Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (17 page)

[905]
And now, I pray
you, my dear lord, dismount from your car, but do not set on common earth the
foot, my King, that has trampled upon Ilium. [
To
her attendants
] Why this loitering, women, to whom I have assigned the task
to strew with tapestries the place where he shall go? Quick! With purple let
his path be strewn, that Justice may usher him into a home he never hoped to
see. The rest my unslumbering vigilance shall order duly, if it please god,
even as is ordained.

AGAMEMNON
[914]
Offspring
of Leda, guardian of my house, your speech fits well with my absence; for you
have drawn it out to ample length. But becoming praise — this prize should
rightly proceed from other lips. For the rest, pamper me not as if I were a
woman, nor, like some barbarian, grovel before me with widemouthed
acclaim; and do not draw down envy upon my path by strewing it with tapestries.
It is the gods we must honor thus; but it is not possible for a mortal to tread
upon embroidered fineries without fear. I tell you to revere me not as a god,
but as a man. Footmats and embroideries sound diverse in the voice of Rumor; to
think no folly is the best gift of the gods. Only when man’s life comes to its
end in prosperity dare we pronounce him happy; and if I may act in all things
as I do now, I have good confidence.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[931]
Come now,
tell me this, in accordance with your mind.

AGAMEMNON
[932]
Purpose!
Be assured that I shall not corrupt my mind.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[933]
You would
in fear have vowed to the gods to act thus.

AGAMEMNON
[934]
If someone
with full knowledge had pronounced this word.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[935]
 What
do you suppose that Priam would have done, if he had achieved your triumph?

AGAMEMNON
[936]
He would
have set foot upon the embroideries, I certainly believe.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[937]
Then do
not be be ashamed of mortal reproach.

AGAMEMNON
[938]
And yet a
people’s voice is a mighty power.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[939]
True, yet
he who is unenvied is unenviable.

AGAMEMNON
[940]
 Surely
it is not woman’s part to long for fighting.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[941]
True, but
it is right for the happy victor to yield the victory.

AGAMEMNON
[942]
What? is
this the kind of victory in strife that you prize?

CLYTAEMESTRA
[943]
Oh yield!
Yet of your own free will entrust the victory to me.

AGAMEMNON
[944]
Well, if
you will have your way, quick, let some one loose my sandals, which, slavelike,
serve the treading of my foot! As I walk upon these purple vestments may I not
be struck from afar by any glance of the gods’ jealous eye. A terrible shame it
is for one’s foot to mar the resources of the house by wasting wealth and
costly woven work.

[950]
 So much for
this. This foreign girl receive into the house with kindness. A god from afar
looks graciously upon a gentle master; for no one freely takes the yoke of
slavery. But she,  the choicest flower of rich treasure, has followed in
my train, my army’s gift.

[956]
Since I have
been forced to obey you and must listen to you in this, I will tread upon a
purple pathway as I pass to my palace halls.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[958]
There is
the sea (and who shall drain it dry?) producing stain of abundant purple,
costly as silver  and ever fresh, with which to dye our clothes; and of
these our house, through the gods, has ample store; it knows no poverty.
Vestments enough I would have devoted to be trampled underfoot had it been so
ordered in the seat of oracles when I was devising a ransom for your life. For
if the root still lives, leaves come again to the house and spread their
over-reaching shade against the scorching dog star; so, now that you have come
to hearth and home, you show that warmth has come in wintertime;and again, when
Zeus makes wine from the bitter grape, then immediately there is coolness in
the house when its rightful lord occupies his halls. [
As Agamemnon enters
the palace.
] O Zeus, Zeus, you who bring things to fulfilment, fulfill my
prayers! May you see to that which you mean to fulfill!
[
Exit.
]

CHORUS
[975]
 Why
does this terror so persistently hover standing before my prophetic soul? Why
does my song, unbidden and unfed, chant strains of augury? Why does assuring
confidence not sit on my heart’s throne and spurn the terror like an
uninterpretable dream? But Time has collected the sands of the shore upon the
cables cast thereon when the shipborn army sped forth for Ilium.

