by Aeschylus
LEADER:
You too,
down with the sweet disease that kills a man
with kindness . . .
HERALD:
Go on, I don’t see what you—
LEADER :
Love
for the ones who love you—that’s what took you.
HERALD:
You mean
the land and the armies hungered for each other?
LEADER:
There were times I thought I’d faint with longing.
HERALD:
So anxious for the armies, why?
LEADER:
For years now,
only my silence kept me free from harm.
HERALD:
What,
with the kings gone did someone threaten you?
LEADER:
So much . . .
now as you say, it would be good to die.
HERALD:
True, we have done well.
Think back in the years and what have you?
A few runs of luck, a lot that’s bad.
Who but a god can go through life unmarked?
A long, hard pull we had, if I would tell it all.
The iron rations, penned in the gangways
hock by jowl like sheep. Whatever miseries
break a man, our quota, every sun-starved day.
Then on the beaches it was worse. Dug in
under the enemy ramparts - deadly going.
Out of the sky, out of the marshy flats
the dews soaked us, turned the ruts we fought from
into gullies, made our gear, our scalps
crawl with lice.
And talk of the cold,
the sleet to freeze the gulls, and the big snows
come avalanching down from Ida. Oh but the heat,
the sea and the windless noons, the swells asleep,
dropped to a dead calm . . .
But why weep now?
It’s over for us, over for them.
The dead can rest and never rise again;
no need to call their muster. We’re alive,
do we have to go on raking up old wounds?
Good-bye to all that. Glad I am to say it.
For us, the remains of the Greek contingents,
the good wins out, no pain can tip the scales,
not now. So shout this boast to the bright sun -
fitting it is - wing it over the seas and rolling earth:
‘Once when an Argive expedition captured Troy
they hauled these spoils back to the gods of Greece,
they bolted them high across the temple doors,
the glory of the past!’
And hearing that,
men will applaud our city and our chiefs,
and Zeus will have the hero’s share of fame -
he did the work.
That’s all I have to say.
LEADER:
I’m convinced, glad that I was wrong.
Never too old to learn; it keeps me young.
CLYTAEMNESTRA enters with her women.
First the house and the queen, it’s their affair,
but I can taste the riches.
CLYTAEMNESTRA:
I cried out long ago! -
for joy, when the first herald came burning
through the night and told the city’s fall.
And there were some who smiled and said,
‘A few fires persuade you Troy’s in ashes.
Women, women, elated over nothing.’
You made me seem deranged.
For all that I sacrificed - a woman’s way,
you’ll say - station to station on the walls
we lifted cries of triumph that resounded
in the temples of the gods. We lulled and blessed
the fires with myrrh and they consumed our victims.
Turning to the HERALD.
But enough. Why prolong the story?
From the king himself I’ll gather all I need.
Now for the best way to welcome home
my lord, my good lord . . .
No time to lose!
What dawn can feast a woman’s eyes like this?
I can see the light, the husband plucked from war
by the Saving God and open wide the gates.
Tell him that, and have him come with speed,
the people’s darling — how they long for him.
And for his wife,
may he return and find her true at hall,
just as the day he left her, faithful to the last.
A watchdog gentle to him alone,
Glancing towards the palace.
savage
to those who cross his path. I have not changed.
The strains of time can never break our seal.
In love with a new lord, in ill repute I am
as practised as I am in dyeing bronze.
That is my boast, teeming with the truth.
I am proud, a woman of my nobility -
I’d hurl it from the roofs!
She turns sharply, enters the palace.
LEADER:
She speaks well, but it takes no seer to know
she only says what’s right.
The HERALD attempts to leave; the leader takes him by the arm.
Wait, one thing.
Menelaus, is he home too, safe with the men?
The power of the land - dear king.
HERALD:
I doubt that lies will help my friends,
in the lean months to come.
LEADER:
Help us somehow, tell the truth as well.
But when the two conflict it’s hard to hide-
out with it.
HERALD:
He’s lost, gone from the fleets!
He and his ship, it’s true.
LEADER:
After you watched him
pull away from Troy? Or did some storm
attack you all and tear him off the line?
