And, leaving to her townsmen throngs a-spread
With shields, and spear-thrusts of sea-armament,
And bringing Ilion, in a dowry’s stead,
Destruction — swiftly through the gates she went,
Daring the undareable. But many a groan outbroke
From prophets of the House as thus they spoke.
“Woe, woe the House, the House and Rulers, — woe
The marriage-bed and dints
A husband’s love imprints!
There she stands silent! meets no honour — no
Shame — sweetest still to see of things gone long ago!
And, through desire of one across the main,
A ghost will seem within the house to reign.
And hateful to the husband is the grace
Of well-shaped statues: from — in place of eyes
Those blanks — all Aphrodite dies.
“But dream-appearing mournful fantasies —
There they stand, bringing grace that’s vain.
For vain ‘t is, when brave things one seems to view;
The fantasy has floated off, hands through;
Gone, that appearance, — nowise left to creep, —
On wings, the servants in the paths of sleep!”
Woes, then, in household and on hearth, are such
As these — and woes surpassing these by much.
But not these only: everywhere —
For those who from the land
Of Hellas issued in a band,
Sorrow, the heart must bear,
Sits in the home of each, conspicuous there.
Many a circumstance, at least,
Touches the very breast.
For those
Whom any sent away, — he knows:
And in the live man’s stead,
Armour and ashes reach
The house of each.
For Ares, gold-exchanger for the dead,
And balance-holder in the fight o’ the spear,
Due-weight from Ilion sends —
What moves the tear on tear —
A charred scrap to the friends:
Filling with well-packed ashes every urn,
For man — that was — the sole return.
And they groan — praising much, the while,
Now this man as experienced in the strife,
Now that, fallen nobly on a slaughtered pile,
Because of — not his own — another’s wife.
But things there be, one barks,
When no man harks:
A surreptitious grief that’s grudge
Against the Atreidai who first sought the judge.
But some there, round the rampart, have
In Ilian earth, each one his grave:
All fair-formed as at birth,
It hid them — what they have and hold — the hostile earth.
And big with anger goes the city’s word,
And pays a debt by public curse incurred.
And ever with me — as about to hear
A something night-involved — remains my fear:
Since of the many-slayers — not
Unwatching are the gods.
The black Erinues, at due periods —
Whoever gains the lot
Of fortune with no right —
Him, by life’s strain and stress
Back-again-beaten from success,
They strike blind: and among the out-of-sight
For who has got to be, avails no might.
The being praised outrageously
Is grave, for at the eyes of such an one
Is launched, from Zeus, the thunder-stone.
Therefore do I decide
For so much and no more prosperity
Than of his envy passes unespied.
Neither a city-sacker would I be,
Nor life, myself by others captive, see.
A swift report has gone our city through,
From fire, the good-news messenger: if true,
Who knows? Or is it not a god-sent lie?
Who is so childish and deprived of sense
That, having, at announcements of the flame
Thus novel, felt his own heart fired thereby,
He then shall at a change of evidence,
Be worsted just the same?
It is conspicuous in a woman’s nature,
Before its view to take a grace for granted:
Too trustful, — on her boundary, usurpature
Is swiftly made;
But swiftly, too, decayed,
The glory perishes by woman vaunted.
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Soon shall we know — of these light-bearing torches,
And beacons and exchanges, fire with fire —
If they are true, indeed, or if, dream-fashion,
This gladsome light came and deceived our judgment.
Yon herald from the shore I see, o’ershadowed
With boughs of olive: dust, mud’s thirsty brother,
Close neighbours on his garb, thus testify me
That neither voiceless, nor yet kindling for thee
Mountain-wood-flame, shall he explain by fire-smoke:
But either tell out more the joyance, speaking . . . .
Word contrary to which, I aught but love it!
For may good be — to good that’s known — appendage!
CHOROS.
Whoever prays for aught else to this city
— May he himself reap fruit of his mind’s error!
HERALD.
Ha, my forefathers’ soil of earth Argeian!
Thee, in this year’s tenth light, am I returned to —
Of many broken hopes, on one hope chancing;
For never prayed I, in this earth Argeian
Dying, to share my part in tomb the dearest.
Now, hail thou earth, and hail thou also, sunlight,
And Zeus, the country’s lord, and king the Puthian
From bow no longer urging at us arrows!
Enough, beside Skamandros, cam’st thou adverse:
Now, contrary, be saviour thou and healer,
O king Apollon! And gods conquest-granting,
All — I invoke too, and my tutelary
Hermes, dear herald, heralds’ veneration, —
And Heroes our forthsenders, — friendly, once more
The army to receive, the war-spear’s leavings!