[988]
Of their coming
home I learn with my own eyes and need no other witness. Yet still my soul
within me, self-inspired, intones the lyreless dirge of the avenging spirit,
and cannot wholly win its customary confidence of hope. Not for nothing is my
bosom disquieted as my heart throbs against my justly fearful breast in eddying
tides that warn of some event. But I pray that my expectation may fall out
false and not come to fulfilment.

[1001]
 Truly blooming health does not
rest content within its due bounds; for disease ever presses close against it,
its neighbor with a common wall. So human fortune, when holding onward in
straight course strikes upon a hidden reef. And yet, if with a well-measured
throw, caution heaves overboard a portion of the gathered wealth, the whole
house, with woe overladen, does not founder nor engulf the hull. Truly the
generous gift from Zeus,  rich and derived from yearly furrows, makes an
end of the plague of famine.
[1017]
But a man’s
blood, once it has first fallen by murder to earth in a dark tide — who by magic
spell shall call it back? Even he who possessed the skill to raise from the
dead — did not Zeus make an end of him as warning? And unless one fate ordained
of the gods restrains another fate from winning the advantage, my heart would
outstrip my tongue and pour forth its fears; but, as it is, it mutters only in
the dark, distressed and hopeless ever to unravel anything in time when my soul’s
aflame.

[
Enter
Clytaemestra.
]

CLYTAEMESTRA
[1035]
 Get
inside, you too, Cassandra; since not unkindly has Zeus appointed you to share
the holy water of a house where you may take your stand, with many another
slave, at the altar of the god who guards its wealth. Get down from the car and
do not be too proud; for even Alcmene’s son, men say, once endured to be sold
and eat the bread of slavery. But if such fortune should of necessity fall to
the lot of any, there is good cause for thankfulness in having masters of
ancient wealth; for they who, beyond their hope, have reaped a rich harvest of
possessions, are cruel to their slaves in every way, even exceeding due
measure. You have from us such usage as custom warrants.

CHORUS
[1047]
It is to
you she has been speaking and clearly. Since you are in the toils of destiny,
perhaps you will obey, if you are so inclined; but perhaps you will not.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[1050]
 Well,
if her language is not strange and foreign, even as a swallow’s, I must speak
within her comprehension and move her to comply.

CHORUS
[1053]
Go with
her. With things as they now stand, she gives you the best. Do as she bids and
leave your seat in the car.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[1055]
 I
have no time to waste with this woman here outside; for already the victims
stand by the central hearth awaiting the sacrifice — a joy we never expected to
be ours. As for you, if you will take any part, make no delay. But if, failing
to understand, you do not catch my meaning, then, instead of speech, make a
sign with your barbarian hand.

CHORUS
[1062]
It is an
interpreter and a plain one that the stranger seems to need. She bears herself
like a wild creature newly captured.

CLYTAEMESTRA
[1064]
No, she
is mad and listens to her wild mood, since she has come here from a newly
captured city, and does not know how to tolerate the bit until she has foamed
away her fretfulness in blood. No! I will waste no more words upon her to be
insulted thus.
[
Exit.
]

CHORUS
[1069]
But I
will not be angry, since I pity her. Come, unhappy one, leave the car; yield to
necessity and take upon you this novel yoke.

CASSANDRA
[1072]
Woe, woe,
woe! O Apollo, O Apollo!

CHORUS
[1074]
Wherefore
your cry of “woe” in Loxias’ name? He is not the kind of god that has to do
with mourners.

CASSANDRA
[1076]
Woe, woe,
woe! O Apollo, O Apollo!

CHORUS
[1078]
Once more
with ill-omened words she cries to the god who should not be present at times
of lamentation.

CASSANDRA
[1080]
 Apollo,
Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! For you have destroyed me — and utterly
— this second time.

CHORUS
[1083]
I think
that she is about to prophesy about her own miseries. The divine gift still
abides even in the soul of one enslaved.

