THE HOUSE OF ATREUS.
THE
HOUSE OF ATREUS
BEING
THE AGAMEMNON, LIBATION-BEARERS,
AND FURIES OF AESCHYLUS.
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY
E. D. A. MORSHEAD, M.A
LATE FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD,
ASSISTANT MASTER OF WINCHESTER COLLEGE.
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents ; O how frail
To that large utterance of the early gods !
Hyperion.
IConlion :
SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL. STATIONERS' HALL COURT.
Minrljester :
WARREN AND SON, 85. HIGH STREET.
WINCHESTER :
BARREN AND SON, 85, HIGH ST
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DEDICATED TO
EDWARD CHARLES WICKHAM.
2022128
PREFACE.
son of Euphorion, an Athenian of the deme of
Eleusis, was bom, B.C. 525. He consecrated his life to the
tragic art from his youth upwards : yet he is held to have
been a valiant soldier, and with his brother Cynegirus to
have fought at Marathon, and at Salamis, and at Platsea as
some say. Afterwards, being at variance with the Athe-
nians, he went away from them unto Sicily, and dwelt at
the court of Hiero, tyrant of Gela, and was held by him in
high honour. He died in his sixty-ninth year by a strange
fate, whereof he had been warned in an oracle, saying A
stroke from heaven shall slay thee. For as he was walking
on the shore, an eagle, that had snatched up a tortoise into
the air, let it drop ; and it fell upon him, and he died.
Such is almost all that we are told, and more than we can
be said to know certainly, of the life of the poet, whose
masterpiece I have done my best to render into English
verse, with the hope of helping one or two of those to whom
the original is a closed book, to share in its treasures.
The remaining fragments of tradition the cause of his
quarrel with his countrymen the statement that he divulged
the Sacred Mysteries remain, not now to be verified. Of
PREFACE.
those given above, the tale of his death has been preserved
for its striking singularity : it has the authority of story,
and no more. To his familiarity with war, by land and sea,
his surviving dramas bear the strongest witness. There is
a priori likelihood, and intrinsic evidence, and some external
testimony, of his having shared in one or more of the great
battles which saved the western world. Nor does his
departure from Athens to whatever cause it was due
nor his residence, apparently on two separate occasions,
in Sicily, admit of doubt. A vague statement* that his
poetry was inspired by wine a portraiture of him by
the pen of Aristophanes in the Frogs (intended, as, I am
convinced, those of Euripides and Socrates by the same
hand were intended, mainly as a literary portrait of the
author and teacher, not a delineation of the man as he was) ;
some notices! from Aristotle of the improvements intro-
duced by him into the arrangements of the dramatic stage :
these, and a few others, form the whole of our scanty
information respecting the life of ^Eschylus, son of
Euphorion. Slat magni nominis umbra.
Of his works there remain to us seven dramas only, out of
a very large number. Fragments or notices bring up the
total to seventy-eight plays of which the titles are known.
If we can judge of those we have not, in any degree, by
those which we have, and many of the fragments lead us
towards such an estimate, the chaos of lost things holds
no equal treasure : but it is not now to be rescued ; in his
own words
Perhaps a list of the surviving dramas may be useful to those
wishing to form an idea of the poet's scope and range.
* Athen. x, p. 428, F.
t Poet. 4, Hor. A. P. /. 278 ; Themistius Or. 26.
PREFACE.
These plays (in the chronological order that seems most
probable) are
I. The Suppliant Maidens.
The Scene is laid at Argos.
II. The Prometheus Bound.
The Scene is on a Scythian peak, looking doumfrom
afar upon the Euxine.
III. The Persians.
Scene The Tomb of Darius at Susa, the treasure
city of the king of Persia.
IV. The Seven against Thebes.
Scene, the City of Thebes in Baotia.
i V. The Agamemnon.
VI. The Libation-Bearers.
I VII. The Furies.
Of these three last plays, which form a consecutive whole,
called a Trilogy, and yet are individually complete, the scene
is Argos or Mycensc : * afterwards, the Temple of Apollo at
Delphi : lastly, the Acropolis and Areopagus at Athens.
Of an Athenian Trilogy (i.e., a combination of three
dramas by the same hand, whether on the same or different
subjects, for consecutive presentment on the same day, and
followed by a lighter play called a Satyric Drama), there
* Argos and Mycenas are in reality about six miles apart, in the great
xorXo* "Ap>o?, wide valley of Argolis. The relics of the dynasty of
Atreus are undoubtedly at Mycenae. ^Eschylus however calls the scene,
always, Argos : not caring to particularize about a district so well known.
The fact that he describes the beacon fire on Mount Arachne as visible to
the palace need not lead us to conclude that he had Argos more in mind
than Mycenae : though the mountain is visible (if I remember right) from
Larissa, the citadel of Argos, and not (I am sure) from the Acropolis of
Mycenae. The beacon-glare would have been clearly seen from either, no
doubt But ./Eschylus ignores such detail : as Mr. Clark (Peloponnesus,
p. 70) remarks, every Athenian saw daily from his own hills the peak of
Arachne to the south, and knew it looked upon the region of Argos : and
this was enough for the poet
PREFACE.
remains to us this solitary specimen : of the Satyric Drama,
the Cyclops of Euripides, familiar to English readers by
Shelley's translation.
It may be added, to explain the apparent difficulty of
listening continuously to three dramas, each in itself a
perfect whole, that, in the first place, a whole day of leisure,
and not the few last hours, between work or play, and sleep,
of an exhausted audience, was devoted to the Theatre ; and
secondly, that the whole length of the three plays combined
which form this Trilogy is rather less than that of Hamlet.
I do not say that they would not necessarily take longer to
act than Hamlet : but merely that the intellectual strain,
to an appreciative audience, would not necessarily be greater.
Change of interest, not mere rest, is the essential relaxation
of the mind, and this, which Shakespeare provides, e.g., by
the soliloquies of Hamlet, the Greek dramatists and pre-
eminently ^Eschylus provided by the Choric Odes, or
chants inserted between the several episodes of the play.
Of such Odes, this Trilogy, and especially the Agamemnon,
presents to us the noblest surviving specimens. They may
be regarded as the poet's profoundest musings on the moral
and religious and historical problems suggested by the
mythical tale which forms the groundwork of his drama.
Of the grandeur, the preternatural effect, of these
musings, while the imminent doom is preparing, no words
of explanation or translation can give an adequate account.
If it is lawful to adopt words written for a very different
purpose by a poet in whom survives more of the spirit of
^Eschylus than in any other -modern one might say of
these choric odes, " They are as a pause, a breathing-space,
a curtain behind which God, the great scene-shifter, prepares
the last and supreme act of the mighty drama. Listen,
how, in the deep shadow behind, a dull and heavy sound
is waxing ! Listen, what footstep is that which passes to
PREFACE.
and fro ? Look ! how the curtain sways and waves and
trembles before the breath of that which is behind ! " *
Of the mythical tale, well known as it is, which forms the
groundwork of this Trilogy, some slight sketch may be
useful.
Atreus and Thyestes, sons of Pelops, fled from their
father and dwelt at Argos with Eurystheus the king thereof:
and when he died, Atreus f ruled in his place, and wedded
his daughter. But Thyestes wronged his brother's wife, and
was banished from Argos. And after a while he returned
again, and clung unto the altar at Argos; and Atreus,
fearing to slay him, devised this deed. He slew certain
of the children of Thyestes, and bade him to a banquet, and
gave him to eat of his own children's flesh : and he ate,
knowing not what it was. But when he knew what was
done, he spake a bitter curse upon the house of Atreus, that
they all should perish by a doom like that of his own
children. And there befel these woes unto that house, that
for three generations the curse of murder departed not
away. For the children of Atreus, Agamemnon and
Menelaus, wedded the daughters of Leda, Clytemnestra
and Helen : and afterwards Paris the son of Priam, being
the guest of Menelaus, did bear away Helen his queen unto
Troy. And Agamemnon and Menelaus went forth to
vengeance against Paris and Troy. But Artemis was wroth
with the brothers, and forbade their ships to sail ; and they
lay at Aulis many days. And Calchas the prophet pro-
claimed that they should not go forth, unless Agamemnon
* V. Hugo, Napoleon le Petit, ch. last.
t The position of Pleisthenes in the family of Atreus seems doubtful,
though the lineage is twice called by his name. (Ag. II. 1569, 1602).
Atreus is distinctly called father of Agamemnon (/. 1561), yet tradition
rather holds that Pleisthenes was son of Atreus and father of Agamemnon
and Menelaus, but, dying young, left his children to the care of their
grandfather Atreus.
PREFACE.
should offer up his daughter Iphigenia in sacrifice unto
Arteinis. And the king was unwilling so to do : yet for his
oath's sake, and for his brother and the captains of the
fleet, he consented, and offered up his daughter : and the
fleet sailed. And they besieged Troy for nine years, and in
the tenth year it fell.
But Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, was wroth
because of her daughter's death ; and she did evil with
yEgisthus, the youngest son of Thyestes ; and they plotted
to murder Agamemnon when he should return, and sent
away his son Orestes unto Strophius, king of Phocis, that
he might not know what they did. And when Agamemnon
came back from Troy Clytemnestra received him gladly,
and led him into the palace : and as he was bathing himself,
she flung over him a net, and smote him, and he died : and
Clytemnesti'a and ^Egisthus ruled in Argos.
But Orestes heard of his father's wrongful death, and
went unto the oracle of Delphi to enquire thereof, and
Apollo bade him avenge his father, and not spare his own
mother but slay her. And secretly he came to Argos,
bearing feigned news of his own death in Phocis, and so
came into the palace of his father again, and slew his
mother Clytemnestra and ^Egisthus. Then was he dis-
traught and maddened by the Furies, in revenge for
Clytemnestra's slaying : and he wandered over the earth,
seeking purification for his deed, but the Furies followed
him. At last he came to the temple of Delphi, and clung
to the altar : and the God cast a deep sleep over the Furies,
and bade him fly to Athens, where he should find safety.
But the ghost of Clytemnestra arose from the shades and
awoke the Furies, and they followed him, and were wroth
with Apollo. And they held dispute on the Acropolis, and
Athena bade certain of the men of Athens decide the cause
with her. And in the end they proclaimed the deed of
PREFACE. xiii
Orestes to have been rightly done, and the guilt of matricide
to have been wiped away. Then the Furies were angered
with Athena and her land : but Athena promised them great
honour from the Athenians, and a sacred dwelling place in
the land, even a cave beneath Areopagus ; and they were
appeased, and were called no more Furies, but Gracious
Goddesses. And Orestes went back unto his father's
kingdom, and the curse of blood upon the house of
Atreus was stayed.*
It will be obvious, even from a compendium like the
foregoing, that the myth is an epic in itself : and
regarding ^Eschylus' treatment of it as a whole, we may
discern a special propriety in the poet's recorded saying,
that his dramas were "scraps from the lordly feast of
Homer." I have sometimes fancied that an interesting
parallel might be drawn between the three parts of the
Trilogy, and the three divisions of the Divina Commedia.
For we have in both, the same central idea ; the succession,
that is, of guilt, atonement, absolution. Dante fixes his
epic in the future world, ^Eschylus in the present: but
mutatis mutandis, substituting the deepest religious thought
of Athens for that of the middle ages, the most shadowy
and gigantic vision of retributory forces for the clearest
and most distinct we shall find the parallel curiously
suggestive, to say the least, of the essential unity of moral
speculation. The first part of the Trilogy, the drama
Agamemnon, takes up the above myth at the point
where Agamemnon's return from Troy is being anxiously
awaited at Argos, in the tenth year of the war. The first
choric ode recalls some of the previous history, dwelling
* I have ventured to give to the whole Trilogy the title of The House of
Atreus as the name most applicable to all three parts. The older name
Oresteia seems to me to have meant, in Aristophanes, (Frogs, 1124),
The Libation-Bearers only : it is hardly applicable to the Agamemnon,
xiv PREFACE.
particularly on the circumstances of the sacrifice of
Iphigenia. Then follows the appearance of the Herald,
and of Agamemnon ; the treacherous welcome of Cly-
temnestra; the prophecy of Cassandra, daughter of Priam,
now a captive in Agamemnon's train ; the murder of the
king, and Clytemnestra's savage exultation over his body
and that of Cassandra. With the appearance of yEgisthus,
and his avowal of his plot and motives, the drama closes,
leaving Clytemnestra and her paramour in supreme power
over Argos.
The second part, called the Choephoroi, or Libation-
Bearers from the duty imposed upon the chorus of pouring
libations on Agamemnon's tomb opens with the secret
return of Orestes, the mutual recognition of himself and
his sister Electra, and their invocation of the sleepless spirit
of their father to aid their planned revenge. Then Orestes,
assuming the character of a Phocian stranger, recounts to
Clytemnestra a feigned tale of his own death in that land.
Then, received into the palace, he slays ^Egisthus and
Clytemnestra, and avows his commission from Apollo to
do the deed. But already his " are but wild and whirling
words ;" and, maddened by the guilt of blood, he sees the
Furies arise, with dark robes and snaky hair; and, calling
on Apollo for protection, he flees wildly away.*
* Two scenes of the Trilogy have been thus admirably sketched by Mr.
Browning in " Pauline."
"Old lore,
Loved for itself and all it shows ; the king
Treading the purple calmly to his death,
While round him, like the clouds of eve, all dusk,
The giant shades of fate, silently flitting,
Pile the dim outline of the coming doom.
And the boy
With his white breast and brow, and clustering curls,
Streaked with his mother's blood, and striving hard
To tell his story ere his reason goes."
PREFACE.
The third part, called The Furies (the Greek name
" Euuienides " signifying literally " The Gracious Ones,"
from the change in the nature of the Furies with which the
drama closes), opens at Delphi in the temple of Apollo.
The Furies lie in sleep, made drowsy by the God : Orestes
clings to the altar : Apollo bids him be of good hope, and
depart unto Athens while the Furies are yet asleep. As
he passes from the stage, the ghost of Clytemnestra rises
and calls the slumbering Furies to arise and pursue the
criminal. Then Apollo himself, with words of loathing,
bids them forth from his temple ; and scenting like hounds
the truck of blood, they follow the flying Orestes.
Here the scene shifts to Athens ; Orestes, having followed
the behest of Apollo, clings to the statue of Athena on the
Acropolis, and claims her aid. The cause is tried, appar-
ently on Areopagus (the scene probably representing both
the Acropolis and the adjacent Areopagus) Athena pre-
siding, Apollo pleading Orestes' part, the Furies impeaching
him of matricide. The votes are cast, and found equal, for
acquittal and condemnation ; and this result, as Athena
has previously ruled, gives Orestes the benefit of the doubt.
The Furies, wroth at being thus defrauded of their victim,
vow vengeance on Athena's land and nation : but she
appeases them by promising them honourable worship for
ever, as gracious and fostering Powers of Earth, from her
own Athenians : and so, solemnly escorted by torches and
processions, they pass down into their subterranean cave
beneath Areopagus, with words of blessing upon Attica;
and the third and last part of the Trilogy closes with joy
and with extinction of the curse.
It will appear by a glance at this plot that the Agamemnon
and The Libation- Bearers are both of them Tragedies in the
accepted modern sense ; the one closing with the death of
Agamemnon and the triumph of murder and adultery ; the
other, with the death of Clytemnestra and with madness as
xvi PREFACE.
the reward of matricide. The Furies might seem, to modern
eyes, less a tragedy than a drama of restoration ; yet it con-
forms in all respects to the Aristotelian definition of Tragedy.
The situation is undeniably tragic, though the conclusion
dispels the gloom.
The Trilogy is ^Eschylus' presentment of two problems,
each of eternal import, though the form in which he
contemplated them was the common theme of the Greek
drama. These problems are :
I. The Retribution of Crime.
II. The Inheritance or Transmission of Evil.
The views of the poet on each may perhaps be illustrated
by a few excerpts from his writings. It has been pointed
out (Plumptre, Biographical Essay) that, in many cases, they
are reflections on the <yva)fj,ai, or current proverbs of the day:
the foundations of Greek philosophy, but often as forgotten
as those who laid them. Sometimes the poet actually quotes
and acknowledges the proverb, as a rpiyepwv /u)0o?,
" an immemorial saying ; " but often, it is probable that
some piece of apparently irrelevant mysticism is in reality
the poet's reflection on some saying familiar to his audience,
but not recognizable by us. Such, e.g., I believe to be the
case in the celebrated passage (Agam, 160) Zevs, 6'<rrt<?
TTOT' eoTtV. tc.T.\.
RETRIBUTION. " Among the dead, this bitter name of
murderess clings ever to my soul ; I wander scorned of
all." " Though he go down to the grave, the guilty is
never freed . . . the sinner on whose hand is the stain
of blood must see the Furies rise at his side, avengers of
murder, champions of the slain." The Furies, II. 175, 316.
" There is one who spoils the spoiler ; the slayer in his
turn is slain; while Zeus is lord of the world, it is fixed
that all who sin shall suffer." Agamemnon, I. 1562.
PREFACE.
" The anvil-block of Justice is planted firm : Fate the
sword-smith hammers the steel of her design : the mighty
Fury from her dark depth of counsel requites to the
uttermost at last the guilt of blood shed forth of old."
The Libation-Bearers, I. 647.
"There is a law that blood-drops shed upon the ground
demand other bloodshed in requital : Murder calls aloud,
summoning a Fury, who brings a further woe, sent up in
vengeance from those who were slain before. Ibid, /. 400.
INHERITANCE OF EVIL. "One said of old that the gods
have no heed to punish him who tramples down the grace
of things holy : 'twas impiously said ! their vengeance is
manifested upon the children of all who breathe forth
rebellion overmuch, what time their houses teem with weal
too great for man." Agamemnon, I. 369.
" There is an ancient saying, that human bliss, if it reach
its summit, doth not die childless ; that from prosperity
springs up a bane, a woe insatiable. I hold not so : 'tis
impious act that bears those many children, all like the race
from which they sprang : but the house of the upright hath
a blessed fate, a progeny of good." Agamemnon, I. 750.
These excerpts, few oiit of many passages bearing on
the same subject, may perhaps be a help towards grasping
the import of these dramas as a whole. Not the least of
^Eschylus' claims to honour in his divergence, in some
points, from the traditional and accepted views of the time,
with respect to hereditary guilt and responsibility. A belief
in a jealous and vindictive Power, in children suffering for
their fathers' sins, in families lying under a curse for
generations was not only familiar to the Athenians of this
epoch, but approached the condition of an accepted tenet :
it was even, at times, a political force : as, in the case of
Pericles, his membership of the Alcmceonid family (which
lay under a curse for the perfidious and impious murder of
PREP ACE.
the partisans of Cylon) undoubtedly operated in his
disfavour. (See Thucyd. Bk. i, ch. 127.)
The proportion of people who believe in an unjust,
capricious, and vindictive God may have diminished since
the time of ^Eschylus and Ezekiel : yet to this day so
large a minority are haunted by corresponding ideas so
considerable even in our own time has been the political .
influence of such notions that the earnest protest of the
Hebrew prophet and the less distinct yet equally purified
doctrine of the Athenian poet can neither of them be said
to have lost their importance nor to have done their work.
The eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, and the third chorus of
the Agamemnon, should be read together, as the grandest
assertions, in pre-christian times, of the justice of God.
The poetry of ^Eschylus is the precursor of the philosophy
of Plato : the vague and mysterious problems over which
the poet brooded became the subjects of moral philosophy
in the next generation. Let it be remembered that we
have in ^Eschylus the beginnings of speculation, not its
ultimate forms ; and the greatness of this first step will be
at once apparent. ^Eschylus deals especially with two
popular theories : (i.) The doctrine of the jealousy of
Heaven against human prosperity as such; (ii.) The
doctrine above mentioned of the inheritance of evil in
certain families.
The first, he may be said to deny. The teaching of
Solon, as recorded and exemplified by Herodotus in the
history of Croesus (Book i, ch. 30-33), "that the Divine
Power is altogether jealous, and loves to trouble the estate
of man," is confronted by ^Eschylus with the assertion of
justice, not caprice, as ruling over man. That this con-
ception brought the poet into collision with the popular
ideas of Zeus, is manifest from the drama of Prometheus
Vinctus (where, unfortunately, we have the problem without
PREFACE. xix
its solution, the rest of the trilogy being lost) : that the
national polytheism had little hold on his belief, however
largely it affected his poetry, seems to me plain from all his
deeper utterances, notwithstanding the assertion of Klausen
(Theol. JEsch., p. 5) to the contrary.* But of the poet's
attitude towards the theory of a vindictive God, there is
no question. " I am alone in my thought" he cries ; " it is
not wealth, nor prosperity it is impiety that breeds other
sins, and woe for its sequel." It is hard to resist the
temptations of wealth, and power, and victory ; yet not
these things, but the yielding to their temptations, do
the gods punish : not Agamemnon's triumph, not even
the carnage of Troy, but his arrogance and pride on his
return : his making himself equal to the gods. (Ag. I. 811).
The second doctrine that of the inheritance of evil in
certain families, forms the groundwork of the whole Trilogy;
and the poet's views on it must be collected : they are
nowhere concentrated or distinctly expressed. Substantially
they appear to apply to the following condition of things.
The idea of an Ate, or inherited curse which dogs certain
families, has a double origin.
I. An origin of fact : that children are like their parents,
grow up under their influence, borrow from their connection
with them much of their own character.
II. An origin in custom. A family crime had a far more
serious import to an ancient Greek than we can readily
realize.! It is the simple fact, that the idea of individual
responsibility, and even of individual existence, was almost
absent from him. The family was his unit; the family
sinned in the sin of any of its members ; the family exacted
or suffered vengeance ; any member of the family who was
slain by another was held to have incurred the stain of
suicide.
* See Fr. 295. f See Maine, "Ancient Law," ch. 5.
PREFACE
The author of the Trilogy endeavours to purify these
ideas, and to reconcile them alike with the doctrine of
Justice and with the facts of the world. The reality of the
curse is not denied, but the voluntary nature of each stage
in its history is asserted, as is the responsibility of the
individual criminal for his own act. The temptation, the
predisposition, may be extraneous, may be imposed by
heaven ; the deed is his own.
"The first step he is master not to take;" but, if once
it be taken, if the altar of right be once spurned the
miserable, desperate impulse is upon him; he goes from sin to
sin, there is no help for him, he has passed among the lost.
Such, I believe, is the inner doctrine of ^Eschylus,
struggling to light through language of vague import, and
occasional inconsistencies ; especially in the relation of this
process of evil to the divine will or permission. Nor must
we forget his solution of the moral problem, in The
Furies. The family guilt and curse are to be closed by
an appeal to human justice, which measures the guilt of
the individual by the circumstances and motives of his
crime, and has power to absolve, as well as to mete out
punishment to, an admitted criminal.
Granting, as we must grant, the belief in such an
hereditary curse as JSschylus made the subject of his
trilogy, it is impossible to conceive a nobler solution of the
problem ; a nobler " purification by pity and terror," if we
may adopt in an extended sense Aristotle's definition
of Tragedy.
Perhaps it may not be out of place to say a few words
with respect to a charge, often brought against ^Eschylus,
of being a bombastic poet. It is undeniable that in his
earlier plays there is a tendency towards inflated language ;
such prodigies as e^)ei|ra\co^7; Ka^e^povr^dr] crdivos
(Prom. I. 362), as dXctxrifjiov iraiav eVe^ta/r^acra? (Seven
against Thebes, I. 635), show, at all events, a poetic artist
PREFACE.
who has not yet fully dissevered the large from the fine, the
grandiose from the grand. Neither are the thoughts in
these plays always free from the same charge, though the
occurrence of such metaphors as we regard as Oriental,
seems to me to demonstrate capacity rather than ex-
travagance in the Greek poet. It is surprising, for instance,
to hear in the celebrated description of the battle of Salamis
(The Persians, I. 577), and of the floating corpses of the
drowned Persians, and " death gnawing upon them : "
Troj a,vavSu
"They are scattered and peeled by the voiceless children
of the Pure," i.e., the sea it is surprising, I say, to 'find
such a phrase treated as fantastic and Oriental. The same
thought has been touched by Shakespeare (The Tempest,
Act ii, sc. 1) :
"O thou mine heir
Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
Hath made his meal on thee ! "
and by Shelley (Similes} :
"Asa shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle,
For the negro-ship whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,
Wrinkling their red gills the while."
But how inferior each expression is to that of ^Eschylus,
need hardly be pointed out. Shakespeare's is simple
almost to baldness : Shelley's, powerfully, almost horribly,
descriptive ; but yEschylus, retaining the physical word
(aKv\\ovrai), paints the rest of the scene with a rich
imagination. The children of earth, but now so clamorous,
are at the mercy of the still children of that sea whose
translucent purity they have harassed and distracted in vain.
xxii PREFACE.
However this may be, what I wish to point out is that
all traces of immature work have disappeared, when we
reach the Trilogy. The sonorous verse remains, but the
exaggerated style is gone. The ponderous imprecations of
the Prometheus or the Seven against Thebes have turned
to verse like this :
ov pen <t>o,3oy jtxXa6^oi sATTK IpTfotTttv.
Occasionally, as in the prophecy of Calchas, the oracular
style is purposely assumed ; or, as in The Furies, /. 285
sqq.) a scene of monstrous horrors is described in monstrous
terms ; but of real bombast, of large language misapplied,
there is no more. With this disappearance, a new faculty
has arisen : a dramatic art of the most admirable kind.
Not even the excellent double interest of the CEdipus
Tyrannus of Sophocles is superior to the scene of Clytem-
nestra's welcome of Agamemnon, Avith its effusive insincerity
and ominous words of double and deadly meaning. The
whole character of Clytemnestra is a refutation of those who
maintain that we may find poetry in ^Eschylus, but must go
to Sophocles or Euripides for drama. Nor must we omit to
notice the marvellous art displayed in the whole episode of
Cassandra. Her spirit is utterly full of Apollo, the Sun-
God, the Slayer of Night : a mention, nay, a mere hint of
him (TTvdofcpavTa, I. 1255) banishes in a moment her brief
sanity, and she bursts into ravings again. She is penetrated
with the " fire intolerant and intense " of his coming, of the
sunrise of prophecy burning brighter and clearer, while in its
light the great waves of doom roll up and on. His approach
is a scorching glow of fire, before his presence is revealed,
O ITVfl' 7TJITai
"A7To?iAo>*
PREFACE. xxiii
" Ah, ah the fire ! it waxes, nears me now
Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn ! "
And her last speech is a cry to the actual sun, whose light
she will see no more for ever, to light her avengers to their
work. Close inspection of all this scene will show ^Eschylus
at his very highest point of inspiration ; it is as true, and as
imaginative, as anything in King Lear.
With respect to the text, I think I have only once
departed from usual interpretations. Where the text is
mutilated or corrupt I have supplied or amended, as the
context seemed to direct, to the extent of a word or two.