Ha, mansions of my monarchs, roofs beloved,
And awful seats, and deities sun-fronting —
Receive with pomp your monarch, long time absent!
For he comes bringing light in night-time to you,
In common with all these — king Agamemnon.
But kindly greet him — for clear shows your duty —
Who has dug under Troia with the mattock
Of Zeus the Avenger, whereby plains are out-ploughed,
Altars unrecognizable, and gods’ shrines,
And the whole land’s seed thoroughly has perished.
And such a yoke-strap having cast round Troia,
The elder king Atreides, happy man — he
Comes to be honoured, worthiest of what mortals
Now are. Nor Paris nor the accomplice-city
Outvaunts their deed as more than they are done-by:
For, in a suit for rape and theft found guilty,
He missed of plunder and, in one destruction,
Fatherland, house and home has mowed to atoms:
Debts the Priamidai have paid twice over.
CHOROS.
Hail, herald from the army of Achaians!
HERALD.
I hail: — to die, will gainsay gods no longer!
CHOROS.
Love of this fatherland did exercise thee?
HERALD.
So that I weep, at least, with joy, my eyes full.
CHOROS.
What, of this gracious sickness were ye gainers?
HERALD.
CHOROS.
For those who loved you back, with longing stricken.
HERALD.
This land yearned for the yearning army, say’st thou?
CHOROS.
So as to set me oft, from dark mind, groaning.
HERALD.
Whence came this ill mind — hatred to the army?
CHOROS.
Of old, I use, for mischief’s physic, silence.
HERALD.
And how, the chiefs away, did you fear any?
CHOROS.
So that now, — late thy word, — much joy were — dying!
HERALD.
For well have things been worked out: these, — in much time,
Some of them, one might say, had luck in falling,
While some were faulty: since who, gods excepted,
Goes, through the whole time of his life, ungrieving?
For labours should I tell of, and bad lodgments,
Narrow deckways ill-strewn, too, — what the day’s woe
We did not groan at getting for our portion?
As for land-things, again, on went more hatred!
Since beds were ours hard by the foemen’s ramparts,
And, out of heaven and from the earth, the meadow
Dews kept a-sprinkle, an abiding damage
Of vestures, making hair a wild-beast matting.
Winter, too, if one told of it — bird-slaying —
Such as, unbearable, Idaian snow brought —
Or heat, when waveless, on its noontide couches
Without a wind, the sea would slumber falling
— Why must one mourn these? O’er and gone is labour:
O’er and gone is it, even to those dead ones,
So that no more again they mind uprising.
Why must we tell in numbers those deprived ones,
And the live man be vexed with fate’s fresh outbreak?
Rather, I bid full farewell to misfortunes!
For us, the left from out the Argeian army,
The gain beats, nor does sorrow counterbalance.
So that ‘t is fitly boasted of, this sunlight,
By us, o’er sea and land the aery flyers,
“Troia at last taking, the band of Argives
Hang up such trophies to the gods of Hellas
Within their domes — new glory to grow ancient!”
Such things men having heard must praise the city
And army-leaders: and the grace which wrought them —
Of Zeus, shall honoured be. Thou hast my whole word.
CHOROS.
O’ercome by words, their sense I do not gainsay.
For, aye this breeds youth in the old — ”to learn well.”
But these things most the house and Klutaimnestra
Concern, ‘t is likely: while they make me rich, too.
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
I shouted long ago, indeed, for joyance,
When came that first night-messenger of fire
Proclaiming Ilion’s capture and dispersion.
And someone, girding me, said, “Through fire-bearers
Persuaded — Troia to be sacked now, thinkest?
Truly, the woman’s way, — high to lift heart up!”
By such words I was made seem wit-bewildered:
Yet still I sacrificed; and, — female-song with, —
A shout one man and other, through the city,
Set up, congratulating in the gods’ seats,
Soothing the incense-eating flame right fragrant.
And now, what’s more, indeed, why need’st thou tell me?
I of the king himself shall learn the whole word:
And, — as may best be, — I my revered husband
Shall hasten, as he comes back, to receive: for —
What’s to a wife sweeter to see than this light
(Her husband, by the god saved, back from warfare)
So as to open gates? This tell my husband —
To come at soonest to his loving city.
A faithful wife at home may he find, coming!
Such an one as he left — the dog o’ the household —
Trusty to him, adverse to the ill-minded,
And, in all else, the same: no signet-impress
Having done harm to, in that time’s duration.
I know nor pleasure, nor blameworthy converse
With any other man more than — bronze-dippings!
HERALD.
Such boast as this — brimful of the veracious —
Is, for a high-born dame, not bad to send forth!
CHOROS.
