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AGAMEMNON

AFTER THE GREEK OF
JESCHYLVS

BY
LOCKE ELLIS

(Ὁ 9...“
Dan yim
LONDON 5}
SELWYN ἃ BLOVNT, LTD.

21 York Buildings, Adelphi, W.C.2
1920

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

AGAMEMNON.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

CassANDRA.

AEGISTHUS.

A WatcHMAN.

A Heratp, Tattuysius.

Cuorus or Otp Men or Arcos, Οουνοι 088.
Fottowers ΟΕ AGAMEMNON, CLYTEMNESTRA, AEGISTHUS,

PERSONS ALLUDED TO
Arreus, father of Agamemnon. His House is also referred
to as that of Pelops ; Tantalus.—Brother to

Tuyestes, to whom Atreus gave to eat of his own children’s
flesh. Aegisthus was his surviving son.

ΤΡΗΙΟΘΈΝΕΙΑ, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon,
offered in sacrifice by her father on the eve of the
expedition to Troy.

Priam, King of Troy, father of Cassandra and of

Paris (ALEXANDER), who provoked the war by carrying
off

Heten, the wife of

Menetaus, brother of Agamemnon.

Catcuas, a soothsayer.

Arf, Erynnus, are avenging deities, or Furies.

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AGAMEMNON

Scene: Argos, before the palace of the Atreid@ ; night.
WaTcHMAN

My watch on Atreus’ roof, crouched like a dog,

I keep. Beseech ye gods, is there no end ?

Labour of years, I know the heavens by heart,

The stars’ assembled state, revolving on

The event of summer heat or winter cold,

The human year through. By their signs I know,

Splendours of rising or of setting ; stars

Burning in ether. But the sign I seek

Is earthly kindled fire, the torch of Troy,

Her blaze of capture. With so eager heart,

Impatient of the event, set me this task _

A woman, masterful enough. And now,

Night-chill’d and drench’d with dew my cheerless
couch,

Not in the happy company of dreams,

Instead of sleep which bringeth them, the dread

Of heavy-lidded sleep stands ever here.

And should I wisely think with wakeful song

7

To batter sleepy silence, then the theme

Is sorrow of the house I serve; tears then

For chance the good once was and is not now,
May be again. And that evangel fire,

In darkling night imagined, it might be

The end at last. But is it—is it not

The end at last? But see—it is no dream,

It dawns as never day, and shoots the flame
Argos shall dance to. Hail, O hail! Shout, call,
*Tis Agamemnon’s wife 1 summon, swift

As chamber of sleep can yield her, to proclaim
The essential feast of sound. Taken is Troy;

So saith the torch and fiery blazon. Mine

This prelude, dancing ; mine the lucky sice
Whose triple cast hath turned to a master’s good
The watchful stake. And mine the glory, when
On these worthless those honoured hands and dear
Are laid, of him who hath returned to us.

—But best let silence tread upon the tongue,

As an ox treadeth surely. If these walls

Could speak, ’twere with discretion, and so I

To them which know, and unto others, naught.

Cuorvus

Ten years of Troy. Hath Priam to this length
Held Menelaus, Agamemnon’s strength
At indecision of the Dardan field ?
To foes like these not yield !
8

Twin-sceptred, dual-throned Mycenian line

Of Pelops’ race divine,

Who from these shores charged the reluctant gale

With keels of battle of a thousand sail,

God Ares in his might.

Behold the birds of famine, flight on flight,

Winnowing with wings for scourge

The unstable element and mountain gorge.

Some towering fate to the dark winds hath flung

Their shattered aeries and their screaming young ;

Labour of nesting vain,

Hear now in heaven the parent host complain.

—Yea, one in heaven hath heard.

Is it Zeus, or Pan, or calm Apollo’s word

Upon that trespass bold

Flings judgment down and vengeance mused of
old?

—Yea, it is Zeus, the lawgiver of souls,

Who this offence controls,

And hath against the state of Paris hurled

The two-throned Argive world.

For sacrifice of fame

Of many-suitored queen of Argive name,

Danaan and Trojan arm

Alike through the tempestuous alley swarm

Of battle’s close embrace.

The warrior stumbles in the bloody race,

The splintered spear-shaft flies,

And in the dust he gropes and in the dust he dies.

9

Let be as hath been. All is thus fulfilled
As the Relentless willed.

No stagnant ritual

Of blood or ancient embers shall recall,
Nor with dark tears importunate

The once-befallen fate.

And we—the unelect and old even then,

Even when these battle-worn set sail, old men ;
Too old for service we, when younger brood

Set sail for Troas ; and the life they gave
Remains with us, pasturing with crutch and stave
The childlike remnant of our hardihood.

For childlike ’tis, and childlike seemeth too

This old age in the deeds it dreams to do,
Wanting but Ares’ limbs. Like death, like birth,
Ours are the infirm feet of infant earth,

But for the flower that is not. And so seem
Dreams of our company, ourselves a dream.

—But thou
Tyndareus’ daughter !—now
Comes Clytemnestra near.
O Queen, to us make clear
What news of fame
Into thy councils came,
That a city, pouring through her streets,
Snuffs rumour, mulled with burning sweets
From the close temple-ways.
Lo now, ablaze
10

With happy gift set there,

Kindles the altar fair

Of deity ; and manifold,

Other and other sacrifice behold,
Whether Olympian or rustic name
Or urban god his victim claim,
Each holy hearth shines clear.
Now torch-bearers appear,

With their cold brands they stir
Rich temple provender,

The oil-vat of the priest.

Soon the drugged flame, surceased,
Drops in the dark abyss,
And like spilt sorceries

The clots of burning fall

Red on the pale processional.
—But thou,

O Queen, if thou may’st speak, speak now,
And what thou knowest share
With us, and if our prayer
Frustrate not heaven,

Be thou unto our darkness given
Pzan ; and to our doubts again
Pzan, for these are pain.

Uncertainty !
What if there dwell with thee
Hope, and a vision fair?
Redoubled is our care,

II

Once we have missed those beams,
And darker the surrounding of our dreams.

Of human fate

This passage splendid to relate,

This tale of kings,

Me to the muses’ godlike summit brings.
My spirit’s dawn, the worshipful, the pure
Shall to that epic day endure,

And no less strong,

I too will lead earth captive with my song.

—Hear, then; in name of vengeance be it told,
How those relentless guards of Hellas’ fold
Gathered of helm and spear a vast command,
And fell on Teucrian land.
—Who bade them fall,
Brought Hellas to this charge? What oracle?
—A flight of furious wings
Drops by the sea-encampment of the kings.
Seen from the tents afar
The kings of air and arbiters of war,
Black eagle and white-tailed, a ruthless pair,
Their living prey, the pregnant hare,
Victim of a despairing race, oppress
With talons merciless, |
And beaks that re-entomb
The smoking burthen of her womb.

12

Sing Linos, Linos sing.
For Sorrow’s song is Hope’s unburthening.

The holy Seer,

High priest of armies, their interpreter,
The baleful eagle-portent laid

On Atreus’ sons. Interpreting, he said:

“Far-off, perchance, and yet the day must come
When towered Ilium

Unto this conquest yields

Her city and tribute fields.

Only let not the cloud of lightning fall,

Nor hazardous god his arsenal

Hurl on these armies bold,

Encincture of the Troyan hold,

These armies fair,

Which like a curb the Troyan masters bear.
For Artemis,

Intolerant as she is |

Of the wing’d hunters of her father’s house,
Furies of pity rouse,

And names of hatred call,

At that foul banquet ended, young and all,”

—Sing Linos, Linos sing.
For Sorrow’s song is Hope’s unburthening.

*€ But she who loves
The nurseries of the groves,

13

Where the mother of the wild

Bestows her urchin child,

Even the couched lioness,

She, Artemis, some theme of kindliness
And good in midst of omen’d ill,

Will labour to fulfil.

“Only give heed, Pzan of Prayer,

Lest the dread Goddess new perils prepare,
Which must a new propitiation find.
Tempest and enemy wind:

For these the childlike victim bleeds.
Frenzy of wrath succeeds,

The home-besetting

Mother-vengeance unforgetting,

Never husband-love recalling

Worked in secret and on nearest falling.”

—Thus Calchas, Orator of doom.

The Sons of Atreus in the listening gloom
Attend that voice again,

Of hope and dread the mixed refrain :

—Sing Linos, Linos sing.
For Sorrow’s song is Hope’s unburthening.

—Zeus! If on Zeus I call,
What God heareth? Is it the Lord of all,

14

Like unto whom is none, and none the same?
—None other would I name,

| But from the mind cast forth

The imponderable worth

Of lesser deity ; yea, whatsoe’er

The image idly there ;

Whether with aspect huge of dead renown
Blind face of Chaos frown,

Or Chronos, heir to that unstable rule,
Feel his immoderate godhead cool,

Last tyrant in the elemental war

To own a conqueror ;

Reason the victor God prefers,

For he is just, and just his worshippers.

Yea, it is Zeus brings back to wisdom’s way
The foolish feet that stray ;

Outlaws of guilty pain

On whom long time hath lain

The curse of the lost theme

Of innocence, an evil dream

Of devious path and never-found content,
That the unwilling spirit at last is bent
To the fixed purpose of his fate.

