The Plays (complete)
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Aeschylus

The Plays of Aeschylus

Agamemnon
Eumendides
Prometheus Bound
The Choephori
The Persians
The Seven Against Thebes
The Suppliants

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

For offline reading, the complete set of pages is available for download from http://www.library.adelaide.edu.au/etext/a/a2/a2.zip

Aeschylus

Agamemnon

translated by E.D.A. Morshead

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

A WATCHMAN
CHORUS OF ARGIVE ELDERS
CLYTEMNESTRA, wife of AGAMEMNON
A HERALD
AGAMEMNON, King of Argos
CASSANDRA, daughter of Priam, and slave of AGAMEMNON
AEGISTHUS, son of Thyestes, cousin of AGAMEMNON
Servants, Attendants, Soldiers

(SCENE:—Before the palace of AGAMEMNON in Argos. In front of the palace there are statues of the gods, and altars prepared for sacrifice. It is night. On the roof of the palace can be discerned a WATCHMAN.)

WATCHMAN

I pray the gods to quit me of my toils,
To close the watch I keep, this livelong year;
For as a watch–dog lying, not at rest,
Propped on one arm, upon the palace–roof
Of Atreus’ race, too long, too well I know
The starry conclave of the midnight sky,
Too well, the splendours of the firmament,
The lords of light, whose kingly aspect shows—
What time they set or climb the sky in turn—
The year’s divisions, bringing frost or fire.

And now, as ever, am I set to mark
When shall stream up the glow of signal–flame,
The bale–fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale—
Troy town is ta’en: such issue holds in hope
She in whose woman’s breast beats heart of man.

Thus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,
Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited
By dreams—ah me!—for in the place of sleep
Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels
The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.

And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,
I medicine my soul with melody
Of trill or song—anon to tears I turn,
Wailing the woe that broods upon this home,
Not now by honour guided as of old—

But now at last fair fall the welcome hour
That sets me free, whene’er the thick night glow
With beacon–fire of hope deferred no more.
All hail!

(A beacon–light is seen reddening the distant sky.)

Fire of the night, that brings my spirit day,
Shedding on Argos light, and dance, and song,
Greetings to fortune, hail!

Let my loud summons ring within the ears
Of Agamemnon’s queen, that she anon
Start from her couch and with a shrill voice cry
A joyous welcome to the beacon–blaze,
For Ilion’s fall; such fiery message gleams
From yon high flame; and I, before the rest,
Will foot the lightsome measure of our joy;
For I can say, My master’s dice fell fair—
Behold! the triple sice, the lucky flame!
Now be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,
The hand of him restored, who rules our home:
Home—but I say no more: upon my tongue
Treads hard the ox o’ the adage.

Had it voice,
The home itself might soothliest tell its tale;
I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,
To others, nought remember nor discern.

(He withdraws. The CHORUS OF ARGIVE ELDERS enters, each leaning on a staff. During their song CLYTEMNESTRA appears in the background, kindling the altars.)

CHORUS (singing)

Ten livelong years have rolled away,
Since the twin lords of sceptred sway,
By Zeus endowed with pride of place,
The doughty chiefs of Atreus’ race,
Went forth of yore,
To plead with Priam, face to face,
Before the judgment–seat of War!

A thousand ships from Argive land
Put forth to bear the martial band,
That with a spirit stern and strong
Went out to right the kingdom’s wrong—
Pealed, as they went, the battle–song,
Wild as the vultures’ cry;
When o’er the eyrie, soaring high,
In wild bereaved agony,
Around, around, in airy rings,
They wheel with oarage of their wings,
But not the eyas–brood behold,
That called them to the nest of old;
But let Apollo from the sky,
Or Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,
The exile cry, the wail forlorn,
Of birds from whom their home is torn—
On those who wrought the rapine fell,

Heaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.
Even so doth Zeus, the jealous lord
And guardian of the hearth and board,
Speed Atreus’ sons, in vengeful ire,
’Gainst Paris—sends them forth on fire,
Her to buy back, in war and blood,
Whom one did wed but many woo’d!
And many, many, by his will,
The last embrace of foes shall feel,
And many a knee in dust be bowed,
And splintered spears on shields ring loud,
Of Trojan and of Greek, before
That iron bridal–feast be o’er!
But as he willed ’tis ordered all,
And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall—
Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine
Poured forth too late, the wrath divine
Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.

And we in grey dishonoured eld,
Feeble of frame, unfit were held
To join the warrior array
That then went forth unto the fray:
And here at home we tarry, fain
Our feeble footsteps to sustain,
Each on his staff—so strength doth wane,
And turns to childishness again.
For while the sap of youth is green,
And, yet unripened, leaps within,
The young are weakly as the old,
And each alike unmeet to hold
The vantage post of war!
And ah! when flower and fruit are o’er,
And on life’s tree the leaves are sere,
Age wendeth propped its journey drear,
As forceless as a child, as light
And fleeting as a dream of night
Lost in the garish day!
But thou, O child of Tyndareus,
Queen Clytemnestra, speak! and say
What messenger of joy to–day
Hath won thine ear? what welcome news,
That thus in sacrificial wise
E’en to the city’s boundaries
Thou biddest altar–fires arise?
Each god who doth our city guard,
And keeps o’er Argos watch and ward
From heaven above, from earth below—
The mighty lords who rule the skies,
The market’s lesser deities,
To each and all the altars glow,
Piled for the sacrifice!
And here and there, anear, afar,
Streams skyward many a beacon–star,
Conjur’d and charm’d and kindled well
By pure oil’s soft and guileless spell,
Hid now no more
Within the palace’ secret store.

O queen, we pray thee, whatsoe’er,
Known unto thee, were well revealed,
That thou wilt trust it to our ear,
And bid our anxious heart be healed!
That waneth now unto despair—
Now, waxing to a presage fair,
Dawns, from the altar, to scare
From our rent hearts the vulture Care.

strophe 1

List! for the power is mine, to chant on high
The chiefs’ emprise, the strength that omens gave!
List! on my soul breathes yet a harmony,
From realms of ageless powers, and strong to save!

How brother kings, twin lords of one command,
Led forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,
Urged on their way, with vengeful spear and brand,
By warrior–birds, that watched the parting hour.

