THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS
PREFACE
The sense of difficulty, and indeed of awe, with which a scholar
approaches the task of translating the _Agamemnon_ depends directly on its
greatness as poetry. It is in part a matter of diction. The language of
Aeschylus is an extraordinary thing, the syntax stiff and simple, the
vocabulary obscure, unexpected, and steeped in splendour. Its
peculiarities cannot be disregarded, or the translation will be false in
character. Yet not Milton himself could produce in English the same great
music, and a translator who should strive ambitiously to represent the
complex effect of the original would clog his own powers of expression and
strain his instrument to breaking. But, apart from the diction in this
narrower sense, there is a quality of atmosphere surrounding the
_Agamemnon_ which seems almost to defy reproduction in another setting,
because it depends in large measure on the position of the play in the
historical development of Greek literature.
If we accept the view that all Art to some extent, and Greek tragedy in a
very special degree, moves in its course of development from Religion to
Entertainment, from a Service to a Performance, the _Agamemnon_ seems to
stand at a critical point where the balance of the two elements is near
perfection. The drama has come fully to life, but the religion has not yet
faded to a formality. The _Agamemnon_ is not, like Aeschylus' _Suppliant
Women_, a statue half-hewn out of the rock. It is a real play, showing
clash of character and situation, suspense and movement, psychological
depth and subtlety. Yet it still remains something more than a play. Its
atmosphere is not quite of this world. In the long lyrics especially one
feels that the guiding emotion is not the entertainer's wish to thrill an
audience, not even perhaps the pure artist's wish to create beauty, but
something deeper and more prophetic, a passionate contemplation and
expression of truth; though of course the truth in question is something
felt rather than stated, something that pervades life, an eternal and
majestic rhythm like the movement of the stars.
Thus, if Longinus is right in defining Sublimity as "the ring, or
resonance, of greatness of soul," one sees in part where the sublimity of
the _Agamemnon_ comes from. And it is worth noting that the faults which
some critics have found in the play are in harmony with this conclusion.
For the sublimity that is rooted in religion tolerates some faults and
utterly refuses to tolerate others. The _Agamemnon_ may be slow in getting
to work; it may be stiff with antique conventions. It never approaches to
being cheap or insincere or shallow or sentimental or showy. It never
ceases to be genuinely a "criticism of life." The theme which it treats,
for instance, is a great theme in its own right; it is not a made-up story
ingeniously handled.
The trilogy of the _Oresteia_, of which this play is the first part,
centres on the old and everlastingly unsolved problem of
The ancient blinded vengeance and the wrong that amendeth wrong.
Every wrong is justly punished; yet, as the world goes, every punishment
becomes a new wrong, calling for fresh vengeance. And more; every wrong
turns out to be itself rooted in some wrong of old. It is never
gratuitous, never untempted by the working of Peitho (Persuasion), never
merely wicked. The _Oresteia_ first shows the cycle of crime punished by
crime which must be repunished, and then seeks for some gleam of escape,
some breaking of the endless chain of "evil duty." In the old order of
earth and heaven there was no such escape. Each blow called for the return
blow and must do so _ad infinitum_. But, according to Aeschylus, there is
a new Ruler now in heaven, one who has both sinned and suffered and
thereby grown wise. He is Zeus the Third Power, Zeus the Saviour, and his
gift to mankind is the ability through suffering to Learn (pp. 7 f.)
