THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES IN MEMORY OF MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER Greek Dramas By ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes With Biographical Notes and a Critical Introduction by Bernadotte Perrin NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1912 Coi'VRlr.HT, IQOO, Bv D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. ]Yintril in tlic United Statcfl <>f America THE GREEK DRAMA FREQUENT experiments have shown that Greek dramas, in English version, or even in the original Greek, still have power to hold and impress a mod- ern English-speaking audience. But these dramas gain in power, whether acted or read, as hearer or reader sue- ceeds in realizing the peculiar conditions under which they were originally produced. And it is not enough to remind the modern hearer or reader of the merely exter- nal features of dramatic representation at Athens of the vast open-air theatre, the national audiences, the competi- tion for state recognition after state support, of the masks, costumes, and other accessories that distinguish ancient from modern dramatic art. The modern hearer or reader of an ancient Greek play must, above all else, press back to as full a realization as possible of the religious origin and the abiding religious associations of Greek tragedy and comedy. Even after the sense of the religious origin and significance of the drama became vague in the Athenian mind, the representations were part of a fixed religious festival of annual recurrence. In the great days of Athe- nian drama, when the plays included in this volume were first brought out, there was no such thing as a play hav- ing a " run." Indeed, repetition of a successful play was rare. It was given once for all, as a religious offering at an annual religious celebration. The spectator was more or less consciously a worshipper. The theatre adjoined a temple, and was within the temple precinct. The Ober- ammergau passion-play is a helpful modern parallel; iii 2042145 JV THE GREEK DRAMA but no such parallel can be more than slightly suggestive of the ancient conditions. To construct one that is really helpful would require large play of imagination. Sup- pose that the Roman Catholic Church, out of whose bosom, out of whose liturgy, with its epic and choral elements, the modern drama sprang, had succeeded in retaining that complete control of the religious drama which it had down to the thirteenth century, and that the secular drama also had developed under such control ; suppose the Roman Catholic to be a state religion in a small but independent city-state of the size of Hartford or New Haven, the sole capital, the focus, the " eye " of a territory smaller than Rhode Island, in which there were more than a hundred rural Roman Catholic churches, all recognising a central cathedral leader and head ; suppose the rural churches conducted religious plays for their respective communities at annual harvest festivals, and that the great cathedral head-church gave at Christmas and Easter a series of plays by three poets who had sur- passed all competitors, and who then contended for first, second, and third rank before immense audiences com- prising most of the male citizens of the city-state and many visitors from all parts of the United States sup- pose all this, and we have only a reasonably adequate modern parallel. The Greek drama was such an integral part of the religion and cultus of Dionysus. This god was not a genius of vines and wines merely, though even in that case the scope of the personification would be no less broad and dignified than that of Demeter. For the Greek, the grape and wine were just as truly gifts of God as grain and bread, just as intimately associated with daily and yearly human toil, weariness, and refreshment. Hut l)i ots far more than this. He is origi- nally the germinal or male principle in universal life, that principle which, in spite of the universal law of decay and death, keeps the uni\e;-e kerning- with exuberant THE GREEK DRAMA V life. He is the Father-principle in the universe, as De- meter is the Mother-principle. These two great princi- ples, aided by the principle of light and heat personated in Apollo, wage perpetual warfare against the principles of darkness and death. Death triumphs for the winter season, but Life triumphs in the great resurrection of spring. Here is the basis for the exquisite myth of De- meter and Persephone. But Dionysus also, as life-prin- ciple, has his passion, death, and resurrection, and on these themes early Greek folk-song expressed itself in tones of sympathy, despair, and triumph. The strains of such song would naturally sweep the whole range of hu- man emotion. According to Herodotus, Dionysus is comparatively a late god in the Hellenic pantheon. His cultus was intro- duced from the Orient by way of Phrygia and Thrace. Like the life-principle which the god personated, his cultus was aggressive, struggling, often temporarily de- feated, but finally victorious. The desperate conflicts of the new religion with older religions also gave themes for the choral songs of its votaries. Homer knows Dio- nysus only as this aggressive new religious principle, re- fused admittance by Lycurgus, king of the Thracian Edonians, and bringing down on his enemy blindness and death. His cultus fought its way from Thrace to Thebes, and the awful myth of Pentheus, torn by his own mother in an ecstasy of the Dionysiac inspiration, embodies the cruelties of religious war, where a man's foes are they of his own household. As Lord of Life, subject to death in life and life after death, Dionysus is closely associated with the souls of the departed and their worship ; with prophecy as based on communion with departed spirits ; with Apollo and Demeter at Delphi and Eleusis. Under the name Za- greus he is almost blended with Hades, Lord of Death. As great Inspirer, he is -closely associated with the cultus of the Muses. He is, therefore, to be thought of as the vi THE GREEK DRAMA source of every aspiration and inspiration, higher and lower of battle rage, madness, joyful song and dance, mysterious nightly revels, ecstasies, rhapsodies, visions, unutterable longings and fancies. His office might in no irreverent spirit be compared to that of the Holy Spirit in the belief of the primitive Christian Church. St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians shows plainly that the supposed gifts of the Spirit prophecy, tongues, heal- ing were often abused and allowed to run into orgiastic excesses. The impulse to give expression to strong feeling in song or dance or imitative action, or combinations of these, is universal. Choral song and dance flourished long among Greek country people before city poets de- veloped and perfected them. Rude folk-songs may be heard to-day among the peasantry or labouring classes of all lands. The choral folk-songs in honour of Dionysus were most naturally sung at the vintage festivals in autumn, and one may hear such rude vintage songs now among the Swabians or the Bavarians. The Dionysiac vintage hymns were rude, turbulent, passionate, but rich in tragic contents; for the great Giver and Inspirer was soon to succumb to the law of ever-recurring death. As in the Christian mass, so here in rude folk version was an Incarnatus movement, a Passus et sepultus est. There was not wanting an attendant sacrifice of propitiation. Such deep themes combined, of course, with the lower excesses naturally attendant on a popular vintage fes- tival. Popular choral hymns to Apollo, on the other hand, the god of light, warmth, and victory, were joyful, and less charged with deep passion. The Apollinic choral was more intellectual and less emotional than the Di- onysiac. Both styles of poetry were especially culti- vated by the Dorians of Peloponnesus. It was poetry to be sung by masses of singers, in distinction from lyric or epic poetry intended for solo performers. The early THE GREEK DRAMA Vll tyrants therefore favoured it as a popular diversion. Court poets elaborated its structure. Into the wild and turbulent measures of the Dionysiac choral they infused the purer and more intellectual features of Apollinic song. The resurrection motive in the myth was empha- sized more, and the literary, as distinguished from the folk Dionysiac dithyramb, was the result. This was a hymn in praise of Dionysus for a trained chorus of fifty voices, composed with elaborate responsive structure of strophe and antistrophe by a trained and successful poet for the spring festival of the god. According to the best Greek tradition, it was perfected at Corinth, a Dorian city, toward the end of the seventh century B.C., by Arion the Lesbian " Arion, whose melodic soul Taught the dithyramb to roll." This Dorian origin of the Dionysiac dithyramb accounts for the persistence of Doric dialectic forms in the choral parts of Athenian drama, though composed by Ionian poets. These dialectic forms broad, long a-sounds, wel- come to singers can not be represented in translation. Meanwhile the cultus of Dionysus had made its way from Thebes in Bceotia down into Attica, where the little mountain hamlet of Icaria seems to have been its first con- quest no peaceful conquest either, as the sad myth of Icarius indicates. Here it was that the Dionysiac dithy- ramb slowly developed into tragedy. Guided by the best Greek tradition, and by careful and chronological analysis of extant Greek dramas, one may trace the successive steps in this remarkable evolution with reasonable certainty. The Dionysiac choral had from the very start, and always retained, mimetic or imitative germs latent drama. And the evolution of the drama of Hellas was from this lyric form with latent drama to dramatic form with lingering lyric features. In other words, the choral songs of a Greek play are not musical viii THE GREEK DRAMA interludes put between original dialogues, but the original nucleus out of which the dialogues grew. Moreover, the origin of the drama was distinctly rural. The city ultimately adopted it from the country, but never succeeded in refining away all traces of this rustic origin. The rustic singers, untrained and of irregular number, who sang rude chorals in praise of Dionysus at vintage festivals, were from the start imitative to a certain extent, in that they assumed the role of satyrs, or rustic attendants on the vegetation genius Dionysus. As satyrs they wore goat skins, and were called tragoi ; their song tragoidia, the song of goat-skin wearers. At Icaria, a secluded hill town halfway between Athens and Marathon, this rustic tragedy, first brought to high lyric level, no doubt, by influences from Corinth, the home of the artistic dithyramb, budded into drama. Here excavations of the American School at Athens, con- ducted by the late Professor Merriam, of Columbia, in the spring of 1888, brought to light sure traces of an active and persistent worship of Dionysus, closely asso- ciated with dramatic performances under state support. " The scenery," says Professor Merriam, in his Annual Report, " is in harmony with the twofold side of the worship of Dionysus the gay and joyous, the sad and mournful and aptly fitted to inspire a Thespis and a Susarion to further advances on the trodden path." Here we may imagine rustic tragedy i. e., Dionysiac choral song, becoming more and more mimetic as the singers, impersonating satyrs, threw themselves more and more into their roles. The art of Dionysiac choral song may have become patrial in the place handed down from generation to generation in certain families like the roles in the great passion-play at Oberarrimergau.. A local chorus of fifty voices, the conventional number for the literary form, would soon establish a style, to be handed on and improved. As the local art became famous, vis- itors would be attracted lay visitors and poets. And THE GREEK DRAMA ix so tradition has it and good tradition, as Greek tradi- tion goes that Susarion of Megara, the father of Greek comedy, visited Icaria about the middle of the sixth century. He may have come to be seen and heard, as well as to see and hear. He found a local artist there under whose name and he is little more than a name we place the two most important steps in the evolution of the drama out of lyric song. This artist was Thespis, and the two great inventions that justify us in calling him the father of Greek tragedy were the rhesis or recital-part, and the impersonating actor. Even a choral song by fifty voices can be dramatic as the singers lose themselves more and more in their themes. Divide the chorus, and the antiphonal effect, so prominent in the Hebrew psalms, and in itself so dramatic, is secured. Let one of the choreutse or tragoi, say the leader, sing, in recitative solo, the goodness, joys, or sufferings of Diony- sus, while the rest of the chorus, either all together or in groups, respond in choral song to these recitals, and a dramatic result is obtained as vivid, certainly, as that produced by modern oratorio. Of this recital-role, with good reason attributed to Thespis, the great narrative roles of extant Greek drama are a logical development and survival. The history of civilization which vEschylus puts into the mouth of his Prometheus, the story of lo's wanderings in the same play, the narratives of Guard and Messenger in the " Antigone " of Sophocles, of Nurse and Messenger in the " Medea " of Euripides, of the Serv- ants, male and female, in his " Alcestis," are features due, in the first instance, to this advance of Thespis. Without further step a simple drama is possible. The second step, however, was still more fruitful. Delegating the recital-role to a second member of the chorus, the leader now personated Dionysus, pretended to be Dio- nysus himself, acted out his joys and sufferings, while the reciter still told of others, and the chorus sang response to both actor and reciter. With one member of the X Till:: GREEK DRAMA chorus to relate thus certain episodes of joy or sorrow in the god's career, and the leader of the chorus to act out related episodes, and with the dialogue naturally develop- ing between reciter, actor, and chorus, a definite plot, with beginning, culmination, and ending, could readily have been presented. And when, next, both reciter and actor assumed two or more roles, both dialogue and action would be diversified and enriched. All the per- sonages of the Dionysiac story could be brought into the action the relatives, friends, and foes of the god and dialogue would come more and more to the fore, while the lyric parts of the play would recede. Soon the theme of tragedy was widened as its re- sources increased. The actor passed from personations of Dionysus or his relatives, friends, and foes, to those of any gods or heroes whatever. For there were seeds of drama in many other myths and cults besides those of Dionysus, and Herodotus tells us (v, 67) of tragic choruses that sang the sufferings of Adrastus. This advance threw open the whole domain of heroic and sacred legend for dramatic representation, though the drama's special rela- tion to Dionysus never entirely disappeared from popular consciousness, and the priest of Dionysus had the place of honour in theatres of later centuries. \\Y may fairly suppose that the visit of Susarion to It aria quickened the invention of Thespis. As a result of his improvements in the local Icarian drama, it attracted the notice of artists and statesmen at Athens. Solon is said to have gone to see Thespis acting in his own play, and Pisistratus the tyrant, anxious to enrich the literary atmosphere of his court at Athens, induced him to bring his dramas for representation to the city. Here they secured state patronage, and the Parian Marble assigns the first competitive victory of Thespis to the year 536 i-. C. One of the four titles of plays thus brought out at Athens by Thespis was " Pentheus," wherein the story of Dionysus was still material for tragic plot, but other THE GREEK DRAMA xi titles betoken that emancipation from purely Dionysiac themes alluded to above. At last the drama is a promi- nent part of a brilliant city's great annual festivals. To trace the growth of the Greek drama further does not require so much imagination, for tradition becomes surer, and authentic titles of plays presented more numer- ous and suggestive. No play of Phrynichus, the successor of Thespis, has come down to us, but he is said to have written nine tragedies, and among them an " Alcestis." Of course competition, in the careers of Thespis and Phrynichus, means that they had rivals, and sometimes victorious rivals. But for purposes of brief introduction only the greater names and surer traditions need to be reviewed. Phrynichus worked with the dramatic appa- ratus that he inherited from Thespis, though sundry in- novations are ascribed to him, such as the female part carried by male singers or actors. In the nature of things, the dialogue was continually developing at the expense of the choral parts, and yet the lyric songs of Phrynichus are extolled almost beyond measure by so great a master of song as Aristophanes. They were the elderly Athenian's favourites even after a Sophocles had arisen. But the most startling innovation made by Phrynichus was his selection of recent historical events for dramatiza- tion. His first dramatic victory is set at 512 B. c, and no later than 494 the great city of Miletus daughter city of Athens, according to tradition, and encouraged by her to withstand the Persian might was abandoned to an awful destruction. " The Athenians," says Herodotus (vi, 21), "showed themselves beyond measure afflicted at the fall of Miletus, in many ways expressing their sym- pathy, and especially by their treatment of Phrynichus. For when this poet brought out his drama of the capture of Miletus, the whole theatre burst into tears, and the people sentenced him to pay a fine of a thousand drachmas for recalling to them their own misfortunes. They like- xii THE GREEK DRAMA wise made a law that no one should ever again exhibit that piece." Whatever the aesthetic bearing and value of this famous sentence, it is clear that Phrynichus changed his method of handling contemporary history, if we may trust an item of dramatic information preserved by Plu- tarch in his " Themistocles." Four years after the glo- rious victory of Salamis, Themistocles defrayed the ex- penses of representing a play of Phrynichus. This play was probably the " Phoenician Women," and its theme was the victory of Salamis, for which Themistocles won the greatest credit. The title shows the composition of the chorus of the play, and that makes it plain that the scene was transferred to the enemy's country, where the necessary idealization could be better secured, and that the grief of the enemy was depicted in order to enhance the triumph of the victor. An inspiring instead of a rebuking theme, an ideal instead of a familiar scene, made the play a success so much of a success that JEschylus, the great follower of Phrynichus, tried to secure for his favourite Aristides a larger credit for Salamis than the popularitv of Themistocles allowed. This correction of popular sentiment ^Eschylus attempted in his " Persians," which celebrated Salamis, and was brought out in 472. To make the story of dramatic and political rivalry com- plete, Aristides should have defrayed the expenses of this controversial play of YEschylus ; but so attractive a con- clusion has no definite authority, though Plutarch plainly shows, in the opening chapter of his "Aristides," that there was plenty of dubious tradition about plays pro- duced at the charges of that ardent rival of Themistocles. innately, the " Persians" has come down to us, and a brief description of its action and structure will best \v the development now reached by the drama, and serve as a transition to the briefer account of the of the four Greek dramatists of whose work we have entire specimens briefer, because the specimens tell their own story. The play wa< Lpven by two actors, and THE GREEK DRAMA xiii a chorus with its leader or representative. One of the two actors took the parts of Atossa, widowed queen- mother of Xerxes, and also of Xerxes, for mother and son are not brought together in the action ; the other actor took the parts of the messenger, and of the Darius- ghost. The scene is in front of the royal palace at Susa, the tomb of Darius being in the foreground. The action, to give the barest outline, moves as follows: Enter chorus of Persian elders, singing their anxious solicitude for the great hosts of Xerxes in their distant campaign; enter Atossa, who shares her own forebodings of disaster with the chorus, till both are overwhelmed by the announce- ment of an in-rushing messenger that the whole Persian host has perished; choral lamentations at the messenger's brief announcements; Atossa hears the detailed story of the messenger (description of Salamis) ; choral hymn of lament; Atossa invokes with offerings the spirit of Darius, the chorus joining with an invocation hymn ; the ghost of Darius appears with rebukes for Persian pride and prophecies of further disaster (Platsea) ; choral lament ; enter Xerxes, a fugitive, who with the chorus respon- sively bewails his doom, and is at last escorted into the palace, where Atossa had gone after the vision of Darius. With this simple scheme, all the swelling exultations over Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea are given voice, and in the long description of the battle of Salamis, where Jischylus was an eyewitness, Aristides is given his due meed of praise. The play is, of course, full of wars and fightings, as is even to greater degree the same poet's " Seven against Thebes," which, as Aristophanes testifies, made every hearer long to go out to battle. ^Eschylus is a warrior poet, Miltonic in style, Cromwellian in military spirit. His first dramatic victory falls in 485, halfway between Marathon and Salamis, at both of which he fought. His life, from 525 to 456 15. c., covers the militant upward career of Athens, and has no lessons of defeat and hu- xiv THE GREEK DRAMA miliation, except as he saw political principles \vhich he disliked coming into control, and the dramatic tastes of the city where he had been easily supreme inclining toward the new ideals of a younger rival in the field. A dramatic defeat by Sophocles may have disap- pointed .Eschylus, but need not have embittered him, in spite of the romantic story given by Plutarch in his "Cimon." It was the national fame of ./Eschylus that took him to the brilliant courts of Sicily, from which he returned to Athens to vanquish Sophocles with his incomparable Orestes plays, whither he returned again, and where, as fate would have it, he died. The "Prometheus Bound ''was perhaps brought oul in Athens shortly after the poet's return from Sicily, while the impressions of an eruption of Mount ^Etna were still fresh in men's minds (page 18). Only two actors were at this time assigned by the state, and the play conforms to this restriction in a manner that makes one forget the restriction entirely. The first actor took the parts of Hephrestus and Prometheus, the silent Titan being represented by a huge effigy during the first part of the prologue, and the second actor the parts of Kratos (Strength), Oceanus, lo, and Hermes, the choral songs. giving this apparently overburdened adtor time for rest and change of costumes. The chorus of twelve Ocean nymphs makes a most spectacular entry in their winged car, as does their Father Oceanus on his winged quadru- ped. The scene is laid among desolate cliffs of Scythia, and after the narrative and prophecy of Prometheus have carried the imagination of the audience through the manifold fascinations of unknown geographies, the plav closes with a convulsion of nature. Its theme is sublime the conflict between a noble but short-sighted beneficence, and a beneficence that is omniscient and in MIC with destiny. The disastrous conflict alone is in this play, the reconciliation bv atonement in the play that followed, the " Prometheus Loosed," of THE GREEK DRAMA XV which only significant fragments arc preserved, and the glorious reward of suffering after penitence in the final play of the trilogy, the " Prometheus