Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 307
CHOROS 1.
I, in the first place, my opinion tell you:
— To cite the townsmen, by help-cry, to house here.
CHOROS 2.
To me, it seems we ought to fall upon them
At quickest — prove the fact by sword fresh-flowing!
CHOROS 3.
And I, of such opinion the partaker,
Vote — to do something: not to wait — the main point!
CHOROS 4.
‘T is plain to see: for they prelude as though of
A tyranny the signs they gave the city.
CHOROS 5.
For we waste time; while they, — this waiting’s glory
Treading to ground, — allow the hand no slumber.
CHOROS 6.
I know not — chancing on some plan — to tell it:
‘T is for the doer to plan of the deed also.
CHOROS 7.
And I am such another: since I’m schemeless
How to raise up again by words — a dead man!
CHOROS 8.
What, and, protracting life, shall we give way thus
To the disgracers of our home, these rulers?
CHOROS 9.
Why, ‘t is unbearable: but to die is better:
For death than tyranny is the riper finish!
CHOROS 10.
What, by the testifying “Ah me” of him,
Shall we prognosticate the man as perished?
CHOROS 11.
We must quite know ere speak these things concerning:
For to conjecture and “quite know” are two things.
CHOROS 12.
This same to praise I from all sides abound in —
Clearly to know — Atreides, what he’s doing!
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Much having been before to purpose spoken,
The opposite to say I shall not shamed be:
For how should one, to enemies, — in semblance,
Friends, — enmity proposing, — sorrow’s net-frame
Enclose, a height superior to outleaping?
To me, indeed, this struggle of old — not mindless
Of an old victory — came: with time, I grant you!
I stand where I have struck, things once accomplished:
And so have done, — and this deny I shall not, —
As that his fate was nor to fly nor ward off.
A wrap-round with no outlet, as for fishes,
I fence about him — the rich woe of the garment:
I strike him twice, and in a double “Ah-me!”
He let his limbs go — there ! And to him, fallen,
The third blow add I, giving — of Below ground
Zeus, guardian of the dead — the votive favour.
Thus in the mind of him he rages, falling,
And blowing forth a brisk blood-spatter, strikes me
With the dark drop of slaughterous dew — rejoicing
No less than, at the god-given dewy-comfort,
The sown-stuff in its birth-throes from the calyx.
Since so these things are, — Argives, my revered here, —
Ye may rejoice — if ye rejoice: but I — boast!
If it were fit on corpse to pour libation,
That would be right — right over and above, too!
The cup of evils in the house he, having
Filled with such curses, himself coming drinks of.
CHOROS.
We wonder at thy tongue: since bold-mouthed truly
Is she who in such speech boasts o’er her husband!
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Ye test me as I were a witless woman:
But I — with heart intrepid — to you knowers
Say (and thou — if thou wilt or praise or blame me,
Comes to the same) — this man is Agamemnon,
My husband, dead, the work of the right hand here,
Ay, of a just artificer: so things are.
CHOROS.
What evil, O woman, food or drink, earth-bred
Or sent from the flowing sea,
Of such having fed
Didst thou set on thee
This sacrifice
And popular cries
Of a curse on thy head?
Off thou hast thrown him, off hast cut
The man from the city: but —
Off from the city thyself shalt be
Cut — to the citizens
A hate immense!
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Now, indeed, thou adjudgest exile to me,
And citizens’ hate, and to have popular curses:
Nothing of this against the man here bringing,
Who, no more awe-checked than as ‘t were a beast’s fate, —
With sheep abundant in the well-fleeced graze-flocks, —
Sacrificed his child, — dearest fruit of travail
To me, — as song-spell against Threkian blowings.
Not him did it behove thee hence to banish
— Pollution’s penalty? But hearing my deeds
Justicer rough thou art! Now, this I tell thee:
To threaten thus — me, one prepared to have thee
(On like conditions, thy hand conquering) o’er me
Rule: but if God the opposite ordain us,
Thou shalt learn — late taught, certes — to be modest.
CHOROS.
Greatly-intending thou art:
Much-mindful, too, hast thou cried
(Since thy mind, with its slaughter-outpouring part,
Is frantic) that over the eyes, a patch
Of blood — with blood to match —
Is plain for a pride!
Yet still, bereft of friends, thy fate
Is — blow with blow to expiate!
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
And this thou hearest — of my oaths, just warrant!
By who fulfilled things for my daughter, Justice,
Ate, Erinus, — by whose help I slew him, —
Not mine the fancy — Fear will tread my palace
So long as on my hearth there burns a fire,
Aigisthos as before well-caring for me;
Since he to me is shield, no small, of boldness.