At the opening of the _Agamemnon_ we find Clytemnestra alienated from her
husband and secretly befriended with his ancestral enemy, Aigisthos. The
air is heavy and throbbing with hate; hate which is evil but has its due
cause. Agamemnon, obeying the prophet Calchas, when the fleet lay
storm-bound at Aulis, had given his own daughter, Iphigenia, as a human
sacrifice. And if we ask how a sane man had consented to such an act, we
are told of his gradual temptation; the deadly excuse offered by ancient
superstition; and above all, the fact that he had already inwardly
accepted the great whole of which this horror was a part. At the first
outset of his expedition against Troy there had appeared an omen, the
bloody sign of two eagles devouring a mother-hare with her unborn
young.... The question was thus put to the Kings and their prophet: Did
they or did they not accept the sign, and wish to be those Eagles? And
they had answered Yes. They would have their vengeance, their full and
extreme victory, and were ready to pay the price. The sign once accepted,
the prophet recoils from the consequences which, in prophetic vision, he
sees following therefrom: but the decision has been taken, and the long
tale of cruelty rolls on, culminating in the triumphant sack of Troy,
which itself becomes not an assertion of Justice but a whirlwind of
godless destruction. And through all these doings of fierce beasts and
angry men the unseen Pity has been alive and watching, the Artemis who
"abhors the Eagles' feast," the "Apollo or Pan or Zeus" who hears the
crying of the robbed vulture; nay, if even the Gods were deaf, the mere
"wrong of the dead" at Troy might waken, groping for some retribution upon
the "Slayer of Many Men" (pp. 15, 20).
If we ask why men are so blind, seeking their welfare thus through
incessant evil, Aeschylus will tell us that the cause lies in the
infection of old sin, old cruelty. There is no doubt somewhere a
_[Greek: protarchos hAte ]_, a "first blind deed of wrong," but in
practice every wrong is the result of another. And the Children of Atreus
are steeped to the lips in them. When the prophetess Cassandra, out of her
first vague horror at the evil House, begins to grope towards some
definite image, first and most haunting comes the sound of the weeping of
two little children, murdered long ago, in a feud that was not theirs.
From that point, more than any other, the Daemon or Genius of the
House--more than its "Luck," a little less than its Guardian
Angel--becomes an Alastor or embodied Curse, a "Red Slayer" which cries
ever for peace and cleansing, but can seek them only in the same blind
way, through vengeance, and, when that fails, then through more vengeance
(p. 69).
This awful conception of a race intent upon its own wrongs, and blindly
groping towards the very terror it is trying to avoid, is typified, as it
were, in the Cassandra story. That daughter of Priam was beloved by
Apollo, who gave her the power of true prophecy. In some way that we know
not, she broke her promise to the God; and, since his gift could not be
recalled, he added to it the curse that, while she should always foresee
and foretell the truth, none should believe her. The Cassandra scene is a
creation beyond praise or criticism. The old scholiast speaks of the "pity
and amazement" which it causes. The Elders who talk with her wish to
believe, they try to understand, they are really convinced of Cassandra's
powers. But the curse is too strong. The special thing which Cassandra
tries again and again to say always eludes them, and they can raise no
finger to prevent the disaster happening. And when it does happen they
are, as they have described themselves, weak and very old, "dreams
wandering in the daylight."
The characters of this play seem, in a sense, to arise out of the theme
and consequently to have, amid all their dramatic solidity, a further
significance which is almost symbolic. Cassandra is, as it were, the
incarnation of that knowledge which Herodotus describes as the crown of
sorrow, the knowledge which sees and warns and cannot help (Hdt. ix. 16).
Agamemnon himself, the King of Kings, triumphant and doomed, is a symbol
of pride and the fall of pride. We must not think of him as bad or
specially cruel. The watchman loved him (ll. 34 f.), and the lamentations
of the Elders over his death have a note of personal affection (pp. 66
ff.). But I suspect that Aeschylus, a believer in the mystic meaning of
names, took the name Agamemnon to be a warning that [Greek: Aga mimnei],
"the unseen Wrath abides." _Aga_, of course, is not exactly wrath; it is
more like Nemesis, the feeling that something is [Greek: agan], "too
much," the condemnation of _Hubris_ (pride or overgrowth) and of all
things that are in excess. _Aga_ is sometimes called "the jealousy of
God," but such a translation is not happy. It is not the jealousy, nor
even the indignation, of a personal God, but the profound repudiation and
reversal of Hubris which is the very law of the Cosmos. Through all the
triumph of the conqueror, this _Aga_ abides.
The greatest and most human character of the whole play is Clytemnestra.