Fire-bearer." Of this play hardly more than the name has reached us, but we imagine it to have been a great cultus-drama, like the extant " Eumenides." Still a fourth play followed imme- diately in the original representation, a satyr-play, prob- ably some grotesque mythical farce. In such groups of four were the dramas of yEschylus presented, organic tetralogies, four dramatic chapters ^of a single myth. Sophocles also presented his tragedies in groups of four, but freed himself from the restriction of a single myth for all. Each play was independent of the other three. The tetralogy was inorganic. Hence each play of Sophocles is larger and more complete in its unity than any single play of Jischylus. His resources, too, were increased by the state. He had three actors at his disposition, at least in all his plays that have come down to us. This made it possible for him to enrich his characterizations, enliven his dialogues, and quicken his action. It is thus we get such delicate character-foils as Ismene to Antigone, Chrysothemis to Electra, with ini- tial stages of a secondary plot. The state also enlarged the chorus for Sophocles to fifteen, a decided gain in musical and spectacular resources. All these resources yEschylus also enjoyed in his later contests with his rivals, but he was unable to emancipate himself from the influences of the old restrictions. Sophocles is the poet-laureate of the Athenian empire, of the golden Periclean age. He celebrated Salamis as a youth of sixteen and died two years before the fall of Athens. We get distinct glimpses of his pre-eminence in physical vigour and beauty, in wealth and culture, in state finance, diplomacy, and legislation ; while the rec- ord of his dramatic victories is long almost unbroken. At his death a contemporary comic poet -and the comic poets spared not Pericles passed this encomium on him : xvi THE GREEK DRAMA " Blessed Sophocles ! He lived out a long life, a prosper- ous, fortunate, and gifted man ; he wrote many beautiful tragedies, he died a beautiful death, and he never had a sorrow." From a career so rich and tranquil we may well expect to get a rich and tranquil, well-poised art, and we are not disappointed. His themes may not be so grand, nor his diction so grandiose, as those of ^Eschylus; but he brings the great heroic strifes and figures down from a superhuman to a beautifully idealized human level. " The impression of unity conveyed by one of his plays is prodigious. Probably no other dramatist in any age has been able to move a tragedy forward with such unswerv- ing ethical relentlessness." As in the still greater tragedy of " CEdipus the King " its author is not to be held accountable for the savage and bloody features of the myth, so in the " Antigone." It is a myth crowded with ghastly features. " Its hor- rors reach their height in the special subject of the pres- ent play, the indignities offered to a dead body." But back of all gruesome detail, the sure mark of popular legend, lies the constant human element, the struggle between the higher and the lower impulses of the indi- vidual human soul. For Antigone the question is : Shall I allow the lower impulses of retributive vengeance, even when sanctioned by the formal authority of the state, to triumph over the higher impulses of brotherly love, im- planted in the soul by Heaven ? She answers in the nobler wav, and pays her life for the privilege. From the playwright's point of view the play differs from the " Prometheus " ,not only in its deeper psychol- ogy, its im:n use in action and vivacious dialogue, its greater subordination of the epic and lyric elements, but also in its greatest oratorical feature, the forensic scene the high debate on the issue at stake between father and son, king and lover. This marks the advent of an ele- ment of public debate in public life, which was unknown in the career ol A : . B.C.), at (iela. in Sicily. An oracle had foretold that .-Kschylus should die by a blow from heaven, and the prediction was in a manner fulfilled by the w.iy in which he met his death. An eagle, wishing to crack the shell of a tortoise, carried it high in the air, and mistaking the bald head of the poet for a stone, dropped it upon that. .Kschylus wrote three tragedies on the subject of Prometheus ; the first pictured him carrying the gift of fire to men ; the second chained to Caucasus ; the third delivered from his chains. The second is the only one that has survived. Many translations of " Prometheus Hound" have been made. Mrs. Hrowning's is the best, being a great English poem as well as a translation of a great drcck tragedy. DRAMATIS PERSONS PROMETHEUS. OCEANUS. HERMES. HEPHAESTUS. STRENGTH and FORCE. lo, daughter of Inachus. CHORUS of Ocean Nymphs. SCENE AT THE ROCKS PROMETHEUS BOUND STRENGTH and FORCE, HEPHAESTUS and PROMETHEUS STRENGTH. We reach the utmost limit of the earth The Scythian track, the desert without man. And now, Hephaestus, thou must needs fulfil The mandate of our Father, and with links Indissoluble of adamantine chains Fasten against this beetling precipice This guilty god. Because he filched away Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire, And gifted mortals with it su'ch a sin It doth behoove he expiate to the gods, Learning to accept the empery of Zeus, And leave off his old trick of loving man. Hepliastus. O Strength and Force, for you our Zeus's will Presents a deed for doing, no more ! But I, I lack your daring, up this storm-rent chasm To fix with violent hands a kindred god, Howbeit necessity compels me so That I must dare it, and our Zeus commands With a most inevitable word. Ho, thou ! High-thoughted son of Themis, who is sage ! Thee loath, I loath must rivet fast in chains Against this rocky height unclomb by man, 5 6 ^SCHYLUS Where never human voice nor face shall find Out thee who lov'st them ; and thy beauty's flower, Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away. Night shall come up with garniture of stars To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun Disperse with retrickt beams the morning-frosts ; But through all changes, sense of present woe Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked From love of man ! And in that thou, a god, Didst brave the wrath of gods, and give away Undue respect to mortals, for that crime Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock, Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee, And many a cry and unavailing moan To utter on the air. For Zeus is stern, And new-made kings are cruel. Strength. Be it so. Why loiter in vain pity ? Why not hate A god the gods hate ? one, too, who betrayed Thy glory unto men ? Hephcestus. An awful thing Is kinship joined to friendship. Strength. Grant it be : Is disobedience to the Father's word A possible thing? Dost quail not more for that? Hcplicestus. Thou, at least, art a stern one, ever bold. Strength. Why, if I wept, it were no remedy ; And do not thou spend labour on the air To bootless uses. Hephcestus. Cursed handicraft ! I curse and hate thee, O my craft ! Strength. Why hate Thy craft most plainly innocent of all These pending ills ? //fp/Ki'stus. I would some other hand Were IKT<- to \vork it ! PROMETHEUS BOUND 7 Strength. All work hath its pain, Except to rule the gods. There is none free Except King Zeus. HcpJicestus. I know it very well ; I argue not against it. Strength. Why not, then, Make haste and lock the fetters over him, Lest Zeus behold thee lagging? Hephcestus. Here be chains. Zeus may behold these. Strength. Seize him ; strike amain ; Strike with the hammer on each side his hands ; Rivet him to the rock. Hephcestus. The work is done, And thoroughly done. Strength. Still faster grapple him ; Wedge him in deeper ; leave no inch to stir. He's terrible for finding a way out From the irremediable. Hephcestus. Here's an arm, at least, Grappled past freeing. Strength. Now, then, buckle me The other securely. Let this wise one learn He's duller than our Zeus. Hephcestus. Oh, none but he Accuse me justly. Strength. Now, straight through the chest, Take him and bite him with the clinching tooth Of the adamantine wedge, and rivet him. Hephcestus. Alas! Prometheus, what thou sufferest here I sorrow over. Strength. Dost thou flinch again, And breathe groans for the enemies of Zeus ? Beware lest thine own pity find thee out. Hephcestus. Thou dost behold a spectacle that turns The sight o' the eyes to pity. Strength. I behold g AESCHYLUS A sinner suffer his sin's penalty. But lash the thongs about his sides. Hcphastus. So much I must do. Urge no further than I must. Strength. Ay, but I will urge ! and, with shout on shout, Will hound thee at this quarry. Get thee down, And ring amain the iron round his legs. Hep/uestus. That work was not long doing. Strength. Heavily now Let fall the strokes upon the perforant gyves ; For he who rates the work has a heavy hand. Hcphcestus. Thy speech is savage as thy shape. Strength. Be thou Gentle and tender, but revile not me For the firm will and the untruckling hate. HcphcBstus. Let us go. He is netted round with chains. Strength. Here, now, taunt on ! and, having spoiled the gods Of honours, crown withal thy mortal men Who live a whole day out. Why, how could they Draw off from thee one single of thy griefs? Methinks the Daemons gave thee a wrong name, Prometheus, which means Providence, because Thou dost thyself need providence to see Thy roll and ruin from the top of doom. Prometheus, (alone] O holy ^Ether, and swift-winged Winds, And River-wells, and Laughter innumerous Of yon sea-waves ! Earth, mother of us all, And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you Behold me a god, what I endure from gods ! Behold, with throe on throe, How, wasted by this woe, I wrestle down the myriad years of time! Behold how, fast around me, The new King of the happy ones sublime PROMETHEUS BOUND 9 Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me ! Woe, woe ! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's I cover with one groan. And where is found me A limit to these sorrows ? And yet what word do I say ? I have foreknown Clearly all things that should be ; nothing done Comes sudden to my soul ; and I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware Necessity doth front the universe With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse Which strikes me now I find it hard to brave In silence or in speech. Because I gave Honour to mortals, I have yoked my soul To this compelling fate. Because I stole The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went Over the ferule's brim, and manward sent Art's mighty means and, perfect rudiment, That sin I expiate in this agony, Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky. Ah, ah me ! what a sound ! What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen Of a god, or a mortal, or Nature between, Sweeping up to this rock where the Earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain. Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain ! The god Zeus hateth sore, And his gods hate again, As many as tread on his glorified floor, Because I love mortals too much evermore. Alas me ! what a murmur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near ! And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings, And all life that approaches I wait for in fear. I0 ^SCHYLUS CHORUS of Sea-nymphs, ist strophe Fear nothing ! our troop Floats lovingly up With a quick-oaring stroke Of wings steered to the rock, Having softened the soul of our father below. For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound, And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow, Smote down the profound Of my caverns of old, And struck the red light in a blush from my brow, Till I sprang up unsandalled, in haste to behold, And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold. Prometheus. Alas me ! alas me ! Ye offspring of Tethys, who bore at her breast Many children, and eke of Oceanus, he, Coiling still around earth with perpetual unrest ! Behold me and see How transfixed with the fang Of a fetter I hang On the high-jutting rocks of this fissure, and keep An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep. CHORUS, ist antistroplie I behold thee, Prometheus ; yet now, yet now, A terrible cloud whose rain is tears Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how Thy body appears 1 lung awaste on the rocks by infrangible chains; For new is the hand, new the rudder, that steers The ship of Olympus through surge and wind, And of old things passed, no track is behind. Prometheus. Under earth, under Hades, Where the home of the shade is, All into the deep, deep Tartarus, PROMETHEUS BOUND II I would he had hurled me adown. I would he had plunged me, fastened thus In the knotted chain, with the savage clang, All into the dark, where there should be none, Neither god nor another, to laugh and see. But now the winds sing through and shake The hurtling chains wherein I hang, And I in my naked sorrows make Much mirth for my enemy. CHORUS, 2d strophe Nay ! who of the gods hath a heart so stern As to use thy woe for a mock and mirth ? Who would not turn more mild to learn Thy sorrows ? who of the heaven and earth Save Zeus ? But he Right wrathfully Bears on his sceptral soul unbent, And rules thereby the heavenly seed, Nor will he pause till he content His thirsty heart in a finished deed, Or till Another shall appear, To win by fraud, to seize by fear, The hard-to-be-captured government. Prometheus. Yet even of me he shall have need, That monarch of the blessed seed Of me, of me who now am cursed By his fetters dire To wring my secret out withal, And learn by whom his sceptre shall Be filched from him, as was at first His heavenly fire. But he never shall enchant me With his honey-lipped persuasion ; Never, never, shall he daunt me, With the oath and threat of passion, I2 J-.SCHYLUS Into speaking- as they want me, Till he loose this savage chain, And accept the expiation Of my sorrow in his pain. CHORUS, zd antistrophe Thou art, sooth, a brave god, And, for all thou hast borne From the stroke of the rod, Naught relaxest from scorn. But thou speakest unto me Too free and unworn ; And a terror strikes through me And festers my soul, And I fear, in the roll Of the storm, for thy fate In the ship far from shore ; Since the son of Saturnus is hard in his hate, And unmoved in his heart evermore. Prometheus. I know that Zeus is stern ; I know he metes his justice by his will ; And yet his soul shall learn More softness when once broken by this ill ; And, curbing his unconquerable vaunt, He shall rush on in fear to meet with me Who rush to meet with him in agony, To issues of harmonious covenant. Chorus. Remove the veil from all things, and relate The story to us of what crime accused, Zeus smites thee with dishonourable pangs, Speak, if to teach us do not grieve thyself. PromctJicus. The utterance of these things is torture to me, But so, too, is their silence : each way lies Woe strong as fate. When gods began with wrath, PROMETHEUS BOUND 13 And war rose up between their starry brows, Some choosing to cast Chronos from his throne That Zeus might king it there, and some in haste With opposite oaths, that they would have no Zeus To rule the gods forever I, who brought The counsel I thought meetest, could not move The Titans, children of the Heaven and Earth, What time, disdaining in their rugged souls My subtle machinations, they assumed It was an easy thing for force to take The mastery of fate. My mother, then, Who is called not only Themis, but Earth too (Her single beauty joys in many names), Did teach me with reiterant prophecy What future should be, and how conquering gods Should not prevail by strength and violence, But by guile only. When I told them so, They would not deign to contemplate the truth On all sides round ; whereat I deemed it best To lead my willing mother upwardly, And set my Themis face to face with Zeus As willing to receive her. Tartarus, With its abysmal cloister of the Dark, Because I gave that counsel, covers up The antique Chronos and his siding hosts, And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods Hath recompensed me with these bitter pangs ; For kingship wears a cancer at the heart Distrust in friendship. Do ye also ask What crime it is for which he tortures me ? That shall be clear before you. When at first He filled his father's throne, he instantly Made various gifts of glory to the gods, And dealt the empire out. Alone of men, Of miserable men, he took no count; But yearned to sweep their track off from the world, And plant a newer race there. Not a god I4 AESCHYLUS Resisted such desire, except myself. I dared it ! I drew mortals back to light, From meditated ruin deep as hell ! For which wrong I am bent down in these pangs Dreadful to suffer, mournful to behold, And I who pitied man am thought myself Unworthy of pity ; while I render out Deep rhythms of anguish 'neath the harping hand That strikes me thus a sight to shame your Zeus ! Chorus. Hard as thy chains, and cold as all these rocks, Is he, Prometheus, who withholds his heart From joining in thy woe. I yearned before To fly this sight ; and, now I gaze on it, I sicken inward. Prometheus. To my friends, indeed, I must be a sad sight. Chorus. And didst thou sin No more than so? Prometheus. I did restrain besides My mortals from premeditating death. Chorus. How didst thou medicine the plague-fear of death ? Prometheus. I set blind Hopes to inhabit in their house. Chorus. By that gift thou didst help thy mortals well. Prometheus. I gave them also fire. Chorus. And have they now, Those creatures of a day, the red-eyed fire? Prometheus. They have, and shall learn by it many arts. Chorus. And truly for such sins Zeus tortures thee, And will remit no anguish? Is there set No limit before thee to thine agony? Prometheus. No other only what seems good to him. Chorus. And how will it seem good ? what hope re- mains? Seest thou not that thou hast sinned ? But that thou hast sinned It glads me not to speak of, and grieves thee ; PROMETHEUS BOUND 15 Then let it pass from both, and seek thyself Some outlet from distress. Prometheus. It is in truth An easy thing to stand aloof from pain, And lavish exhortation and advice On one vexed sorely by it. I have known All in prevision. By my choice, my choice, I freely sinned I will confess my sin And, helping mortals, found mine own despair. I did not think indeed that I should pine Beneath such pangs against such skyey rocks, Doomed to this drear hill, and no neighbouring Of any life. But mourn not ye for griefs I bear to-day : hear rather, dropping down To the plain, how other woes creep on to me, And learn the consummation of my doom. Beseech you, nymphs, beseech you, grieve for me Who now am grieving ; for Grief walks the earth, And sits down at the foot of each by turns. Chorus. We hear the deep clash of thy words, Prometheus, and obey. And I spring with a rapid foot away From the rushing car and the holy air, The track of birds ; And I drop to the rugged ground, and there Await the tale of thy despair. OCEANUS enters Oceanus. I reach the bourne of my weary road Where I may see and answer thee, Prometheus, in thine agony. On the back of the quick-winged bird I glode, And I bridled him in With the will of a god. Behold, thy sorrow aches in me Constrained by the force of kin. Nay, though that tie were all undone, !6 AESCHYLUS For the life of none beneath the sun Would I seek a larger benison Than I seek for thine. And thou shalt learn my words are truth, That no fair parlance of the mouth Grows falsely out of mine. Now give me a deed to prove my faith ; For no faster friend is named in breath Than I, Oceanus, am thine. Prometheus. Ha! what has brought thee? Hast thou also come To look upon my woe ? How hast thou dared To leave the depths called after thee ? the caves Self-hewn, and self-roofed with spontaneous rock, To visit Earth, the mother of my chain ? Hast come, indeed, to view my doom, and mourn That I should sorrow thus ? Gaze on, and see How I, the fast friend of your Zeus how I The erector of the empire in his hand, Am bent beneath that hand in this despair. Oceanus. Prometheus, I behold ; and I would fain Exhort thee, though already subtle enough, To a better wisdom. Titan, know thyself, And take new softness to thy manners, since A new king rules the gods. If words like these, Harsh words and trenchant, thou wilt fling abroad, Zeus haply, though he sit so far and high, May hear thee do it, and so this wrath of his, Which now affects thee fiercely, shall appear A mere child's sport at vengeance. Wretched god, Rather dismiss the passion which thou hast, And seek a change from grief. Perhaps I seem To address thee with old saws and outworn sense ; Yet such a curse, Prometheus, surely waits On lips that speak too proudly : thou, meantime, Art none the meeker, nor dost yield a jot To evil circumstance, preparing still PROMETHEUS BOUND 17 To swell the account of grief with other griefs Than what are borne. Beseech thee, use me, then, For counsel : do not spurn against the pricks, Seeing that who reigns, reigns by cruelty Instead of right. And now I go from hence, And will endeavour if a power of mine Can break thy fetters through. For thee be calm, And smooth thy words from passion. Knowest thou not, Of perfect knowledge, thou who knowest too much, That, where the tongue wags, ruin never lags ? Prometheus. I gratulate thee who hast shared and dared All things with me, except their penalty. Enough so ! leave these thoughts. It can not be That thou shouldst move him. He may not be moved ; And thou, beware of sorrow on this road. Oceanus. Ay ! ever wiser for another's use Than thine. The event, and not the prophecy, Attests it to me. Yet, where now I rush, Thy wisdom hath no power to drag me back. Because I glory, glory, to go hence, And win for thee deliverance from thy pangs, As a free gift from Zeus. Prometheus. Why there, again, I give thee gratulation and applause. Thou lackest no good-will. But, as for deeds, Do naught ! 'twere all done vainly, helping naught, Whatever thou wouldst do. Rather take rest, And keep thyself from evil. If I grieve, I do not therefore wish to multiply The griefs of others. Verily, not so ! For still my brother's doom doth vex my soul My brother Atlas, standing in the west, Shouldering the column of the heaven and earth, A difficult burden ! I have also seen, And pitied as I saw, the earth-born one, The inhabitant of old Cilician caves, The great war-monster of the hundred heads !8 ,-KSCHYLUS (All taken and bowed beneath the violent Hand), Typhon the fierce, who did resist the gods, And, hissing slaughter from his dreadful jaws, Flash out ferocious glory from his eyes As if to storm the throne of Zeus. Whereat, The sleepless arrow of Zeus flew straight at him, The headlong bolt of thunder-breathing flame, And 'struck him downward from his eminence Of exultation ; through the very soul It struck him, and his strength was withered up To ashes, thunder-blasted. Now he lies, A helpless trunk, supinely, at full-length Beside the strait of ocean, spurred into By roots of ^Etna, high upon whose tops Hephaestus sits, and strikes the flashing ore. From thence the rivers of fire shall burst away Hereafter, and devour with savage jaws The equal plains of fruitful Sicily, Such passion he shall boil back in hot darts Of an insatiate fury and sough of flame, Fallen Typhon, howsoever struck and charred By Zeus's bolted thunder. But for thee, Thou art not so unlearned as to need My teaching ; let thy knowledge save thyself. I quaff the full cup of a present doom, And wait till Zeus hath quenched his will in wrath. Oceanus. Prometheus, art thou ignorant of this, That words do medicine anger? Prometheus. If the word With seasonable softness touch the soul, And, where the parts are ulcerous, sear them not By any rudeness. Oceanus. With a noble aim To dare as nobly is there harm in that? Dost thou discern it? Teach me. Prometheus. I discern Vain aspiration, unresultive work. PROMETHEUS BOUND 19 Oceanus. Then suffer me to bear the brunt of this, Since it is profitable that one who is wise Should seem not wise at all. Prometheus. And such would seem My very crime. Oceanus. In truth thine argument Sends me back home. Prometheus. Lest any lament for me Should cast thee down to hate. Oceanus. The hate of him Who sits a new king on the absolute throne ? Prometheus. Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him. Oceanus. Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher ! Prometheus. Go ! Depart ! Beware ! And keep the mind thou hast. Oceanus. Thy words drive after, as I rush before. Lo, my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall. [OCEANUS departs. CHORUS, ist strophe I moan thy fate, I moan for thee, Prometheus ! From my eyes too tender Drop after drop incessantly The tears of my heart's pity render My cheeks wet from their fountains free ; Because that Zeus, the stern and cold, Whose law is taken from his breast, Uplifts his sceptre manifest Over the gods of old. ist antistrophe All the land is moaning With a murmured plaint to-day ; All the mortal nations Having habitations 20 /ESCHYLUS In the holy Asia Are a dirge entoning For thine honour and thy brothers', Once-majestic beyond others In the old belief Now are groaning in the groaning Of thy deep-voiced grief. sd strophe Mourn the maids inhabitant Of the Colchian land, Who with white, calm bosoms stand In the battle's roar : Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt The verge of earth, Maeotis' shore. 2d antistrophe Yea ! Arabia's battle crown, And dwellers in the beetling town Mount Caucasus sublimely nears An iron squadron, thundering down With the sharp-prowed spears. But one other before have I seen to remain By invincible pain, Bound and vanquished one Titan ! 'twas Atlas, who bears In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own Which he evermore wears, The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone, While he sighs up the stars ; And the tides of the ocean wail, bursting .their bars; Murmurs still the profound. And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground, And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low In a pathos of woe. PROMETHEUS BOUND 21 Prometheus. Beseech you, think not I am silent thus Through pride or scorn. I only gnaw my heart With meditation, seeing myself so wronged. For see their honours to these new-made gods, What other gave but I, and dealt them out With distribution? Ay ! but here I am dumb; For here I should repeat your knowledge to you, If I spake aught. List rather to the deeds I did for mortals ; how, being fools before, I made them wise and true in aim of soul. And let me tell you not as taunting men, But teaching you the intention of my gifts How, first beholding, they beheld in vain, And, hearing, heard not, but, like shapes in dreams, Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time, Nor knew to build a house against the sun With wicketed sides, nor any woodcraft knew, But lived, like silly ants, beneath the ground In hollow caves unsunned. There came to them No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit, But blindly and lawlessly they did all things, Until I taught them how the stars do rise And set in mystery, and devised for them Number, the inducer of philosophies, The synthesis of letters, and, beside, The artificer of all things, memory, That sweet muse-mother. I was first to yoke The servile beasts in couples, carrying An heirdom of man's burdens on their backs. I joined to chariots, steeds, that love the bit They champ at the chief pomp of golden ease. And none but I originated ships, The seaman's chariots, wanderings on the brine With linen wings. And I oh, miserable! Who did devise for mortals all these arts, Have no device left now to save myself 22 AESCHYLUS From the woe I suffer. Chorus. Most unseemly woe Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense Bewildered ! Like a bad leech falling sick, Thou art faint at soul, and canst not find the drugs Required to save thyself. Prometheus. Hearken the rest, And marvel further, what more arts and means 1 did invent this, greatest : if a man Fell sick, there was no cure, nor esculent Nor chrism nor liquid, but for lack of drugs Men pined and wasted, till I showed them all Those mixtures of emollient remedies Whereby they might be rescued from disease. I fixed the various rules of mantic art, Discerned the vision from the common dream, Instructed them in vocal auguries Hard to interpret, and defined as plain The wayside omens flights of crook-claWed birds Showed which are by their nature fortunate, And which not so, and what the food of each, And what the hates, affections, social needs Of all to one another taught what sign Of visceral lightness, colored to a shade, May charm the genial gods, and what fair spots Commend the lung and liver. Burning so The limbs incased in fat, and the long chine, I led my mortals on to an art abstruse, And cleared their eyes to the image in the fire, Erst filmed in dark. Enough said now of this. For the other helps of man hid underground, The iron and the brass, silver and gold, Can any dare affirm he found them out Before me ? None, I know ! unless he choose To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole That all arts came to mortals from Prometheus. Chorus. Give mortals now no inexpedient help, PROMETHEUS BOUND 23 Neglecting thine own sorrow ? I have hope still To see thee, breaking from the fetter here, Stand up as strong as Zeus. Prometheus. This ends not thus, The oracular fate ordains. I must be bowed By infinite woes and pangs to escape this chain. Necessity is stronger than mine art. Chorus. Who holds the helm of that Necessity? Prometheus. The threefold Fates and the unforgetting Furies. Chorus. Is Zeus less absolute than these are ? Prometheus. Yea, And therefore can not fly what is ordained. Chorus. What is ordained for Zeus, except to be A king forever? Prometheus. 'Tis too early yet For thee to learn it : ask no more. Chorus. Perhaps Thy secret may be something holy ? Prometheus. Turn To another matter : this, it is not time To speak abroad, but utterly to veil In silence. For by that same secret kept, I 'scape this chain's dishonour, and its woe. CHORUS, ist strophe Never, oh, never, May Zeus, the all-giver, Wrestle down from his throne In that might of his own To antagonize mine ! Nor let me delay As I bend on my way Toward the gods of the shrine Where the altar is full Of the blood of the bull, Near the tossing: brine ' 24 ^SCHYLUS Of Ocean my father. May no sin be sped in the word that is said, But my vow be rather Consummated, Nor evermore fail, nor evermore pine. 1st antistrophe 'Tis sweet to have Life lengthened out With hopes proved brave By the very doubt, Till the spirit infold Those manifest joys which were foretold. But I thrill to behold Thee, victim doomed, By the countless cares And the drear despairs Forever consumed And all because thou, who art fearless now Of Zeus above, Didst overflow for mankind below With a free-souled, reverent love. Ah, friend, behold and see ! What's all the beauty of humanity ? Can it be fair ? What's all the strength ? Is it strong? And what hope can they bear, These dying livers, living one day long? Ah, seest thou not, my friend, How feeble and slow, . And like a dream, doth go This poor blind manhood, drifted from its end? And how no mortal wranglings can confuse The harmony of Zeus? I Prometheus, I have learned these things From the sorrow in thy face. PROMETHEUS BOUND 25 Another song did fold its wings Upon my lips in other days, When round the bath and round the bed The hymeneal chant instead I sang for thee, and smiled, And thou didst lead, with gifts and vows, Hesione, my father's child, To be thy wedded spouse. lo enters lo. What land is this ? what people is here ? And who is he that writhes, I see, In the rock-hung chain ? Now what is the crime that hath brought thee to pain ? Now what is the land make answer free Which I wander through in my wrong and fear? Ah, ah, ah me ! The gad-fly stingeth to agony ! O Earth, keep off that phantasm pale Of earth-born Argus ! ah ! I quail When my soul descries That herdsman with the myriad eyes Which seem, as he comes, one crafty eye. Graves hide him not, though he should die ; But he doggeth me in my misery From the roots of death, on high, on high ; And along the sands of the siding deep, All famine-worn, he follows me, And his waxen reed doth undersound The waters round, And giveth a measure that giveth sleep. Woe, woe, woe ! Where shall my weary course be done? What wouldst thou with me, Saturn's son? And in what have I sinned, that I should go Thus yoked to grief by thine hand forever? 26 J'SCIIYLUS Ah, ah ! dost vex me so That I madden and shiver Stung through with dread ? Flash the fire down to burn me ! Heave the earth up to cover me ! Plunge me in the deep, with the salt waves over me, That the sea-beasts may be fed ! king, do not spurn me In my prayer! For this wandering everlonger, evermore, Hath overworn me, And I know not on what shore 1 may rest from my despair. Chorus. Hearest thou what the ox-horned maiden saith ? Prometheus. How could I choose but hearken what she saith, The frenzied maiden ? Inachus's child ? Who love-warms Zeus's heart, and now is lashed By Here's hate along the unending ways ? lo. Who taught thee to articulate that name My father's? Speak to his child By grief and shame defiled ! Who 'art thou, victim, thou who dost acclaim Mine anguish in true words on the wide air, And callest, too, by name the curse that came From Here unaware, To waste and pierce me with its maddening goad ? Ah, ah, I leap With the pang of the hungry ; I bound on the road ; I am driven by my doom; I am overcome By the wrath of an enemy strong and deep ! Are any of those who have tasted pain, Alas ! as wretched as T ? Now tell me plain, doth aught remain PROMETHEUS BOUND 27 For my soul to endure beneath the sky ? Is there any help to be holpen by ? If knowledge be in thee, let it be said ! Cry aloud cry To the wandering, woful maid. Prometheus. Whatever thou wouldst learn, I will de- clare ; No riddle upon my lips, but such straight words As friends should use to each other when they talk. Thou seest Prometheus, who gave mortals fire. lo. O common help of all men, known of all, O miserable Prometheus, for what cause Dost thou endure thus? Prometheus. I have done with wail For my own griefs but lately. lo. Wilt thou not Vouchsafe the boon to me ? Prometheus. Say what thou wilt, For I vouchsafe all. lo. Speak, then, and reveal Who shut thee in this chasm. Prometheus. The will of Zeus, The hand of his Hephaestus. lo. And what crime Dost expiate so? Prometheus. Enough for thee I have told In so much only. lo. Nay, but show besides The limit of my wandering, and the time Which yet is lacking to fulfil my grief. Prometheus. Why, not to know were better than to know For such as thou. lo. Beseech thee, blind me not To that which I must suffer. Prometheus. If I do, 28 /KSCIIVLUS The reason is not that I grudge a boon. lo. What reason, then, prevents thy speaking out ? Prometheus. No grudging, but a fear to break thine heart. lo. Less care for me, I pray thee. Certainty I count for advantage. Prometheus. Thou wilt have it so, And therefore I must speak. Now hear Chorus. Not yet. Give half the guerdon my way. Let us learn First what the curse is that befell the maid, Her own voice telling her own wasting woes : The sequence of that anguish shall await The teaching of thy lips. Prometheus. It doth behoove That thou, maid lo, shouldst vouchsafe to these The grace they pray the more, because they are called Thy father's sisters ; since to open out And mourn out grief, where it is possible To draw a tear from the audience, is a work That pays its own price well. lo. I can not choose But trust you, nymphs, and tell you all ye ask, In clear words, though I sob amid my speech In speaking of the storm-curse sent from Zeus, And of my beauty, from which height it took Its swoop on me, poor wretch ! left thus deformed And monstrous to your eyes. For evermore Around my virgin-chamber, wandering went The nightly visions which entreated me With syllabled smooth sweetness : " Blessed maid, Why lengthen out thy maiden hours, when fate Permits the noblest spousal in the world? When Zeus burns with the arrow of thy love, And fain would touch thy beauty? Maiden, thou Despise not /ens! depart to Lenu'-'s mead That's green around thv father's Hocks and stalls, PROMETHEUS BOUND 29 Until the passion of the heavenly Eye Be quenched in sight." Such dreams did all night long Constrain me me, unhappy ! till I dared To tell my father how they trod the dark With visionary steps. Whereat he sent His frequent heralds to the Pythian fane, And also to Dodona, and inquired How best, by act or speech, to please the gods. The same returning brought back oracles Of doubtful sense, indefinite response, Dark to interpret ; but at last there came To Inachus an answer that was clear, Thrown straight as any bolt, and spoken out This : " He should drive me from my home and land, And bid me wander to the extreme verge Of all the earth ; or, if he willed it not, Should have a thunder with a fiery eye Leap straight from Zeus to burn up all his race To the last root of it." By which Loxian word Subdued, he drove me forth, and shut me out, He loath, me loath ; but Zeus's violent bit Compelled him to the deed : when instantly My body and soul were changed and distraught, And, horned as ye see, and spurred along By the fanged insect, with a maniac leap I rushed on to Cenchrea's limpid stream, And Lern6's fountain-water. There, the earth-born, The herdsman Argus, most immitigable Of wrath, did find me out, and track me out With countless eyes set staring at my steps ; And though an unexpected sudden doom Drew him from life, I, curse-tormented still, Am driven from land to land before the scourge The gods hold o'er me. So thou hast heard the past ; And, if a bitter future thou canst tell, Speak on. I charge thee, do not flatter me, Through pity, with .false words; for in my mind Deceiving works more shame than torturing doth. 30 iiM.rs CHORUS Ah, silence here ! Nevermore, nevermore, Would I languish for The stranger's word To thrill in mine ear Nevermore for the wrong and the woe and the fear So hard to behold, So cruel to bear, Piercing my soul with a double-edged sword Of a sliding cold. Ah, Fate ! ah, me ! I shudder to see This wandering maid in her agony. PrometJicus. Grief is too quick in thee, and fear too full ; Be patient till thou hast learned the rest. Chorus. Speak : teach, To those who are sad already, it seems sweet, By clear foreknowledge to make perfect, pain. Prometheus. The boon ye asked me first was lightly won ; For first ye asked the story of this maid's grief, As her own lips might tell it. Now remains To list what other sorrows she so young Must bear from Here". Inachus's child, O thou ! drop down thy soul my weighty words, And measure out the landmarks which are set To end thy wandering. Toward the orient sun First turn thy face from mine, and journey on Along the desert-flats till thou shalt come Where Scythia's shepherd-peoples dwell aloft, Perched in wheeled wagons under woven roofs, And twang the rapid arrow past the bo\v. Approach them not, but, siding in thy course The rugged shore-rocks resonant to the sea, :irt that counfrv. On the left hand dwell The iron-workers, called the Chalybes, PROMETHEUS BOUND 3! Of whom beware, for certes they are uncouth, And nowise bland to strangers. Reaching so The stream Hybristes (well the scorner called), Attempt no passage it is hard to pass Or ere thou come to Caucasus itself, That highest of mountains, where the river leaps The precipice in his strength. Thou must toil up Those mountain-tops that neighbour with the stars, And tread the south way, and draw near, at last, The Amazonian host that hateth man, Inhabitants of Themiscyra, close Upon Thermodon, where the sea's rough jaw Doth gnash at Salmydessa, and provide A cruel host to seamen, and to ships A stepdame. They, with unreluctant hand, Shall lead thee on and on till thou arrive Just where the ocean-gates show narrowest On the Cimmerian isthmus. Leaving which, Behooves thee swim with fortitude of soul The strait Maeotis. Ay, and evermore That traverse shall be famous on men's lips, That strait called Bosporus, the horned one's road, So named because of thee, who so wilt pass From Europe's plain to Asia's continent. How think ye, nymphs ? the king of gods appears Impartial in ferocious deeds? Behold ! The god desirous of this mortal's love Hath cursed her with these wanderings. Ah, fair child, Thou hast met a bitter groom for bridal troth ! For all thou yet hast heard can only prove The incompleted prelude of thy doom. lo. Ah, ah ! Prometheus. Is't thy turn now to shriek and moan ? How wilt thou, when thou hast hearkened what remains? Chorus. Besides the grief thou hast told, can aught remain ? Prometheus. A sea of foredoomed evil worked to storm. 32 .KSCHYLUS lo. What boots my life, then ? why not cast myself Down headlong from this miserable rock, That, dashed against the flats, I may redeem My soul from sorrow ? Better once to die Than day by day to suffer. Prometheus. Verily, It would be hard for thee to bear my woe For whom it is appointed not to die. Death frees from woe ; but I before me see In all my far prevision not a bound To all I suffer, ere that Zeus shall fall From being a king. lo. And can it ever be That Zeus shall fall from empire ? Prometheus. Thou, methinks, Wouldst take some joy to see it. lo. Could I choose? I who endure such pangs now, by that god ! Prometheus. Learn from me, therefore, that the event shall be. lo. By whom shall his imperial sceptred hand Be emptied so ? Prometheus. Himself shall spoil himself, Through his idiotic counsels. lo. How? declare, Unless the word bring evil. Prometheus. He shall wed, And in the marriage-bond be joined to grief. lo. A heavenly bride, or human ? Speak it out, If it be utterable. Prometheus. Why should I say which ? It ought not to be uttered, verily. lo. Then It is his wife shall tear him from his throne ? Prometheus. It is his wife shall bear a son to him More mighty than the father. lo. From this doom PROMETHEUS BOUND 33 Hath he no refuge ? Prometheus. None : or ere that I Loosed from these fetters Jo. Yea : but who shall loose While Zeus is adverse? Prometheus. One who is born of thee : It is ordained so. Io. What is this thou sayest? A son of mine shall liberate thee from woe ? Prometheus. After ten generations count three more, And find him in the third. Io. The oracle Remains obscure. Prometheus. And search it not to learn Thine own griefs from it. Io. Point me not to a good To leave me straight bereaved. Prometheus. I am prepared To grant thee one of two things. Io. But which two ? Set them before me ; grant me power to choose. Prometheus. I grant it ; choose now ! Shall I name aloud What griefs remain to wound thee, or what hand Shall save me out of mine ? Chorus. Vouchsafe, O god, The one grace of the twain to her who prays, The next to me, and turn back neither prayer Dishonoured by denial. To herself Recount the future wandering of her feet ; Then point me to the looser of thy chain, Because I yearn to know him. Prometheus. Since ye will, Of absolute will, this knowledge, I will set No contrary against it, nor keep back A word of all ye ask for. Io, first To thee I must relate thy wandering course 3 34 AESCHYLUS Far winding. As I tell it, write it down In thy soul's book of memories. When thou hast passed The refluent bound that parts two continents, Track on the footsteps of the orient sun In his own fire across the roar of seas Fly till thou hast reached the Gorgonaean flats Beside Cisthene. There the Phorcides, Three ancient maidens, live, with shape of swan, One tooth between them, and one common eye, On whom the sun doth never look at all With all his rays, nor evermore the moon When she looks through the night. Anear to whom Are the Gorgon sisters three, enclothed with wings, With twisted snakes for ringlets, man-abhorred : There is no mortal gazes in their face, And gazing can breathe on. I speak of such To guard thee from their horror. Ay, and list Another tale of a dreadful sight : beware The Griffins, those unbarking dogs of Zeus, Those sharp-mouthed dogs ! and the Arimaspian host Of one-eyed horsemen, habiting beside The river of Pluto that runs bright with gold: Approach them not, beseech thee. Presently Thou'lt come to a distant land, a dusky tribe Of dwellers at the fountain of the Sun, Whence flows the River ^thiops ; wind along Its banks, and turn off at the cataracts, Just as the Nile pours from the Bybline hills His holy and sweet wave : his course shall guide Thine own to that triangular Nile-ground Where, lo, is ordained for thee and thine A lengthened exile. Have I said in this Aught darkly or incompletely ? now repeat The question, make the knowledge fuller! Lo, I have more leisure than I covet here. Chorus. If thou canst tell us aught that's left untold, Or loosely told, of her most dreary flight, PROMETHEUS BOUND 35 Declare it straight ; but, if thou hast uttered all, Grant us that latter grace for which we prayed, Remembering how we prayed it. Prometheus. She has heard The uttermost of her wandering. There it ends. But, that she may be certain not to have heard All vainly, I will speak what she endured Ere coming hither, and invoke the past To prove my prescience true. And so to leave A multitude of words, and pass at once To the subject of thy course when thou hadst gone To those Molossian plains which sweep around Dodona shouldering Heaven, whereby the fane Of Zeus Thesprotian keepeth oracle, And, wonder past belief, where oaks do wave Articulate adjurations (ay, the same Saluted thee in no perplexed phrase, But clear with glory, noble wife of Zeus That shouldst be, there some sweetness took thy sense !) Thou didst rush farther onward, stung along The ocean-shore, toward Rhea's mighty bay, And, tossed back from it, wast tossed to it again In stormy evolution : and know well, In coming time that hollow of the sea Shall bear the name Ionian, and present A monument of lo's passage through, Unto all mortals. Be these words the signs Of my soul's power to look beyond the veil Of visible things. The rest to you and her I will declare in common audience, nymphs, Returning thither where my speech brake off. There is a town, Canobus, built upon The earth's fair margin, at the mouth of the Nile, And on the mound washed up by it : lo, there Shall Zeus give back to thee thy perfect mind, And only by the pressure and the touch Of a hand not terrible ; and thou to Zeus 36 yi'SCHVLUS Shalt bear a dusky son who shall be called Thence Epaphus, Touched. That son shall pluck the fruit Of all that land wide-watered by the flow Of Nile ; but after him, when counting out As far as the fifth full generation, then Full fifty maidens, a fair woman-race, Shall back to Argos turn reluctantly, To fly the proffered nuptials of their kin, Their father's brothers. These being passion-struck, Like falcons bearing hard on flying doves, Shall follow hunting at a quarry of love They should not hunt ; till envious Heaven maintain A curse betwixt that beauty and their desire, And Greece receive them, to be overcome In murtherous woman-war by fierce red hands Kept savage by the night. For every wife Shall slay a husband, dyeing deep in blood The sword of a double edge (I wish indeed As fair a marriage-joy to all my foes !) One bride alone shall fail to smite to death The head upon her pillow, touched with love Made impotent of purpose, and impelled To choose the lesser evil shame on her cheeks, Than blood-guilt on her hands ; which bride shall bear A royal race in Argos. Tedious speech Were needed to relate particulars Of these things; 'tis enough that from her seed Shall spring the strong He, famous with the bow, Whose arm shall break my fetters off. Behold, My mother Themis, that old Titaness, Delivered to me such an oracle ; But how and when, I should be long to speak, And thou, in hearing, wouldst not gain at all. lo. Eleleu, eleleu ! Ilmv the spasm and the pain, And the lire on (lie brain, Strike, buniiii:; me through! PROMETHEUS BOUND 37 How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew, Pricks me onward again ! How my heart in its terror is spurning my breast, And my eyes like the wheels of a chariot roll round ! I am whirled from my course, to the east, to the west, In the whirlwind of frenzy all madly inwound ; And my mouth is unbridled for anguish and hate, And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest, On the sea of my desolate fate. [Io rushes out. CHORUS strophe Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he, Who first within his spirit knew, And with his tongue declared it true, That love comes best that comes unto The equal of degree ! And that the poor and that the low Should seek no love from those above, Whose souls are fluttered with the flow Of airs about their golden height, Or proud because they see arow Ancestral crowns of light. Antistrophe Oh, never, never, may ye, Fates, Behold me with your awful eyes Lift mine too fondly up the skies Where Zeus upon the purple waits ! Nor let me step too near, too near, To any suitor bright from heaven ; Because I see, because I fear, This loveless maiden vexed and laden By this fell curse of Her6, driven On wanderings dread and drear. Epode Nay, grant an equal troth instead Of nuptial love, to bind me by ! 