[Exeunt Agamemnon, walking on the tapestry,
Clytæmnestra, and her attendants
Strophe I
Chor. Why thus continually
Do haunting phantoms hover at the gate
Of my foreboding heart?
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Why floats prophetic song, unbought, unbidden?
Why doth no steadfast trust
Sit on my mind's dear throne,
To fling it from me as a vision dim?
Long time hath passed since stern-ropes of our ships
Were fastened on the sand, when our great host
Of those that sailed in ships
Had come to Ilion's towers:[347]
Antistrophe I
And now from these mine eyes
960
I learn, myself reporting to myself,
Their safe return; and yet
My mind within itself, taught by itself,
Chanteth Erinnys' dirge,
The lyreless melody,
And hath no strength of wonted confidence.
Not vain these inner pulses, as my heart
Whirls eddying in breast oracular.
I, against hope, will pray
It prove false oracle.
970
Strophe II
Of high, o'erflowing health
There is no bound that stays the wish for more,
For evermore disease, as neighbour close
Whom but a wall divides,
Upon it presses; and man's prosperous state
*Moves on its course, and strikes
Upon an unseen rock;
But if his fear for safety of his freight,
A part, from well-poised sling, shall sacrifice,
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Then the whole house sinks not,
O'erfilled with wretchedness,
Nor does he swamp his boat:
So, too, abundant gift
From Zeus in bounteous fulness, and the fruit
Of glebe at harvest tide
Have caused to cease sore hunger's pestilence;
Antistrophe II
But blood that once hath flowed
In purple stains of death upon the ground
At a man's feet, who then can bid it back
By any charm of song?
Else him who knew to call the dead to life[348]
*Zeus had not sternly checked,
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*As warning unto all;
But unless Fate, firm-fixed, had barred our fate
From any chance of succour from the Gods,
Then had my heart poured forth
Its thoughts, outstripping speech.[349]
But now in gloom it wails
Sore vexed, with little hope
At any time hereafter fitting end
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To find, unravelling,
My soul within me burning with hot thoughts.
Re-enter Clytæmnestra
Clytæm. [to Cassandra, who has remained in the
chariot during the choral ode]
Thou too—I mean Cassandra—go within;
Since Zeus hath made it thine, and not in wrath,
To share the lustral waters in our house,
Standing with many a slave the altar nigh
Of Zeus, who guards our goods.[350] Now get thee down
From out this car, nor look so over proud.
They say that e'en Alcmena's son endured[351]
Being sold a slave, constrained to bear the yoke:
And if the doom of this ill chance should come,
Great boon it is to meet with lords who own
Ancestral wealth. But whoso reap full crops
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They never dared to hope for, these in all,
And beyond measure, to their slaves are harsh:[352]
From us thou hast what usage doth prescribe.
Chor. So ends she, speaking words full clear to thee:
And seeing thou art in the toils of fate,
If thou obey, thou wilt obey; and yet,
Perchance, obey thou wilt not.
Clytæm. Nay, but unless she, like a swallow, speaks
A barbarous tongue unknown, I speaking now
Within her apprehension, bid obey.
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Chor. [to Cassandra, still standing motionless] Go with her. What she bids is now the best;
Obey her: leave thy seat upon this car.
Clytæm. I have no leisure here to stay without:
For as regards our central altar, there
The sheep stand by as victims for the fire;
For never had we hoped such thanks to give:
If thou wilt do this, make no more delay;
But if thou understandest not my words,
Then wave thy foreign hand in lieu of speech.
[Cassandra shudders as in horror, but
makes no sign
Chor. The stranger seems a clear interpreter
To need. Her look is like a captured deer's.
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Clytæm. Nay, she is mad, and follows evil thoughts,
Since, leaving now her city, newly-captured,
She comes, and knows not how to take the curb,
Ere she foam out her passion in her blood.
I will not bear the shame of uttering more. [Exit
Chor. And I—I pity her, and will not rage:
Come, thou poor sufferer, empty leave thy car;
Yield to thy doom, and handsel now the yoke.
[Cassandra leaves the chariot, and bursts
into a cry of wailing
Strophe I
Cass. Woe! woe, and well-a-day!
Apollo! O Apollo!
1040
Chor. Why criest thou so loud on Loxias?
The wailing cry of mourner suits not him.
