | 1664 |
| 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 | 1668 |
| 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, | 1672 |
| 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 | 1676 |
| 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 | 1680 |
| 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. | |
| |
CHORUS
Ah woe and well-a-day! I would that Fate— | 1684 |
| Not bearing agony too great, | |
| Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain— | |
| Would bid mine eyelids keep | |
| The morningless and unawakening sleep! | 1688 |
| 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— | 1692 |
| Now is his life hewn down, and by a woman’s hand! | |
| O Helen, O infatuate soul, | |
| Who bad’st the tides of battle roll, | |
| O’erwhelming thousands, life on life, | 1696 |
| ’Neath Ilion’s wall! | |
| And now lies dead the lord of all. | |
| The blossom of thy storied sin | |
| Bears blood’s inexpiable stain, | 1700 |
| O thou that erst, these halls within, | |
| Wert unto all a rock of strife, | |
| A husband’s bane! | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Peace! pray not thou for death as though | 1704 |
| 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, | 1708 |
| Sent down to death the Danaan lords, | |
| To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords, | |
| And wrought the woe that shattered all. | |
| |
CHORUS
Fiend of the race! that swoopest fell | 1712 |
| 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! | 1716 |
| Thy very form I see, | |
| Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain, | |
| Exulting o’er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain! | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Right was the word—thou namest well | 1720 |
| 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, | 1724 |
| New blood comes welling forth again. | |
| |
CHORUS
Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home, | |
| That fiend of whom thy voice has cried, | |
| Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied, | 1728 |
| An all-devouring doom! | |
| |
| As woe, as Zeus! from Zeus all things befall— | |
| Zeus the high cause and finisher of all!— | |
| Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed | 1732 |
| All things, by him fulfilled! | |
| |
| Yet ah my king, my king no more! | |
| What words to say, what tears to pour | |
| Can tell my love for thee? | 1736 |
| The spider-web of treachery | |
| She wove and wound, thy life around, | |
| And lo! I see thee lie, | |
| And thro’ a coward, impious wound | 1740 |
| Pant forth thy life and die! | |
| A death of shame—ah woe on woe! | |
| A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow! | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
My guilt thou harpest, o’er and o’er! | 1744 |
| I bid thee reckon me no more | |
| As Agamemnon’s spouse. | |
| The old Avenger, stern of mood | |
| For Atreus and his feast of blood, | 1748 |
| 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, | 1752 |
| A chieftain’s in requital ta’en. | |
| |
CHORUS
Thou guiltless of this murder, thou! | |
| Who dares such thought avow? | |
| Yet it may be, wroth for the parent’s deed, | 1756 |
| 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, | 1760 |
| For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed. | |
| |
| Yet ah my king, my king no more! | |
| What words to say, what tears to pour | |
| Can tell my love for thee? | 1764 |
| The spider-web of treachery | |
| She wove and wound, thy life around,] | |
| And lo! I see thee lie, | |
| And thro’ a coward, impious wound | 1768 |
| Pant forth thy life and die! | |
| A death of shame—ah woe on woe! | |
| A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow! | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
I deem not that the death he died | 1772 |
| Had overmuch of shame: | |
| For this was he who did provide | |
| Foul wrong unto his house and name: | |
| His daughter, blossom of my womb, | 1776 |
| 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; | 1780 |
| For by the sword his sin he wrought, | |
| And by the sword himself is brought | |
| Among the dead to dwell. | |
| |
CHORUS
Ah whither shall I fly? | 1784 |
| 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; | 1788 |
| I stand distraught—a ghastly interval, | |
| Till on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail | |
| Of blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel | |
| On whetstones new and deadlier than of old, | 1792 |
| 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, | 1796 |
| Ere I had seen my chieftain fall | |
| Within the laver’s silver wall, | |
| Low-lying on dishonoured bier! | |
| And who shall give him sepulchre, | 1800 |
| 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! | 1804 |
| 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? | 1808 |
| Who speak above his lowly grave | |
| The last sad praises of the brave? | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Peace! for such task is none of thine. | |
| By me he fell, by me he died, | 1812 |
| And now his burial rites be mine! | |
| Yet from these halls no mourners’ train | |
| Shall celebrate his obsequies; | |
| Only by Acheron’s rolling tide | 1816 |
| His child shall spring unto his side, | |
| And in a daughter’s loving wise | |
| Shall clasp and kiss him once again! | |
| |
CHORUS
Lo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg’d by sorrow— | 1820 |
| 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, | 1824 |
| His law is fixed and stern; | |
| On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured— | |