Mild, but reiterate,

Indissoluble word,

The sentence of great gods is heard,

15

——_ =

As it were charity that falls

From the high table of their judgment halls ;
Wisdom, the great gods’ gift to balance pain,
Sad lustre of their patient reign.

— An end of soothsaying ;

And now, fearless of fate, arose the King.

The ships at mooring stood

By Aulis, whence the flood

Rolls back on Calchis, and from Strymon’s mouth
Recoils, and empties into drouth

His waste and stagnant streams,

Now the hollow gulf beteems

With starving winds, that vex the adverse shore.
Ships may not sail, their counted store
Dwindles, they may not fill the vat,

And eke the mealy bin nor that

Which too long waiting makes in vain,

The cargo of their hopes again.

—So much had Calchas said ;

The inclement Goddess’ name with dread
Preferred, and showed which way the fateful blast
And wintry hazard fell. The monarchs cast

Their sceptres to the ground ; tears could not hide.

And now the Elder and the Father cried :

“Ὁ death of hope! If the alternative
Were only not to live.

16

But to be this, the slayer of my child,

My household grace to see defiled

With her own blood ; a father’s hand to take

That stain! Yet what? Shall I forsake

My kingdom, and her allies’ hopes defeat ?

What, I, first captain of the fleet,

Its grand deserter prove? No. This way lies

By tempest-lulling sacrifice

Of maiden-death, a forward path.

Wrath leads that way, but all ways lead to wrath.”

—So he put on the harness of his fate,

Made trial of the weight

Of shameful counsel, and became

Himself a counsellor of shame.

For like a change of tempest-boding wind

To mortal mind,

Suggestion first breathed in

Grows to the fury and the act of sin.

—See now to slay his child

The father reconciled,

That ships may aid

The vengeful wars that women made,

And spread on speeding gales

Their festival of sails,

He to the heartless lords of strife

Makes over that dear life.

No reckoning theirs

Of startled childhood’s tears or daughter’s prayers.
B 17

Nay, it is he, the father, gives command
To them that be at hand,

Following the priestly service round

To pitch of temple-sound,

In order of blood-ritual, instead

Of kid, at the great-altar head,

The body of maiden-sacrifice to lift.

See from her upraised form the garments drift,
Her scarf of crocus dye.

But they have caught the struggling cry,
Which ere it left those lovely lips

Had called down doom and night’s eclipse
Upon that house of blood. The last
Despairing look is on her tyrants cast.

Pity she seemeth still to seek,

Her eyes say what her lips would speak,

As in a picture. Nevermore

Will she appear her father’s guests before,

The darling of his pride.

As when in high hall, fondly by his side,

The third libation past and song begun,

With right good will, most loved and innocent one, ᾿
She did her clear and childish voice upraise
In his dear praise.

—As Calchas said, so it befell.
If of the future we would tell,
18

~ ae

This prophet-listening brings the scale to rest

At silence. There’s a Wisdom doth attest

The ranging of our sight,

And still from daily light

Doth hide all but the issue of a day.

Still we can weigh

The good that is with what may be.

—The Queen approaches. She

May still some part of good prefer,

And Argos still for guidance look to her.
[Enter CLyTEMNESTRA from the palace.

Cuorus

—Queen Clytemnestra, great as are thy cares
In the long-lasting absence of the king,

So great the duty that we owe to thee.
Therefore, that thou enlighten us, we crave,
Not importunely, but with patience even ;
Why hast thou thus ordained a festival ;
What tidings, of what happy consequence,
Dost thou possess ?

CLYTEMNESTRA

This is the hour of dawn.
And if I tell you tidings, ’tis to say,
This is the dawn of our long night of hope.
What more? Shall I say then that Priam’s city
Hath unto Argos fallen ?

19

CuHorvus

This if thou saidst,
Mine ears could scarce receive.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Hear it again.
Troy falls to us.
Cuorus

O, then, mine eyes are dim.
This, this is news.

CLYTEMNESTRA

O yes, you weep for joy.

Cuorus

A proof of this, O queen ; some witness, sign—

CLYTEMNESTRA

Why should the gods mock us ?

Cuyorus

Was it a dream ?
A visitant of sleep too credulous ?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Am I a visionary, so to be
Beguiled ?
20

Cuyorus

Some rumour thou hast ta’en for truth.

CLYTEMNESTRA

So childish, I ?

Cuorus

Nay, then; when fell the city?

CLYTEMNESTRA

This night—the mother of this dawn.

Cuorus
None could
Have brought the news so soon.
CLYTEMNESTRA
What of the fire

—Hephaistus’ signal, first on Ida sprung,
And hither westward journeying, destined torch
Of courient flame; instant in Lemnos, soon
In Athos streaming from the peak of god,
And lighting on the mounds of Thracian seas
Like drifts of dawn to the Eubeean shore,
Makistus’ watchers there. Sleepless they rise,
And set in train those sentinels of light
That wink across the dark and inland strait,
Messapius opposite, his parched heaths

21

A crimson cloud. Asopus winds below
Through all his valley, as in midnights when
Citheron’s moon sinks westerly upon

His height divine. On, on those beacons spread,
And now the lake Gorgopis overpast,

And Agiplanctus’ summit fired, therefrom

The torrent flame, blown like a giant’s beard,
Brushes the walls of Saron’s ferry ; thence
Arachnzus not far, whose kindly heights

Our neighbour and familiar vision fill.

The light that lingers yet is Ida’s own,

And Troy burns here. This is the sign I give.
And by the statutes of the torch-racers,

One from another catching speed of light,

So that the last is first,—this is the word

My lord hath sent me, out of Troy.

CuHorus

For this
We'll praise the gods in due time, save that now
Not one word would we lose of this great theme.
Beseech you, with your tidings to the end.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Methinks I hear the captured city voice

Confusion. Well, the elements make not

For peace. Victor and vanquished, vinegar

And oil—as soon would they assort within
22

The crucible. Hark—’tis the living seek

Their dead. Soon chains shall rack the sobbing throats.
After the night of stubborn battle, men

Would break their fast ; a weary soldiery

Camp in the streets and eat the bread of chance.
Happy, for they have roof for dwelling now ;

No more black watch and meagre rest beneath
The tentless cold of heaven, and they will be

As housed men, their sleep unsentinel’d.

But let them not forget the native gods

To hold in awe, that victors in their turn
Become not captives of a wrath revealed

To the inflamed eyes of sacrilege,

And spoilers of the sacred field. Enough.

Race so near home must be run to the end.
Yet—if it otherwise befell, and if

The army had escaped—-still there are those

On whom the penalty, though long delayed
Must fall. Well, these are woman’s words you hear,
And may the issue be more plain to see ;

The good for choice, and my choice over all.

Cuorus
O, manlike as thou speakest ; taking sign
From thee, I will approach the gods, assured
Of grace enough to foil disaster.

O Zeus! thy light we see,
And Night, thou marshal of eternity,
23

Who didst within thy starry net enfold
The towered Troyan hold.

—That now, of all

Who in those meshes captive lay,

None who was mighty then, and none so small
But in the sack of doom is borne away.
For this acclaim

Zeus, whose vengeful thunder’s flame,
To the instant golden

Of starry time withholden,

A bolt infallible

On Alexander fell.

Its journey from the place

Of thunder ye may trace

To the lightning fall.

*Tis said, withal,

That heaven-begotten wrath

Disdains to follow in the path

Of man’s deluded choice.

List not, ’tis error’s voice.

Wiser their children are,

Whose fathers, plotting in the realms of war
Carried beyond its place

The swollen scutcheon of their race ;
Whose faithful service, lent

Only to enterprise of fair intent,

Had never failed. But earthly gain
Little avails that tyrant whose brute reign

24

Spurns the mild sanctities of justice. Him
Doth frenzy dim

Of an ancestral impulse bend

To the resistless end.

The irremediable blight
Of nature maketh in the light
A baleful showing, as beneath
His hand, the burnisher discovereth
An ill-mixed bronze, a metal base.
The people of his race
Take up the burden of their lord’s defeat,
When from her cage the fleet
Captive, wild hope, hath flown,
And remedy is none,
But echo far the cries
Of passion’s children, in derisive skies.
—None other, but the same
Was Paris, when he came,
Guest, to entreat in shameful sort the spouse
Of host.
She, from her husband’s house
Fugitive, in her ear
Clashing of shield and spear,
Ships lading war, hath come
With doom for dower, to Ilium ;
Daring, O greatly daring, she,
The tongues of prophecy

25

Not silent ; woe, they cry,
Woe to the house and them that stand thereby,
For errant love, the trespass that effaced
Fair paths of memory traced
By married feet. Who now remembers him,
Alone in palace dim,
When grief’s dumb scourge and whispered ban
Speak more than words of desolation can ;
And troubled as with seaward dreams
The phantom-rule of silence seems,
And mourns a queen’s departed grace.
Image of her in sculptured face
Intolerable appears, :
And love himself a mask of famine wears,
The heavy eyes are famine’s.
Dreams of sleep
Still lure those baffled wings to keep
The paths of no return, and stay
The traveller at the gates of day.
So, heavier to sustain
Than sorrow’s self, those shapes of pain
Stand round the hearthstone drear,
And worse than battle’s brunt to bear,
Against the soldier’s citadel of home
Legions of trouble come.
Pierced to the heart are they
Who cheered the warrior forth and bade not stay
Him who should soon return.
But not this funeral-ship, this urn,

26

These ashes. Never these.
Yet what
Hath Ares in his balance? Not
Gold, no nor other merchandise
Than the white dust that lies
At Ilium’s furnace-gates.
With this he freights
For mourners the funestral vessel cold,
And fills the vase of old
Renown ; such tribute theirs
Who fall, but chiefly his who bears
The stroke of battle, sought in name
Of honour and unsullied fame
Of house and sacred home.
Whether from thence there come
Mute threnody and uncomplaint,
Or if rebellious voices taint
The air of praise,
And envy ’gainst the avengers’ house inveighs.
And fair, forbye,
The dead that still in earth of Ilium lie,
That conquered land, which hath
Its conquerors taken prisoner in death’s path.

