The Greek Plays
Page 17
antistrophe 2
We must revile the blood-stained
girl in the stories, too,*24
who for those she hated killed a man she loved. She was enticed—
the crafty bitch—by the Cretan gold-work
of the necklace, Minos’ gift,
to do away with the lock that lent unending life
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to Nisus in his deep
and unpremeditating breath of sleep,
where Hermes overtook him.
strophe 3
It is time, then, since I have cited these sufferings
nothing can soothe, to speak of the enemy marriage
defying the prayers of the house,
the woman’s planning, the cunning in her mind,
against her husband in battle gear—
you made war on him, you marched against your husband!
I honor a house where the flame is low in the hearth,
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and a woman whose only exploit is shrinking back.
antistrophe 3
But the crime of Lemnos*25 has first rank
in legend—the people bemoan it, spit on it,
measure each new disaster
by what the Lemnians suffered.
In a defilement the gods hate,
in human dishonor, the race is gone.
Nobody honors what the gods revile.
Which of these stories am I wrong to bring together?
strophe 4
Grazing the lungs, the sharp,
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the piercing sword rams through—
for Justice trampled
in contempt of heaven’s law;
for the trespass from all sides
on the majesty of Zeus.
antistrophe 4
Justice is an anvil, planted steady,
and Fate the swordsmith pounds out the bronze
to be ready long before. A son follows
into the house, to settle its debt at last for the defiling
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blood let over and over from ancient times—
the deep-brooding Fury we know so well has brought him.
(Orestes knocks at the outer door, stands waiting impatiently, then knocks again.)
ORESTES: Boy! Can’t you hear me knocking at the gate?
Answer me! Who’s inside? Who’s in the house?
Someone come out—I’m calling one more time,
in case Aegisthus lets you welcome guests.
SLAVE: (opening the gate) Very good. And the stranger’s home, his country?
ORESTES: Announce me to the people at the head
of this household; I have come to them with news—
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and hurry, since night’s chariot of shadows
is rushing on. It’s time for travelers
to find their mooring in receptive houses.
Bring someone out who makes decisions here,
the mistress—but a man would be more fitting.
Embarrassment makes any conversation
with a woman quite constrained. One man’s at ease
with another, clearly signaling his meaning.
CLYTEMNESTRA: (appearing at the gate) Strangers, if there is anything you need,
tell me. We have what such a household should:
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hot baths, and beds made up to heal exhaustion
like magic, and our honest faces near you.
But if there’s something to consult and act on—
men’s business—we will tell that to the men.
ORESTES: I am a Daulian, traveling from Phocis,
walking with my own knapsack on my back
to Argos—here my journey finds its rest.
I met a man I didn’t know, who queried
my journey’s purpose and made clear his own.
I learned his name was Strophius of Phocis.
680
“Stranger,” he said, “you’re on your way to Argos:
be sure—it’s only right—to tell Orestes’
parents that he is dead—do not forget.
Convey his friends’ decision back as well,
to bring him home for burial or make him
an alien and foreigner forever.
For now, the belly of a bronze urn hides
his ashes, and we’ve mourned as he deserved.”
That’s what I heard. I don’t know whether chance
brings me to the authorities, who are
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concerned with this; his father, though, should know it.
CLYTEMNESTRA: I cry our devastation in its fullness.
You Curse, our family writhes against your hold.
You watch so widely, and your dead aim finds
what’s laid by—safe, out of your reach, we thought.
I’m piteously stripped of those I love.
Orestes now, so steady in his shrewdness,
who kept his feet out of destruction’s mire,
[…]*26
Give up—since it’s betrayed us—hope of healing
afflictions that run riot in the house.
700
ORESTES: As for me, visiting a home so wealthy,
I’d rather the acquaintance and your welcome
resulted from good news—since who can feel
more warmly than a stranger toward his hosts?
I knew, though, that I’d go against the gods
unless I saw this through and told his family
since I had promised, and I was their guest.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Don’t worry, you’ll get all that you deserve,
and have as good a friendship with the household.
Someone else might have brought the news—no matter.
710
It’s time for travelers, whose road was long
and took all day, to have the proper care.
(to a servant) Show him—and the attendant in his travels—
into our quarters set aside for male guests,
and make them comfortable, as suits our house.
I’ll follow up my orders, to the letter.
(to Orestes and Pylades) Let me go share what you have said with those
who rule this house. A good supply of friends
will then confer with us about this trouble.
