Electra

by Henry Treece

  Clytemnestra stopped speaking and stared at me. And when I was silent again, she said, ‘What I shall tell you, you have never heard before. It is not likely that Agamemnon would have told you what I shall tell you.’

  She ignored my sigh of impatience and went on. ‘In the old days, kings went foraging about Hellas to find themselves a kingdom and to raise their own House. Thyestes was such a young rover. He had always more about him than his brother, Atreus. He was a true Hellene of the finest mould, and Artemis looked over him from the start and brought him victory in battle when he played the sword-game for Mycenae. King Thyestes of Mycenae, the Lion of Hellas; that was what he became.’

  I started to question her, but she put her hand across my mouth and went on. ‘As for your grandfather, Atreus, he was a brooding stay-at-home; one who sat in the corner and bit his nails off to think of his brother’s fame. Afraid to risk his precious body among the javelins, Atreus sought his distinction in an easier way. At the time I speak of, more than forty years ago, there was a stern king in Crete, named Catreus, of the old blood of Minos they say. This Catreus, a fierce upholder of the ancient shrines, had a wilful daughter, Acrope, who was trained as the Servant of the Mother, but she lent herself to all comers in the secrecy of the shrine. Her ways became so well known that young bucks from half-Hellas made the journey over the seas to worship at the Cretan shrine. Your grandfather, Atreus, was among them—but, clumsy as ever, he let King Catreus catch him at it. That was the measure of your grandfather’s wit, my loved Much of this passed by me; but some of it stuck. My father had always talked of Atreus as though he were a god on earth; hut Clytemnestra’s words belittled him strangely in my mind. I was shocked not by the love-making in the sacred shrine, hut that my hero-grandfather should have been surprised by a mere Cretan kinglet.

  I said, ‘But, mother, you make it sound as though my kin were fools or common rogues, yet, as all the world knows, they were royal folk.’

  Clytemnestra smiled bitterly and answered, ‘Fools! Common rogues! Royal! All these are words, my own, just words. A man is not a word—he is one, in the image of the god, who acts; and your grandfather acted very stupidly for a well-born man. King Catreus would have been within his right to pin them both to the bed with his javelin; hut he was a man of some pride and dignity. In open court, he commanded your grandfather to return home to Hellas in disgrace. As for Aerope, she was sentenced to the death she deserved —she was to be thrown to Poseidon’s fishes from the harbour wall at Miletus. But when she heard her fate, she set up such a mewling and beating of the breast that silly Atreus bought her life and married her in the court chamber. He paid for her what, nowadays, a farmer would pay for a second-grade ewe; no more, and at a time when a good wife cost a hundred sheep. That was your grandmother, who bore great Agamemnon and his famous brother Menelaus of Laconica! Now do you see what seed you come from, daughter?’

  I grew angry then, and said hotly, ‘But, mother, you describe the adventures of a young man, and of a priestess who failed in her duty for love; what is there in that? The Athenian, Theseus, is praised by the poets for running away with the priestess, Ariadne, from the same island. Why should I despise Atreus for doing the like?’ Clytemnestra turned away from me, as though in disgust. ‘Because,’ she said at last, ‘your grandfather’s vileness did not stop there. Once she had borne him sons, Aerope was used by your grandfather to trap King Thyestes, his brother. Oh, she was pretty enough, in that brown Cretan way, that full-bodied way; and she knew all the tricks of love. No doubt she enjoyed tempting Thyestes, she was that sort; but your grandfather should never have put a noblewoman to such use. Like a crafty fox, Atreus picked his time to expose Thyestes in bed with Aerope, and so shamed him that the people of Mycenae rose and gave Atreus the crown. Atreus got the throne of Mycenae not in war, but by putting his wife in sin with his brother. Now do you see?’

  I nodded and clutched at the sheet which covered me. The threads of the pattern were at last coming into line and drawing a picture before my eyes. ‘What happened then, mother?’ I asked, in spite of myself.