HERALD:
There,
like a marksman, the whole disaster cut to a word.
LEADER:
How do the escorts give him out - dead or alive?
HERALD:
No clear report. No one knows . . .
only the wheeling sun that heats the earth to life.
LEADER:
But then the storm - how did it reach the ships?
How did it end? Were the angry gods on hand?
HERALD:
This blessed day, ruin it with them?
Better to keep their trophies far apart.
When a runner comes, his face in tears,
saddled with what his city dreaded most,
the armies routed, two wounds in one,
one to the city, one to hearth and home . . .
our best men, droves of them, victims
herded from every house by the two-barb whip
that Ares likes to crack,
that charioteer
who packs destruction shaft by shaft,
careering on with his brace of bloody mares—
When he comes in, I tell you, dragging that much pain,
wail your battle-hymn to the Furies, and high time!
But when he brings salvation home to a city
singing out her heart -
how can I mix the good with so much bad
and blurt out this? -
‘Storms swept the Greeks,
and not without the anger of the gods!’
Those enemies for ages, fire and water,
sealed a pact and showed it to the world -
they crushed our wretched squadrons.
Night looming,
breakers lunging in for the kill
and the black gales come brawling out of the north -
ships ramming, prow into hooking prow, gored
by the rush-and-buck of hurricane pounding rain
by the cloudburst -
ships stampeding into the darkness,
lashed and spun by the savage shepherd’s hand!
But when the sun comes up to light the skies
I see the Aegean heaving into a great bloom
of corpses . . . Greeks, the pick of a generation
scattered through the wrecks and broken spars.
But not us, not our ship, our hull untouched.
Someone stole us away or begged us off.
No mortal - a god, death grip on the tiller,
or lady luck herself, perched on the helm,
she pulled us through, she saved us. Aye,
we’ll never battle the heavy surf at anchor,
never shipwreck up some rocky coast.
But once we cleared that sea-hell, not even
trusting luck in the cold light of day,
we battened on our troubles, they were fresh -
the armada punished, bludgeoned into nothing.
And now if one of them still has the breath
he’s saying we are lost. Why not?
We say the same of him. Well,
here’s to the best.
And Menelaus?
Look to it, he’s come back, and yet . . .
if a shaft of the sun can track him down,
alive, and his eyes full of the old fire -
thanks to the strategies of Zeus, Zeus
would never tear the house out by the roots -
then there’s hope our man will make it home.
You’ve heard it all. Now you have the truth.
Rushing out.
CHORUS:
Who - what power named the name that drove your fate? -
what hidden brain could divine your future,
steer that word to the mark,
to the bride of spears,
the whirlpool churning armies,
Oh for all the world a Helen!
Hell at the prows, hell at the gates
hell on the men-of-war,
from her lair’s sheer veils she drifted
launched by the giant western wind,
and the long tall waves of men in armour,
huntsmen trailing the oar-blades’ dying spoor
slipped into her moorings,
Simois’ mouth that chokes with foliage,
bayed for bloody strife,
for Troy’s Blood Wedding Day - she drives her word,
her burning will to the birth, the Fury
late but true to the cause,
to the tables shamed
and Zeus who guards the hearth -
the Fury makes the Trojans pay!
Shouting their hymns, hymns for the bride
hymns for the kinsmen doomed
to the wedding march of Fate.
Troy changed her tune in her late age,
and I think I hear the dirges mourning
‘Paris, born and groomed for the bed of Fate!’
They mourn with their life breath,
they sing their last, the sons of Priam
born for bloody slaughter.
So a man once reared
a lion cub at hall, snatched
from the breast, still craving milk
in the first flush of life.
A captivating pet for the young,
and the old men adored it, pampered it
in their arms, day in, day out,
like an infant just born.
Its eyes on fire, little beggar,
fawning for its belly, slave to food.
But it came of age
and the parent strain broke out
and it paid its breeders back.
Grateful it was, it went
through the flock to prepare a feast,
an illicit orgy - the house swam with blood,
none could resist that agony -
massacre vast and raw!
