Agamemnon: Act III

Eurybates: Ye shrines and altars of the heavenly gods,Ye Lares of my fathers, after longAnd weary wanderings, scarce trusting yetMy longing eyes, I give ye grateful thanks.Pay now your vows which you have vowed to heaven,Ye Argive people; for behold, your king,The pride and glory of this land of Greece,Back to his father's house as victor comes.

Clytemnestra: Oh, joyful tidings that I long to hear!But where delays my lord, whom I with griefFor ten long years have waited? Doth the seaStill stay his course, or hath he gained the land?

Eurybates: Unharmed, by glory crowned, increased in praise,He hath set foot upon the long-sought shore.

Clytemnestra: Then hail this day with joy, and thank the godsWho, though their favoring aid was late bestowed,At last have smiled propitious on our cause.But tell me thou, does yet my brother live?Say, too, how fares my sister Helena?

Eurybates: If prayer and hope prevail, they yet survive;No surer tidings is it given to speakOf those who wander on the stormy sea.Scarce had the swollen highways of the deepReceived our fleet, when ship from kindred shipWas driven, and lost amid the gathering gloom.E'en Agamemnon's self in doubt and fearWent wandering upon the trackless waste,And suffered more from Neptune's buffetingsThan he had e'er endured in bloody war.And now, a humble victor, home he comes,With but a shattered remnant of his fleet.

Clytemnestra: But say what fate has swallowed up my ships,And scattered our great chieftains o'er the sea?

Eurybates: A sorry tale 'twould be: thou bid'st me mixThe bitter message with the sweet. But I,Alas, am sick at heart, and cannot tellFor very horror our most woeful tale.

Clytemnestra: But tell it even so; for he who shrinksFrom knowledge of his woe has greater fear.And ills half seen are worse than certainty.