Go forth to Troy, the eagles seemed to cry—
And the sea–kings obeyed the sky–kings’ word,
When on the right they soared across the sky,
And one was black, one bore a white tail barred.

High o’er the palace were they seen to soar,
Then lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,
Far from the fields that she should range no more,
Big with her unborn brood, a mother–hare.

(Ah woe and well–a–day! but be the issue fair!)

antistrophe 1

And one beheld, the soldier–prophet true,
And the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,
In the twy–coloured eagles straight he knew,
And spake the omen forth, for good and in.

Go forth, he cried, and Priam’s town shall fall.
Yet long the time shall be; and flock and herd,
The people’s wealth, that roam before the wall,
Shall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word,

But O beware! lest wrath in Heaven abide,
To dim the glowing battle–forge once more,
And mar the mighty curb of Trojan pride,
The steel of vengeance, welded as for war!

For virgin Artemis bears jealous hate
Against the royal house, the eagle–pair,
Who rend the unborn brood, insatiate—
Yea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare.

(Ah woe and well–a–day! but be the issue fair!)

epode

For well she loves—the goddess kind and mild—
The tender new–born cubs of lions bold,
Too weak to range—and well the sucking child
Of every beast that roams by wood and wold.

So to the Lord of Heaven she prayeth still,
"Nay, if it must be, be the omen true!
Yet do the visioned eagles presage ill;
The end be well, but crossed with evil too!"

Healer Apollo! be her wrath controll’d
Nor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,
To war against the Danaans and withhold
From the free ocean–waves their eager sails!

She craves, alas! to see a second life
Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice—
’Twixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,
And hate that knows not fear, and fell device.

At home there tarries like a lurking snake,
Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,
A wily watcher, passionate to slake,
In blood, resentment for a murdered child.

Such was the mighty warning, pealed of yore—
Amid good tidings, such the word of fear,
What time the fateful eagles hovered o’er
The kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.

(In strains like his, once more,
Sing woe and well–a–day! but be the issue fair!)

strophe 2

Zeus—if to The Unknown
That name of many names seem good—
Zeus, upon Thee I call.
Thro’ the mind’s every road
I passed, but vain are all,
Save that which names thee Zeus, the Highest One,
Were it but mine to cast away the load,
The weary load, that weighs my spirit down.

antistrophe 2

He that was Lord of old,
In full–blown pride of place and valour bold,
Hath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale told:
And he that next held sway,
By stronger grasp o’erthrown
Hath pass’d away!
And whoso now shall bid the triumph–chant arise
To Zeus, and Zeus alone,
He shall be found the truly wise.

strophe 3

’Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way
Of knowledge: He hath ruled,
Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.

In visions of the night, like dropping rain,
Descend the many memories of pain
Before the spirit’s sight: through tears and dole
Comes wisdom o’er the unwilling soul—
A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,
That holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!

antistrophe 3

And then the elder chief, at whose command
The fleet of Greece was manned,
Cast on the seer no word of hate,
But veered before the sudden breath of Fate—

Ah, weary while! for, ere they put forth sail,
Did every store, each minish’d vessel, fail,
While all the Achaean host
At Aulis anchored lay,
Looking across to Chalcis and the coast
Where refluent waters welter, rock, and sway;

strophe 4

And rife with ill delay
From northern Strymon blew the thwarting blast—
Mother of famine fell,
That holds men wand’ring still
Far from the haven where they fain would be!—
And pitiless did waste
Each ship and cable, rotting on the sea,
And, doubling with delay each weary hour,
Withered with hope deferred th’ Achaeans’ warlike flower.

But when, for bitter storm, a deadlier relief,
And heavier with ill to either chief,
Pleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,
The two Atreidae smote their sceptres on the plain,
And, striving hard, could not their tears restrain!

antistrophe 4

And then the elder monarch spake aloud—
Ill lot were mine, to disobey!
And ill, to smite my child, my household’s love and pride!
To stain with virgin blood a father’s hands, and slay
My daughter, by the altar’s side!
’Twixt woe and woe I dwell—
I dare not like a recreant fly,
And leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally;
For rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,
The virgin’s blood, shed forth to lull the adverse wind—
God send the deed be well!

strophe 5

Thus on his neck he took
Fate’s hard compelling yoke;
Then, in the counter–gale of will abhorr’d, accursed,
To recklessness his shifting spirit veered—
Alas! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst,
With evil craft men’s souls to sin hath ever stirred!

And so he steeled his heart—ah, well–a–day–
Aiding a war for one false woman’s sake,
His child to slay,
And with her spilt blood make
An offering, to speed the ships upon their way!

antistrophe 5

Lusting for war, the bloody arbiters
Closed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed
The girl–voice plead,
Pity me, Father! nor her prayers,
Nor tender, virgin years.
So, when the chant of sacrifice was done,
Her father bade the youthful priestly train
Raise her, like some poor kid, above the altar–stone,
From where amid her robes she lay
Sunk all in swoon away—
Bade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,
Her fair lips’ speech refrain,
Lest she should speak a curse on Atreus’ home and seed,

strophe 6

So, trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,
With one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye.
Those that should smite she smote
Fair, silent, as a pictur’d form, but fain
To plead, Is all forgot?
How oft those halls of old,
Wherein my sire high feast did hold,
Rang to the virginal soft strain,
When I, a stainless child,
Sang from pure lips and undefiled,
Sang of my sire, and all
His honoured life, and how on him should fall
Heaven’s highest gift and gain!

antistrophe 6

And then—but I beheld not, nor can tell,
What further fate befell:
But this is sure, that Calchas’ boding strain
Can ne’er be void or vain.
This wage from justice’ hand do sufferers earn,
The future to discern:
And yet—farewell, O secret of To–morrow!
Fore–knowledge is fore–sorrow.
Clear with the clear beams of the morrow’s sun,
The future presseth on.
Now, let the house’s tale, how dark soe’er,
Find yet an issue fair!—
So prays the loyal, solitary band
That guards the Apian land.

(They turn to CLYTEMNESTRA, who leaves the altars and comes forward.)

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O queen, I come in reverence of thy sway—
For, while the ruler’s kingly seat is void,
The loyal heart before his consort bends.
Now—be it sure and certain news of good,
Or the fair tidings of a flatt’ring hope,
That bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,
I, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.

