The Complete Aeschylus - Volume I: The Oresteia

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The Complete Aeschylus - Volume I: The Oresteia Page 12

by Aeschylus


  feeds and is never full.

  Woe, unassuagable woe,

  and all through the will of Zeus,

  source of all that is,

  doer of all that is done,

  for without Zeus what

  is accomplished among us? What

  of all these things is void

  of god, not god-ordained?

  1710

  O my king, my king,

  Refrain

  how will I weep for you?

  How can I speak

  love from a shattered heart?

  You lie snared in this spider’s web,

  heaving your last breath in a sacrilege of death,

  alas, like a cowering slave,

  killed by the treacherous two-

  edged blade your own wife’s

  hand brought down.

  1720

  CLYTEMNESTRA You’re so sure that this was my work.

  No longer see

  me as the wife of Agamemnon!

  Masquerading in the image

  of this dead man’s mate, the old

  and pitiless avenger of Atreus,

  in a manic feast,

  cut him down as payment, a grown

  man butchered for the butchered young.

  CHORUS That you yourself aren’t stained

  Antistrophe 2

  1730

  with slaughter—who would bear witness?

  How? How can it be?

  But an avenger from

  his father’s time may well

  have led you on. And down

  through streams of kindred blood

  black havoc pushes his way

  to where he will exact

  atonement for the caked gore

  of the devoured children.

  1740

  O my king, my king,

  Refrain

  how will I weep for you?

  How can I speak

  love from a shattered heart?

  You lie snared in this spider’s web,

  heaving away your last breath in a sacrilege of death

  alas, on a slavish bed,

  killed by the treacherous two-

  edged blade your own wife’s

  hand brought down.

  1750

  CLYTEMNESTRA There’s nothing slavish, I think, in this

  man’s death. Didn’t

  he wreck the house with his treachery?

  But now what he has suffered is

  as just as it was unjust what

  he did to her, my child, the child

  he fathered, the child

  I weep for still, Iphigenia.

  Let him not preen and boast in Hades,

  now that he’s paid

  1760

  by dying for what he began.

  CHORUS Thoughts scatter every which way and

  I don’t

  Strophe 3

  know where to turn while the house teeters.

  I fear the rain that pummels down on it,

  hard rain of blood against the house,

  rain beating every moment even harder,

  thicker, long past the drizzling

  first drops. The hand of fate is honing bright

  the blade of justice on another

  whetstone for another act of harm.

  1770

  O earth, earth, if only you had drawn

  me down

  Mesode 2

  into your sunlessness before I saw

  my lord inhabiting the slick

  bed of the bath, hemmed by its silver walls!

  Who now will bury him? Who now sing

  his lament? Will it be you? Will you now dare

  to do this, to strike your husband down

  and then bewail him, and for his shade unjustly

  pay ill-favored favor

  for his great deeds? Who sob-choked at the tomb

  1780

  will praise him, the godlike man,

  sorrowing in all honesty of heart?

  CLYTEMNESTRA This duty is no concern of yours.

  He fell by my hand,

  by my hand he died, and by my hand

  he will be buried, and nobody

  in the house will weep. But she, his daughter,

  Iphigenia, happily,

  as is only right,

  will meet her father at the swift ford

  1790

  of sorrows and cast her shadowy arms

  around him and kiss

  him just as sweetly as he deserves.

  CHORUS Charge answers charge, and who can weigh

  them, sift

  Antistrophe 3

  right from wrong? The ravager

  is ravaged, the slayer slain. But it abides,

  while Zeus on his throne abides,

  that he who does will suffer. That is law.

  Who will cast out the seed of curses

  from the house? The race is grafted to ruin.

  1800

  CLYTEMNESTRA Now you have found a true prophecy.

  But as for me

  I gladly give my promise to

  the Spirit of the clan that I

  will bear all this, however hard,

  if only he will go from the house

  for good and grind

  some other family out by bringing

  kin to murder kin. However

  small my share

  1810

  of wealth may be, I’ll be content

  if I have rid our halls at last

  of our frenzied killing of each other.

  AEGISTHUS enters from the left with

  a group of armed followers.

  AEGISTHUS O kind light of the day of final justice,

  now I can say at last that the gods on high

  are avengers of mankind, and do look down

  upon earth’s misery, now that I see,

  to my delight, this man who’s lying here,

  robed in the tangling mesh of the Erinyes,

  paying for what his father’s hand devised.

  1820

  For Atreus, the ruler of this land,

  and this man’s father, drove my father from

  the city and his very home—Thyestes,

  my father and (to say it clearly) his

  own brother who challenged his right to rule alone.

