by Aeschylus
shown to the two kings
along the road; for still from the irresistible
god-surge of strength within me
breathes persuasion grown old with my years,
to sing how the twin thrones joined
as one heart in command of the Achaeans,
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the youth of Hellas, driven
with spear and arm to Troy by the ominous wing beat.
The king of the birds to the kings
of the ships, black eagle and a white behind it,
in full view, hard by the palace,
by the spear-hand, ripped open a hare
with her unborn still swelling inside her,
stopped from her last chance ever to escape.
Sing sorrow, sorrow, but let the good prevail.
And when the good seer of the army
saw it,
Antistrophe 1
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perceiving the two kings
weren’t of one mind, he knew that the Atreidae,
the leaders of the fleet,
were the ravenous destroyers of the hare,
and so, interpreting
the sign, he spoke: “This campaign will in time
overrun Priam’s city,
and Fate slaughter all of the thick herds
of the people before the walls.
But let no god’s jealousy before this happens
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hurl into darkness the vast bit
of the army meant to curb the mouth of Troy.
For holy Artemis, in pity,
is furious at her father’s flying blood-
hounds eating in sacrifice
the trembling hare and all her unripe young.
The bird feast sickens her.
Sing sorrow, sorrow, but let the good prevail.
Beautiful as you are, and kind to the dew slick
Epode
cubs of ferocious lions,
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ever delightful to the teat-sucking whelps
of all beasts grazing the fields,
grant nevertheless that the signs mean well—fraught
though they are with evil.
And blessed Apollo, Healer, keep her from sending
gale winds against the ships,
holding them fast and long at anchor, exacting
cold, mute sacrifice,
infection of blood strife and faithlessness. For wrath
waits, ready to rise again,
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an ever wakeful keeper of the house,
unforgetting, secret, never
to be denied its vengence for the child.”
These were the mixed words
Calchas shrieked out as he read the bird omen
by the wayside
for the royal house, and in harmony with these
sing sorrow, sorrow, but let the good prevail.
Whoever Zeus may be,
Strophe 2
if it pleases him by this
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name to be called, by this
name then I call to him.
I have weighed this with that,
and, pondering everything,
discover nothing now
but Zeus to cast for good
the anxious weight of this
unknowing from my mind.
He who was once great, boundless
Antistrophe 2
in strength, unappeasable, is now
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unnamed, unsung, as if
he never was, and he
who threw him, only to be
thrown in turn, losing
the third fall, he
is gone, too, past and gone.
But he who sings glad praise
of Zeus’ victory
strikes to the heart of knowledge:
For it was Zeus who set
Strophe 3
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men on the path to wisdom
when he decreed the fixed
law that suffering
alone shall be their teacher.
Even in sleep pain drips
down through the heart as fear,
all night, as memory.
We learn unwillingly.
From the high bench of the gods
by violence, it seems, grace comes.
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And then the older of the two
Antistrophe 3
kings of the Achaean ships,
not blaming the prophet, let
his spirit blow with the hard
winds of luck that blew
in against him when the host
was held fast in port
at Aulis on the shore
opposite Chalcis, where
the tides crash to and fro,
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their food stores dwindling,
winds from the Strymon driving against them,
Strophe 4
battering ships, and bringing hunger,
illness, and a dull, undistracted
leisure to the men who wandered,
neglectful of ship and cable, who
by doing nothing doubled the time
of the delay, the flower of Argos
all wasting away now, withering.
And when the seer cried Artemis was
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behind this, and showed the kings
a salve more hateful than the storm,
so that the Atreidae threw down
their staves against the ground and wept,
the older prince spoke out before them:
Antistrophe 4
“My fate is heavy either way:
heavy if I refuse to obey,
and heavy too if I kill my child,
pride of my house, staining these father’s
hands with streams of maiden blood
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spilled at the altar. Which way is free
from evil? Can I desert my ships?
Fail all my allies? For in the eyes
of heaven, that they, with too eager passion,
should crave a sacrifice, even
of maiden blood, to still the winds,
is right. May it all be for the best.”