  Clytemnestra said flatly, ‘When he had usurped Thyestes, your grandfather had silly Aerope put away by night. So she died violently after all, you see. There is no escaping the god, or the goddess. Then, as though to bring the greatest horror on Thyestes, Atreus called a feast in this very palace where we now are, and let it be known that he was friends once more with the brother who had seduced his wife. They fetched poor half-blind Thyestes up from the dungeon and set a dish before him. Since he had been fed for months on offals, he fell to ravenously and ate the tender flesh that was put before him. When he dared to ask what meat he had been eating, the servants laid a dish on the table, and, uncovering it, showed the heads, hands, and feet of Thyestes’ own youngest sons, Orchomenus and Aglaus! No, do not cover your ears, Electra; all this happened, at the very table I have just left, in the feast-hall along the corridor. I will tell you something worse—your own father, Agamemnon, and his brother Menelaus, stood one on either side of Thyestes and forced him to gaze on the mutilated parts of his children. Agamemnon was only a lad himself, at the time, but strong enough to deal with an old man who had been starved in prison for months.’

  As her voice went on, I saw my father standing high among the chariots, waving up to us, as he went forward towards the ships. How could such a god act as my mother had told me? I shook my head, trying to drive away the thought, but a blackness was coming over me now, and somehow I knew that Clytemnestra was telling me the truth.

  She said, ‘You shake your head! Aye, and poor Thyestes shook his, as well. He tried to shake the yelling madness out of it, but that did not work. Thyestes ran from our palace like a crazed bullock whose horns have just been sawn off, slavering and moaning, blind with the agony inside his head. They let him go, laughing at him, thinking that they would go after him when the wine was finished, and put a sword to him. But the god had some mercy and let night cover him. In the morning, Thyestes was not to be found in Mycenae, and the wild beasts of this House gave him up for dead, and went about their own vile affairs.

  ‘There is no sense in life, Electra. This you will learn, more and more, as you get older and see more of the world. The god who had covered Thyestes’ escape from the palace now began to play with him as our cats play with wounded mice. Wandering in the outland, Thyestes came one night to a little village where a young woman washed his sore feet and gave him bread to eat. Seeing that he was helpless, she tried to soothe him to sleep, stroking his brow. But Thyestes misunderstood her kindness, and with a madman’s strength, compelled her to give him greater soothing, greater comfort than she had intended. You understand what I mean, daughter? He did not mean to force her, I am sure; but her gentle body so close to his was more than the poor wretch could stand. Perhaps he thought she was Aerope come alive again; I do not know. The gods cause men to do strange things in cases like these.

  ‘I can only tell you that in the morning he found that this girl, Pelopia, was no other than his own child, by one of those careless unions that happened to warrior-kings in those days, when they celebrated their victories over outland-folk by bedding the most comely of the women.

  ‘I declare to you, Electra, that Thyestes was not to blame. How could he have known? I do not defend him, but only pity him, you understand. Just as I abhor your grandfather, Atreus, for causing such a situation to arise. If the blame must lie anywhere, it lies with Atreus. Your grandfather was the foulest man in Hellas. If you doubt that, I will go further, and will tell you that Atreus had now got word about Thyestes’ whereabouts, and followed him to the village. Here he found the weeping Pelopia, and like a dog returning to his vomit, lusted after her, if only because Thyestes had had her. Or perhaps because he wished to misuse something which Thyestes had possessed, since Thyestes himself had fled from the village towards Delphi that time, and was out of his reach.

  ‘You see, daughter, a man like Atreus is insatiable in his vengeances.
In due course, Pelopia bore a son—but it was not of Atreus’ doing; the seed of that sapling had been planted in an earlier season, on the night mad Thyestes begged for comfort under the thatch. But Atreus thought the boy was his own, and brought him up here, in Mycenae. In his twisted mind, Atreus had already planned to train the baby to track down Thyestes and to kill him.’

  The words were swirling round me now, like starlings gathering to go south. I said, ‘You have not told me this boy’s name, mother.’ I do not think I wanted to know, but it was something to say.

  Clytemnestra smiled and pointed through the doorway. ‘He is sitting at the feast-table now,’ she said. ‘It was Aegisthus!’