38 AESCHYLUS It will not hurt, I shall not dread To meet it in reply. But let not love from those above Revert and fix me, as I said, With that inevitable Eye ! I have no sword to fight that fight, I have no strength to tread that path, I know not if my nature hath The power to bear, I can not see Whither from Zeus's infinite I have the power to flee. Prometheus. Yet Zeus, albeit most absolute of will, Shall turn to meekness such a marriage-rite He holds in preparation, which anon Shall thrust him headlong from his gerent seat Adown the abysmal void ; and so the curse His father Chronos muttered in his fall, As he fell from his ancient throne and cursed, Shall be accomplished wholly. No escape From all that ruin shall the filial Zeus Find granted to him from any of his gods Unless I teach him. I the refuge know, And I, the means. Now, therefore, let him sit And brave the imminent doom, and fix his faith On his supernal noises hurtling on With restless hand the bolt that breathes out fire ; For these things shall not help him, none of them, Nor hinder his perdition when he falls To shame, and lower than patience : such a foe He doth himself prepare against himself, A wonder of unconquerable hate, An organizer of sublimer fire Than glares in lightnings, and of grander sound Than aught the thunder rolls, out-thundering it, With power to shatter in Poseidon's fist The trident-spear, which, while it plagues the sea, PROMETHEUS BOUND 39 Doth shake the shores around it. Ay, and Zeus, Precipitated thus, shall learn at length The difference betwixt rule and servitude. Chorus. Thou makest threats for Zeus of thy desires. Prometheus. I tell you all these things shall be fulfilled Even so as I desire them. Chorus. Must we, then, Look out for one shall come to master Zeus? Prometheus. These chains weigh lighter than his sor- rows shall. Chorus. How art thou not afraid to utter such words ? Prometheus. What should I fear, who can not die ? Chorus. But he Can visit thee with dreader woe than death's. Prometheus. Why, let him do it ! I am here, prepared For all things and their pangs. Chorus. The wise are they Who reverence Adrasteia. Prometheus. Reverence thou, Adore thou, flatter thou, whomever reigns, Whenever reigning ! But for me, your Zeus Is less than nothing. Let him act and reign His brief hour out according to his will : He will not, therefore, rule the gods too long. But lo ! I see that courier-god of Zeus, That new-made menial of the new-crowned king : He, doubtless, comes to announce to us something new. HERMES enters Hermes. I speak to thee, the sophist, the talker-down Of scorn by scorn, the sinner against gods, The reverencer of men, the thief of fire I speak to thee and adjure thee : Zeus requires Thy declaration of what marriage-rite Thus moves thy vaunt, and shall hereafter cause His fall from empire. Do not wrap thy speech In riddles, but speak clearly. Never cast 40 .v.scHYi.rs Ambiguous paths, Prometheus, for my feet, Since Zeus, thou mayst perceive, is scarcely won To mercy by such means. Prometheus. A speech well-mouthed In the utterance, and full-minded in the sense, As doth befit a servant of the gods ! New gods, ye newly reign, and think, forsooth, Ye dwell in towers too high for any dart To carry a wound there ! Have I not stood by While two kings fell from thence? and shall 1 not Behold the third, the same who rules you now, Fall, shamed to sudden ruin? Do I seem To tremble and quail before your modern gods? Far be it from me ! For thyself depart ; Retread thy steps in haste. To all thou hast asked I answer nothing. Hermes. Such a wind of pride Impelled thee of yore full sail upon these rocks. Prometheus. I would not barter learn thou soothly that ! My suffering for thy service. I maintain It is a nobler thing to serve these rocks Than live a faithful slave to Father Zeus. Thus upon scorners I retort their scorn. Hermes. It seems that thou dost glory in thy despair. Prometheus. I glory ? Would my foes did glory so, And I stood by to see them ! naming whom, Thou art not unremembered. Hermes. Dost thou charge Me also with the blame of thy mischance? Prometheus. I tell thee I loathe the universal gods, Who, for the good I gave them, rendered back The ill of their injustice. Hermes. Thou art mad, Thou art raving, Titan, at the fever-height. Prometheus. If it be madness to abhor my foes, May I be mad ! PROMETHEUS BOUND 41 Hermes. If thou wert prosperous, Thou wouldst be unendurable. Prometheus. Alas ! Hermes. Zeus knows not that word. Prometheus. But maturing Time Teaches all things. Hermes. Howbeit, thou hast not learned The wisdom yet, thou needest. Prometheus. If I had, I should not talk thus with a slave like thee. Hermes. No answer thou vouchsafest, I believe, To the great Sire's requirement. Prometheus. Verily I owe him grateful service, and should pay it. Hermes. Why, thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood A child before thy face. Prometheus. No child, forsooth, But yet more foolish than a foolish child, If thou expect that I should answer aught Thy Zeus can ask. No torture from his hand, Nor any machination in the world, Shall force mine utterance ere he loose, himself, These cankerous fetters from me. For the rest, Let him now hurl his blanching lightnings down, And with his white-winged snows, and mutterings deep Of subterranean thunders, mix all things, Confound them in disorder. None of this Shall bend my sturdy will, and make me speak The name of his dethroner who shall come. Hermes. Can this avail thee ? Look to it ! Prometheus. Long ago It was looked forward to, precounselled of. Hermes. Vain god, take righteous courage ! Dare for once To apprehend and front thine agonies With a just prudence. Prometheus. Vainly dost thou chafe 3 42 HYLUS My soul with exhortation, as yonder sea Goes beating on the rock. Oh ! think no more That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman's mind. Will supplicate him, loathed as he is, With feminine upliftings of my hands, To break these chains. Far from me be the thought ! Hermes. I have, indeed, methinks, said much in vain, For still thy heart beneath my showers of prayers Lies dry and hard, nay, leaps like a young horse Who bites against the new bit in his teeth, And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein, Still fiercest in the feeblest thing of all, Which sophism is ; since absolute will disjoined From perfect mind is worse than weak. Behold, Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast And whirlwind of inevitable woe Must sweep persuasion through thee ! For at first The Father will split up this jut of rock With the great thunder and the bolted flame, And hide thy body where a hinge of stone Shall catch it like an arm ; and when thou hast passed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun while Zeus's winged hound, The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee, self-called to a daily feast, And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep Upon thy dusky liver. Do not look For any end, moreover, to this curse, Or ere some god appear to accept thy pangs On his own head vicarious, and descend With unreluctant step the darks of hell And gloomy abysses around Tartarus. Then ponder this this threat is not a growth Ot vain invention ; it is spoken and meant : King Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie, Consummating the utterance by the act. PROMETHEUS BOUND 43 So, look to it, thou ! take heed, and nevermore Forget good counsel to indulge self-will. Chorus. Our Hermes suits his reasons to the times, At least I think so, since he bids thee drop Self-will for prudent counsel. Yield to him ! When the wise err, their wisdom makes their shame. Prometheus. Unto me the foreknower, this mandate of power He cries, to reveal it. What's strange in my fate, if I suffer from hate At the hour that I feet it ? Let the locks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening, Flash, coiling me round, While the ether goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging Of wild winds unbound ! Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place The earth rooted below, And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion, Be driven in the face Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro ! Let him hurl me anon into Tartarus on To the blackest degree, With Necessity's vortices strangling me down ! But he can not join death to a fate,meant for me ! Hermes. Why, the words that he speaks and the thoughts that he thinks Are maniacal ! add, If the Fate who hath bound him should loose not the links, He were utterly mad. Then depart ye who groan with him, Leaving to moan with him ; Go in haste ! lest the roar of the thunder anearing Should blast you to idiocy, living and hearing. Chorus. Change thy speech for another, thy thought for a new, If to move me and teach me indeed be thy care ; 44 AESCHYLUS For thy words swerve so far from the loyal and true That the thunder of Zeus seems more easy to bear. How ! couldst teach me to venture such vileness ? behold ! I choose with this victim this anguish foretold ! I recoil from the traitor in haste and disdain, And I know that the curse of the treason is worse Than the pang of the chain. Hermes. Then remember, O nymphs, what I tell you before, Nor, when pierced by the arrows that At6 will throw you, Cast blame on your fate, and declare evermore That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not foreshow you. Nay, verily, nay ! for ye perish anon For your deed, by your choice. By no blindness of doubt, No abruptness of doom, but by madness alone, In the great net of At6, whence none cometh out, Ye are wound and undone. Prometheus. Ay ! in act now, in word now no more, Earth is rocking in space. And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, And the blasts of the winds universal leap free, And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, And ether goes mingling in storm with the sea. Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread, From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along. Oh, my mother's fair glory ! O ^Ether, enringing All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing ! Dost see how I suffer this wrong ? THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS TRANSLATED BY ROBERT POTTER DRAMATIS PERSONS WATCHMAN. CLYTEMNESTRA. HERALD. AGAMEMNON. CASSANDRA. CHORUS OF ARGIVE SENATORS. SCENE : Argos, before the Palace of Agamemnon AGAMEMNON THE WATCHMAN. Ye fav'ring gods, relieve me from this toil : Fixed, as a dog, on Agamemnon's roof I watch the livelong year, observing hence The host of stars, that in the spangled skies Take their bright stations, and to mortals bring Winter and summer; radiant rulers, when They set, or rising, glitter through the night. Here now I watch, if haply I may see The blazing torch, whose flame brings news from Troy, The signal of its ruin : these high hopes My royal mistress, thinking on her lord, Feeds in her heart. Meanwhile the dews of night Fall on my couch, unvisited by dreams ; For fear, lest sleep should close my eyes, repels The soft intruder. When my spirits prompt me To raise the song, or hum the sullen notes Preventing slumber, then I sigh, and wail The state of this unhappy house, no more Well-ordered as of old. But may my toils Be happily relieved ! Blaze, thou bright flame, Herald of joy, blaze through the gloomy shades And it does blaze. Hail, thou auspicious flame, That streaming through the night denouncest joy, Welcomed with many a festal dance in Argos ! In the queen's ear I'll holloa this, and rouse her 49 50 HYLUS From her soft couch with speed, that she may teach The royal dome to echo with the strains Of choral warblings greeting this blest fire, Bright sign that Troy is taken. Nor shall I Forbear the prelude to the dance before her : For by this watch, so prosperously concluded, I to my masters shall assure good fortune. Shall I then see my king returned, once more To grace this house ? and shall this hand once more Hang on his friendly hand ? I could unfold A tale. But, hush ; my tongue is chained : these walls, Could they but speak, would make discoveries. There are who know this ; and to them this hint Were plain : to those that know it not, mysterious. Chorus. The tenth slow year rolls on, since great in arms The noble sons of Atreus, each exalted To majesty and empire, royal brothers, Led hence a thousand ships, the Argive fleet, Big with the fate of Priam and of Troy ; A warlike preparation ; their bold breasts Breathing heroic ardour to high deeds ; Like vultures, which, their unplumed offspring lost, Whirl many a rapid flight, for that their toil , To guard their young was vain : till some high power, For they are dear to Phoebus, dear to Pan, And Jove with pity hears their shrill-voiced grief, And sends, though late, the fury to avenge Their plundered nests on the unpitying spoilers. So now the power of hospitable Jove Arms against Paris, for th' oft-wedded dame, The sons of Atreus, bent to plunge the hosts Of Greece and Troy in all the toils, that sink The body down, the firm knee bowed in dust, And the strong spear, ere conquest crowns their helms, Shivered in battle. These are what they are, And fate directs th' event: nor the bent knee, AGAMEMNON Libation pure, or supplicating tear, Can soothe the stern rage of those merciless powers In whose cold shrine no hallowed flame ascends. But we, our age-enfeebled limbs unfit For martial toils, inglorious here remain, The staff supporting our weak steps, like children : For as the infant years have not attained The military vigour, withered age Crawls through the streets like helpless infancy, And passes as a day-dream. But what tidings, What circumstances of fair event hath reached Thy royal ears, daughter of Tyndarus, Inducing thee to send the victims round ? The shrines of all the gods, whose guardian cares Watch o'er this state, be they enthroned in heaven, Or rule beneath the earth, blaze with thy presents ; And from th' imperial dome a lengthened line Of torches shoot their lustre to the skies. O tell me what is fit for me to know, And prudence suffers to be told : speak peace To this anxiety, which one while swells Presaging ill, and one while from the victims Catches a gleam of hope, whose cheering ray Breaks through the gloom that darkens o'er my soul. Strophe It swells upon my soul : I feel the power To hail th' auspicious hour, When, their brave hosts marching in firm array, The heroes led the way. The fire of youth glows in each vein, And heaven-born confidence inspires the strain. Pleased the omen to record, That to Troy's ill-fated strand Led each monarch, mighty lord, Led the bold confederate band, The strong spear quiv'ring in their vengeful hand. AESCHYLUS Full in each royal chieftain's view, A royal eagle whirls his flight ; In plumage one of dusky hue, And one his dark wings edged with white ; Swift to th' imperial mansion take their way, And in their armed talons bear, Seized in its flight, a pregnant hare, And in those splendid seats enjoy their prey. Sound high the strain, the swelling notes prolong, Till conquest listens to the raptured song. Antistrophe The venerable seer, whose skill divine Knows what the Fates design, On each bold chief, that for the battle burns, His glowing eyeball turns ; And thus in high prophetic strains The rav'ning eagles and their prey explains: " Priam's haughty town shall fall, Slow they roll, the destined hours, Fate and fury shake her wall, Vengeance wide the ruin pours, And conquest seizes all her treasured stores. Ah ! may no storm from th' angry sky Burst dreadful o'er this martial train, Nor check their ardour, flaming high To pour the war o'er Troy's proud plain ! Wrath kindles in the chaste Diana's breast: Gorged with the pregnant mother's blood, And, ere the birth, her hapless brood, Hell-hounds of Jove, she hates your horrid feast. Sound high the strain, the swelling notes prolong, Till conquest listens to the raptured song. AGAMEMNON 53 Epode " The virgin goddess of the chase, Fair from the spangled dewdrops that adorn The breathing flowrets of the morn, Protectress of the infant race Of all that haunt the tangled grove, Or o'er the rugged mountains rove, She, beauteous queen, commands me to declare What by the royal birds is shown, Signal of conquest, omen fair, But darkened by her awful frown. God of the distant-wounding bow, Thee, Paean, thee I call ; hear us, and aid ; Ah ! may not the offended maid Give the sullen gales to blow, Adverse to this eager train, And bar th' unnavigable main ; Nor other sacrifice demand, At whose barbaric rites no feast is spread ; But discord rears her horrid head, And calls around her murd'rous band : Leagued with hate, and fraud, and fear, Nor king, nor husband, they revere ; Indignant o'er a daughter weep, And burn to stamp their vengeance deep ? " Prophetic thus the reverend Chalcas spoke, Marking th' imperial eagles' whirling wings ; From his rapt lips the joyful presage broke, Success and glory to th' embattled kings. Sound high the strain, th' according notes prolong, Till conquest listens to the raptured song. Strophe I O thou, that sitt'st supreme above, Whatever name thou deign'st to hear, Unblamed may I pronounce thee Jove ! 54 /ESCHYLUS Immersed in deep and holy thought, If rightly I conjecture aught, Thy power I must revere : Else vainly tossed the anxious mind Nor truth, nor calm repose, can find. Feeble and helpless to the light The proudest of man's race arose, Though now, exulting in his might, Dauntless he rushes on his foes ; Great as he is, in dust he lies; He meets a greater, and he dies. Antistrophe i He that, when conquest brightens round, Swells the triumphal strain to Jove, Shall ever with success be crowned. Yet often, when to wisdom's seat Jove deigns to guide man's erring feet, His virtues to improve ; He to affliction gives command To form him with her chastening hand : The memory of her rigid lore, On the sad heart imprinted deep, Attends him through day's active hour, Nor in the night forsakes his sleep. Instructed thus thy grace we own, O thou, that sittest on Heaven's high throne ! Strophe 2 When now in Aulis' rolling bay His course the refluent floods refused, And sickening with inaction lay In dead repose th' exhausted train, Did the firm chief of chance complain? No prophet he accused ; His eyes toward Chalcis bent he stood, And silent marked the surging flood. AGAMEMNON 55 Sullen the winds from Strymon sweep, Mischance and famine in the blast, Ceaseless torment the angry deep, The cordage rend, the vessels waste, With tedious and 'severe delay Wear the fresh flower of Greece away. Antistrophe 2 When, in Diana's name, the seer Pronounced the dreadful remedy More than the stormy sea severe, Each chieftain stood in grief profound, And smote his sceptre on the ground : Then with a rising sigh The monarch, while the big tears roll, Expressed the anguish of his soul : " Dreadful the sentence : not t' obey, Vengeance and ruin close us round : Shall then the sire his daughter slay, In youth's fresh bloom with beauty crowned ? Shall on these hands her warm blood flow ? Cruel alternative of woe ! Strophe j " This royal fleet, this martial host, The cause of Greece shall I betray, The monarch in the father lost? To calm these winds, to smooth this flood, Diana's wrath a virgin's blood Demands : 'tis ours t' obey." Bound in necessity's iron chain Reluctant Nature strives in vain : Impure, unholy thoughts succeed, And darkening o'er his bosom roll ; While madness prompts the ruthless deed, Tyrant of the misguided soul : 56 AESCHYLUS Stern on the fleet he rolls his eyes, And dooms the hateful sacrifice. Antistrophe j Armed in a woman's cause, around Fierce for the war the princes rose ; No place affrighted pity found. In vain the virgin's streaming tear, Her cries in vain, her pleading prayer, Her agonizing woes. Could the fond father hear unmoved ? The Fates decreed : the king approved : Then to th' attendants gave command Decent her flowing robes to bind ; Prone on the altar with strong hand To place her, like a spotless hind ; And check her sweet voice, that no sound Unhallowed might the rites confound. Epode Rent on the earth her maiden veil she throws, That emulates the rose ; And on the sad attendants rolling The trembling lustre of her dewy eyes, Their grief-impassioned souls controlling, That ennobled, modest grace, Which the mimic pencil tries In imaged form to trace, The breathing picture shows : And as, amid his festal pleasures, Her father oft rejoiced to hear Her voice in soft mellifluous measures Warble the sprightly-fancied air: So now in act to speak the virgin stands : But when, the third libation paid, She heard her father's dread commands Enjoining silence, she obeyed : AGAMEMNON 57 And for her country's good, With patient, meek, submissive mind To her hard fate resigned, Poured out the rich stream of her blood. What since hath past I know not, nor relate ; But never did the prophet speak in vain, Th' afflicted, anxious for his future fate, Looks forward, and with hope relieves his pain. But since th' inevitable ill will come, Much knowledge to much misery is allied ; Why strive we then t' anticipate the doom, Which happiness and wisdom wish to hide? Yet let this careful, age-enfeebled band Breathe from our inmost soul one ardent vow, Now the sole guardians of this Apian land, " May fair success with glory bind her brow ! " CLYTEMNESTRA, CHORUS Chorus. With reverence, Clytemnestra, I approach Thy greatness ; honour due to her that fills The royal seat, yet vacant of its lord. If aught of glad import hath reached thy ear. Or to fair hope the victim bleeds, I wish, But with submission to thy will, to hear. Cly. The joy-importing Morn springs, as they say, From Night, her mother. Thou shalt hear a joy Beyond thy hopes to hear : the town of Priam Is fallen beneath the conquering arms of Greece. Chor. What saidst thou ? Passing credence fled thy word. Cly. In Troy Greece triumphs. Speak I clearly now? Chor. Joy steals upon me, and calls forth the tear. Cly. Thy glist'ning eye bespeaks an honest heart. Chor. Does aught of certain proof confirm these tid- insrs? 