Antistrophe I
Cass. Woe! woe, and well-a-day!
Apollo! O Apollo!
Chor. Again with boding words she calls the God,
Though all unmeet as helper to men's groans.
Strophe II
Cass. Apollo! O Apollo!
God of all paths, Apollo true to me;
For still thou dost appal me and destroy.[353]
Chor. She seems her own ills like to prophesy:
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The God's great gift is in the slave's mind yet.
Antistrophe II
Cass. Apollo! O Apollo!
God of all paths, Apollo true to me;
What path hast led me? To what roof hast brought?
Chor. To that of the Atreidæ. This I tell,
If thou know'st not. Thou wilt not find it false.
Strophe III
Cass. Ah! Ah! Ah me!
Say rather to a house God hates—that knows
Murder, self-slaughter, ropes,[354]
*A human shamble, staining earth with blood.
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Chor. Keen scented seems this stranger, like a hound,
And sniffs to see whose murder she may find.
Antistrophe III
Cass. Ah! Ah! Ah me!
Lo! [looking wildly, and pointing to the house,] there the witnesses whose word I trust,—
Those babes who wail their death,
The roasted flesh that made a father's meal.
Chor. We of a truth had heard thy seeress fame,
But prophets now are not the race we seek.[355]
Strophe IV
Cass. Ah me! O horror! What ill schemes she now?
What is this new great woe?
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Great evil plots she in this very house,
Hard for its friends to bear, immedicable;
And help stands far aloof.
Chor. These oracles of thine surpass my ken;
Those I know well. The whole town rings with them.[356]
Antistrophe IV
Cass. Ah me! O daring one! what work'st thou here,
Who having in his bath
Tended thy spouse, thy lord, then ... How tell the rest?
For quick it comes, and hand is following hand,
Stretched out to strike the blow.
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Chor. Still I discern not; after words so dark
I am perplexed with thy dim oracles.
Strophe V
Cass. Ah, horror, horror! What is this I see?
Is it a snare of Hell?
Nay, the true net is she who shares his bed,
Who shares in working death.
Ha! let the Band insatiable in hate[357]
Howl for the race its wild exulting cry
O'er sacrifice that calls
For death by storm of stones.
Strophe VI
Chor. What dire Erinnys bidd'st thou o'er our house
To raise shrill cry? Thy speech but little cheers;
And to my heart there rush
Blood-drops of saffron hue,[358]
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*Which, when from deadly wound
They fall, together with life's setting rays
End, as it fails, their own appointed course:
And mischief comes apace.
Antistrophe V
Cass. See, see, I say, from that fell heifer there
Keep thou the bull:[359] in robes
Entangling him, she with her weapon gores
Him with the swarthy horns;[360]
Lo! in that bath with water filled he falls,
Smitten to death, and I to thee set forth
Crime of a bath of blood,
By murderous guile devised.
Antistrophe VI
Chor. I may not boast that I keen insight have
In words oracular; yet bode I ill.
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What tidings good are brought
By any oracles
To mortal men? These arts,
In days of evil sore, with many words,
Do still but bring a vague, portentous fear
For men to learn and know.
Strophe VII
Cass. Woe, woe! for all sore ills that fall on me!
It is my grief thou speak'st of, blending it
With his.[361] [Pausing, and then crying out.]
Ah! wherefore then
Hast thou[362] thus brought me here,
Only to die with thee?
What other doom is mine?
Strophe VIII
Chor. Frenzied art thou, and by some God's might swayed,
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And utterest for thyself
A melody which is no melody,
Like to that tawny one,
Insatiate in her wail,
The nightingale, who still with sorrowing soul,
And “Itys, Itys,” cry,[363]
Bemoans a life o'erflourishing in ills.
Antistrophe VII
Cass. Ah, for the doom of clear-voiced nightingale!
The Gods gave her a body bearing wings,
And life of pleasant days
With no fresh cause to weep:
But for me waiteth still
Stroke from the two-edged sword.
Antistrophe VIII
Chor. From what source hast thou these dread agonies
Sent on thee by thy God,
Yet vague and little meaning; and thy cries
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Dire with ill-omened shrieks
Dost utter as a chant,
And blendest with them strains of shrillest grief?
Whence treadest thou this track
Of evil-boding path of prophecy?
Strophe IX
Cass. Woe for the marriage-ties, the marriage-ties
Of Paris that brought ruin on his friends!