CLYTEMNESTRA

As saith the adage, From the womb of Night
Spring forth, with promise fair, the young child Light.
Ay—fairer even than all hope my news—
By Grecian hands is Priam’s city ta’en!

LEADER

What say’st thou? doubtful heart makes treach’rous ear.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Hear then again, and plainly—Troy is ours!

LEADER

Thrills thro’ heart such joy as wakens tears.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ay, thro’ those tears thine eye looks loyalty.

LEADER

But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Go to; I have—unless the god has lied.

LEADER

Hath some night–vision won thee to belief?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Out on all presage of a slumb’rous soul!

LEADER

But wert thou cheered by Rumour’s wingless word?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Peace—thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.

LEADER

Say then, how long ago the city fell?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Even in this night that now brings forth the dawn.

LEADER

Yet who so swift could speed the message here?

CLYTEMNESTRA

From Ida’s top Hephaestus, lord of fire,
Sent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,
Beacon to beacon sped the courier–flame.
From Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,
Of Lemnos; thence unto the steep sublime
Of Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.
Thence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,
The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,
Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,
In golden glory, like some strange new sun,
Onward, and reached Macistus’ watching heights.
There, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,
The watcher sped the tidings on in turn,
Until the guard upon Messapius’ peak
Saw the far flame gleam on Euripus’ tide,
And from the high–piled heap of withered furze
Lit the new sign and bade the message on.
Then the strong light, far–flown and yet undimmed,
Shot thro’ the sky above Asopus’ plain,
Bright as the moon, and on Cithaeron’s crag
Aroused another watch of flying fire.
And there the sentinels no whit disowned,
But sent redoubled on, the hest of flame
Swift shot the light, above Gorgopis’ bay,
To Aegiplanctus’ mount, and bade the peak
Fail not the onward ordinance of fire.
And like a long beard streaming in the wind,
Full–fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,
And onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,
Beneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,
And thence leapt light unto Arachne’s peak,
The mountain watch that looks upon our town.
Thence to th’ Atreides’ roof—in lineage fair,
A bright posterity of Ida’s fire.
So sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,
Flame after flame, along the course ordained,
And lo! the last to speed upon its way
Sights the end first, and glows unto the goal.
And Troy is ta’en, and by this sign my lord
Tells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.

LEADER

To heaven, O queen, will I upraise new song:
But, wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear
From first to last the marvel of the tale.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Think you—this very morn—the Greeks in Troy,
And loud therein the voice of utter wail!
Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,
And look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.
So in the twofold issue of the strife
Mingle the victor’s shout, the captives’ moan.
For all the conquered whom the sword has spared
Cling weeping—some unto a brother slain,
Some childlike to a nursing father’s form,
And wail the loved and lost, the while their neck
Bows down already ’neath the captive’s chain.
And lo! the victors, now the fight is done,
Goaded by restless hunger, far and wide
Range all disordered thro’ the town, to snatch
Such victual and such rest as chance may give
Within the captive halls that once were Troy—
Joyful to rid them of the frost and dew,
Wherein they couched upon the plain of old—
Joyful to sleep the gracious night all through,
Unsummoned of the watching sentinel.
Yet let them reverence well the city’s gods,
The lords of Troy, tho’ fallen, and her shrines;
So shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.
Yea, let no craving for forbidden gain
Bid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.
For we need yet, before the race be won,
Homewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.
For should the host wax wanton ere it come,
Then, tho’the sudden blow of fate be spared,
Yet in the sight of gods shall rise once more
The great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.
Now, hearing from this woman’s mouth of mine,
The tale and eke its warning, pray with me,
Luck sway the scale, with no uncertain poise,
For my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys.

LEADER

A gracious word thy woman’s lips have told,
Worthy a wise man’s utterance, O my queen;
Now with clear trust in thy convincing tale
I set me to salute the gods with song,
Who bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain.

(CLYTEMNESTRA goes into the palace.)

CHORUS (singing)

Zeus, Lord of heaven! and welcome night
Of victory, that hast our might
With all the glories crowned!
On towers of Ilion, free no more,
Hast flung the mighty mesh of war,
And closely girt them round,
Till neither warrior may ’scape,
Nor stripling lightly overleap
The trammels as they close, and close,
Till with the grip of doom our foes
In slavery’s coil are bound!

Zeus, Lord of hospitality,
In grateful awe I bend to thee—
’Tis thou hast struck the blow!
At Alexander, long ago,
We marked thee bend thy vengeful bow,
But long and warily withhold
The eager shaft, which, uncontrolled
And loosed too soon or launched too high,
Had wandered bloodless through the sky.

strophe 1

Zeus, the high God!—whate’er be dim in doubt,
This can our thought track out—
The blow that fells the sinner is of God,
And as he wills, the rod
Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,
The gods list not to hold
A reckoning with him whose feet oppress
The grace of holiness—
An impious word! for whenso’er the sire
Breathed forth rebellious fire—
What time his household overflowed the measure
Of bliss and health and treasure—
His children’s children read the reckoning plain,
At last, in tears and pain.
On me let weal that brings no woe be sent,
And therewithal, content!
Who spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power
Shall be to him a tower,
To guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot,
Where all things are forgot.

antistrophe 1

Lust drives him on—lust, desperate and wild,
Fate’s sin–contriving child—
And cure is none; beyond concealment clear,
Kindles sin’s baleful glare.
As an ill coin beneath the wearing touch
Betrays by stain and smutch
Its metal false—such is the sinful wight.
Before, on pinions light,
Fair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,
While home and kin make moan
Beneath the grinding burden of his crime;
Till, in the end of time,
Cast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer
To powers that will not hear.

And such did Paris come
Unto Atreides’ home,
And thence, with sin and shame his welcome to repay,
Ravished the wife away—

strophe 2

And she, unto her country and her kin
Leaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships,
And bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,
And overbold in sin,
Went fleetly thro’ the gates, at midnight hour.
Oft from the prophets’ lips
Moaned out the warning and the wail—Ah woe!
Woe for the home, the home! and for the chieftains, woe!
Woe for the bride–bed, warm
Yet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form
Of her who loved her lord, awhile ago
And woe! for him who stands
Shamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands
That find her not, and sees, yet will not see,
That she is far away!
And his sad fancy, yearning o’er the sea,
Shall summon and recall
Her wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.
And sad with many memories,
The fair cold beauty of each sculptured face—
And all to hatefulness is turned their grace,
Seen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes!

antistrophe 2

And when the night is deep,
Come visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain
Of hopings vain—
Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight
Has seen its old delight,
When thro’ the grasps of love that bid it stay
It vanishes away
On silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.

