Aeschylus
Translated by Louis MacNeice, 1936
Agamemnon, King of Mycenae and leader of the Greek army in the Trojan War, sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia to secure a favourable wind for his journey to Troy. His father before him killed his brother’s children and fed him their remains by concealing them in his dinner. In Aeschylus’ (c. 525/524–456/455 BC) tragedy, the first in his Oresteia trilogy, the past comes back to haunt Agamemnon. As the Chorus reveals at the beginning of this extract from the play, Agamemnon has survived and triumphed in the Trojan War. He has now returned home with Cassandra, prophetess daughter of King Priam of Troy, as his concubine. Little does Agamemnon know that his wife Clytemnestra has also taken a lover, Aegisthus, in his absence. Cassandra, whose misfortune is to never be believed, has accurately foretold the devastating events of this scene. The poet Louis MacNeice captures the stateliness of Aeschylus’ Greek in his translation.
CHORUS.
Prosperity in all men cries
For more prosperity. Even the owner
Of the finger-pointed-at palace never shuts
His door against her, saying ‘Come no more’.
So to our king the blessed gods had granted
To take the town of Priam, and heaven-favoured
He reaches home. But now if for former bloodshed
He must pay blood
And dying for the dead shall cause
Other deaths in atonement
What man could boast he was born
Secure, who heard this story?
AGAMEMNON. [Within]
Oh! I am struck a mortal blow—within!
LEADER.
Silence! Listen. Who calls out, wounded with a mortal stroke?
AGAMEMNON.
Again—the second blow—I am struck again.
LEADER.
You heard the king cry out. I think the deed is done.
Let us see if we can concert some sound proposal.
2ND OLD MAN.
Well, I will tell you my opinion—
Raise an alarm, summon the folk to the palace.
3RD OLD MAN.
I say burst in with all speed possible,
Convict them of the deed while still the sword is wet.
4TH OLD MAN.
And I am partner to some such suggestion.
I am for taking some course. No time to dawdle.
5TH OLD MAN.
The case is plain. This is but the beginning.
They are going to set up dictatorship in the state.
6TH OLD MAN.
We are wasting time. The assassins tread to earth
The decencies of delay and give their hands no sleep.
7TH OLD MAN.
I do not know what plan I could hit on to propose.
The man who acts is in the position to plan.
8TH OLD MAN.
So I think, too, for I am at a loss
To raise the dead man up again with words.
9TH OLD MAN.
Then to stretch out our life shall we yield thus
To the rule of these profaners of the house?
10TH OLD MAN.
It is not to be endured. To die is better.
Death is more comfortable than tyranny.
11TH OLD MAN.
And are we on the evidence of groans
Going to give oracle that the prince is dead?
12TH OLD MAN.
We must know the facts for sure and then be angry.
Guesswork is not the same as certain knowledge.
LEADER.
Then all of you back me and approve this plan—
To ascertain how it is with Agamemnon.
[The doors of the palace open, revealing the bodies of AGAMEMNON and CASSANDRA. CLYTEMNESTRA stands above them.]
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Much having been said before to fit the moment,
To say the opposite now will not outface me.
How else could one serving hate upon the hated,
Thought to be friends, hang high the nets of doom
To preclude all leaping out?
For me I have long been training for this match,
I tried a fall and won—a victory overdue.
I stand here where I struck, above my victims;
So I contrived it—this I will not deny—
That he could neither fly nor ward off death;
Inextricable like a net for fishes
I cast about him a vicious wealth of raiment
And struck him twice and with two groans he loosed
His limbs beneath him, and upon him fallen
I deal him the third blow to the God beneath the earth,
To the safe keeper of the dead a votive gift,
And with that he spits his life out where he lies
And smartly spouting blood he sprays me with
The sombre drizzle of bloody dew and I
Rejoice no less than in God’s gift of rain
The crops are glad when the ear of corn gives birth.
These things being so, you, elders of Argos,
Rejoice if rejoice you will. Mine is the glory.
And if I could pay this corpse his due libation
I should be right to pour it and more than right;
With so many horrors this man mixed and filled
The bowl—and, coming home, has drained the draught himself.
LEADER.
Your speech astonishes us. This brazen boast
Above the man who was your king and husband!
CLYTEMNESTRA.