58 nvi.rs Cly. It does. Why not ? unless the gods deceive us. Chor. Perchance the visions of persuasive dreams. Cly. Sport of the slumbering soul ; they move not me. Chor. Hath then some winged rumour spread these transports ? Cly. As a raw girl's, thou holdest my judgment cheap. Chor. How long hath ruin crushed this haughty city? Cly. This night, that gave this infant morning birth. Chor. What speed could be the herald of this news? Cly. The fire, that from the height of Ida sent Its streaming light, as from th' announcing flame Torch blazed to torch. First Ida to the steep Of Lemnos ; Athos' sacred height received The mighty splendour ; from the surging back Of the Hellespont the vigorous blaze held on Its smiling way, and like the orient sun Illumes with golden-gleaming rays the head Of rocky Macetas ; nor lingers there, Nor winks unheedful, but its warning flames Darts to the streams of Euripus, and gives Its glittering signal to the guards that hold Their high watch on Mesapius. These enkindle The joy-announcing fires, that spread the blaze To where Erica hoar its shaggy brow Waves rudely. Unimpaired the active flame Bounds o'er the level of Asopus, like The jocund moon, and on Cithaeron's steep Wakes a successive flame ; the distant watch Agnize its shine, and raise a brighter fire, That o'er the lake Gorgopis streaming holds Its rapid course, and on the mountainous heights Of ^Egiplanctus huge, swift-shooting spreads The lengthened line of light. Thence onward waves Its fiery tresses, eager to ascend The crags of Prone, frowning in their pride ( ) Cr the Saronic gulf : it leaps, it mounts The summit of Arachne, whose high head AGAMEMNON 59 Looks down on Argos : to this royal seat Thence darts the light that from th' Idean fire Derives its birth. Rightly in order thus Each to the next consigns the torch, and fills The bright succession, while the first in speed Vies with the last : the promised signal this Given by my lord t' announce the fall of Troy. Chor. Anon my grateful praise shall rise to heaven : Now, lady, would I willingly attend Through each glad circumstance the wond'rous tale. Cly. This day the conquering Greeks are lords of Troy. Methinks I hear the various clamours rise Discordant through the city. Pour thou oil In the same vase and vinegar, in vain Wouldst thou persuade th' unsocial streams to mix: The captives' and the conqueror's voice distinct, Marks of their different fortune, mayst thou hear : Those rolling on the bodies of the slain, Friends, husbands, brothers, fathers ; the weak arms Of children clasped around the bleeding limbs Of hoary age, lament their fall, their necks Bent to the yoke of slavery : eager these From the fierce toils of war, who through the gloom Of night ranged wide, fly on the spoils, as chance, Not order, leads them ; in the Trojan houses, Won by their spears, they walk at large, relieved From the cold dews dropped from th' unsheltered sky ; And at th' approach of eve, like those whose power Commands security, the easy night Shall sleep unguarded. If with hallowed rites They venerate the gods that o'er the city, With those that o'er the vanquished country rule, And reverence their shrines, the conquering troops Shall not be conquered. May no base desire, No guilty wish urge them, enthralled to gain, To break through sacred laws. Behooves them now, With safety in their train, backward to plough 60 .V.SCHYLUS The refluent wave. Should they return exposed To th' anger of the gods, vengeance would wake To seize its prey, might they perchance escape Life's incidental ills. From me thou hearest A woman's sentiment ; and much I wish, Their glories by no rude mischance depressed, To cull from many blessings the most precious. Chor. With manly sentiment thy wisdom, lady, Speaks well. Confiding in thy suasive signs, Prepare we to address the gods ; our strains Shall not without their meed of honour rise. Prosode Supreme of kings, Jove ; and thou, friendly night, That wide o'er Heaven's star-spangled plain Holdest thy awful reign, Thou, that with resistless might O'er Troy's proud towers, and destined state, Hast thrown the secret net of fate, In whose enormous sweep the young, the old, Without distinction rolled, Are with unsparing fury dragged away To slavery and woe a prey ; Thee, hospitable Jove, whose vengeful power These terrors o'er the foe has spread, Thy bow long bent at Paris' head, Whose arrows know their time to fly, Not hurtling aimless in the sky, Our pious strains adore. Strophe i The hand of Jove will they not own ; And, as his marks they trace, Confess he willed, and it was done? Who now of earth-born race Shall dare contend that his hi-h power Deigns not with eye severe to view AGAMEMNON 6l The wretch that tramples on his law ? Hence with this impious lore : Learn that the sons accursed shall rue The madly daring father's pride, That furious drew th' unrighteous sword, High in his house the rich spoils stored, And the avenging gods defied. But be it mine to draw From wisdom's fount, pure as it flows, That calm of soul which virtue only knows. For vain the shield that wealth shall spread, To guard the proud oppressor's head, Who dares the rites of justice to confound, And spurn her altars to the ground. Antistrophe t But suasive is the voice of vice, That spreads th' insidious snare ; She, not concealed, through her disguise Emits a livid glare. Her votary, like adult'rate brass Unfaithful to its use, unsound, Proves the dark baseness of his soul ; Fond as a boy to chase The winged bird light-flitting rqund, And bent on his pernicious play Draws desolation on his state. His vows no god regards, when Fate In vengeance sweeps the wretch away. With base intent and foul, Each hospitable law defied, From Sparta's king thus Paris stole his bride. To Greece she left the shield, the spear, The naval armament of war ; And, bold in ill, to Troy's devoted shore Destruction for her dowry bore. AESCHYLUS Strophe 2 When through the gates her easy way She took, his pensive breast Each prophet smote in deep dismay, ' And thus his grief expressed : " What woes this royal mansion threat, This mansion, and its mighty lord? Where now the chaste connubial bed ? The traces of her feet, By love to her blest consort led, Where now? Ah ! silent, see, she stands; Each glowing tint, each radiant grace, That charm th' enraptured eye, we trace ; And still the blooming form commands, Still honoured, still adored, Though, careless of her former loves, Far o'er the rolling sea the wanton roves ; The husband, with a bursting sigh, Turns from the pictured fair his eye ; While love, by absence fed, without control Tumultuous rushes on his soul. Antistrophe 2 " Oft as short slumbers close his eyes, His sad soul soothed to rest, The dream-created visions rise, With all her charms impressed : But vain th' ideal scene, that smiles With rapturous love and warm delight ; Vain his fond hopes : his eager arms The fleeting form beguiles, On sleep's quick pinions passing light." Such griefs, and more severe than these, Their sad gloom o'er the palace spread ; Thrncc stretch their melancholy shade, And darken o'er the realms of Greece. Struck with no false alarms AGAMEMNON 63 Each house its home-felt sorrow knows, Each bleeding heart is pierced with keenest woes ; When for the hero, sent to share The glories of the crimson war, Naught, save his arms stained with their master's gore, And his cold ashes reach the shore. Strophe j Thus in the dire exchange of war Does Mars the balance hold ; Helms are the scale, the beam a spear, And blood is weighed for gold. Thus, for the warrior, to his friends His sad remains, a poor return, Saved from the sullen fire that rose On Troy's cursed shore, he sends, Placed decent in the mournful urn. With many a tear their dead they weep, Their names with many a praise resound ; One for his skill in arms renowned ; One, that amid the slaughtered heap Of fierce-conflicting foes Glorious in beauty's cause he fell : Yet 'gainst th' avenging chiefs their murmurs swell In silence. Some in youth's fresh bloom Beneath Troy's towers possess a tomb ; Their bodies buried on the distant strand, Seizing in death the hostile land. Antistrophe j How dreadful, when the people raise Loud murmurs mixed with hate ! Yet this the tribute greatness pays For its exalted state. E'en now some dark and horrid deed By my presaging soul is feared ; For never with unheedful eyes, 64 /ESCHYLUS When slaughtered thousands bleed, Did the just powers of Heaven regard The carnage of th' ensanguined plain. The ruthless and oppressive power May triumph for its little hour ; Full soon with all their vengeful train The sullen Furies rise, Break his fell force, and whirl him down Through life's dark paths, unpitied and unknown. And dangerous is the pride of fame, Like the red lightning's dazzling flame. Nor envied wealth, nor conquest let me gain, Nor drag the conqueror's hateful chain. Epode But from these fires far streaming through the night Fame through the town her progress takes, And rapt'rous joy awakes ; If with truth's auspicious light They shine, who knows? Her sacred reign Nor fraud, nor falsehood, dares profane. But who, in wisdom's school so lightly taught, Suffers his ardent thought From these informing flames to catch the fire, Full soon perchance in grief t' expire ? Yet when a woman holds the sovereign sway, Obsequious wisdom learns to bow, And hails the joy it does not know : Though, as the glitt'ring visions roll Before her easy, credulous soul, Their glories fade away. Cly, Whether these fires, that with successive signals Blaze through the night, be true, or like a dream Play with a sweet delusion on the soul, Soon shall we know. A herald from the shore I see ; branches of olive shade his brows. AGAMEMNON 65 That cloud of dust, raised by his speed, assures me That neither speechless, nor enkindling flames Along the mountains, will he signify His message ; but his tongue shall greet our ears With words of joy : far from my soul the thought Of other, than confirm these fav'ring signals. Chor. May he, that to this state shall form a wish Of other aim, on his own head receive it. CLYTEMNESTRA, CHORUS, HERALD Herald. Hail, thou paternal soil of Argive earth ! In the fair light of the tenth year to thee Returned, from the sad wreck of many hopes This one I save ; saved from despair e'en this ; For never thought I in this honoured earth To share in death the portion of a tomb. Hail then, loved earth ; hail, thou bright sun ; and thou, Great guardian of my country, supreme Jove ; Thou, Pythian king, thy shafts no longer winged 'For our destruction ; on Scamander's banks Enough we mourned thy wrath ; propitious now Come, King Apollo, our defence. And all Ye gods, that o'er the works of war preside, I now invoke ; thee, Mercury, my avenger, Revered by heralds, that from thee derive Their high employ ; you heroes, to the war That sent us, friendly now receive our troops, The relics of the spear. Imperial walls, Mansion of kings, ye seats revered ; ye gods, That to the golden sun before these gates Present your honoured forms ; if e'er of old Those eyes with favour haVe beheld the king, Receive him now, after this length of time, With glory ; for he comes, and with him brings To you, and all, a light that cheers this gloom : Then greet him well ; such honour is his meed. The mighty king, that with the mace of Jove 5 66 riYLUS Th % avenger, wherewith he subdues the earth, Hath levelled with the dust the towers of Troy ; Their altars are o'erturned, their sacred shrines, And all the race destroyed. This iron yoke Fixed on the neck of Troy, victorious comes The great Atrides, of all mortal men Worthy of highest honours. Paris now, And the perfidious state, shall boast no more His proud deeds unrevenged ; stripped of his spoils, The debt of justice for his thefts, his rapines, Paid amply, o'er his father's house he spreads With twofold loss the wide-involving ruin. Cly. Joy to thee, herald of the Argive host. Her. For joy like this death were a cheap exchange. Cly. Strong thy affection to thy native soil. Her. So strong, the tear of joy starts from my eye. Cly. What, hath this sweet infection reached e'en you? Her. Beyond the power of language have I felt it. Cly. The fond desire of those, whose equal love Her. This of the army sayst thou, whose warm love Streams to this land ? Is this thy fond desire ? Cly. Such that I oft have breathed the secret sigh. Her. Whence did the army cause this anxious sadness? Cly. Silence I long have held a healing balm. Her. The princes absent, hadst thou whom to fear? Cly. To use thy words, death were a wished exchange. Her. Well is the conflict ended. In the tide Of so long time, if 'midst the easy flow Of wished events some tyrannous blast assail us, What marvel ? Who, save the blest gods, can claim Through life's whole course an unmixed happiness? Should I relate our toils, our wretched plight Wedged in our narrow ill-provided cabins, h irksome hour was loaded with fatigues. Yrt these were slight assays to those worse hardships We suffered on the shore : our lodging near The walls of the enemy, the dews of heaven AGAMEMNON 67 Fell on us from above, the damps beneath From the moist marsh annoyed us, shrouded ill In shaggy cov'rings. Or should one relate The winter's keen blasts, which from Ida's snows Breathe frore, that, pierced through all their plumes, the birds Shiver and die ; or th' extreme heat that scalds, When in his midday caves the sea reclines, And not a breeze disturbs his calm repose. But why lament these sufferings ? They are past ; Past to the dead indeed ; they lie, no more Anxious to rise. What then avails to count Those whom the wasteful war hath swept away, And with their loss afflict the living? Rather Bid we farewell to misery : in our scale, Who haply of the Grecian host remain, The good preponderates, and in counterpoise Our loss is light ; and, after all our toils By sea and land, before yon golden sun It is our glorious privilege to boast, " At length from vanquished Troy our warlike troops Have to the gods of Greece brought home these spoils, And in their temples, to record our conquests, Fixed these proud trophies." Those that hear this boast It well becomes to gratulate the state, And the brave chiefs ; revering Jove's high power That grace our conquering arms. Thou hast my message. Chor. Thy words convince me ; all my doubts are vanished : But scrupulous inquiry grows with age. On Clytemnestra and her house this charge, Blessing e'en me with the rich joy, devolves. Cly. Long since my voice raised high each note of joy, When through the night the streaming blaze first came, And told us Troy was taken : not unblamed That, as a woman lightly credulous, I let a mountain fire transport my soul 68 AESCHYLUS With the fond hope that Ilion's haughty towers Were humbled in the dust. At this rebuke, Though somewhat shaken, yet I sacrificed ; And, as weak woman wont, one voice of joy Awoke another, till the city rang Through all its streets ; and at the hallowed shrines Each raised the pious strains of gratitude, And fanned the altar's incense-breathing flame. But it is needless to detain thee longer, Soon from the king's own lips shall I learn all. How best I may receive my honoured lord, And grace his wished return, now claims my speed. Can heaven's fair beam show a fond wife a sight More grateful than her husband from his wars Returned with glory, when she opes the gate, And springs to welcome him ? Tell my lord this, That he may hasten his desired return : And tell him he will find his faithful wife, Such as he left her, a domestic creature, To him all fondness, to his enemies Irreconcilable ; and tell him too That ten long years have not effaced the seal Of constancy ; that never knew I pleasure In the blamed converse of another man, More than the virgin metal in the mines Knows an adulterate and debasing mixture. Her. This high boast, lady, sanctified by truth, Is not unseemly in thy princely rank. HERALD, CHORUS Chorus. This, for thy information, hath she spoken With dignity and truth. Now tell me, herald, Of Sparta's king wish I to question thee, The pride of Greece : returns he safe with you ? Her. Never can I esteem a falsehood honest, Though my friends long enjoy the sweet delusion. Chor. What then if thou relate an honest truth? AGAMEMNON 69 From this distinction the conjecture's easy. Her. Him from the Grecian fleet our eyes have lost, The hero and his ship. This is the truth. Chor. Chanced this when in your sight he weighed from Troy ; Or in a storm that rent him from the fleet ? Her. Rightly is thy conjecture aimed, in brief Touching the long recital of our loss. Chor. How deemed the other mariners of this ; That the ship perished or rode out the storm ? Her. Who, save yon sun, the regent of the earth, Can give a clear and certain information ? Chor. How saidst thou then a storm, not without loss, Winged with Heaven's fury, tossed the shattered fleet ? Her. It is not meet, with inauspicious tongue Spreading ill tidings, to profane a day Sacred to festal joy : the gods require Their pure rites undisturbed. When with a brow Witness of woe, the messenger relates Unwelcome news, defeats, and slaughtered armies, The wound with general grief affects the state ; And with particular and private sorrow Full many a house, for many that have fall'n Victims to Mars, who to his bloody car Delights to yoke his terrors, sword and spear. A paean to the Furies would become The bearer of such pond'rous heap of ills. My tidings are of conquest and success, Diffusing joy : with these glad sounds how mix Distress, and speak of storm and angry gods ? The powers, before most hostile, now conspired, Fire and the sea, in ruin reconciled : And in a night of tempest wild from Thrace In all their fury rushed the howling winds ; Tossed by the forceful blasts ship against ship In hideous conflict dashed, or disappeared, Driven at the boist'rous whirlwind's dreadful will; 7 /ESCHYLUS But when the sun's fair light returned, we see Bodies of Grecians, and the wreck of ships Float on the chafed foam of th % ^gean Sea. Us and our ship some god, the power of man Were all too weak holding the helm preserved Unhurt, or interceding for our safety ; And fortune, the deliverer, steered our course To shun the waves, that near the harbour's mouth Boil high, or break upon the rocky shore. Escaped th' ingulfing sea, yet scarce secure Of our escape, through the fair day we view With sighs the recent sufferings of the host, Cov'ring the sea with wrecks. If any breathe This vital air, they deem us lost, as we Think the same ruin theirs. Fair fall th' event! But first and chief expect the Spartan king T' arrive ; if yet one ray of yon bright sun Beholds him living, through the care of Jove, Who wills not to destroy that royal race, Well may we hope to joy in his return. Having heard this, know thou hast heard the truth. CHORUS. Strophe i Is there to names a charm profound Expressive of their fates assigned, Mysterious potency of sound, And truth in wondrous accord joined ? Why else this fatal name, That Helen and destruction are the same? Affianced in contention, led, The spear her dowry, to the bridal bed : With desolation in her train, Fatal to martial hosts, to rampired towers, From the rich fragrance of her gorgeous bowers, I >escending to the main, She hastes to spread her flying sails, And calls the earth-born zephyr's gales. AGAMEMNON 7 While heroes, breathing vengeance, snatch their shields, And trace her light oars o'er the pathless waves, To the thick shades fresh waving o'er those fields, Which Simois with his silver windings laves. Antistrophe i To Troy the shining mischief came ; Before her, young-eyed pleasures play ; But in the rear with steadfast aim Grim-visaged Vengeance marks his prey, Waiting the dreadful hour The terrors of offended Heaven to pour On those that dared, an impious train, The rites of hospitable Jove profane ; Nor revered that sacred song, Whose melting strains the bride's approach declare, As Hymen wakes the rapture-breathing air. Far other notes belong, The voice of mirth now heard no more, To Priam's state ; its ruins o'er Wailing instead, distress, and loud lament ; Long sorrows sprung from that unholy bed, And many a curse in heart-felt anguish sent On its woe-wedded Paris' hated head. Strophe 2 The woodman, from his thirsty lair, Reft of his dam, a lion bore ; Fostered his future foe with care To mischiefs he must soon deplore : Gentle and tame, while young, Harmless he frisked the fondling babes among ; Oft in the father's bosom lay, Oft licked his feeding hand in fawning play ; Till, conscious of his firmer age, His lion-race the lordly savage shows ; No more his youth-protecting cottage knows, 72 ^SCHYLUS But with insatiate rage Flies on the flocks, a baleful guest, And riots in th' unbidden feast: While through his mangled folds the hapless swain With horror sees th' unbounded carnage spread ; And learns too late that from th' infernal reign A priest of At6 in his house was bred. Antistrophe 2 To Ilion's towers in wanton state With speed she wings her easy way ; Soft gales obedient round her wait, And pant on the delighted sea. Attendant on her side The richest ornaments of splendid pride : The darts, whose golden points inspire, Shot from her eyes the flames of soft desire ; The youthful bloom of rosy love, That fills with ecstasy the willing soul : With duteous zeal obey her sweet control. But, such the doom of Jove, Vindictive round her nuptial bed, With threat'ning mien and footstep dread, Rushes to Priam and his state severe, To rend the bleeding heart his stern delight, And from the bridal eye to force the tear, Erinnys, rising from the realms of night. Epode From ev'ry mouth we oft have heard This saying, for its age revered : " With joy we see our offspring rise, And happy, who not childless dies : But Fortune, when her flow'rets blow, Oft bears the bitter fruit of woe." Though these saws are as truths allowed, Thus I dare differ from the crowd : AGAMEMNON 73 " One base deed, with prolific power, Like its cursed stock engenders more : But to the just, with blooming grace Still flourishes, a beauteous race." The old Injustice joys to breed Her young, instinct with villanous deed ; The young her destined hour will find To rush in mischief on mankind : She too in At6's murky cell, Brings forth the hideous child of hell, A burden to th' offended sky, The power of bold impiety. But Justice bids her ray divine E'en on the low-roofed cottage shine ; And beams her glories on the life, That knows not fraud, nor ruffian strife. The gorgeous glare of gold, obtained By foul polluted hands, disdained She leaves, and with averted eyes To humbler, holier mansions flies ; And looking through the times to come Assigns each deed its righteous doom. CHORUS, AGAMEMNON Chorus. My royal lord, by whose victorious hand The towers of Troy are fall'n, illustrious son Of Atreus, with what words, what reverence Shall I address thee, not t' o'erleap the bounds Of modest duty, nor to sink beneath An honourable welcome ? Some there are, That form themselves to seem, more than to be, Transgressing honesty : to him that feels Misfortune's rugged hand, full many a tongue Shall drop condolence, though th' unfeeling heart Knows not the touch of sorrow ; these again 4 74 AESCHYLUS In fortune's summer gale, with the like art, Shall dress in forced smiles th' unwilling face : But him the penetrating eye soon marks, That in the seemly garb of honest zeal Attempts to clothe his meagre blandishments. When first in Helen's cause my royal lord Levied his host, let me not hide the truth, Notes, other than music, echoed wide In loud complaints from such as deemed him rash, And void of reason, by constraint to plant In breast averse the martial soul, that glows Despising death. But now their eager zeal Streams friendly to those chiefs, whose prosp'rous valour Is crowned with conquest. Soon then shalt thou learn, As each supports the state, or strives to rend it With faction, who reveres thy dignity. Aga. To Argos first, and to my country's gods, I bow with reverence, by whose holy guidance On Troy's proud towers I poured their righteous venge- ance, And now revisit safe my native soil. No loud-tongued pleader heard, they judged the cause, And in the bloody urn, without one vote Dissentient, cast the lots that fixed the fate Of Ilion and its sons : the other vase Left empty, save of widowed hope. The smoke, Rolling in dusky wreaths, shows that the town Is fall'n ; the fiery storm yet lives, and high The dying ashes toss rich clouds of wealth Consumed. For this behooves us to the gods Render our grateful thanks, and that they spread The net of fate sweeping with angry ruin. In beauty's cause the Argive monster reared Its bulk enormous, to th' affrighted town Portending devastation ; in its womb Hiding embattled hosts, rushed furious forth, About the setting of the Pleiades, 75 And, as a lion rav'ning for its prey, Ramped o'er their walls, and lapped the blood of kings. This to the gods addressed, I turn me now Attentive to thy caution : I approve Thy just remark, and with my voice confirm it. Few have the fortitude of soul to honour A friend's success, without a touch of envy ; For that malignant passion to the heart Cleaves close, and with a double burden loads The man infected with it ; first he feels In all their weight his own calamities, Then sighs to see the happiness of others. This of my own experience have I