She is conceived on the grand Aeschylean scale, a scale which makes even
Lady Macbeth and Beatrice Cenci seem small; she is more the kinswoman of
Brynhild. Yet she is full not only of character, but of subtle psychology.
She is the first and leading example of that time-honoured ornament of the
tragic stage, the sympathetic, or semi-sympathetic, heroine-criminal.
Aeschylus employs none of the devices of later playwrights to make her
interesting. He admits, of course, no approach to a love-scene; he uses no
sophisms; but he does make us see through Clytemnestra's eyes and feel
through her passions. The agony of silent prayer in which, if my
conception is right, we first see her, helps to interpret her speeches
when they come; but every speech needs close study. She dare not speak
sincerely or show her real feelings until Agamemnon is dead; and then she
is practically a mad woman.
For I think here that there is a point which has not been observed. It is
that Clytemnestra is conceived as being really "possessed" by the Daemon
of the House when she commits her crime. Her statements on p. 69 are not
empty metaphor. A careful study of the scene after the murder will show
that she appears first "possessed" and almost insane with triumph, utterly
dominating the Elders and leaving them no power to answer. Then gradually
the unnatural force dies out from her. The deed that was first an ecstasy
of delight becomes an "affliction" (pp. 72, 76). The strength that defied
the world flags and changes into a longing for peace. She has done her
work. She has purified the House of its madness; now let her go away and
live out her life in quiet. When Aigisthos appears, and the scene suddenly
becomes filled with the wrangling of common men, Clytemnestra fades into a
long silence, from which she only emerges at the very end of the drama to
pray again for Peace, and, strangest of all, to utter the entreaty: "Let
us not stain ourselves with blood!" The splash of her husband's blood was
visible on her face at the time. Had she in her trance-like state actually
forgotten, or did she, even then, not feel that particular blood to be a
stain?
To some readers it will seem a sort of irrelevance, or at least a blurring
of the dramatic edge of this tragedy, to observe that the theme on which
it is founded was itself the central theme both of Greek Tragedy and of
Greek Religion. The fall of Pride, the avenging of wrong by wrong, is no
new subject selected by Aeschylus. It forms both the commonest burden of
the moralising lyrics in Greek tragedy and even of the tragic myths
themselves; and recent writers have shown how the same idea touches the
very heart of the traditional Greek religion. "The life of the
Year-Daemon, who lies at the root of so many Greek gods and heroes, is
normally a story of Pride and Punishment. Each year arrives, waxes great,
commits the sin of Hubris and must therefore die. It is the way of all
Life. As an early philosopher expresses it, "All things pay retribution
for their injustice one to another according to the ordinance of Time."[1]
[Footnote 1: See my _Four Stages of Greek Religion_, p. 47. Cornford,
_From Religion to Philosophy_, Chapter I. See also the fine pages on the
Agamemnon in the same writer's _Thucydides Mythistoricus_, pp. 144, ff.
(E. Arnold 1907). G. M.]
To me this consideration actually increases the interest and beauty of the
_Oresteia_, because it increases its greatness. The majestic art, the
creative genius, the instinctive eloquence of these plays--that eloquence
which is the mere despair of a translator--are all devoted to the
expression of something which Aeschylus felt to be of tremendous import.
It was not his discovery; but it was a truth of which he had an intense
realization. It had become something which he must with all his strength
bring to expression before he died, not in a spirit of self-assertion or
of argument, like a discoverer, but as one devoted to something higher and
greater than himself, in the spirit of an interpreter or prophet.
AGAMEMNON
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
AGAMEMNON, _son of Atreus and King of Argos and Mycenae;
Commander-in-Chief of the Greek armies in the War against Troy._
CLYTEMNESTRA, _daughter of Tyndareus, sister of Helen; wife to Agamemnon._
AIGISTHOS, _son of Thyestes, cousin and blood-enemy to Agamemnon
lover to Clytemnestra._
CASSANDRA, _daughter of Priam, King of Troy, a prophetess;
now slave to Agamemnon._
A WATCHMAN.