From god there came a priest of ruin,
adopted by the house to lend it warmth.
And the first sensation Helen brought to Troy . . .
call it a spirit
shimmer of winds dying
glory light as gold
shaft of the eyes dissolving, open bloom
that wounds the heart with love.
But veering wild in mid-flight
she whirled her wedding on to a stabbing end,
slashed at the sons of Priam - hearthmate, friend to the death,
sped by Zeus who speeds the guest,
a bride of tears, a Fury.
There’s an ancient saying, old as man himself:
men’s prosperity
never will die childless,
once full-grown it breeds.
Sprung from the great good fortune in the race
comes bloom on bloom of pain -
insatiable wealth! But not I,
I alone say this. Only the reckless act
can breed impiety, multiplying crime on crime,
while the house kept straight and just
is blessed with radiant children.
But ancient Violence longs to breed,
new Violence comes
when its fatal hour comes, the demon comes
to take her toll - no war, no force, no prayer
can hinder the midnight Fury stamped
with parent Fury moving through the house.
But Justice shines in sooty hovels,
loves the decent life.
From proud halls crusted with gilt by filthy hands
she turns her eyes to find the pure in spirit -
spurning the wealth stamped counterfeit with praise,
she steers all things towards their destined end.
AGAMEMNON enters in his chariot, his plunder borne before him by his entourage; behind him, half hidden, stands CASSANDRA. The old men press towards him.
Come, my king, the scourge of Troy,
the true son of Atreus -
How to salute you, how to praise you
neither too high nor low, but hit
the note of praise that suits the hour?
So many prize some brave display,
they prefer some flaunt of honour
once they break the bounds.
When a man fails they share his grief,
but the pain can never cut them to the quick.
When a man succeeds they share his glory,
torturing their faces into smiles.
But the good shepherd knows his flock.
When the eyes seem to brim with love
and it is only unction, fawning,
he will know, better than we can know.
That day you marshalled the armies
all for Helen - no hiding it now -
I drew you in my mind in black;
you seemed a menace at the helm,
sending men to the grave
to bring her home, that hell on earth.
But now from the depths of trust and love
I say Well fought, well won -
the end is worth the labour!
Search, my king, and learn at last
who stayed at home and kept their faith
and who betrayed the city.
AGAMEMNON:
First,
with justice I salute my Argos and my gods,
my accomplices who brought me home and won
my rights from Priam’s Troy - the just gods.
No need to hear our pleas. Once for all
they consigned their lots to the urn of blood,
they pitched on death for men, annihilation
for the city. Hope’s hand, hovering
over the urn of mercy, left it empty.
Look for the smoke - it is the city’s seamark,
building even now.
The storms of ruin live!
Her last dying breath, rising up from the ashes
sends us gales of incense rich in gold.
For that we must thank the gods with a sacrifice
our sons will long remember. For th
eir mad outrage
of a queen we raped their city - we were right.
The beast of Argos, foals of the wild mare,
thousands massed in armour rose on the night
the Pleiades went down, and crashing through
their walls our bloody lion lapped its fill,
gorging on the blood of kings.
Our thanks to the gods,
long drawn out, but it is just the prelude.
CLYTAEMNESTRA approaches with her women; they are carrying dark red tapestries. AGAMEMNON turns to the leader.
And your concern, old man, is on my mind.
I hear you and agree, I will support you.
How rare, men with the character to praise
a friend’s success without a trace of envy,
poison to the heart - it deals a double blow.
Your own losses weigh you down but then,
look at your neighbour’s fortune and you weep.
Well I know. I understand society,
the flattering mirror of the proud.
My comrades . . .
they’re shadows, I tell you, ghosts of men
who swore they’d die for me. Only Odysseus:
I dragged that man to the wars but once in harness
he was a trace-horse, he gave his all for me.
Dead or alive, no matter, I can praise him.
And now this cause involving men and gods.
We must summon the city for a trial,
found a national tribunal. Whatever’s healthy,
shore it up with law and help it flourish.
Wherever something calls for drastic cures
we make our noblest effort : amputate or wield