(See Appendix to The Libation-Bearers.}
The one occasion where my version differs, I believe, from
any yet suggested, is the celebrated passage (Ag. II. 105-7) :
This I have interpreted in opposition to those who have
taken a\ica o~v/j,<f)VTo<; alwv as in some way describing the
condition of the speaker. I suggest that it may rather be
taken closely with deodev and that the whole passage means
"Still upon me doth the divine life, whose strength waxes
never old (lit. which is congenital with strength), breathe
from heaven the impulse of song." This seems to suit the
context well, as I may shortly explain. The chorus have
just been bewailing the sad and tremulous weakness of old
age, too feeble for war, too feeble to walk without a staff,
sad and presageful of future evils, and only at moments
roused to hope by propitious omens of sacrifice. Suddenly
the light of comfort breaks upon them. Old and feeble,
they have yet the divine inspiration of song, breathed on
them from " realms of help " (akicd} by powers which never
wax old nor feeble. Then follows the matchless ode, with
PREFACE.
its profound theology, its analysis of human perplexity, its
utter pathos in describing the sacrifice of Iphigenia.
In defence of this view, I would urge that a\Ka is not a
usual word at least, I have been unable to find an instance
of its use for any mental power like genius or inspiration.
It almost always means physical prowess ; and if it becomes
metaphorical at all, it becomes so in the sense of help or aid
(as in The Furies, L 257, a\icav e^&)y = clasping or hold-
ing help, by embracing the image of the goddess : taking
sanctuary, in short). If this view of the word be correct,
the word itself applies very ill to the chorus, whose physical
feebleness and powerlessness to help has just been alluded
to : but very well to the gods, whose ageless strength and
power to aid is contrasted with human weakness. The
thought in d\Ka av/j,(f>vTO<; alwv will thus be parallel to that
in dyijpa) yjpovui Swdaras of Sophocles Ant. /. 608.
Undoubtedly there is a difficulty in applying such a
phrase as crv/i<uTo<? alouv to the divine life at all. But it
seems allowable to use words, properly only applicable to
human life, with reference to the divine, in a passage like
this, where in thought the contrast is drawn between the
former as an ala>v CTU//,<UTO<> indeed, but not a\.fea(rv/j,<f)VTO<;,
and the latter, verily an al<bv in the wider sense, and d\Kq
<rvfjL(J)VTos t coeval with its etenial power to prompt and aid.
And certainly the word KdTcnrveiei, in its most literal
sense, seems to suit this idea of a sacred impulse, an aid like
a wafting wind, breathed down from heaven.
I put forward this conjecture without confidence, and
merely as one more endeavour to elucidate a passage of
more than usual interest, which is allowed to be dubious
hitherto. To make it refer to the life or condition of the
speaker seems to me difficult; to translate it "the time
co-extensive with the war " almost impossible : whether my
own conjecture is any better, iudicent alii. For the feeling
PREFACE.
of the whole passage, it might not be amiss to compare
Goethe's vindication of the "honour and toil" that await
the old, in song.
Doch in's bekannte Saitenspiel
Mil Muth und Anmuth einzugreifen,
Nach einem selbstgesteckten Ziel
Mit holdem Irren hinzuschweifen,
Das, alte Herrn, ist cure Pflicht
Faust, Part i., Theatre Prelude.
With respect to the translation, my object has been,
throughout, to be, if possible, readable. I have sacrificed
much that scholars might fairly desiderate reproduction of
the original metres, preservation of strophe and antistrophe
and so forth on this ground, that I found my own metrical
skill insufficient to satisfy even myself, in such a task. I
have little doubt that certain parts Cassandra's earlier
ravings for instance, or the wrath of the Furies would
be most fitly rendered in prose like that of the analogous
passages of King Lear and Macbeth : but here, too, after a
struggle, I resigned the conflict. It is easy to write prose ;
it is impossible to write tJiat prose.
The Anapaestic systems have been mostly rendered in
octosyllabic metre ; where dactylic feet were predominant
in the original, I have sometimes adopted the heroic quatrain,
sometimes loose and irregular, but always rhyming, measures.
The earlier part of the third chorus of the Agamemnon I
have endeavoured to reproduce in that arrangement of octo-
syllabic verses used with such admirable effect by Mr. Swin-
burne in the Prologue and Epilogue of " Songs before
Sunrise." The iambic dialogue has been rendered into such
blank verse, or rhyming couplets, as I could command : the
trochaic passages into rhyming verse of greater length.
Any coincidences that may be found between other trans-
lations and the present may claim to be for the most part
PREFACE.
accidental. Whatever has been consciously adopted from
elsewhere has been acknowledged in a foot-note, unless so
familiar as to have become common property. Thus I have
not thought it necessary to avow obvious obligations to
Shakespeare, nor the " airy rings " of the vultures' flight, in
the first chorus of the Agamemnon, to Jonson, nor the
" sleep of swords " that fine rendering of the Homeric
^aX/ceo? VTTVOS, to Kingsley, nor the rhythm of one choric
passage in The Libation-Bearers to Mr. W. Morris. Such
things are public property now.
Part of this translation, viz., the Agamemnon, having
been already published, I have had, for that part, the ad-
vantage of public criticism. I have carefully considered
all such criticism, so far as it has reached me, and have
removed, I hope, all positive errors that have been detected.
Those critics who have complained rather of the general
faults of the translation such, e.g., as diffuseuess, or a
modern tone than of particular errors, will, I hope, believe
my assurance that their words have been duly weighed.
If I have not recast the translation to the extent their
criticism demanded, it is neither from doubting its sub-
stantial truth, nor the seriousness of the fault. But I am
not sanguine, after various attempts, of my being able to
translate in a closer and more pregnant style. It is not a
question of how the thing could be done best, in the ab-
stract ; it is, unfortunately, the more limited and painful
question, how a particular individual can do it least im-
perfectly.
My main obligations, in the matter of ^Eschylus, are
expressed in the dedication : in addition, I am indebted to
the Rev. W. A. Fearon, Assistant Master of Winchester, for
revising a large part of the Agamemnon ; to Mr. C. Kegan
Paul for useful criticisms, mainly, though not wholly, on the
same play; to Mr. A. 0. Prickard, Fellow and Lecturer of
New College, Oxford, for incidental assistance throughout
PREFACE. xxvif
the work, particularly in The Libation -Bearers and The
Furies ; to Mr. C. B. Phillips, Assistant Master of Win-
chester, who has gone over the whole translation with care ;
to Mr. D. S. Margoliouth, Fellow of New College, Oxford,
who has helped me especially with several difficulties in
TJie Furies. Other friends will, I doubt not, accept a
general acknowledgment of their aid. I cannot, however,
leave unspecified my gratitude to Mr. F. R. Benson and the
rest of the Oxford company, who last year performed the
Agamemnon on the stage, for the practical insight they
afforded their audience into the spectacular as well as the
literary and dramatic merit of that noblest of poems.
E. D. A. M.
WINCHESTER, March, 1881.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In republishing the House of Atreus^ I have striven to
remove the flaws to which private or public criticism called
my attention. A grave mistranslation of Choeph., 1. 216,
has, I hope, been banished. Mr. A. 0. Prickard and
Professor Margoliouth independently detected and denounced
it to me : I now plead, with Orestes
9ait wafra yg0W* opov.
I may be permitted to add a statement of the general
principle that I have followed in making alterations. Errors
in scholarship I have endeavoured to remove : where the
English has been criticized, I have always considered, and
often obeyed, the criticism : sometimes I have resisted it in
obedience to a higher law, e.g., several critics objected to
the use of the word "spilth" ; I have retained it, as used by
Shakespeare, and therefore fitted for tragic poetry, though
no longer in ordinary use. With regard to the form of the
translation, I have not made any serious change. Were I
now attempting the thing for the first time, I should not
throw so much of the first chorus of the Agamemnon into
quatrains. But in this, as in other cases, that which was
originally difficult to do has become almost impossible to
undo and do again. The previous translation stands like an
erring and prohibitory ghost, ' fJLtjKer' ea"e\6rj<; raSe' (frcavuv.
E. D. A. M.
WINCHESTER, October, 1889.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
AGAMEMNON 1
THE LIBATION-BEARERS 79
THE FURIES . 135
THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
A WATCHMAN.
CHORUS.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
A HERALD.
AGAMEMNON.
CASSANDRA.
vEGISTHUS.
The Scene is the Palace of Atreus at Mycena. In front of the Palace
stand statues of the gods, and altars prepared for sacrifices.
AGAMEMNON.
A WATCHMAN.
I pray the gods to quit me of my toils,
To close the watch I keep, this livelong year ;
For as a watch-dog lying, not at rest,
Propped on one arm, upon the palace-roof
Of Atreus' race, too long, too well I know
The starry conclave of the midnight sky,
Too well, the splendours of the firmament,
The lords of light, whose kingly aspect signs
What time they set or climb the sky in turn
The year's divisions, bringing frost or fire.
And now, as ever, am I set to mark
When shall stream up the glow of signal-flame,
The bale-fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale
Troy tmvn is to? en : such issue holds in hope
She in whose woman's breast beats heart of man.
Thus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,
Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited
By dreams ah me ! for in the place of sleep
Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels
The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.
AGAMEMNON.
And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,
I medicine my soul with melody
Of trill or song anon to tears I turn,
Wailing the woe that broods xipon this home,
Not now by honour guided as of old.
But now at last fair fall the welcome hour
That sets me free, whene'er the thick night glow
With beacon-fire of hope deferred no more.
All hail ! [A beacon-light is seen reddening
the distant sky.
Fire of the night, that brings my spirit day,
Shedding on Argos light, and dance, and song,
Greetings to fortune, hail !
Let my loud summons ring within the ears
Of Agamemnon's queen, that she anon
Start from her couch and with a shrill voice cry
A joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze,
For Ilion's fall ; such fiery message gleams
From yon high flame ; and I, before the rest,
Will foot the lightsome measure of our joy ;
For I can say, My master's dice fell fair
Behold ! the triple sice, the lucky flame !
Now be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,
The hand of him restored, who rules our home :
Home but I say no more : \ipon my tongue
Treads hard the ox o' the adage.
Had it voice,
The home itself might soothliest tell its tale ;
I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,
To others, nought remember nor discern.
[Exit. The chorus of old men of Mycence enter, each
leaning on a staff. During their song Clytemnestra
appears in the background, kindling the altars.
AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
Ten livelong years have rolled away,
Since the twin lords of sceptred sway,
By Zeus endowed with pride of place,
The doughty chiefs of Atreus' race,
Went forth of yore,
To plead with Priam, face to face,
Before the judgment-seat of War !
A thousand ships from Argive land
Put forth to bear the martial band,
That with a spirit stern and strong
Went out to right the kingdom's wrong-
Pealed, as they went, the battle-song,
Wild as the vultures' cry ; .
When o'er the eyrie, soaring high,
In wild bereaved agony,
Around, around, in airy rings,
They wheel with oarage of their wings,
But not the eyas-brood behold,
That called them to the nest of old ;
But let Apollo from the sky,
Or Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,
The exile cry, the wail forlorn,
Of birds from whom their home is torn
Ou those who wrought the rapine fell,
Heaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.
Even so doth Zeus, the jealous lord
And guardian of the hearth and board,
Speed Atreus' sons, in vengeful ire,
'Gainst Paris sends them forth on fire,
Her to buy back, in war and blood,
Whom one did wed but many woo'd !
AGAMEMNON.
And many, many, by his will,
The last embrace of foes shall feel,
And many a knee in dust be bowed,
And splintered spears on shields ring loud,
Of Trojan and of Greek, before
That iron bridal-feast be o'er !
But as he willed 'tis ordered all,
And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall
Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine
Poured forth too late, the wrath divine
Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.*
And we in gray dishonoured eld,
Feeble of frame, unfit were held
To join the warrior array,
That then went forth unto the fray :
And here at home we tarry, fain
Our feeble footsteps to sustain,
Each on his staff so strength doth wane,
And turns to childishness again.
For while the sap of youth is green,
And, yet unripened, leaps within,
The young are weakly as the old,
And each alike unmeet to hold
The vantage post of war !
And ah ! when flower and fruit are o'er,
And on life's tree the leaves are sere,
Age wendeth propped its journey drear,
As forceless as a child, as light
And fleeting as a dream of night
Lost in the garish day !
"The flameless shrine" appears to be a metaphor for impious
neglect of law : a ceremonial phrase with a moral import.
AGAMEMNON.
But thou, child of Tyndareus,
Queen Clytemnestra, speak ! and say
What messenger of joy to-day
Hath won thine ear ? what welcome news,
That thus in sacrificial wise
E'en to the city's boundaries
Thou biddest altar-fires arise ?
Each god who doth our city guard,
And keeps o'er Argos watch and ward
From heaven above, from earth below
The mighty lords who rule the skies,
The market's lesser deities,
To each and all the altars glow,
Piled for the sacrifice !
And here and there, anear, afar,
Streams skyward many a beacon-star,
Conjur'd and charm'd and kindled well
By pure oil's soft and guileless spell,
Hid now no more
Within the palace' secret store.
queen, we pray thee, whatsoe'er,
Known unto thee, were well revealed,
That thou wilt trust it to our ear,
And bid our anxious heart be healed !
That waneth now unto despair
Now, waxing to a presage fair,
Dawns from the altar Hope to scare
From our rent hearts the vulture Care.
List ! for the power is mine, to chant on high
The chiefs' emprise, the strength that omens gave !
List ! on my soul breathes yet a harmony,
From realms of ageless powers, and strong to save !
AGAMEMNON.
How brother kings, twin lords of one command,
Led forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,
Urged on their way, with vengeful spear and brand,
By warrior-birds, that watched the parting hour.
Go forth to Troy, the eagles seemed to cry
And the sea-kings obeyed the sky-kings' word,
When on the right they soared across the sky,
And one was black, one bore a white tail barred.
High o'er the palace were they seen to soar,
Then lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,
Far from the fields that she should range no more,
Big with her unborn brood, a mother-hare.
And one beheld, the soldier-prophet true,
And the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,
In the twy-coloured eagles straight he knew,
And spake the omen forth, for good and ill.
(Ah woe and well-a-day ! but be the issue fair !)
Go forth, he cried, and Friends town shall fall.
Yet long the time shall be ; and flock and herd,
The peoples wealth, that roam before the wall,
Shall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word.
But O beware ! lest wrath in Heaven abide,
To dim the glowing battle-forge once more,
And mar the mighty curb of Trojan pride,
The steel of vengeance, welded as for war!
For virgin Artemis bears jealous hate
Against the royal house, the eagle-pair,
AGAMEMXON.
Who rend the unborn brood, insatiate
Yea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare.
(Ah woe and well-a-day ! but be the issue fair !)
For well she lows the goddess kind and mild
The tender new-born cubs of lions bold,
Too weak to range and well the sucking child
Of eatery beast that roams by wood and wold.
So to the Lord of Heaven she prayetJi still
" Nay, if it must be, be the omen true !
Yet do the visioned eagles presage ill ;
The end be well, but crossed with evil too ! "
Healer Apollo ! be her wrath controlled,
Nor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,
To war against the Danaans and withhold
From the free ocean-waves their eager sails !
She craves, alas ! to see a second life
Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice
'Twixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,
And hate that knows not fear, and fell dei'ice.
At home there tarries like a lurking snake,
Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,
A wily watcher, passionate to slake
In blood, resentment for a murdered child.
Such was the mighty warning, pealed of yore
Amid good tidings, such the word of fear,
What time the fateful eagles hovered o'er
The kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.
AGAMEMXON
(In strains like his, once more,
Sing woe and well-a-day ! but be the issue fair !)
Zeus if to The Unknown
That name of many names seem good
Zeus, upon Thee I call.
Thro' the mind's every road
I passed, but vain are all,
Save that which names thee Zeus, the Highest One,
Were it but mine to cast away the load,
The weary load, that weighs my spirit down.
He that was Lord of old,
In full-blown pride of place and valour bold,
Hath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale told !
And he that next held sway,
By stronger grasp o'erthrown
Hath pass'd away ! *
And whoso now shall bid the triumph-chant arise
To Zeus, and Zeus alone,
He shall be found the truly wise.
'Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way
Of knowledge : He hath ruled,
Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.
In visions of the night like dropping rain
Descend the many memories of pain
Before the spirit's sight : through tears and dole
Comes wisdom o'er the unwilling soul
A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,
That holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky !
And then the elder chief, at whose command
The fleet of Greece was manned,
* These are Ouranos and Kronos, predecessors of Zeus on the throne
of heaven.
AGAMEMNON.
Cast on the seer no word of hate,
But veered before the sudden breath of Fate
Ah weary while ! for, ere they put forth sail,
Did every store, each minish'd vessel, fail,
While all the Achaean host
At Aulis anchored lay,
Looking across to Chalcis and the coast
Where refluent waters welter, rock, and sway ;
And rife with ill delay
From northern Strymon blew the thwarting blast
Mother of famine fell,
That holds men wand'ring still
Far from the haven where they fain would be !
And pitiless did waste
Each ship and cable, rotting on the sea,
And, doubling with delay each weary hour,
Withered with hope deferred th' Achseans' warlike flower.
But when for bitter storm a deadlier relief,
And heavier with ill to either chief,
Pleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,
The two Atridee smote their sceptres on the plain,
And, striving hard, could not their tears restrain !
And then the elder monarch spake aloud
/// lot were mine, to disobey !
And ill, to smite my child, my household 's love and pride. f
To stain with virgin blood a father's hands, and slay
My daughter, by the altar's side !
' Twixt woe and woe I dwell
/ dare not like a recreant fly,
And leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally ;
for rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,
The virgin's blood, shed forth to lull the adverse wind
God send the deed be well !
AGAMEMNON.
Thus on his neck he took
Fate's hard compelling yoke ;
Then, in the counter-gale of will abhorr'd, accursed,
To recklessness his shifting spirit veered
Alas ! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst,
With evil craft men's souls to sin hath ever stirred !
And so he steeled his heart ah well-a-day
Aiding a war for one false woman's sake,
His child to slay,
And with her spilt blood make
An offering, to speed the ships upon their way !
Lusting for war, the bloody arbiters
losed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed
The girl-voice plead,.
Pity me, Father ! nor her prayers,
Nor tender, virgin years.
And, when the chant of sacrifice was done,
Her father bade the youthful priestly train
Raise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone,
From where amid her robes she lay
Sunk all in swoon away
Bade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,
Her fair lips' speech refrain,
Lest she should speak a curse on Atreus' home and seed.
So, trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,
With one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye
Those that should, smite she smote
Fair, silent, as a pictur'd form, but fain
AGAMEMNON.
To plead Is all for got 1
Hmv oft those halls of old,
Wherein my sire high feast did hold,
Rang to the virginal soft strain,
When I, a stainless child,
Sang from pure lips and undefiled,
Sang of my sire, and all
His honoured life, and how on him should fall
Heaven's highest gift and gain !
And then but I beheld not, nor can tell,
What further fate befel :
But this is sure, that Calchas' boding strain
Can ne'er be void or vain.
This wage from Justice' hand do sufferers earn,
The future to discern :
And yet farewell, secret of To-morrow !
Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow.
Clear with the clear beams of the morrow's sun,
The future presseth on.
Now, let the house's tale, how dark soe'er,
Find yet an issue fair !
So prays the loyal, solitary band
That guards the Apian laud.
\They turn to Clytemnestra, who leaves
the altars and comes forward.
queen, I come in reverence of thy sway
For, while the ruler's kingly seat is void,
The loyal heart before his consort bends.
Now be it sure and certain news of good,
Or the fair tidings of a flatt'ring hope,
That bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,
I, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.
AGAMEMNON.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
As saith the adage, From the womb of Night
Spring forth, with promise fair, the young child Light.
Ay fairer even than all hope my news
By Grecian hands is Priam's city ta'en !
CHORUS.
What say'st thou? doubtful heart makes treach'rous
ear.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Hear then again, and plainly Troy is ours !
CHORUS.
Thrills thro' my heart such joy as wakens tears.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ay, thro' those tears thine eye looks loyalty.
CHORUS.
But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure ?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Go to ; I have unless the god has lied.
CHORUS.
Hath some night-vision won thee to belief?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Out on all presage of a slumb'rous soiil !
CHORUS.
But wert thou cheered by Rumour's wingless word 1
AGAMEMNON.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Peace thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.
CHORUS.
Say then, how long ago the city fell ?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Even in this night that now brings forth the dawn.
CHORUS.
Yet who so swift could speed the message here ?
CLYTEMXESTRA.
From Ida's top Hephaestus, lord of fire,
Sent forth his sign ; and on, and ever on,
Beacon to beacon sped the courier-flame.
From Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,
Of Lemnos ; thence unto the steep sublime
Of Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.
Thence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,
The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,
Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,
In golden glory, like some strange new sun,
Onward, and reached Macistus' watching heights.
There, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,
The watcher sped the tidings on in tuni,
Until the guard upon Messapius' peak
Saw the far flame gleam on Euripus' tide,
And from the high-piled heap of withered furze
Lit the new sign and bade the message on.
Then the strong light, far-flown and yet undimmed,
Shot thro' the sky above Asopus' plain,
Bright as the moon, and on Cithseron's crag
Aroused another watch of flying fire.
16 AGAMEMNON.
And there the sentinels no whit disowned,
But sent redoubled on, the hest of flame
Swift shot the light, above Gorgopis' bay,
To ^Egiplanctus' mount ; and bade the peak
Fail not the onward ordinance of fire.
And like a long beard streaming in the wind,
Full-fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,
And onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,
Beneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,
And thence leapt light unto Arachne's peak,
The mountain watch that looks upon our town.
Thence to th' Atrides' roof in lineage fair,
A bright posterity of Ida's fire.
So sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,
Flame after flame, along the course ordained,
And lo ! the last to speed upon its way
Sights the end first, and glows unto the goal.
And Troy is ta'en, and by this sign my lord
Tells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.
CHORUS.
To heaven, queen, will I upraise new song :
But wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear
From first to last the marvel of the tale.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Think you this very morn the Greeks in Troy,
And loud therein the voice of utter wail !
Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,
And look ! unblent, unreconciled, they war.
So in the twofold issue of the strife
Mingle the victor's shout, the captives' moan,
AGAMEMNON.
For all the conquered whom the sword has spared
Cling weeping some unto a brother slain,
Some childlike to a nursing father's form,
And wail the loved and lost, the while their neck
Bows down already 'neath the captive's chain.
And lo ! the victors, now the fight is done,
Goaded by restless hunger, far and wide
Range all disordered thro' the town, to snatch
Such victual and such rest as chance may give
Within the captive halls that once were Troy
Joyful to rid them of the frost and dew,
Wherein they couched upon the plain of old
Joyful to sleep the gracious night all through,
Unsummoned of the watching sentinel.
Yet let them reverence well the city's gods,
The lords of Troy, tho' fallen, and her shrines ;
So shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.
Yea, let no craving for forbidden gain
Bid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.
For we need yet, before the race be won,
Homewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.
For should the host wax wanton ere it come,
Then, tho' the sudden blow of fate be spared,
Yet in the sight of gods shall rise once more
The great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.
Now, hearing from this woman's mouth of mine,
The tale and eke its warning, pray with me,
Luck sway the scale, with no uncertain poise,
For my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys.
CHORUS.
A gracious word thy woman's lips have told,
Worthy a wise man's utterance, my queen ;
AGAMEMNON.
Now with clear trust in thy convincing tale
I set me to salute the gods with song,
Who bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain.
[Exit Clytcmnestra.
Zeus, lord of heaven ! and welcome night
Of victory, that hast our might
With all the glories crowned !
On towers of Ilion, free no more,
Hast flung the mighty mesh of war,
And closely girt them round,
Till neither warrior may 'scape,
Nor stripling lightly overleap
The trammels as they close, and close,
Till with the grip of doom our foes
In slavery's coil are bound !
Zeus, lord of hospitality,
In grateful awe I bend to thee
'Tis thou hast struck the blow !
At Alexander, long ago,
We marked thee bend thy vengeful bow,
But long and warily withhold
The eager shaft, which, uncontrolled
And loosed too soon or launched too high,
Had wandered bloodless through the sky.
Zeus the high God ! whate'er be dim in doubt,
This can our thought track out
The blow that fells the sinner is of God,
And as he wills, the rod
Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,
77/i? Gods list not to hold
A reckoning with him whose feet oppress
The grace of holiness
AGAMEMNON.
An impious word ! for whensoe'er the sire
Breathed forth rebellious fire
What time his household overflowed the measure
Of bliss and health and treasure
His children's children read the reckoning plain,
At last, in tears and pain.
On me let weal that brings no woe be sent,
And therewithal, content ;
Who spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power
Shall be to him a tower,
To guard him from the gulf : there lies his lot,
Where all things are forgot.
Lust drives him on lust, desperate and wild,
Fate's sin-contriving child
And cure is none ; beyond concealment clear,
Kindles sin's baleful glare.
As an ill coin beneath the wearing touch
Betrays by stain and smutch
Its metal false such is the sinful wight.
Before, on pinions light,
Fair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,
While home and kin make moan
Beneath the grinding burden of his crime ;
Till, in the end of time,
Cast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer
To powers that will not hear.
And such did Paris come
Unto Atrides' home,
And thence, -with sin and shame his welcome to repay,
Ravished the wife away
And she, unto her country and her kin
Leaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships,
AGAMEMNON.
And bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,
And overbold in sin,
Went fleetly thro' the gates, at midnight hour.
Oft from the prophets' lips
Moaned out the warning and the wail Ah woe !
Woe for the home, the home ! and for the chieftains, woe !
Woe for the bride-bed, warm
Yet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form
Of her who loved her lord, awhile ago !
And woe ! for him who stands
Shamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands
That finds her not, and sees, yet will not see,
That she is far away !
And his sad fancy, yearning o'er the sea,
Shall summon and recall
Her wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.
And sad with many memories,
The fair cold beauty of each sculptured face
And all to hatefulness is turned their grace,
Seen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes !
And when the night is deep,
Come visions sweet and sad and bearing pain
Of hopings vain
Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight
Has seen its old delight,
When thro' the grasps of love that bid it stay
It vanishes away
On silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.
Such are the sights, the sorrows fell,
About our hearth and worse, whereof I may not tell.
But, all the wide town o'er,
Each home that sent its master far away
From Hellas' shore,
AGAMEMNON.
Feels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss, to-day.
For, truth to say,
The touch of bitter death is manifold !
Familiar was each face, and dear as life,
That went unto the war,
But thither, whence a warrior went of old,
Doth nought return,
Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn !
For Ares, lord of strife,
Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold,
War's money-changer, giving dust for gold,
Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,
Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,
Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul ;
Yea, fills the light urn full
With what survived the flame
Death's dusty measure of a hero's frame !
Alas ! one cries, and yet alas again !
Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear,
And hath not left his peer !
Ah woe ! another moans my spouse is slain,
The death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,
Slain for a woman's sin, a false wife's shame /
Such muttered words of bitter mood
Rise against those who went forth to reclaim ;
Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th' Atrides' name.
And others, far beneath the Ilian wall,
Sleep their last sleep the goodly chiefs and tall,
Couched in the foeman's land, whereon they gave
Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.
Therefore for each and all the city's breast
Is heavy with a wrath supprest,
AGAMEMNON.
