The Greek Plays
Page 10
390
If bronze is shoddy, grinding or striking will
discolor it. This is
its punishment. A child
will chase a flying bird.
A man like this will brand the city, break it.
No god will listen to his prayers.
Dealings like his must bring him
down. He is the enemy of justice.
Paris*18 was like this, guest of
400
Atreus’ sons; seizing the wife,
he shamed the welcoming table.
strophe 2
She left her citizens the clanging
of shields, squadrons to muster, ships to rig out,
and brought a new kind of dowry to Ilium: its ruin.
She tripped through its gates,
daring what no one should dare. The palace prophets
groaned from their hearts in pronouncing:
410
“Pity the house, pity the house and the chieftains.
Pity the bed, still rumpled with her husband’s love.
Look at him, silent, dishonored, but not berating,
Not entreating, after her desertion.
In his longing for the voyager over the sea,
like a ghost he’ll rule the household.
Lovely the contours of statues,
charming—the man reviles them.
Before his helpless gaze, all
passion drains away.
antistrophe 2
420
The images of mournful dreams
are there instead, mere alluring suppositions.
They’re empty, naturally; whatever pleasant sights
he thinks he sees go free
from his grasp, are gone, never again
to be his winged attendants on the roads of sleep.”
These are the agonies in the house, at the hearth,
and agonies still beyond these.
And each of the mustered men who voyaged from Greece
430
has left on display at home a stoic wife,
who sets her face against mourning.
Plenty, plenty here to strike our hearts!
How familiar were those men
everyone sent out.*19 Now, instead of men,
jars of ashes come back
home by home.
strophe 3
And Ares, money-changer of bodies,
is plying his scales in the battle’s clash.
440
From Ilium he sends
the families heavy gold-shavings,
the pyres’ leftovers soaked with bitter tears;
he neatly loads the crocks
full of men turned to ashes.
They say, as they grieve, that this one
was clever at fighting,
another fell splendidly
in the slaughter—
“For somebody else’s wife.”
Low-pitched, this is their snarl.
450
And rancorous grief steals into them
toward Atreus’ sons, the counsel in this case—
while there, around the wall,
the lovely fighters hold their conquests,
their tombs in Trojan soil.
The enemy land they seized
has hidden them.
antistrophe 3
A heavy anger strains the citizens’ talk.
He pays the debt of the curse they certified.
My brooding waits to hear
460
a thing the night roofs over—
since the gods aren’t careless
of those who kill and kill;
in time, the black Furies
throw darkness on the man whose luck
lacks justice. Then his life wears out
in another kind of luck.
There is no strength for him
among the dead beyond our sight.
Heavy, too, is the excess
of fame. Zeus sees it,
470
and lightning hits it.
I choose the wealth no one envies.
I wouldn’t sack a city—
or be taken, either, and watch my life go on
under an alien power.
epode
The flame of good news gave the sign,
and through the city
the rumor sped—whether it’s true,
who knows, or a falsehood sent from heaven?
Who’s such a child, or so far off his head,
480
that he lets his heart light up
at the sudden, commanding message—
then suffers when it changes.
This is a woman in command, conceding
her thanks before she sees.
A woman’s belief goes grazing over the boundaries,
quick on its way. But quick to die in turn
are facts made public by a woman crier.
CLYTEMNESTRA: We’ll soon see, through the beacon-torches loaded
490
with light, the fire passing hand to hand.
Is their news real? Did their sweet brilliance come
for nothing but to cheat our understanding?
I see a herald from the shore, with bay twigs
shading his brow. Thirsty dust on his clothes
next door to mud, its kin, serves as my witness:
he won’t be speechless, won’t just raise a flame
from mountain wood. Bare smoke won’t be the message.
Either he’ll voice the grounds for more rejoicing—
the opposite is sickening to think of.
500
May what we hear confirm what looks so cheerful!
The man whose prayer is different for our city
should reap his heart’s depravity himself.
HERALD: Joy to our father’s soil, the Argive land!
This tenth year’s daylight breaks as I return.
This one hope I’ve secured—the rest are shipwrecked.
I didn’t ever boast that I would die
at home and have my tomb here—such a dear right.
But joy now to the land, and to the sun’s light,
our local Zeus on high, and Pytho’s lord,*20
510
who’s sending no more arrows out against us—
beside Scamander he was fierce enough.