And when he secured the yoke-strap
Strophe 5
of necessity fast upon him,
yielding his swerving spirit up
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to a reckless blast, vile and unholy,
from then on he was changed, his will
annealed now to mere ruthlessness.
For men are made bold in the throes
of madness urging evil, in love
with cruelty, courting sure disaster.
And so he steeled himself into
the sacrificer of his daughter
to quicken a war waged for a woman
with an early offering for his ships.
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And all her prayers, her cries of Father,
Antistrophe 5
Father, even her girlhood, counted
for less than nothing to the captains
frenzied for battle, and her father,
after praying, though she clasped
his knees, begged him with all her heart,
ordered his men to lift her like
a goat, face downward, above the altar,
robes falling all around her, and
he had her mouth gagged, the bit yanked
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roughly, stifling a cry that would
have brought a curse down on the house.
And with her saffron robe streaming
Strophe 6
down from her shoulders to the ground,
with pitiful arrows from her eyes
she shot each sacrificer, vivid
as in a picture, wanting to speak,
to call each one by name, for often
at the rich feast in her father’s halls
the girl had sung before the men
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and
with the pure voice of a virgin,
at the third libation, lovingly
had given honor to her loving
father’s paean for healing luck.
What happened next I neither know
Antistrophe 6
nor speak. The art of Calchas does not fail
to reach fulfillment. And Justice tilts
the scales to ensure that suffering
is the only teacher. As for the Future,
you will only learn it when it comes.
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Till then, leave it alone. Pointless
to grieve before there’s reason to.
All will come clear when the dawn comes.
The doors of the palace open, and during the following
lines CLYTEMNESTRA and her attendants enter.
So, may what comes from this be good,
be as this nearest, only breast-
work of our Apian land might wish.
CHORUS LEADER (turning to address Clytemnestra) Obedient to your
power, Clytemnestra,
I’ve come straight here: when the king’s gone it’s right
to honor the wife who keeps the throne for him.
Whether or not it’s good news you have heard,
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or offer sacrifice in hope of good news,
I’d like to learn, though I won’t grudge your silence.
CLYTEMNESTRA May good news only, as the saying goes,
be born with the dawn that’s born from mother Night.
The joy I have to tell you outruns all hope.
The city of Priam is in Argive hands.
CHORUS LEADER Have I heard you right? Your words outrun belief.
CLYTEMNESTRA Achaeans hold Troy now. Is that clear enough?
CHORUS LEADER Joy overwhelms me, swelling my eyes with tears.
CLYTEMNESTRA Yes, and your eye attests your loyal heart.
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CHORUS LEADER What proof, though, is there? Your trust is based on what?
CLYTEMNESTRA Of course I have proof, if no god has fooled me.
CHORUS LEADER Are you persuaded by some dream you’ve had?
CLYTEMNESTRA I give no credence to a sleeping mind.
CHORUS LEADER Or some vague rumor on which your hope has fed?
CLYTEMNESTRA Do you scorn my thinking as you would a girl’s?
CHORUS LEADER But when exactly? When was the city taken?
CYLTEMNESTRA Last night, the mother of the light we see.
CHORUS LEADER What kind of messenger could come so fast?
CYLTEMNESTRA Hephaestus, flashing a bright flame down from Ida.
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Beacon to beacon, the fire ran homeward, first
shining above the island, till another shone
from Ida to the rock of Hermes in Lemnos,
on the crag of Zeus on Athos, then another
went soaring out across the arching sea—
unflagging, restless, torch after powerful torch;
the pine now like a sunrise in the dead
of night flared jubilantly to the watchtower
on Mt. Macistus who, in turn, never delayed,
or gave in heedlessly to sleep, so never
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failed his duty, as the fiery current
ran on unbroken, signaling from afar,
over the waters of Euripus, to
the sentinels upon Messapion.
And they too answered light with light,
setting a bonfire of gray brushwood blazing.
It never dimmed, the flame, or slowed, for now
it overleaped the plains of the Asopus,
bright as a full moon, to Cithaeron’s rock,
where yet another convoy was ignited.