CHORUS: So it goes, then, dear women who serve in the house!
720
Tell me, when will we show our voices’ strength
to congratulate Orestes?
Goddess Earth, Goddess of the looming
barrow, you who stretch over
the king’s, the admiral’s body,
listen now, come to the rescue now.
Now is the crisis: let cunning Persuasion come
into the ring on his side, and let Hermes
of Earth and of Night be the umpire
of this bout that brings death by the sword.
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The man, it seems, is crafting some misfortune.
But here’s Orestes’ nurse, sodden with tears.
Why are you going out the gate, Cilissa?
The grief you bring with you seems far from welcome.
CILISSA: Our ruler orders me to call Aegisthus
quickly: he must be here to learn the details,
face to face with the messenger, of news
that’s just come. For the servants’ benefit,
she wept through scowling eyes and hid a smirk
over events that turned out very well
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for her—though for the house they’re catastrophic:
that’s where the foreigners’ clear message leaves us.
For sure, he’ll be delighted when he hears,
and learns the story. But for me, what anguish!
The ancient interlocking sufferings
in Atreus’ house could hardly be endured.
The pain of them has pierced my heart, but never
; before was there such agony to bear.
I shouldered all those evil things with patience,
but now Orestes, reared from birth by me,
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my darling, into whom I poured my life,
stumbling from bed at his commanding shrieks
[…]*27
through many other quite unpleasant tasks
I toiled. A young thing’s mindless, to be reared
like an animal, of course. The nurse must mind him.*28
A child who’s still in baby clothes can’t say
he’s hungry, thirsty, or he needs to go.
A law unto itself, the newborn’s stomach!
My prophecies about it often proved
false enough, and I scoured baby linen,
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on double duty as a nurse and laundress:
one woman with two skilled trades, I was given
Orestes, for his father’s benefit.
But now I’m grieving, since I hear he’s dead.
I’m going to the man who overthrew
this house, and he’ll be keen to hear the story.
CHORUS: How did she tell him to approach the stranger?
CILISSA: What do you mean? Say more, and make it clearer.
CHORUS: Is he to go alone, or with attendants?
CILISSA: With bodyguards, his followers with their spears.
770
CHORUS: Don’t give that message to our hated master.
Tell him to hurry here alone—he won’t
be frightened, then. Tell him, with secret joy.
A messenger can straighten crooked words.
CILISSA: What? Are you happy at the news today?
CHORUS: Zeus might at last turn back this storm of troubles.
CILISSA: How, since Orestes took this clan’s hope with him?
CHORUS: Not yet. That’s what a bungling seer would say.
CILISSA: What do you mean? Have you heard otherwise?
CHORUS: Go take the message, do as you were ordered.
780
What the gods care about, they care about.
CILISSA: All right, I’m listening and on my way.
May the gods grant that this is for the best.
strophe 1
CHORUS: Now grant me the favor I beg, Zeus,
father of the Olympian gods:
let the house thrive in the appointed
light of salvation—
how we long to see it!*29
Justice composed my whole litany—
Zeus, watch over Justice!
mesode 1
790
Set, oh, set the man down in the palace
in front of his enemies, Zeus. If you raise him to greatness,
doubly and triply and joyfully
he will repay you.
antistrophe 1
Mind that the son of a man you loved is bereaved,
he is yoked like a colt to disaster’s
chariot—you, lay his course out,
keep him in bounds and steady
his pace, let us see him stretch his strides
over the ground clear to the finish.
strophe 2
800
You, the gods throned deep in the house,
where the inner shrine revels in its riches,
hear us and have compassion,
come […]*30
Blood was let over and over,
from long ago—let your fresh verdict redeem it.
Murder, the old man in the house, has got enough children!
mesode 2
And you, the god whose home is that majestic hollow,*31
let the warrior’s household lift its eyes.
May the glowing light of freedom
810
turn a kind face
on him, lifting her dim veil.
antistrophe 2
May Maia’s son,*32 too, rightfully
take the man’s part—with this god comes a powerful
and following wind, that drives to fulfillment.
If he’s willing, he uncovers much from blind places.
He has the look of—what we cannot see—
he carries night’s shadow, holds it before his face;
but the day brings no more evidence of him.
strophe 3
Then instantly we will send out
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a glorious female song,
like a steady and prosperous
wind. Our cry will ring
to the heights: “Our city is safe!”