If it become a people’s curse,
Deadly is that rancour of tongues, and worse
To look for. As night loads

The listening mind with terror, gods,

27

The avengers of blood-guiltiness,

These are not blind, nor less

Watchful Erynnus is in her dark place,

Of fortune’s scale, quick to displace

The beam. When evil seems to prosper most,
The abyss receives, and all is lost ;

And sunken in heaven’s thunderstroke

The ears that listened when the flatterer spoke.
—Be mine no more nor less

Than the unenvied mean of happiness.

Never the stricken sun

Which captive eyes look on,

Light my life’s journey, nor

Myself a conqueror.

Fresh from the joyful flame

Runs rumour—whether in truth’s name,

Or falsehood’s, who shall tell ?

There are false gods, as well.

But ’tis a child, or fool, whose spirit fires

At kindled torch and with the flame expires.

A woman ’tis, who doth prefer

To what is true, that which seems best to her,
And to fresh pasture flies

Outside all reason’s boundaries.

—Soon shall we know whether a heart of truth
In this fable of fire, or torch of dream
Delight our eyes. Herald himself I see ;

28

Under the olive shadows, hard from shore,

The road returns to dust. Dust tells his speed,
‘Swifter than flame of the green mountain wood,
And words to come, clearer than smoke of fire.

Rejoice; prepare all for rejoicing now,
Or—silent be the word—if any speak it,
Of his faith’s treason let him pluck the fruit.

HERALD

My native land! The years have past, the light
Of this tenth summer brings me to thy shore.
One hope, among the many blighted, lives,

If it were hope, Argos, that kept in mind

But never dared to build on thy dear soil

The allotment of a tomb. Now praise the earth,
The sun, and Zeus the country’s god, and him
The Pythian—not on us his arrows fall,

Not now, as once by strange Scamander. Now
*Tis O Apollo, Saviour, Healer, Lord.

And praise to other gods ; to those of old
Arenas and the fields of peace. Him too,

The patron of my life, the adored, the first

Of Heralds, Hermes. So would I approach

The chiefs of our renown, whose spirits urged
Ours to the test of war, that from the path

Of spear returned, they may with grace receive
Our remnant. Hail, then, hearthstone of our race,
And palace of our king; as oft of old,
Sun-spirits of the holy place of home,

20

In order seasonal, your gracious eyes

Let rest on him returned, to light your dark,
As well as ours, Let all be well that waits

For him, all welcome. Good it seems, for out
Of Justice’ hand—from Zeus himself he took
The spade that levelled Troy. Remaineth there
No altar, no place for an altar, no

Life ;—underground the seed of it is dead.

Such was his word ; such was the yoke he put
On Troy. Who else? Elder of Atreus’ House,
Man happiest in his choice of gods—who else
Of mortals worthier ? Not for Paris now

Is left to boast the advantage his in scale

Of deed and penalty. He held the stakes,

And with that forfeit went not he alone,

But home and country and his father’s house.

CuHorus
Hail! Messenger.
HERALD

Moment so charged with joy!
Τα not gainsay the fate that slew me now,

Cuorus

So lovely seems thy native land ?

HERALD
So fair,

Tears come.

30

Cuorus

From us that sweet distemper’s caught.

HERALD

Plain words can reach a child’s heart. Such is mine,

Cuorus

As you were stricken, so were we.

HERALD

You mean
The land we longed for longed for our return ?

CHoRUS

With many a sigh, in gloom of heart.

HERALD

Was heart
So strained ? And whence the burden of it ?

CHoRUS

Ills

There are, on which physician Silence waits.

HERALD

Alarms that fill an empty house. Whence then
The assault you feared ?

31

Cuorus

Just now you said
That death were happiness.

HERALD

When all’s well done,
As must be true at last. To tell the worst
Is but to say that of the enterprise
A part went wrong. Better than this may be.
There are gods, doubtless they know. My story’s one
Of hardship; meagre fare aboard and ill
Lodging ashore, if harbour made at all.
No day of grateful memory to break
The luckless process. Then, to come to land,
To bed outside the foeman’s walls upon
The aguish earth, beneath the watering skies.
Soon marish-like, with matted clothes and hair,
We grew foul creatures. Winter cold, the same
That laid the small birds dead in Ida’s snow ;
And heat, as when the breathless waters even
Swooned to the noonday tropic and became ©
A waveless hush upon a muted shore.
But why take up old burdens in the tale
Of things ended? The dead themselves have made
An end of all desire to live again,
And shall they die again in our report ?
There is enough on the fair side the scale,
Balm for survivors, over land and sea

32

Flying with eager hearts towards some goal

And residue of good, as seemly is,

In the still shining sunlight of their day.

Remains to us on Hellas’ temple walls

To fix the seal and the eternal fame

Of Troy captured. And they who gaze thereon
Will praise our land, our leaders and our god,

Who brought these things to pass. I have said all.

Cuorus

Who shall gainsay ? Not I, for unto age

Fair knowledge ever brings a spirit of youth.
But first the King’s house—Clytemnestra first
Let touch this gift of fame. Then may we taste.

CLYTEMNESTRA

When on the night’s horizon first appeared
The writ of Troy in flames, did I delay
Pean? Already is the city awake.

One said to me, a trick of flame, forsooth,
Can on a woman’s mind project this folly,

_ And stand for Trojan fall. Enough was said
To proveme mad. Yet unto sacrifice

Did I proceed, the while with fair address
My women went the temple round and fed
With sweets the hungry censers lapping flame.
—Herald, I have no need of your report ;
My lord’s own words shall satisfy me soon.

δ 33

Howbeit, do aught you know to speed him; say
His city awaits his coming; say, his queen.

To her—to woman—never sight more fair

Than this of prosperous gods and opening gates
Upon the homeward road of war. And then,
For him, returned at last, who left his house

In faithful keeping, dog-like faith to find,

And battle done with trespass ; undisturbed
The seal he fastened for inviolate time.

I know not ill, and the repute of ill

Touching another man leaves me unstained

As metal dipped in dye. Truth to the brim
Pours out my boastful cup. Who'd flinch from it ?
No woman of my race.

CHorus

Interpreter
Of words—hear these; she speaks them well; there’s
much
To learn of her, But tell me, Herald,—’tis
Of Menelaus that I ask—has he,
The joint desire of all our people, part
In your return ?

HERALD

I would not, if I could,
Dress out ill news as fair; fruit that would rot
Soon as you plucked it.

34

Cuyorus

And the good you told
Lose virtue of truth. So to divorce from truth

Helps not to hide.

HERALD

He’s gone, then, whom you said.
He and his crew out of our sight are gone.

Cuorus

What, from the field of war, from Troas shore
Set earlier sail? Or from the common fleet
Did tempest gulf him ?

HERALD

That, a goodly aim,
Cuts off betimes the unwilling story.

Cuorus

Yet
Some tale of life or death must be to tell.
What say the shipmen ?

HERALD

What avails to say,
When none knows anything? Unless the Sun
Of earth, the cherisher of life, should know
His foster-children.

35

CuHorus

By what malice, then,
Inhuman, came the storm, and ended how ?

HERALD

I would not mar the day of auspices

With other tales than good. There are other gods ;
As when the herald of defeated camps,

Visaged with those disasters, to his city bears
Arms of calamity ; the wound of state
Envenoming the private wounds of war.

A deathly curse it is the stifled dirge

Erynnus has to sing; not saviour deeds,

Not Victory when it comes, And with the tale
Of peace, how should I blend a stormful strain ?
—Yet be it said, the end found troubles still,
And gods not all appeased. Since, foes before,
Water and Fire made peace between them, us
Wretched, to overthrow. By night it came,
Tempest upon the sea, unloading winds

Of Thrace, like bellowing herds upon us, ship
Foundering on ship in smoking surges pent

And blind. Mad shepherd drove our flock that night.
And dawn that day, dawn on the Aégean field,
That ready seemed for harvest, flowering

With many a drowned corpse and floating spar ;
While we and our miraculous vessel rode

In some divine security, our helm

36

In hand of saviour Fortune, to avoid

The fangs of coast and sea. Which death escaped,
Aghast in that pale light, our shrunken sail

And loss beholding, we with scanty fare

Pastured our starving hope to see again

Our comrades; who, if they survive, in turn

Will think of us as dead. And so we too

May hope ;—that somewhere still the light of day
Kindles on Menelaus, as on us,

Under the hand of Zeus, not mindful yet

Utterly to destroy and from its place

Uproot our nation.