Here does he lie — outrager of this female,
Dainty of all the Chruseids under Ilion;
And she — the captive, the soothsayer also
And couchmate of this man, oracle-speaker,
Faithful bed-fellow, — ay, the sailors’ benches
They wore in common, nor unpunished did so,
Since he is — thus! While, as for her, — swan-fashion,
Her latest having chanted, — dying wailing
She lies, — to him, a sweetheart: me she brought to —
My bed’s by-nicety-the whet of dalliance.
CHOROS.
Alas, that some
Fate would come
Upon us in quickness —
Neither much sickness
Neither bed-keeping —
And bear unended sleeping,
Now that subdued
Is our keeper, the kindest of mood!
Having borne, for a woman’s sake, much strife —
By a woman he withered from life!
Ah me!
Law-breaking Helena who, one,
Hast many, so many souls undone
‘Neath Troia! and now the consummated
Much-memorable curse
Hast thou made flower-forth, red
With the blood no rains disperse,
That which was then in the House —
Strife all-subduing, the woe of a spouse.
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Nowise, of death the fate —
Burdened by these things — supplicate!
Nor on Helena turn thy wrath
As the man-destroyer, as “she who hath,
Being but one,
Many and many a soul undone
Of the men, the Danaoi” —
And
wrought immense annoy!
CHOROS.
Daimon, who fallest
Upon this household and the double-raced
Tantalidai, a rule, minded like theirs displaced,
Thou rulest me with, now,
Whose heart thou gallest!
And on the body, like a hateful crow,
Stationed, all out of tune, his chant to chant
Doth Something vaunt!
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Now, of a truth, hast thou set upright
Thy mouth’s opinion, —
Naming the Sprite,
The triply gross,
O’er the race that has dominion:
For through him it is that Eros
The carnage-licker
In the belly is bred: ere ended quite
Is the elder throe — new ichor!
CHOROS.
Certainly, great of might
And heavy of wrath, the Sprite
Thou tellest of, in the palace
(Woe, woe!)
— An evil tale of a fate
By Até’s malice
Rendered insatiate!
Oh, oh, —
King, king, how shall I beweep thee?
From friendly soul whatever say?
Thou liest where webs of the spider o’ersweep thee
In impious death, life breathing away.
O me — me!
This couch, not free.
By a slavish death subdued thou art,
From the hand, by the two-edged dart.
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Thou boastest this deed to be mine:
But leave off styling me
“The Agamemnonian wife!”
For, showing himself in sign
Of the spouse of the corpse thou dost see,
Did the ancient bitter avenging-ghost
Of Atreus, savage host,
Pay the man here as price —
A full-grown for the young one’s sacrifice.
CHOROS.
That no cause, indeed, of this killing art thou,
Who shall be witness-bearer?
How shall he bear it — how?
But the sire’s avenging-ghost might be in the deed a sharer.
He is forced on and on
By the kin-born flowing of blood,
— Black Ares: to where, having gone,
He shall leave off, flowing done,
At the frozen-child’s-flesh food.
King, king, how shall I beweep thee?
From friendly soul whatever say?
Thou liest where webs of the spider o’ersweep thee
In impious death, life breathing away.
O me — me!
This couch, not free!
By a slavish death subdued thou art,
From the hand, by the two-edged dart.
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
No death “unfit for the free”
Do I think this man’s to be:
For did not himself a slavish curse
To his household decree?
But the scion of him, myself did nurse —
That much-bewailed Iphigeneia, he
Having done well by, — and as well, nor worse,
Been done to, — let him not in Haides loudly
Bear himself proudly!
Being by sword-destroying death amerced
For that sword’s punishment himself inflicted first.
CHOROS.
I at a loss am left —
Of a feasible scheme of mind bereft —
Where I may turn: for the house is falling:
I fear the bloody crash of the rain
That ruins the roof as it bursts amain:
The warning-drop
Has come to a stop.
Destiny doth Justice whet
For other deed of hurt, on other whetstones yet.
Woe, earth, earth — would thou hadst taken me
Ere I saw the man I see,
On the pallet-bed
Of the silver-sided bath-vase, dead!
Who is it shall bury him, who
Sing his dirge? Can it be true
That thou wilt dare this same to do —
Having slain thy husband, thine own,
To make his funeral moan:
And for the soul of him, in place
Of his mighty deeds, a graceless grace
To wickedly institute? By whom
Shall the tale of praise o’er the tomb
At the god-like man be sent —
From the truth of his mind as he toils intent?
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
It belongs not to thee to declare
This object of care!
By us did he fall — down there!