Woe for my native stream,
Scamandros, that I loved!
Once on thy banks my maiden youth was reared,
(Ah, miserable me!)
Now by Cokytos and by Acheron's shores
I seem too likely soon to utter song
Of wild, prophetic speech.
Strophe X
Chor. What hast thou spoken now
With utterance all too clear?
*Even a boy its gist might understand;
I to the quick am pierced
With throe of deadly pain,
Whilst thou thy moaning cries art uttering
Over thy sore mischance,
Wondrous for me to hear.
Antistrophe IX
Cass. Woe for the toil and trouble, toil and trouble
Of city that is utterly destroyed!
Woe for the victims slain
Of herds that roamed the fields,
1140
My father's sacrifice to save his towers!
No healing charm they brought
To save the city from its present doom:
And I with hot thoughts wild myself shall cast
Full soon upon the ground.
Antistrophe X
Chor. This that thou utterest now
With all before agrees.
Some Power above dooms thee with purpose ill,
Down-swooping heavily,
To utter with thy voice
Sorrows of deepest woe, and bringing death.
And what the end shall be
Perplexes in the extreme.
Cass. Nay, now no more from out of maiden veils
My oracle shall glance, like bride fresh wed;[364]
1150
But seems as though 'twould rush with speedy gales
In full, clear brightness to the morning dawn;
So that a greater war than this shall surge
Like wave against the sunlight.[365] Now I'll teach
No more in parables. Bear witness ye,
As running with me, that I scent the track
Of evil deeds that long ago were wrought:
For never are they absent from this house,
That choral band which chants in full accord,
Yet no good music; good is not their theme.
And now, as having drunk men's blood,[366] and so
Grown wilder, bolder, see, the revelling band,
1160
Erinnyes of the race, still haunt the halls,
Not easy to dismiss. And so they sing,
Close cleaving to the house, its primal woe,[367]
And vent their loathing in alternate strains
On marriage-bed of brother ruthless found
To that defiler. *Miss I now, or hit,
Like archer skilled? or am I seeress false,
A babbler vain that knocks at every door?
Yea, swear beforehand, ere I die, I know
(And not by rumour only) all the sins
Of ancient days that haunt and vex this house.
Chor. How could an oath, how firm soe'er confirmed,
Bring aught of healing? Lo, I marvel at thee,
1170
That thou, though born far off beyond the sea,
Should'st tell an alien city's tale as clear
As though thyself had stood by all the while.
Cass. The seer Apollo set me to this task.
Chor. Was he a God, so smitten with desire?
Cass. There was a time when shame restrained my speech.
Chor. True; they who prosper still are shy and coy.
Cass. He wrestled hard, breathing hot love on me.
Chor. And were ye one in act whence children spring?
Cass. I promised Loxias, then I broke my vow.
Chor. Wast thou e'en then possessed with arts divine?
1180
Cass. E'en then my country's woes I prophesied.
Chor. How wast thou then unscathed by Loxias' wrath?
Cass. I for that fault with no man gained belief.
Chor. To us, at least, thou seem'st to speak the truth.
Cass. [Again speaking wildly, as in an ecstasy.] Ah, woe is me! Woe's me! Oh, ills on ills!
Again the dread pang of true prophet's gift
With preludes of great evil dizzies me.
See ye those children sitting on the house
In fashion like to phantom forms of dreams?
1190
Infants who perished at their own kin's hands,
Their palms filled full with meat of their own flesh,
Loom on my sight, the heart and entrails bearing,
(A sorry burden that!) on which of old
Their father fed.[368] And in revenge for this,
I say a lion, dwelling in his lair,
With not a spark of courage, stay-at-home,
Plots 'gainst my master, now he's home returned,
(Yes mine—for still I must the slave's yoke bear;)
And the ship's ruler, Ilion's conqueror,
Knows not what things the tongue of that lewd bitch
Has spoken and spun out in welcome smooth,
1200
And, like a secret Atè, will work out
With dire success: thus 'tis she plans: the man
Is murdered by the woman. By what name
Shall I that loathèd monster rightly call?
An Amphisbæna? or a Skylla dwelling[369]
Among the rocks, the sailors' enemy?
Hades' fierce raging mother, breathing out
Against her friends a curse implacable?
Ah, how she raised her cry, (oh, daring one!)