| The tides of doom return. | |
| The children of the curse abide within | 1828 |
| These halls of high estate— | |
| And none can wrench from off the home of sin | |
| The clinging grasp of fate. | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Now walks thy word aright, to tell | 1832 |
| 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— | 1836 |
| 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 | 1840 |
| To some new race in other lands, | |
| There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay | |
| The lives of men by kindred hands. | |
| |
| For me’tis all sufficient meed, | 1844 |
| 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, | 1848 |
| Is ended, by my deed! [Enter Ægisthus. | |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail! | |
| I dare at length aver that gods above | |
| Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs. | 1852 |
| 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, | 1856 |
| The lord and monarch of this land of old, | |
| Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute, | |
| Brother with brother, for the prize of sway, | |
| And drave him from his home to banishment. | 1860 |
| 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 | 1864 |
| 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, | 1868 |
| 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 | 1872 |
| 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! | 1876 |
| 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— | 1880 |
| 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; | 1884 |
| 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 | 1888 |
| 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, | 1892 |
| Beholding him in Justice’ ambush ta’en. | |
| |
CHORUS
Ægisthus, for this insolence of thine | |
| That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn. | |
| Of thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain | 1896 |
| 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. | 1900 |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
This word from thee, this word from one who rows | |
| 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, | 1904 |
| 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. | 1908 |
| Hast eyes, and seest not this? Peace—kick not thus | |
| Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain! | |
| |
CHORUS
Thou womanish man, waiting till war did cease, | |
| Home-watcher and defiler of the couch, | 1912 |
| And arch-deviser of the chieftain’s doom! | |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
Bold words again! but they shall end in tears. | |
| The very converse, thine, of Orpheus’ tongue: | |
| He roused and led in ecstasy of joy | 1916 |
| 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. | 1920 |
| |
CHORUS
Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down— | |
| Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king, | |
| But not with thine own hand to smite the blow! | |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
That fraudful force was woman’s very part, | 1924 |
| 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, | 1928 |
| 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, | 1932 |
| Shall look on him and shall behold him tame. | |
| |
CHORUS
Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight | |
| To deal in murder, while a woman’s hand, | |
| Staining and shaming Argos and its gods, | 1936 |
| 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! | 1940 |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly understand. | |
| |
CHORUS
Up to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand. | |
| Swift, your right hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for strife— | |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
Lo! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or life. | 1944 |
| |
CHORUS
’Twas thy word and we accept it: onward to the chance of war! | |
| |
CLYTEMNESTRA
Nay, enough, enough, my champion! we will smite and slay no more. | |
| Already have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt: | |
| Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt. | 1948 |
| 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. | 1952 |
| ’Tis a woman’s word of warning, and let who will list thereto. | |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
But that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms of the tongue, | |
| And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong, | |
| And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler’s word— | 1956 |
| |
CHORUS
Ruler? but ’tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard lord! | |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
I will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway. | |
| |
CHORUS
Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way. | |
| |
ÆGISTHUS
Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return. | 1960 |
| |
CHORUS
Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while ’tis thy turn. | |
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ÆGISTHUS
Thou shalt pay, be well assurèd, heavy quittance for thy pride. | |
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CHORUS
Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock, his mate beside! | |
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CLYTEMNESTRA
Heed not thou too highly of them—let the cur-pack growl and yell: | 1964 |
| I and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well. [Exeunt. | |
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