Such are the sights, the sorrows fell,
About our hearth—and worse, whereof I may not tell.
But, all the wide town o’er,
Each home that sent its master far away
From Hellas’ shore,
Feels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss, to–day.
For, truth to say,
The touch of bitter death is manifold!
Familiar was each face, and dear as life,
That went unto the war,
But thither, whence a warrior went of old,
Doth nought return—
Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn!

strophe 3

For Ares, lord of strife,
Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold,
War’s money–changer, giving dust for gold,
Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,
Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,
Light to the band, but heavy to the soul;
Yea, fills the light urn full
With what survived the flame—
Death’s dusty measure of a hero’s frame!

Alas! one cries, and yet alas again!
Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear,
And hath not left his peer!
Ah woe! another moans—my spouse is slain,
The death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,
Slain for a woman’s sin, a false wife’s shame!
Such muttered words of bitter mood
Rise against those who went forth to reclaim;
Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th’ Atreides’ name.

And others, far beneath the Ilian wall,
Sleep their last sleep—the goodly chiefs and tall,
Couched in the foeman’s land, whereon they gave
Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.

antistrophe 3

Therefore for each and all the city’s breast
Is heavy with a wrath supprest,
As deeply and deadly as a curse more loud
Flung by the common crowd:
And, brooding deeply, doth my soul await
Tidings of coming fate,
Buried as yet in darkness’ womb.
For not forgetful is the high gods’ doom
Against the sons of carnage: all too long
Seems the unjust to prosper and be strong,
Till the dark Furies come,
And smite with stern reversal all his home,
Down into dim obstruction—he is gone,
And help and hope, among the lost, is none!

O’er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,
Impends a woe condign;
The vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame,
Sped from the hand divine.
This bliss be mine, ungrudged of God, to feel—
To tread no city to the dust,
Nor see my own life thrust
Down to a glave’s estate beneath another’s heel!

epode

Behold, throughout the city wide
Have the swift feet of Rumour hied,
Roused by the joyful flame:
But is the news they scatter, sooth?
Or haply do they give for truth
Some cheat which heaven doth frame?
A child were he and all unwise,
Who let his heart with joy be stirred.
To see the beacon–fires arise,
And then, beneath some thwarting word,
Sicken anon with hope deferred.
The edge of woman’s insight still
Good news from true divideth ill;
Light rumours leap within the bound
Then fences female credence round,
But, lightly born, as lightly dies
The tale that springs of her surmise.

(Several days are assumed to have elapsed.)

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Soon shall we know whereof the bale–fires tell,
The beacons, kindled with transmitted flame;
Whether, as well I deem, their tale is true,
Or whether like some dream delusive came
The welcome blaze but to befool our soul.
For lo! I see a herald from the shore
Draw hither, shadowed with the olive–wreath—
And thirsty dust, twin–brother of the clay,
Speaks plain of travel far and truthful news—
No dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,
Fitfully kindled from the mountain pyre;
But plainlier shall his voice say, All is well,
Or—but away, forebodings adverse, now,
And on fair promise fair fulfilment come!
And whoso for the state prays otherwise,
Himself reap harvest of his ill desire!

(A HERALD enters. He is an advance messenger from AGAMEMNON’S forces, which have just landed.)

HERALD

O land of Argos, fatherland of mine!
To thee at last, beneath the tenth year’s sun,
My feet return; the bark of my emprise,
Tho’ one by one hope’s anchors broke away,
Held by the last, and now rides safely here.
Long, long my soul despaired to win, in death,
Its longed–for rest within our Argive land:
And now all hail, O earth, and hail to thee,
New–risen sun! and hail our country’s God,
High–ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,
Whose arrows smote us once—smite thou no more!
Was not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,
O king Apollo, by Scamander’s side?
Turn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now
And hail, all gods who rule the street and mart
And Hermes hail! my patron and my pride,
Herald of heaven, and lord of heralds here!
And Heroes, ye who sped us on our way—
To one and all I cry, Receive again
With grace such Argives as the spear has spared.

Ah, home of royalty, beloved halls,
And solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn!
Benign as erst, with sun–flushed aspect greet
The king returning after many days.
For as from night flash out the beams of day,
So out of darkness dawns a light, a king,
On you, on Argos—Agamemnon comes.
Then hail and greet him well I such meed befits
Him whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy
With the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong—
And smote the plain, smote down to nothingness
Each altar, every shrine; and far and wide
Dies from the whole land’s face its offspring fair.
Such mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy—
Our lord and monarch, Atreus’ elder son,
And comes at last with blissful honour home;
Highest of all who walk on earth to–day—
Not Paris nor the city’s self that paid
Sin’s price with him, can boast, Whate’er befall,
The guerdon we have won outweighs it all.
But at Fate’s judgment–seat the robber stands
Condemned of rapine, and his prey is torn
Forth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped
A bloody harvest of his home and land
Gone down to death, and for his guilt and lust
His father’s race pays double in the dust.

LEADER

Hail, herald of the Greeks, new–come from war.

HERALD

All hail! not death itself can fright me now.

LEADER

Was thine heart wrung with longing for thy land?

HERALD

So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.

LEADER

On you too then this sweet distress did fall—

HERALD

How say’st thou? make me master of thy word.

LEADER

You longed for us who pined for you again.

HERALD

Craved the land us who craved it, love for love?

LEADER

Yea, till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.

HERALD

Whence thy despair, that mars the army’s joy?

LEADER

Sole cure of wrong is silence, saith the saw.

HERALD

Thy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men?

LEADER

Death had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.