As deep and deadly as a curse more loud
Flung by the common crowd :
And, brooding deeply, doth my soul await
Tidings of coming fate,
Buried as yet in darkness' womb.
For not forgetful is the high gods' doom
Against the sons of carnage : all too long
Seems the unjust to prosper and be strong,
Till the dark Furies come,
And smite with stern reversal all his home,
Down into dim obstruction he is gone,
And help and hope among the lost is none.
O'er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,
Impends a woe condign ;
The vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame,
Sped from the hand divine.
This bliss be mine, ungrudged of god, to feel
To tread no city to the dust,
Nor see my own life thrust
Down to a slave's estate beneath another's heel
Behold, throughout the city wide
Have the swift feet of Rumour hied,
Roused by the joyful flame :
But is the news they scatter, sooth 1
Or haply do they give for truth
Some cheat which heaven doth frame 1
A child were he and all unwise,
Who let his heart with joy be stirred,
To see the beacon-fires arise,
And then, beneath some thwarting word,
Sicken anon with hope deferred.
AGAMEMNON. 23
The edge of woman's insight still
Good news from true divideth ill ;
Light rumours leap within the bound
That fences female credence round,
But, lightly born, as lightly dies
The tale that springs of her surmise.
Soon shall we know whereof the bale-fires tell,
The beacons, kindled with transmitted flame ;
Whether, as well I deem, their tale is true,
Or whether like some dream delusive came
The welcome blaze but to befool our soul.
For lo ! I see a herald from the shore
Draw hither, shadowed with the olive-wreath
And thirsty dust, twin-brother of the clay,
Speaks plain of travel far and truthful ne\vs
No dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,
Fitfully kindled from the mountain pyre ;
But plainlier shall his voice say All is well,
Or but away forebodings adverse now,
And on fair promise fair fulfilment come !
And whoso for the state prays otherwise,
Himself reap harvest of his ill desire !
Enter HERALD.
land of Argos, fatherland of mine !
To thee at last, beneath the tenth year's sun,
My feet return ; the bark of my emprise,
Tho' one by one hope's anchors broke away,
Held by the last, and now rides safely here.
Long, long my soul despaired to win, in death,
Its longed-for rest within our Argive land :
AGAMEMNON.
And now all hail, earth, and hail to thee,
New-risen sun ! and hail our country's God,
High-ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,
Whose arrows smote us once smite thou no more !
Was not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,
king Apollo, by Scamander's side ?
Turn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now !
And hail, all gods who rule the street and mart,
And Hermes hail ! my patron and my pride,
Herald of heaven, and lord of heralds here !
And Heroes, ye who sped us on our way
To one and all I cry Receive again
With grace such Argives as the spear has spared.
Ah home of royalty, beloved halls,
And solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn !
Benign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet
The king returning after many days.
For as from night flash out the beams of day,
So out of darkness dawns a light, a king,
On you, on Argos Agamemnon comes.
Then hail and greet him well ! such meed befits
Him whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy
With the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong
And smote the plain, smote down to nothingness
Each altar, every shrine ; and far and wide
Dies from the whole land's face its offspring fair.
Such mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy
Our lord and monarch, Atreus' elder son,
And comes at last with blissful honour home ;
Highest of all who walk on earth to-day
Not Paris nor the city's self that paid
Sin's price with him, can boast Whatever befal,
The guerdon we have won outweighs it all.
AGAMEMNON. 25
But at Fate's judgment-seat the robber stands
Condemned of rapine, and his prey is torn
Forth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped
A bloody harvest of his home and land
Gone down to death, and for his guilt and lust
His father's race pays double in the dust.
CHORUS.
Hail, herald of the Greeks, new-come from war.
HERALD.
All hail ! not death itself can fright me now.
CHORUS.
Was thine heart wrung with longing for thy land 1
HERALD.
So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.
CHORUS.
On you too then this sweet distress did fall
HERALD.
How say'st thou ? make me master of thy word.
CHORUS.
You longed for us who pined for you again.
HERALD.
Craved the land us who craved it, love for love ?
2 6 AGAMEMNON
CHORUS.
Yea, till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.
HERALD.
Whence thy despair, that mars the army's joy ?
CHORUS.
Sole cure of wrong is silence, saith the saw.
HERALD.
Thy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men 1
CHORUS.
Death had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.
HERALD.
Tis true ; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,
These many years, some chances issued fair,
And some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.
But who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,
Thro' time's whole tenor an unbroken weal ?
I could a tale unfold of toiling oars,
111 rest, scant landings on a shore rock-strewn,
All pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.
And worse and hatefuller our woes on land ;
For where we couched, close by the foeman's wall,
The river-plain was ever dank with dews,
Dropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,
A curse that clung unto our sodden garb,
And hair as horrent as a wild beast's fell.
Why tell the woes of winter, when the birds
Lay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida's snow ?
Or summer's scorch, what time the stirless wave
AGAMEMNON.
Sank to its sleep beneath the noon-day sun?
Why mourn old woes 1 their pain has passed away ;
And passed away from those who fell all care,
For evermore, to rise and live again.
Why sum the count of death, and render thanks
For life by moaning over fate malign ?
Farewell, a long farewell to all our woes !
To us, the remnant of the host of Greece,
Comes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe ;
Thus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,
Like him far-fleeted over sea and land.
The Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy,
And in the temples of the gods of Greece
Hung up these spoils, a shining sign to Time.
Let those who learn this legend bless aright
The city and its chieftains, and repay
The meed of gratitude to Zeus who willed
And wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.
CHORUS.
Thy words o'erbear my doubt : for news of good,
The ear of age hath ever youth enow :
But those within and Clytemnestra's self
Would fain hear all ; glad thou their ears and mine.
Re-enter CLYTEMNESTRA.
Last night, when first the fiery courier came,
In sign that Troy is ta'en and razed to earth,
So wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,
That I was chidden Hath the beacon watch
Made sure unto thy soul the sack of Troy ?
A very woman thou, whose heart leaps light
At wandering rumours ! and with words like these
They showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.
AGAMEMNON.
Yet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,
And, in the strain they held for feminine,
Went heralds thro' the city, to and fro,
With voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy ;
And in each fane they lit and quenched with wine
The spicy perfumes fading in the flame.
All is fulfilled : I spare your longer tale
The king himself anon shall tell me all.
Remains to think what honour best may greet
My lord, the majesty of Argos, home.
What day beams fairer on a woman's eyes
Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide,
To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war ?
This to my husband, that he tarry not,
But turn the city's longing into joy !
Yea, let him come, and coming may he find
A wife no other than he left her, true
And faithful as a watch-dog to his home,
His foeinen's foe, in all her duties leal,
Trusty to keep for ten long years unmarred
The store whereon he set his master-seal.
Be steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see
111 joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me ! *
* This expression, intentionally obscure in the original, requires ex-
planation for its full force to be seen. It is, literally, ' ' I know not
pleasure, nor scandalous report, from another man, more than (I know)
the dipping of bronze." This most naturally seems to imply, not a known
process, such as dipping metal to temper or harden it (cf. Othello, Act v.,
Sc. 2: "It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper"), but some
unknown or very difficult thing perhaps the dyeing of metal throughout
Such, at least, is the meaning to the Herald, and through him, to Agamem-
non. Meantime, as elsewhere in her speech, there is a "double entendre,"
ominous to the chorus, who seem vaguely to know of her unfaithfulness,
and to the Athenian audience, acquainted with the whole story, of thrilling
effectiveness. " I know no more of evil report with any other man, than I
know of imbruing the steel." Before long she will stand forth with the
AGAMEMNON. 29
HERALD.
Tis fairly said : thus speaks a noble dame,
Nor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast.
[Exit Clytemnestra.
CHORUS.
So has she spoken be it yours to learn
By clear interpreters her specious word.
Turn to me, herald tell me if anon
The second well-loved lord of Argos comes ?
Hath Menelaus safely sped with you ?
HERALD.
Alas brief boon unto my friends it were,
To flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair !
CHORUS.
Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst
Too plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.
HERALD.
The hero and his bark were rapt away
Far from the Grecian fleet : 'tis truth I say.
CHORUS.
Whether in all men's sight from Ilion borne,
Or from the fleet by stress of weather toni ?
HERALD.
Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,
And one short word hath told long woes aright.
steel imbrued in her husband's blood, and vaunting aloud her love for
^Egisthus, her trusty paramour.
30 AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
But say, what now of him each comrade saith ?
What their forebodings, of his life or death ?
HERALD.
Ask me no more : the truth is known to none,
Save the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun.
CHORUS.
Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven ?
How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven ?
HERALD.
Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow's tale
The day of blissful news. The gods demand
Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude.
If one as herald came with rueful face
To say, The curse has fallen, and the host
Gone down to death ; and one wide wound has reached
The city's heart, and out of many homes
Many are cast and consecrate to death,
Beneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,
The bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom
If such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,
'Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.
But coming as he comes who bringeth news
Of safe return from toil, and issues fair,
To men rejoicing in a weal restored
Dare I to dash good words with ill, and say
How the gods' anger smote the Greeks in storm ?
For fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,
Now swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,
Wasting the Argives worn with toil and war.
Night and great horror of the rising wave
AGAMEMNON.
Came o'er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace
Clashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow
Thro' scudding drifts of spray and raving storm
Vanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.
And when at length the sun rose bright, we saw
Th' ^Egaean sea-field flecked with flowers of death,
Corpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.
For us indeed, some god, as well I deem,
No human power, laid hand upon our helm,
Snatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,
And brought our bark thro' all, unharmed in hull :
And saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,
So that no surge should gulf us deep in brine,*
Nor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.
So 'scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,
But, under day's white light, mistrustful all
Of fortune's smile, we sat and brooded deep,
Shepherds forlorn of thoughts that wandered wild,
O'er this new woe ; for smitten was our host
And lost as ashes scattered from the pyre.
Of whom if any draw his life-breath yet,
Be well assured, he deems of us as dead,
As we of him no other fate forebode.
But heaven save all ! If Menelaus live,
He will not tarry but will surely come :
Therefore if anywhere the high sun's ray
Descries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,
Who wills not yet to wipe his race away,
Hope still there is that homeward he may wend.
Enough thou hast the truth unto the end.
In Memoriam, x.
"Than if with thee the roaring wells
Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine."
AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
Say, from whose lips the presage fell 1
Who read the future all too well,
And named her, in her natal hour,
Helen, the bride with war for dower 1
'Twas one of the Invisible,
Guiding his tongue with prescient power.
On fleet, and host, and citadel,
War, sprung from her, and death did lour,
When from the bride-bed's fine-spun veil
She to the Zephyr spread her sail.
Strong blew the breeze the surge closed o'er
The cloven track of keel and oar,
But while she fled, there drove along,
Fast in her wake, a mighty throng
Athirst for blood, athirst for war,
Forward in fell pursuit they sprung,
Then leapt on Simois' bank ashore,
The leafy coppices among
No rangers, they, of wood and field,
But huntsmen of the sword and shield.
Heaven's jealousy, that works its will,
Sped thus on Troy its destined ill,
Well named, at once, the Bride and Bane ;
And loud rang out the bridal strain ;
But they to whom that song befel
Did turn anon to tears again ;
Zeus tarries, but avenges still
The husband's wrong, the household's stain !
He, the hearth's lord, brooks not to see
Its outraged hospitality.
AGAMEMNON.
Even now, and in far other tone,
Troy chants her dirge of mighty moan,
Woe upon Paris, woe and hate !
Who wooed his country's doom for mate
This is the burthen of the groan,
Wherewith she wails disconsolate
The blood, so many of her own
Have poured in vain, to fend her fate ;
Troy ! thou hast fed and freed to roam
A lion-cub within thy home !
A suckling creature, newly ta'en
From mother's teat, still fully fain
Of nursing care ; and oft caressed,
Within the arms, upon the breast,
Even as an infant, has it lain ;
Or fawns, and licks, by hunger pressed,
The hand that will assuage its pain ;
In life's young dawn, a well-loved guest,
A fondling for the children's play,
A joy unto the old and gray.
But waxing time and growth betrays
The blood-thirst of the lion-race,
And for the house's fostering care,
Unbidden all it revels there,
And bloody recompense repays
Rent flesh of kine, its talons tare :
A mighty beast, that slays, and slays,
And mars with blood the household fair,
A God-sent pest invincible,
A minister of fate and hell.
Even so to Ilion's city came by stealth
A spirit as of windless seas and skies,
AGAMEMNON.
A gentle phantom-form of joy and wealth,
With love's soft arrows speeding from its eyes,
Love's rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in subtle wise.
Ah, well-a-day ! the bitter bridal-bed,
When the fair mischief lay by Paris' side !
What curse on palace and on people sped
With her, the Fury sent on Priam's pride,
By angered Zeus ! what tears of many a widowed bride !
Long, long ago to mortals this was told,
How sweet security and blissful state
Have curses for their children so men hold
And for the man of ail-too prosperous fate
Springs from a bitter seed some woe insatiate.
Alone, alone, I deem far otherwise ;
Not bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,
From which that after-growth of ill doth rise !
Woe springs from wrong, the plant is like the seed
While Right, in honour's house, doth its own likeness breed.
Some past impiety, some gray old crime,
Breeds the young curse, that wantons in our ill,
Early or late, when haps th' appointed time
And out of light brings power of darkness still,
A master-fiend, a foe, unseen, invincible ;
A pride accursed, that broods upon the race
And home in which dark Ate holds her sway
Sin's child and Woe's, that wears its parents' face,
While Right in smoky cribs shines clear as day,
And decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous way.
AGAMEMNON. 35
From gilded halls, that hands polluted raise,
Right turns away with proud averted eyes,
And of the wealth, men stamp amiss with praise,
Heedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,
And to Fate's goal guides all, in its appointed wise.
Hail to thee, chief of Atreus' race,
Returning proud from Troy subdued !
How shall I greet thy conquering face ?
How nor a fulsome praise obtrude,
Nor stint the meed of gratitude ?
For mortal men who fall to ill
Take little heed of open truth,
But seek unto its semblance still :
The show of weeping and of ruth
To the forlorn will all men pay,
But of the grief their eyes display,
Nought to the heart doth pierce its way.
And, with the joyous, they beguile
Their lips unto a feigned smile,
And force a joy, unfelt the while ;
But he who as a shepherd wise
Doth know his flock, can ne'er misread
Truth in the falsehood of his eyes,
Who veils beneath a kindly guise
A lukewarm love in deed.
And thou, our leader when of yore
Thou badest Greece go forth to war
For Helen's sake I dare avow
That then I held thee not as now ;
That to my vision thou didst seem
Dyed in the hues of disesteem.
I held thee for a pilot ill
AGAMEMNON.
And reckless of thy proper will
Endowing others doomed to die
With vain and forced audacity !
Now from my heart, ungrudgingly,
To those that wrought, this word be said
Well fall the labour ye have sped
Let time and search, king, declare
What men within thy city's bound
Were loyal to the kingdom's care,
And who were faithless found.
\_Enter Agamemnon in a chariot, accompanied by
Cassandra. He speaks without descending.
AGAMEMNON.
First, as is meet, a king's All-hail be said
To Argos, and the gods that guard the land
Gods who with me availed to speed us home,
With me availed to wring from Priam's town
The due of justice. In the court of heaven
The gods in conclave sat and judged the cause,
Not from a pleader's tongue, and at the close,
Unanimous into the urn of doom
This sentence gave, On Ilion and her men,
Death : and where hope drew nigh to pardon's urn
No hand there was to cast a vote therein.
And still the smoke of fallen Ilion
Rises in sight of all men, and the flame
Of Ate's hecatomb is living yet,
And where the towers in dusty ashes sink,
Rise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed.
For this must all men pay unto the gods
The meed of mindful hearts and gratitude :
AGAMEMNON. 37
For by our hands the meshes of revenge
Closed on the prey, and for one woman's sake
Troy trodden by the Argive monster lies
The foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall
What time with autumn sank the Pleiades.
Yea, o'er the fencing wall a lion sprang
Ravening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.
Such prelude spoken to the gods in full,
To you I turn, and to the hidden thing
Whereof ye spake but now : and in that thought
I am as you, and what ye say say I.
For few are they who have such inborn grace,
As to look up with love, and envy not,
When stands another on the height of weaL
Deep in his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,
Her poison lurking doth enhance his load ;
For now beneath his proper woes he chafes,
And sighs withal to see another's weal.
I speak not idly but from knowledge sure
There be who vaunt an utter loyalty,
That is but as the ghost of friendship dead,
A shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.
One only he who went reluctant forth
Across the seas with me Odysseus he
Was loyal unto me with strength and will,
A trusty trace-horse bound unto my car.
Thus be he yet beneath the light of day,
Or dead, as well I fear-r-I speak his praise.
Lastly, whate'er be due to men or gods,
With joint debate, in public council held,
We will decide, and warily contrive
AGAMEMNON.
That all which now is well may so abide :
For that which haply needs the healer's art,
That will we medicine, discerning well
If cautery or knife befit the time.
Now, to my palace and the shrines of home,
I will pass in, and greet ye first and fair,
Ye gods, who bade me forth, and home again
And long may Victory tarry in my train !
\Enter Clytemnestra, followed by maidens
bearing purple robes.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Old men of Argos, lieges of our realm,
Shame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see
The love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear
Dies at the last from hearts of human kind.
From mine own soul and from no alien lips,
I know and will reveal the life I bore,
Reluctant, through the lingering livelong yeai's,
The while my lord beleaguered Ilion's wall.
First that a wife sat sundered from her lord,
In widowed solitude, was utter woe
And woe, to hear how rumour's many tongues
All boded evil woe, when he who came
And he who followed spake of ill on ill,
Keening Lost, lost, all lost ! thro' hall and bower.
Had this my husband met so many wounds,
As by a thousand channels rumour told,
No network e'er was full of holes as he.
Had he been slain, as oft as tidings came
That he was dead, he Avell might boast him now
A second Geryon of triple frame,
AGAMEMNON. 39
With triple robe of earth above him laid
For that below, no matter triply dead,
Dead by one death for every form he bore.
And thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,
Oft for self-slaughter had I slung the noose,
But others wrenched it from my neck away.
Hence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,
The pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,
Stands not beside us now, as he should stand.
Nor marvel thou at this : he dwells with one
Who guards him loyally ; 'tis Phocis' king,
Strophius, who warned me erst, Bethink thee, queen,
What woes of doubtful issue well may fall !
Thy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,
While here a populace uncurbed may cry
" Down with the council, down ! " bethink thee too,
'Tis the world's way to set a harder heel
On fallen power.
For thy child's absence then
Such mine excuse, no wily afterthought.
For me, long since the gushing fount of tears
Is wept away ; no drop is left to shed.
Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,
Weeping the bale-fires, piled for thy return,
Night after night unkindled. If I slept,
Each sound the tiny humming of a gnat,
Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams
Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,
Thrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.
All this I bore, and now, released from woe,
I hail my lord as watch-dog of a fold,
As saving stay-rope of a storm-tossed ship,
As column stout that holds the roof aloft,
AGAMEMNON.
As only child unto a sire bereaved,
As land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,
As sunshine fair when tempest's wrath is past,
As gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.
So sweet it is to 'scape the press of pain.
With such salute I bid my husband hail !
Nor heaven be wroth therewith ! for long and hard
I bore that ire of old.
Sweet lord, step forth,
Step from thy car, I pray nay, not on earth
Plant the proud foot, king, that trod down Troy !
Women ! why tarry ye, whose task it is
To spread your monarch's path with tapestry ?
Swift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,
That justice lead him to a home, at last,
He scarcely looked to see.
For what remains,
Zeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand
To work as right and as the gods command.
AGAMEMNON.
Daughter of Leda, watcher o'er my home,
Thy greeting well befits mine absence long,
For late and hardly has it reached its end.
Know, that the praise which honour bids us crave,
Must come from others' lips, not from our own :
See too that not in fashion feminine
Thou make a warrior's pathway delicate ;
Not unto me, as to some Eastern lord,
Bowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.
Strew not this purple that shall make each step
An arrogance ; such pomp beseems the gods,
Not me. A mortal man to set his foot
AGAMEMNON.
On these rich dyes ? I hold such pride in fear,
And bid thee honour me as man, not god.
Fear not such footcloths and all gauds apart,
Loud from the trump of Fame my name is blown :
Best gift of heaven it is, in glory's hour,
To think thereon with soberness : and thou
Bethink thee of the adage, Call none blest
Till peaceful death have croumed a life of weal.
'Tis said * : I fain would fare unvexed by fear.
CLYTBMNESTRA.
Nay, but unsay it thwart not thou my will !
AGAMEMNON.
Know, I have said, and will not mar my word.
CLYTBMNESTRA.
Was it fear made this meekness to the gods ?
AGAMEMNON.
If cause be cause, 'tis mine for this resolve.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
What, think'st thou, in thy place had Priam done 1
AGAMEMNON.
He surely would walked on broidered robes.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Then fear not thou the voice of human blame.
AGAMEMNON.
Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.
Reading "i^W rd&'" with Weil.
AGAMEMNON.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.
AGAMEMNON.
War is not woman's part, nor war of words.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Yet happy victors well may yield therein.
AGAMEMNON.
Dost crave for triumph in this petty strife ?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Yield ; of thy grace permit me to prevail !
AGAMEMNON.
Then, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose
Swiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot :
And stepping thus upon the sea's rich dye,
I pray, Let none among the gods look down
With jealous eye on me reluctant all,
To trample thus and mar a thing of price,
Wasting the wealth of garments silver-worth.
Enough hereof : and, for the stranger maid,
Lead her within, but gently : God on high
Looks graciously on him whom triumph's hour
Has made not pitiless. None willingly
Wears the slave's yoke and she, the prize and flower
Of all we won, comes hither in my train,
Gift of the army to its chief and lord.
Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,
I will pass in on purples to my home.
AGAMEMNON. 43
CLYTEMNESTRA.
A Sea there is and who shall stay its springs ?
And deep within its breast, a mighty store,
Precious as silver, of the purple dye,
Whereby the dipped robe doth its tint renew.
Enough of such, king, within thy halls
There lies, a store that cannot fail ; but I
I would have gladly vowed unto the gods
Cost of a thousand garments trodden thus,
(Had once the oracle such gift required)
Contriving ransom for thy life preserved.
For while the stock is firm the foliage climbs,
Spreading a shade, what time the dog-star glows ;
And thou, returning to thine hearth and home,
Art as a genial warmth in winter hours,
Or as a coolness, when the lord of heaven
Mellows the juice within the bitter grape.
Such boons and more doth bring into a home
The present footstep of its proper lord.
Zeus, Zeus, Fulfilment's lord ! my vows fulfil,
And whatsoe'er it be, work forth thy will !
[Exeunt all but Cassandra and the Chorus.
CHORUS.
Wherefore for ever on the wings of fear
Hovers a vision drear
Before my boding heart ? a strain,
Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,
Oracular of pain.
Not as of old upon my bosom's throne
Sits Confidence, to spurn
AGAMEMNON.
Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.
Old, old and gray long since the time has grown,
Which saw the linked cables moor
The fleet when erst it came to Ilion's sandy shore ;
And now mine eyes and not another's see
Their safe return.
Yet none the less in me
The inner spirit sings a boding song,
Self-prompted, sings the Furies' strain
And seeks, and seeks in vain,
To hope and to be strong !
Ah ! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,
Are these wild throbbings of my heart and breast
Yea, of some doom they tell
Each pulse, a knell.
Lief, lief I were, that all
To unfulfilment's hidden realm might fall.
Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,
Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied
Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,
Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,
The gales that waft our bark on Fortune's tide !
Swiftly we sail, the sooner all to drive
Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.
Then if the hand of caution warily
Sling forth into the sea
Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,
From the deep death it saves the bark : even so,
Doom-laden though it be, once more may rise
His household, who is timely wise.
AGAMEMNON. 45
How oft the famine-stricken field
Is saved by God's large gift, the new year's yield !
But blood of man once spilled,
Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain,
Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.
So Zeus hath willed :
Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled
To bring man from the dead : the hand divine
Did smite himself with death a warning and a sign.
Ah me ! if Fate, ordained of old,
Held not the will of gods constrained, controlled,
Helpless to us-^vard, and apart
Swifter than speech my heart
Had poured its presage out !
Now, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,
Tis hopeless to unfold
Truth, from fear's tangled skein ; and, yearning to proclaim
Its thought, my soul is prophecy and flame.
Re-enter CLYTEMNESTRA.
Get thee within thou too, Cassandra, go !
For Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants
To share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,
Beside the altar of his guardianship,
Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still ?
Step from the car ; Alcmena's son, 'tis said,
Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.
Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befal,
'Tis a fair chance to serve within a home
Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,
AGAMEMNON.
To whom wealth's harvest came beyond his hope,
Is as a lion to his slaves, in all
Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.
Pass in : thou hearest what our ways will be.
CHORUS.
Clear unto thee, maid, is her command,
But thou within the toils of Fate thou art
If such thy will, I urge thee to obey ;
Yet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
I wot unless like swallows she doth use
Some strange barbarian tongue from oversea
My words must speak persuasion to her soul.
CHORUS.
Obey : there is no gentler way than this.
Step from the car's high seat and follow her.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Truce to this bootless waiting here without !
I will not stay : beside the central shrine
The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire
Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.
Thou if thou reckest aught of my command,
'Twere well done soon : but if thy sense be shut
From these my words, let thy barbarian hand
Fulfil by gesture the default of speech.
CHORUS.
Xo native is she, thus to read thy words
Unaided : like some wild thing of the wood,
New-trapped, behold ! she shrinks and glares on thee.
AGAMEMNON. 47
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,
Since she beheld her city sink in fire,
And hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until
In foam and blood her wrath be champed away.
See ye to her ; unqueenly 'tis for me,
Unheeded thus to cast away my words.
{Exit Clytemnestra.
CHORUS.
But with me pity sits in anger's place.
Poor maiden, come thou from the car ; no way
There is but this take up thy servitude.
CASSANDRA.
Woe, woe, alas ! Earth, Mother Earth ! and thou
Apollo, Apollo !
CHORUS.
Peace ! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,
Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.
CASSANDRA.
Woe, woe, alas ! Earth, Mother Earth ! and thou
Apollo, Apollo !
CHORUS.
Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,
Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail
CASSANDRA.
Apollo, Apollo !
God of all ways, but only Death's to me,
AGAMEMNON.
Once and again, thou, Destroyer named,
Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old ! *
* The cries of Cassandra need special explanation. Apollo, the god
who had endowed her with prophetic power, and then, angered by her
rejection of his suit, caused her prophecy to be disbelieved was called
ayvtar*)?, i-f-, god of streets or ways ; and it was usual to erect a rough
statue to him at particular points of a road. No doubt such a statue was
to be seen in front of the palace of Atreus. Apollo also, as a name, is, or
at any rate closely resembles, the Greek word for ' ' Destroyer " (familiar to
readers of "Pilgrim's Progress" as Apollyon). It will be seen therefore
how much method is in the madness of Cassandra. She sees the statue of
Apollo the way-god, and cries aloud of the weary way he has sent her to
her doom, himself the Destroyer first of her fame, and now of her life. Her
death, and that of Agamemnon, are actually present to her vision, though
in confused forms ; and the ancient ills of the house of Atreus, her own
happy childhood, the recent fall of Troy, the spectres of Thyestes' children,
the vengeful god tearing from her the prophetic robe, the fate of
Clytemnestra herself in after days all pass before her; then, with a
piteous cry of utter pathos over the state of mortal men, she goes within
the palace, to confront her foreseen doom.