Cuorus

Helen, the Conqueress !

—One pastured to the lips in prophecies,
Some sibyl named thee well,

And at thy cradle sponsor stood to tell
Thine afterfame,

— O dreadful history in a name!
—Helen of Troy to be,

Of annal’d war by land and sea,

Of arms, of men,

Helen of nations. When

At last, from silken pale

Of thy sea-gazing, thou didst give a sail
To the giant-seeded winds of the west,
Instant upon the quest

37

Of thy light-running keel appeared
Myriads, whose clashing bucklers cheered
The hounds of blood, and hurled

On Simois green the hunters of the world.

So at the doors of Ilium Vengeance stands

Accountant, in her hands

The marriage-marring evidence of fate,

And the law violate

Of Zeus, guest-guardian. She

Waits, with dun adversity,

On those who in the bridal courts prolong

Their spendthrift song,

Until that hymenzan falters. Hear

In Priam’s city at last the accent drear

Of dolorous change.

Hear Paris called the ill-wived. Voice of how strange

Groomsmen! But they have drawn their singing-
breath

In an age of death.

There was a man brought home with thought to tame
The lion-cub reft of his milky dam.

In his boon whelphood what

A playmate for the younger !—not

Unapt to rouse

Mirth of the elder house,

This little weanling oft

With cringing stomach. and entreatment soft

38

Will at their doors look in,

And table-mercies win.

Then trust with trust and kind with kind
Repaid, the prosperous mite will find
Caress more freely given,

And lap-room even.

But Time, which to maturity

Leads on born savagery,

And adult Nature shows the beast of blood

In cruel mood

Returning shepherd-kindness. He has broken
Into the sacred pasture, and for token

The ruddy lintel smeared

And startled homestead cleared

Of frightened men, while he the unbidden feast
Pursues ;—intemperate priest

Of doom, which Ignorance in his mansion bred,
At cost uncovenanted.

Came thus to Troas one, and came with her

A prosperous weather, as it were

Summer of idle calm

That sowed sweet harm

Of Eros’ flower, and sought beneath those eyes
The dangers of love’s paradise.

—A marriage-change ;

And then, what consort strange

39

Is this, who next to Priam’s throne
Of Priam’s people friend hath nonev
But for herself and for the land
Hath furnished to the hand

Of what offended god,

In what demented haste, this rod,
This justice-wanting

Erynnus, women-haunting ?

Life’s ancient learning, bent

With failing eyes on truth, describes the event
Of human happiness.

—Not issueless

Falls the fair branch of fortune, not
Unfruitful dies, but hath an heir begot,
Ill-graft upon the parent name of bliss,
Sorrow, ’tis said, his generation is.
—Cold creed, not mine! Despair

If good should evil bear.

Rather, ’tis evil that begets his kind ;
And to my mind

Truth with itself is reconciled

If fair have fair to child.

The Pride of Life, the pampered, still
Insatiate, hardening human will

At every turn of fate, to oppose

The holy gods ;—her progeny are those
Shadows of mortal path

And that earnest of death which hath

40

In the old semblance, to the long-spared home,
At the master-moment, come.

And if mid the hearth-stains of poverty

The lamp of Justice kindles, she

Finding a pure faith there,

Stays, though in many a palace fair

Rest comes not to an eye that sees

The soul’s uncleannesses,

The guilty palm of power, whose boastful days
Herself hath numbered, looking divers ways.

[Enter AcAMEMNON, with his following. CASSANDRA
is seated in the mule-car.

—He comes ! —The King!

—O lord of Atreus House, Troy-conquering,
If doubts arrest

The voices of thy triumph, ’tis but lest

The excess of praise mere adulation prove ;
’Tis but that truth we love

More than that seeming which is everywhere ;
—The face men wear

Of gratulation, oft a veil too thin

To hide the unsmiling soul within ;

Or if grief calls

For a fraternal tear, the semblance falls
From a dry casket. Undeceived is he

Who in the market of humanity

41

His cattle knows ;

And thou, remembering the part we chose
In times gone by,

Not then the flatterer’s, when thou didst try
Our counsel ; when the war

Of Helen came, and not as things now are,
We did thy wisdom call

In question, and thy aim depict in all

Its threatening hues, as when

It came to force upon reluctant men

The courage of fierce sacrifice,

And pay that altar-price.

—Know, then, the measure of good will
Which doth our welcome fill,

And taketh in, as well it should,

The mighty issue thou hast brought to good.
And know, as soon thou wilt,

How justly, or otherwise, each man hath dealt
His share of commonweal,

Which one proved false, and which did strictly deal.

AGAMEMNON

Argos, by thee and by thy people-gods

Be heard the first of this new voice of mine,
To mine own house, by their solicitude
Returned, who at their bidding went away.
It was no mortal voice that gave Troy doom,
By lot announced, when none profanely cast
Into the opposing cup a rebel vote

42

Averse to blood; none failed us; so Troy fell.
—Witness her burning! What sweet airs prolong
The Até-life in ashes and send forth

Burnt odours with the carnal flames of wealth’s
Blown sacrifice! To the gods, to the gods return
Measures of praise heaped in the scale with these
Vindictive spoils. Not to the spoiler in

The chase of love this bursting net of gain.

The male beast turned.—Thou Argive troop, compact
Of shield, taking thy leap at last amid

The storms of sunset, thou the battlement

Hast cleared ; a lion now, with jaws that drip
Majestic blood. To the gods, to the gods again
These firstfruits— Now to you whose weight of care
Has held me listener, till I could have ta’en

The burden up and spoken in your stead.

—It is not in the heart of every man

To gladden at the welfare of his friend.

The envious canker there, an eye distressed

Looks out on neighbour fortune, so to find
Home-burdens doubled. Often have I proved
And torn the mask from many a flattering word
Of many a seeming friend —Yet there was one,
Ulysses. He did with rough words dispute

My sailing-counsel ; but, embarked, stood true,
And held the course with me. I speak of him ;

I know not if ’tis of the dead I speak.

—There’s much to do; let us take counsel on

The state and the divine action of men.

43

If good be proved, how to renew that good

To everlasting ; or, if evil be,

Whether fire purge it or remedial knife

Cut out the part diseased.—But now, ’tis home

I enter; and—the gods first even there—

Greet gods of home; the same who sent me forth,
Bring me again.—Ye powers attending me

In battle, stay my feet in paths of peace.

[Enter CuyremnestRA. While AGAMEMNON Stands in
salutation of the gods, she addresses the Chorus

first.
CLYTEMNESTRA

‘You citizens, elders of Argos, to you

I may refer, with less misgiving, my theme

Of wifely duty. Humility, and fear,

Wear out in time. - The hard lot I have borne
While he—while this man— conquered Troy—’tis my
Affair and knowledge. What is known to all

Is the state of that woman whom her husband
Deserts for war. The empty house, the cold
Alarms, dinning on the wrought mind, they come,
One on another rumour, heaping dread.

Wounds ;—if the word of wounds were always true,
This man of hers was riddled like a sieve.

Deaths ;—what was Geryon in his digged grave,
Casting the triple cloak of earth he wore ?

A man of fewer lives, I ween, than this.

44

Why, in that gloss of maddening rumour, what
Marvel if it were said—if it were true,

They cut me from the noose, and left me life

I could not away with ?—Then—he is not here,
The child, the master-witness of my faith,

And thine—Orestes. Nay, but marvel not ;

A neighbour cares for him, a friend at arms,
Strophios the Phocian ; one who, warning, gave
Shape to the fears that clung about me ;—death
In Troas field ; kingdom without a king ;
Dispersed council, and this house of thine

At rabble-mercy. Was not this enough?

Is human-kind to trust? Hard do I seem ?
The springs are dry, there is not a drop remains.
This harm was done to the once-ready fount

Of tears. *Twas that night-watching, that
Unkindled fire, for thee. That broken sleep,
Those pestered dreams, when the light-buzzing sense
Wove in the minutes of too straitened sleep
Patterns of fear which would have overflowed
The waking hour. Now all is past I look

On thee, strayed guardian of the fold returned,
Strong helmsman, grounded column of the roof,
Sole prop of parentage infirm, land past

The hope of sailors, when with land appears
Fair dawn upon the winter of the seas ;

When, too, the endless traveller nears the green
Of desert-wells. Surely there is no sweet

Like that which never can be. Such the words

45

I deem to fit thy. coming. Stand aside,

Envy! Though past, were there not ills we bore ?

—Dear lord, descend! But not to earth, O king,

Troy-conqueror, come thy feet. Down, slaves, and
spread

The footway ; laggards in the task assigned,

Why this delay? Set straight, of broidered wealth,

A regal carpet. Justice to his house

Unhoped for, guide him.—For the rest, not sleep

Shall mask disclosure of our mind, and still

Justly, and with the gods, and after fate.

AGAMEMNON

Daughter of Leda, guardian of my house ;

Thou hast given me greeting, so extending speech
To suit an absence long. More measured praise
Had come from other lips, in awe of heaven.
—For that, Iam no woman, whom soft things
Like words, content ; no satrap, pleased with court
Agape, and earth-obeisance. Never spread

For me the invidious ground of honour gods
Alone may safely tread. I fear that path;
Mortal I am, give me a man’s due, not

A god’s. My fame subsists without the mark

Of this dyed blazon ; were it not that heaven’s
Best gift is other, even a guiltless mind,

And none will know, until the end, if life

Have prospered ; till the end and all well done,

If he have courage left for happiness.