Did he die — down there! and down, no less,
We will bury him there, and not beneath
The wails of the household over his death:
But Iphigeneia, — with kindliness, —
His daughter, — as the case requires,
Facing him full, at the rapid-flowing
Passage of Groans shall — both hands throwing
Around him — kiss that kindest of sires!
CHOROS.
This blame comes in the place of blame:
Hard battle it is to judge each claim.
“He is borne away who bears away:
And the killer has all to pay.”
And this remains while Zeus is remaining,
“The doer shall suffer in time” — for, such his ordaining.
Who may cast out of the House its cursed brood?
The race is to Até glued!
KLUTAIMNESTRA.
Thou hast gone into this oracle
With a true result. For me, then, — I will
— To the Daimon of the Pleisthenidai
Making an oath — with all these things comply
Hard as they are to bear. For the rest —
Going from out this House, a guest,
May he wear some other family
To nought, with the deaths of kin by kin!
And, — keeping a little part of my goods, —
Wholly am I contented in
Having expelled from the royal House
These frenzied moods
The mutually-murderous.
AIGISTHOS.
O light propitious of day justice-bringing!
I may say truly, now, that men’s avengers,
The gods from high, of earth behold the sorrows —
Seeing, as I have, i’ the spun robes of the Erinues,
This man here lying, — sight to me how pleasant! —
His father’s hands’ contrivances repaying.
For Atreus, this land’s lord, of this man father,
Thuestes, my own father — to speak clearly —
His brother too, — being i’ the rule contested, —
Drove forth to exile from both town and household:
And, coming back, to the hearth turned, a suppliant,
Wretched Thuestes found the fate assured him
— Not to die, bloodying his paternal threshold
Just there: but host-wise this man’s impious father
Atreus, soul-keenly more than kindly, — seeming
To joyous hold a flesh-day, — to my father
Served up a meal, the flesh of his own children.
The feet indeed and the hands’ top divisions
He hid, high up and isolated sitting:
But, their unshowing parts in ignorance taking,
He forthwith eats food — as thou seest — perdition
To the race: and then, ‘ware of the deed ill-omened,
He shrieked O! — falls back, vomiting, from the carnage,
And fate on the Pelopidai past bearing
He prays down — putting in his curse together
The kicking down o’ the feast — that so might perish
The race of Pleisthenes entire: and thence is
That it is given thee to
see this man prostrate.
And I was rightly of this slaughter stitch-man:
Since me, — being third from ten, — with my poor father
He drives out — being then a babe in swathe-bands:
But, grown up, back again has justice brought me:
And of this man I got hold — being without-doors —
Fitting together the whole scheme of ill-will.
So, sweet, in fine, even to die were to me,
Seeing, as I have, this man i’ the toils of justice!
CHOROS.
Aigisthos, arrogance in ills I love not.
Dost thou say — willing, thou didst kill the man here,
And, alone, plot this lamentable slaughter?
I say — thy head in justice will escape not
The people’s throwing — know that! — stones and curses!
AIGISTHOS.
Thou such things soundest — seated at the lower
Oarage to those who rule at the ship’s mid-bench?
Thou shalt know, being old, how heavy is teaching
To one of the like age — bidden be modest!
But chains and old age and the pangs of fasting
Stand out before all else in teaching, — prophets
At souls’-cure! Dost not, seeing aught, see this too?
Against goads kick not, lest tript-up thou suffer!
CHOROS.
Woman, thou, — of him coming new from battle
Houseguard — thy husband’s bed the while disgracing, —
For the Army-leader didst thou plan this fate too?
AIGISTHOS.
These words too are of groans the prime-begetters!
Truly a tongue opposed to Orpheus hast thou:
For he led all things by his voice’s grace-charm,
But thou, upstirring them by these wild yelpings,
Wilt lead them! Forced, thou wilt appear the tamer!
CHOROS.
So — thou shalt be my king then of the Argeians —
Who, not when for this man his fate thou plannedst,
Daredst to do this deed — thyself the slayer!
AIGISTHOS.
For, to deceive him was the wife’s part, certes:
I was looked after — foe, ay, old-begotten!
But out of this man’s wealth will I endeavour
To rule the citizens: and the no-man-minder
— Him will I heavily yoke — by no means trace-horse,
A corned-up colt! but that bad friend in darkness,
Famine its housemate, shall behold him gentle.
CHOROS.
Why then, this man here, from a coward spirit,
Didst not thou slay thyself? But, — helped, — a woman,
The country’s pest, and that of gods o’ the country,
Killed him! Orestes, where may he see light now?
That coming hither back, with gracious fortune,
Of both these he may be the all-conquering slayer?
AIGISTHOS.
But since this to do thou thinkest — and not talk — thou soon shalt know!