Ay, she spoke thus to thee — that hast a knowledge
From clear interpreters — a speech most seemly.
But speak thou, herald! Meneleos I ask of:
If he, returning, back in safety also
Will come with you — this land’s beloved chieftain?
HERALD.
There’s no way I might say things false and pleasant
For friends to reap the fruits of through a long time.
CHOROS.
How then if, speaking good, things true thou chance on?
HERALD.
For not well-hidden things become they, sundered.
The man has vanished from the Achaic army,
He and his ship too. I announce no falsehood.
CHOROS.
Whether forth-putting openly from Ilion,
Or did storm — wide woe — snatch him from the army?
HERALD.
Like topping bowman, thou hast touched the target,
And a long sorrow hast succinctly spoken.
CHOROS.
Whether, then, of him, as a live or dead man
Was the report by other sailors bruited?
HERALD.
Nobody knows so as to tell out clearly
Excepting Helios who sustains earth’s nature.
CHOROS.
How say’st thou then, did storm the naval army
Attack and end, by the celestials’ anger?
HERALD.
It suits not to defile a day auspicious
With ill-announcing speech: distinct each god’s due:
And when a messenger with gloomy visage
To a city bears a fall’n host’s woes — God ward off! —
One popular would that happens to the city,
And many sacrificed from many households —
Men, scourged by that two-thonged whip Ares loves so,
Double spear-headed curse, bloody yoke-couple, —
Of woes like these, doubtless, whoe’er comes weighted,
Him does it suit to sing the Erinues’ paian.
But who, of matters saved a glad-news-bringer,
Comes to a city in good estate rejoicing. . . .
How shall I mix good things with evil, telling
Of storm against the Achaioi, urged by gods’ wrath?
For they swore league, being arch-foes before that,
Fire and the sea: and plighted troth approved they,
Destroying the unhappy Argeian army.
At night began the bad-wave-outbreak evils;
For, ships against each other Threkian breezes
Shattered: and these, butted at in a fury
By storm and typhoon, with surge rain-resounding, —
Off they went, vanished, thro’ a bad herd’s whirling.
And, when returned the brilliant light of Helios,
We view the Aigaian sea on flower with corpses
Of men Achaian and with naval ravage.
But us indeed, and ship, unhurt i’ the hull too,
Either someone outstole us or outprayed us —
Some god — no man it was the tiller touching.
And Fortune, saviour, willing on our ship sat.
So as it neither had in harbour wave-surge
Nor ran aground against a shore all rocky.
> And then, the water-Haides having fled from
In the white day, not trusting to our fortune,
We chewed the cud in thoughts — this novel sorrow
O’ the army labouring and badly pounded.
And now — if anyone of them is breathing —
They talk of us as having perished: why not?
And we — that they the same fate have, imagine.
May it be for the best! Meneleos, then,
Foremost and specially to come, expect thou!
If (that is) any ray o’ the sun reports him
Living and seeing too — by Zeus’ contrivings,
Not yet disposed to quite destroy the lineage —
Some hope is he shall come again to household.
Having heard such things, know, thou truth art hearing!
CHOROS.
Who may he have been that named thus wholly with exactitude —
(Was he someone whom we see not, by forecastings of the future
Guiding tongue in happy mood?)
— Her with battle for a bridegroom, on all sides contention-wooed,
Helena? Since — mark the suture! —
Ship’s-Hell, Man’s-Hell, City’s-Hell,
From the delicately-pompous curtains that pavilion well,
Forth, by favour of the gale
Of earth-born Zephuros did she sail.
Many shield-bearers, leaders of the pack,
Sailed too upon their track,
Theirs who had directed oar,
Then visible no more,
To Simois’ leaf-luxuriant shore —
For sake of strife all gore!
To Ilion Wrath, fulfilling her intent,
This marriage-care — the rightly named so — sent:
In after-time, for the tables’ abuse
And that of the hearth-partaker Zeus,
Bringing to punishment
Those who honoured with noisy throat
The honour of the bride, the hymenæal note
Which did the kinsfolk then to singing urge.
But, learning a new hymn for that which was,
The ancient city of Priamos
Groans probably a great and general dirge,
Denominating Paris
“The man that miserably marries:” —
She who, all the while before,
A life, that was a general dirge
For citizens’ unhappy slaughter, bore.
And thus a man, by no milk’s help,
Within his household reared a lion’s whelp
That loved the teat
In life’s first festal stage:
Gentle as yet,
A true child-lover, and, to men of age,
A thing whereat pride warms;
And oft he had it in his arms
Like any new-born babe, bright-faced, to hand
Wagging its tail, at belly’s strict command.
But in due time upgrown,
The custom of progenitors was shown:
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 304