The office of a translator, never a very hopeful one, becomes despair
itself in the endeavour to reproduce this scene. The ravings of Lear have
not its terror, nor those of Ophelia or Gretchen its pathos. The language
has put away the besetting sin of /Eschylus' earlier dramas a certain
grandiose and stilted character : here it is alternately wild with the actual
inspiration of prophecy, and piteous with the sense of weakness, of the
inevitable doom, of the l^Oia-Ti) oSi/nn, TroXXa (p^oveovra, ^rj^'vo? z.qa.Tnm
" the worst of agonies, to know and yet to avail nought." The cadence
is sometimes one long sigh,
iu #OTEt TT^ay^ar'' evTv^ovorai f*i
crma. T? a,v JT^-^SHV.
sometimes a voice broken with thick sobs,
v yt(> o
Oeof, yhvxim r' a-luva, K\a.v^a,Tuv a.rt^
sometimes strong and queenly with pride and scorn,
aunt Siwovi; heotwat, a-vyv.<np.up*vvi
\VKU, *OI/TO? tvyivoiis a-irova-'ia.
sometimes frantic with hysterical terror,
ogaTS roi/crSf, Toy? Sopon; i
novs, outrun 9Toc-<piiK
AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
She grows presageful of her woes to come,
Slave tho' she be, instinct with prophecy.
CASSANDRA.
Apollo, Apollo !
God of all ways, but only Death's to me,
O thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named !
What way hast led me, to what evil home ?
CHORUS.
Know'st thou it not ? The home of Atreus' race :
Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.
CASSANDRA.
Home cursed of God ! Bear witness unto me,
Ye visioned woes within
The blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin
The strangling noose, and, spattered o'er
With human blood, the reeking floor !
CHORUS.
How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,
Keen-scented unto blood and death she hies !
lastly, grave with the pathos of confronted death,
T ^>JT* iyu X.O.TOUIOS u$' a.vxff'Tim',
ITTli TO TT^UTCiH JW . IXlOV TTOXm
Teoa.^a.aa.1 u<; iTr^ot^it' ol' ' iip^ov TroXif
ovru<; aTra^ac-croucm it Qtu xgiau.
Here, therefore, the translator may be allowed to fall back upon the
humbler task of telling the reader what is to be found in the original,
before endeavouring to call up its ghost in English. IloXAa QfotiotTa.
(jLvbtvoi; x.^aTiw, is not a bad account of the process of translation, and
nowhere more applicable than here.
E
5 o AGAMEMNON.
CASSANDRA.
Ah ! can the ghostly guidance fail,
Whereby my prophet-soul is onwards led 1
Look ! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,
Their sodden limbs on which their father fed !
CHORUS.
Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,
But for those deeds we seek no prophet's tongue.
CASSANDRA.
God ! 'tis another crime
Worse than the storied woe of olden time,
Cureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here
A shaming death, for those that should be dear !
Alas ! and far away in foreign land
He that should help doth stand !
CHORUS.
I knew th' old tales, the city rings withal
But now thy speech is dark beyond my ken.
CASSANDRA.
wretch, purpose fell !
Thou for thy wedded lord
The cleansing wave hast poured
A treacherous welcome !
How the sequel tell 1
Too soon 'twill come, too soon, for now, even now,
She smites him, blow on blow !
CHORUS.
Riddles beyond my rede I peer in vain
Thro' the dim films that screen the prophecy.
AGAMEMNON.
CASSANDRA.
God ! a new sight ! a net, a snare of hell,
Set by her hand herself a snare more fell !
A wedded wife, she slays her lord,
Helped by another hand !
Ye powers, whose hate
Of Atreus' home no blood can satiate,
Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred !
CHORUS.
Why biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,
Shriek o'er the house ? Thine is no cheering word.
Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel
My wanning life-blood run
The blood that round the wounding steel
Ebbs slow as sinks life's parting sun
Swift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on !
CASSANDRA.
Away, away keep him away
The monarch of the herd, the pasture's pride,
Far from his mate ! In treach'rous wrath,
Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe
She gores his fenceless side !
Hark ! in the brimming bath,
The heavy plash the dying cry
Hark in the laver hark, he falls by treachery !
CHORUS.
I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,
Yet something warns me that they tell of ill.
dark prophetic speech,
111 tidings dost thou teach
AGAMEMNON.
Ever, to mortals here below !
Ever some tale of awe and woe
Thro' all thy windings manifold
Do we unriddle and unfold !
CASSANDRA.
Ah well-a-day ! the cup of agony,
Whereof I chant, foams with a draught for me.
Ah lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here
Was't but to die with thee whose doom is near?
CHORUS.
Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,
And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,
As piteous as the ceaseless tale
Wherewith the brown melodious bird
Doth ever Itys ! Itys ! wail,
Deep-bowered in sorrow, all its little life-time's day !
CASSANDRA.
Ah for thy fate, O shrill-voiced nightingale !
Some solace for thy woes did Heaven afford,
Clothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart
from wail
But for my death is edged the double-biting sword !
CHORUS.
What pangs are these, what fruitless pain,
Sent on thee from on high ?
Thou chantest terror's frantic strain,
Yet in shrill measured melody.
How thus unerring canst thou sweep along
The prophet's path of boding song ?
AGAMEMNON.
CASSANDRA.
Woe, Paris, woe on thee ! thy bridal joy
Was death and fire upon thy race and Troy !
And woe for thee, Scamander's flood !
Beside thy banks, river fair,
I grew in tender nursing care
From childhood unto maidenhood !
Now not by thine, but by Cocytus' stream
And Acheron's banks shall ring my boding scream.
CHORUS.
Too plain is all, too plain !
A child might read aright thy fateful strain.
Deep in my heart their piercing fang
Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard
That piteous, low, tender word,
Yet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.
CASSANDRA.
Woe for my city, woe for Ilion's fall !
Father, how oft with sanguine stain
Streamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slain
That heaven might guard our wall !
But all was shed in vain.
Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,
And I ah burning heart! shall soon lie low as well.
CHORUS.
Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still !
Alas, what power of ill
Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell
In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale 1
Some woe I know not what must close thy piteous wail.
AGAMEMNON.
CASSANDRA.
List ! for no more the presage of my soul,
Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil ;
But as the morning wind blows clear the east,
More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,
And as against the low bright line of dawn
Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,
So in the clearing skies of prescience
Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,
And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.
Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side
I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.
Within this house a choir abidingly
Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill ;
Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,
Man's blood for wine, and revel in the halls,
Departing never, Furies of the home.
They sit within, they chant the primal curse,
Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,
The brother's couch, the love incestuous
That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.
Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,
Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed ?
They called me once, The prophetess of lies,
The wandering hag, the pest of every door
Attest ye now, She knows in very sooth
The house's curse, the storied infamy.
CHORUS.
Yet how should oath how loyally soe'er
I swear it aught avail thee ? In good sooth,
My wonder meets thy claim : I stand amazed
AGAMEMNON. 55
That thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,
Dost as a native know and tell aright
Tales of a city of an alien tongue.
CASSANDRA.
That is my power a boon Apollo gave.
CHORUS.
God though he were, yearning for mortal maid 1
CASSANDRA.
Ay ! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.
CHORUS.
Such finer sense suits not with slavery.
CASSANDRA.
He strove to win me, panting for my love.
CHORUS.
Came ye by compact unto bridal joys 1
CASSANDRA.
Nay for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.
CHORUS.
Wert thou already dowered with prescience ?
CASSANDRA.
Yea prophetess to Troy of all her doom.
CHORUS.
How left thee then Apollo's wrath unscathed ?
CASSANDRA.
I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.
5 6 AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
Not so to us at least thy words seem sooth.
CASSANDRA.
Woe for me, woe ! Again the agony
Dread pain that sees the future all too well
With ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.
Behold ye yonder on the palace roof
The spectre-children sitting look, such things
As dreams are made of, phantoms as of babes,
Horrible shadows, that a kinsman's hand
Hath marked with murder, and their arms are full-
A rueful burden see, they hold them up,
The entrails upon which their father fed !
For this, for this, I say there plots revenge
A coward lion, couching in the lair
Guarding the gate against my master's foot
My master mine I bear the slave's yoke now.
And he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,
Knows not the fawning treachery of tongue
Of this thing false and dog-like how her speech
Glozes and sleeks her purpose, till she win
By ill fate's favour the desired chance,
Moving like Ate to a secret end.
aweless soul ! the woman slays her lord
Woman ? what loathsome monster of the earth
Were fit comparison ? The double snake
Or Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman's bane,
Girt round about with rocks ? some hag of hell,
Raving a truceless curse upon her kin ?
Hark even now she cries exultingly
The vengeful cry that tells of battle turned
How fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored !
A GA MEMNON. 57
Nay then, believe me not : what skills belief
Or disbelief? Fate works its will and thou
Wilt see and say in ruth Her tale was true.
CHORUS.
Ah 'tis Thyestes' feast on kindred flesh
I guess her meaning and with horror thrill,
Hearing no shadow'd hint of th' o'er-true tale,
But its full hate fulness : yet, for the rest,
Far from the track I roam, and know no more.
CASSANDRA.
Tis Agamemnon's doom thou shalt behold.
CHORUS.
Peace, hapless woman, to thy boding words.
CASSANDRA.
Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.
CHORUS.
Ay were such doom at hand which God forbid !
CASSANDRA.
Thou prayest idly these move swift to slay.
CHORUS.
What man prepares a deed of such despite ?
CASSANDRA.
Fool ! thus to read amiss mine oracles.
CHORUS.
Deviser and device are dark to me.
CASSANDRA.
Dark ! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.
5 8 AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
Ay but in thine, as in Apollo's strains,
Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.
CASSANDRA.
Ah ah the fire ! it waxes, nears me now
Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn !
Lo, how the woman-thing, the lioness
Couched with the wolf her noble mate afar
Will slay me, slave forlorn ! Yea, like some witch,
She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord,
With double death his recompense for me !
Ay, 'tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,
That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel !
Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,
Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all
I stamp you into death, or e'er I die
Down, to destruction !
Thus I stand revenged
Go, crown some other with a prophet's woe.
Look ! it is he, it is Apollo's self
Rending from me the prophet-robe he gave.
God ! while I wore it yet, thou saw'st me mocked
There at my home by each malicious mouth
To all and each, an undivided scorn.
The name alike and fate of witch and cheat
Woe, poverty, and famine all I bore ;*
* Though the resemblance is probably accidental, it is impossible not to
be reminded of this passage by the last farewell of Meg Merrilies (Guy
Mannering, ch. 55) "When I was in life, I was the mad randy gipsy,
that had been scourged, and banished, and branded that had begged
from door to door, and been hounded like a stray tike from parish to
parish wha would hae minded her tale? But now I am a dying woman,
and my words will not fall to the ground, any more than the earth will
cover my blood ! "
AGAMEMNON. 59
And at this last the god hath brought me here
Into death's toils, and what his love had made,
His hate unmakes me now : and I shall stand
Not now before the altar of my home,
But me a slaughter-house and block of blood
Shall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.
Yet shall the gods have heed of me who die,
For by their will shall one requite my doom.
He, to avenge his father's blood outpoured,
Shall smite and slay with matricidal hand.
Ay, he shall come tho' far away he roam,
A banished wanderer in a stranger's land
To crown his kindred's edifice of ill,
Called home to vengeance by his father's fall :
Thus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.
And now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,
Since first mine Ilion has found its fate
And I beheld, and those who won the wall
Pass to such issue as the gods ordain ?
I too will pass and like them dare to die !
[ Turns and looks upon the palace door.
Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail !
Grant me one boon a swift and mortal stroke,
That all unwrung by pain, with ebbing blood
Shed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.
CHORUS.
Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,
Long was thy prophecy : but if aright
Thou readest all thy fate, how thus unscared
Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom,
As fronts the knife some victim, heaven-controlled 1
CASSANDRA.
Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.
60 AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.
CASSANDRA.
The day is come flight were small gain to me !
CHORUS.
brave endurance of a soul resolved !
CASSANDRA.
That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.
CHORUS.
All fame is happy, even famous death.
CASSANDRA.
Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye !
[Sfte moves to enter the house, then starts back.
CHORUS.
What fear is this that scares thee from the house ?
CASSANDRA.
Pah!
CHORUS.
What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?
CASSANDRA.
Pah ! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.
CHORUS.
How ? 'tis the smell of household offerings.
CASSANDRA.
'Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.
AGAMEMNON.
CHORUS.
Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard ? *
CASSANDRA.
Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud
The monarch's fate and mine enough of life.
Ah friends !
Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,
That not as birds that shun the bush and scream f
I moan in idle terror. This attest
When for my death's revenge another dies,
A woman for a woman, and a man
Falls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.
Grant me this boon the last before I die.
CHORUS.
Brave to the last ! I mourn thy doom foreseen.
CASSANDRA.
Once more one utterance but not of wail,
Though for my death and then I speak no more.
Sun ! thou whose beam I shall not see again,
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls
To slay their kindred's slayers, quit withal
The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey. \
* The Syrian scent, to which the Chorus attribute Cassandra's disgust
(which is in reality the quickened and prophetic fore-sense of blood soon
to be shed), is either from some perfume burning on the altars within, or
possibly, as has been suggested to me, the scent of perfumed cedar boxes,
in which the bright purples strewn upon the path have been preserved.
t " Birds that shun the bush," i.e. birds that have been limed in a bush.
cf. Henry VI, Part iii., Act v., Sc. 6:
" The bird that hath been limed in a bush,
With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush. "
% I have adopted here the conjectural emendations of Dr. Kennedy.
AGAMEMNON.
Ah state of mortal man ! in time of weal,
A line, a shadow ! and if ill fate fall,
One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away
And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.
\Exit into the palace.
CHORUS.
Too true it is ! our mortal state
With bliss is never satiate,
And none before the palace high
And stately of prosperity
Cries to us with a voice of fear
Away ! '/is ill to enter here !
Lo ! this our lord hath trodden down,
By grace of heaven, old Priam's town,
And praised as god he stands once more
On Argos' shore !
Yet now if blood shed long ago
Cries out that other blood shall flow,
His life-blood, his, to pay again
The stern requital of the slain
Peace to that braggart's vaunting vain,
Who, having heard the chieftain's tale,
Yet boasts of bliss untouched by bale !
\A loud cry from within.
VOICE OF AGAMEMNON.
I am sped a deep, a mortal blow.
CHORUS.
Listen, listen ! who is screaming as in mortal agony ?
VOICE OF AGAMEMNON.
! ! again, another, another blow !
AGAMEMNON. 63
CHORUS.
The bloody act is over I have heard the monarch's cry
Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to
die.
ONE OF THE CHORUS.
'Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,
" Ho ! loyal Argives ! to the palace, all !"
ANOTHER.
Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,
And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.
ANOTHER.
Such will is mine, and what thou say'st I say :
Swiftly to act ! the time brooks no delay.
ANOTHER.
Ay, for 'tis plain, this prelude of their song
Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong.
ANOTHER.
Behold, we tarry but thy name, Delay,
They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.
ANOTHER.
I know not what 'twere well to counsel now
Who wills to act, 'tis his to counsel how.
ANOTHER.
Thy doubt is mine : for when a man is slain,
I have no words to bring his life again.
ANOTHER.
What ? e'en for life's sake, bow us to obey
These house-defilers and their tyrant sway ?
AGAMEMNON.
ANOTHER.
Unmanly doom ! 'twere better fat to die
Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.
ANOTHER.
Think well must cry or sign of woe or pain
Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain ?
ANOTHER.
Such talk befits us when the deed we see
Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS.
I read one will from many a diverse word,
To know aright, how stands it with our lord !
[The scene opens, disclosing Clyiemnestra, who conies
forward. The body of Agamemnon lies, muffled
in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver ; the
corpse of Cassandra is laid beside him.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oft
The glozing word that led me to my will
Hear how I shrink not to unsay it all !
How else should one who willeth to requite
Evil for evil to an enemy
Disguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,
Not to be overleaped, a net of doom.
This is the sum and issue of old strife
Of me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.
All is avowed, and as I smote I stand
With foot set firm iipon a finished thing !
AGAMEMNON. 65
I turn not to denial : thus I wrought
So that he coulH. nor flee nor ward his doom.
Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,
I trapped him with inextricable toils,
The ill abundance of a baffling robe ;
Then smote him, once, again and at each wound
He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed
Each limb and sank to earth ; and as he lay,
Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,
Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.
And thus he fell, and as he passed away,
Spirit with body chafed ; each dying breath
Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,
And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood
Eell upon me ; and I was fain to feel
That dew not sweeter is the rain of heaven
To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.
Elders of Argos since the thing stands so,
I bid ye to rejoice, if such your will :
Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,
And well I ween, if seemly it could be,
'Twere not ill done to pour libations here,
Justly ay, more than justly on his corpse
Who filled his home with curses as with wine,
And thus returned to drain the cup he filled.
CHORUS.
I marvel at thy tongue's audacity,
To vaunt thus loudly o'er a husband slain.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will,
And strive to sway me : but my heart is stout,
Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you,
F
AGAMEMNON.
Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,
Even as ye list, I reck not of your words.
Lo ! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,
My husband once and him this hand of mine,
A right contriver, fashioned for his death.
Behold the deed !
CHORUS.
Woman, what deadly birth,
What venomed essence of the earth
Or dark distilment of the wave,
To thee such passion gave,
Nerving thine hand
To set upon thy brow this burning crown,
The curses of thy land 1
Our king by thte cut off, hewn down !
Go forth they cry accursed and forlorn,
To hate and scorn !
CLYTEMXESTRA.
O ye just men, who speak my sentence now,
The city's hate, the ban of all my realm !
Ye had no voice of old to launch such doom
On him, my husband, when he held as light
My daughter's life as that of sheep or goat,
One victim from the thronging fleecy fold !
Yea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,
The well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,
To lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.
That deed of his I say, that stain and shame,
Had rightly been atoned by banishment ;
But ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judge
This deed of mine that doth affront your ears.
Storm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,
AGAMEMNON. 67
That I am ready, if your hand prevail
As mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway :
If God say nay, it shall be yours to learn
By chastisement a late humility.
CHORUS.
Bold is thy craft, and proud
Thy confidence, thy vaunting loud ;
Thy soul, that chose a murd'ress' fate,
Is all with blood elate
Maddened to know
The blood not yet avenged, the damned spot
Crimson upon thy brow.
But Fate prepares for thee thy lot
Smitten as thou didst smite, without a friend,
To meet thine end !
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear
By the great vengeance for my murdered child,
By Ate, by the Fury unto whom
This man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,
I do not look to tread the hall of Fear,
While in this hearth and home of mine there burns
The light of love /Egisthus as of old
Loyal, a stalwart shield of confidence
As true to me as this slain man was false,
Wronging his wife with paramours at Troy,
Fresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there !
Behold him dead behold his captive prize,
Seeress and harlot comfort of his bed,
True prophetess, true paramour I wot
The sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,
Full oft, of every rower, than was she.
AGAMEMNON.
See, ill they did, and ill requites them now.
His death ye know : she as a dying swan
Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,
Close to his side, and to my couch has left
A sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.
CHORUS.
Ah woe and well-a-day! I would that Fate
Not bearing agony too great,
Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain
Would bid mine eyelids keep
The morningless and unawakening sleep ! *
For life is weary, now my lord is slain,
The gracious among kings !
Hard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,
And for a woman's sake, on Ilian land
Now is his life hewn down, and by a woman's hand.
Helen, infatuate soul,
Who bad'st the tides of battle roll,
Overwhelming thousands, life on life,
'Neath Ilion's wall !
And now lies dead the lord of all.
The blossom of thy storied sin
Bears blood's inexpiable stain,
thou that erst, these halls within,
Wert unto all a rock of strife,
A husband's bane !
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Peace ! pray not thou for death as though
* " For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep
The morningless and unawakening sleep."
M. ARNOLD, Thyrsis.
AGAMEMNON.
Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,
Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban
The name of Helen, nor recall
How she, one bane of many a man,
Sent down to death the Danaan lords,
To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,
And wrought the woe that shattered all.
CHORUS.
Fiend of the race ! that swoopest fell
Upon the double stock of Tantalus,
Lording it o'er me by a woman's will,
Stern, manful, and imperious
A bitter sway to me !
Thy very form I see,
Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,
Exulting o'er the crime aloud in tuneless strain !
CLYTEJINESTRA.
Right was that word thou namest well
The brooding race-fiend, triply fell !
From him it is that murder's thirst,
Blood-lapping, inwardly is nursed
Ere time the ancient scar can sain,
New blood comes welling forth again.
CHORUS.
Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,
That fiend of whom thy voice has cried
Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,
An all-devouring doom.
Ah woe, ah Zeus ! from Zeus all things befall
Zeus the high cause and finisher of all !
AGAMEMNON.
Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed
All things, by him fulfilled !
Yet ah my king, my king no more !
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee ?
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,
And lo ! I see thee lie,
And thro' a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die !
A death of shame ah woe on woe !
A treach'rous hand, a cleaving blow !
CLYTEMNESTRA.
My guilt thou harpest, o'er and o'er !
I bid thee reckon me no more
As Agamemnon's spouse.
The old Avenger, stern of mood
For Atreus and his feast of blood,
Hath struck the lord of Atreus' house,
And in the semblance of his wife
The king hath slain.
Yea, for the murdered children's life,
A chieftain's in requital ta'en.
CHORUS.
Thou guiltless of this murder, thou !
Who dares such thought avow ?
Yet it may be, wroth for the parent's deed,
The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.
Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on
Thro' streams of blood by kindred shed,
Exacting the accompt for children dead,
For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.
AGAMEMNON.
Yet ah my king, my king no more !
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee 1
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,
And lo ! I see thee lie,
And thro' a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die !
A death of shame ah w r oe on woe !
A treach'rous hand, a cleaving blow ! '
CLYTEMNESTRA.
I deem not that the death he died
Had overmuch of shame :
For this was he who did provide
Foul wrong unto his house and name :
His daughter, blossom of my womb,
He gave unto a deadly doom,
Iphigenia, child of tears.
And as he wrought, even so he fares.
Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell ;
For by the sword his sin he wrought,
And by the sword himself is brought
Among the dead to dwell.
CHORUS.
Ah whither shall I fly?
For all in ruin sinks the kingly hall ;
Nor swift device nor shift of thought have I,
To 'scape its fall.
A little while the gentler rain-drops fail ;
I stand distraught a ghastly interval,
Till on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail
Of blood and doom. Even. now fate whets the steel
AGAMEMNON.
On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,
The steel that smites, in Justice' hold,
Another death to deal.
Earth ! that I had lain at rest
And lapped for ever in thy breast,
Ere I had seen my chieftain fall
Within the layer's silver Avail,
Low-lying on dishonoured bier.
And who shall give him sepulchre,
And who the wail of sorrow pour ?
Woman, 'tis thine no more !
A graceless gift unto his shade
Such tribute, by his murd'ress paid !
Strive not thus wrongly to atone
The impious deed thy hand hath done.
Ah who above the god-like chief
Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?
Who speak above his lowly grave
The last sad praises of the brave 1
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Peace ! for such task is none of thine.
By me he fell, by me he died,
And now his burial rites be mine !
Yet from these halls no mourners' train
Shall celebrate his obsequies ;
Only by Acheron's rolling tide
His child shall spring unto his side,
And in a daughter's loving wise
Shall clasp and kiss him once again !
CHORUS.
Lo ! sin by sin and sorrow dogg'd by sorrow
And who the end can know ?
AGAMEMNON. 73
The slayer of to-day shall die to-morrow
The wage of wrong is woe.
While Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,
His law is fixed and stern ;
On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured
The tides of doom return.
The children of the curse abide within
These halls of high estate
And none can wrench from off the home of sin
The clinging grasp of fate.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Now walks thy word aright, to tell
This ancient truth of oracle ;
But I with vows of sooth will pray
To him, the power that holdeth sway
O'er all the race of Pleisthenes
Thtf dark the deed and deep the guilt,
With this last blood, my hands have spilt,
1 pray thee let thine anger cease !
I pray thee pass from us away
To some new race in other lands,
There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay
The lives of men by kindred hands.
For me 'tis all sufficient meed,
Tho' little wealth or power were won,
So I can say, 'Tis past and done.
The bloody lust and murderous,
The inborn frenzy of our house.
Is ended by my deed.
\Enter sEgisthus.
AGAMEMNON
Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail !
I dare at length aver that gods above
Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.
I, I who stand and thus exult to see
This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,
Slain in requital of his father's craft.
Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man's sire,
The lord and monarch of this laud of old,
Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,
Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,
And drave him from his home to banishment.
Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole
And clung a suppliant to the hearth divine,
And for himself won this immunity
Not with his own blood to defile the land
That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire
Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned-
With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold
In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,
And bade my father to his board, and set
Before him flesh that was his children once.
First, sitting at the upper board alone,
He hid the fingers and the feet, but gave
The rest and readily Thyestes took
What to his ignorance no semblance wore
Of human flesh, and ate : behold what curse
That eating brought upon our race and name !
For when he knew what all unhallowed thing
He thus had wrought, with horror's bitter cry
Back-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,
On Pelops' house a deadly curse he spake
As darkly as I spurn this damned food,
So perish all the race of Pleisthenes.
AGAMEMNON. 75
Thus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,
And I who else 1 this murder wove and planned ;
For me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,
Of the three * children youngest, Atreus sent
To banishment by my sad father's side :
But Justice brought me home once more, grown now
To manhood's years ; and stranger thro' I was,
My right hand reached unto the chieftain's life,
Plotting and planning all that malice bade.
And death itself were honour now to me,
Beholding him injustice' ambush ta'en.
CHORUS.
^Egisthus, for this insolence of thine
That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.
Of thine own will, them sayest, thou hast slain
The chieftain, by thine own unaided plot
Devised the piteous death : I rede thee well,
Think not thy head shall 'scape, when right prevails,
The people's ban, the stones of death and doom.
This word from thee, this word from one who rows
Low at the oars f beneath, what time we rule,
We of the upper tier ? Thou'lt know anon,
'Tis bitter to be taught again in age,
By one so young, submission at the word.
But iron of the chain and hunger's throes,
Can minister unto an o'erswoln pride
Marvellous well, ay, even in the old.
* Reading Jt/o-atOxiw.
t The metaphor is from a Grecian trireme, which was rowed by three
tiers of oars, the upper being considered the most honourable position.
7 6 AGAMEMNON.
Hast eyes, and seest not this ? Peace kick not thus
Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain !
CHORUS.
Woman, home-watcher for thy lord who came
But now from war, didst thou his couch defile
And for the chief himself devise this doom ?
Bold words again ! but they shall end in tears.
The very converse, thine, of Orpheus' tongue :
He roused and led in ecstasy of joy
All things that heard his voice melodious ;
But thou as with the futile cry of curs
Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace !
Or strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.
CHORUS.
Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down,
Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,
But not with thine own hand to smite the blow !
zEGISTHUS.
That fraudful force was woman's very part,
Not mine, whom deep suspicion from of old
Would have debarred. Now by his treasure's aid
My purpose holds to rule the citizens.
But whoso will not bear my guiding hand,
Him for his corn-fed mettle I will drive
Not as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,
But to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.
Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,
Shall look on him and shall behold him tame.
AGAMEMNON. 77
CHORUS.
Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight
To deal in murder, while a woman's hand,
Staining and shaming Argos and its gods,
Availed to slay him 1 Ho, if anywhere
The light of life smite on Orestes' eyes,
Let him, returning by some guardian fate,
Hew down with force her paramour and her !
How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly under-
stand.
CHORUS.
Up to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand.
Swift, your right hands to the sword hilt ! bare the weapon
as for strife
Lo ! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or life.
CHORUS.
'Twas thy word and we accept it : onward to the chance of
war !
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Nay, enough, enough my champion ! we will smite and slay
no more.
Already have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt :
Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.
Peace, old men ! and pass away unto the homes by Fate
decreed,
Lest ill valour meet our vengeance 'twas a necessary deed.
But enough of toils and troubles be the end, if ever, now,
Ere thy talon, Avenger, deal another deadly blow.
Tis a woman's word of warning, and let who will list thereto.
7 8 AGAMEMNON.
JEGISTHUS.
But that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms of
the tongue,
And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,
And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler's word
CHORUS.
Ruler ? but 'tis not for Argives thus to own a dastard lord.
JEGISTHUS.
I will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway.
CHORUS.
Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way.
Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return.
CHORUS.
Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while 'tis thy turn.
Thou shalt pay, be well assured, heavy quittance for thy pride.
CHORUS.
Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock his mate
beside !
ClA'TEMNESTRA.
Heed not thou too highly of them let the cur-pack growl
and yell :
I and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well.
\Exeunt.
THE LIBATION -BEARERS.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
ORESTES.
CHORUS OP CAPTIVE WOMEN OF TROY.
ELECTRA.
A NURSE.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
yEGISTHUS.
AN ATTENDANT.
PYLADES.
The Scene is the Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycence ; afterwards, the
Palace of Atreus, hard by the Tomb.
THE LIBATION - BEARERS.
ORESTES.
Lord of the shades and patron of the realm
That erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,
Hermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,
Me who from banishment returning stand
On this my country ; lo, my foot is set
On this grave-mound, and herald-like, as thou,
Once and again, I bid my father hear.
And these twin locks from mine head shoni I bring,
And one to Inachus the river-god,
My young life's nurturer, I dedicate,
And one in sign of mourning unfulfilled
I lay, though late, on this my father's grave.
For my father, not beside thy corse
Stood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand
Stretched out to bear thee forth to burial.
What sight is yonder ? what this woman-throng
Hitherward coming, by their sable garb
Made manifest as mourners ? What hath chanced ?
Doth some new sorrow hap within the home 1
Or rightly may I deem that they draw near
Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire
c
THE LIB A TION- BEARERS.
Of dead men angered, to my father's grave ?
Nay, such they are indeed ; for I descry
Electra mine own sister pacing hither,
In moody grief conspicuous. Grant, Zeus,
Grant me my father's murder to avenge
Be thou my willing champion !
Pylades,
Pass we aside, till rightly I descry
Wherefore these women throng in suppliance.
[Exeunt Pylades and Orestes ; enter the Chorus
bearing vessels for libation ; Electra follows them;
they pace slowly towards the tomb of Agamemnon.
CHORUS.
Forth from the royal halls by high command
I bear libations for the dead.
Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,
And all my cheek is rent and red,
Fresh-furrowed by my nails, and all my soul
This many a day doth feed on cries of dole.
And trailing tatters of my vest,
In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,
Hang rent around my breast,
Even as I, by blows of Fate most stern
Saddened and torn.
Oracular thro' visions, ghastly clear,
Bearing a blast of wrath from realms below,
And stiffening each rising hair with dread,
Came out of dream-land Fear,
And, loud and awful, bade
The shriek ring out at midnight's witching hour,
And brooded, stern with woe,
Above the inner house, the woman's bower.
THE LIBATION- BEARERS. 83
And seers inspired did read the dream on oath,
Chanting aloud In realms below
The dead are wroth ;
Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.
Therefore to bear this gift of graceless worth
Earth, my nursing mother !
The woman god-accurs'd doth send me forth
Lest one crime bring another.
Ill is the very word to speak, for none
Can ransom or atone
For blood once shed and darkening the plain.
O hearth of woe and bane,
state that low doth lie !
Sunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood
Above the home of murdered majesty.
Humour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,
Pervading ears and soul of lesser men,
Is silent now and dead.
Yet rules a viler dread ;
For bliss and power, however won,
As gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.
Justice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,
Some that are yet in light ;
Others in interspace of day and night,
Till Fate arouse them, stay ;
And some are lapped in night, where all things are undone.*
* I have adopted here Conington's view (as opposed to Paley's), that
there is a definite though wnry allusion to Clytemnestra and ./Egisthus, as
yet in light and power ; to Orestes and Electra, as in the twilight of hope
and doubt ; to Agamemnon, as lying in death's darkness.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
On the life-giving lap of Earth
Blood hath flowed forth ;
And now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain
Unmelting, unefFaced the stain.
And Ate tarries long, but at the last
The sinner's heart is cast
Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain.
Lo, when man's force doth ope
The virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hope
For what is lost, even so, I deem,
Though in one channel ran Earth's every stream,
Laving the hand defiled from murder's stain,
It were in vain.
And upon me ah me ! the gods have laid
The woe that wrapped round Troy,
What time they led me down from home and kin
Unto a slave's employ
The doom to bow the head
And watch our master's will
Work deeds of good and ill
To see the headlong sway of force and sin,
And hold restrained the spirit's bitter hate,
Wailing the monarch's fruitless fate,
Hiding my face within my robe, and fain
Of tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.
ELECTRA.
Handmaidens, orderers of the palace-halls,
Since at my side ye come, a suppliant train,
Companions of this offering, counsel me
As best befits the time : for I, who pour
THE LIBATION-BEARERS, 85
Upon the grave these streams funereal,
With what fair word can I invoke my sire ?
Shall I aver Behold, I bear these gifts
From well-loved wife unto her well-loved lord,
When 'tis from her, my mother, that they corne ?
I dare not say it : of all words I fail
Wherewith to consecrate unto my sire
These sacrificial honours on his grave.
Or shall I speak this word, as mortals use
Give back, to those who send these coronals,
Full recompense of ills for acts malign ?
Or shall I pour this draught for Earth to drink,
Sans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,
And homeward pass with unreverted eyes,
Casting the bowl away, as one who flings
The household cleansings to the common road ?
Be art and part, friends, in this my doubt,
Even as ye are in that one common hate
Whereby we live attended : fear ye not
The wrath of any man, nor hide your word
Within your breast : the day of death and doom
Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.
Speak, then, if aught thou know'st to aid us more.
CHORUS.
Thou biddest ; I will speak my soul's thought out,
Revering as a shrine thy father's grave.
ELEOTRA.
Say then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest.
CHORUS.
Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.
86 THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
ELECTRA.
And of his kin whom dare I name as kind ?
CHORUS.
Thyself; and next, whoe'er JEgisthus scorns.
ELECTRA.
Then 'tis myself and thou, my prayer must name.
CHORUS.
Whoe'er they be, 'tis thine to know and name them.
ELECTRA.
Is there no other we may claim as ours 1
CHORUS.
Think of Orestes, though far-off he be.
ELECTRA.
Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.
CHORUS.
Mindfully, next, on those who shed the blood
ELECTRA.
Pray on them what ? expound, instruct my doubt.
CHORUS.
This ; Upon them some god or mortal come
ELECTRA.
As judge or as avenger 1 speak thy thought.
CHORUS.
Pray in set terms, WJw shall the slayer slay.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 87
ELBCTRA.
Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven ?
CHORUS.
How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe ?
ELECTRA.
mighty Hermes, warder of the shades,
Herald of upper and of under world,
Proclaim and usher down my prayer's appeal
Unto the gods below, that they with eyes
Watchful behold these halls, my sire's of old
And unto Earth, the mother of all things,
And foster-nurse, and womb that takes their seed.
Lo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,
Call on my father, who yet holds in ruth
Me and mine own Orestes, father', speak
How shall thy children rule thine halls again ?
Homeless we are and sold ; and she who sold
Is she who bore us ; and the price she took
Is he who joined with her to work thy death,
sEgisthus, her new lord. Behold me here
Brought down to slave's estate, and far away
Wanders Orestes, banished from the wealth
That once was thine, the profit of thy care,
Whereon these revel in a shameful joy.
Father, my prayer is said ; 'tis thine to hear
Grant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,
And unto me grant these a purer soul
Than is my mother's, a more stainless hand.
These be my prayers for us ; for thee, sire,
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
I cry that one may come to smite thy foes,
And that the slayers may in turn be slain.
Cursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,
Praying mine own, a counter-curse on them.
And thou, send up to us the righteous boon
For which we pray ; thine aids be heaven and earth,
And justice guide the right to victory.
[To the Chorus.
Thus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,
And follow ye the wont, and as with flowers
Crown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge
Your lips ring out above the dead man's grave.
[She pours the libations.
CHORUS.
Woe, woe, woe !
Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground
Where our lord lies low :
Fall and cleanse away the cursed libation's stain,
Shed on this grave-mound,
Fenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane
From the dead are found.
Lord of Argos, hearken !
Though around thee darken
Mist of death and hell, arise and hear !
Hearken and awaken to our cry of woe !
Who with might of spear
Shall our home deliver 1
Who like Ares bend until it quiver,
Bend the northern bow ?
Who with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust with
glaive,
Thrust and slay and save ?
THE LIBATION-BEAKERS.
ELECTRA.
Lo ! the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass
Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.
CHORUS.
Speak thou ; my breast doth palpitate with fear.
ELECTRA.
I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.
CHORUS.
Shorn from what man or what deep-girded maid ?
ELECTRA.
That may he guess who will ; the sign is plain.
CHORUS.
Let me learn this of thee ; let youth prompt age.
ELECTRA.
None is there here but I, to clip such gift.
CHORUS.
For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.
ELECTRA.
And lo ! in truth the hair exceeding like
CHORUS.
Like to what locks and whose ? instruct me that.
ELECTRA.
Like unto those my father's children wear.
CHORUS.
Then is this lock Orestes' secret gift 1
90 THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
ELECTRA.
Most like it is unto the curls he wore.
CHORUS.
Yet how dared he to come unto his home 1
ELECTRA.
He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.
CHORUS.
It is a sorrow grievous as his death,
That he should live yet never dare return.
ELECTRA.
Yea, and my heart o'erflows with gall of grief,
And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart ;
Like to the first drops after drought, my tears
Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,
As on this lock I gaze ; I cannot deem
That any Argive save Orestes' self
Was ever lord thereof ; nor, well I wot,
Hath she, the murd'ress, shorn and laid this lock
To mourn him whom she slew my mother she,
Bearing no mother's heart, but to her race
A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven !
Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,
That this adornment cometh of the hand
Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,
I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair !
Ah well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice
To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,
Bidding me sway no more 'twixt fear and hope,
Clearly commanding, Cast me hence away,
Clipped was I from some head thou lovest not ;
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
Or, / am kin to thee, and here, as thou,
I come to weep and deck our father's grave.
Aid me, ye gods ! for well indeed ye know
How in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,
Like to the seaman's bark, we whirl and stray.
But, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,
From seed how small, the new tree of our home !
Lo ye, a second sign these footsteps, look,
Like to my own, a corresponsive print ;
And look, another footmark, this his own,
And that the foot of one who walked with him.
Mark, how the heel and tendons' print combine,
Measured exact, with mine coincident !
Alas, for doubt and anguish rack my mind.
ORESTES (approaching suddenly}.
Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled,
Fair fall the rest of what I ask of heaven.
ELECTRA.
Wherefore ? what win I from the gods by prayer ?
ORESTES.
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart's desire.
ELECTRA.
On whom of mortals know'st thou that I call ?
ORESTES.
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.
ELECTRA.
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
ORESTES.
I, I am he ; seek not one more akin.
ELECTRA.
Some fraud, stranger, weavest thou for me 1
ORESTES.
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.
ELECTRA.
Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woe !
ORESTES.
Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.
ELECTRA.
Speak I with thee then as Orestes' self ?
ORESTES.
My very face thou see'st and know'st me not,
And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock
Shorn for my father's grave, and when thy quest
Was eager on the footprints I had made,
Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,
Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me !
Lay now this ringlet whence 'twas shorn, and judge,
And look upon this robe, thine own hands' work,
The shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon
Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,
For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.
ELECTRA.
thou that art unto our father's home
Love, grief and hope, for thee the tears ran down,
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 93
For thee, the son, the saviour that should be ;
Trust thou thine arm and win thy father's halls !
O aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,
Whom upon thee the heart's constraint bids call
As on my father, and the claim of love
From me unto my mother turns to thee,
For she is very hate ; to thee too turns
What of my heart went out to her who died
A ruthless death upon the altar-stone ;
And for myself I love thee thee that wast
A brother leal, sole stay of love to me.
Now by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus
Saviour almighty, stand to aid the twain !
ORESTES.
Zeus, Zeus ! look down on our estate and us,
The orphaned brood of him, our eagle-sire,
Whom to his death a fearful serpent brought,
Enwinding him in coils ; and we, bereft
And foodless, sink with famine all too weak
To bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,
Such quarry as he slew. Lo ! I and she,
Electra, stand before thee, fatherless,
And each alike cast out and homeless made.
ELECTRA.
And if thou leave to death the brood of him
Whose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence
Was thine, all thine, whence, in the after years,
Shall any hand like his adorn thy shrine
With sacrifice of flesh ? the eaglets slain,
Thou wouldst not have a messenger to bear
Thine omens, once so clear, to mortal men ;
So, if this kingly stock be withered all,
94 THE LIBATION -BEARERS.
None on high festivals will fend thy shrine.
Stoop thou to raise us ! strong the race shall grow,
Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.
CHORUS.
children, saviours of your father's home,
Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear
And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,
Unto our masters whom God grant to me
In pitchy reek of f un'ral flame to see !
Nay, mighty is Apollo's oracle
And shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass
Thro' all this peril ; clear the voice rang out
With many warnings, sternly threatening
To my hot heart the wintry chill of pain
Unless upon the slayers of my sire
I pressed for vengeance : this the god's command
That I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,
Should with a craft like theirs the slayers slay :
Else with my very life I should atone
This deed undone, in many a ghastly wise.
For he proclaimed unto the ears of men
That offerings, poured to angry powers of death,
Exude again, unless their will be done,
As grim disease on those that poured them forth
As leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh
And with fell fangs corroding what of old
Wore natural form ; and on the brow arise
White poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.
He spake moreover of assailing fiends
Empowered to quit on me my father's blood,
Wreaking their wrath on me, what time in night
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 95
Beneath shut lids the spirit's eye sees clear.
The dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell
By spirits of the murdered dead who call
Unto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,
The night-tide's visitant, and madness' curse
Should drive and rack me ; and my tortured frame
Should be chased forth from man's community
As with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.
For me and such as me no lustral bowl
Should stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God
For me, and wrath unseen of rny dead sire
Should drive me from the shrine ; no man should dare
To take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me :
Slow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,
And pitiless * horror wind me for the grave.
This spake the god this dare I disobey ?
Yea, though I dared, the deed must yet be done ;
For to that end diverse desires combine,
The god's behest, deep grief for him who died,
And last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled
All these weigh on me, urge that Argive men,
Minions of valour, who with soul of fire
Did make of fenced Troy a ruinous heap,
Be not left slaves to two and each a woman !
For he, the man, wears woman's heart ; if not,
Soon shall he know, confronted by a man.
[Orestes, Electro,, and the Chorus gather round the
tomb of Agamemnon for the invocation which
follows.
CHORUS.
Mighty Fates, on you we call !
Bid the will of Zeus ordain
* Pity winds thy corse,
Whilst horror waits on princes. Webster.
g6 THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
Power to those, to whom again
Justice turns with hand and aid !
Grievous was the prayer one made
Grievous let the answer fall !
Where the mighty doom is set,
Justice claims aloud her debt.
Who in blood hath dipped the steel,
Deep in blood her meed shall feel !
List an immemorial word
Whosoe'er shall take the sword
Shall perish by the sword.
ORESTES.
Father, unblest in death, father mine !
What breath of word or deed
Can I waft on thee from this far confine
Unto thy lowly bed,
Waft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,
Hope's counter-gleam of fire ?
Yet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying
Unto each parted sire.
CHORUS.
O child, the spirit of the dead,
Altho' upon his flesh have fed
The grim teeth of the flame,
Is quelled not ; after many days
The sting of wrath his soul shall raise,
A vengeance to reclaim !
To the dead rings loud our cry
Plain the living's treachery
Swelling, shrilling, urged on high,
The vengeful dirge, for parents slain,
Shall strive and shall attain.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 97
ELECTRA.
Hear me too, even me, father, hear !
Not by one child alone these groans, these tears are shed
Upon thy sepulchre.
Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,
Stands, a suppliant, homeless made :
Ah, and all is full of ill,
Comfort is there none to say !
Strive and wrestle as we may,
Still stands doom invincible.
CHORUS.
Nay, if so he will, the god
Still our tears to joy can turn.
He can bid a triumph-ode
Drown the dirge beside this urn ;
He to kingly halls can greet
The child restored, the homeward-guided feet.
ORESTES.
Ah my father ! hadst thou lain
Under Ilion's wall,
By some Lycian spearman slain,
Thou hadst left in this thine hall
Honour ; thou hadst wrought for us
Fame and life most glorious.
Over-seas if thou had'st died,
Heavily had stood thy tomb,
Heaped on high ; but, quenched in pride,
Grief were light unto thy home.
CHORUS.
Loved and honoured hadst thou lain
By the dead that nobly fell,
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
In the under-world again
Where are throned the kings of hell,
Full of sway, adorable
Thou hadst stood at their right hand
Thou that wert, in mortal land,
By Fate's ordinance and law,
King of kings who bear the crown
And the staff, to which in awe
Mortal men bow down.
ELECTRA.
Nay father, I were fain
Other fate had fallen on thee.
Ill it were if thou hadst lain
One among the common slain,
Fallen by Scamander's side
Those who slew thee there should be ! *
Then, untouched by slavery,
We had heard as from afar
Deaths of those who should have died
'Mid the chance of war.
CHORUS.
child, forbear ! things all too high thou sayest.
Easy, but vain, thy cry !
* Electra's aspiration, vaguely expressed in the original, is made more
indefinite still by a gap in the text She seems to wish passionately that
the facts had been exactly reversed ; that, instead of Agamemnon being
slain close to his home and to her, his enemies, i.e., ^Egisthus and
Clyternnestra, had been slain in a far-off land. The idealism, so to speak,
of her wish, is immediately reproved by the Chorus. With all deference to
Paley's view, however, I doubt if Electra's feeling is one of horror at being
compelled to witness the coming deaths of ^Egisthus and Clyternnestra.
This shrinking is not in her character ; her wish here is only a passion of
feminine sorrow a cry like that of Daphnis: Travra ' EaXAa yexuro.
Theoc., Id., i, 133.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
A boon above all gold is that thou prayest,
An unreached destiny,
As of the blessed land that far aloof
Beyond the north wind lies ;
Yet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof ;
A double scourge of sighs
Awakes the dead ; th' avengers rise, though late ;
Blood stains the guilty pride
Of the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate
Stands on the children's side.
ELECTRA.
That hath sped thro' mine ear, like a shaft from a bow !
Zeus, Zeus ! it is thou who dost send from below
A doom on the desperate doer ere long
On a mother a father shall visit his wrong.
CHORUS.
Be it mine to upraise thro' the reek of the pyre
The chant of delight, while the funeral fire
Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain
And a woman laid low !
For who bids me conceal it 1 out-rending control,
Blows ever the stern blast of hate thro' my soul,
And before me a vision of wrath and of bane
Flits and waves to and fro.
ORESTES.
Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.
Smite with a rending blow
Upon their heads, and bid the land be well :
Set right where wrong hath stood ; and thou give ear,
Earth, unto my prayer
Yea, hear mother Earth, and monarchy of hell !
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
CHORUS.
Nay, the law is sternly set
Blood-drops shed upon the ground
Plead for other bloodshed yet ;
Loud the call of death doth sound,
Calling guilt of olden time,
A Fury, crowning crime with crime.
ELECTRA.
Where, where are ye, avenging powers,
Puissant Furies of the slain ?
Behold the relics of the race
Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place !
Zeus, what home henceforth is ours,
What refuge to attain ?
CHORUS.
Lo, at your wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred ;
Now am I lorn with sadness,
Darkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow's word.
Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise,
She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes
To the new dawn of gladness.
ORESTES.
Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,
Wrought by our mother's deed ?
Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong
Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed
Her children's soul is wolfish, born from hers,
And softens not by prayers.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
CHORUS.
I dealt upon my breast the blow
That Asian mourning women know ;
Wails from my breast the fun'ral cry,
The Cissian weeping melody ;
Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,
My clenched hands wander, here and there,
From head to breast ; distraught with blows
Throb dizzily my brows.
ELECTRA.
Aweless in hate, mother, sternly brave !
As in a foeman's grave
Thou laid'st in earth a king, but to the bier
No citizen drew near,
Thy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,
Thou bad'st no wail arise !
ORESTES.
Alas, the shameful* burial thou dost speak !
Yet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak
That do the gods command !
That shall achieve mine hand !
Grant me to thrust her life away, and I
Will dare to die !
CHORUS.
List thou the deed ! Hewn down and foully torn,
He to the tomb was borne ;
Yea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,
With like dishonour to the grave was brought,
And by her hand she strove, with strong desire,
Thy life to crush, O child, by murder of thy sire :
* Reading Tet,<pa, otT'ipuv for TO tca.v dripus a correction due to
Dr. VerralL
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain
Wherewith that sire was slain !
ELECTRA.
Yea, such was the doom of my sire ; well-a-day,
I was thrust from his side,
As a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,
And in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears,
As in darkness I lay.
father, if this word can pass to thine ears,
To thy soul let it reach and abide !
CHORUS.
Let it pass, let it pierce, through the sense of thine ear,
To thy soul, where in silence it waiteth the hour !
The past is accomplished ; but rouse thee to hear
What the future prepareth ; awake and appear,
Our champion, in wrath and in power !
ORESTES.
father, to thy loved ones come in aid.
ELECTRA.
With tears I call on thee.
CHORUS.
Listen and rise to light !
Be thou with us, be thou against the foe !
Swiftly this cry arises even so
Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed !
ORESTES.
Let their might meet with mine, and their right with my
right.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 103
ELECTRA.
ye Gods, it is yours to decree.
CHORUS.
Ye call unto the dead ; I quake to hear.
Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.
ELECTRA.
Alas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,
Of Ate's bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound !
Alas, the deep insufferable doom,
The stanchless wound !
ORESTES.
It shall be stanched, the task is ours,
Not by a stranger's, but by kindred hand,
Shall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.
Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth's nether powers !
CHORUS.
Lords of a dark eternity,
To you has come the children's cry,
Send up from hell, fulfil your aid
To them who prayed.
ORESTES.
father, murdered in unkingly wise,
Fulfil. my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.
ELECTRA.
To me, too, grant this boon dark death to deal
Unto ^Egisthus, and to 'scape my doom.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
ORESTES.
So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay
Be set for thee ; else, not for thee shall rise
The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,
But thou shalt lie dishonoured : hear thou me !
ELECTRA.
I too, from my full heritage restored,
Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass
Forth as a bride from these paternal halls,
And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.
ORESTES.
Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight !
ELECTRA.
Give fair-faced fortune, Persephone !
ORESTES.
Bethink thee, father, in the laver slain
ELECTRA.
Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee !
ORESTES.
Bonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.
ELECTRA.
Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.
ORESTES.
By this our bitter speech arise, sire !
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 105
ELECTRA.
Raise thou thine head at love's last, dearest call !
ORESTES.
Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen's cause ;
Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou
Wiliest in triumph to forget thy fall.
ELECTRA.
Hear me, father, once again hear me.
Lo ! on thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood
A man-child and a maid ; hold them in ruth,
Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops' line.
For while they live, thou livest from the dead
Children are memory's voices, and preserve
The dead from wholly dying : as a net
Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,
Which save the flax-mesh, in the depth submerged.
Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,
And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.
CHORUS.
In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length
The tomb's requital for its dirge denied :
Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,
Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.
The doom is set ; and yet I fain would ask
Not swerving from the course of my resolve,
Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
She softens all too late her cureless deed 1
An idle boon it was, to send them here
Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.
I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween
Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.
Be blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives
Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured
To atone the deed. So stands the word nor fails.
Yet would I know her thought ; speak, if thou kuowest.
CHORUS.
I know it, son ; for at her side I stood.
'Twas the night-wandering terror of a dream
That flung her shivering from her couch, and bade her-
Her, the accursed of God these offerings send.
ORESTES.
Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright ?
CHORUS.
Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.
ORESTES.
What then the sum and issue of the tale 1
CHORUS.
Even as a swaddled child, she lull'd the thing.
ORESTES.
What suckling craved the creature, born f ull-fauged ?
CHORUS.
Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
ORESTES.
How ? did the hateful thing not bite her teat ?
CHORUS.
Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.
ORESTES.
Not vain this dream it bodes a man's revenge.
CHORUS.
Then out of sleep she started with a cry,
And thro' the palace for their mistress' aid
Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night,
Flared into light ; then, even as mourners use,
She sends these offerings, in hope to win
A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.
ORESTES.
Earth and my father's grave, to you I call
Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro' me.
I read it in each part coincident
With what shall be ; for mark, that serpent sprang
From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands
By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast,
And sucking forth the same sweet mother's-milk
Infused a clot of blood ; and in alarm
She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.
The rede is clear : the thing of dread she nursed,
The death of blood she dies ; and I, 'tis I,
In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.
Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.
THE LIBATION -BEARERS.
CHORUS.
So do ; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,
Bidding some act, some, by not acting, aid.
ORESTES.
Brief my command : I bid my sister pass
In silence to the house, and all I bid
This my design with wariness conceal,
That they who did by craft a chieftain slay
May by like craft and in like noose be ta'en,
Dying the death which Loxias foretold
Apollo, king and prophet undisproved.
I with this warrior Pylades will come
In likeness of a stranger, fall equipt
As travellers come, and at the palace gates
Will stand, as stranger yet in friendship's bond
Unto this house allied ; and each of us
Will speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,
Feigning such speech as Phocian voices use.
And what if none of those that tend the gates
Shall welcome us with gladness, since the house
With ills divine is haunted ? if this hap,
We at the gate will bide, till, passing by,
Some townsman make conjecture and proclaim
How ? is sEgisthus here, and knowingly
Keeps suppliants aloof, by bolt and bar?