learned ; And this I know, that many, who in public Have borne the semblance of my firmest friends, Are but the flatt'ring image of a shadow Reflected from a mirror ; save Ulysses Alone, who, though averse to join our arms, Yoked in his martial harness from my side Swerved not ; living or dead be this his praise. But what concerns our kingdom and the gods, Holding a general council of the state, We will consult ; that what is well may keep Its goodness permanent, and what requires Our healing hand, with mild severity May be corrected. But my royal roof Now will I visit, and before its hearths Offer libations to the gods, who sent me To this far-distant war, and led me back. Firm stands the victory that attends our arms. ^CLYTEMNESTRA, AGAMEMNON, CHORUS Clytemnestra. Friends, fellow-citizens, whose counsels guide The state of Argos, in your reverend presence A wife's fond love I blush not to disclose : Thus habit softens dread. From my full heart 7 6 ^SCHYLUS Will I recount my melancholy life Through the long stay of my loved lord at Troy : For a weak woman, in her husband's absence, Pensive to sit and lonely in her house, Tis dismal, list'ning to each frightful tale : First one alarms her, then another comes Charged with worse tidings. Had my poor lord here Suffered as many wounds as common fame Reported, like a net he had been pierced ; Had he been slain oft as the loud-tongued rumour Was noised abroad, this triple-formed Geryon, A second of the name, while yet alive, For of the dead I speak not, well might boast To have received his triple mail, to die In each form singly. Such reports oppressed me, Till life became distasteful, and my hands Were prompted oft to deeds of desperation. Nor is thy son Orestes, the dear tie That binds us each to th' other, present here To aid me, as he ought : nay, marvel not, The friendly Strophius with a right strong arm Protects him in Phocsea ; while his care Saw danger threat' me in a double form, The loss of thee at Troy, the anarchy That might ensue, should madness drive the people To deeds of violence, as men are prompt Insultingly to trample on the fall'n : Such care dwells not with fraud. At thy return The gushing fountains of my tears are dried, Save that my eyes are weak with midnight watchings, Straining, through tears, if haply they might see Thy signal fires, that claimed my fixed attention. If they were closed in sleep, a silly fly Would, with its slightest murm'rings, make me start, And wake me to more fears. For thy dear sake All this I suffered : but my jocund heart Forgets it all, while I behold my lord, AGAMEMNON 77 My guardian, the strong- anchor of my hope, The stately column that supports my house, Dear as an only child to a fond parent ; Welcome as land, which the tossed mariner Beyond his hope descries ; welcome as day After a night of storms with fairer beams Returning ; welcome as the liquid lapse Of fountain to the thirsty traveller : So pleasant is it to escape the chain Of hard constraint. Such greeting I esteem Due to thy honour : let it not offend, For I have suffered much. But, my loved lord, Leave now that car ; nor on the bare ground set That royal foot, beneath whose mighty tread Troy trembled. Haste, ye virgins, to whose care This pleasing office is intrusted, spread The streets with tapestry ; let the ground be covered With richest purple, leading to the palace ; That honour with just state may grace his entry, Though unexpected. My attentive care Shall, if the gods permit, dispose the rest To welcome his high glories, as I ought. Aga. Daughter of Leda, guardian of my house, Thy words are correspondent to my absence, Of no small length. With better grace my praise Would come from others : soothe me not with strains Of adulation, as a girl ; nor raise, As to some proud barbaric king, that loves Loud acclamations echoed from the mouths Of prostrate worshippers, a clamorous welcome : Nor spread the streets with tapestry ; 'tis invidious ; These are the honours we should pay the gods. For mortal man to tread on ornaments Of rich embroidery No : I dare not do it : Respect me as a man, not as a god. Why should my foot pollute these vests, that glow With various tinctured radiance ? My full fame 7 g AESCHYLUS Swells high without it; and the temperate rule Of cool discretion is the choicest gift Of favouring Heaven. Happy the man, whose life Is spent in friendship's calm security. These sober joys be mine, I ask no more. Cly. Do not thou thwart the purpose of my mind. Aga. My mind, be well assured, shall not be tainted. Cly. Hast thou in fear made to the gods this vow? Aga. Free, from my soul in prudence have I said it. Cly. Had Priam's arms prevailed, how had he acted ? Aga. On rich embroidery he had proudly trod. Cly. Then dread not thou th' invidious tongues of men. Aga. Yet has the popular voice much potency. Cly. But the unenvied is not of the happy. Aga. Ill suits it thy soft sex to love contention. Cly. To yield sometimes adds honour to the mighty. Aga. Art thou so earnest to obtain thy wish ? Cly. Let me prevail : indulge me with this conquest. Aga. If such thy will, haste some one, from my feet Unloose these high-bound buskins, lest some god Look down indignant, if with them I press These vests sea-tinctured : shame it were to spoil With unclean tread their rich and costly texture. Of these enough. This stranger, let her find A gentle treatment : from high heaven the god Looks with an eye of favour on the victor That bears his high state meekly ; for none wears Of his free choice the yoke of slavery. And she, of many treasures the prime flower Selected by the troops, has followed me. Well, since I yield me vanquished by thy voice, I go, treading on purple, to my house. Cly. Does not the sea, and who shall drain it, yield Unfailing stores of these rich tints, that glow With purple radiance? These this lordly house Commands, blest with abundance, but to want A stranger. I had vowed his foot should tread AGAMEMNON 79 On many a vestment, when the victims bled, The hallowed pledge which this fond breast devised For his return. For while the vig'rous root Maintains its grasp, the stately head shall rise, And with its waving foliage screen the house From the fierce dog-star's fiery pestilence. And on thy presence at thy household hearth, Ev'n the cold winter feels a genial warmth. But when the hot sun in the unripe grape Matures the wine, the husband's perfect virtues Spread a refreshing coolness. Thou, O Jove, Source of perfection, perfect all my vows, And with thy influence favour my intents ! CHORUS. Strophe i What may this mean ? Along the skies Why do these dreadful portents roll? Visions of terror, spare my aching eyes, Nor shake my sad presaging soul ! In accents dread, not tuned in vain, Why bursts the free, unbidden strain ? These are no phantoms of the night, That vanish at the faithful light Of steadfast confidence. Thou sober power, Whither, ah, whither art thou gone ? For since the long-passed hour, When first for Troy the naval band Unmoored their vessels from the strand, Thou hast not in my bosom fixed thy throne. Antistrophe I At length they come : these faithful eyes, See them returned to Greece again : Yet, while the sullen lyre in silence lies, Erinnys wakes the mournful strain : Her dreadful powers possess my soul, And bid the untaught measures roll ; go AESCHYLUS Swell in rude notes the dismal lay, And fright enchanting hope away ; While, ominous of ill, grim-visaged care Incessant whirls my tortured heart. Vain be each anxious fear ! Return, fair hope, thy seat resume, Dispel this melancholy gloom, And to my soul thy gladsome light impart ! Strophe 2 Ah me, what hope ! This mortal state Nothing but cruel change can know. Should cheerful health our vig'rous steps await, Enkindling all her roseate glow ; Disease creeps on with silent pace, And withers ev'ry blooming grace. Proud sails the bark ; the fresh gales breathe, And dash her on the rocks beneath. In the rich house her treasures plenty pours; Comes sloth, and from her well-poised sling Scatters the piled-up stores. Yet disease makes not all her prey : Nor sinks the bark beneath the sea : And famine sees the heaven-sent harvest spring. A ntistrophe 2 But when forth-welling from the wound The purple-streaming blood shall fall, And the warm tide disdain the reeking ground, Who shall the vanished life recall? Nor verse, nor music's magic power, Nor the famed leech's boasted lore ; Not that his art restored the dead, Jove's thunder burst upon his head. But that the Fates forbid, and chain my tongue, My heart, at inspiration's call, Would the rapt strain prolong : AGAMEMNON gl Now all is dark ; it raves in vain, And, as it pants with trembling pain, Desponding feels its fiery transports fall. CLYTEMNESTRA, CASSANDRA, CHORUS Clytemnestra. Thou too, Cassandra, enter; since high Jove, Gracious to thee, hath placed thee in this house, With many slaves to share the common rites, And deck the altar of the fav'ring god. Come from that chariot, and let temperance rule Thy lofty spirit : ev'n Alcmena's son, Sold as a slave, submitted to the yoke Perforce ; and if necessity's hard hand Hath sunk thee to this fortune, our high rank, With greatness long acquainted, knows to use Its power with gentleness : the low-born wretch, That from his mean degree rises at once To unexpected riches, treats his slaves With barbarous and unbounded insolence. From us thou wilt receive a juster treatment. Chor. These are plain truths : since in the toils of fate Thou art inclosed, submit, if thou canst brook Submission ; haply I advise in vain. Cly. If that her language, like the twittering swallow's, Be not all barbarous and unknown, my words Within shall with persuasion move her mind. Chor. She speaks what best beseems thy present state; Follow, submit, and leave that lofty car. Cly. I have not leisure here before the gates T' attend on her ; for at the inmost altar, Blazing with sacred fires, the victims stand Devoted to the gods for his return So much beyond our hopes. If to comply Thou form thy mind, delay not : if thy tongue Knows not to sound our language, let thy signs Supply the place of words, speak with thy hand. 82 AESCHYLUS Chor. Of foreign birth she understands us not : But as new-taken struggles in the net. Cly. Tis frenzy this, the impulse of a mind Disordered ; from a city lately taken She comes, and knows not how to bear the curb, Till she has spent her rage in bloody foam. But I no more waste words to be disdained. Chor. My words, for much 1 pity her, shall bear No mark of anger. Go, unhappy fair one, Forsake thy chariot, unreluctant learn To bear this new yoke of necessity. Cas. Woe, woe ! O Earth ! Apollo, O Apollo ! Chor. Why with that voice of woe invoke Apollo? Ill do these notes of grief accord with him. Cas. Woe, woe ! O Earth ! Apollo, O Apollo ! Chor. Again her inauspicious voice invokes The god, whose ears are not attuned to woe. Cas. Apollo, O Apollo, fatal leader, Yet once more, god, thou leadest me to ruin ! Chor. She seems prophetic of her own misfortunes, Retaining, though a slave, the divine spirit. Cas. Apollo, O Apollo, fatal leader, Ah, whither hast thou led me ? to what house ? Chor. Is that unknown ? Let me declare it then ; This is the royal mansion of th' Atridae. Cas. It is a mansion hated by the gods, Conscious to many a foul and horrid deed ; A slaughter-house, that reeks with human gore. Chor. This stranger seems, like the nice-scented hound, Quick in the trace of blood, which she will find. Cas. These are convincing proofs. Look there, look there, While pity drops a tear, the children butchered, The father feasting on their roasted flesh ! Chor. Thy fame, prophetic virgin, we have heard ; We know thy skill ; but wish no prophets now. Cas. Ye powers of Heaven, what does she now design ? AGAMEMNON . 8' What new and dreadful deed of woe is this ? What dreadful ill designs she in the house, Intolerable, irreparable mischief, While far she sends the succouring power away ? Chor. These prophecies surpass my apprehension ; The first I knew, they echo through the city. Cas. Ah ! daring wretch, dost thou achieve this deed, Thus in the bath the partner of thy bed Refreshing? How shall I relate th' event? Yet speedy shall it be. Ev'n now advanced Hand above hand extended threatens high. Chor. I comprehend her not ; her words are dark, Perplexing me like abstruse oracles. Cas. Ah ! What is this, that I see here before me ? Is it the net of hell ? Or rather hers, Who shares the bed and plans the murderous deed. Let discord, whose insatiable rage Pursues this race, howl through the royal rooms Against the victim destined to destruction. Chor. What fury dost thou call within this house To hold her orgies ? The dread invocation Appals me ; to my heart the purple drops Flow back ; a deathlike mist covers my eyes, With expectation of some sudden ruin. Cas. See, see there : from the heifer keep the bull ! O'er his black brows she throws th' entangling vest, And smites him with her huge two-handed engine. He falls, amid the cleansing laver falls : I tell thee of the bath, the treach'rous bath. Chor. T' unfold the obscure oracles of Heaven Is not my boast ; beneath the shadowing veil Misfortune lies ; when did th' inquirer learn From the dark sentence an event of joy ? From time's first records the diviner's voice Gives the sad heart a sense of misery. Cas. Ah me, unhappy ! Wretched, wretched fate ! For my own sufferings joined call forth these wailings. 8 4 AESCHYLUS Why hast thou brought me hither ? Wretched me ! Is it for this, that I may die with him ? Chor. This is the frenzy of a mind possessed With wildest ravings. Thy own woes thou wailest In mournful melody ; like the sweet bird, That darkling pours her never-ceasing plaint ; And for her Itys, her lost Itys, wastes In sweetest woe her melancholy life. Cas. Ah me ! the fortune of the nightingale Is to be envied : on her light-poised plumes She wings at will her easy way, nor knows The anguish of a tear, while o'er my head Th' impending sword threatens the fatal wound. Chor. Whence is this violent, this wild presage Of ill ? Thy fears are vain ; yet with a voice That terrifies, though sweet, aloud thou speakest Thy sorrows. Whence hast thou derived these omens, Thus deeply marked with characters of death ? Cas. Alas ! the bed, the bridal bed of Paris, Destructive to his friends ! Paternal stream, Scamander, on thy banks with careless steps My childhood strayed : but now methinks I go, Alas, how soon ! to prophesy around Cocytus, and the banks of Acheron ! Chor. Perspicuous this, and clear ! the new-born babe Might comprehend it ; but thy piercing griefs, Bewailing thus the miseries of thy fate, Strike deep ; they wound me to my very soul. Cas. Ah, my poor country, my poor bleeding country, Fall'n, fall'n forever ! And you, sacred altars, That blazed before my father's towered palace, Not all your victims could avert your doom ! And on the earth soon shall my warm blood flow. Chor. This is consistent with thy former ravings. Or does some god indeed incumbent press Thy soul, and modulate thy voice to utter These lamentable notes of woe and death? AGAMEMNON 85 What th' event shall be, exceeds my knowledge. Cas. The oracle no more shall shroud its visage Beneath a veil, as, a new bride that blushes To meet the gazing eye ; but like the sun, When with his orient ray he gilds the east, Shall burst upon you in a flood of light, Disclosing deeds of deeper dread. Away, Ye mystic coverings ! And you, reverend men, Bear witness to me, that with steady step I trace foul deeds that smell above the earth. For never shall that band, whose yelling notes In dismal accord pierce th' affrighted ear, Forsake this house. The genius of the feast, Drunk with the blood of men, and fired from thence To bolder daring, ranges through the rooms Linked with his kindred Furies : these possess The mansion, and in horrid measures chant The first base deed ; recording with abhorrence Th'' adulterous lust, that stained a brother's bed. What, like a skilful archer, have I lodged My arrow in the mark ? No trifling this, T' alarm you with false sounds. But swear to me, In solemn attestation, that I know, And speak the old offences of this house. Chor. In such a rooted ill what healing power Resides there in an oath ? But much I marvel That thou, the native of a foreign realm, Of foreign tongue, canst speak our language freely, As Greece had been thy constant residence. Cas. Apollo graced me with this skill. At first The curb of modesty was on my tongue. Chor. Did the god feel the force of young desire ? In each gay breast ease fans the wanton flame. Cas. With all the fervour of impatient love He strove to gratify my utmost wish. Chor. And didst thou listen to his tempting lures? Cas. First I assented, then deceived the god. 86 /ESCHYLUS Chor, Wast thou then fraught with these prophetic arts? Cas. Even then I told my country all its woes. Chor. The anger of the god fell heavy on thee? Cas. My voice, for this offence, lost all persuasion. Chor. To us it seems a voice of truth divine. Cas. Woe, woe is me ! Again the furious power Swells in my lab'ring breast ; again commands My bursting voice ; and what I speak is fate. Look, look, behold those children. There they sit ; Such are the forms, that in the troubled night Distract our sleep. By a friend's hands they died : Are these the ties of blood ? See, in their hands Their mangled limbs, horrid repast, they bear: Th' invited father shares th' accursed feast. For this the sluggard savage, that at ease Rolls on his bed, nor rouses from his lair, 'Gainst my returning lord, for I must wear The yoke of slavery, plans the dark design Of death. Ah me ! the chieftain of the fleet, The vanquisher of Troy, but little knows What the smooth tongue of mischief, filed to words Of glozing courtesy, with fate her friend, Like Ate ranging in the dark can do Calmly : such deeds a woman dares : she dares Murder a man. What shall I call this mischief? An Amphisbaena ? or a Scylla rather, That in the vexed rocks holds her residence, And meditates the manner's destruction ? Mother of hell, 'midst friends enkindling discord And hate implacable ! With dreadful daring How did she shout, as if the battle swerved ? Yet with feigned joy she welcomes his return. These words may want persuasion. What of that ? What must come, will come : and ere long with grief Thou shall confess my prophecies are true. Chor. Thyestes' bloody feast oft have I heard of, Always with horror; and I tremble now AGAMEMNON 87 Hearing th' unaggravated truth. What else She utters, leads my wand'ring thoughts astray In wild uncertainty. Cas. Then mark me well, Thou shalt behold the death of Agamemnon. Ckor. To better omens tune that voice unblessed, Or in eternal silence be it sunk. Cas. This is an ill no medicine can heal. Chor. Not if it happens : but avert it, Heaven ! Cas. To pray be thine ; the murd'rous deed is theirs. Chor. What man dares perpetrate this dreadful act? Cas. How widely dost thou wander from my words ! Chor. I heard not whose bold hand should do the deed. Cas. Yet speak I well the language of your Greece. Chor. The gift of Phoebus this ; no trivial grace. Cas. Ah, what a sudden flame comes rushing on me ! I burn, I burn. Apollo, O Apollo ! This lioness, that in a sensual sty Rolled with the wolf, the generous lion absent, Will kill me. And the sorc'ress, as she brews Her philtred cup, will drug it with my blood. She glories, as against her husband's life She whets the axe, her vengeance falls on him For that he came accompanied by me. Why do I longer wear these useless honours, This laurel wand, and these prophetic wreaths? Away ! before I die I cast you from me ; Lie there and perish ; I am rid of you ; Or deck the splendid ruin of some other. Apollo rends from me these sacred vestments, Who saw me in his rich habiliments Mocked 'midst my friends, doubtless without a cause. When in opprobrious terms they jeered my skill, And treated me as a poor vagrant wretch, That told events from door to door for bread, I bore it all : but now the prophet god, That with his own arts graced me, sinks me down 88 AESCHYLUS To this low ruin. As my father fell Butchered ev'n at the altar, like the victim's My warm blood at the altar shall be shed : Nor shall we die unhonoured by the gods. He comes, dreadful in punishment, the son Of this bad mother, by her death t' avenge His murdered father : distant though he roams An outcast and an exile, by his friends Fenced from these deeds of violence, he comes In solemn vengeance for his father laid Thus low. But why for foreign miseries Does the tear darken in my eye, that saw The fall of Ilium, and its haughty conquerors In righteous judgment thus received their meed? But forward now ; I go to close the scene, Nor shrink from death. I have a vow in heaven : And further, I adjure these gates of hell, Well may the blow be aimed, that while my blood Flows in a copious stream, I may not feel The fierce, convulsive agonies of death ; But gently sink, and close my eyes in peace. Chor. Unhappy, in thy knowledge most unhappy, Long have thy sorrows flowed. But if indeed Thou dost foresee thy death, why, like the heifer Led by a heavenly impulse, do thy steps Advance thus boldly to the cruel altar ? Cas. I could not by delay escape my fate. Chor. Yet is there some advantage in delay. Cas. The day is come : by flight I should gain little. Chor. Thy boldness adds to thy unhappiness. Cas. None of the happy shuns his destined end. Chor. True ; but to die with glory crowns our praise. Cas. So died my father, so his noble sons. Chor. What may this mean? Why backward dost thou start? Do thy own thoughts with horror strike thy soul ? Cas. The scent of blood and death breathes from this house. AGAMEMNON 89 Chor. The victims now are bleeding at the altar. Cas. 