A HERALD.
CHORUS of Argive Elders, faithful to AGAMEMNON.
CHARACTERS MENTIONED IN THE PLAY
MENELAUS, _brother to Agamemnon, husband of Helen, and King of Sparta.
The two sons of Atreus are called the Atreidae._
HELEN, _most beautiful of women; daughter of Tyndareus, wife to
_MENELAUS_; beloved and carried off by Paris._
PARIS, _son of Priam, King of Troy, lover of Helen.
Also called_ ALEXANDER.
PRIAM, _the aged King of Troy._
_The Greeks are also referred to as Achaians, Argives, Danaans;
Troy is also called Ilion._
_The play was produced in the archonship if Philocles_ (458 B.C.).
_The first prize was won by Aeschylus with the "Agamemnon",
"Libation-Bearers", "Eumenides", and the Satyr Play "Proteus"_.
THE AGAMEMNON
_The Scene represents a space in front of the Palace of Agamemnon in
Argos, with an Altar of Zeus in the centre and many other altars at the
sides. On a high terrace of the roof stands a_ WATCHMAN. _It is night_.
WATCHMAN.
This waste of year-long vigil I have prayed
God for some respite, watching elbow-stayed,
As sleuthhounds watch, above the Atreidae's hall,
Till well I know yon midnight festival
Of swarming stars, and them that lonely go,
Bearers to man of summer and of snow,
Great lords and shining, throned in heavenly fire.
And still I await the sign, the beacon pyre
That bears Troy's capture on a voice of flame
Shouting o'erseas. So surely to her aim
Cleaveth a woman's heart, man-passioned!
And when I turn me to my bed--my bed
Dew-drenched and dark and stumbling, to which near
Cometh no dream nor sleep, but alway Fear
Breathes round it, warning, lest an eye once fain
To close may close too well to wake again;
Think I perchance to sing or troll a tune
For medicine against sleep, the music soon
Changes to sighing for the tale untold
Of this house, not well mastered as of old.
Howbeit, may God yet send us rest, and light
The flame of good news flashed across the night.
[_He is silent, watching. Suddenly at a distance in the night there is
a glimmer of fire, increasing presently to a blaze._
Ha!
0 kindler of the dark, O daylight birth
Of dawn and dancing upon Argive earth
For this great end! All hail!--What ho, within!
What ho! Bear word to Agamemnon's queen
To rise, like dawn, and lift in answer strong
To this glad lamp her women's triumph-song,
If verily, verily, Ilion's citadel
Is fallen, as yon beacons flaming tell.
And I myself will tread the dance before
All others; for my master's dice I score
Good, and mine own to-night three sixes plain.
[_Lights begin to show in the Palace_.
Oh, good or ill, my hand shall clasp again
My dear lord's hand, returning! Beyond that
I speak not. A great ox hath laid his weight
Across my tongue. But these stone walls know well,
If stones had speech, what tale were theirs to tell.
For me, to him that knoweth I can yet
Speak; if another questions I forget.
[_Exit into the Palace. The women's "Ololuge" or triumph-cry, is heard
within and then repeated again and again further off in the City.
Handmaids and Attendants come from the Palace, bearing torches, with which
they kindle incense on the altars. Among them comes_ CLYTEMNESTRA, _who
throws herself on her knees at the central Altar in an agony of prayer._
_Presently from the further side of the open space appear the_ CHORUS _of_
ELDERS _and move gradually into position in front of the Palace.
The day begins to dawn._
CHORUS.
Ten years since Ilion's righteous foes,
The Atreidae strong,
Menelaus and eke Agamemnon arose,
Two thrones, two sceptres, yoked of God;
And a thousand galleys of Argos trod
The seas for the righting of wrong;
And wrath of battle about them cried,
As vultures cry,
Whose nest is plundered, and up they fly
In anguish lonely, eddying wide,
Great wings like oars in the waste of sky,
Their task gone from them, no more to keep
Watch o'er the vulture babes asleep.