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And far ahead of them the watchmen sent
the light that they received from far behind,
burning a brighter blaze than was commanded;
light shimmered in the water as it passed
over the Gorgon Face, from shore to shore,
and at the mountain of the wandering goats
forged new links in the chain of fire, the men there
gathering so much kindling together
that a high beard of flame now passed beyond
the headland that looks out across the gulf
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of Saron till at last it plunged all the way
to Arachne’s peak, the watch nearest the city.
From there it swooped down on the royal house,
this flame descendent of the fire of Ida.
This is the course of torchbearers I arranged;
each carrying the relay from the one before,
and everyone victorious from the first
to last. This is the evidence and sign
of the news my husband sends to me from Troy.
CHORUS LEADER Soon, lady, I’ll give the gods my thanks.
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But this tale of yours fills me with so much wonder
that I would have you tell it once again,
through to the end, till all my wonder’s gone.
CLYTEMNESTRA The Achaeans hold Troy in their hands today.
The city, I think, rings with a sharp clash
of cries that will not blend. Pour vinegar
and oil in one bowl, and you would say
the two like enemies shun one another;
just so you could tell the conquered from
the conquerors, each crying their different fates
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in different voices. Here are the Trojans bending
down over the bodies of their husbands,
brothers; children embracing fathers, and fathers
children, all wailing in voices no longer free
for the loved ones they will never hold again.
And here the Achaeans, spurred on by the work
that sends them wandering all night, after
the fighting’s over, their hunger now unstrictured,
under no one’s orders, foraging
for whatever grub they stumble on,
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taking what quarters chance puts in their way.
And even now they bed down in the houses
that their spears have taken, free of the frost and dew,
the open sky, sleeping the sleep of men
the gods protect, all night, without a watch.
Now if they only reverence the gods
that keep the city, the shrines and holy temples
of the conquered land, then they, the vanquishers,
might not be vanquished in their turn. Let no
unholy passion overwhelm them, taken
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by greed to ravage what should be left alone.
For they must still win their safe passage back
all down the homestretch of the double course.
Yet even if the army should return
without offending any god, even
if they don’t waken the anger of the dead
for what was done to them, yes, even then
some unseen trouble may still lie in wait.
This is my woman’s tale. But may the good
win out completely for all men to see.
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Of all the blessings whose enjoyment I
now pray for, this one surely is the best.
CHORUS LEADER Well said, lady. Like a wise man.
Since I have heard your evidence, I’m ready
to offer thanks up to the gods. Our joy
today is equal to the pain that made it.
CLYTEMNESTRA exits into the palace.
CHORUS O Zeus, high one, and kindly Night,
holder of all
the brightest glories over us,
you who cast down over the towers
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of Troy the smothering mesh, seamless,
so that in no way could the old
or young slip free
all-conquering destruction. I stand
in awe of great
Zeus, lord of host and guest, who has
accomplished this, had slowly all
along been bending back his bow
on Alexander, so that his bolt
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should not fall short
of the mark nor fly beyond the stars.
Let them speak of a stroke from Zeus;
Strophe 1
that much can be traced, at least.
What he decides, he accomplishes.
Impiety to say, as some have,
that no god ever deigns to see
to those who trample underfoot
the grace of things untouchable.
The punishment for reckless daring
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will be revealed to the descendents
of the ones whose pride blows boundless, whose house
abounds with riches far beyond
what’s best. May I have wealth
without the taint of trouble, enough
to satisfy a man of sense.
For no gold’s blinding glitter
protects him who heedlessly
kicks the high altar of Justice
over out of sight.
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Rapt by miserable Persuasion,
Antistrophe 1
the irresistible daughter of
Destruction, who decides before-
hand, the guilty man’s whipped on, there’s
no antidote, the evil now
shines candidly its garish light.
Like bad bronze blackening when handled
or rubbed, so he too, when brought to justice
shows the black grain of his being
and, foolish as a boy who runs
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after a flying bird, brings down
against his city a wasting plague.
His fervent prayers will go unheard