  I rose in the bed, my heart thumping and my head reeling. ‘You mean that Aegisthus, whom I called a swine, is of my own kin?’ I asked. My mother nodded, and let herself down on a stool, as though she was very tired. ‘He is as noble as you are, my love,’ she said. ‘And, indeed, he has greater right to sit on the throne in Mycenae than Agamemnon, for he is son to Thyestes, the rightful king here. Now do you wonder that I treat him with honour? Do you wonder that he and I understand each other?’

  I said, ‘But why should Aegisthus hate my father?’

  Clytemnestra said slowly, ‘The tale has gone on too long, already, daughter. It can be ended briefly. I will only tell you that as Aegisthus grew up, Atreus made him swear on oath to kill Thyestes one day. That day happened when Aegisthus was only seven, imagine that! Your father, a wild young man then, tracked Thyestes down at last, and dragged him back to Mycenae. Atreus put a sword in the lad’s hand and Agamemnon and Menelaus held the old madman down while his little son carried out the tyrant’s order. Now, while Atreus lies in honour, in the great underground treasury, like a god— murdered Thyestes is buried in a pauper’s stony grave beside the road that runs to Argos.’

  I was biting at the hem of my robe, and the tears were flooding on to my breast. I said, ‘So Aegisthus has come back to get vengeance on the Kin of Atreus for his dead father?’

  My mother nodded, and suddenly began to stare out of the window as though she had lost all interest in the affair. As I looked at her in amazement, a great thunder clap sounded in my head, as though the god had struck me in the innermost brain. I held out my hands before me, and they seemed dark with blood. My robe suddenly stank as though I had rolled in a gutter. My hair clung damply against my face, like the farmyard straw in which the swine have dabbled for a season. I was unclean, I knew, from innermost to outmost. I was of the filthy Kin of Atreus, a rotting pear, the child of a usurper, the granddaughter of a tyrant-king who had wallowed in the refuse of a butcher’s yard.

  I suddenly knew myself for the first time, and I ran from that room seeking the clean air outside. I was the child of foul unions, of treachery, of death. And my father, whom men called great, was even more tainted than I.

  As I ran through the courtyard, I searched here and there for a sharp stone to put an end to my pain, to solve a problem that was too great for my heart to carry any longer.

  Then all at once I found myself in the stable, with wide-eyed Rarus beside me, stroking my face and asking me what it was all about.

  At first I wanted to hit at him, to drive him away, to keep my dirt away from him, not to hurt him. Then, as he held me close, trying to comfort me in his simple way, I heard myself laughing as high as the sky, and heard my voice shouting, ‘I am as mad as poor Thyestes! Oh, god, take this from me!’

  Rarus was crooning above me, holding me down so that I should not harm myself against the rough stone of the stable. And as his hands held me, the black mist came over my eyes again, as though the god was present in the stable. It was all terrible. It was not me; it was some other I did not know.

  I felt my body lunging at Rarus savagely, and I heard a voice yelling, ‘Come alive! Come alive! On, on, you fool! I need you now!’

  But Rarus only clung to me, like a farmer trying to hold a wild steer at the branding-time, his thin body cool and still against all my urgency; and what I got from him came from my own mad urging, from myself. As I shuddered in the high and awful flight, he breathed softly so as not to hinder me, to cause me to fall to earth before my time.

  And when I was myself again, he said so gently, ‘I can do no more, lady; but that much, poor as it is, is always yours,’

  Now I lay ashamed and sobbing, turning my face from his great eyes. I mumbled, ‘Forgive me, Rarus; it was the god, not I. He put too much suffering on me. There was no other comfort, it seemed,’

  Then we lay together and wept in the dry straw.

  19

  I woke at last to find men with torches standing above me, and my mother and Aegisthus a little apart, with dark cloths over their heads. They were like pale-faced mourners, waiting for the dead to rise again. When she saw my eyes open, Clytemnestra came and bent over me and wiped my face with her own skirt. Her features were composed and gentle, and her lips curved softly in pity.

  She whispered to me, ‘Electra, you are a woman now, and there must be no more tears. Your childhood has passed, my love, and must not be regretted. That is the way of life; it is the way the god orders it, and there is no denying his command.’