Eurybates: When Troy lies smouldering 'neath our Grecian firesWe quickly lot the spoil, and seek the seaIn eager haste. And now our weary sidesAre easéd of the falchion's wonted load;Our shields along the vessels' lofty sternsUnheeded hang, and once again our hands,Long used to swords, are fitted to the oar;And all impatiently we wait the word.Then flashed from Agamemnon's ship the signThat bade us homeward speed, and clear and loudThe trumpet pealed upon our joyful ears;The flagship's gilded prow gleamed on ahead,The course directing for a thousand ships.A kindly breeze first stole into our sailsAnd urged us softly on; the tranquil wavesScarce rippled with the Zephyr's gentle breath;The sea was all a-glitter with the fleetWhich lit e'en while it hid the watery way.'Tis sweet to see the empty shores of Troy,The broad plains left in lonely solitude.The eager sailors ply the bending oars,Hands aiding sails, and move their sturdy armsWith rhythmic swing. The furrowed waters gleam,And sing along the sides, while rushing prowsBesprinkle all the sea with hoary spray.When fresher breezes fill our swelling sails,We cease from toil, and, stretched along the thwarts,We watch the far-off shores of Ilium,Fast fleeing as our vessels seaward fare;Or tell old tales of war: brave Hector's threats,His corpse dishonored, and again restoredTo purchased honors of the funeral pyre;And Priam sprinkling with his royal bloodThe sacred altar of Hercean Jove.Then to and fro amid the briny seaThe dolphins sport, and leap the heaving wavesWith arching backs; now race in circles wide,Now swim beside us in a friendly band,Now dash ahead or follow in our wake;Anon in wanton sport they smite our prows,And so our thousand rushing barks surround.Now sinks the shore from view, the spreading plains;And far-off Ida seems a misty cloud.And now, what but the sharpest eye can see,Troy's rising smoke blurs dim the distant sky.The sun was bringing weary mortals rest,And waning day was giving place to night;When clouds began to fill the western sky,And dim the luster of the sinking sun--The grim prognostic of a rising gale.Young night had spangled all the sky with stars,And empty sails hung languid on the masts;When low, foreboding sighings of the windSpring from our landward side; the hidden shoreResounds afar with warning mutterings;The rising waves anticipate the storm;The moon is blotted out, the stars are hid,The sea leaps skyward, and the sky is gone.Gloom broods o'er all, but not of night alone;For blinding mists add blackness to the night,And murky waves with murky sky contend.Then in concerted rush from every handThe winds fall roughly on the ravished sea,And heave its boiling billows from the depths;While east with west wind struggles, south with north.Each wields his wonted arms to lash the sea:The fierce Strymonian blast with rattling hailRoars on, and Libyan Auster heaps the wavesUpon the seething sands. Nor those aloneProvoke the strife: for raving Notus firstGrows big with bursting clouds and swells the waves;And boisterous Eurus shakes the Orient,The far Arabian realms and morning seas.What dire disaster did fierce Corus work,His dark face gleaming forth upon the deep?We thought the very heavens would be rent,The gods fall down from out the riven sky,And all revert to chaos as of old.The waves opposed the winds, the winds in turnHurled back the warring waves. Nor was the seaWithin itself contained; but, lifted high,It mingled with the streaming floods of heaven.Nor were we solaced in our dreadful plightBy open view and knowledge of our ills;For darkness like the murky night of StyxHedged in our view. Yet was this darkness rent,When flashing lightnings cleft the inky cloudsWith crashing bolts. Yet e'en this fearful gleamWas welcome to our eyes: so sweet it isTo those in evil plight to see their ills.The fleet assists its own destruction, too,Prow dashing hard on prow, and side on side;Now sinks it headlong in the yawning flood,And now, belched forth, it sees the air again.One plunges down, of its own weight compelled;Another, through its gaping side, invitesDestruction from the raging floods; a thirdIs smothered by the tenth and mightiest wave.Here idly floats a mangled, shattered thing,Of all its boastful decoration shorn;And there a ship sans sails and oars and all.No lofty mast with hanging spars remains,But, helpless hulks, the shattered vessels driftUpon the boundless sea. Amid such ills,Of what avail the hardy sailor's art?Cold horror holds our limbs. The sailors standIn dumb amaze, and all their tasks forget;While all, in abject terror, drop their oars,And turn their wretched souls to heaven for aid.Now (marvel of the fates!) with common vowsThe Greeks and Trojans supplicate the skies.Now Pyrrhus envies great Achilles' fate;Ulysses, Ajax'; Menelaüs, Hector's;And Priam seems to Agamemnon blest:Yea all who perished on the plains of Troy,Whose lot it was to die by human hand,Are counted blest of heaven, secure in fame,For they rest safely in the land they won."Shall winds and waves engulf in common fateThe faint of heart who nothing noble dare,And those brave souls who quit themselves like men?Must we for naught resign ourselves to death?O thou of gods who art not even yetWith these our evil fortunes satisfied,At last have pity on our woeful plight,Which Ilium itself would weep to see.If still thine anger holds, and 'tis decreedThat we of Greece must perish utterly,Why doom these Trojans, for whose sake we die,To share our fate? Allay the raging sea:For this our fleet bears Greeks and Trojans too."So prayed we, but in vain; our suppliant wordsWere swallowed by the raging storm. And lo,Another shape of death! For Pallas, armedWith those swift bolts her angry father wields,Essays what ruin dire her threatening spear,Her aegis set with stony Gorgon's head,And these her father's thunderbolts, can work.Unconquered by his ills, with daring soul,Bold Ajax struggles on. Him, shortening sailWith halyards strained, a falling thunderboltSmote full; again the goddess poised her boltWith hand far backward drawn, like Jove himself,And hurled it true with shock impetuous.Straight fell the bolt, and, piercing man and ship,It strewed them both in ruin on the sea.Still undismayed, he overtops the waves,All charred and blasted like some rugged cliff,And bravely breasts the wildly raging sea.Still gleaming with the lightning's lurid glare,He shines amid the blackness like a torchWhich sheds its beams afar upon the deep.At length a jutting rock he gains, and shoutsIn madness: "Now have I o'ercome the sea,The flames; 'tis sweet to conquer sky, and waves,The thunderbolts, and her who brandished them.I've braved the terrors of the god of war;With my sole arm I fronted Hector, huge,Nor did the darts of Phoebus frighten me.Those gods, together with their Phrygians,I set at naught; and shall I quake at thee?Thou hurl'st with weakling's hand another's bolts:But what if Jove himself--"When madly thus he dared blaspheme the gods,Great Neptune with his trident smote the rock,And whelmed its tottering bulk beneath the sea.So, falling with its fall, the madman liesBy earth and fire and billows overcome.But us, poor shipwrecked, hopeless mariners,A worse destruction waits. There is a reef,Low lying, treacherous with ragged shoals,Where false Caphereus hides his rocky footBeneath the whirling waters of the sea.Above this reef the billows heave and dash,And madly seethe with each recurring wave.High o'er this spot a frowning crag projects,Which views on either side the spreading sea.There distant lie thine own Pelopian shores,And there the curving Isthmus, deep withdrawn,Shielding the broad Aegean from the west.There blood-stained Lemnos looms; here Chalcis lies;And yonder wind-locked Aulis' peaceful port.This lofty cliff old Nauplius occupied,With hate inspired for Palamedes' sake.There his accurséd hand a beacon raisedAnd lured us onward to the fatal spot.Now hang our barks by jagged rocks transfixed,Or founder, wrecked and wrecking in the shoals;And where but now our vessels sought to land,They flee the land and choose the angry waves.With dawn the sea's destructive rage was spent,And full atonement had been made to Troy.Then came the sun again; and brightening dayRevealed the awful havoc of the night.