HERALD

’Tis true; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,
These many years, some chances issued fair,
And some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.
But who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,
Thro’ time’s whole tenor an unbroken weal?
I could a tale unfold of toiling oars,
Ill rest, scant landings on a shore rock–strewn,
All pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.
And worse and hatefuller our woes on land;
For where we couched, close by the foeman’s wall,
The river–plain was ever dank with dews,
Dropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,
A curse that clung unto our sodden garb,
And hair as horrent as a wild beast’s fell.
Why tell the woes of winter, when the birds
Lay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida’s snow?
Or summer’s scorch, what time the stirless wave
Sank to its sleep beneath the noon–day sun?
Why mourn old woes? their pain has passed away;
And passed away, from those who fell, all care,
For evermore, to rise and live again.
Why sum the count of death, and render thanks
For life by moaning over fate malign?
Farewell, a long farewell to all our woes!
To us, the remnant of the host of Greece,
Comes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe;
Thus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,
Like him far–fleeted over sea and land.
The Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy,
And in the temples of the gods of Greece
Hung up these spoils, a shining sign to Time.
Let those who learn this legend bless aright
The city and its chieftains, and repay
The meed of gratitude to Zeus who willed
And wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.

LEADER

Thy words o’erbear my doubt: for news of good,
The ear of age hath ever youth enow:
But those within and Clytemnestra’s self
Would fain hear all; glad thou their ears and mine.

(CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the palace.)

CLYTEMNESTRA

That night, when first the fiery courier came,
In sign that Troy is ta’en and razed to earth,
So wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,
That I was chidden—Hath the beacon watch
Made sure unto thy soul the sack of Troy?
A very woman thou, whose heart leaps light
At wandering rumours!—and with words like these
They showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.
Yet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,
And, in the strain they held for feminine,
Went heralds thro’ the city, to and fro,
With voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy;
And in each fane they lit and quenched with wine
The spicy perfumes fading in the flame.
All is fulfilled: I spare your longer tale—
The king himself anon shall tell me all.

Remains to think what honour best may greet
My lord, the majesty of Argos, home.
What day beams fairer on a woman’s eyes
Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide,
To hail her lord, heaven–shielded, home from war?
This to my husband, that he tarry not,
But turn the city’s longing into joy!
Yea, let him come, and coming may he find
A wife no other than he left her, true
And faithful as a watch–dog to his home,
His foemen’s foe, in all her duties leal,
Trusty to keep for ten long years unmarred
The store whereon he set his master–seal.
Be steel deep–dyed, before ye look to see
Ill joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me!

HERALD

’Tis fairly said: thus speaks a noble dame,
Nor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast.

(CLYTEMNESTRA withdraws again into the palace.)

LEADER

So has she spoken—be it yours to learn
By clear interpreters her specious word.
Turn to me, herald—tell me if anon
The second well–loved lord of Argos comes?
Hath Menelaus safely sped with you?

HERALD

Alas—brief boon unto my friends it were,
To flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair!

LEADER

Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst—
Too plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.

HERALD

The hero and his bark were rapt away
Far from the Grecian fleet; ’tis truth I say.

LEADER

Whether in all men’s sight from Ilion borne,
Or from the fleet by stress of weather torn?

HERALD

Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,
And one short word hath told long woes aright.

LEADER

But say, what now of him each comrade saith?
What their forebodings, of his life or death?

HERALD

Ask me no more: the truth is known to none,
Save the earth–fostering, all–surveying Sun.

LEADER

Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven?
How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?

HERALD

Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow’s tale
The day of blissful news. The gods demand
Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude.
If one as herald came with rueful face
To say, The curse has fallen, and the host
Gone down to death; and one wide wound has reached
The city’s heart, and out of many homes
Many are cast and consecrate to death,
Beneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,
The bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom—
If such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,
’Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.
But—coming as he comes who bringeth news
Of safe return from toil, and issues fair,
To men rejoicing in a weal restored—
Dare I to dash good words with ill, and say
For fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,
Now swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,
Wasting the Argives worn with toil and war.
Night and great horror of the rising wave
Came o’er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace
Clashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow
Thro’ scudding drifts of spray and raving storm
Vanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.
And when at length the sun rose bright, we saw
Th’ Aegaean sea–field flecked with flowers of death,
Corpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.
For us indeed, some god, as well I deem,
No human power, laid hand upon our helm,
Snatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,
And brought our bark thro’all, unharmed in hull:
And saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,
So that no surge should gulf us deep in brine,
Nor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.

So ’scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,
But, under day’s white light, mistrustful all
Of fortune’s smile, we sat and brooded deep,
Shepherds forlorn of thoughts that wandered wild
O’er this new woe; for smitten was our host,
And lost as ashes scattered from the pyre.
Of whom if any draw his life–breath yet,
Be well assured, he deems of us as dead,
As we of him no other fate forebode.
But heaven save all! If Menelaus live,
He will not tarry, but will surely come:
Therefore if anywhere the high sun’s ray
Descries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,
Who wills not yet to wipe his race away,
Hope still there is that homeward he may wend.
Enough—thou hast the truth unto the end.

(The HERALD departs.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

Say, from whose lips the presage fell?
Who read the future all too well,
And named her, in her natal hour,
Helen, the bride with war for dower
’Twas one of the Invisible,
Guiding his tongue with prescient power.
On fleet, and host, and citadel,
War, sprung from her, and death did lour,
When from the bride–bed’s fine–spun veil
She to the Zephyr spread her sail.
Strong blew the breeze—the surge closed oer
The cloven track of keel and oar,
But while she fled, there drove along,
Fast in her wake, a mighty throng—
Athirst for blood, athirst for war,
Forward in fell pursuit they sprung,
Then leapt on Simois’ bank ashore,
The leafy coppices among—
No rangers, they, of wood and field,
But huntsmen of the sword and shield.

antistrophe 1

Heaven’s jealousy, that works its will,
Sped thus on Troy its destined ill,
Well named, at once, the Bride and Bane;
And loud rang out the bridal strain;
But they to whom that song befell
Did turn anon to tears again;
Zeus tarries, but avenges still
The husband’s wrong, the household’s stain!
He, the hearth’s lord, brooks not to see
Its outraged hospitality.