But One there is who heareth on high
Some Pan or Zeus, some lost Apollo--
That keen bird-throated suffering cry
Of the stranger wronged in God's own sky;
And sendeth down, for the law transgressed,
The Wrath of the Feet that follow.
So Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend,
Zeus who Prevaileth, in after quest
For One Beloved by Many Men
On Paris sent the Atreidae twain;
Yea, sent him dances before the end
For his bridal cheer,
Wrestlings heavy and limbs forespent
For Greek and Trojan, the knee earth-bent,
The bloody dust and the broken spear.
He knoweth, that which is here is here,
And that which Shall Be followeth near;
He seeketh God with a great desire,
He heaps his gifts, he essays his pyre
With torch below and with oil above,
With tears, but never the wrath shall move
Of the Altar cold that rejects his fire.
We saw the Avengers go that day,
And they left us here; for our flesh is old
And serveth not; and these staves uphold
A strength like the strength of a child at play.
For the sap that springs in the young man's hand
And the valour of age, they have left the land.
And the passing old, while the dead leaf blows
And the old staff gropeth his three-foot way,
Weak as a babe and alone he goes,
A dream left wandering in the day.
[_Coming near the Central Altar they see_ CLYTEMNESTRA, _who is still
rapt in prayer_.
But thou, O daughter of Tyndareus,
Queen Clytemnestra, what need? What news?
What tale or tiding hath stirred thy mood
To send forth word upon all our ways
For incensed worship? Of every god
That guards the city, the deep, the high,
Gods of the mart, gods of the sky,
The altars blaze.
One here, one there,
To the skyey night the firebrands flare,
Drunk with the soft and guileless spell
Of balm of kings from the inmost cell.
Tell, O Queen, and reject us not,
All that can or that may be told,
And healer be to this aching thought,
Which one time hovereth, evil-cold,
And then from the fires thou kindlest
Will Hope be kindled, and hungry Care
Fall back for a little while, nor tear
The heart that beateth below my breast.
[CLYTEMNESTRA _rises silently, as though unconscious of their presence,
and goes into the House. The_ CHORUS _take position and begin their first
Stasimon, or Standing-song,_
CHORUS.
(_The sign seen on the way; Eagles tearing a hare with young_.)
It is ours to tell of the Sign of the War-way given,
To men more strong,
(For a life that is kin unto ours yet breathes from heaven
A spell, a Strength of Song:)
How the twin-throned Might of Achaia, one Crown divided
Above all Greeks that are,
With avenging hand and spear upon Troy was guided
By the Bird of War.
'Twas a King among birds to each of the Kings of the Sea,
One Eagle black, one black but of fire-white tail,
By the House, on the Spear-hand, in station that all might see;
And they tore a hare, and the life in her womb that grew,
Yea, the life unlived and the races unrun they slew.
_Sorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail_!
(_How Calchas read the sign; his Vision of the Future_.)
And the War-seer wise, as he looked on the Atreid Yoke
Twain-tempered, knew
Those fierce hare-renders the lords of his host; and spoke,
Reading the omen true.
"At the last, the last, this Hunt hunteth Ilion down,
Yea, and before the wall
Violent division the fulness of land and town
Shall waste withal;
If only God's eye gloom not against our gates,
And the great War-curb of Troy, fore-smitten, fail.
For Pity lives, and those winged Hounds she hates,
Which tore in the Trembler's body the unborn beast.
And Artemis abhorreth the eagles' feast."
_Sorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail_!
(_He prays to Artemis to grant the fulfilment of the Sign, but, as his
vision increases, he is afraid and calls on Paian, the Healer, to hold her
back_.)
"Thou beautiful One, thou tender lover
Of the dewy breath of the Lion's child;
Thou the delight, through den and cover,
Of the young life at the breast of the wild,
Yet, oh, fulfill, fulfill The sign of the Eagles' Kill!
Be the vision accepted, albeit horrible....
But I-e, I-e! Stay her, O Paian, stay!