Clytemnestra: I know not which were better, grief or joy.I do rejoice to see my lord again,And yet my kingdom's losses counsel tears.O father Jove, at whose august commandThe sounding heavens quake, regard our race,And bid the angry gods be merciful.Let every head be decked with festal wreath,The flute resound, and at the stately shrineLet snowy victims fall in sacrifice.But lo, a grieving throng, with locks unkempt,The Trojan women come; and at their head,With step majestic, queenly, heaven inspired,Apollo's bride, with his own laurel tired.

Band of Trojan women: Alas, how bitter, yet how sweet a thing,This love of life we mortals cherish so!What madness, when the door stands open wideThat frees us from our ills, and death calls loudAnd welcomes us to everlasting rest!Who finds that refuge, fears no moreThese nameless terrors, these assaults,These insolent assaults of fate,And sidelong-glancing bolts of Jove.Deep peace of death!No frenzied burgher-throng to fear,No victor's threatening madness here;No wild seas ruffled by the blast;No hosts in serried battle massed,Where whirling clouds of dust discloseThe savage riders to their foes;No nation falling with its city's fall,'Mid smouldering battlement and crumbling wall;No wasting fires,No burning pyres,And all the horrors impious war inspires.They from the servile bonds of fateThis human life emancipate,Who fickle fortune dare to brave,And face the terrors of the grave;Who joyful view the joyless Styx,And dare their mortal span to fix.How like a king, how like a god on highIs he who faces death nor fears to die!In one dark night we saw our city doomed,When Doric fires the Dardan homes consumed;But not in battle, not by warlike arts,As once it fell beneath Alcides' darts.No son of Thetis dealt the blowWhich wrought our final overthrow,Nor his loved friend, Patroclus hight,When once, in borrowed armor dight,He put our Trojan chiefs to flight;Nor when Pelides' self gave o'erThe fierce resentment that he bore,And sped him forth on vengeance bent--Not even in such evils pent,Did Troy to cruel fortune bend,But struggled bravely to the end.Her bitter fate--for ten long years to stand,And fall at last by one vile trickster's hand.In memory still we see the monstrous bulkOf that pretended and most fatal gift,The Grecian horse, which we, too credulous,With our own hands into our city led.The noisy-footed monster stumbled oftUpon the threshold of the city gate,While in its roomy hold crouched kings and war.And we might well have turned their crafty artsTo work their own destruction. But alas,We neither saw nor heeded. OftentimesThe sound of clashing shields smote on our ears,And low and angry mutterings withinWhere Pyrrhus 'gainst the shrewd Ulysses strove.Now free from fear our Trojan youthCrowd round to touch the sacred cordsWith joyous hands. AstyanaxHere leads his youthful playmates on,While 'midst the maidens gaily comesThe maid Polyxena, foredoomedTo bleed upon Achilles' tomb.Mothers in festal garments bringTheir votive offerings to the gods,And sires press gaily round the shrines.Throughout the town all faces tellOne tale of joy; e'en Hecuba,Who, since her Hector's fatal pyre,Had never ceased her tears, was glad.But now, unhappy grief, what first,What last, dost thou prepare to weep?Our city walls in ruin laid,Though built by heavenly hands? our shrinesUpon their very gods consumed?Nay, nay; long since our weary eyesHave dried their tears for these. But nowWe weep, O father, king, for thee.We saw, with our own eyes we saw,The old man slain by Pyrrhus' impious hand,Whose scanty blood scarce stained the gleaming brand.

Cassandra: Restrain your tears which lingering time awaits,Ye Trojan dames; weep not for me and mine.Let each bewail her several woes; but IFor my own heavy grief have tears enough.

Band: Yet 'tis a balm of grief to knowThat our own tears with others' flow;More sharply gnaws the hidden careWhich we with others may not share:And thou, though strong of soul, inured to grief,Canst not in thine own weeping find relief.Though Philomel for Itys singHer sad, sweet notes in wakening spring;Though Procne, with insistent din,Bewail her husband's hidden sin;Not these, with all their passionate lament,Can voice the sorrows in thy bosom pent.Let Cycnus raise his dying song,And its soft, plaintive strains prolong;Let Halcyon mourn her Ceyx brave,A-flutter o'er the tossing wave;Let priests of tower-crowned CybeleTheir tears for Attis share with thee:Still would our tears in no such measure flow,For sufferings like these no limits know.