You challenge me as a woman without foresight
But I with unflinching heart to you who know
Speak. And you, whether you will praise or blame,
It makes no matter. Here lies Agamemnon,
My husband, dead, the work of this right hand,
An honest workman. There you have the facts.
CHORUS.
Woman, what poisoned
Herb of the earth have you tasted
Or potion of the flowing sea
To undertake this killing and the people’s curses?
You threw down, you cut off—The people will cast you out,
Black abomination to the town.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Now your verdict—in my case—is exile
And to have the people’s hatred, the public curses,
Though then in no way you opposed this man
Who carelessly, as if it were a head of sheep
Out of the abundance of his fleecy flocks,
Sacrificed his own daughter, to me the dearest
Fruit of travail, charm for the Thracian winds.
He was the one to have banished from this land.
Pay off the pollution. But when you hear what I
Have done, you judge severely. But I warn you—
Threaten me on the understanding that I am ready
For two alternatives—Win by force the right
To rule me, but, if God brings about the contrary,
Late in time you will have to learn self-discipline.
CHORUS.
You are high in the thoughts,
You speak extravagant things,
After the soiling murder your crazy heart
Fancies your forehead with a smear of blood.
Unhonoured, unfriended, you must
Pay for a blow with a blow.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Listen then to this—the sanction of my oaths:
By the Justice totting up my child’s atonement,
By the Avenging Doom and Fiend to whom I killed this man,
For me hope walks not in the rooms of fear
So long as my fire is lit upon my hearth
By Aegisthus, loyal to me as he was before.
The man who outraged me lies here.
The darling of each courtesan at Troy,
And here with him is the prisoner clairvoyante,
The fortune-teller that he took to bed,
Who shares his bed as once his bench on shipboard,
A loyal mistress. Both have their deserts.
He lies so; and she who like a swan
Sang her last dying lament
Lies his lover, and the sight contributes
An appetiser to my own bed’s pleasure.
CHORUS.
Ah would some quick death come not overpainful,
Not overlong on the sickbed,
Establishing in us the ever-
Lasting unending sleep now that our guardian
Has fallen, the kindest of men,
Who suffering much for a woman
By a woman has lost his life.
O Helen, insane, being one
One to have destroyed so many
And many souls under Troy,
Now is your work complete, blossomed not for oblivion,
Unfading stain of blood. Here now, if in any home
Is Discord, here is a man’s deep-rooted ruin.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Do not pray for the portion of death
Weighed down by these things, do not turn
Your anger on Helen as destroyer of men.
One woman destroyer of many
Lives of Greek men,
A hurt that cannot be healed.
CHORUS.
O Evil Spirit, falling on the family.
On the two sons of Atreus and using
Two sisters in heart as your tools.
A power that bites to the heart—
See on the body
Perched like a raven he gloats
Harshly croaking his hymn.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ah, now you have amended your lips’ opinion.
Calling upon this family’s three times gorged
Genius—demon who breeds
Blood-hankering lust in the belly:
Before the old sore heals, new pus collects.
CHORUS.
It is a great spirit—great—
You tell of, harsh in anger,
A ghastly tale, alas,
Of unsatisfied disaster
Brought by Zeus, by Zeus,
Cause and worker of all.
For without Zeus what comes to pass among us?
Which of these things is outside Providence?
O my king, my king,
How shall I pay you in tears,
Speak my affection in words?
You lie in that spider’s web,
In a desecrating death breathe out your life,
Lie ignominiously
Defeated by a crooked death
And the two-edged cleaver’s stroke.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
You say this is my work—mine?
Do not cozen yourself that I am Agamemnon’s wife.
Masquerading as the wife
Of the corpse there the old sharp-witted Genius
Of Atreus who gave the cruel banquet
Has paid with a grown man’s life
The due for children dead.
CHORUS.
That you are not guilty of
This murder who will attest?
No, but you may have been abetted
By some ancestral Spirit of Revenge.
Wading a millrace of the family’s blood
The black Manslayer forces a forward path
To make the requital at last
For the eaten children, the blood-clot cold with time.
O my king, my king.
How shall I pay you in tears,
Speak my affection in words?
You lie in that spider’s web,
In a desecrating death breathe out your life,
Lie ignominiously
Defeated by a crooked death
And the two-edged cleaver’s stroke.