CASSANDRA
[1085]
 Apollo,
Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! Ah, what way is this that you have
brought me! To what a house!

CHORUS
[1088]
To that
of Atreus’ sons. If you do not perceive this, I’ll tell it to you. And you
shall not say that it is untrue.

CASSANDRA
[1090]
 No,
no, rather to a god-hating house, a house that knows many a horrible butchery
of kin, a slaughter-house of men and a floor swimming with blood.

CHORUS
[1093]
The
stranger seems keen-scented as a hound; she is on the trail where she will
discover blood.

CASSANDRA
[1095]
 Here
is the evidence in which I put my trust! Behold those babies bewailing their
own butchery and their roasted flesh eaten by their father!

CHORUS
[1098]
Your fame
to read the future had reached our ears; but we have no need of prophets here.

CASSANDRA
[1100]
 Alas,
what can she be planning? What is this fresh woe she contrives here within,
what monstrous, monstrous horror, beyond love’s enduring, beyond all remedy?
And help stands far away!

CHORUS
[1105]
 These
prophesyings pass my comprehension; but those I understood — the whole city
rings with them.

CASSANDRA
[1107]
Ah,
damned woman, will you do this thing? Your husband, the partner of your bed,
when you have cheered him with the bath, will you — how shall I tell the end?
Soon it will be done. Now this hand, now that, she stretches forth!

CHORUS
[1112]
Not yet
do I comprehend; for now, after riddles, I am bewildered by dark oracles.

CASSANDRA
[1114]
Ah! Ah!
What apparition is this? Is it a net of death? No, it is a snare that shares
his bed, that shares the guilt of murder. Let the fatal pack, insatiable
against the race, raise a shout of jubilance over a victim accursed!

CHORUS
[1119]
What
Spirit of Vengeance is this that you bid raise its voice over this house? Your
words do not cheer me. Back to my heart surge the drops of my pallid blood,
even as when they drip from a mortal wound, ebbing away as life’s beams sink
low; and death comes speedily.

CASSANDRA
[1125]
 Ah,
ah, see there, see there! Keep the bull from his mate! She has caught him in
the robe and gores him with the crafty device of her black horn! He falls in a
vessel of water! It is of doom wrought by guile in a murderous bath that I am
telling you.

CHORUS
[1130]
 I
cannot boast that I am a keen judge of prophecies; but these, I think, spell
some evil. But from prophecies what word of good ever comes to mortals? Through
terms of evil their wordy arts bring men to know fear chanted in prophetic
strains.

CASSANDRA
[1136]
Alas, alas,
the sorrow of my ill-starred doom! For it is my own affliction, crowning the
cup, that I bewail. Ah, to what end did you bring me here, unhappy as I am? For
nothing except to die — and not alone. What else?

CHORUS
[1140]
 Frenzied
in soul you are, by some god possessed, and you wail in wild strains your own
fate, like that brown bird that never ceases making lament (ah me!), and in the
misery of her heart moans Itys, Itys, throughout all her days abounding in
sorrow, the nightingale.

CASSANDRA
[1146]
Ah, fate
of the clear-voiced nightingale! The gods clothed her in a winged form and gave
to her a sweet life without tears. But for me waits destruction by the
two-edged sword.

CHORUS
[1150]
 From
where come these vain pangs of prophecy that assail you? And why do you mold to
melody these terrors with dismal cries blended with piercing strains? How do
you know the bounds of the path of your  ill-boding prophecy?

CASSANDRA
[1156]
Ah, the
marriage, the marriage of Paris,
that destroyed his friends! Ah me, Scamander, my native stream! Upon your banks
in bygone days, unhappy maid, was I nurtured with fostering care; but now
by Cocytus and the banks of Acheron, I think, I soon must chant my prophecies.

CHORUS
[1162]
What
words are these you utter, words all too plain? A new-born child hearing them
could understand. I am smitten with a deadly pain, while, by reason of your
cruel fortune, you cry aloud your pitiful moans that break my heart to hear.