Even now, and in far other tone,
Troy chants her dirge of mighty moan,
Woe upon Paris, woe and hate!
Who wooed his country’s doom for mate—
This is the burthen of the groan,
Wherewith she wails disconsolate
The blood, so many of her own
Have poured in vain, to fend her fate;
Troy! thou hast fed and freed to roam
A lion–cub within thy home!

strophe 2

A suckling creature, newly ta’en
From mother’s teat, still fully fain
Of nursing care; and oft caressed,
Within the arms, upon the breast,
Even as an infant, has it lain;
Or fawns and licks, by hunger pressed,
The hand that will assuage its pain;
In life’s young dawn, a well–loved guest,
A fondling for the children’s play,
A joy unto the old and grey.

antistrophe 2

But waxing time and growth betrays
The blood–thirst of the lion–race,
And, for the house’s fostering care,
Unbidden all, it revels there,
And bloody recompense repays—
Rent flesh of kine, its talons tare:
A mighty beast, that slays, and slays,
And mars with blood the household fair,
A God–sent pest invincible,
A minister of fate and hell.

strophe 3

Even so to Ilion’s city came by stealth
A spirit as of windless seas and skies,
A gentle phantom–form of joy and wealth,
With love’s soft arrows speeding from its eyes—
Love’s rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in subtle wise.

Ah, well–a–day! the bitter bridal–bed,
When the fair mischief lay by Paris’ side!
What curse on palace and on people sped
With her, the Fury sent on Priam’s pride,
By angered Zeus! what tears of many a widowed bride!

antistrophe 3

Long, long ago to mortals this was told,
How sweet security and blissful state
Have curses for their children—so men hold—
And for the man of all–too prosperous fate
Springs from a bitter seed some woe insatiate.

Alone, alone, I deem far otherwise;
Not bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,
From which that after–growth of ill doth rise!
Woe springs from wrong, the plant is like the seed—
While Right, in honour’s house, doth its own likeness breed.

strophe 4

Some past impiety, some grey old crime,
Breeds the young curse, that wantons in our ill,
Early or late, when haps th’appointed time—
And out of light brings power of darkness still,
A master—fiend, a foe, unseen, invincible;

A pride accursed, that broods upon the race
And home in which dark Ate holds her sway—
Sin’s child and Woe’s, that wears its parents’ face;

antistrophe 4

While Right in smoky cribs shines clear as day,
And decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous way.

From gilded halls, that hands polluted raise,
Right turns away with proud averted eyes,
And of the wealth, men stamp amiss with praise,
Heedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,
And to Fate’s goal guides all, in its appointed wise.

(AGAMEMNON enters, riding in a chariot and accompanied by a great procession. CASSANDRA follows in another chariot.
The CHORUS sings its welcome.)

Hail to thee, chief of Atreus’ race,
Returning proud from Troy subdued!
How shall I greet thy conquering face?
How nor a fulsome praise obtrude,
Nor stint the meed of gratitude?
For mortal men who fall to ill
Take little heed of open truth,
But seek unto its semblance still:
The show of weeping and of ruth
To the forlorn will all men pay,
But, of the grief their eyes display,
Nought to the heart doth pierce its way.
And, with the joyous, they beguile
Their lips unto a feigned smile,
And force a joy, unfelt the while;
But he who as a shepherd wise
Doth know his flock, can ne’er misread
Truth in the falsehood of his eyes,
Who veils beneath a kindly guise
A lukewarm love in deed.
And thou, our leader—when of yore
Thou badest Greece go forth to war
For Helen’s sake—I dare avow
That then I held thee not as now;
That to my vision thou didst seem
Dyed in the hues of disesteem.
I held thee for a pilot ill,
And reckless, of thy proper will,
Endowing others doomed to die
With vain and forced audacity!
Now from my heart, ungrudgingly,
To those that wrought, this word be said—
Well fall the labour ye have sped—
Let time and search, O king, declare
What men within thy city’s bound
Were loyal to the kingdom’s care,
And who were faithless found.

AGAMEMNON (still standing in the chariot)

First, as is meet, a king’s All–hail be said
To Argos, and the gods that guard the land—
Gods who with me availed to speed us home,
With me availed to wring from Priam’s town
The due of justice. In the court of heaven
The gods in conclave sat and judged the cause,
Not from a pleader’s tongue, and at the close,
Unanimous into the urn of doom
This sentence gave, On Ilion and her men,
Death: and where hope drew nigh to pardon’s urn
No hand there was to cast a vote therein.
And still the smoke of fallen Ilion
Rises in sight of all men, and the flame
Of Ate’s hecatomb is living yet,
And where the towers in dusty ashes sink,
Rise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed
For this must all men pay unto the gods
The meed of mindful hearts and gratitude:
For by our hands the meshes of revenge
Closed on the prey, and for one woman’s sake
Troy trodden by the Argive monster lies—
The foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall,
What time with autumn sank the Pleiades.
Yea, o’er the fencing wall a lion sprang
Ravening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.

Such prelude spoken to the gods in full,
To you I turn, and to the hidden thing
Whereof ye spake but now: and in that thought
I am as you, and what ye say, say I.
For few are they who have such inborn grace,
As to look up with love, and envy not,
When stands another on the height of weal.
Deep in his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,
Her poison lurking doth enhance his load;
For now beneath his proper woes he chafes,
And sighs withal to see another’s weal.

I speak not idly, but from knowledge sure—
There be who vaunt an utter loyalty,
That is but as the ghost of friendship dead,
A shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.
One only—he who went reluctant forth
Across the seas with me—Odysseus—he
Was loyal unto me with strength and will,
A trusty trace–horse bound unto my car.
Thus—be he yet beneath the light of day,
Or dead, as well I fear—I speak his praise.
Lastly, whate’er be due to men or gods,

With joint debate, in public council held,
We will decide, and warily contrive
That all which now is well may so abide:
For that which haply needs the healer’s art,
That will we medicine, discerning well
If cautery or knife befit the time.

Now, to my palace and the shrines of home,
I will pass in, and greet you first and fair,
Ye gods, who bade me forth, and home again—
And long may Victory tarry in my train!

(CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the palace, followed by maidens bearing crimson robes.)

CLYTEMNESTRA

Old men of Argos, lieges of our realm,
Shame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see
The love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear
Dies at the last from hearts of human kind.
From mine own soul and from no alien lips,
I know and will reveal the life I bore.
Reluctant, through the lingering livelong years,
The while my lord beleaguered Ilion’s wall.