Become again our savior and our healer,
ruler Apollo. And I call on you,
all the presiding gods, and my protector,
Hermes, sweet herald, whom all heralds worship;
and heroes who dispatched us, be propitious:
take back what enemy spears left of the army.
Hall of the kings, dear residence, their seats
of honor, and you gods who face the sun!
520
If long ago your bright eyes fittingly
greeted the king, greet him again at last.
To you lord Agamemnon comes and brings
a light in darkness—all these people share it.
Welcome him graciously, as this is right:
he tore Troy from the root with Zeus’ harrow
of justice, and he worked the whole ground over.
Altars and settlements of gods have vanished;
all of that country’s seed is dying out.
This yoke was put on Troy by Atreus’ son,
530
the lord, our elder, favored fighter, now
arrived; no man alive deserves more honor,
since Paris and the city vouching for him
can’t boast of profit from their enterprise.
Tried for that theft and pillage, he’s convicted,
his plunder forfeit. He has cut the house
of his fathers, and the ground below, to ruin.
Priam’s sons guilty, double damages!
CHORUS: Herald from the Achaean army: joy!
HERALD: I have it! And the gods can have my life no
w.
540
CHORUS: Love for your native land here overcomes you?
HERALD: Yes, from the power of bliss, tears fill my eyes.
CHORUS: The sickness that has hold of you is pleasant!
HERALD: What? Teach me, and I’ll master what you say.
CHORUS: The longing that afflicts you was returned.
HERALD: The army and the land yearned for each other?
CHORUS: My spirit often groaned aloud in darkness.
HERALD: What was the hateful gloom that weighed on you?
CHORUS: Silence has kept me healthy all this time.
HERALD: Were certain persons threatening—with your lords gone?
550
CHORUS: So much, death seemed a privilege—as for you.
HERALD: It’s turned out well—though in the sweep of time
you’d say some things were lucky, while for others
you’d curse our luck. But who besides the gods
is free, his whole life long, from suffering?
The hardships that we had, the dismal housing
[…]*21
cramped gangways, scanty blankets—what was missing
from our daily rationed reasons to complain?
On dry land there was more, more hateful still.
Our beds were up against the hostile walls.
560
Out of the earth and sky, the meadow dew
dripped over us, kept ruining our clothes
and lodging tiny wildlife in our hair.
And what about bird-killing winter, made
an agony by snowfall off Mount Ida?
Or the hot season, when the sea slept waveless
and windless, fallen on its noontime bed?
But why mourn now? Our hardships all are bygones,
gone by for good. No longer would the dead,
given a chance, care to rise up again.
To us, the Argive soldiers still alive,
our profit triumphs; pain won’t tip the scale.
570
Why must the living count those thrown away,
or agonize at others’ festering luck?
Good riddance to bad fortune—that’s what I think.
[…]
to justify our bragging to this sun’s light
as we come soaring over land and sea
[…]
“In its day, the Argive force that came by sea
Took Troy and nailed this splendor of the ages,
Spoils for the gods, in all of Greece’s temples.”
580
Everyone hearing ought to praise the city
and the generals. Zeus’ favor, which has done this,
we’ll honor, too. That’s my report in full!
CHORUS: I now surrender freely to your words.
Old age that’s quick to learn is always young.
The home and Clytemnestra have the most right
to pay attention, but I share their riches.
CLYTEMNESTRA: I gave a shriek of joy sometime ago
when the first envoy came, the nighttime fire
declaring Troy was sacked and overthrown.
590
They sneered at me: “So it’s through beacon fires
that you’re convinced? Troy’s taken, in your view?
Just like a woman, carried clear away!”
That’s what they made me out to be: unhinged.
I sacrificed, no matter. Women’s custom
raised howls of happy omen everywhere
in the town—where the gods live, a lullaby*22
to the sweet-scented flame that gulps the offerings.
What can you tell me that’s more comprehensive?
From the king in person I’ll hear everything.
600
But let me, when my honored spouse returns,
take him in swiftly, graciously. What day
is sweeter for a wife to see than this one?
Her husband’s back from war, saved by a god,
and she unbars the gate. Relay him this:
the city’s sweetheart needs to hurry here;
he’ll find a steadfast woman in the house,
just as he left her, like a household dog,
good to her man, at war with any malice—
his match in everything, who broke no seal
610
in all this time, knew pleasure from no man
or spoke with one—not so that you could blame me.
I might as well know how to temper bronze.
This is my boast to you, which swells with truth.