  And when he came back as a suppliant

  there at his own hearth, poor Thyestes found

  a kind of safety, since he wasn’t killed

  and didn’t stain his birthplace with his blood.

  But Atreus, this slain man’s godless father,

  1830

  an eager but not a loving host, with feigned

  good cheer, as if in celebration of

  a festive day, served my father up

  a feast of his own children’s flesh. First he chopped

  the toes and fingers off, and over them

  he lay the flesh in strips, and placed the dish

  before my father as he sat apart.

  And lifting to his lips unknowingly

  this or that indistinguishable part,

  he ate his family’s ruin, as you can see.

  1840

  And when he realized what a horrid deed

  he’d done, he screamed and fell back, and spewing out

  the chewed up meat, called down on Pelops’ clan

  a fate as horrible, kicking the table over

  to double now the fierceness of his curse:

  may all the race be overthrown and fall.

  From causes such as these this man lies slain

  before you, and I’m the one who planned this murder,

  planned it with Justice, for he drove us out,

  my wretched father and myself, his third born,

  1850

  still just a swaddled babe. But when I grew

  to manhood, Justice brought me back again,

  and from afar I carefully laid my hand

  upon this man, stitching to
gether, piece

  by fatal piece, the whole cloth of this plan.

  So even death would please me, now that I’ve caught

  him here at last in the net that Justice spread.

  CHORUS LEADER Aegisthus, to gloat amid such misery

  like this is something I would never do.

  Do you claim you slew this man deliberately,

  1860

  that you alone conceived, directed every

  step of this awful murder? I tell you

  in no uncertain terms that on the day

  when justice is meted out you won’t escape

  the people’s curse, and stoning at their hands.

  AEGISTHUS And do you dare to speak to me like this,

  you who are seated at the lowest oar

  when those on the bench above you steer the ship?

  Old as you are, you’ll learn how hard it is

  at your age to be taught discretion. Bonds,

  1870

  and whips, and hunger with its gnawing pains

  are wonderfully efficient healers and

  instructors of delinquent minds. Can you

  have eyes and fail to see this? Don’t kick

  against the pricks, or strike them and be struck.

  CHORUS LEADER You woman! So while you kept yourself safe

  here in the house, and waited for the men to return

  from battle, you befouled the husband’s bed,

  and plotted death for the supreme commander?

  AEGISTHUS From these words, too, will spring a race of tears.

  1880

  The tongue of Orpheus was not a tongue

  like yours, for he led all things in the wake

  of his voice’s ecstasy, while you, who stir

  up rage, puling and barking, will be led

  away and, once broken, will be tame enough.

  CHORUS LEADER So you would be our tyrant here in Argos,

  you who had plotted death against this man

  yet wouldn’t do the deed with your own hand?

  AEGISTHUS Yes, the entrapment was the woman’s role,

  of course, since I, old enemy of the house,

  1880

  was suspect. But with his wealth now I will try

  to rule the citizens, and anyone

  who fights me I will bridle with a strong bit,

  and he will be no pampered trace-horse fed

  on barley! But the bitter intimate

  of darkness, hunger, will see him yield at last.

  CHORUS LEADER A coward to the life—why didn’t you kill

  this man yourself instead of leaving it

  to her, a woman, to do your dirty work,

  defiling the country and its gods?

  1990

  Oh, does Orestes see the light somewhere?

  Will he come home at last, with fortune’s favor,

  and slay these two with overpowering strength?

  AEGISTHUS If that’s the way you’re going to act and speak,

  you’ll learn your lesson soon, and learn it well.

  CHORUS LEADER Come, friends, to arms, our work is here at hand.

  AEGISTHUS (to his guards)

  Come, men, hands on hilts, ready your swords!

  CHORUS LEADER Ready for death, my hand too clasps the hilt.

  AEGISTHUS We cheer the omen: death for yourself you mean.

  We’ll take our chance, whatever it may be.

  1910

  AEGISTHUS’ guards move toward the Chorus, but stop

  on clytemnestra’s words

  CLYTEMNESTRA No, love, enough, let’s work no further damage.

  Already there is too much here to reap,

  a sad abundance. There’s been enough destruction;

  let’s have no more bloodshed. Go honored elders,

  go to your homes, and yield to destiny

  before you suffer; what we had to do

  we did—all you can do now is accept it.

  If we could say “enough” to troubles, we

  would be content, for we have all been kicked

  by the Spirit’s hard hoof. Such is a woman’s

  1920

  saying, if any thinks it fit to listen.