First, that a wife sat sundered from her lord,
In widowed solitude, was utter woe
And woe, to hear how rumour’s many tongues
All boded evil—woe, when he who came
And he who followed spake of ill on ill,
Keening Lost, lost, all lost! thro’ hall and bower.
Had this my husband met so many wounds,
As by a thousand channels rumour told,
No network e’er was full of holes as he.
Had he been slain, as oft as tidings came
That he was dead, he well might boast him now
A second Geryon of triple frame,
With triple robe of earth above him laid—
For that below, no matter—triply dead,
Dead by one death for every form he bore.
And thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,
Oft for self–slaughter had I slung the noose,
But others wrenched it from my neck away.
Hence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,
The pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,
Stands not beside us now, as he should stand.
Nor marvel thou at this: he dwells with one
Who guards him loyally; ’tis Phocis’ king,
Strophius, who warned me erst, Bethink thee, queen,
What woes of doubtful issue well may fall
Thy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,
While here a populace uncurbed may cry,
"Down witk the council, down!" bethink thee too,
’Tis the world’s way to set a harder heel
On fallen power.

For thy child’s absence then
Such mine excuse, no wily afterthought.
For me, long since the gushing fount of tears
Is wept away; no drop is left to shed.
Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,
Weeping, the bale–fires, piled for thy return,
Night after night unkindled. If I slept,
Each sound—the tiny humming of a gnat,
Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams
Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,
Thrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.

All this I bore, and now, released from woe,
I hail my lord as watch–dog of a fold,
As saving stay–rope of a storm–tossed ship,
As column stout that holds the roof aloft,
As only child unto a sire bereaved,
As land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,
As sunshine fair when tempest’s wrath is past,
As gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.
So sweet it is to ’scape the press of pain.
With such salute I bid my husband hail
Nor heaven be wroth therewith! for long and hard
I bore that ire of old.

Sweet lord, step forth,
Step from thy car, I pray—nay, not on earth
Plant the proud foot, O king, that trod down Troy!
Women! why tarry ye, whose task it is
To spread your monarch’s path with tapestry?
Swift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,
That justice lead him to a home, at last,
He scarcely looked to see.

(The attendant women spread the tapestry.)

For what remains,
Zeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand
To work as right and as the gods command.

AGAMEMNON (still in the chariot)

Daughter of Leda, watcher o’er my home,
Thy greeting well befits mine absence long,
For late and hardly has it reached its end.
Know, that the praise which honour bids us crave,
Must come from others’ lips, not from our own:
See too that not in fashion feminine
Thou make a warrior’s pathway delicate;
Not unto me, as to some Eastern lord,
Bowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.
Strew not this purple that shall make each step
An arrogance; such pomp beseems the gods,
Not me. A mortal man to set his foot
On these rich dyes? I hold such pride in fear,
And bid thee honour me as man, not god.
Fear not—such footcloths and all gauds apart,
Loud from the trump of Fame my name is blown;
Best gift of heaven it is, in glory’s hour,
To think thereon with soberness: and thou—
Bethink thee of the adage, Call none blest
Till peaceful death have crowned a life of weal.
’Tis said: I fain would fare unvexed by fear.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Nay, but unsay it—thwart not thou my will!

AGAMEMNON

Know, I have said, and will not mar my word.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Was it fear made this meekness to the gods?

AGAMEMNON

If cause be cause, ’tis mine for this resolve.

CLYTEMNESTRA

What, think’st thou, in thy place had Priam done?

AGAMEMNON

He surely would have walked on broidered robes.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Then fear not thou the voice of human blame.

AGAMEMNON

Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.

AGAMEMNON

War is not woman’s part, nor war of words.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Yet happy victors well may yield therein.

AGAMEMNON

Dost crave for triumph in this petty strife?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Yield; of thy grace permit me to prevail!

AGAMEMNON

Then, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose
Swiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot;
And stepping thus upon the sea’s rich dye,
I pray, Let none among the gods look down
With jealous eye on me—reluctant all,
To trample thus and mar a thing of price,
Wasting the wealth of garments silver–worth.
Enough hereof: and, for the stranger maid,
Lead her within, but gently: God on high
Looks graciously on him whom triumph’s hour
Has made not pitiless. None willingly
Wear the slave’s yoke—and she, the prize and flower
Of all we won, comes hither in my train,
Gift of the army to its chief and lord.
—Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,
I will pass in on purples to my home.

(He descends from the chariot, and moves towards the palace.)

CLYTEMNESTRA

A Sea there is—and who shall stay its springs?
And deep within its breast, a mighty store,
Precious as silver, of the purple dye,
Whereby the dipped robe doth its tint renew.
Enough of such, O king, within thy halls
There lies, a store that cannot fail; but I—
I would have gladly vowed unto the gods
Cost of a thousand garments trodden thus,
(Had once the oracle such gift required)

Contriving ransom for thy life preserved.
For while the stock is firm the foliage climbs,
Spreading a shade, what time the dog–star glows;
And thou, returning to thine hearth and home,
Art as a genial warmth in winter hours,
Or as a coolness, when the lord of heaven
Mellows the juice within the bitter grape.
Such boons and more doth bring into a home
The present footstep of its proper lord.
Zeus, Zeus, Fulfilment’s lord! my vows fulfil,
And whatsoe’er it be, work forth thy will!

(She follows AGAMEMNON into the palace.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

Wherefore for ever on the wings of fear
Hovers a vision drear
Before my boding heart? a strain,
Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,
Oracular of pain.
Not as of old upon my bosom’s throne
Sits Confidence, to spurn
Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.
Old, old and grey long since the time has grown,
Which saw the linked cables moor
The fleet, when erst it came to Ilion’s sandy shore;

antistrophe 1

And now mine eyes and not another’s see
Their safe return.

Yet none the less in me
The inner spirit sings a boding song,
Self–prompted, sings the Furies’ strain—
And seeks, and seeks in vain,
To hope and to be strong!

Ah! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,
Are these wild throbbings of my heart and breast—
Yea, of some doom they tell—
Each pulse, a knell.
Lief, lief I were, that all
To unfulfilment’s hidden realm might fall.

strophe 2

Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,
Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied—
Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,
Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,
The gales that waft our bark on Fortune’s tide!
Swiftly we sail, the sooner an to drive
Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.
Then if the hand of caution warily
Sling forth into the sea
Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,
From the deep death it saves the bark: even so,
Doom–laden though it be, once more may rise
His household, who is timely wise.