'Tis such a smell as issues from the tomb. Chor. This is no Syrian odour in the house. Cas. Such though it be, I enter to bewail My fate, and Agamemnon's. To have lived, Let it suffice. And think not, gen'rous strangers, Like the poor bird that flutters o'er the bough, Through fear I linger. But my dying words You will remember, when her blood shall flow For mine, woman's for woman's : and the man's, For his that falls by his accursed wife. Chor. Thy fate, poor sufferer, fills my eyes with tears. Cas. Yet once more let me raise my mournful voice. Thou sun, whose rising beams shall bless no more These closing eyes ! You, whose vindictive rage Hangs o'er my hated murderers, oh avenge me, Though, a poor slave, I fall an easy prey ! This is the state of man : in prosperous fortune A shadow, passing light, throws to the ground Joy's baseless fabric : in adversity Comes Malice with a sponge moistened in gall, And wipes each beauteous character away ; More than the first this melts my soul to pity. Chor. By nature man is formed with boundless wishes For prosperous fortune ; and the great man's door Stands ever open to that envied person, On whom she smiles ; but enter not with words, Like this poor sufferer, of such dreadful import. His arms the powers of Heaven have graced with con- quest ; Troy's proud walls lie in dust; and he returns Crowned by the gods with glory : but if now His blood must for the blood there shed atone, If he must die for those that died, too dearly He buys his triumph. Who of mortal men Hears this, and dares to think his state secure? Aga. [within] Oh ! I am wounded with a deadly blow. 00 /ESCHYLUS SemicJior. List, list ! What cry is this of wounds and death ? Aga. Wounded again, oh, basely, basely murdered ! SEMICHORUS Tis the king's cry ; the dreadful deed is doing. What shall we do ? What measures shall we form ? What if we spread th' alarm, and with our outcries Call at the palace gates the citizens ? Nay, rather rush we in, and prove the deed, While the fresh blood is reeking on the sword. I readily concur ; determine then ; For something must be done, and instantly. That's evident. This bloody prelude threatens More deeds of violence and tyranny. We linger : those that tread the paths of honour, Late though she meets them, sleep not in their task. Perplexity and doubt distract my thoughts : Deeds of high import ask maturest counsel. Such are my thoughts, since fruitless were th' attempt By all our pleas to raise the dead to life. To save our wretched lives then shall we bow To these imperious lords, these stains of honour? That were a shame indeed ! No ; let us die : Death is more welcome than such tyranny. Shall we then take these outcries, which we heard, For proofs, and thence conclude the king is slain ? We should be well assured ere we pronounce : To know, and to conjecture, differ widely. There's reason in thy words. Best enter then, And sec what fate attends the son of Atreus. AGAMEMNON 91 CLYTEMNESTRA, CHORUS Clytemnestra. To many a fair speech suited to the times, If my words now be found at variance, I shall not blush. For when the heart conceives Thoughts of deep vengeance on a foe, what means T' achieve the deed more certain, than to wear The form of friendship, and with circling wiles Inclose him in th' insuperable net? This was no hasty, rash-conceived design ; But formed with deep, premeditated thought, Incensed with wrongs ; and often have I stood, T' assay the execution, where he fell ; And planned it so, for I with pride avow it, He had no power t' escape, or to resist, Entangled in the gorgeous robe, that shone Fatally rich. I struck him twice, and twice He groaned, then died. A third time as he lay I gored him with a wound, a grateful present To the stern god, that in the realms below Reigns o'er the dead : there let him take his seat. He lay ; and spouting from his wounds a stream Of blood, bedewed me with these crimson drops. I glory in them, like the genial earth, When the warm showers of heaven descend, and wake The flow'rets to unfold their vermeil leaves. Come then, ye reverend senators of Argos, Joy with me, if your hearts be tuned to joy ; And such I wish them. Were it decent now To pour libations o'er the dead, with justice It might be done ; for his injurious pride Filled for this house the cup of desolation, Fated himself to drain it to the dregs. Chor. We are astonished at thy daring words, Thus vaunting o'er the ruins of thy husband. Cly. Me, like a witless woman, wouldst thou fright ? I tell thee, my firm soul disdains to fear. Be thou disposed t' applaud, or censure me, 9 2 AESCHYLUS I reck it not : there Agamemnon lies, My husband, slaughtered by this hand : I dare Avow his death, and justify the deed. Chor. What poison hath the baleful teeming earth, Or the chafed billows of the foamy sea, Given thee for food, or mingled in thy cup, To work thee to this frenzy ? Thy cursed hand Hath struck, hath slain. For this thy country's wrath Shall in just vengeance burst upon thy head, And with abhorrence drive thee from the city. Cly. And dost thou now denounce upon my head Vengeance, and hate, and exile ? 'Gainst this man Urging no charge? Yet he without remorse, As if a lamb that wantoned in his pastures Were doomed to bleed, could sacrifice his daughter, For whose dear sake I felt a mother's pains, T' appease the winds of Thrace. Should not thy voice Adjudge this man to exile, in just vengeance For such unholy deeds ? Scarce hast thou heard What I have done, but sentence is pronounced, And that with rigour too. But mark me well, I boldly tell thee that I bear a soul Prepared for either fortune ; if thy hand Be stronger, use thy power : but if the gods Prosper my cause, be thou assured, old man, Thou shalt be taught a lesson of discretion. Chor. Aspiring are thy thoughts, and thy proud vaunts Swell with disdain ; ev'n yet thy madding mind Is drunk with slaughter ; with a savage grace The thick blood stains thine eye. But soon thy friends Faithless shall shrink from thy unsheltered side, And leave thee to just vengeance, blow for blow. Cly. Hear then this solemn oath : By that revenge, Which for my daughter I have greatly taken ; By the dread powers of At6 and Erinnys, To whom my hand devoted him a victim, Without a thought of fear I range these rooms, AGAMEMNON 93 While present to my aid JEgisthus stands, As he hath stood, guarding my social hearth : He is my shield, my strength, my confidence. Here lies my base betrayer, who at Troy Could revel in the arms of each Chryseis ; He, and his captive minion ; she that marked Portents and prodigies, and with ominous tongue Presaged the Fates ; a wanton harlotry, True to the rower's benches; their just meed Have they received. See where he lies ; and she, That like the swan warbled her dying notes, His paranymph lies with him, to my bed Leaving the darling object of my wishes. Chor. No slow-consuming pains, to torture us Fixed to the groaning couch, await us now ; But Fate comes rushing on, and brings the sleep That wakes no more. There lies the king, whose vir- tues Were truly royal. In a woman's cause He suffered much ; and by a woman perished. Ah, fatal Helen ! in the fields of Troy How many has thy guilt, thy guilt alone, Stretched in the dust ? But now by murd'rous hands Hast thou sluiced out this rich and noble blood, Whose foul stains never can be purged. This ruin Hatl? discord, raging in the house, effected. Cly. Wish not for death ; nor bow beneath thy griefs ; Nor turn thy rage on Helen, as if she Had drenched the fields with blood, as she alone Fatal to Greece had caused these dreadful ills. Chor. Tremendous fiend, that breathest through this house Thy baleful spirit, and with equal daring Hast steeled these royal sisters to fierce deeds That rend my soul, now, like the baleful raven, Incumbent o'er the body dost thou joy T' affright us with thy harsh and dissonant notes ! 94 ! I VI. US Cly. There's sense in this : now hast thou touched the key, Rousing the fury that from sire to son Hath bade the stream of blood, first poured by her, Descend : one sanguine tide scarce rolled away, Another flows in terrible succession. Chor. And dost thou glory in these deeds of death, This vengeance of the fury ? Thus to pride thee In ruin, and the havoc of thy house, Becomes thee ill. Ah ! 'tis a higher power, That thus ordains : we see the hand of Jove, Whose will directs the fate of mortal man. My king, my royal lord, what words can show My grief, my reverence for thy princely virtues ! Art thou thus fall'n, caught in a cobweb snare, By impious murder breathing out thy life? Art thou thus fall'n, ah the disloyal bed ! Secretly slaughtered by a treach'rous hand ? Cly. Thou say'st, and say'st aloud, I did this deed : Say not that I, that Agamemnon's wife, Did it : the fury, fatal to this house, In vengeance for Thyestes' horrid feast, Assumed this form, and with her ancient rage Hath for the children sacrificed the man. Chor. That thou art guiltless of this blood, what proof, What witness? From the father, in his cause, Rise an avenger ! Stained with the dark streams Of kindred blood fierce waves the bick'ring sword, And points the ruthless boy to deeds of horror. My king, my royal lord, what words can show My grief, my reverence for thy princely virtues ! Art thou thus fall'n, caught in a cobweb snare, By impious murder breathing out thy life? Art thou thus fall'n, ah the disloyal bed ! Secretly slaughtered by a treach'rous hand? Cly. No : of his death far otherwise I deem, Nothing disloyal. Nor with secret guile AGAMEMNON 95 Wrought he his murd'rous mischiefs on this house. For my sweet flow'ret, opening from his stem, My Iphigenia, my lamented child, Whom he unjustly slew, he justly died. Nor let him glory in the shades below ; For as he taught his sword to thirst for blood, So by the thirsty sword his blood was shed. Chor. Perplexed and troubled in my anxious thought, Amid the ruins of this house, despair Hangs heavy on me. Drop by drop no more Descends the shower of blood ; but the wild storm In one red torrent shakes the solid walls ; While vengeance, ranging through the dreadful scene, For further mischief whets her fatal sword. Semichor. O Earth, that I had rested in thy bosom, Ere I had seen him lodged with thee, and shrunk To the brief compass of a silver urn ! Who shall attend the rites of sepulture ? Who shall lament him ? Thou, whose hand has shed Thy husband's blood, wilt thou dare raise the voice Of mourning o'er him? Thy unhallowed hand Renders these honours, should they come from thee, Unwelcome to his shade. What faithful tongue, Fond to recount his great and godlike acts, Shall steep in tears his funeral eulogy ? Cly. This care concerns not thee : by us he fell, By us he died : and we will bury him With no domestic grief. But Iphigenia, His daughter, as is meet, jocund and blithe Shall meet him on the banks of that sad stream, The flood of sorrow, and with filial duty Hang fondling on her father's neck, and kiss him. Chor. Thus insult treads on insult. Of these things Hard is it to decide. Th' infected stain Communicates th' infection ; murder calls For blood ; and outrage on th' injurious head, At Jove's appointed time, draws outrage down. 9 6 A:SCHYLUS Thus, by the laws of Nature, son succeeds To sire ; and who shall drive him from the house ? Cly. These are the oracles of truth. But hear me ; It likes me to the genius of the race Of Plisthenes to swear that what is past, Though poor the satisfaction, bounds my wishes. Hither he comes no more : no, let him stain Some other house with gore. For me, some poor, Some scanty pittance of the goods contents me, Well satisfied that from this house I've driven These frantic Furies red with kindred blood. ^EGISTHUS, CLYTEMNESTRA, CHORUS JEgisthus. Hail to this joyful day, whose welcome light Brings vengeance ! Now I know that the just gods Look from their skies, and punish impious mortals, Seeing this man rolled in the blood-wove woof, The tissue of the Furies, grateful sight, And suffering for his father's fraudful crimes. Atreus, his father, sovereign of this land, Brooking no rival in his power, drove out My father and his brother, poor Thyestes, A wretched exile : from his country far He wandered ; but at length returned, and stood A suppliant before the household gods, Secure in their protection that his blood Should not distain the pavement. This man's father, The sacrilegious Atreus, with more show Of courtesy than friendship, spread the feast ; Devoting, such the fair pretence, the day To hospitality and genial mirth : Then to my father in that feast served up The flesh of his own sons : their hands and feet Hacked off before, their undistinguished parts He ate, without suspicion ate, a food Destructive to the race. But when he knew Th' unhallowed deed, he raised a mournful cry, AGAMEMNON 97 And starting up with horror spurned to the ground The barb'rous banquet, utt'ring many a curse Of deepest vengeance on the house of Pelops. Thus perish all the race of Plisthenes! And for this cause thou seest him fall'n ! His death With justice I devised ; for me he chased, The thirteenth son, an infant in my cradle, With my unhappy father. Nursed abroad, Vengeance led back my steps, and taught my hand From far to reach him. All this plan of ruin Was mine, reckless of what ensues ; ev'n death Were glorious, now he lies caught in my vengeance. Chor. T' embitter ills with insult, this, TEgisthus, I praise not. Thou, of thine own free accord, Hast slain this man ; such is thy boast ; this plan Of ruin, which we mourn, is thine alone. But be thou well assured thou shalt not 'scape, When, roused to justice, the avenging people Shall hurl their stones with curses on thy head. sEgis. From thee, who labourest at the lowest oar, This language, and to him that holds the helm ! Thou shalt be taught, old man, what at thy age Is a hard lesson, prudence. Chains and hunger, Besides the load of age, have sovereign virtue To physic the proud heart. Behold this sight ; Does it not ope thine eyes ? Rest quiet then ; Contend not with the strong ; there's danger in it. Chor. And could thy softer sex, while the rough war Demands its chieftain, violate his bed, And on his first return contrive his death ? sEgis. No more: this sounds th* alarm to rude com- plaints. The voice of Orpheus with its soothing notes Attracted ev'n the savage ; while thy yells To rage inflame the gentle : but take heed ; Dungeons and chains may teach thee moderation. I 9 8 /KSCHYLUS Chor. Shalt thou reign king in Argos ? Thou, whose soul Plotted this murder ; while thy coward hand Shrunk back, nor dared to execute the deed ? sEgis. Wiles and deceit are female qualities : The memory of my ancient enmity Had waked suspicion. Master of his treasures, Be it my next attempt to gain the people : Whome'er I find unwilling to submit, Him, like a high-fed and unruly horse Reluctant to the harness, rigour soon Shall tame : confinement, and her meagre comrade, Keen hunger, will abate his fiery mettle. Chor. Did not the baseness of thy coward soul Unman thee to this murder, that a woman, Shame to her country and her country's gods, Must dare the horrid deed ? But when Orestes, Where'er he breathes the vital air, returns, Good fortune be his guide, shall not his hand Take a bold vengeance in the death of both ? jEgis. Since such thy thoughts and words, soon shalt thou feel Chor. Help, ho ! soldiers and friends ; the danger's near ; Help, ho ! advance in haste with your drawn swords ! jEgis. My sword is drawn : ^Egisthus dares to die. Chor. Prophetic be thy words ! We hail the omen, Cly. Dearest of men, do not heap ills on ills : I wish not to exasperate, but to heal, Misfortune's past : enough is given to vengeance ; Let no more blood be spilt. Go then, old men, Each to your homes ; go, while ye may, in peace. What hath been done the rigour of the times Compelled, and hard necessity ; the weight Of these afflictions, grievous as they are, By too severe a doom falls on our heads. Disdain not to be taught, though by a woman. AGAMEMNON 99 is. Ay ; but to hear this vain, tongue-doughty bab- bler, Lavish of speech that tempts to desperate deeds, It moves me from the firmness of my temper. Chor. An Argive scorns to fawn on guilty greatness. AZgis. My vengeance shall o'ertake thee at the last. Chor. Not if just Heaven shall guide Orestes hither. sEgis. An exile, I well know, feeds on vain hopes. Chor. Go on then, gorge with blood ; thou hast the means. JEgis. This folly, be assured, shall cost thee dear. Chor. The craven, in her presence, rears his crest. Cly. Slight men, regard them not; but let us enter, Assume our state, and order all things well. THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES TRANSLATED BY RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE JEBB SOPHOCLES was born in 496 B.C. and lived to the age of ninety-one. His father, Sophillus, was a wealthy citizen of Colonos, a fashionable suburb of Athens, and the young dramatist received the best education that Greece could afford. In music, which he studied under Lamprocles, he was particularly apt, and at the age of sixteen he was chosen to lead a chorus of youths in the celebration of the victory of Salamis (480 B. c.). He was frequently employed as ambassador, and in other high offices in the republic, and in the Samian War was given the generalship in joint command with Pericles. This appointment is said to have been influ- enced by the great popular success of "Antigone." At twenty-eight he competed with yEschylus, and was awarded the prize by Cimon and his fellow-generals, who had just returned from Scyros and were the judges for that year (468 B. c.). From that time until the death of ./Eschylus he divided honours about equally with his great predecessor, never taking less than a third prize, and continually growing in popularity. Seven of the eighty or more plays that he is supposed to have written remain for our study and enjoyment, together with many fragments of those less fortunate in the wreck of time. The probable order of their production is as follows: "Ajax," "Antigone," " Electra," " CEdipus Tyrannus," " Trachinise," " CEdipus Coloneus," and " Philoctetes." Cicero voices a popular tradition where he says, in his essay "On Old Age": "Sopho- cles continued in extreme old age to write tragedies. As he seemed to neglect his family affairs while he was wholly intent on his dramatic compositions, his sons instituted a suit against him in a court of judica- ture, suggesting that his understanding was impaired, and praying that he might be removed from the management of his estate. It is said that when the old bard appeared in court on this occasion he desired that he might be permitted to read a play which he had lately finished, and which he then held in his hand; it was his 'CEdipus Coloneus.' His request being granted, after he had finished the recital he appealed to the judges whether they could discover in his performance any symptoms of an insane mind, and the result was that the court unanimously dismissed the complainants' petition." The poet died in 405. "Philoctetes" was produced in 409, and " CEdipus Coloneus" is said not to have been acted until after the poet's death. I DRAMATIS PERSONS ANTIGONE. ISMENE. EURYDICE. CREON. H.-EMON. TEIRESIAS. GUARD. MESSENGER. SECOND MESSENGER. CHORUS OF THEBAN ELDERS. SCENE : An open space before the Royal Palace (once that of CEdipus) at Thebes. The back-scene represents the front of the palace, with three doors, of which the central is the largest, being the principal entrance to the court of the house. ANTIGONE At daybreak, on the morning after the fall of the two brothers and the flight of the Argives. ANTIGONE calls ISMENB forth from the house, in order to speak with her apart. AITIGONE. Ismene, my sister, mine own dear sister, knowest thou what ill there is, of all bequeathed by CEdipus, that Zeus fulfils not for us twain while we live ? Nothing- painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonour, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine. And now what new edict is this of which they tell, that our Captain hath just published to all Thebes ? Knowest thou aught ? Hast thou heard ? Or is it hidden from thee that our friends are threatened with the doom of our foes? Ismene. No word of friends, Antigone, gladsome or painful, hath come to me, since we two sisters were bereft of brothers twain,- killed in one day by a twofold blow; and since in this last night the Argive host has fled, I know no more, whether my fortune be brighter, or more grievous. An. I knew it well, and therefore sought to bring thee beyond the gates of the court, that thou mightest hear alone. Is. What is it? Tis plain that thou art brooding on some dark tidings. 5 105 I0 6 SOPHOCLES An. What! hath not Creon destined our brothers, the one to honoured burial, the other to unbtiried shame? Eteocles, they say, with due observance of right and cus- tom, he hath laid in the earth, for his honour among the dead below. But the hapless corpse of Polyneices as rumour saith, it hath been published to the town that none shall entomb him or mourn, but leave unwept, un- sepulchred, a welcome store for the birds, as they espy him, to feast on at will. Such, 'tis said, is the edict that the good Creon hath set forth for thee and for me yes, for me and is coming hither to proclaim it clearly to those who know it not ; nor counts the matter light, but, whoso disobeys in aught, his doom is death by stoning before all the folk. Thou knowest it now ; and thou wilt soon show whether thou art nobly bred, or the base daughter of a nobler line. Is. Poor sister and if things stand thus, what could I help to do or undo? An. Consider if thou wilt share the toil and the deed. Is. In what venture? What can be thy meaning? An. Wilt thou aid this hand to lift the dead ? Is. Thou wouldst bury him when 'tis forbidden to Thebes? An. I will do my part and thine, if thou wilt not to a brother. False to him will I never be found. Is. Ah, over-bold ! when Creon hath forbidden ? An. Nay, he hath no right to keep me from mine own. Is. Ah me ! think, sister, how our father perished, amid hate and scorn, when sins bared by his own search had moved him to strike both eyes with self-blinding hand ; then the mother wife, two names in one, with twisted noose did despite unto her life; and last, our two brothers in one day each shedding, hapless one, a kins- man's blood wrought out with mutual hands their com- mon doom. And now nr in turn we two left all alone think how we shall perish, more miserably than all the , if, in defiance of the law, we brave a king's decree or ANTK 107 his powers. Nay, we must remember, first, that we were born women, as who should not strive with men ; next, that we are ruled of the stronger, so that we must obey in these things, and in things yet sorer. I, therefore, ask- ing the spirits infernal to pardon, seeing that force is put on me herein, will hearken to our rulers ; for 'tis witless to be over-busy. An. I will not urge thee no, nor, if thou yet shouldst have the mind, wouldst thou be welcome as a worker with me. Nay, be what thou wilt ; but I will bury him : well for me to die in doing that. I shall rest, a loved one with him whom I have loved, sinless in my crime ; for I owe a longer allegiance to the dead than to the living: in that world I shall abide forever. But if thou wilt, be guilty of dishonouring la\vs which the gods have established in honour. Is. I do them no dishonour; but to defy the state I have no strength for that. An. Such be thy plea: I, then, will go to heap the earth above the brother whom I love. Is. Alas, unhappy one ! How I fear for thee ! An. Fear not for me : guide thine own fate aright. Is. At least, then, disclose this plan to none, but hide it closely and so, too, will I. An. Oh, denounce it! Thou wilt be far more hateful for thy silence, if thou proclaim not these things to all. Is. Thou hast a hot heart for chilling deeds. An. I know that I please where I am most bound to please. Is. Ay, if thou canst ; but thgu wouldst what thou canst not. An. Why, then, when my strength fails, I shall have done. Is. A hopeless quest should not be made at all. An. If thus thou speakest, thou wilt have hatred from me, and wilt justly be subject to the lasting hatred of the dead. But leave me, and the folly that is mine alone, to I0 8 SOPHOCLES suffer this dread thing ; for I shall not suffer aught so dreadful as an ignoble death. Is. Go, then, if thou must ; and of this be sure that, though thine errand is foolish, to thy dear ones thou art truly dear. {Exit ANTIGONE on the spectators left. ISMENE retires into the palace by one of the two side-doors. Chorus. Beam of the sun, fairest light that ever dawned on Thebe of the seven gates, thou hast shone forth at last, eye of golden day, arisen above Dirce's streams ! The warrior of the white shield, who came from Argos in his panoply, hath been stirred by thee to headlong flight, in swifter career ; who set forth against our land by reason of the vexed claims of Polyneices ; and, like shrill-scream- ing eagle, he flew over into our land, in snow-white pinion sheathed, with an armed throng, and with plumage of helms. He paused above our dwellings ; he ravened around our sevenfold portals with spears athirst for blood ; but he went hence, or ever his jaws were glutted with our gore, or the Fire-god's pine-fed flame had seized our crown of towers. So fierce was the noise of battle raised behind him, a thing too hard for him to conquer, as he wrestled with his dragon foe. For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue ; and when he beheld them coming on in a great stream, in the haughty pride of clanging gold, he smote with bran- dished fire one who was now hasting to shout victory at his goal upon our ramparts. Swung down, he fell on the earth with a crash, torch in hand, he who so lately, in the frenzy of the mad onset, was raging against us with the blasts of his tempestuous hate. But those threats fared not as he hoped ; and to other foes the mighty War-god dispensed their several dooms, dealing havoc around, a mighty helper at our need. For seven captains at seven gates, matched against ANTIGONE 109 seven, left the tribute of their panoplies to Zeus who turns the battle ; save those two of cruel fate, who, born of one sire and one mother, set against each other their twain conquering spears, and are sharers in a common death. But since Victory of glorious name hath come to us, with joy responsive to the joy of Thebe whose chariots are many, let us enjoy forgetfulness after the late wars, and visit all the temples of the gods with night-long dance and song ; and may Bacchus be our leader, whose dancing shakes the land of Thebe. But lo, the king of- the land comes yonder, Creon, son of Menoeceus, our new ruler by the