46

CLYTEMNESTRA

Tell me—and let thine answer not admit
Misunderstanding.

AGAMEMNON

That it never shall.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Thou hast made a boast of piety.

AGAMEMNON

If not I,
Who then should so ?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Not Priam, if victor he.

AGAMEMNON

No, by my faith, he’d tread the purple path

Here strown.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Tis human blame you fear in this.

AGAMEMNON

Strong censors of our acts are human tongues.

47

CLYTEMNESTRA

They are envious tongues. But without envy none
Shall emulate.

AGAMEMNON

Is it a woman’s part
So to persist in strife of reason ?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Yet

It is a part of power to yield sometimes.

AGAMEMNON

Thou hast set some pressing store on this.

CLYTEMNESTRA

And still
Am urging, in the hope still to prevail.

AGAMEMNON

So be it. Forward then, some slave, to strip
These sandals, lest the insulting feet should mar
That cloth of price, fabric of Tyrian seas ;

And such ill-thrift, contemptuous use of wealth,
Bring down the jealous armoury of heaven.

Let be then. But—this stranger-woman. Ah!
Bid welcome here kindly, for kindness is

The temper of power, and the gods look for it

48

Where’er the abashed human spirit sustains
Violence of slavery ; and this woman, this
Princess ;—where the luxuriant bloom of life
Excels in kings’ houses,— she is that flower,

The prize of kings; and to whose arms but ours
Should victory, dealing in spoils of fight,
Deliver her ?—But since I am constrained,

All by thy ruling here, my subject feet,

On threshold purple-dight, let enter home.

CLYTEMNESTRA

There is a field wherein is harvested

The flower of the eternal sea, whose dyes
Beseem the fadeless garment of our pride.
And while our lack in this wise is no more
Than ocean’s penury, or heaven’s eclipse,
Which never yet hath ceased to shine on us,

I had put leagues of purple down, to hear
Rumour of thy recall, or oracle

Prolong thy day of life ’neath foreign suns.
For even thus, if the tree’s root survive,

Fair shade its distant leaf extendeth o’er

A barren and deserted homestead, still
Slakening the rule of Sirius’ droughty star.
And now thou hast entered, like a winter sun,
The very hearth-place; like the breath that cools
Days after harvest, and the winepress full,

As is thy life filled with deeds harvested.

D 49

—O Father Zeus !—and my remaining prayer
Fulfil !—and that which shall be, be thy will.

[Exeunt, into the palace, AGAMEMNON and
CLYTEMNESTRA. CASSANDRA remains
seated in the mule-car.

Cuorus

O gathering shade !

Is it phantom-bodied fear hath cast

The prophet forth, and the unbidden singer made
A solitary ? Is it the tangled past

Of dreams, which the fair forms of day release,
And waking courage solves ?—The day has come,
And still it is not these.

The day of Ilium

Hath aged to this hour.

The ships of sailing memory,

The empty strand.

Is it their return I see,

When, stricken from my hand

The lyre, and by the voice within

Confused, breath comes not but with threnody
And dron’d Erynnus? Though in that fierce din
Heart burst, yet Righteousness

Will on the panting torrent press

Her labour to the end ;

And in that whirlpool I

50

With feeble clamour lend
To fathomless woe

A voice of prayer, and know
Tis without hope I cry.

There is no well-to-fare

In life, when best to win

Is to find wanting there.

It is not Health at all,

So neighboured by Disease,

Who, ever at the wall,

A crouching shadow is,

Intent to enter in.

—That fair ship, seeming to maintain
Her even course, beset

By the unknown, the sunken rock, the bane
Of sailors ;—yet

The master-wisdom, reckoning

His freightage, may the over-burthen note,
And from the bulwarks fling

Unvalued jettison, a toll to fate;
Leavening, until she float

Again, his ship, his substance, his estate
Upon the waters. Thus

Comes hope to the seafarer; yea,

And to the needy slaves of dearth,
When the all-gatherer, Zeus,

Of harvest, spills his plenty in the way
Of annual earth.

51

But hope to you, O men of blood,
Comes not at all.
The drops of sacred blood once spilled
Have no recall.
Was one of old time skilled
To raise the dead ?
His fate but showed
Whereto the empery of nature led.
—Ah no! Could some divine
Amend the human lot once drawn,
And night of destiny
Merge in alternate dawn,
Swifter than any tongue, O heart of mine,
With tidings such as these should be,
Thou hadst shown it now. But hark!
Upon what fearful summons do I grope
With trembling shades and scarce for dread suspire ?
No thread of hope
Drawn from the stranded dark
And patterned fire.
[Enter CLYTEMNESTRA. |

CLYTEMNESTRA

Enter. Cassandra is thy name? Thou too

Wilt find provision made. Need it be said,

The peace which Zeus hath given extends to thee,
A portion in our feast, however small ;

A place beside our altar, though a slave’s.

52

Come down. Look not above thee. So did not
Alcmena’s son, reputed to have borne

The yoke of slavery in a foreign mart.

Besides, if need to serve, ’tis well to have

Of possible masters, not the newly rich.

For those whom fortune hath surprised are raw
To none so much as to their servants. We

Are of the temper that belongs to power.

This you will prove.

CHoRUS

She waits your answer. She has said but fair.
And you, who are the spoil of destiny,
Will choose to obey; or, if you do not choose,

Will still obey.

CLYTEMNESTRA

There is a barbarous kind
Of speech, like the bird-clamour of the roof,
About our ears. Therewith a barbarous way
Of understanding. If she be not one
Of these, persuasion wins.

Cuorus

How else, for all
The choice there is? No better to sit there,
Than follow, as she bids thee.

53

CLYTEMNESTRA

This is as much
Of outdoor leisure as I have to spend.
Fire burns upon the household altar, there
The sheep of sacrifice are tied and wait
For us, who have waited long enough for this.
—Dost still delay ? Thy lot is not thine own;
But this occasion is the gods’, and this
We share with thee——She hears me not! Uncouth.
—Attempt not then thy barbarous speech, but make
Some sign, with what civility thou canst.

CuHorus

Ah, ’tis interpreter she needs. How like
Some wild thing newly taken in the net.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Yes, from the newly taken city come,
She rages and still starts at every sound.
The bridle is not used to fit, there’s froth,
There’s red aversion foamed at the mouth. But
wait ;
The reins are mine.
[Exit CLyTEMNESTRA into the palace.

CHorRusS

Ah, piteous creature, hear; it is not I
Am angered with thee. At thy journey’s end,

54

Come down, attempt the yoke, with needful grace
For what must needs be borne.

CassANDRA

O hear me, hear me, gods.

Apollo, O Apollo.

Cuorus

But when did he thou callest, when
Did Loxias give heed to voice of fear ?

CASSANDRA
Hear; save.

Apollo, Apollo.

Cuorus

She calls again on whom ’tis weariness
For grief to call. He is not Sorrow’s god,

CasSANDRA

The streets are full of his name.
But he is mine.
Apollo.

Ah, now thou leavest me; ah, now thou art gone.

Cuorus

Her own despair is now the prophetess,
Divinity left in a mind enslaved.

55

CASSANDRA

The many voices thou hearest ;

But me,

Apollo, Apollo,

Me whither hast thou led ? Unto what roof ?

Cuorus

The House of Atreus, since thou askest this,
But do we tell thee aught thou dost not know?

CassANDRA
Woe, woe, hereby.
Hate, hate—the gods know it for hate.
Murder—she goeth not abroad ;
She need but listen here
For step of friend.
Hangs ever here
The rope that hanged.
This choking—so breath must fail.
This damp—they have not drained
The death-places of blood, men’s blood—

Cuyorus

Hound-like, on scent of blood—

CASSANDRA

And children’s. O, these are my witnesses.
Ye know the truth I tell, for they cry out
56

In death, their bodies burned, their flesh, their flesh
A father’s banquet.

Cuorus

We are thy witnesses.
Soothsayer, yes. We ask not this to say.

CASSANDRA

But what is now—but what is now
Of horror heaped within those doors ?
What fiend’s work plotting? None
Can save, none can remove.

Help so far off is none, none, none.

CHorus

Things of the past which thou hast told are known
To all the race, but not these present fears.

CASSANDRA
Wilt do it, wretched one?
Couched is he? Bathest thou his journey’s dust ?
-- Ἴ not tell the end, it is too near.
Those hands—one is stretched forth already.
No, ’tis the other reaches forth to kill.

Cuorus

Away with thoughts not to be guessed at, things
Unseen. The eye is blurred that sees these things.

id

CassANDRA
Nay, but ’tis plain ;
The victim’s quite enmeshed. Death has him fast.
Ruin for consort, who escape the snare
Of such a bedfellow? She has him fast.
—Voices that haunt the house,
Begin again, let wail. They are not satisfied,
So there’s another due for vengeance.

CHorus

The voice thou hearest and still callest on,
Is it Erynnus? Not that thy word is clear.
Only before my heart’s dull vision blood
Rains purple down, like drops

Of mortal issue, from the wounded frame
Of life, when sunset yields to dark.