  I reached up from the straw and put my arms round her. She kneeled by me and held me close to her breast. ‘We are women together now, my dear,’ she said, nuzzling my face with her lips. ‘Now that you know the worst, you may look forward to the best.’

  At this, Aegisthus stepped near me, into the full light. His face had more dignity about it than I had ever seen before. Even his smile seemed to carry some protection in it now. He touched my kneeling mother on the shoulder and said in a low voice, ‘She has not yet seen the worst, Clytemnestra. There is that one thing she must see before she may become a thread in our pattern, such as the god decrees. ‘That one thing.’

  My mother bowed her head, and a sob shook her body. ‘It is not the time, surely, Aegisthus,’ she answered. ‘Has she not been through enough today?’

  But Aegisthus stood firm and said in his softest voice, ‘No, Clytemnestra. All things have worked towards this occasion and the moment must not be let pass. If we wait until tomorrow, the thread will be broken, the warp and woof will come apart and the pattern be destroyed. Little as I wish it, for myself, what is to be done must he done tonight, as the smith strikes upon the iron while the fire’s magic thrives within it. To leave it an hour, even, would be to lose the occasion. Come, we are all ready. Let us go about the final business.’

  My mother raised me to my feet and put a black cloth over my head. Then, with the torches flaring about us, we walked silently from the palace yard and across the barren place of stones that led down towards the ancient tombs of Mycenae. I had never been right into them before, because of the bees and of the ghosts that howled from the hollow passages when the wind blew in a certain quarter. Only kings and priests went there, and when they did, the guard outside drove all the folk away from the tholoi.

  At the dark entrance of the greatest tomb, the torch-bearers halted and handed their flares to my mother and Aegisthus. Rarus waited on the outermost edge of the throng, looking down at his feet, still miserable for my sake.

  ‘Come, daughter,’ said the queen, ‘and hold these beans in your hand as you tread the deep steps. They will keep all harm from you.’

  As we descended, damp stale air came up to meet us, and the darkness rustled with small flapping wings. Once my hand touched the cold wall, sliding on the lichen that grew there, and I pulled away with such a start that my mother took me firmly by the shoulder and guided me along.

  At last we reached a paved level where the roof arched over us and, on either side, small tunnels gave on to the chief thoroughfare. Our footsteps echoed back to us in long rustling sounds, however quietly we trod. It was as though the tomb was full of waiting serpents.

  I began to whisper to Clytemnestra, begging her to let me run away up the stairway; but I had scarcely finished three words before the echo o
f my whispering came back from the stifling walls with such volume and vehemence that I stopped, afraid to say more.

  Behind me, lit by his resinous torch, Aegisthus patted me on the back, as though in sympathy, and nodded to me when I turned towards him.

  At last he pushed past us and halted by one of the narrow tunnels, holding his torch out for us to see what he indicated.

  ‘Look,’ he said, in a voice that boomed like a roaring bull of dreams. ‘Here he is! Here is the founder of your House, Electra!’

  In fear, I gazed, and saw, hunched on a gilded stool, the form of a man, wrapped round with brown strips of linen. He was leaning sideways, as though about to fall; then I saw, in the torchlight, that a short stabbing-spear was set against his right side, keeping him from toppling. About his feet lay heaped cups of gold and silver, bronze daggers inlaid with precious metals, piles of amethyst beads from Egypt, and amber beads from the farthest lands to the north. What held my eye most strongly was the mask on the dead king’s face; it was of dull gold, hammered and chiselled to show his great broad forehead and his closed eyelids. His sharp nose stood out like an eagle’s beak; his beard hung stiffly downwards and seemed to writhe as though life were in it.

  ‘So,’ whispered Clytemnestra, ‘that is Atreus, your grandfather.’

  Then she was silent, as I gazed on the dead metal face of the man who had distantly begot me. It was hard to see, in those calm features and that wide head, signs of this wickedness. Now he slept impassively like a god whose task is done, who is beyond all caring.

  In a sudden anger, I drew back my hand to knock him from his stool, but the queen saw what I was about and caught me firmly. ‘No, no,’ she muttered, ‘he is beyond your reach, and must not be disturbed. Our work is against the living, not the dead. Come away, now.’