new fortunes that the gods have given ; what counsel is he pondering, that he hath proposed this special conference of elders, summoned by his general mandate ? Enter CREON, from the central doors of the palace, in the garb of king; with two attendants Creon. Sirs, the vessel of our state, after being tossed on wild waves, hath once more been safely steadied by the gods : and ye, out of all the folk, have been called apart by my summons, because I knew, first of all, how true and constant was your reverence for the royal power of Laius ; how, again, when OEdipus was ruler of our land, and when he had perished, your steadfast loyalty still upheld their children. Since, then, his sons have fallen in one day by a twofold doom each smitten by the other, each stained with a brother's blood I now possess the throne and all its powers, by nearness of kinship to the dead. No man can be fully known, in soul and spirit and mind, until he hath been seen versed in rule and law- giving. For if any, being supreme guide of the state, cleaves not to the best counsels, but, through some fear, keeps kis lips locked, I hold, and have ever held, him most base ; and if any makes a friend of more account than his fatherland, that man hath no place in my regard. For I be Zeus my witness, who sees all things always IIO SOPHOCLES would not be silent if I saw ruin, instead of safety, coming to the citizens ; nor would I ever deem the country's foe a friend to myself ; remembering this, that our country is the ship that bears us safe, and that only while she pros- pers in our voyage can we make true friends. Such are the rules by which I guard this city's great- ness. And in accord with them is the edict which I have now published to the folk touching the sons of QEdipus ; that Eteocles, who hath fallen fighting for our city, in all renown of arms, shall be entombed, and crowned with every rite that follows the noblest dead to their rest. But for his brother, Polyneices who came back from exile, and sought to consume utterly with fire the city of his fathers and the shrines of his fathers' gods sought to taste of kindred blood, and to lead the remnant into slavery touching this man, it hath been proclaimed to our people that none shall grace him with sepulture or lament, but leave him unburied, a corpse for birds and dogs to eat, a ghastly sight of shame. Such the spirit of my dealing ; and never, by deed of mine, shall the wicked stand in honour before the just ; but whoso hath good-will to Thebes, he shall be honoured of me, in his life and in his death. Ch. Such is thy pleasure, Creon, son of Menceceus, touching this city's foe, and its friend ; and thou hast power, 1 ween, to take what order thou wilt, both for the dead and for all of us who live. Cr. See, then, that ye be guardians of the mandate. Ch. Lav the burden of this task on some younger man. Cr. Nay, watchers of the corpse have been found. Ch. \Vhat, then, is this further charge that thou wouldst give? Cr. That ye side not with the breakers of these com- mands. Ch. No man is so foolish that he i^ enamoured of death. Cr. In M.oth, thr.t i^ th meed : yd lucre hath oft ruined men through their hoi n ANTIGONE III Enter GUARD Guard. My liege, I will not say that I come breathless from speed, or that I have plied a nimble foot ; for often did my thoughts make me pause, and wheel round in my path, to return. My mind was holding large discourse with me : " Fool, why goest thou to thy certain doom ? " " Wretch, tarrying again ? And if Creon hears this from another, must not thou smart for it? " So debating, I went on my way with lagging steps, and thus a short road was made long. At last, however, it carried the day that I should come hither to thee ; and, though my tale be naught, yet will I tell it ; for I come with a good grip on one hope that I can suffer nothing but what is my fate. Cr. And what is it that disquiets thee thus? Gu. I wish to tell thee first about myself I did not do the deed I did not see the doer it were not right that I should come to any harm. Cr. Thou hast a shrewd eye for thy mark ; well dost thou fence thyself round against the blame clearly thou hast some strange thing to tell. Gu. Ay, truly ; dread news makes one pause long. Cr. Then tell it, wilt thou, and so get thee gone ? Gu. Well, this is it. The corpse some one hath just given it burial, and gone away after sprinkling thirsty dust on the flesh with such other rites as piety enjoins. Cr. What sayest thou ? What living man hath dared this deed ? Gu. I know not ; no stroke of pickaxe was seen there, no earth thrown up by mattock ; the ground was hard and dry, unbroken, without track of wheels ; the doer was one who had left no trace. And when the first day- watchman showed it to us, sore wonder fell on all. The dead man was veiled from us ; not shut within a tomb, but lightly strewn with dust, as by the hand of one who shunned a curse. And no sign met the eye as though any beast of prey or any dog had come nigh to him, or torn him. 112 SOPHOCLES Then evil words flew fast and loud among us, guard accusing guard ; and it would e'en have come to blows at last, nor was there any to hinder. Every man was the culprit, and no one was convicted, but all disclaimed knowledge of the deed. And we were ready to take red- hot iron in our hands to walk through fire to make oath by the gods that we had not done the deed that we were not privy to the planning or the doing. At last, when all our searching was fruitless, one spake, who made us all bend our faces on the earth in fear ; for we saw not how we could gainsay him, or es- cape mischance if we obeyed. His counsel was that this deed must be reported to thee, and not hidden. And this seemed best ; and the lot doomed my hapless self to win this prize. So here I stand as unwelcome as unwilling, well I wot ; for no man delights in the bearer of bad news. Ch. O King, my thoughts have long been whispering, can this deed, perchance, be e'en the work of gods ? Cr. Cease, ere thy words fill me utterly with wrath, lest thou be found at once an old man and foolish. For thou sayest what is not to be borne, in saying that the gods have care for this corpse. Was it for high reward of trusty service that they sought to hide his nakedness, who came to burn their pillared shrines and sacred treas- ures, to burn their land, and scatter its laws to the winds? Or dost thou behold the gods honouring the wicked ? It can not be. No ! From the first there were certain in the town that muttered against me, chafing at this edict, wagging their heads in secret ; and kept not their necks duly under the yoke, like men contented with my sway. Tis by them, well I know, that these have been be- guiled and bribed to do this deed. Nothing so evil as money ever grew to be current among men. This lays cities low, this drives men from their homes, this trains and warps honest souls till they set themselves to works of shame ; this still teaches folk to practise villanies, and to know every godless deed. ANTIGONE 113 But all the men who wrought this thing for hire have made it sure that, soon or late, they shall pay the price. Now, as Zeus still hath my reverence, know this I tell it thee on my oath : If ye find not the very author of this burial, and produce him before mine eyes, death alone shall not be enough for you, till first hung up alive, ye have revealed this outrage that henceforth ye may thieve with better knowledge whence lucre should be won, and learn that it is not well to love gain from every source. For thou wilt find that ill-gotten pelf brings more men to ruin than to weal. Gu. May I speak? Or shall I just turn and go? Cr. Knowest thou not that even now thy voice of- fends ? Gu. Is thy smart in the ears, or in the soul ? Cr. And why wouldst thou define tjie seat of my pain ? Gu. The doer vexes thy mind, but I, thine ears. Cr. Ah, thou art a born babbler, 'tis well seen. Gu. May be, but never the doer of this deed. Cr. Yea, and more the seller of thy life for silver. Gu. Alas ! Tis sad, truly, that he who judges should misjudge. Cr. Let thy fancy play with " judgment " as it will but, if ye show me not the doers of these things, ye shall avow that dastardly gains work sorrows. {Exit. Gu. Well, may he be found ! so 'twere best. But, be he caught or be he not fortune must settle that truly thou wilt not see me here again. Saved, even now, be- yond hope and thought, I owe the gods great thanks. [Exit. Chorus. Wonders are many, and none is more wonder- ful than man ; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south wind, making a path under surges that threaten to ingulf him ; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year. H 4 SOPHOCLES And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive man ex- cellent in wit ! And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills ; he tames the horse of shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull. And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself ; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when 'tis hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain ; yea, he hath resource for all ; without resource he meets nothing that must come : only against Death shall he call for aid in vain ; but from baffling maladies he hath devised es- capes. Cunning beyond fancy's dream is the fertile skill which brings him, now to evil, now to good. When he honours the laws of the land, and that justice which he hath sworn by the gods to uphold, proudly stands his city : no city hath he who, for his rashness, dwells with sin. Never may he share my hearth, never think my thoughts, who doth these things ! Enter the GUARD, on the spectators' left, leading ANTIGONE What portent from the gods is this? my soul is amazed. I know her how can I deny that yon maiden is Antigone? O hapless, and child of hapless sire of CEdipus ! What means this? Thou brought a prisoner? thou, dis- loyal to the king's laws, and taken in folly ? (in. Here she is, the doer of the deed : we caught this girl burying him but where is Creon ? ( //. Lo, he comes forth again from the house, at our need. Cr. What is it ? What hath chanced, that makes my coming tinu-ly ? ANTIGONE 115 Gu. O King, against nothing should men pledge their word ; for the after-thought belies the first intent. I could have vowed that I should not soon be here again scared by thy threats, with which I had just been lashed: but since the joy that surprises and transcends our hopes is like in fulness to no other pleasure I have come, though 'tis in breach of my sworn oath, bringing this maid ; who was taken showing grace to the dead. This time there was no casting of lots ; no, this luck hath fallen to me, and to none else. And now, Sire, take her thyself, question her, examine her, as thou wilt ; but I have a right to free and final quittance of this trouble. Cr. And thy prisoner here how and whence hast thou taken her? Gu. She was burying the man ; thou knowest all. Cr. Dost 'thou mean what thou sayest ? Dost thou speak aright? Gu. I saw her burying the corpse that thou hadst for- bidden to bury. Is that plain and clear? Cr. And how was she seen ? how taken in the act ? Gu. It befell on this wise : When we had come to the place with those dread menaces of thine upon us we swept away all the dust that covered the corpse, and bared the dank body well ; and then sat us down on the brow of the hill, to windward, heedful that the smell from him should not strike us ; every man was wide awake, and kept his neighbour alert with torrents of threats, if any one should be careless of this task. So went it, until the sun's bright orb stood in mid heaven, and the heat began to burn : and then suddenly a whirlwind lifted from the earth a storm of dust, a trouble in the sky, and filled the plain, marring all the leafage of its woods ; and the wide air was choked therewith : we closed our eyes, and bore the plague from the gods. And when, after a long while, this storm had passed, the maid was seen ; and she cried aloud with the sharp cry of a bird in its bitterness even as when, within the Il6 SOPHOCLES empty nest, it sees the bed stripped of its nestlings. So she also, when she saw the corpse bare, lifted up a voice of wailing, and called down curses on the doers of that deed. And straightway she brought thirsty dust in her hands ; and from a shapely ewer of bronze, held high, with thrice-poured drink-offering she crowned the dead. We rushed forward when we saw it, and at once closed upon our quarry, who was in no wise dismayed. Then we taxed her with her past and present doings ; and she stood not on denial of aught at once to my joy and to my pain. To have escaped from ills one's self is a great joy ; but 'tis painful to bring friends to ill. Howbeit, all such things are of less account to me than mine own safety. Cr. Thou thou whose face is bent to earth dost thou avow, or disavow, this deed ? An. I avow it; I make no denial. Cr. (To GUARD.) Thou canst betake thee whither thou wilt, free and clear of a grave charge. {Exit GUARD. (To ANTIGONE.) Now, tell me thou not in many words, but briefly knewest thou that an edict had for- bidden this? An, I knew it: could I help it? It was public. Cr. 'And thou didst indeed dare to transgress that law ? An. Yes ; for it was not Zeus that had published me that edict; not such are the laws set among men by the Justice who dwells with the gods below ; nor deemed I that thy decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes of Heaven. For their life is not of to-day or yesterday, but from all time, and no man knows when they were first put forth. Not through dread of any human pride could I answer to the gods for breaking these. Die I must I knew that well (how should I not?) even without thy edicts. But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain : for when any one lives, as I do, compassed about with evils, can such a one find aught but gain in death ? So for me to meet, lliis doom is trifling grief; but if I ANTIGONE had suffered my mother's son to lie in death an unburied corpse, that would have grieved me ; for this, I am not grieved. And if my present deeds are foolish in thy sight, it may be that a foolish judge arraigns my folly. Ch. The maid shows herself passionate child of pas- sionate sire, and knows not how to bend before troubles. " Cr. Yet I would have thee know that o'er-stubborn spirits are most often humbled ; 'tis the stiffest iron, baked to hardness in the fire, that thou shalt oftenest see snapped and shivered ; and I have seen horses that show temper brought to order by a little curb ; there is no room for pride, when thou art thy neighbour's slave. This girl was already versed in insolence when she transgressed the laws that had been set forth ; and, that done, lo! a second insult to vaunt of this, and exult in her deed. Now verily I am no man, she is the man, if this victory shall rest with her, and bring no penalty. No ! be she sister's child, or nearer to me in blood than any that wor- ships Zeus at the altar of our house she and her kinsfolk shall not avoid a doom most dire ; for indeed I charge that other with a like share in the plotting of this burial. And summon her for I saw her e'en now within raving, and not mistress of her wits. So oft, before the deed, the mind stands self-convicted in its treason, when folks are plotting mischief in the dark. But verily this, too, is hateful when one who hath been caught in wickedness then seeks to make the crime a glory. An. Wouldst thou do more than take and slay me? Cr. No more, indeed ; having that, I have all. An. Why then dost thou delay? In thy discourse there is naught that pleases me never may there be ! and so my words must needs be unpleasing to thee. And yet, for glory whence could I have won a nobler, than by giving burial to mine own brother ? All here would own that they thought it well, were not their lips sealed by fear. But royalty, blest in so much besides, hath the power to do and say what it will. Z1 8 SOPHOCLES Cr. Thou differest from all these Thebans in that view. An. These also share it ; but they curb their tongues for thee. Cr. And art thou not ashamed to act apart from them ? An. No ; there is nothing shameful in piety to a brother. Cr. Was it not a brother, too, that died in the op- posite cause ? An. Brother by the same mother and the same sire. Cr. Why, then, dost thou render a grace that is im- pious in his sight ? An. The dead man will not say that he so deems it. Cr. Yea, if thou makest him but equal in honour with the wicked. An. It was his brother, not his slave, that perished. Cr. Wasting this land ; while he fell as its champion. An. Nevertheless, Hades desires these rites. Cr. But the good desires not a like portion with the evil. An. Who knows but this seems blameless in the world below ? Cr. A foe is never a friend not even in death. An. Tis not my nature to join in hating, but in loving. Cr. Pass, then, to the world of the dead, and, if thou must needs love, love them. While I live, no woman shall rule me. Enter ISMENE from the house, led in by two attendants Ch. Lo, yonder Ismene comes forth, shedding such tears as fond sisters weep ; a cloud upon her brow casts its shadow over her darkly flushing face, and breaks in on her fair cheek. Cr. And thou, who, lurking like a viper in my house, wast secretly draining my life-blood, while I knew not that I was nurturing two pests, to rise against my throne ANTIGONE U 9 come, tell me now, wilt thou also confess thy part in this burial, or wilt thou forswear all knowledge of it? Is. I have done the deed if she allows my claim and share the burden of the charge. An. Nay, justice will not suffer thee to do that: thou didst not consent to the deed, nor did I give thee part in it. Is. But, now that ills beset thee, I am not ashamed to sail the sea of trouble at thy side. An. Whose was the deed, Hades and the dead are wit- nesses : a friend in words is not the friend that I love. Is. Nay, sister, reject me not, but let me die with thee, and duly honour the dead. An. Share not thou my death, nor claim deeds to which thou hast not put thy hand : my death will suffice. Is. And what life is dear to me, bereft of thee? An. Ask Creon ; all thy care is for him. Is. Why vex me thus, when it avails thee naught? An. Indeed, if I mock, 'tis with pain that I mock thee. Is. Tell me how can I serve thee, even now ? An. Save thyself: I grudge not thy escape. Is. Ah, woe is me ! And shall I have no share in thy fate? An. Thy choice was to live ; mine, to die. Is. At least thy choice was not made without my protest. An. One world approved thy wisdom ; another mine. Is. Howbeit, the offence is the same for both of us. An. Be of good cheer; thou livest ; but my life hath long been given to death, that so I might serve the dead. Cr. Lo, one of these maidens hath newly shown her- self foolish, as the other hath been since her life began. Is. Yea, O King, such reason as Nature may have given abides not with the unfortunate, but goes astray. Cr. Thine did, when thou chosest vile deeds with the vile. Is. What life could I endure, without her presence? I20 SOPHOCLES Cr. Nay, speak not of her " presence " ; she lives no more. Is. But wilt thou slay the betrothed of thine own son ? Cr. Nay, there are other fields for him to plough. Is. But there can never be such love as bound him to her. Cr. I like not an evil wife for my son. An. Hasmon, beloved ! How thy father wrongs thee ! Cr. Enough, enough of thee and of thy marriage ! Ch. Wilt thou indeed rob thy son of this maiden ? Cr. Tis Death that shall stay these bridals for me. Ch. 'Tis determined, it seems, that she shall die. Cr. Determined, yes, for thee and for me. (To the two attendants^) No more delay servants, take them within ! Henceforth they must be women, and not range at large ; for verily even the bold seek to fly, when they see Death now closing on their life. \Exeunt attendants, guarding ANTIGONE and ISMENE. CREON remains Ch. Blest are they whose days have not tasted of evil. For when a house hath once been shaken from heaven, there the curse fails nevermpre, passing from life to life of the race ; even as, when the surge is driven over the darkness of the deep by the fierce breath of Thracian sea- winds, it rolls up the black sand from the depths, and there is a sullen roar from wind-vexed headlands that front the blows of the storm. I see that from olden time the sorrows in the house of the Labdacidae are heaped upon the sorrows of the dead ; and generation is not freed by generation, but some god strikes them down, and the race hath no deliverance. For now that hope of which the light had been spread above the last root of the house of CEdipus that hope, in turn, is brought low by the blood-stained dust due to the gods infernal, and by folly in speech, and frenzy at the heart. ANTIGONE 121 * Thy power, O Zeus, what human trespass can limit? That power which neither Sleep, the all-ensnaring, nor the untiring- months of the gods can master ; but thou, a ruler to whom time brings not old age, dwellest in the dazzling splendour of Olympus. And through the future, near and far, as through the past, shall this law hold good : Nothing that is vast enters into the life of mortals without a curse. For that hope whose wanderings are so wide is to many men a comfort, but to many a false lure of giddy desires ; and the disappointment comes on one who knoweth naught till he burn his foot against the hot fire. For with wisdom hath some one given forth the fa- mous saying, that evil seems good, soon or late, to him whose mind the god draws to mischief ; and but for the briefest space doth he fare free of woe. But lo, Hasmon, the last of thy sons comes he griev- ing for the doom of his promised bride, Antigone, and bitter for the baffled hope of his marriage ? Enter H^MON Cr. We shall know soon, better than seers could tell us. My son, hearing the fixed doom of thy betrothed, art thou come in rage against thy father? Or have I thy good-will, act how I may ? Hce. Father, T am thine ; and thou, in thy wisdom, tracest for me rules which I shall follow. No marriage shall be deemed by me a greater gain than thy good guidance. Cr. Yea, this, my son, should be thy heart's fixed law in all things to obey thy father's will. 'Tis for this that men pray to see dutiful children grow up around them in their homes that such may requite their father's foe with evil, and honour, as their father doth, his friend. But he who begets unprofitable children what shall we say that he hath sown, but troubles for himself, and much triumph for his foes? Then do not thou, my son, at pleasure's 122 SOPHOCLES beck, dethrone thy reason for a woman's sake; knowing that this is a joy that soon grows cold in clasping arms an evil woman to share thy bed and thy home. For what wound could strike deeper than a false friend ? Nay, with loathing, and as if she were thine enemy, let this girl go to find a husband in the house of Hades. For since I have taken her, alone of all the city, in open disobedi- ence, I will not make myself a liar to my people I will slay her. So let her appeal as she will to the majesty of kindred blood. If I am to nurture mine own kindred in naughti- ness, needs must I bear with it in aliens. He who does his duty in his own household will be found righteous in the state also. But if any one transgresses, and does vio- lence to the laws, or thinks to dictate to his rulers, such a one can win no praise from me. No, whomsoever the city may appoint, that man must be obeyed, in little things and great, in just things and unjust ; and I should feel sure that one who thus obeys would be a good ruler no less than a good subject, and in the storm of s'pears would stand his ground where he was set, loyal and dauntless at his comrade's side. But disobedience is the worst of evils. This it is that ruins cities ; this makes homes desolate ; by this, the ranks of allies are broken into headlong rout : but, of the lives whose course is fair, the greater part owes safety to obe- dience. Therefore we must support the cause of order, and in no wise suffer a woman to worst us. Better to fall from power, if we must, by a man's hand ; then we should not be called weaker than a woman. Ch. To us, unless our years have stolen our wit thou seemest to say wisely what thou sayest. H