A lady has no shame in saying this.
CHORUS: (to Herald) So that’s her speech, and if plainspoken people
interpret it for you, it’s plausible.
But Herald, let me know of Menelaus.
Did he survive, has he come home again
with you? The man’s a power this land holds dear.
620
HERALD: How could I sow a pretty speech with lies?
My friends would harvest them long in the future.
CHORUS: I wish a truth we cherished hit the mark.
Clearly, the “truth” and “cherished” are divided.
HERALD: The man is gone from the Achaean forces,
his ship along with him. That’s not a lie.
CHORUS: But did he sail from Ilium in plain sight?
Or did a storm weigh down the fleet and take him?
HERALD: An archer in peak form! You’ve hit the target.
That’s our long suffering expressed succinctly.
630
CHORUS: But was he dead or living in the rumors
you heard from other people who were sailing?
HERALD: Nobody has a clear report to bring;
but the Sun, who nurtures earthly life, must know.
CHORUS: Tell us, how did the storm of heaven’s anger
attack the fleet? Tell us, clear to the end.
HERALD: This blessed day is not for dismal news
to dirty. The gods’ honor must be spared!
When a grim-faced messenger reports an army
toppled, pain that defies the city’s prayers,
640
a common wound that strikes the commonwealth,
cursed men in thousands banished from their homes
by Ares’ cherished double whip, two spear-points
of calamity, a yoke of blood-stained horses—
the man who’s freighted with this agony
properly hymns the Furies in his speech.
But when I bring the news of danger past
to a city reveling in its salvation,
how could I blend the good with evil, saying
a storm, full of the gods’ rage, struck the Greeks?
650
Two former enemies, fire and the sea,
plotted together, pledging their good faith
through the ruin of wretched Argive fleet.
Catastrophe rose from the nighttime waves.
Gales blasting out of Thrace hurtled the ships
together, forcing them to gore each other
in a blind surge of whirlwind, loud with rain.
A circling, careless shepherd let them vanish.*23
But when the dazzling sun’s light rose, we saw
Aegean waters blossoming with corpses
660
of Achaean manhood and their splintered ships.
Our hull was not corrupted. Some god stole us
and our ship away, or somehow begged us off—
no human hand was on the tiller handle.
Fortune, our kind deliverer, sat there.
We had no waves, no squall where we found refuge;*24
we didn’t run ashore on jagged boulders.
Once we escaped this hell that was the sea,
then in white day, dazed by our own good luck,
we found new grief and worry in our flock:
670
; our fleet was in a bad way, from its pounding.
If breath remains in any of those men,
they count us with the dead—of course they would.
And we assume that’s how it went with them.
I hope it’s for the best! But Menelaus
will come—you must expect him, absolutely.
Well—if some ray of sun discovers him
alive and well—as Zeus devised, unwilling
to bring that lineage to annihilation—
there is some hope that he’ll come home again.
680
You can be sure these words you’ve heard are true.
(The Herald exits.)*25
strophe 1
CHORUS: Who named her so very aptly?
Was it some invisible being
seeing the future, who directed
language that whirred to the mark,
calling her Helen—for Hell? She’s the one
they fought for, the one the spear courted. How fitting:
690
ships destroyed, men destroyed, city destroyed when she sailed
out from among her dainty curtains,
on the breath of a monstrous zephyr;
and a mass of fighters, hunters carrying shields
hot on the disappearing trail of her oar-blades,
put in at Simois’ verdant headland.
Wet with blood, Strife had brought them there.
antistrophe 1
700
That was the right word, too—”marriage” for “mar”—
for the way Anger drove home
her will to Ilium in the time that followed.
For the dishonor to the host’s table,
to Zeus Hearth-Sharer, she levied the price
from the raucous singers
who paid the bride honor with the wedding song,
the hymn her new in-laws
found themselves chanting.
710
Now I suppose Priam’s white-haired city
has learned a new tune, and it wails in mourning, groans,
calling on Paris the Bedder of Ruin.
Ransacked, howling in grief, the citizens must live on,
enduring a pitiful slaughter.
strophe 2
The offspring of a lion was nurtured
in a man’s house, simply taken
from the teats and milk it loved.
720
In the opening strains of life
it was tame, and a darling to children,
and to the old people delightful.
Time after time in his arms he held it—
it was like a child at the breast;
its eyes gleamed as it licked his hand
so humbly—that’s the way its belly drove it.