Then shall I win my way ; and if I cross
The threshold of the gate, the palace' guard,
And find him throned where once my father sat
Or if he come anon, and face to face
Confronting, drop his eyes from mine I swear
He shall not utter, Who art thou and whence ?
Ere my steel leap, and compassed round with death
Low he shall lie : and thus, full-fed with doom,
The Fury of the house shall drain once more
THE LIBATION- BEARERS. 109
A deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.
But thou, sister, look that all within
Be well prepared to give these things event.
And ye I say 'twere well to bear a tongue
Full of fair silence and of fitting speech
As each beseems the time ; and last, do thou,
Hermes the warder-god, keep watch and Avard,
And guide to victory my striving sword.
[Exit with Py lades.
CHORUS.
Many and marvellous the things of fear
Earth's breast doth bear ;
And the sea's lap with many monsters teems,
And windy levin-bolts and meteor-gleams
Breed many deadly things
Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,
And in their tread is death ;
And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath
Man's tongue can tell.
But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,
The aweless soul, within man's breast inhabiting ?
Who tell, how, passion-fraught and love-distraught,
The woman's eager, craving thought
Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell ?
Yea, how the loveless love that doth possess
The woman, even as the lioness,
Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,
The link of wedded life ?
Let him be the witness, whose thought is not borne on light
wings thro' the air,
THE LIB A T1ON- BE A KERS.
But abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought by
* Althea's despair ;
For she marr'd the life-grace of her son, with ill counsel
rekindled the flame
That was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what time
from his mother he carne,
With the cry of a new-born child ; and the brand from the
burning she won,
For the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in death,
with her son.
Yea, and man's hate tells of another, even Scylla t of mur-
derous guile,
Who slew for an enemy's sake her father, won o'er by the
wile
And the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high- wrought
gold;
For she clipped from her father's head the lock that should
never wax old,
As he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not her
craft and her crime
But Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her, in fulness
of time.
* This legend, (accessible now, to all lovers of poetry, in Mr. Swinburne's
Atalanta in Calydon,) is briefly as follows: Althea, at the birth of her
son Meleager, had a vision of the Fates, who told her that her son should
live till the brand then on the hearth was consumed. Therefore she ex-
tinguished the brand and guarded it, till being wroth with Meleager for
having slain her brothers, Toxeus and Plexippus, she cast the brand into
the flame, and as it wasted so did Meleager perish and pass away.
+ Scylla, daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, betrayed her father and
his kingdom to Minos, king of Crete : for she loved Minos, and being
persuaded by him, did cut off from her father's head, as he lay asleep, a
lock of purple hair ; which lock so long as he kept unshorn, it was fated
that neither he nor his kingdom should fall.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
And since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my singing
record
The bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these halls
outpoured,
The crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain fall,
A warrior stern in his wrath, the fear of his enemies all,
A song of dishonour, untimely ! and cold is the hearth that
was warm,
And ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman's unwomanly
arm.
But the summit and crown of all crimes is that which in
Lemnos befel ; *
A woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting to tell ;
And he that in after time doth speak of his deadliest
thought,
Doth say // is like to the deed that of old time in Lemnos was
wrought ;
And loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they and
their seed,
For the gods brought hate upon them ; none loveth the
impious deed.
It is well of these tales to tell ; for the sword in the grasp of
Right
With a cleaving, piercing blow to the innermost heart doth
smite,
And the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down nor
forgot,
When the sinner out-steppeth the law and heedeth the high
God not ;
* A double tragedy of domestic massacre, which took place in Lemnos,
gave rise to a proverbial use of the adjective " Lemnian" for "atrocious."
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
But Justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth the
sword
That shall smite in her chosen time ; by her is the child
restored ;
And darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world-cursed,
will repay
The price of the blood of the slain, that was shed in the
bygone day.
[Enter Orestes and Py lades,
in guise of travellers.
ORESTES (knocking at the palace-gate).
What ho ! slave, ho ! I smite the palace gate
In vain, it seems ; what ho, attend within,
Once more, attend ; come forth and ope the halls,
If yet ^Egisthus holds them hospitable.
SLAVE (from within).
Anon, anon ! [Opens the door.
Speak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom ?
ORESTES.
Go, tell to them who rule the palace-halls,
Since 'tis to them I come with tidings new
(Delay not Night's dark car is speeding on,
And time is now for wayfarers to cast
Anchor in haven, wheresoe'er a house
Doth welcome strangers) that there now come forth
Some one who holds authority within
The queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it ;
For when man standeth face to face with man,
No stammering modesty confounds their speech,
But each to each doth tell his meaning clear.
[Enter Clytemncstra.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 113
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Speak on, strangers : have ye need of aught ?
Here is whate'er beseems a house like this
Warm bath and bed, tired Nature's soft restorer,
And courteous eyes to greet you ; and if aught
Of graver import needeth act as well,
That, as man's charge, I to a man will tell.
ORESTES.
A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound ;
And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden
I went toward Argos, parting hitherwurd
With travelling foot, there did encounter me
One whom I knew not and who knew not me,
But asked my purposed Avay nor hid his own,
And, as we talked together, told his name
Strophius of Phocis ; then he said, " Good sir,
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,
Forget not this my message, heed it well,
Tell to his own, Orestes is no more.
And whatsoe'er his kinsfolk shall resolve,
Whether to bear his dust unto his home,
Or lay him here, in death as erst in life
Exiled for aye, a child of banishment
Bring me their hest, upon thy backward road ;
For now in brazen compass of an urn
His ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid."
So much I heard, and so much tell to thee,
Not knowing if I speak unto his kin
Who rule his home ; but well, I deem, it were,
Such news should earliest reach a parent's car.
Ii 4 THE LIBATION -BEARERS.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ah woe is me ! thy word our ruin tells ;
From roof-tree unto base are we despoiled.
thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,
Thou Fury of this home, how oft and oft
Thou dost descry what far aloof is laid,
Yea, from afar dost bend th' unerring bow
And rendest from my wretchedness its friends ;
As now Orestes who, a brief while since,
Safe from the mire of death stood warily,
Was the home's hope to cure th' exulting wrong ;
Now thou ordainest, Let the ill abide.
ORESTES.
To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,
Lief had I come with better news to bear
Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship ;
For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond
Of guest and host ? and wrong abhorred it were,
As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith
To one, and greetings from the other had,
Bore not aright the tidings 'twixt the twain.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
What'er thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,
Meet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.
Hadst thou thyself not come, such tale to tell,
Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.
But lo ! the hour is here when travelling guests,
Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,
Should win their rightful due. Take him within
[To the slave.
To the man-chamber's hospitable rest
Him and these fellow-farers at his side ;
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 115
Give them such guest-right as beseems our halls ;
I bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it.
And I unto the prince that rules our home
Will tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,
With them will counsel how this hap to bear.
[Exit Clytemnestra.
CHORUS.
So be it done
Sister-servants, when draws nigh
Time for us aloud to cry
Orestes and his victory ?
holy earth and holy tomb
Over the grave-pit heaped on high,
Where low doth Agamemnon lie
The king of ships, the army's lord !
Now is the hour give ear and come,
For now doth Craft her aid afford,
And Hermes, guard of shades in hell,
Stands o'er their strife, to sentinel
The dooming of the sword.
I wot the stranger worketh woe within
For lo ! I see come forth, suffused with tears,
Orestes' nurse. What ho, Kilissa thou
Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks
Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.
[.Enter Kilissa, a nurse.
KILISSA.
My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,
Call in yEgisthus to the stranger guests,
That he may come, and standing face to face,
A man with men, may thus more clearly learn
This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves
n6 THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
She hid beneath the glance of fictive grief
Laughter for what is wrought to her desire
Too well ; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,
Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear.
And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart
Hearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day !
The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,
Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus' house
Befel, was grievous to mine inmost heart,
But never yet did I endure such pain.
All else I bore with set soul patiently ;
But now alack, alack ! Orestes dear,
The day and night-long travail of my soul !
Whom from his mother's womb, a new-born child,
I clasped and cherished ! Many a time and oft
Toilsome and profitless my service was,
When his shrill outcry called me from my couch !
For the young child, before the sense is born,
Hath but a dumb thing's life, must needs be nursed
As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing
Hath nought of speech, whate'er discomfort come
Hunger or thirst or lower weakling need,
For the babe's stomach works its own relief.
Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised,
'Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes poor I
Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white :
Two works in one, two handicrafts, I took
When in mine arms the father laid the boy.
And now he's dead alack and well-a-day !
Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power
Pollutes this house fair tidings these to him !
CHORUS.
Say then, with what arrav she bids him come 1
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 117
KlLISSA.
What say'st thou ! Speak more clearly for mine ear.
CHORUS.
Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone ?
KILISSA.
She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.
CHORUS.
Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,
But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,
Say Come alone, fear nought, the news is good :
A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.*
KILISSA.
Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy ?
CHORUS.
What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair ?
KILISSA.
And how ? the home's hope with Orestes dies.
CHORUS.
Not yet a seer, though feeble, this might see.
KILISSA.
What say'st thou ? Know'st thou aught, this tale
belying ?
* Reading xfTrrof for y.a VTTTO^. The line contains a proverb not other-
wise known. Its application here is ambiguous ; I have taken it to mean,
"I, the Chorus, have twisted, perverted, the order which was given to you,
the nurse ; do you, as messenger, deliver it as straight, i.e. unhesitatingly,
as if it were in its original form."
Il8 THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
CHORUS.
Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,
What the gods will, themselves can well provide.
KILISSA.
Well, I will go, herein obeying thee ;
And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.
[Exit.
CHORUS.
Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,
Hear thou, hear my prayer !
Grant to my rightful lords to prosper well
Even as their zeal is fair !
For right, for right goes up aloud my cry
Zeus, aid him, stand anigh !
Into his father's hall he goes
To smite his father's foes.
Bid him prevail ! by thee on throne of triumph set,
Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.
Bethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal
Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car
Of doom is harnessed fast.
Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,
Speed thou his pace, that no chance may mar
The homeward course, the last !
And ye who dwell within the inner chamber
Where shines the stored joy of gold
Gods of one heart, hear ye, and remember ;
Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old,
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 119
With sudden rightful blow ;
Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed
With progeny of blood,
Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low !
thou who dwelPst in Delphi's mighty cave,
Grant us to see this home once more restored
Unto its rightful lord !
Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye
Unto the dawning light of liberty ;
And Hermes, Maia's child, lend hand to save,
Willing the right, and guide
Our state with Fortune's breeze adown the favouring tide.
Whate'er in darkness hidden lies,
He utters at his will ;
He at his will throws darkness on our eyes,
By night and eke by day inscrutable.
Then, then shall wealth atone
The ills that here were done.
Then, then will we unbind,
Fling free on wafting wind
Of joy, the woman's voice that waileth now
In piercing accents for a chief laid low ;
And this our song shall be
Hail to the commonwealth restored !
Hail to the freedom won to me I '
All hail ! for doom hath passed from him, my well-loved lord!
And thou, child, when Time and Chance agree,
Up to the deed that for thy sire is done !
And if she wail unto thee, Spare, O son
Cry Aid, O father and achieve the deed,
The horror of man's tongue, the gods' great need !
Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,
THE LIB A 770 AT- BE A RERS.
The bitter woe work forth,
Appease the summons of the dead,
The wrath of friends on earth ;
Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom
And do to titter death him that pollutes thy home.
[Enter sEgisthus.
Hither and not unsummoned have I come ;
For a new rumour, borne by stranger men
Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears,
Of hap unwished-for, even Orestes' death.
This were new sorrow, a blood-bolter'd load
Laid on the house that doth already bow
Beneath a former wound that festers deep.
Dare I opine these words have truth and life ?
Or are they tales, of woman's terror born,
That fly in the void air, and die disproved ?
Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul 1
CHORUS.
What we have heard, we heard ; go thou within
Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale ;
Strengthless are tidings, thro' another heard ;
Question is his, to Avhom the tale is brought.
I too will meet and test the messenger,
Whether himself stood witness of the death,
Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt :
None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.
{Exit.
CHORUS.
Zeus, Zeus ! what word to me is given ?
What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,
THE LIBATION -BEARERS.
Shall first by me be uttered ?
What speech of craft nor all revealing,
Nor all too warily concealing
Ending my speech, shall aid the deed ?
For lo ! in readiness is laid
The dark emprise, the rending blade ;
Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve
The dateless doom of Atreus' name,
Or kindling torch and joyful flame
In sign of new-won liberty
Once more Orestes shall retrieve
His father's wealth, and, throned on high,
Shall hold the city's fealty.
So mighty is the grasp whereby,
Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw,
Unseconded, a double foe.
Ho for the victory ! \_A loud cry within.
VOICE OF ^EGISTHUS.
Help, help, alas !
CHORUS.
Ho there, ho ! how is't within 1
Is't done ? is't over ? Stand we here aloof
While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem
Of this dark deed ; with death is strife fulfilled.
[Enter a Slave,
SLAVE.
O woe, woe, my lord is done to death !
Woe, woe, and woe again, ^Egisthus gone !
Hasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts
Of the queen's chamber. for some young strength
To match the need ! but aid availeth nought
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
To him laid low for ever. Help, help, help !
Sure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain
To slumber ineffectual. What ho !
The queen ! how fareth Cly temnestra's self ?
Her neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,
And soon shall sink, hewn thro' as justice wills.
[Enter Clytcmnestra.
CLYTEMNESTBA.
What ails thee, raising this ado for us ?
SLAVE.
I say the dead are come to slay the living.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Alack, I read thy riddles all too clear
We slew by craft and by like craft shall die.
Swift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old ;
I'll know anon or death or victory
So stands the curse, so I confront it here.
[Enter Orestes, his sword dropping with blood.
ORESTES.
Thee too I seek : for hiraTvvhat's done will serve.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Woe, woe ! ^Egisthus, spouse and champion, slain !
ORESTES.
What, lov'st the man ? then in his grave lie down,
Be his in death, desert him nevermore !
CLYTEMXESTRA.
Stay, child, and fear to strike. son, this breast
THE LIBATION- BEARERS. 123
Pillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,
Thy toothless inouth drew rnother's-milk from me.
ORESTES.
Can I my mother spare ? speak, Pylades.
PYLADES.
Where then would fall the hest Apollo gave
At Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn 1
Choose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.
ORESTES.
Thou dost prevail ; I hold thy counsel good.
[20 Clytemnestra*
Follow ; I will to slay thee at his side.
With him whom in his life thou lovedst more
Than Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed
For hate where love, and love where hate was due !
CLYTEMNESTRA.
I nursed thee young ; must I forego mine eld 1
ORESTES.
Thou slew'st my father ; shalt thou dwell with me ?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Fate bore a share in these things, my child !
Fate also doth provide this doom for thee.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Beware, child, a parent's dying curse.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
ORESTES.
A parent who did cast me out to ill !
CLYTEMXESTRA.
Not cast thee out, but to a friendly home.
ORESTES.
Born free, I was by twofold bargain sold.
CLYTEMXESTRA.
Where then the price that I received for thee ?
ORESTES.
The price of shame ; I taunt thee not more plainly.
CLYTEMXESTRA.
Nay, but recount thy father's lewdness too.
ORESTES.
Home-keeping, chide not him who toils without.
CLYTEMXESTRA.
Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.
ORESTES.
The absent husband toils for them at home.
CLYTEMXESTRA.
Thou growest fain to slay thy mother, child.
ORESTES.
Nay, 'tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Beware thy mother's vengeful hounds from hell.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 125
ORESTES.
How shall I scape my father's, sparing thee ?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Living, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.
ORESTES.
My father's fate ordains this doom for thee.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ah me this snake it was I bore and nursed.
ORESTES.
Ay, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.
Shameful thy deed was die the death of shame.
[Exit, driving Clytemnestra before him.
CHORUS.
Lo, even for these I mourn, a double death :
Yet since Orestes, driven on by doom,
Thus crowns the height of murders manifold,
I say, 'tis well that not in night and death
Should sink the eye and light of this our home.
There came on Priam's race and name
A vengeance ; though it tarried long,
With heavy doom it came.
Came, too, on Agamemnon's hall
A lion-pair, twin swordsmen strong.
And last, the heritage doth fall
To him, to whom from Pythian cave
126 THE LIBATION-BEARERS.
The god his deepest counsel gave.
Cry out, rejoice ! our kingly hall
Hath 'scaped from ruin ne'er again
Its ancient wealth be wasted all
By two usurpers, sin-defiled
An evil path of woe and bane !
On him who dealt the dastard blow
Comes Craft, Revenge's scheming child.
And hand in hand with him doth go,
Eager for fight,
The child of Zeus, whom men below
Call Justice, naming her aright.
And on the foe her breath
Is as the blast of death ;
For her the god who dwells in deep recess
Beneath Parnassus' brow,
Summons with loud acclaim
To rise, though late and lame,
And come with craft that worketh righteousness.
For even o'er Powers divine this law is strong
Thou shall not serve the wrong.
To that which ruleth heaven beseems it that we bow.
Lo, freedom's light hath come !
Lo, now is rent away
The grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.
Up to the light, ye halls ! this many a day
Too low on earth ye lay.
And Time, the great Accomplisher,
Shall cross the threshold, whensoe'er
He choose with purging hand to cleanse
The palace, driving all pollution thence.
And fair the cast of Fortune's die
Before our state's new lords shall lie,
THE LI DA TION- BE A RERS.
Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom.
Lo, freedom's light hath come !
[ The scene opens, disclosing Orestes standing over
the corpses of sEgisthus and Clytemnestra ;
in one hand he holds his su>ord, in the other
the robe in which Agamemnon was entangled
and slain.
ORESTES.
There lies our country's twofold tyranny,
My father's slayers, spoilers of my home.
Erst were they royal, sitting on the throne,
And loving are they yet, their common fate
Tells the tale truly, shows their trothplight firm.
They swore to work mine ill-starred father's death,
They swore to die together ; 'tis fulfilled.
ye who stand, this great doom's witnesses,
Behold this too, the dark device which bound
My sire unhappy to his death, behold
The mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet !
Stand round, unfold it 'tis the trammel-net
That wrapped a chieftain ; hold it that he see,
The father not my sire, but he whose eye
Is judge of all things, the all-seeing Sun !
Let him behold my mother's damned deed,
Then let him stand, when need shall be to me,
Witness that justly I have sought and slain
My mother ; blameless was yEgisthus' doom
He died the death law bids adulterers die.
But she who plotted this accursed thing
To slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath
Her girdle once the burden of her babes,
Beloved erewhile, now turned to hateful foes
What deem ye of her ? or what venomed thing,
128 THE LIBATION -BEARERS.
Sea-snake or adder, had more power than she
To poison with a touch the flesh unscarred ?
So great her daring, such her impious will.
How name her, if I may not speak a curse ?
A lion-springe ? a laver's swathing cloth,
Wrapping a dead man, twining round his feet
A net, a trammel, an entangling robe ?
Such were the weapon of some strangling thief,
The terror of the road, a cut-purse hound
With such device full many might he kill,
Full oft exult in heat of villainy.
Ne'er have my house so cursed an indweller
Heaven send me, rather, childless to be slain ?
CHORUS.
Woe for each desperate deed !
Woe for the queen, with shame of life bereft !
And ah, for him who still is left,
Madness, dark blossom of a bloody seed !
Did she the deed or not ? this robe gives proof,
Imbrued with blood that bathed ^Egisthus' sword :
Look, how the spurted stain combines with time
To blur the many dyes that once adorned
Its pattern manifold ! I now stand here,
Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing-
Hear, thou woven web that slew my sire !
I grieve for deed and death and all my home
Victor, pollution's damned stain for prize.
CHORUS.
Alas, that none of mortal men
Can pass his life untouched by pain !
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 129
Behold, one woe is here
Another loometh near.
ORESTES.
Hark ye and learn for what the end shall be
For me I know not : breaking from the curb
My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,
Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught
Far from the course, and madness in my breast
Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave
Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes !
I say that rightfully I slew my mother,
A thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire.
And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me
Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer
Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,
The guilt of murder done should pass from me ;
But if I spared, the fate that should be mine
I dare not blazon forth the bow of speech
Can reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.
And now behold me, how with branch and crown
I pass, a suppliant made meet to go
Unto Earth's midmost shrine, the holy ground
Of Loxias, and that renowned light
Of ever-burning fire, to 'scape the doom
Of kindred murder : to no other shrine,
So Loxias bade, may I for refuge turn.
Bear witness, Argives, in the after time,
How came on me this dread fatality.
Living, I pass a banished wanderer hence,
To leave in death the memory of this cry.
CHORUS.
Nay, but the deed is well ; link not thy lips
13 o THE LIBATION -BEARERS.
To speech ill-starred, nor vent ill-boding words
Who hast to Argos her full freedom given,
Lopping two serpents' heads with timely blow.
ORESTES.
Look, look, alas !
Handmaidens, see what Gorgon shapes throng up !
Dusky their robes and all their hair enwound
Snakes coiled with snakes off, off, I must away !
CHORUS.
Most loyal of all sons unto thy sire,
What visions thus distract thee ? Hold, abide ;
Great was thy victory, and shalt thou fear ?
ORESTES.
These are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,
But clear to sight my mother's hell-hounds come !
CHORUS.
Nay, the fresh bloodshed still imbrues thine hands,
And thence distraction sinks into thy soul. *
King Apollo see, they swarm and throng
Black blood of hatred dripping from their eyes !
CHORUS.
One remedy thou hast ; go, touch the shrine
Of Loxias, and rid thee of these woes.
Ye can behold them not, but I behold them.
Up and away ! I dare abide no more.
[Exit.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS. 13:
CHORUS.
Farewell then as thou mayst, the god thy friend
Guard thee and aid with chances favouring.
Behold, the storm of woe divine
That raves and beats on Atreus' line
Its great third blast hath blown.
First was Thyestes' loathly woe
The rueful feast of long ago,
On children's flesh, unknown.
And next the kingly chief's despite,
When he who led the Greeks to fight
Was in the bath hewn down.
And now the offspring of the race
Stands in the third, the saviour's place,
To save or to consume ?
O whither, ere it be fulfilled,
Ere its fierce blast be hushed and stilled,
Shall blow the wind of doom?
[Exeunt.
APPENDIX.
THOSE unacquainted with the original of this play may yet possibly
detect in the translation, here and there, something of an alien
element alien, I mean, in a special degree, to the spirit of Greek
tragedy. I may briefly explain to such readers the origin of this
deficiency.
The play is " confessedly the most difficult of the tragedies that
have come down to us from Grecian antiquity" (Con., Choeph.,
Pref., p. i) ; and the difficulties are not, as elsewhere in ^Eschylus,
mainly owing to a certain abruptness of style and profundity of
thought. These qualities are abundantly present in this play ; but
its difficulty is immensely increased by the condition of the text,
which is mutilated in several places, and corrupt, beyond hope of
certain restoration, in many others.
The worst case of all is that of the chorus, 11. 784-837 ; where
Conington suspects that the text of the MSS. has been " extensively
tampered with, so as entirely to obliterate the original reading."
But the same kind of obscurity besets the translator in many other
passages. Let the reader imagine a person, well acquainted with
French, dictating a play in that language to a scribe only partially
acquainted with it able, that is, to spell any word that he recognizes,
but unable to follow intelligently the thought of whole passages, un-
less they are abundantly clear and very deliberately dictated ; let
him imagine such a scribe losing the cue given by the metre or the
"strophe," and copying words or syllables imperfectly heard; then
let him imagine the result, as a piece of French literature, and he will
have, mutatis mutandis, a fairly accurate idea of the condition, in
several places, of the text of The Libation-Bearers.
I would guard myself from giving an opinion that such is the origin
of these famous corruptions. A knowledge of the conditions under
which MSS. were transcribed, if accessible at all, is not so to me at
this time. (I would, however, remark that Conington App. II, p. 166
to some extent endorses a friend's suggestion that dictation is the
source of many corruptions in the Greek dramatists.) But my present
i 34 APPENDIX.
purpose is rather to explain the way in which this translation en-
deavours to deal with the textual problem.
In the first place, wherever, as in the opening speech, gaps of
uncertain extent, of whole lines or paragraphs, are found or strongly
suspected, no attempt has been made to supply them. Except as an
exercise of private ingenuity, such attempts would be reprehensible
in a translator, even if he possessed the ^schylean scholarship of
Paley or Conington, and the genius and versification of Marlowe.
Where, however, as in 1. 369, we know by the structure of the
metre that only a few syllables are lost, the case is different. It
seems idle to leave a vacant space in the English where the Greek is,
by consideration of the context, pretty clear ; and in such cases I
have followed the explanation, and sometimes translated the con-
jecture, of Conington or others.
Secondly, wherever, as in the chorus above specified, it is known,
by metrical laws and by the unintelligible text, that the original has
been in some way corrupted, I have followed a plan which may need
excuse. To reproduce ^schylus in an unintelligible form is a sin
against ^Eschylus himself. Whatever he may actually have written,
one thing is certain ; it was intelligible, it was metrical. We may
note, also, that in many places where the text is indubitably corrupt,
ungrammatical and unmetrical, the thought and meaning are pretty
clear. Such, e.g., is the case in 11, 415-417, oraty xaAi?. In such
cases I have followed the apparent cue of the context, after con-
sulting the best commentators, w^o? TO (pa>i?o-9ai /xot xatXw? is not
^schylus* Greek for "to the new dawn of gladness." But we know
from the metre that the Greek is corrupt ; the words as they stand
are probably a gloss, explaining, in inferior Greek, some metaphor
representing hope or joy as a dawn a metaphor very familiar to all
readers of ^schylus (cf. Agam. 11. 101, 253, 1182, etc.) very suitable
to the context, and very closely indicated by the gloss. I do not
conceive it to be any part of a translator's duty to render literally
Greek words which are known, with absolute certainty, to be wrong.
Yet to elucidate by means of the context and other comparisons, is,
I am well aware, "a dim and perilous way." All I can say is that I
have never done so except in three or four cases where it seemed
absolutely inevitable ; and that, in those cases, care and pains have
not been spared to do it as well as, to me, was possible.
THE FURIES.
DRAMATIS PERSONS.
THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS.
APOLLO.
THE GHOST OP CLYTEMNESTRA.
CHORUS OP FURIES.
ATHENA.
ATTENDANTS OP ATHENA.
TWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS.
The Scene of the Drama is the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi : after-
wards, the Temple of Athena, on the Acropolis of Athens, and
the adjoining Areopagus.
THE FURIES.
The Temple at Delphi.
THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS.
First in this prayer of all the gods I name
The prophet-mother Earth; and Themis next,
Second who sat for so with truth is said
On this her mother's shrine oracular.
Then by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,
There sat thereon another child of Earth
Titanian Phoebe. She, in after time,
Gave o'er the throne, as birthgift to a god,
Phoebus, who in his own bears Phoebe's name.
He from the lake and ridge of Delos' isle
Steered to the port of Pallas' Attic shores,
The home of ships ; and thence he passed and came
Unto this land and to Parnassus' shrine.
And at his side, with awe revering him,
There went the children of Hephaestus' seed,
The hewers of the sacred way, who tame
The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.