  AEGISTHUS Can I stand by, though, while these old men pelt me

  with flowers from their wayward tongues, hurling

  words that tempt their fate and miss the mark

  of sense, and self-restraint, as they abuse their master?

  CHORUS LEADER Argives will never fawn on an evil man.

  AEGISTHUS If not today, then soon, you’ll feel my vengeance.

  CHORUS LEADER Not if the Spirit brings Orestes home.

  AEGISTHUS I know myself how exiles feed on hope.

  CHORUS LEADER Gorge and grow fat, soil justice, since you can.

  1930

  AEGISTHUS Oh you will pay in time for this arrogance.

  CHORUS LEADER Brag on bravely, like a cock by his hen.

  CLYTEMNESTRA Ignore these harmless barkings; you and I

  will rule the house, and set it all in order.

  CLYTEMNESTRA and AEGISTHUS enter the palace, followed by the guards; the CHORUS exits to the right.

  LIBATION BEARERS

  CHARACTERS

  ORESTES son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

  ELECTRA their daughter

  CHORUS of captive slaves, serving women of Clytemnestra

  ORESTES’ NURSE named Cilissa

  AEGISTHUS lover of Clytemnestra, now ruler of Argos

  SLAVE of the household of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra

  CLYTEMNESTRA Queen of Argos

  PYLADES son of Strophius of Phocis, companion of Orestes

  Line numbers in the right-hand margin of the text refer to the English translation only, and the Notes on the text beginning at page 212 are keyed to these lines. The bracketed line numbers in the running heads refer to the Greek text.

  The scene is in Argos, at the grave of Agamemnon. ORESTES and PYLADES enter from the left.

  ORESTES Hermes of the dark earth, go-between,

  overseer of my father’s power,

  rescue me, fight by my side, I pray, for I’ve

  come home at last to this land, come home from exile.

  On this grave mound I cry to my father: Father

  your son is calling you, listen to me.

  I cut this strand of hair now for Inachus,

  the stream that gave me life, a second strand

  for the death I couldn’t mourn: I wasn’t here

  to grieve, my father, when you died, I couldn’t

  10

  reach my hand out when they bore you away.

  ELECTRA enters with the CHORUS of slave-women carrying libations to offer at the tomb.

  What’s this? a band of women coming this way,

  in black robes that the bright day seems to blacken

  even more? What bad luck could it mean?

  Has some new blow been struck against the house?

  Or is it, could it be, they bring libations

  in my father’s honor in the hope

  of quelling the angers stirring underground?

  That must be it, of course, for isn’t this

  Electra, my own sister, who approaches?

  20

  Wan, wasted, wraith-like, her grief declares her.

  Zeus, Zeus, let me avenge my father’s death,

  and when I do, fight gladly at my side!

  Pylades, let’s hide here out of the way

  so I can learn exactly what this band

  of black-robed women might be praying for.

  ORESTES and PYLADES hide.

  CHORUS I was sent marching from the house

  Strophe 1

  with these libations, my every step

  timed to the sharp blows of my own hands,

  my cheeks scarred like a field my nails

  30

  rake red with fresh furrows, anguish

  my only heart’s food,
and the only

  sound the sound of my garments ripping

  as in grief I rip them down,

  down to the breast I can’t not strike

  for all countless sorrows in my life,

  a life no laughter ever nears.

  For terror, dream-seer of the house,

  Antistrophe 1

  with every hair-end bristling, every

  sleeping breath now breathing wrath,

  40

  cried out its shrill cry in the dead

  of night, deep from within the palace,

  falling heavy on the women’s quarters,

  and those who unriddle dreams declared

  with the gods’ assurance that the dead,

  stirring in anger underground,

  are mad with bloodlust for the killers.

  Yet with ill-favored favors such

  Strophe 2

  as these, to fend off harm—

  O Mother Earth!—she sends me here,

  50

  the godless woman. But I

  am terrified to speak the words

  she’s ordered me to speak.

  Can it be scrubbed away, the spilled

  blood pooling on the ground?

  O hearth blaze of misery!

  O great house in shambles!

  Sheer sunlessness that all men hate

  now covers the house

  in shadow, since the Lord’s been killed.

  60

  Antistrophe 2

  And the sovereign awe no one could tame,

  fight off, defeat in war,

  awe that resounded everywhere,

  in every mind and heart,

  has slipped away. Now there is only fear.

  For though men idolize

  success as if it were a god,

  no, more than a god, Justice

  finds a way to right the balance.

 

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