For lo, upon other evil her heart she setteth,
Long wastes of wind, held ship and unventured sea,
On, on, till another Shedding of Blood be wrought:
They kill but feast not; they pray not; the law is broken;
Strife in the flesh, and the bride she obeyeth not,
And beyond, beyond, there abideth in wrath reawoken--
It plotteth, it haunteth the house, yea, it never forgetteth--
Wrath for a child to be."
So Calchas, reading the wayside eagles' sign,
Spake to the Kings, blessings and words of bale;
And like his song be thine,
_Sorrow, sing sorrow: but good prevail, prevail_!
(_Such religion belongs to old and barbarous gods, and brings no peace.
I turn to Zeus, who has shown man how to Learn by Suffering_.)
Zeus! Zeus, whate'er He be,
If this name He love to hear
This He shall be called of me.
Searching earth and sea and air
Refuge nowhere can I find
Save Him only, if my mind
Will cast off before it die
The burden of this vanity.
One there was who reigned of old,
Big with wrath to brave and blast,
Lo, his name is no more told!
And who followed met at last
His Third-thrower, and is gone.
Only they whose hearts have known
Zeus, the Conqueror and the Friend,
They shall win their vision's end;
Zeus the Guide, who made man turn
Thought-ward, Zeus, who did ordain
Man by Suffering shall Learn.
So the heart of him, again
Aching with remembered pain,
Bleeds and sleepeth not, until
Wisdom comes against his will.
'Tis the gift of One by strife
Lifted to the throne of life.
(AGAMEMNON _accepted the sign. Then came long delay, and storm while the
fleet lay at Aulis._)
So that day the Elder Lord,
Marshal of the Achaian ships,
Strove not with the prophet's word,
Bowed him to his fate's eclipse,
When with empty jars and lips
Parched and seas impassable
Fate on that Greek army fell,
Fronting Chalcis as it lay,
By Aulis in the swirling bay.
(_Till at last Calchas answered that Artemis was wroth and demanded the
death of_ AGAMEMNON'S _daughter. The King's doubt and grief_.)
And winds, winds blew from Strymon River,
Unharboured, starving, winds of waste endeavour,
Man-blinding, pitiless to cord and bulwark,
And the waste of days was made long, more long,
Till the flower of Argos was aghast and withered;
Then through the storm rose the War-seer's song,
And told of medicine that should tame the tempest,
But bow the Princes to a direr wrong.
Then "Artemis" he whispered, he named the name;
And the brother Kings they shook in the hearts of them,
And smote on the earth their staves, and the tears came.
But the King, the elder, hath found voice and spoken:
"A heavy doom, sure, if God's will were broken;
But to slay mine own child, who my house delighteth,
Is that not heavy? That her blood should flow
On her father's hand, hard beside an altar?
My path is sorrow wheresoe'er I go.
Shall Agamemnon fail his ships and people,
And the hosts of Hellas melt as melts the snow?
They cry, they thirst, for a death that shall break the spell,
For a Virgin's blood: 'tis a rite of old, men tell.
And they burn with longing.--O God may the end be well!"
(_But ambition drove him, till he consented to the sin of slaying his
daughter, Iphigenia, as a sacrifice._)
To the yoke of Must-Be he bowed him slowly,
And a strange wind within his bosom tossed,
A wind of dark thought, unclean, unholy;
And he rose up, daring to the uttermost.
For men are boldened by a Blindness, straying
Toward base desire, which brings grief hereafter,
Yea, and itself is grief;
So this man hardened to his own child's slaying,
As help to avenge him for a woman's laughter
And bring his ships relief!
Her "Father, Father," her sad cry that lingered,
Her virgin heart's breath they held all as naught,
Those bronze-clad witnesses and battle-hungered;
And there they prayed, and when the prayer was wrought
He charged the young men to uplift and bind her,
As ye lift a wild kid, high above the altar,
Fierce-huddling forward, fallen, clinging sore
To the robe that wrapt her; yea, he bids them hinder
The sweet mouth's utterance, the cries that falter,
--His curse for evermore!--
With violence and a curb's voiceless wrath.