As for the rout of battle, and she feigns
To hail with joy her husband's safe return!
And if thou dost not credit this, what then?
What will be will. Soon, present, pitying me
1210
Thou'lt own I am too true a prophetess.
Chor. Thyestes' banquet on his children's flesh
I know and shudder at, and fear o'ercomes me,
Hearing not counterfeits of fact, but truths;
Yet in the rest I hear and miss my path.
Cass. I say thou'lt witness Agamemnon's death.
Chor. Hush, wretched woman, close those lips of thine!
Cass. For this my speech no healing God's at hand.
Chor. True, if it must be; but may God avert it!
1220
Cass. Thou utterest prayers, but others murder plot.
Chor. And by what man is this dire evil wrought?
Cass. Sure, thou hast seen my bodings all amiss.
Chor. I see not his device who works the deed.
Cass. And yet I speak the Hellenic tongue right well.
Chor. So does the Pythian, yet her words are hard.
Cass. [In another access of frenzy.] Ah me, this fire!
It comes upon me now!
Ah me, Apollo, wolf-slayer! woe is me!
This biped lioness who takes to bed
A wolf in absence of the noble lion,
1230
Will slay me, wretched me. And, as one
Mixing a poisoned draught, she boasts that she
Will put my price into her cup of wrath,
Sharpening her sword to smite her spouse with death,
So paying him for bringing me. Oh, why
Do I still wear what all men flout and scorn,
My wand and seeress wreaths around my neck?[370]
Thee, ere myself I die I will destroy: [breaks her wand]
Perish ye thus: [casting off her wreaths] I soon shall follow you:
Make rich another Atè[371] in my place;
Behold Apollo's self is stripping me
1240
Of my divining garments, and that too,
When he has seen me even in this garb
Scorned without cause among my friends and kin,
*By foes, with no diversity of mood.
Reviled as vagrant, wandering prophetess,
Poor, wretched, famished, I endured to live:
And now the Seer who me a seeress made
Hath brought me to this lot of deadly doom.
Now for my father's altar there awaits me
A butcher's block, where I am smitten down
By slaughtering stroke, and with hot gush of blood.
But the Gods will not slight us when we're dead;
1250
Another yet shall come as champion for us,
A son who slays his mother, to avenge
His father; and the exiled wanderer
Far from his home, shall one day come again,
Upon these woes to set the coping-stone:
For the high Gods have sworn a mighty oath,
His father's fall, laid low, shall bring him back.
Why then do I thus groan in this new home,[372]
When, to begin with, Ilion's town I saw
Faring as it did fare, and they who held
That town are gone by judgment of the Gods?
1260
I too will fare as they, and venture death:
So I these gates of Hades now address,
And pray for blow that bringeth death at once,
That so with no fierce spasm, while the blood
Flows in calm death, I then may close mine eyes.
[Goes towards the door of the palace
Chor. O thou most wretched, yet again most wise:
Long hast thou spoken, lady, but if well
Thou know'st thy doom, why to the altar go'st thou,
Like heifer driven of God, so confidently?[373]
1270
Cass. For me, my friends, there is no time to 'scape.[374]
Chor. Yea; but he gains in time who comes the last.
Cass. The day is come: small gain for me in flight.
Chor. Know then thou sufferest with a heart full brave.
Cass. Such words as these the happy never hear.
Chor. Yet mortal man may welcome noble death.
Cass. [Shrinking back from opening the door.] Woe's me for thee and thy brave sons, my father![375]
Chor. What cometh now? What fear oppresseth thee?
Cass. [Again going to the door and then shuddering in another burst of frenzy.] Fie on't, fie!
Chor. Whence comes this “Fie?” unless from mind that loathes?
Cass. The house is tainted with the scent of death.
1280
Chor. How so? This smells of victims on the hearth.
Cass. Nay, it is like the blast from out a grave.
Chor. No Syrian ritual tell'st thou for our house.[376]
Cass. Well then I go, and e'en within will wail
My fate and Agamemnon's. And for me,
Enough of life. Ah, friends! Ah! not for nought
I shrink in fear, as bird shrinks from the brake.[377]
When I am dead do ye this witness bear,
When in revenge for me, a woman, Death
A woman smites, and man shall fall for man
1290
In evil wedlock wed. This friendly office,
As one about to die, I pray you do me.