And all this folk and Delphos chieftain-king
Of this their land with honour gave him home ;
And in his breast Zeus set a prophet's soul,
138 THE FURIES.
And gave to him this throne, whereon he sits,
Fourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,
Gives voice to that which Zeus his sire decrees.
Such gods I name in my preluding prayer,
And after them, I call with honour due
On Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs
Who dwell around the rock Corycian,
Where in the hollow cave, the wild birds' haunt,
Wander the feet of lesser gods ; and there,
Right well I know it, Bromian Bacchus dwells,
Since he in godship led his Maenad host,
Devising death for Pentheus, whom they rent
Piecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,
I call on Pleistus' springs, Poseidon's might,
And Zeus most high, the great Accomplisher.
Then as a seeress to the sacred chair
I pass and sit ; and may the powers divine
Make this mine entrance fruitful in response
Beyond each former advent, triply blest.
And if there stand without, from Hellas bound,
Men seeking oracles, let each pass in
In order of the lot, as use allows ;
For the god guides whate'er my tongue proclaims.
[She goes into the interior of the temple ; after
a short interval, she returns in great fear.
Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,
Have sped me forth again from Loxias' shrine,
With strength unstrung, moving erect no more,
But aiding with my hands my failing feet,
Unnerved by fear. A beldame's force is naught-
Is as a child's, when age and fear combine.
For as I pace towards the inmost fane
Bay-filleted by many a suppliant's hand,
THE FURIES. 139
Lo, at the central altar I descry
One crouching as for refuge yea, a man
Abhorred of heaven ; and from his hands, wherein
A sword new-drawn he holds, blood reeked and fell :
A wand he bears, the olive's topmost bough,
Twined as of purpose with a deep close tuft
Of whitest wool. This, that I plainly saw,
Plainly I tell. But lo, in front of him,
Crouched on the altar-steps, a grisly band
Of women slumbers not like women they,
But Gorgons rather ; nay, that word is weak,
Nor may I match the Gorgons' shape with theirs !
Such have I seen in painted semblance erst
Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus' board,
But these are wingless, black, and all their shape
The eye's abomination to behold.
Fell is the breath let none draw nigh to it
Wherewith they snort in slumber ; from their eyes
Exude the damned drops of poisonous ire :
And such their garb as none should dare to bring
To statues of the gods or homes of men.
I wot not of the tribe wherefrom can come
So fell a legion, nor in what land Earth
Could rear, unharmed, such creatures, nor avow
That she had travailed and had brought forth death.
But, for the rest, be all these things a care
Unto the mighty Loxias, the lord
Of this our shrine : healer and prophet he,
Discerner he of portents, and the cleanser
Of other homes behold, his own to cleanse !
[ The scene opens, disclosing the interior of the temple :
Orestes clings to the central altar ; the Furies lie
slumbering at a little distance ; Apollo and Hermes
appear from the innermost shrine.
THE FURIES.
APOLLO.
Lo, I desert thee never : to the end,
Hard at thy side as now, or sundered far,
I am thy guard, and to thine enemies
Implacably oppose me : look on them,
These greedy fiends, beneath my craft subdued !
See, they are fallen on sleep, these beldames old,
Unto whose grim and wizened maidenhood
Nor god nor man nor beast can e'er draw near.
Yea, evil were they born, for evil's doom,
Evil the dark abyss of Tartarus
Wherein they dwell, and they themselves the hate
Of men on earth, and of Olympian gods.
But thou, flee far and with unfaltering speed ;
For they shall hunt thee through the mainland wide
Where'er throughout the tract of travelled earth
Thy foot may roam, and o'er and o'er the seas
And island homes of men. Faint not nor fail,
Too soon and timidly within thy breast
Shepherding thoughts forlorn of this thy toil ;
But unto Pallas' city go, and there
Crouch at her shrine, and in thine arms enfold
Her ancient image : there we well shall find
Meet judges for this cause and suasive pleas,
Skilled to contrive for thee deliverance
From all this woe. Be such my pledge to thee,
For by my hest thou didst thy mother slay.
ORESTES.
king Apollo, since right well thou know'st
What justice bids, have heed, fulfil the same,
Thy strength is all-sufficient to achieve.
THE FURIES.
APOLLO.
Have thou too heed, nor let thy fear prevail
Above thy will. And do ttuni guard him, Hermes,
Whose blood is brother unto mine, whose sire
The same high God. Men call thee guide and guard,
Guide therefore thou and guard my suppliant ;
For Zeus himself reveres the outlaw's right,
Boon of fair escort, upon man conferred.
[Exeunt Apollo, Hermes, and Orestes.
The Ghost of Clytemnestra rises.
GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA.
Sleep on ! awake ! what skills your sleep to me
Me, among all the dead by you dishonoured
Me from whom never, in the world of death,
Dieth this curse, 'Tts she who smote and sleu>,
And shamed and scorned I roam ? Awake, and hear
My plaint of dead men's hate intolerable.
Me, sternly slain by them that should have loved,
Me doth no god arouse him to avenge,
Hewn down in blood by matricidal hands.
Mark ye these wounds from which the heart's blood ran,
And by whose hand, bethink ye ! for the sense
When shut in sleep hath then the spirit-sight,
But in the day the inward eye is blind.
List, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue
The wineless draught by me outpoured to soothe
Your vengeful ire ! how oft on kindled shrine
I laid the feast of darkness, at the hour
Abhorred of every god but you alone !
Lo, all my service trampled down and scorned !
And he hath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds ;
Yea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,
Hath wried his face in scorn, and flieth far.
142
THE FURIES.
Awake and hear for mine own soul I cry
Awake, ye powers of hell ! the wandering ghost
That once was Clytemnestra calls Arise.
\_The Furies mutter grimly, as in a dream.
Mutter and murmur ! He hath flown afar
My kin have gods to guard them, I have none !
\The Furies mutter as before.
drowsed in sleep too deep to heed my pain !
Orestes flies, who me, his mother, slew.
[ The Furies give a confused cry.
Yelping, and drowsed again ? Up and be doing
That which alone is yours, the deed of hell !
[ The Furies give another cry.
Lo, sleep and toil, the sworn confederates,
Have quelled your dragon-anger, once so fell !
THE FURIES (muttering more fiercely and loudly}.
Seize, seize, seize, seize mark, yonder !
GHOST.
In dreams ye chase a prey, and like some hound,
That even in sleep doth ply his woodland toil,
Ye bell and bay. What do ye, sleeping here ?
Be not o'ercome with toil, nor, sleep-subdued,
Be heedless of my wrong. Up ! thrill your heart
With the just chidings of my tongue, such words
Are as a spur to purpose firmly held.
Blow forth on him the breath of wrath and blood,
Scorch him with reek of fire that burns in you,
Waste him with new pursuit swift, hound him down.
\Ghost sinks.
FIRST FURY (awaking).
Up ! rouse another as I rouse thee ; up !
THE FURIES.
Sleep'st thou ? Rise up, and spurning sleep away,
See we if false to us this prelude rang.
CHORUS OF FURIES.
Alack, alack, sisters, we have toiled,
much and vainly have we toiled and borne !
Vainly ! and all we wrought the gods have foiled,
And turned us to scorn !
He hath slipped from the net, whom we chased : he hath
'scaped us who should be our prey
O'ermastered by slumber we sank, and our quarry hath
stolen away !
Thou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed us
and wronged ;
Thou, a youth, hast down-trodden the right that to godship
more ancient belonged ;
Thou hast cherished thy suppliant man ; the slayer, the
God-forsaken,
The bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp thou
hast taken ;
A god, thou hast stolen from xis the avengers a matricide
son
And who shall consider thy deed and say // is rightfully
done?
The sound of chiding scorn
Came from the land of dream ;
Deep to mine inmost heart I felt it thrill and bum,
Thrust as a strong-grasped goad, to urge
Onward the chariot's team.
Thrilled, chilled with bitter inward pain
I stand as one beneath the doomsman's scourge.
Shame on the younger gods who tread down right,
Sitting on thrones of might !
THE FURIES.
Woe on the altar of earth's central fane !
Clotted on step and shrine,
Behold, the guilt of blood, the ghastly stain !
Woe upon thee, Apollo ! uncontrolled,
Unbidden, hast thou, prophet-god, imbrued
The pure prophetic shrine with wrongful blood !
For thou too heinous a respect didst hold
Of man, too little heed of powers divine !
And us the Fates, the ancients of the earth,
Didst deem as nothing worth.
Scornful to me thou art, yet shalt not fend
My wrath from him ; though unto hell he flee,
There too are we !
And he the blood-defiled, should feel and rue,
Though I were not, fiend-wrath that shall not end,
Descending on his head who foully slew.
\Re-enter Apollo from the inner shrine.
APOLLO.
Out ! I command you. Out from this my home
Haste, tarry not ! Out from the mystic shrine,
Lest thy lot be to take into thy breast *
The winged bright dart that from my golden string
Speeds hissing as a snake, lest, pierced and thrilled
With agony, thou shouldst spew forth again
Black frothy heart's-blood, drawn from mortal men,
Belching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds.
These be no halls where such as you can. prowl
Go where men lay on men the doom of blood,
* It may be well to explain that a chorus is, in this play as elsewhere,
spoken of in the singular or the plural, indifferently, The singular is
perhaps addressed to the leader, as representative of the rest ; but no
difference is to be found in the application of such speeches, whether the
singular or the plural be used.
THE FURIES. 145
Heads lopped from necks, eyes from their spheres plucked
out,
Hacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed out,
Feet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath
The smiting stone, low moans and piteous
Of men impaled Hark, hear ye for what feast
Ye hanker ever, and the loathing gods
Do spit upon your craving ? Lo, your shape
Is all too fitted to your greed ; the cave
Where lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home
More meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines,
Nor bring pollution by your touch on all
That nears you. Hence ! and roam unshepherded
No god there is to tend such herd as you.
CHORUS.
king Apollo, in our turn hear us.
Thou hast not only part in these ill things,
But art chief cause and doer of the same.
APOLLO.
How ? stretch thy speech to tell this, and have done.
CHORUS.
Thine oracle bade this man slay his mother.
APOLLO.
1 bade him quit his sire's death, wherefore not?
CHORUS.
Then didst thou aid and guard red-handed crime.
APOLLO.
Yea, and I bade him to this temple flee.
L
I 4 6 THE FURIES.
CHORUS.
And yet forsooth dost chide us following him !
APOLLO.
Ay not for you it is, to near this fane.
CHORUS.
Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.
APOLLO.
What office ? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.
CHORUS.
From home to home we chase the matricide.
APOLLO.
What 1 to avenge a wife who slays her lord ?
CHORUS.
That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.
APOLLO.
How darkly ye dishonour and annul
The troth to which the high accomplishers,
Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus
Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,
The queen of rapture xmto mortal men.
Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained
For man and woman standeth Right as guard,
Enhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn ;
Therefore, if thou art placable to those'
Who have their consort slain, nor will'st to turn
On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou
In hounding to his doom the man who slew
THE FURIES. 147
His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath
Against one deed, but all too placable
Unto the other, minishing the crime.
But in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.
CHORUS.
Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.
APOLLO.
Follow then, make thee double toil in vain.
CHORUS.
Think not by speech mine office to curtail.
APOLLO.
None hast thou, that I would accept of thee !
CHORUS.
Yea, high thine honour by the throne of Zeus :
But I, drawn on by scent of mother's blood,
Seek vengeance on this man and hound him down.
APOLLO.
But I will stand beside him ; 'tis for me
To guard my suppliant : gods and men alike
Do dread the curse of such an one betrayed,
And in me Fear and Will say Leave him not.
\Exeunt omnes.
TJie scene changes to Athens. In the foreground, the temple of
Athena on the Acropolis ; her statue stands in the centre;
Orestes is seen clinging to it.
ORESTES.
Look on me, queen Athena ; lo, I come
By Loxias' behest ; thou of thy grace
I4 8 THE FURIES.
Receive me, driven of avenging powers
Not now a red-hand slayer unannealed,
But with guilt fading, half-effaced, outworn
On many homes and paths of mortal men.
For to the limit of each land, each sea,
I roamed, obedient to Apollo's hest,
And come at last, Goddess, to thy fane,
And clinging to thine image, bide my doom.
\Enter the Chorus of Furies, questing like hounds.
CHORUS.
Ho ! clear is here the trace of him we seek :
Follow the track of blood, the silent sign !
Like to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,
We snuff along the scent of dripping gore,
And inwardly we pant, for many a day
Toiling in chase that shall fordo the man ;
For o'er and o'er the wide land have I ranged,
And o'er the wide sea, flying without wings,
Swift as a sail I pressed upon his track,
Who now hard by is crouching, well I wot,
For scent of mortal blood allures me here.
Follow, seek him round and round
Scent and snuff and scan the ground,
Lest unharmed he slip away,
He who did his mother slay !
Hist he is there ! See him his arms entwine
Around the image of the maid divine
Thus aided, for the deed he wrought
Unto the judgment wills he to be brought.
It may not be ! a mother's blood poured forth
Upon the stained earth
THE FURIES. 149
None gathers up : it lies bear witness, Hell !
For aye indelible !
And thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own
That shedding to atone !
Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,
Red, clotted, gout by gout,
A draught abhorred of men and gods ; but I
Will drain it, suck thee dry ;
Yea, I will waste thee living, nerve and vein ;
Yea, for thy mother slain,
Will drag thee downward, there where thou shalt dree
The weird of agony !
And thou and whosoe'er of men hath sinned
Hath wronged or God, or friend,
Or parent, learn ye how to all and each
The arm of doom can reach !
Sternly requiteth, in the world beneath,
The judgment-seat of Death ;
Yea, Death, beholding every man's endeavour,
Recordeth it for ever.
ORESTES.
I, schooled in many miseries, have learnt
How many refuges of cleansing shrines
There be ; I know when law alloweth speech
And when imposeth silence. Lo, I stand
Fixed now to speak, for he whose word is wise
Commands the same. Look, how the stain of blood
Is dull upon mine hand and wastes away,
And laved and lost therewith is the deep curse
Of matricide ; for while the guilt was new,
'Twas banished from me at Apollo's hearth,
Atoned and purified by death of swine.
Long were my word if I should sum the tale,
THE FURIES.
How oft since then among my fellow-men
I stood and brought no curse. Time cleanses all
Time, the coeval of all things that are.
Now from pure lips, in words of omen fair,
I call Athena, lady of this land,
To come, my champion : so, in aftertime.
She shall not fail of love and service leal,
Not won by war, from me and from my land
And all the folk of Argos, vowed to her.
Now, be she far away in Libyan land
Where flows from Triton's lake her natal wave,
Stand she with planted feet,* or in some hour
Of rest conceal them, champion of her friends
Where'er she be, or whether o'er the plain
Phlegrsean she look forth, as warrior bold
I cry to her to come, where'er she be,
(And she, as goddess, from afar can hear,)
And aid and free me, set among my foes.
CHORUS.
Thee not Apollo nor Athena's strength
Can save from perishing, a castaway
Amid the Lost, where no delight shall meet
Thy soul a bloodless prey of nether powers,
A shadow among shadows. Answerest thou
Nothing ? dost cast away my words with scorn,
Thou, prey prepared and dedicate to me ?
Not as a victim slain upon the shrine,
But living shalt thou see thy flesh my food.
Hear now the binding chant that makes thee mine.
Weave the weird dance, behold the hour
To utter forth the chant of hell,
* The allusion is probably to statues of Athena at rest and in motion.
cf. i Kings, xviii, 27.
THE FURIES.
Our sway among mankind to tell,
The guidance of our power.
Of Justice are we ministers,
And whosoe'er of men may stand
Lifting a pure unsullied hand,
That man no doom of ours incurs,
And walks thro' all his mortal path
Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath.
But if, as yonder man, he hath
Blood-dropping hands he strives to hide,
We stand avengers at his side,
Decreeing, Thou hast wronged the dead:
We are doonfs witnesses to thee.
The price of blood, his hands have shed,
We wring from him ; in life, in death,
Hard at his side are we !
Night, Mother Night, who brought me forth, a torment
To living men and dead,
Hear me, hear ! by Leto's stripling son
I am dishonoured :
He hath ta'en from me him who cowers in refuge,
To me made consecrate,
A rightful victim, him who slew his mother,
Given o'er to me and fate.
Hear the hymn of hell,
O'er the victim sounding,
Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,
Sense and will confounding !
Round the soul entwining
Without lute or lyre
Soul in madness pining,
Wasting as with fire !
THE FURIES.
Fate, all-pervading Fate, this service spun, commanding
That I should bide therein :
Whosoe'er of mortals, made perverse and lawless,
Is stained with blood of kin,
By his side are we, and hunt him ever onward,
Till to the Silent Land,
The realm of death, he cometh ; neither yonder
In freedom shall he stand.
Hear the hymn of hell,
O'er the victim sounding,
Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,
Sense and will confounding !
Round the soul entwining
Without lute or lyre
Soul in madness pining,
Wasting as with fire !
When from womb of Night we sprang, on us this labour
Was laid and shall abide.
Gods immortal are ye, yet beware ye touch not
That which is our pride !
None may come beside us gathered round the blood-feast
For us no garments white
Gleam on a festal day ; for us a darker fate is,
Another darker rite.
That is mine hour when falls an ancient line
When in the household's heart
The God of blood doth slay by kindred hands,
Then do we bear our part :
On him who slays we sweep with chasing cry :
Though he be triply strong,
We wear and waste him ; blood atones for blood,
New pain for ancient wrong.
THE FURIES. 153
I hold this task 'tis mine, and not another's.
The very gods on high,
Though they can silence and annul the prayers
Of those who on us cry,
They may not strive with us who stand apart,
A race by Zeus abhorred,
Blood-boltered, held unworthy of the council
And converse of Heaven's lord.
Therefore the more I leap upou my prey ;
Upon their head I bound ;
My foot is hard ; as one that trips a runner
I cast them to the ground ;
Yea, to the depth of doom intolerable ;
And they who erst were great,
And upon earth held high their pride and glory,
Are brought to low estate.
In underworld they waste and are diminished,
The while around them fleet
Dark wavings of my robes, and, subtly woven,
The paces of my feet.
Who falls infatuate, he sees not neither knows he
That we are at his side ;
So closely round about him, darkly flitting,
The cloud of guilt doth glide.
Heavily 'tis uttered, how around his hearthstone
The mirk of hell doth rise.
Stern and fixed the law is ; we have hands t' achieve it,
Cunning to devise.
Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance ;
Not by tear or prayer
Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness,
Far from gods, we fare,
Lit unto our task with torch of sunless regions,
And o'er a deadly way
I54 THE FURIES.
Deadly to the living as to those who see not
Life and light of day
Hunt we and press onward. Who of mortals hearing
Doth not quake for awe,
Hearing all that Fate thro' hand of God hath given us
For ordinance and law 1
Yea, this right to us, in dark abysm and backward
Of ages it befel :
None shall wrong mine office, tho' in nether regions
And sunless dark I dwell.
\Enter Athena from aboi'e.
ATHENA.
Far off I heard the clamour of your cry,
As by Seaman der's side I set my foot
Asserting right upon the land given o'er
To me by those who o'er Achaia's host
Held sway and leadership : no scanty part
Of all they won by spear and sword, to me
They gave it, land and all that grew thereon,
As chosen heirloom for my Theseus' clan.
Thence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot,
Hummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold
Of this mine segis, by my feet propelled,
As, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car.
And now, beholding here eai-th's nether brood,
I fear it nought, yet are mine eyes amazed
With wonder. Who are ye ? of all I ask,
And of this stranger to my statue clinging.
But ye your shape is like no human form,
Like to no goddess whom the gods behold,
Like to no shape which mortal women wear.
Yet to stand by and chide a monstrous form
Is all unjust from such words Right revolts.
THE FURIES. 155
CHORUS.
child of Zeus, one word shall tell thee all.
We are the children of eternal Night,
And Furies in the underworld are called.
ATHENA.
1 know your lineage now and eke your name.
CHORUS.
Yea, and eftsoons indeed my rights shalt know.
ATHENA.
Fain would I learn them ; speak them clearly forth.
CHORUS.
We chase from home the murderers of men.
ATHENA.
And where at last can he that slew make pause ?
CHORUS.
Where this is law All joy abandon here,
ATHENA.
Say, do ye bay this man to such a flight ?
CHORUS.
Yea, for of choice he did his mother slay.
ATHENA.
Urged by no fear of other wrath and doom ?
CHORUS.
What spur can rightly goad to matricide ?
ATHENA.
Two stand to plead one only have I heard.
CHORUS.
He will not swear nor challenge us to oath.
IS 6 THE FURIES.
ATHENA.
The form of justice, not its deed, thou wiliest.
CHORUS.
Prove thou that word ; thou art not scant of skill.
ATHENA.
I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.
CHORUS.
Then test the cause, judge and award the right.
ATHENA.
Will ye to me then this decision trust ?
CHORUS.
Yea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.
ATHENA (to Orestes).
man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn ;
Speak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes ;
Then, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame
If, as I deem, in confidence of right
Thou sittest hard beside my holy place,
Clasping this statue, as Ixion sat,
A sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse,
To all this answer me in words made plain.
queen Athena, first from thy last words
Will I a great solicitude remove.
Not one blood-guilty am I ; no foul stain
Clings to thine image from my clinging hand ;
Whereof one potent proof I have to tell.
Lo the law stands The slayer shall not plead,
Till by the hand of him who cleanses blood
THE FURIES.
157
A suckling creatures blood besprinkle him.
Long since have I this expiation done,
In many a home, slain beasts and running streams
Have cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.
Next, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn :
An Argive am I, and right well thou know'st
My sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed
The fleet and them that went therein to war
That chief with whom thy hand combined to crush
To an uncitied heap what once was Troy ;
That Agamemnon, when he homeward came,
Was brought unto no honourable death,
Slain by the dark-souled wife who brought me forth
To him, enwound and slain in wily nets,
Blazoned with blood that in the 1 aver ran.
And I, returning from an exiled youth,
Slew her, my mother lo, it stands avowed
With blood for blood avenging my loved sire ;
And in this deed doth Loxias bear part,
Decreeing agonies, to goad my will,
Unless by me the guilty found their doom.
Do thou decide if right or wrong were done
Thy dooming, whatsoe'er it be, contents me.
ATHENA.
Toe mighty is this matter, whosoe'er
Of mortals claims to judge hereof aright.
Yea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids
To judge the issues of blood-guilt, and wrath
That follows swift behind. This too gives pause,
That thou as one with all due rites performed
Dost come, unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.
Whate'er thou art, in this my city's name,
As uncondemned, I take thee to my side.
IS 8 THE FURIES.
Yet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,
I may not banish them : and if they fail,
O'erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith
Their anger's poison shall infect the land
A dropping plague-spot of eternal ill.
Thus stand we with a woe on either hand
Stay they, or go at my commandment forth,
Perplexity or pain must needs befal.
Yet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,
I choose unto me judges that shall be
An ordinance for ever, set to rule
The dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.
But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,
Words strong for justice, fortified by oath ;
And I, whoe'er are truest in my town,
Them will I choose and bring, and straitly charge,
Look on this cause, discriminating well,
And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong.
[Exit Athena.
CHORUS.
Now are they all undone, the ancient laws,
If here the slayer's cause
Prevail ; new wrong for ancient right shall be,
If matricide go free.
Henceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,
Too ready to the hand :
Too oft shall parents in the aftertime
Rue and lament this crime,
Taught, not in false imagining, to feel
Their children's thrusting steel :
No more the wrath, that erst on murder fell
From us, the Queens of Hell,
THE FURIES. 159
Shall fall, no more our watching gaze impend
Death shall smite unrestrained.
Henceforth shall one unto another cry
Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die
Around me ! and that other answers him,
O thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,
Behold, with dark increase
They throng and press upon thee ; yea, and dim
Is all the cure, and every comfort vain!
Let none henceforth cry out, when falls the blow
Of sudden-smiting woe,
Cry out in sad reiterated strain
O Justice, aid! aid, O ye thrones of Hell !
So though a father or a mother wail
New-smitten by a son, it shall no more avail,
Since, overthrown by wrong, the fane of Justice fell !
Know, that a throne there is that may not pass away,
And one that sitteth on it even Fear,
Searching with steadfast eyes man's inner soul :
Wisdom is child of pain, and born with many a tear ;
But who henceforth,
What man of mortal men, what nation upon earth,
That holdeth nought in awe nor in the light
Of inner reverence, shall worship Right
As in the older day ?
Praise not, man, the life beyond control,
Nor that which bows unto a tyrant's sway.
Know that the middle way
Is dearest unto God, and they, thereon who wend,
They shall achieve the end ;
But they who wander or to left or right
Are sinners in his sight
j6o THE FURIES.
Take to thy heart this one, this soothfast word
Of wantonness impiety is sire ;
Only from calm control and sanity unstirred
Cometh true weal, the goal of every man's desire.
Yea, whatsoe'er befal, hold thou this word of mine :
Bout down at Justice 1 shrine,
Turn thou thine eyes away from earthly lure,
Nor with a godless foot that altar spurn.
For as thou dost shall Fate do in return,
And the great doom is sure.
Therefore let each adore a parent's trust,
And each with loyalty revere the guest
That in his halls doth rest.
For whoso uncompelled doth follow what is just,
He ne'er shall be unblest ;
Yea, never to the gulf of doom
That man shall come.
But he whose will is set against the gods,
Who treads beyond' the law with foot impure,
Till, o'er the wreck of right, confusion broods,
Know that for him, though now he sail secure,
The day of storm shall be ; then shall he strive and fail
Down from the shivered yard to furl the sail,
And call on Powers, that heed him nought, to save,
And vainly wrestle with the whirling wave.
Hot was his heart with pride
1 shall not fall, he cried.
But him with watching scorn
The god beholds, forlorn,
Tangled in toils of Fate beyond escape,
Hopeless of haven safe beyond the cape
Till all his wealth and bliss of bygone day
THE FURIES. 161
Upon the reef of Rightful Doom is hurled,
And he is rapt away
Unwept, for ever, to the dead forgotten world.
{Re-enter Athena, with twelve Athenian citizens.
ATHENA.
herald, make proclaim, bid all men come.
Then let the shrill blast of the Tyrrhene trump,
Fulfilled with mortal breath, thro' the wide air
Peal a loud summons, bidding all men heed.
For, till my judges fill this j \idgment-seat,
Silence behoves, that this whole city learn,
What for all time mine ordinance commands,
And this man, that his cause be judged aright.
\Apollo approaches.
, CHORUS.
king Apollo, rule what is thine own,
But in this thing what right hast thou to claim ?
APOLLO.
First, as a witness come I, for this man
Is suppliant of mine by sacred right,
Guest of my holy hearth and cleansed by me
Of blood-guilt : then, to set me at his side .
And in his cause bear part, as part I bore
Erst in his deed, whereby his mother fell.
Let whoso knoweth now announce the cause.
ATHENA (to the Chorus).
'Tis I announce the cause first speech be yours ;
For rightfully shall they whose plaint is tried
Tell the tale first and set the matter clear.
THE FURIES.
CHORUS.
Though we be many, brief shall be our tale.