Her stole of saffron then to the ground she threw,
And her eye with an arrow of pity found its path
To each man's heart that slew:
A face in a picture, striving amazedly;
The little maid who danced at her father's board,
The innocent voice man's love came never nigh,
Who joined to his her little paean-cry
When the third cup was poured....
What came thereafter I saw not neither tell.
But the craft of Calchas failed not.--'Tis written, He
Who Suffereth Shall Learn; the law holdeth well.
And that which is to be,
Ye will know at last; why weep before the hour?
For come it shall, as out of darkness dawn.
Only may good from all this evil flower;
So prays this Heart of Argos, this frail tower
Guarding the land alone.
[_As they cease,_ CLYTEMNESTRA _comes from the Palace with Attendants.
She has finished her prayer and sacrifice, and is now wrought up to face
the meeting with her husband. The Leader approaches her_.
LEADER.
Before thy state, O Queen, I bow mine eyes.
'Tis written, when the man's throne empty lies,
The woman shall be honoured.--Hast thou heard
Some tiding sure? Or is it Hope, hath stirred
To fire these altars? Dearly though we seek
To learn, 'tis thine to speak or not to speak.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Glad-voiced, the old saw telleth, comes this morn,
The Star-child of a dancing midnight born,
And beareth to thine ear a word of joy
Beyond all hope: the Greek hath taken Troy.
LEADER.
How?
Thy word flies past me, being incredible.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ilion is ours. No riddling tale I tell.
LEADER.
Such joy comes knocking at the gate of tears.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Aye, 'tis a faithful heart that eye declares.
LEADER.
What warrant hast thou? Is there proof of this?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
There is; unless a God hath lied there is.
LEADER.
Some dream-shape came to thee in speaking guise?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Who deemeth me a dupe of drowsing eyes?
LEADER.
Some word within that hovereth without wings?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Am I a child to hearken to such things?
LEADER.
Troy fallen?--But how long? When fell she, say?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
The very night that mothered this new day.
LEADER.
And who of heralds with such fury came?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
A Fire-god, from Mount Ida scattering flame.
Whence starting, beacon after beacon burst
In flaming message hitherward. Ida first
Told Hermes' Lemnian Rock, whose answering sign
Was caught by towering Athos, the divine,
With pines immense--yea, fishes of the night
Swam skyward, drunken with that leaping light,
Which swelled like some strange sun, till dim and far
Makistos' watchmen marked a glimmering star;
They, nowise loath nor idly slumber-won,
Spring up to hurl the fiery message on,
And a far light beyond the Euripus tells
That word hath reached Messapion's sentinels.
They beaconed back, then onward with a high
Heap of dead heather flaming to the sky.
And onward still, not failing nor aswoon,
Across the Asopus like a beaming moon
The great word leapt, and on Kithairon's height
Uproused a new relay of racing light.
His watchers knew the wandering flame, nor hid
Their welcome, burning higher than was bid.
Out over Lake Gorgopis then it floats,
To Aigiplanctos, waking the wild goats,
Crying for "Fire, more Fire!" And fire was reared,
Stintless and high, a stormy streaming beard,
That waved in flame beyond the promontory
Rock-ridged, that watches the Saronian sea,
Kindling the night: then one short swoop to catch
The Spider's Crag, our city's tower of watch;
Whence hither to the Atreidae's roof it came,
A light true-fathered of Idaean flame.
Torch-bearer after torch-bearer, behold
The tale thereof in stations manifold,
Each one by each made perfect ere it passed,
And Victory in the first as in the last.
These be my proofs and tokens that my lord
From Troy hath spoke to me a burning word.
LEADER.
Woman, speak on. Hereafter shall my prayer
Be raised to God; now let me only hear,
Again and full, the marvel and the joy.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Now, even now, the Achaian holdeth Troy!
Methinks there is a crying in her streets
That makes no concord. When sweet unguent meets
With vinegar in one phial, I warrant none
Shall lay those wranglers lovingly at one.