CassANDRA

Look, look !—For pity unlock

Those monstrous nuptials.

A horn’d dagger she hides. Black, black it is.
A bathrobe hides it.

He on the crystal edge

Hath fallen, and from the cleansing laver’s lip
Hath taken stain of death.

CHorusS

I cannot claim to have followed to the end
That wisdom’s theme wherewith the gods have filled

58

.)

RIN OT TR OTT I TO, σοὶ a σεν τ

μ».

The lips of prophets, but this truth is mine ;
The things they have to tell an evil likeness wear
To naught of good to men.

Come art, the many, the sweet-syllabled,

Come melody the most divine,

The burden is the same, that teaches only fear.

CassANDRA

O heavy fate, now is my turn of death,

To enter on the stream of destiny.

Me hither, wretched, wherefore didst thou lead,
Thyself O foully slain, to die with thee ?

CHorusS

Who art thou, what is thy lament ?

Is for thyself the passion’d strain,

Wherein the mortal means are spent

On more than mortal? Art thou she

Who “‘ Itys ” cries

And “ Itys,” and again ;

—The singer of brown dusk, the nightingale
Of earth far-blossoming with pain.

CASSANDRA

The nightingale! Who hears
That voice? as if it were

59

“Oearth! O 8ογτον ! ”—But they gave
A winged shape to her,

And a sweet life away from tears.

—In my cold death is none to save.

CHorus

This voice that is despair,

So sweetly sounds,

Tis some divine possession. Yet

A note of terror breaks the bounds
Of a pure music, shadows that beset
The path, and horror lurking there.

CasSANDRA

Paris, thou and thy bride!

Thou hast ruined us, my brother. Ah!
Scamander, river of home!

My way was deep in green

By thy old waterside,

Where I remember always to have been.

Alas, no more.

But I that never left thee, unto this have come,
O wailing river, O dark shore.

Cyorus

Who is so new to life as not to hear
In these the tones of death ?

60

— As though myself did overtake

Some treacherous blow, so clear

The word she saith,

That grips my heart, as it would break.

CASSANDRA

My country! O the burdens borne,

The battles, and the end!

My father’s house! the stones uptorn

For altars, and the fields

Emptied of grazing herds, to spend

On fruitless heaven and doom they could not
stay. |

—Enough, even my spirit yields.

I must put all away.

CHorus

It follows, all,

As the spirit, dropt from what height
Informs thee, in the language used of pain,
—O voice most musical !

— And death, ranging beyond my sight,
And where to question is in vain.

' CASSANDRA

No longer, as it were the bride of fear,
The Oracle peers from a veil obscure.

61

Comes now, as oft at restless dawn, a wind,
And with that change to visible, the waves
Gather a greater head of waters, to

The plunge of last calamity.—Enough

Ye know to join your witness unto mine,
Following the tracks of ancient trouble here.
Ye singers of this house did ne’er march forth
To happy music; ne’er had good to tell

Of this your dwelling. So much, then, ye know
Of spirits that haunt, of revellers within,

That sit at table there, and will not move,

— Tis Murder fills the cup—till from the roof
The midnight chanty shrieks, voice unto voice
Calling out of the past, they mouth the tale
Like garbage. Once a brother’s bed defiled,
What crime obscene answered the trampler’s guilt ?
—TI have said it, all have I divined. Must I
Seem some loose teller of wild fortunes at

Your doors? Must I approve myself again ?
—-Believe—swear ye believe that what I know
Is of my own divining.

Cyorus

I could swear,
But though my faith were uttered on an oath
What help were that to thee? I am amazed
That one, as thou, a stranger born, from far
And newly come to us, should know these things.

62

CassANDRA

It was Apollo’s gift tome. Time was
When I had shame in saying it.

Cuorus
Was he
Thy lover, then? And did the favour sought
By him, a god, of thee a mortal—

CassANDRA
Nay
But in fair seeming and yet godlike he
My suitor was.

CHorus

To wedlock couldst thou come,
And children born to him ?

CASSANDRA
Loxias !—I made
Consent, I promised, I deceived

Cuorus
When he had filled thee with this gift divine ?

CASSANDRA

Yes—after he had given. The city then
Was marvelling at my power.

63

Cuorus

What then? Did he,
Did Loxias let thee go unscathed ?

CASSANDRA
Alas

For my unfaith! What prophetess was I ἢ
Henceforth no man believed me.

Cuorus

Nay, but I
Believe thee !

CassANDRA

O, rid me of this thing, ’tis evil, evil.

On such a brink I sway, of such a burden
Possessed, at any word of it I am lost.

—Those children !—Look, those little ones again,

Do yeseethem? So like shades transfixed in dream ; }

So motionless they sit, as fitting those

Surprised with death by those who fondled them.

Their hands, those small dead hands, they seem to
hold

Some offering of themselves. A father ?—not

A father takes their gory contents; no,

’Tis horror-past, pity cannot reach there.

And vengeance? Is it for this that I see such

64

Ta OF EE Pc

Home-keeping, nerveless thing of lion-kind
Turn himself in the absent monarch’s lair ?
This is a king Slavery herself must own,

And we of wasted Troy attest his power.

And yet he knows not how he stands in terms
Of hell’s conspiracy with the tongue that gave
Him welcome and is waiting chance to bite.

— Tis of the bitch I speak, she only dares

The female part of murder. Is there name

Of her among unnameable, beasts that creep
Before and after? Such was Scylla, hid

In gulfs that swallow shipwreck. Such was she,
Mother of death, that warred on her own kind.
Didst hear the gladness feigned for his return ἢ
The peal of triumph, as in battle swells

The turn of victory? It matters not

What ye did hear, nor what ye take from me.
There is what shall be, and shall be too soon
To cost the prophetess more pains than these,
Your faith stands with your pity, not far off.

Cuorus

Tale of his children’s flesh Thyestes had
To banguet on, I understood too well,
Horror best left in its unfigured shade.
The rest I follow not to understand.

\

CASSANDRA

Not when I speak of Agamemnon’s end ?

E 65

Cuorus

Take care of words like these, though for thyself
Thouw’rt desperate.

CASSANDRA

There’s no help in words of yours.

Cuorus

No, not if these things were. But they are not,
And may not be.

CasSANDRA

Be the protesting word
Your care. Theirs is to kill.

Cuyorus

Whose? What, I say ?
What man’s?

CASSANDRA

Thou hast not listened well.

CHorus

No, not
To gather this.
66

Rime

ΟΑΘΘΑΝΌΕΑ

As though I did not speak
Your tongue.

Cuorus

In oracles as dark to see,
The Pythian speaks the tongue of Hellas too.

CassANDRA
Ah, not again !—Lycian Apollo, ah,
Put out the fire! it draws too near.
—One of a race of kings, this lion’s mate,
In her lord’s absence couches with a wolf.
If such a one hath spite, how should it spare
A wretch like me? She'll not forget to mix
My portion in the draught of death. For him
A dagger sharpened ; for my presence here
With him, the thrust deep, deep as vengeance
Can take it. O, this mockery on my breast,
This mantic wreath I have worn, this prophet’s staff ;
Should these survive mine injury of death?
—Lie there and do no harm; the vanity
Will not be found again in woman weak
As I, to wear prophetic likeness. None
Will touch. Take back thy gift, Apollo! See,
He has divested me, looks on me now
As I was, but for the shame that’s past. I had friends
Whose mockery drove me wild, and to think all

67

Mine enemies. They called me—what ?

I might have been a vagrant in their path,

Witless, and hunger-driven to frenzy, asking

This charity of them—to be believed.

Here is an end. My lord of wisdom, he

Has brought me to the wisdom of the dead.

For altar—O my father’s house,

And the lov’d temple-service there !

—This block, this blood-splash, this before mine
eyes.

Vengeance? Yes, there will be to pay this debt

Of dying, someone to make pay the price.

Another branch of murder-bearing tree,

Son of his father, and his mother too,

Avenging one upon the other. He

Shall wander out of exile, to renew

The home-acquaintances, builders of wrath,

And cope the muniment of death. For him

No other way but to seek out the place

That saw his sire struck down. For him no choice,

Bound by no oath but what the heavens have sworn.

—I weep not for the sorrows of this house,

Seeing my own, my Ilium come to what

These eyes have seen, my people come to this,

And in heaven’s judgment come. I have come too,

To endure as they; I can endure as well

To die. I will address me to these doors,

Ask death to open to me. I think there is

No more to ask; only that when it fall,

68

The blow may end me, and no need to shrink
Or struggle; but a closing of the eyes
On a swift-running stream.

Cuorus

O, whither now
Hath sorrow led thee? Wisdom to what bourne
Arrived, that looking, as thou seem’st to do,
On thine own death, thou canst go to it thus,
All-knowing, to endure; not as the ox
That paces slow the route of sacrifice,
And yet as far from fear ?

CASSANDRA

Help there is none,
O strangers. So what need prolong the hour ?

CuHorus

Yet, to put off the hour, this is the thought
Even of age, when we have come to it.

CASSANDRA

The day has come, I am not its fugitive.

Cuorus

What courage! so to bear.

69

CassANDRA

*Tis all they need,
Who miss the path of happiness. }

CuHorus
ὶ Grace left
To those unfortunate—nobly to face
The end. }
CASSANDRA

My father! 80 didst thou, and so
We of thy house. And yet—

Cuorus

What comes to thee? What labour of the heart
For breath ?