But why dost lay aside the sacred wool?Most by the wretched should the gods be feared.

Cassandra: But ills like mine o'erleap the bounds of fear.I'll supplicate the heavenly gods no more,For now am I beyond their power to harm,And I have drained to dregs the cup of fate.No country have I left, no sister, sire;For tombs and altars have my blood consumed.Where is that happy throng of brothers now?Departed all! And only weak old menRemain within the lonely palace wallsTo serve the wretched king; and these, alas,Throughout those stately chambered halls behold,Save Spartan Helen, none but widowed wives.And Hecuba, proud mother of a raceOf kings, herself the queen of Phrygia,Fecund for funeral pyres, became the mockOf fickle fate; and now in bestial form,Barks madly round the ruins of her home,Surviving Troy, son, husband, and herself.

Band: Why falls this sudden silence on her? SeeHer cheeks are pale, and fits of trembling fearPossess her frame; her locks in horror rise,And we can hear, though pent within her breast,The loud pulsations of her fluttering heart.Her glance uncertain wanders; and anonHer eyes seem backward turned into herself,Then fix again and harshly stare abroad.Now higher than her wont she lifts her headAnd walks with stately step; and now she strivesTo open her reluctant lips. At last,Though struggling still against th' inspiring god,The maddened priestess speaks with muttered words.

Cassandra: Why prick me on with fury's goads anew,Ye sacred slopes of high Parnassus? WhyMust I, insensate, prophesy afresh?Away, thou prophet god! I am not thine.Subdue the fires that smoulder in my breast.Whose doom yet waits my frenzied prophecy?Now Troy is fallen--must I still rave on,And speak unheeded words? Oh, where am I?The kindly light has fled, and deepest nightEnshrouds my face, and all the heavens lie wrappedIn deepest gloom. But see, with double sun,The day shines forth again; and doubled homesIn doubled Argos seem to stand. AgainI see Mount Ida's groves. The shepherd sitsAmid those awful goddesses to judge(Oh, fatal judgment!) twixt their rival charms.Ye mighty kings, I warn ye, fear the fruitOf stolen love; that rustic foundling soonShall overthrow your house.Beware the queen!Why does she madly in her woman's handThose naked weapons bear? Whom does she seekWith brandished battle-ax, though Spartan bred,Like some fierce warrior of the Amazons?What horrid vision next affronts mine eyes?A mighty Afric lion, king of beasts,Lies low, death-smitten by his cruel mate;While at his mangled neck a low-born beastGnaws greedily.Why do ye summon me,Saved only of my house, ye kindred shades?I'll follow thee, my father, buried deepBeneath the stones of Troy; and thee, O propOf Phrygia, the terror of the Greeks,I see, though not in brave and fair array,As once thou cam'st, still flushing with the glowOf burning ships; but with thy members tornAnd foully mangled by the dragging thongs.And thee, O Troïlus, I follow too,Alas, too quickly met with Peleus' son!I see thy face, my poor Deïphobus,Past recognition scarred. Is this the giftOf thy new wife?Ah me, 'tis sweet to goAlong the borders of the Stygian pool;To see the savage hound of Tartarus,The realms of greedy Dis, and Charon old,Whose dusky skiff shall bear two royal soulsAcross the murky Phlegethon today,The vanquished and the vanquisher. Ye shades,And thee, dread stream, by which the gods of heavenDo swear their straightest oaths, I pray ye both:Withdraw the curtain of your hidden realm,That so yon shadowy throng of PhrygiansMay look upon Mycenae's woes. Behold,Poor souls; the wheel of fortune backward turns.See, see! the squalid sisters come,Their bloody lashes brandishing,And smoking torches half consumed.A sickly pallor overspreadsTheir bloated cheeks; and dusky robesOf death begird their hollow loins.The gloomy night with fearsome criesResounds, and to my startled eyesDread sights appear: there lie the bonesOf that huge giant, far outstretched,Upon a slimy marsh's brinkAll white and rotting. Now I seeThat old man, wan with suffering,Forget awhile the mocking waves,Forget his burning thirst, to grieveFor this disaster hoveringAbout his house;But Dardanus exults to seeHis foeman's baleful destiny.

Band: Now has her rage prophetic spent itself,And fall'n away; like some devoted bull,Which sinks with tottering knees before the shrineBeneath the sacrificial axe's stroke.Let us support her ere she faint and fall.But see, our Agamemnon comes at lastTo greet his gods, with bay of victory crowned;And, all in festal garb, with glad accord,His consort welcomes her returning lord.