Chor. Thy doom foretold, poor sufferer, moves my pity.
Cass. I fain would speak once more, yet not to wail
Mine own death-song; but to the Sun I pray,
To his last rays, that my avengers wreak
Upon my hated murderers judgment due
For me, who die a slave's death, easy prey.
Ah, life of man! when most it prospereth,
*It is but limned in outline;[378] and when brought
To low estate, then doth the sponge, full soaked,
1300
Wipe out the picture with its frequent touch:
And this I count more piteous e'en than that.[379]
[Passes through the door into the palace
Chor. 'Tis true of all men that they never set
A limit to good fortune; none doth say,
As bidding it depart,
*And warding it from palaces of pride,
“Enter thou here no more.”
To this our lord the Blest Ones gave to take
Priam's city; and he comes
Safe to his home and honoured by the Gods;
But if he now shall pay
The forfeit of blood-guiltiness of old,
And, dying, so work out for those who died,
By his own death another penalty,
1310
Who then of mortal men,
Hearing such things as this,
Can boast that he was born
With fate from evil free?
Agam. [from within.] Ah, me! I am struck down with deadly stroke.
Chor. Hush! who cries out with deadly stroke sore smitten?
Agam. Ah me, again! struck down a second time!
[Dies
Chor. By the king's groans I judge the deed is done;
But let us now confer for counsels safe.[380]
Chor. a. I give you my advice to summon here,
Here to the palace, all the citizens.
1320
Chor. b. I think it best to rush at once on them,
And take them in the act with sword yet wet.
Chor. c. And I too give like counsel, and I vote
For deed of some kind. 'Tis no time to pause.
Chor. d. Who will see, may.—They but the prelude work
Of tyranny usurped o'er all the State.
Chor. e. Yes, we are slow, but they who trample down
The thought of hesitation slumber not.
Chor. f. I know not what advice to find or speak:
He who can act knows how to counsel too.
1330
Chor. g. I too think with thee; for I have no hope
With words to raise the dead again to life.
Chor. h. What! Shall we drag our life on and submit
To these usurpers that defile the house?
Chor. i. Nay, that we cannot bear: To die were better;
For death is gentler far than tyranny.
Chor. k. Shall we upon this evidence of groans
Guess, as divining that our lord is dead?
Chor. l. When we know clearly, then should we discuss:
To guess is one thing, and to know another.
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Chor.[381] So vote I too, and on the winning side,
Taking the votes all round that we should learn
How he, the son of Atreus, fareth now.

Enter Clytæmnestra from the palace, in robes with stains of blood, followed by soldiers and attendants. The open doors show the corpses of Agamemnon and Cassandra, the former lying in a silvered bath

Clytæm. Though many words before to suit the time
Were spoken, now I shall not be ashamed
The contrary to utter: How could one
By open show of enmity to foes
Who seemed as friends, fence in the snares of death
Too high to be o'erleapt? But as for me,
Not without forethought for this long time past,
This conflict comes to me from triumph old[382]
Of his, though slowly wrought. I stand where I
1350
Did smite him down, with all my task well done.
So did I it, (the deed deny I not,)
That he could nor avert his doom nor flee:
I cast around him drag-net as for fish,
With not one outlet, evil wealth of robe:
And twice I smote him, and with two deep groans
He dropped his limbs: And when he thus fell down
I gave him yet a third, thank-offering true[383]
To Hades of the dark, who guards the dead.
So fallen, he gasps out his struggling soul,
And breathing forth a sharp, quick gush of blood,
He showers dark drops of gory rain on me,
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Who no less joy felt in them than the corn,
When the blade bears, in glad shower given of God.
Since this is so, ye Argive elders here,
Ye, as ye will, may hail the deed, but I
Boast of it. And were't fitting now to pour
Libation o'er the dead,[384] 'twere justly done,
Yea more than justly; such a goblet full,
Of ills hath he filled up with curses dire
At home, and now has come to drain it off.
Chor. We marvel at the boldness of thy tongue
1370
Who o'er thy husband's corpse speak'st vaunt like this.
Clytæm. Ye test me as a woman weak of mind;
But I with dauntless heart to you that know
Say this, and whether thou dost praise or blame,
Is all alike:—here Agamemnon lies,
My husband, now a corpse, of this right hand,
As artist just, the handiwork: so stands it.