CASSANDRA
These walls—a smell of blood—of blood—

Cuorus

A burning on the hearth, an incense strange

To thee.

CassANDRA

No, no, a breath of open graves.

7O

Cuorus

No words of mine can balm instil in what
Thou tastest now.

CASSANDRA

As well within as here,
To handle that last cup. Is it finished with him ?
Hath Agamemnon tasted ?—I have yet
Life—to be rid of. Strangers, farewell.
I was to dwell with you.
Alas, you say. But no. Behold me now,
Not like that shrieking bird in quickset fear,
No, not like that. I want your witness still
To that dead woman which is myself ;—when for
my cause
Yet other woman perish, aye, and man too,
For other man ill-mated.—I was to be
Your guest, but life is done.

Cuorus

O, for compassion’s sake—beseech the gods
That otherwise—

CASSANDRA

Not a word, not for myself
I pray, yet one word more. It is to thee,
To thee, Sun of my life, light of last day.
—Thou seest none my avenger; mea slave

71

They kill, and fear no reckoning. Yet not so;
Mine are the avengers of the mightier dead
That die with me. This, this is human, this

Is life. Joy was a shadow, and no more

The marks of pain. Behold, how easy ’tis

To rub them off. The writing’s vanished. This
Is only more to pity.

[Exit CassanpRA, into the palace.

Cuorus

O house of fame,

Example to the world of power; _
Hath no one of thy name,

Even at this hour,

Prudence to shut the door in fortune’s face,
Or deprecate, at least,

The gifts unloaded there ?

For [llium’s captive grace

Stands at the conqueror’s feast,
Gods of homecoming fair

Attend ; whence then this cry

Of blood once shed ?

If he, the glorious living, die

For so long dead,

An end would be

To all that earthly-dwellers have,
Or hope to save,

From the ill-genius of mortality.

72

AcAMEMNON (Within)

SmittenamI...

Cuorus (LEADER)

Silence !—Whose voice is that, whose voice of death ?

AGAMEMNON
Again !

Cuorus (LEADER)

’Tis ended !—’tis the King !—what counsel, say ἢ

Various VoIcEs OF THE CHORUS
Mine is—to the city—rouse we all we can.

—Nay—in with us—the evidence of guilt
Is there to take red-handed.

—I am for doing—and that quickly— what ἢ

—One thing is clear—a tyranny prepares
To fasten on us.

—Yet we do naught—their ready hands will bring
To scorn our purpose thus deferred.

—We should have been prepared. Counsel is hard
To suit to action.

73

—Counsel will not bring

The dead to life.

—wNo, nor our own lives given.
But ’tis a dastard purchase, at the cost.

—Aye, death were better than such tyranny.
—But—to make sure—art certain it was death?

~—How sounded it? Let us not say too much;
Tis but conjecture, there is yet to know.

—To know—aye, there’s the point—how fares it with
The King ?

[Enter CuyTEMNESTRA from the palace, dis-
closing the bodies of AGAMEMNON and
CassANDRA

CLYTEMNESTRA

Now I can speak, where opportunity

Was never truth to tell, but always false,
Always to fear. How else? When enemies
Go in another likeness, we must wear

That likeness too, and with a friendly gesture
Invite. It was a snare set long ago,

No risk could be admitted to the issue.
Sudden it seems, but much went to it, this

74

Is but the final cast. Yet more than that.

Twas here I struck, and here I stand assured

Of all I struck for, even to own the deed,

And say, was it not well done, that gave no chance
To escape, nor made uncertainty of death ?
Fairly I cast, and drew the net ashore.

Seamless I wove, that the rich dress might suit.
I struck him in it twice.

As many times he groaned, and therewith took
The pose of death. I had done; but to make up
The tale of tribute due to gods who wait

Beneath the earth for souls of passing men,

And so they should not wait for him in vain,

I struck once more, the third time. To be sure,
His parting breath did linger not at all,

And life ran fountain-free and slaughter-red ;

I was myself bedewed, a darksome kind

Of rain; but, O, gods never opened heaven

On such a thirsty earth as I, nor brought

A more delightful season to the womb

Of life’s expectant pain. But ye know not

How these things be ;—old men of Argos, get
What joy you can from things that make for joy.
I tend triumphant altars ; I would make
Libation here; this, this should be the flesh

Of sacrifice, were it seemly, as ’tis just ;

—O justice never to be questioned! Cup

Thou hast drained; yea, thou, who didst it fill for us
With imprecation ; thou hast tasted, thou !

75

Cuorus

And this thy husband! O amazing tongue,
That darest all unspeakable to speak !

CLYTEMNESTRA

Yes, in a woman, ’tis no doubt beyond

Belief. And then, that I should tell of it,

And in the telling show no natural fear,

Nor nice regard for aught I might receive

Of praise or blame from you who know so much,

Such as, I was his wife, and this was he,

My husband—now the corpse of my right hand;

And justice done, and I again, the doer.

So stands the case that naught could make more
plain.

Cuorus

What taste of earth, defamed,
Or poison-seas hath passed
Thy lips, that frenzy led,
And world aghast,
Thou hast strange altars fed
With sacrifice unnamed ?
And thou, unnameable—the race
Of men, earth’s remnant left inhabited,
Will look not on thy face.
76

CLYTEMNESTRA

So ready are ye with justice, to pronounce

Hate, execration, banishment, in name

Of public conscience. This for me, but what

For him, who brought our human flesh to trade
Of butchery ; who, that time, when pastures teemed
With eligible sacrifice, sought out

His child—and of my children one—that one

I was mother to, that sweetest breath he cast

To Thracian dragon-mouths, unravelling

The winds’ foul magic. Could ye not have joined
The human hunt, and tracked the pestilence

To him who breathed it first ? Instead of which
Ye put the scent of crime upon my deeds,

And, justice-mongering, dilate on them.

Proceed, and get the better if ye can

Of truth, and use the power ye have not now.

Pll suffer you, though even yet the gods

Put off the issue. You, even you, will learn.

Cuorus
A burden to breaking ’tis,
And reason over-reaching ; loud
To speak.—What madness this,
That shakes a dripping shroud,
To dash thine eyes
With blood, and drive to spend
The last thou hast on that which all denies,
But blow for blow and friendlessness for friend !

77

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ha, there’s the sanction of divine in this

The oath I swear. Hear it, by Até and

Erynnus, names of dread whose service due

To Justice put it in my hands to slay

The murderer of my child. I do not think,

While I have one to mend my fire at home,

That Fear will have for me his quaking guest.

Egisthus, he it is who stands with me,

The shield behind my point of courage. What

Of him? Nay, rather, what of this? Here
lies |

The woman, too, and not the only one.

A little more of honey-sweet and less

Of poison-barb he left behind with those

Of Chryseis’ coast-girls, altar-flames, I trow ;

—This one he hath had allayed for him too soon.

For bedmate, something of the siby]-kind.

Ah, the wise,spending of the curtained time!

Shipboard as well, so favourably planned

For converse. They have paid for what they
had.

We'll count the cost, as so much he, and she,

Swan-song to boot, the dying flavour fled,

So much, cold sweetheart. Does it balance? She

Has not subtracted, by her lying there,

More than a very little from the pleasure

With which, awhile, I did for my own board

Contract.

78

Cuorus

Shut down, shut down

The light of day in us,

Lead darkness on

To endless sleep, that thus

The vision of him here

Become not now, through hours untold,
Bedridden thought’s attendant fear ;
Our king, our strength,

Our counsellor,

By woman dead at length,

Who, living, bore

A burden woman-heaped of old.

—Helen, for thee

What Ilian numbers fled

On spirit-wings the Ilian shore ?
Misguided Helen, see

Whom thou hast added to thy dead,
And now canst add no more.

For thou, of tendril’d strife

The stem that grew,

All-clasping, shadowy,

The walls that were the house of life,
Blood-watering, hast brought to flower anew
Dead-branched memory.

79

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ask not for Death—he’s here ;

Spend not your breath beside

To catch at Helen’s name.

She need not bear the blame

For all the deaths that Greeks have died,

For every man’s heart that hath turned to fear.

Cuyorus

A spirit accurst, a power malign,

Descends, O Tantalus,

On thee and house of thine.

One, woman-habited,

Appears and speaks to us

In tones that still the feast of death prolong.
The raven o’er its dead

Speaks that tongue.

CLYTEMNESTRA

A spirit accurst !—ye have it, nay,
Could not avoid it, where

It comes forever in your way,
Untimely foetus, cast again,

Again to rear, }

A monster suckling—’tis to allay
That blood-accustomed thirst, lie here
The newly slain.

80

CHorus

Ye have named it—of

Our demon-mastered race

Soul-clutching terror, lurking in hearth-place.
Have we not cried, Enough ?

To Zeus we have cried, O cause divine,

Are these works thine ?

Without thee, nothing ; none

Beside thee, god. Thou and thy works are one.

But O, our King, our King!

The tears thy friendless people shed !

For us the net they fling

That gathers thee with the unkinglike dead.

—’Twas not thy fighting-breath,
Alas, that fled
A secret-handed death.