My profit, my profit in what has happened swells,
and ruin rebuffs my friends.
mesode 3
(to Orestes) And you, in hardiness, when action has its turn,
and she screeches, “My child!”—
shout, “It is my father who does this!”
830
and finish it—the reckless, blameless act.
antistrophe 3
Borrow the heart
of Perseus, […]*33 keep it in you,
and exact what will please the ones you love
below earth and above it,
when, like a grisly Gorgon, you lay
bloody destruction on the ones indoors—
but you, look at your victim in his guilt.
AEGISTHUS: (entering) I didn’t come unasked; a message brought me.
I’ve learned that certain foreigners were here
840
with news for which I hardly could be eager:
Orestes’ death, since this would give the house—
which is already gouged and festering
from murder—one more horror-dripping wound.
Is this truth’s living self? How will I tell?
Maybe it’s only women’s terrors, sparking
into the air, then dead and leaving nothing.
(to the Chorus) How can you give it clarity and sense?
CHORUS: We’ve heard it, but go in and ask the strangers
yourself. Listening to go-betweens is worthless
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compared to asking questions face to face.
AEGISTHUS: I’ll go interrogate the man in person.
Was he on hand there when the other died,
or did he only hear a murky rumor?
My reason isn’t blind—no, he won’t cheat me.
(Exits.)
CHORUS: Zeus, Zeus, what must I say, where must I start
in praying, in calling on the gods for vengeance?
How can my goodwill
equal the need as I end my prayer?
Now the murderous, blood-filthy
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blades and bludgeons are poised
to destroy the house of Agamemnon,
all of it, for all time.
Or Orestes will kindle a glaring torch
in freedom’s cause, and rule a lawful city,
with his father’s great wealth back in his possession.
In this match the young man the gods sent
alone against two (with no one to step up in his place
for a second round) will grapple—let him find the victory there!
AEGISTHUS: (screams in agony) otototoi!
870
CHORUS: What? What’s that?
What’s happening? What does it mean for the house?
Let’s stand aside and see how it turns out,
in this sad business we should show we’re not
to blame, since now the battle has a winner.
SLAVE: Horror on top of horror—it’s the master
cut down. I scream deep horror, on and on:
Aegisthus—dead. But hurry, hurry, bring
crowbars and pry apart the gates that lead
to the women’s quarters, someone young and strong!
880
But not for him—he’s finished—what’s the use?
(shouts repeatedly) They’re deaf, they’re sleeping while I call—it’s futile,<
br />
no good. Where’s Clytemnestra? What’s she doing?
Her neck must now be on the butcher’s block—
justice will strike it, and her head will fall.
CLYTEMNESTRA: (rushing onstage) What’s this alarm you’re raising in the house?
SLAVE: The living—kill—the dead, I’m telling you.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Then pity me. I understand the riddle.
We’ll die the way we killed, by trickery.
Somebody, quick, give me a cutthroat ax.
890
Winners or losers, which are we? We’ll see—
that’s what I’ve come to now, in all these troubles.
ORESTES: (entering with Pylades) Good! You’re the one I want. I’m done with him.
CLYTEMNESTRA: The champion I love, Aegisthus, dead!
ORESTES: You love the man? You’ll lie, then, in a tomb
with him. You’ll never leave him, though he’s dead.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Hold back, my child, my son: this breast demands it:
often you dozed here, as you gummed my nipple
and sucked from me the milk that nourished you.
ORESTES: (to Pylades) What should I do? Shrink back, or kill my mother?
900
PYLADES: Would you have Loxias’ oracles at Pytho,
and the oaths you swore sincerely, lose their force?
Turn against all mankind, but not the gods.
ORESTES: I choose you, for your good advice, the winner.
(to Clytemnestra) Come on, I want to slaughter you beside him.
While he lived, you favored him above my father:
now sleep with him in death, because you love
this man, and hate the one you should have loved.
CLYTEMNESTRA: I brought you up—let me grow old with you.
ORESTES: You kill my father, and you’ll live with me?
910
CLYTEMNESTRA: Fate shares the blame, my child, for what has happened.
ORESTES: Then Fate has made your bed now, which is death.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Child, you don’t fear a parent cursing you?
ORESTES: No—you’re my mother, but you threw me out.
CLYTEMNESTRA: —to an ally’s home! That isn’t throwing out.
ORESTES: You sold a free man’s son, which is a crime.
CLYTEMNESTRA: You say so! Where’s the price I got for you?
ORESTES: I’m too ashamed to taunt you with the words.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Your father played around—don’t leave that out.