(To Orestes) Answer thou, setting word to match with
word;
And first avow hast thou thy mother slain ?
I slew her. I deny no word hereof.
CHORUS.
Three falls decide the wrestle this is one.
ORESTES.
Thou vauntest thee but o'er no final fall.
CHORUS.
Yet must thou tell the manner of thy deed.
ORESTES.
Drawn sword in hand, I gashed her neck. 'Tis told.
CHORUS.
But by whose word, whose craft, wert thou impelled ?
ORESTES.
By oracles of him who here attests me.
CHORUS.
The prophet-god bade thee thy mother slay ?
Yea, and thro 5 him not ill I fared, till now.
CHORUS.
If the vote grip thee, thou shalt change that word.
THE FURIES. 163
ORESTES.
Strong is my hope ; my buried sire shall aid.
CHORUS.
Go to now, trust the dead, a matricide !
ORESTES.
Yea, for in her combined two stains of sin.
CHORUS.
How ? speak this clearly to the judges' mind.
ORESTES.
Slaying her husband, she did slay my sire.
CHORUS.
Therefore thou livest ; death assoils her deed.
ORESTES.
Then while she lived why didst thou hunt her not ?
CHORUS.
She was not kin by blood to him she slew.
ORESTES.
And I, am I by blood my mother's kin ?
CHORUS.
cursed with murder's guilt, how else wert thou
The burden of her womb ? Dost thou forswear
Thy mother's kinship, closest bond of love ?
ORESTES.
It is thine hour, Apollo speak the law,
Avei-ring if this deed were justly done ;
THE FURIES.
For done it is, and clear and undenied.
But if to thee this murder's cause seem right
Or wrongful, speak that I to these may tell.
APOLLO.
To you, Athena's mighty council-court,
Justly for justice will I plead, even I,
The prophet-god, nor cheat you by one word.
For never spake I from my prophet-seat
One word, of man, of woman, or of state,
Save what the Father of Olympian gods
Commanded unto me. I rede you then,
Bethink you of my plea, how strong it stands,
And follow the decree of Zeus our sire,
For oaths prevail not over Zeus' command.
CHORUS.
Go to ; thou sayest that from Zeus befel
The oracle that this Orestes bade
With vengeance quit the slaying of his sire,
And hold as nought his mother's right of kin !
APOLLO.
Yea, for it stands not with a common death,
That he should die, a chieftain and a king
Decked with the sceptre which high heaven confers -
Die, and by female hands, not smitten down
By a far-shooting bow, held stalwartly
By some strong Amazon. Another doom
Was his : Pallas, hear, and ye who sit
In judgment, to discern this thing aright !
She with a specious voice of welcome true
Hailed him, returning from the mighty mart
Where war for life gives fame, triumphant home ;
THE FURIES. 165
Then o'er the laver, as he bathed himself,
She spread from head to foot a covering net,
And in the endless mesh of cunning robes
Enwound and trapped her lord, and smote him down.
Lo, ye have heard what doom this chieftain met,
The majesty of Greece, the fleet's high lord :
Such as I tell it, let it gall your ears,
Who stand as judges to decide this cause.
CHORUS.
Zeus, as thou sayest, holds a father's death
As first of crimes, yet he of his own act
Cast into chains his father, Cronos old,
How suits that deed with that which now ye tell ?
ye who judge, I bid ye mark my words !
APOLLO.
monsters loathed of all, scorn of gods,
He that hath bound may loose : a cure there is,
Yea, many a plan that can unbind the chain.
But when the thirsty dust sucks up man's blood
Once shed in death, he shall arise no more.
No chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.
All else there is, he moulds and shifts at will,
Not scant of strength nor breath, whate'er he do.
CHORUS.
Think yet, for what acquittal thou dost plead :
He who hath shed a mother's kindred blood,
Shall he in Argos dwell, where dwelt his sire ?
How shall he stand before the city's shrines,
How share the clansmen's holy lustral bowl ?
THE FURIES.
APOLLO.
This too I answer ; mark a soothfast word.
Not the true parent is the woman's womb
That bears the child ; she doth but nurse the seed
New-sown : the male is parent ; she for him,
As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ
Of life, unless the god its promise blight.
And proof hereof before you will I set.
Birth may from fathers, without mothers, be :
See at your side a witness of the same,
Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus,
Never within the darkness of the womb
Fostered nor fashioned, but a bud more bright
Than any goddess in her breast might bear.
And I, Pallas, howsoe'er I may,
Henceforth will glorify thy town, thy clan,
And for this end have sent my suppliant here
Unto thy shrine ; that he from this time forth
Be loyal unto thee for evermore,
goddess-queen, and thou unto thy side
Mayst win and hold him faithful, and his line,
And that for aye this pledge and troth remain
To children's children of Athenian seed.
ATHENA.
Enough is said ; I bid the judges now
With pure intent deliver just award.
CHORUS.
We too have shot our every shaft of speech,
And now abide to hear the doom of law.
ATHENA (to the Chorus}.
Say, how ordaining shall I 'scape your blame?
THE FURIES. 167
CHORUS.
I spake, ye heard ; enough. stranger men,
Heed well your oath as ye decide the cause.
ATHENA.
men of Athens, ye who first do judge
The law of bloodshed, hear me now ordain,
Here to all time for ^Egeus' Attic host *
Shall stand this council-court of judges sworn,
Here the tribunal, set on Ares' Hill
Where camped of old the tented Amazons,
What time in hate of Theseus they assailed
Athens, and set against her citadel
A counterwork of new sky-pointing towers,
And there to Ares held their sacrifice,
Where now the rock hath name, even Ares' Hill.
And hence shall Reverence and her kinsman Fear
Pass to each free man's heart, by day and night
Enjoining, Thou shalt do no unjust thing ;
So long as law stands as it stood of old
Unruarred by civic change. Look you, the spring
Is pure ; but foul it once with influx vile
And muddy clay, and none can drink thereof.
Therefore, citizens, I bid ye bow
In awe to this command, Let no man live
Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny ;
Nor banish ye the monarchy of Awe
Beyond the walls ; untouched by fear divine,
No man doth justice in the world of men.
Therefore in purity and holy dread
Stand and revere ; so shall ye have and hold
A saving bulwark of the state and land,
* See Appendix.
THE FURIES.
Such as no man hath ever elsewhere known,
Nor in far Scythia, nor in Pelops' realm.
Thus I ordain it now, a council-court
Pure and unsullied by the lust of gain,
Sacred and swift to vengeance, wakeful ever
To champion men who sleep, the country's guard.
Thus have I spoken, thus to mine own clan
Commended it for ever. Ye who judge,
Arise take each his vote, mete out the right,
Your oath revering. Lo, my word is said.
\The twelve judges come forward, one by one, to
the urns of decision ; the first votes ; as each of
the others follows, the Chorus and Apollo speak
alternately.
CHORUS.
I rede ye well, beware ! nor put to shame,
In aught, this grievous company of hell.
APOLLO.
I too would warn you, fear mine oracles
From Zeus they are, nor make them void of fruit.
CHORUS.
Presumptuous is thy claim, blood-guilt to judge,
And false henceforth thine oracles shall be.
APOLLO.
Failed then the counsels of my sire, when turned
Ixion, first of slayers, to his side ?
CHORUS.
These are but words ; but I, if justice fail me,
Will haunt this land in grim and deadly deed.
THE FURIES. 169
APOLLO.
Scorn of the younger and the elder gods
Art thou : 'tis I that shall prevail anon.
CHORUS.
Thus didst thou too of old in Pheres' halls,
O'erreaching Fate to make a mortal deathless.
APOLLO.
Was it not well, my worshipper to aid,
Then most of all when hardest was the need ?
CHORUS.
I say thou didst annul the lots of life,
Cheating with wine the deities of eld.
APOLLO.
I say thou shalt anon, thy pleadings foiled,
Spit venom vainly on thine enemies.
CHORUS.
Since this young god o'errides mine ancient right
I tarry but to claim your law, not knowing
If wrath of mine shall blast your state or spare.
ATHENA.
Mine is the right to add the final vote,
And I award it to Orestes' cause.
For me no mother bore within her womb,
And, save for wedlock evermore eschewed,
I vouch myself the champion of the man,
Not of the woman, yea, with all my soul,
In heart, as birth, a father's child alone.
Thus will I not too heinously regard
A woman's death who did her husband slay,
I70 THE FURIES.
The guardian of her home ; and if the votes
Equal do fall, Orestes shall prevail.
Ye of the judges who are named thereto,
Swiftly shake forth the lots from either urn.
[ Two judges come forward^
one to each urn.
ORESTES.
bright Apollo, what shall be the end ?
CHORUS.
Night, dark mother mine, dost mark these things ?
ORESTES.
Now shall my doom be life, or strangling cords.
CHORUS.
And mine, lost honour or a wider sway.
APOLLO.
stranger judges, sum aright the count
Of votes cast forth, and, parting them, take heed
Ye err not in decision. The default
Of one vote only bringeth ruin deep,
One, cast aright, may stablish house and home.
ATHENA.
Behold, this man is free from guilt of blood,
For half the votes condemn him, half set free !
ORESTES.
Pallas, light and safety of my home,
Thou, thou hast given me back to dwell once more
In that my fatherland, amerced of which
1 wandered ; now shall Grecian lips say this,
THE FURIES. 171
The man is Argive once again, and dwells
Again within his fathers' wealthy hall,
By Pallas saved, by Loxias, and by Him,
The great third saviour, Zeus omnipotent
Who thus in pity for my father's fate
Doth pluck me from my doom, beholding these,
Confederates of my mother. Lo, I pass
To mine own land, but proffering this vow
To thine and to thy people : Nevermore,
Thro' all the manifold years of Time to be,
Shall any chieftain of mine Argive land
Bear hitherward his spears for fight arrayed.
For we, though lapped in earth we then shall lie,
By thwart adversities will work our will
On them who shall transgress this oath of mine,
Paths of despair and joumeyings ill-starred
For them ordaining, till their task they rue.
But if this oath be rightly kept, to them
Will we the dead be full of grace, the while
With loyal league they honour Pallas' town.
And now farewell, thou and thy city's folk
Firm be thine arms' grasp, closing with thy foes,
And, strong to save, bring victory to thy spear.
[Exit Orestes, with Apollo.
CHORUS.
Woe on you, younger gods ! the ancient right
Ye have o'erridden, rent it from my hands.
I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn !
But heavily my wrath
Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,
Venofia^pf vengeance, that shall work such scathe
As I have suffered ; where that dew shall fall,
Shall leafless blight arise,
I 7 2
THE FURIES.
Wasting Earth's offspring, Justice, hear my call !-
And thorough all the land in deadly wise
Shall scatter venom, to exude again
In pestilence on men.
What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,
Unto this land what dark despite ?
Alack, alack, forlorn
Are we, a bitter injury have borne,
Alack, sisters, dishonoured brood
Of mother Night !
ATHENA.
Nay, bow ye to my words, chafe not nor moan :
Ye are not worsted nor disgraced ; behold,
With balanced vote the cause had issue fair,
Nor in the end did aught dishonour thee.
But thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth,
And his own prophet-god avouched the same,
Orestes slew : Ms slaying is atoned.
Therefore I pray you, not upon this land
Shoot forth the dart of vengeance ; be appeased,
Nor blast the land with blight, nor loose thereon
Drops of eternal venom, direful darts
Wasting and marring nature's seed of growth.
For I, the queen of Athens' sacred right,
Do pledge to you a holy sanctuary
Deep in the heart of this my land, made just
By your indwelling presence, while ye sit
Hard by your sacred shrines that gleam with oil
Of sacrifice, and by this folk adored.
CHORUS.
Woe on you, younger gods ! the ancient right
Ye have o'erridden, rent it from my hands.
THE FURIES. i 7S
I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn !
But heavily my wrath
Shall on his land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,
Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe
As I have suffered ; where that dew shall fall,
Shall leafless blight arise,
Wasting Earth's offspring, Jxistice, hear my call !
And thorough all the land in deadly wise
Shall scatter venom, to exude again
In pestilence on men.
What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,
Unto this land, what dark despite ?
Alack, alack, forlorn
Are we, a bitter injury have borne,
Alack, sisters, dishonoured brood
Of mother Night !
ATHENA.
Dishonoured are ye not; tuna not, I pray,
As goddesses your swelling wrath on men,
Nor make the friendly earth despiteful to them.
I too have Zeus for champion tis enough
I only of all goddesses do know
To ope the chamber where his thunderbolts
Lie stored and sealed ; but here is no such need.
Nay, be appeased, nor cast upon the ground
The malice of thy tongue, to blast the world ;
Calm thou thy bitter wrath's black inward surge,
For high shall be thine honour, set beside me
For ever in this land, whose fertile lap
Shall pour its teeming firstfruits unto you,
Gifts for fair childbirth and for wedlock's crown :
Thus honoured, praise my spoken pledge for aye.
THE FURIES.
CHORUS.
I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,
Ancient of days and wisdom ! I breathe forth
Poison and breath of frenzied ire. Earth,
Woe, woe for thee, for me !
From side to side what pains be these that thrill ?
Hearken, mother Night, my wrath, mine agony !
Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust,
And brought me to the dust
Woe, woe is me ! with craft invincible.
ATHENA.
Older art thou than I, and I will bear
With this thy fury. Know, although thou be
More wise in ancient wisdom, yet have I
From Zeus no scanted measure of the same.
Wherefore take heed unto this prophecy
If to another land of alien men
Ye go, too late shall ye feel longing deep
For mine. The rolling tides of time bring round
A day of brighter glory for this town ;
And thou, enshrined in honour by the halls
Where dwelt Erechtheus, shalt a worship win
From men and from the train of womankind,
Greater than any tribe elsewhere shall pay.
Cast thou not therefore on this soil of mine
Whetstones that sharpen souls to bloodshedding,
The burning goads of youthful hearts, made hot
With frenzy of the spirit, not of wine.
Nor pluck as 'twere the heart from cocks that strive,
To set it in the breast of citizens
Of mine, a war-god's spirit, keen for fight,
Made stern against their country and their kin.
THE FURIES. 175
The man who grievously doth lust for fame,
War, full, immitigable, let him wage
Against the stranger ; but of kindred birds
I hold the challenge hateful. Such the boon
I proffer thee within this land of lands,
Most loved of gods, with me to show and share
Fair mercy, gratitude and grace as fair.
CHORUS.
I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,
Ancient of days and wisdom ! I breathe forth
Poison and breath of frenzied ire. Earth,
Woe, woe for thee, for me !
From side to side what pains be these that thrill ?
Hearken, mother Night, my wrath, mine agony !
Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust,
And brought me to the dust
Woe, woe is me ! with craft invincible.
ATHENA.
I will not weary of soft words to thee,
That never mayst thou say, Behold me spurned,
An elder by a younger deity,
And from this land rejected and forlorn,
Unhonoured by the men who divell therein.
But, if Persuasion's grace be sacred to thee,
Soft in the soothing accents of my tongue,
Tarry, I pray thee ; yet, if go thou wilt,
Not rightfully wilt thou on this my town
Sway down the scale that beareth wrath and teen
Or wasting plague upon this folk. 'Tis thine,
If so thou wilt, inheritress to be
Of this my land, its utmost grace to win.
I7 6 THE FURIES.
CHORUS.
O queen, what refuge dost thou promise me ?
ATHENA.
Refuge untouched by bale : take thou my boon.
CHORUS.
What, if I take it, shall mine honour be ?
ATHENA.
No house shall prosper without grace of thine.
CHORUS.
Canst thou achieve and grant such power to me ?
ATHENA.
Yea, for my hand shall bless thy worshippers.
CHORUS.
And wilt thou pledge me this for time eterne ?
ATHENA.
Yea : none can bid me pledge beyond my power.
CHORUS.
Lo, I desist from wrath, appeased by thee.
ATHENA.
Then in the land's heart shalt thou win thee friends.
CHORUS.
What chant dost bid me raise, to greet the land ?
ATHENA.
Such as aspires towards a victory
Unrued by any : chants from breast of earth,
THE FURIES. 177
From wave, from sky ; and let the wild winds' breath
Pass with soft sunlight o'er the lap of land,
Strong wax the fruits of earth, fair teem the kine,
Unfailing, for my town's prosperity,
And constant be the growth of mortal seed.
But more and more root out the impious,
For as a gardener fosters what he sows,
So foster I this race, whom righteousness
Doth fend from sorrow. Such the proffered boon.
But I, if wars must be, and their loud clash
And carnage, for my town, will ne'er endure
That aught but victory shall crown her fame.
CHORUS.
Lo, I accept it ; at her very side
Doth Pallas bid me dwell :
I will not wrong the city of her pride,
Which even Almighty Zeus and Ares hold
Heaven's earthly citadel,
Loved home of Grecian gods, the young, the old,
The sanctuary divine,
The shield of every shrine !
For Athens I say forth a gracious prophecy,
The glory of the sunlight and the skies
Shall bid from earth arise,
Warm wavelets of new life and glad prosperity.
ATHENA.
Behold, with gracious heart well pleased
I for my citizens do grant
Fulfilment of this covenant :
And here, their wrath at length appeased,
These mighty deities shall stay.
I 7 8
THE FURIES.
For theirs it is by right to sway
The lot that rules our mortal day,
And he who hath not inly felt
Their stern decree, ere long on him,
Not knowing why and whence, the grim
Life-crushing blow is dealt.
The father's sin vipon the child
Descends, and sin is silent death,
And leads him on the downward path,
By stealth beguiled,
Unto the Furies : though his state
On earth -were high, and loud his boast,
Victim of silent ire and hate
He dwells among the Lost.
CHORUS.
To my blessing now give ear.
Scorching blight nor singed air *
Never blast thine olives fair !
Drouth, that wasteth bud and plant,
Keep to thine own place. Avaunt,
Famine fell, and come not hither
Stealthily to waste and wither !
Let the land, in season due,
Twice her waxing fruits renew ;
Teem the kine in double measure ;
Rich in new god-given treasure,
Here let men the powers adore
For sudden gifts unhoped before !
ATHENA.
hearken, warders of the wall
That guards mine Athens, what a dower
* See Milton, Comus, 1. 938.
THE FURIES. 179
Is unto her ordained and given !
For mighty is the Furies' power,
And deep-revered in courts of heaven
And realms of hell ; and clear to all
They weave thy doom, mortality !
And some in joy and peace shall sing ;
But unto other some they bring
Sad life and tear-dimmed eye.
CHORUS.
And far away I ban thee and remove,
Untimely death of youths too soon brought low !
And to each maid, gods, when time is come for love,
Grant ye a warrior's heart, a wedded life to know.
Ye too, Fates ! children of mother Night
Whose children too are we, goddesses
Of just award, of all by sacred right
Queens, who in time and in eternity
Do rule, a present power for righteousness,
Honoured beyond all Gods, hear ye and grant my cry !
ATHENA.
And I too, I with joy am fain,
Hearing thy voice this gift ordain
Unto my land. High thanks be thine,
Persuasion, who with eyes divine
Into my tongue didst look thy strength,
To bend and to allay at length
Those who would not be comforted.
Zeus, king of parley, doth prevail,
And ye and I will strive nor fail,
That good may stand in evil's stead,
And lasting bliss for bale.
THE FURIES.
CHORUS.
And nevermore these walls within
Shall echo fierce sedition's din,
Unslaked with blood and crime ;
The thirsty dust shall nevermore
Suck up the darkly streaming gore
Of civic broils, shed out in wrath
And vengeance, crying death for death !
But man with man and state with state
Shall vow The pledge of common hate
And common friendship, that for man
Hath oft made blessing out of ban,
Be ours unto all time*
ATHENA.
Skill they, or not, the path to find
Of favouring speech and presage kind 1
Yea, even from these, who, grim and stern,
Glared anger upon you of old,
citizens, ye now shall earn
A recompense right manifold.
Deck them aright, extol them high,
Be loyal to their loyalty,
And ye shall make your town and land
Sure, propped on Justice' saving hand,
And Fame's eternity.
CHORUS.
Hail ye, all hail ! and yet again, all hail,
Athens, happy in a weal secured !
* The allusion is to the customary Hellenic formula for offensive and
defensive alliances " We will hold the same friends and the same foes."
THE FURIES. 181
ye who sit by Zeus' right hand, nor fail
Of wisdom set among yon and assured,
Loved of the well-loved Goddess-Maid ! the King
Of gods doth reverence you, beneath her guarding wing.
ATHENA.
All hail unto each honoured guest !
Whom to the chambers of your rest
'Tis mine to lead, and to provide
The hallowed torch, the guard and guide.
Pass down, the while these altars glow
With sacred fire, to earth below
And your appointed shrine.
There dwelling, from the land restrain
The force of fate, the breath of bane,
But waft on us the gift and gain
Of Victory divine !
And ye, the men of Cranaos' seed,
I bid ye now with reverence lead
These alien Powers that thus are made
Athenian evermore. To you
Fair be their will henceforth, to do
Whate'er may bless and aid !
CHORUS.
Hail to you all ! hail yet again,
All who love Athens, Gods and men,
Adoring her as Pallas' home !
And while ye reverence what ye grant
My sacred shrine and hidden haunt
Blameless and blissful be your doom !
x8 2 THE FURIES.
ATHENA.
Once more I praise the promise of your vows,
And now I bid the golden torches' glow
Pass down before you to the hidden depth
Of earth, by mine own sacred servants borne,
My loyal guards of statue and of shrine.
Come forth, flower of Theseus' Attic land,
glorious band of children and of wives,
And ye, train of matrons crowned with eld !
Deck you with festal robes of scarlet dye
In honour of this day : gleaming torch,
Lead onward, that these gracious powers of earth
Henceforth be seen to bless the life of men.
[Athena leads the procession downwards into the
Cave of the Furies, under Areopagus : as they go,
the escort of women and children chant aloud.
CHANT.
With loyalty we lead you ; proudly go,
Night's childless children, to your home below !
(O citizens, awhile from words forbear!)
To darkness' deep primeval lair,
Far in Earth's bosom, downward fare,
Adored with prayer and sacrifice.
(O citizens, forbear your cries /)
Pass hitherward, ye powers of Dread,
With all your former wrath allayed,
Into the heart of this loved land ;
With joy unto your temple wend,
The while upon your steps attend
The flames that feed upon the brand
(Now, now ring out your chant, your joy's acclaim /)
Behind them, as they downward fare,
THE FURIES. 183
Let holy hands libations bear,
And torches' sacred flame.
All-seeing Zeus and Fate come down
To battle fair for Pallas' town !
Ring out your chant, ring out your joy's acclaim !
[Exeunt omnes.]
APPENDIX.
Eumenides, II. 650-676, p. 167.
IT cannot be necessary to remind any scholar who may read the
foregoing translation, of the historical interest that attaches to this
passage, and, indeed, to the whole conclusion of The Furies. A
mere reference to Grote's " History of Greece " (Vol. IV., ch. 46),
to Muller's " Dissertation on the Eumenides," and Oncken's "Athen
und Hellas," will suffice to recall a vexed literary and historical
problem, and the conflict of doctors who disagree.
But those unacquainted with the literature and politics of ancient
Greece (and for such, of course, this translation is mainly intended)
will hardly fail to have recognized, in the last part of the concluding
drama, a definitely political and patriotic fervour which the legend
of the House of Atreus seems hardly calculated to arouse. The
cause of Orestes is decided in his favour ; but it is impossible to feel
that the theatrical interest of the drama is concentrated, as might be
expected, on his acquittal : it has been shifted to the Tribunal of
Areopagus, before which he is tried, and thence to the destiny of the
Athenian race and its dependence on celestial and terrestrial deities.
The general explanation of this political turn and complexion
given to the play is simple enough ; the details are involved in
great obscurity : and the precise attitude of ^Eschylus' mind to the
politics of the day remains uncertain.
The Senate of Areopagus was at this time the object of a
considerable popular jealousy. Of immemorial antiquity, and
strengthened by the memory of its courage and patriotism at the
time of the Persian invasion, it either had, or was believed to have,
become oligarchical in its opinions and corrupt in its practice.
Grote perhaps overstates the case against the Areopagus; and,
in any case, his argument that, because the senate at Sparta was
corrupt, that at Athens must have been so as well (Hist. IV., p. 105),
should be received with caution. But there is every reason to trust
his conclusion that the Areopagus, consisting almost entirely of ex-
ministers, and claiming large judicial, censorial, and revisionary
i86 APPENDIX.
powers a claim based on undefined prescription rather than on
positive law was a tribunal very unlikely to satisfy an expanding
and restless democracy.
Justly or unjustly, such a popular feeling arose against it, and
culminated in a measure passed, after much resistance, by
Ephialtes and Pericles, leaders of the popular party by which the
Areopagus was deprived of all its vague and comprehensive powers,
and retained only the jurisdiction over homicide. This it was
allowed to retain, not only on political, but also on religious
grounds; in Grote's words, "the cognizance which it took of
intentional homicide was a part of old Attic religion."
It might appear that the whole tenor of The Furies is to glorify
the Areopagus in its hour of trial; and, consequently, that the
political leaning of ^schylus, in this point at any rate, is obvious.
Such a conclusion is, to some extent, fortified by Aristophanes'
sketch of ^schylus, in the Frogs, as a stalwart champion and
representative of old ideas.
On the other hand, it is plausibly urged that The Furies only
glorifies the Areopagus as a tribunal for homicide, which function
was expressly retained for it by Ephialtes and Pericles ; that the
policy of an alliance with Argos, unmistakably commended towards
the close of the play, was a Periclean policy : in short, the /Eschylus
is advocating, or cordially acquiescing in, the Periclean ideas. It is
even suggested that his opposition is directed against a certain re-
actionary innovation, so to speak, by which obsolete privileges of the
Areopagus were to be revived, and that the close of The Furies is
in reality an exhortation to all to be content with the high though
limited jurisdiction left to the Areopagus, over matters of homicide.
There is here, it is plain, a literary and historical problem of
considerable complexity, with which I do not think myself competent
to deal. I will only hazard two opinions, of a negative kind. First,
that the text of The Furies, however closely scanned, is not decisive
enough in its allusions to enable us to measure the angle of ^schylus'
political views with exactness. The solution of the problem must
be sought elsewhere, if indeed it be soluble.
Secondly, that it is an error to treat the political references of a
poet as the responsible utterances of a political leader; to demand
the same consistency, or the same defence for inconsistency, from
the former as from the latter.
APPENDIX. 187
Men's attitude of mind towards policy or institutions, secular or
religious, comes under the cognizance of a poet and thinker long
before it develops into a political force, or presents any point, of
support or resistance, to a politician. From the speculative stand-
point, a change, e.g., may be seen to be salutary or necessary, but
the motives for which it is popularly demanded, base or dangerous.
(No better illustration of this can be found, perhaps, than in
Coleridge's Table Talk, and his attitude of mind towards reform,
etc.) It is for party-leaders, like Ephialtes and Pericles, to deal
strenuously and practically with the problems and forces of the
hour; it is for ^Eschylus, as for Plato, to point independently to
the wide scope, for good or for evil, opened up by political and
judicial changes, or by a league with Argos.
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