CLYTEMNESTRA

The hand that slew the Argive King,
—Remember this—
It was not Argive Queen; I am not I,
No, no :—phantom-inhabiting
This body, spirit-centred here,
The old plagues fly.
And he whom rumoured fate hath chosen to die,
Was not my husband ; not his wife was I,
F 81

Howbeit my bed his bier.

And though my table seems to have
Feast spread of unclean thing,

It is that Atreus-memory, which gave
Young limbs for banqueting.

Cuorus

Who, that is witness here,

Of murder, shall another witness bear

To what thou sayest ? how runs the tale?
How lifts in thee the ancestral veil ?

How springs to light, beneath

Thy hand, the unforgetting skill of death,
Lurking, long generations down,

And rained on by the drops self-sown,
And adult-harvested,

To freshen stains of infant-dead ?

—But O, our King, our King! .

The tears thy friendless people shed! —

For us the net they fling

That gathers thee with the unkinglike dead.

—’Twas not thy fighting-breath
Alas, that fled |
A secret-handed death.

82

CLYTEMNESTRA

That secret hand again!
—Who first sowed strife,
A vast night-growing bane,
Shedding unspoken thoughts of death ?
Who dragged beneath
The shadow of its pain
My branch of weeping life,
Iphigeneia, thy child ?
[Addressing the corpse of AGAMEMNON.
—Take with thee underground
Those lips defiled
With blasphemies of love,
Front hell with them, let sound
That boast—and still find breath enough
To awake the anguished wound.

CHorus

Stunned out of thought

I stagger, all my counsel is

To fling hands of despair

Against this bringing all to naught,
This ruining kingdom, this
Dark-raining air,

That lashes to the fall

Their blood-sprent towers.

—What, stand they yet? Is all
Over? The empty hours

83

Of silence hold

A sound of grinding; Fate her hand hath freed,
And lethal weapon tries

On other stones for other deed

That secret lies

In story untold.

Earth should have covered me,

Or ever silver-sided stream

Became his blood-bath and his seat of death.
Who is there gathereth

To sepulture ? Who starteth theme

Of royal grief, and maketh last amends ?
—If thou, of all the race,

Think to do aught of mourning-kind,
His spirit yet defends

Itself from this disgrace,

And there are wanting not

Tears, and there is a grief to find

That looks not from thy face.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ye trouble yourselves, where naught
Follows from all the counsel ye may give.
It falls on us to act. Burial, some prepare.
Mourners, we leave.

A houseful, doubtless — What

Of further escort ; those

84

Ee οὐ ϑἴίΆι αν «Ὁ ΄ --ὰ
»

He should find midway the darkness, where
The pale dividing river flows ?

Feet that have trod the wild,

Eager to meet,

Arms to embrace, and lips to greet.
—lIphigeneia, his child ;

She will be there.

Cuorus

She bears all down, answer I need.
Reason with reason wars, reason is none.

᾿ Spoiled is the spoiler now, the seed

Of death is in the reaping. One
Who can to everlasting wait,
Ponders the deed.

And if he speak, it is a word of fate
That solemn sounds,

But nothing frees

From the unbroken bounds

Of these wall’d secrecies.

CLYTEMNESTRA

How near ye come to truth, how near
The oracular, the dark,

The uninterpreted.

I wish—I wish that here

Such spirit would bring

His demon-understanding into pact

85

With mine ;—bury the dead,
Let be what has been,
Hard though it was to bear.
Away—away. Be seen
No longer at our door.
Waste with self-inflicted death
Another race, untried,
And able still to bear.
My spirit saith,
Surrender all ;— kingdom and wealth beside,
But kill no more.
[Enter AEcistuus.

ZEGISTHUS

O day of kindness! In thy face I see

The looks of heaven compassionate the pain
Of earth. Justice is visible, and Fate

Hath woven to the light, that all may mark
The pattern of Erynnus on the robe

Whose workmanship I love, wherein he lies.
In this ye may behold a father’s hand.
Atreus, this dead man’s sire, was ruler here.
Thyestes, my father, was this Atreus’ brother.
Our fathers, then, dwelt here, and enmity
Arose between them. So my father fled.
Then followed him in exile, as it were,

Some word of reconcilement ; and in hope
Of peace, and eager, came Thyestes back,

86

My father, to his home. He found not death;

But in that house, where home and children
were,

As was most fit, more than a friend should find,

A feast already spread; Atreus must. show

A brother’s token of forgiveness. Food

Was set before them. Atreus sat not near

His brother. Atreus kept the dish his side,

Wherefrom he served his brother. *Iwas a mess

Whose indistinguishable part he served.

Remained the tokens ;—sodden fingers, feet—

To show at last, whereby Thyestes knew

His children. Ah, taste unprocurable

Of death! A father’s vomit—hear the curse

That overturned the board! No more shall
house |

Of Pelops stand, no more shall Atreus stand.

Ye feel the shock this day; ye see the fallen.

—Of this unbuilding, ’tis my boast to have been

The just artificer. Thyestes’ child

I was, the new-born left of those he had,

And in his bosom he seized me when he fied.

Justice has reared me, brought me back to be

In my own house a stranger, yet at home,

The while I had this man to wait for, fasten

This thing upon him, find his death within

My compass. So to plant the stakes of doom

For him, spending myself upon his death,

Were beautifully to contrive my own.

87

Cuorus

Here is ill done, Agisthus, and no room,

For thoughts bemused with sounding words of thine,
All we have heard is that thou hadst the will

To do this deed ; nay, more, the craft to work

This piteous ending; and thou knowest well,
Justice can make no answer, but in terms

Of thy own kind, by force outweighing force,

—The people’s arm is long, the curse of it

Lies not in tongues ; so many are the hands

That take to stoning.

ZAEGISTHUS

So speaks the lower deck

That pulls the galley. There are higher ranks
Direct the course. ’Tis hard for age like thine
To learn, and to be bidden what to learn ;

And yet thou’rt like to learn. Prison and pain
Of famine, are not these subtle physicians

To malady of age? Is it blindness? No.

Ye see whither ye are driven. Is it heels ye fling
Against the whip? False step to chastisement !

Cuorus

What shall I tell of thee? A woman’s part
Prolonged at home, when men were fighting ? What
Was wanting of adulterous and false

In one who worked to such an end as this ?

88

AEGISTHUS

There is the sounding of a world of troubles
Through all our ears, for thee. What other kind
Of Orpheus art thou, charming with thy song
Out of their lairs the barking mouths, the pack
Insensible, which Orpheus never led ?

An altered government will mean a cage

For these wild ways.

Cuorus

As though an Argive State
Could fashion thee its tyrant !— who thyself
Darest not to do the deed which thou hadst planned,
Deputing murder—

AEGISTHUS

How should I, suspect
To all the house through my old enmity,
Make veiled approach? The woman’s chance it

was,

Unquestioned. Now it is my part to rule;
And I, with this man’s substance to my hand,
Shall have the wherewithal to lay on him
Who lighter rein esteems not, what shall test
His champing mettle, and the bit will hold,
Or for a stable-fellow he shall have
The kindless sort, and dark to fast upon,
Until his eye lack fire.

89

CuHorus

This man, I say,
Thow’rt not, who could despoil this dead man of
His life, unless a woman did it, matching
Thy cowardice with her poison-spirit, marring
The place of home and its divinity
Enshrined. Orestes !— Father, looks thy son
On light of day that shall endure until
He make a night of death to hide these twain ?

ZEGISTHUS

What meanest thou? Whether word or action touch
Thy meaning nearest, thou shalt know, and soon.
—Out, out, my waiting swords! Your time has come.

[Enter ARMED FoLLoweErRs oF ASGISTHUS.

CHorus
Out, out !—That means, prepare! Out, every man,
his sword.

ZEGISTHUS

I, too, shall have a hand at last, come death to me!

Cuorus

Now bring thy word to pass, put it to fortune’s proof.

CLYTEMNESTRA

No more—O, as thou lov’st me, do no more.
My friend, what we have gathered should suffice,

gO

Where all we gather is but pain and death.

Old men, go to your homes. And thou, too, go!
Before ’tis done, and then no more to do,

But all to suffer. Besides, there is to make
Secure what’s done. ’Tis not in us to show
Unwounded courage fit for further bout

With fate. And if this last counsel of mine
Seem but a woman’s, it is better so.

AEGISTHUS

Not prune the rampant growth of tongues like these ?
—Their words, if left to fall, a dangerous seed

May prove. It is not wisdom in a king

To leave them there.

Cuorus

*Tis not in Argive born
To own thee king.

ZEGISTHUS

Put off to other days
The issue we shall join.

CuHorus
Divinity
Direct Orestes to this aim !

OI

ZEGISTHUS

Ah, he!
The fugitive picks up a scanty meal
Of hope.
Cuorus

And thou—thou battenest here, the while
Sick Justice spurns the board.

AEGISTHUS

Has he a fool’s
Impunity to speak again ?

Cuorus

Canst crow,
Thou, on thy roost, thou and thy mate beside.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Have patience such as words like these do not deserve.
For thou and I need much to order all things well.

Printed by Hazell, Waison & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

=
Ss
ιτ
2 > 4
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νυ

160502

Agamemnon

Agamemnon; tr. by Ellis.

Aeschylus.

University of Toronto
Library

_

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