So conquerors and conquered shalt thou hear,
Two sundered tones, two lives of joy or fear.
Here women in the dust about their slain,
Husbands or brethren, and by dead old men
Pale children who shall never more be free,
For all they loved on earth cry desolately.
And hard beside them war-stained Greeks, whom stark
Battle and then long searching through the dark
Hath gathered, ravenous, in the dawn, to feast
At last on all the plenty Troy possessed,
No portion in that feast nor ordinance,
But each man clutching at the prize of chance.
Aye, there at last under good roofs they lie
Of men spear-quelled, no frosts beneath the sky,
No watches more, no bitter moony dew....
How blessed they will sleep the whole night through!
Oh, if these days they keep them free from sin
Toward Ilion's conquered shrines and Them within
Who watch unconquered, maybe not again
The smiter shall be smit, the taker ta'en.
May God but grant there fall not on that host
The greed of gold that maddeneth and the lust
To spoil inviolate things! But half the race
Is run which windeth back to home and peace.
Yea, though of God they pass unchallenged,
Methinks the wound of all those desolate dead
Might waken, groping for its will....
Ye hear
A woman's word, belike a woman's fear.
May good but conquer in the last incline
Of the balance! Of all prayers that prayer is mine.
LEADER.
O Woman, like a man faithful and wise
Thou speakest. I accept thy testimonies
And turn to God with praising, for a gain
Is won this day that pays for all our pain.
[CLYTEMNESTRA _returns to the Palace. The_ CHORUS _take up their
position for the Second Stasimon._
AN ELDER.
0 Zeus, All-ruler, and Night the Aid,
Gainer of glories, and hast thou thrown
Over the towers of Ilion
Thy net close-laid,
That none so nimble and none so tall
Shall escape withal
The snare of the slaver that claspeth all?
ANOTHER.
And Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend
I also praise, who hath wrought this end.
Long since on Paris his shaft he drew,
And hath aimed true,
Not too soon falling nor yet too far,
The fire of the avenging star.
CHORUS.
(_This is God's judgement upon Troy. May it not be too fierce! Gold cannot
save one who spurneth Justice_.)
The stroke of Zeus hath found them! Clear this day
The tale, and plain to trace.
He judged, and Troy hath fallen.--And have men said
That God not deigns to mark man's hardihead,
Trampling to earth the grace
Of holy and delicate things?--Sin lies that way.
For visibly Pride doth breed its own return
On prideful men, who, when their houses swell
With happy wealth, breathe ever wrath and blood.
Yet not too fierce let the due vengeance burn;
Only as deemeth well
One wise of mood.
Never shall state nor gold
Shelter his heart from aching
Whoso the Altar of Justice old
Spurneth to Night unwaking.
(_The Sinner suffers in his longing till at last Temptation overcomes him;
as longing for Helen overcame Paris._)
The tempting of misery forceth him, the dread
Child of fore-scheming Woe!
And help is vain; the fell desire within
Is veiled not, but shineth bright like Sin:
And as false gold will show
Black where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade
His honour in God's ordeal. Like a child,
Forgetting all, he hath chased his winged bird,
And planted amid his people a sharp thorn.
And no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard,
The man so base-beguiled
They cast to scorn.
Paris to Argos came;
Love of a woman led him;
So God's altar he brought to shame,
Robbing the hand that fed him.
(_Helen's flight; the visions seen by the King's seers; the phantom of
Helen and the King's grief._)
She hath left among her people a noise of shield and sword,
A tramp of men armed where the long ships are moored;
She hath ta'en in her goings Desolation as a dower;
She hath stept, stept quickly, through the great gated Tower,
And the thing that could not be, it hath been!
And the Seers they saw visions, and they spoke of strange ill:
"A Palace, a Palace; and a great King thereof:
A bed, a bed empty, that was once pressed in love:
And thou, thou, what art thou? Let us be, thou so still,
Beyond wrath, beyond beseeching, to the lips reft of thee!"
For she whom he desireth is beyond the deep sea,
And a ghost in his castle shall be queen. |
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