How oft the famine–stricken field
Is saved by God’s large gift, the new year’s yield!

antistrophe 2

But blood of man once spilled,
Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain,—
Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.
So Zeus hath willed:

Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled
To bring man from the dead: the hand divine
Did smite himself with death—a warning and a sign—

Ah me! if Fate, ordained of old,
Held not the will of gods constrained, controlled,
Helpless to us—ward, and apart—
Swifter than speech my heart
Had poured its presage out!
Now, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,
’Tis hopeless to unfold
Truth, from fear’s tangled skein; and, yearning to proclaim
Its thought, my soul is prophecy and flame.

(CLYTEMNESTRA comes out of the palace and addresses CASSANDRA, who has remained motionless in her chariot.)

CLYTEMNESTRA

Get thee within thou too, Cassandra, go!
For Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants
To share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,
Beside the altar of his guardianship,
Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still?
Step from the car; Alcmena’s son, ’tis said,
Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.
Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befall,
’Tis a fair chance to serve within a home
Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,
To whom wealth’s harvest came beyond his hope,
Is as a lion to his slaves, in all
Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.
Pass in: thou hearest what our ways will be.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Clear unto thee, O maid, is her command,
But thou—within the toils of Fate thou art—
If such thy will, I urge thee to obey;
Yet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.

CLYTEMNESTRA

I wot—unless like swallows she doth use
Some strange barbarian tongue from oversea—
My words must speak persuasion to her soul.

LEADER

Obey: there is no gentler way than this.
Step from the car’s high seat and follow her.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Truce to this bootless waiting here without!
I will not stay: beside the central shrine
The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire—
Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.
Thou—if thou reckest aught of my command,
’Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut
From these my words, let thy barbarian hand
Fulfil by gesture the default of speech.

LEADER

No native is she, thus to read thy words
Unaided: like some wild thing of the wood,
New–trapped, behold! she shrinks and glares on thee.

CLYTEMNESTRA

’Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,
Since she beheld her city sink in fire,
And hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until
In foam and blood her wrath be champed away.
See ye to her; unqueenly ’tis for me,
Unheeded thus to cast away my words.

(CLYTEMNESTRA enters the palace.)

LEADER

But with me pity sits in anger’s place.
Poor maiden, come thou from the car; no way
There is but this—take up thy servitude.

CASSANDRA (chanting)

Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou
Apollo, Apollo!

LEADER

Peace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,
Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.

CASSANDRA (chanting)

Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou
Apollo, Apollo!

LEADER

Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,
Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.

CASSANDRA (chanting)

Apollo, Apollo!
God of all ways, but only Death’s to me,
Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,
Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!

LEADER

She grows presageful of her woes to come,
Slave tho’ she be, instinct with prophecy.

CASSANDRA (chanting)

Apollo, Apollo!
God of all ways, but only Death’s to me,
O thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named!
What way hast led me, to what evil home?

LEADER

Know’st thou it not? The home of Atreus’ race:
Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.

CASSANDRA (chanting)

Home cursed of God! Bear witness unto me,
Ye visioned woes within—
The blood–stained hands of them that smite their kin—
The strangling noose, and, spattered o’er
With human blood, the reeking floor!

LEADER

How like a sleuth–hound questing on the track,
Keen–scented unto blood and death she hies!

CASSANDRA (chanting)

Ah! can the ghostly guidance fail,
Whereby my prophet–soul is onwards led?
Look! for their flesh the spectre–children wail,
Their sodden limbs on which their father fed!

LEADER

Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,—
But for those deeds we seek no prophet’s tongue—

CASSANDRA (chanting)

God! ’tis another crime—
Worse than the storied woe of olden time,
Cureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here—
A shaming death, for those that should be dear
Alas! and far away, in foreign land,
He that should help doth stand!

LEADER

I knew th’ old tales, the city rings withal—
But now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.

CASSANDRA (chanting)

O wretch, O purpose fell!
Thou for thy wedded lord
The cleansing wave hast poured—
A treacherous welcome!
How the sequel tell?
Too soon ’twill come, too soon, for now, even now,
She smites him, blow on blow!

CHORUS

Riddles beyond my rede—I peer in vain
Thro’ the dim films that screen the prophecy.

CASSANDRA

God! a new sight! a net, a snare off hell,
Set by her hand—herself a snare more fell!
A wedded wife, she slays her lord,
Helped by another hand!
Ye powers, whose hate
Of Atreus’ home no blood can satiate,
Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!

CHORUS

Why biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,
Shriek o’er the house? Thine is no cheering word.
Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel
My waning life–blood run—
The blood that round the wounding steel
Ebbs slow, as sinks life’s parting sun—
Swift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on!

CASSANDRA

Away, away—keep him away—
The monarch of the herd, the pasture’s pride,
Far from his mate! In treach’rous wrath,
Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe
She gores his fenceless side!
Hark! in the brimming bath,
The heavy plash—the dying cry—
Hark—in the laver—hark, he falls by treachery!

CHORUS

I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,
Yet something warns me that they tell of ill.
O dark prophetic speech,
Ill tidings dost thou teach
Ever, to mortals here below!
Ever some tale of awe and woe
Thro’ all thy windings manifold
Do we unriddle and unfold!

CASSANDRA

Ah well–a–day! the cup of agony,
Whereof I chant, foams with a draught for me.
Ah lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here—
Was’t but to die with thee whose doom is near?

CHORUS

Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,
And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,
As piteous as the ceaseless tale
Wherewith the brown melodious bird
Doth ever Itys! Itys! wail,
Deep–bowered in sorrow, all its little lifetime’s day!

CASSANDRA

Ah for thy fate, O shrill–voiced nightingale!
Some solace for thy woes did heaven afford,
Clothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart from wail—
But for my death is edged the double–biting sword!

CHORUS

What pangs are these, what fruitless pain,
Sent on thee from on high?
Thou chantest terror’s frantic strain,
Yet in shrill measured melody.
How thus unerring canst thou sweep along
The prophet’s path of boding song?

CASSANDRA

Woe, Paris, woe on thee! thy bridal joy
Was death and fire upon thy race and Troy!
And woe for thee, Scamander’s flood!
Beside thy banks, O river fair,
I grew in tender nursing care
From childhood unto maidenhood!
Now not by thine, but by Cocytus’ stream
And Acheron’s banks shall ring my boding scream.

CHORUS

Too plain is all, too plain!
A child might read aright thy fateful strain.
Deep in my heart their piercing fang
Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard
That piteous, low, tender word,
Yet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.

CASSANDRA

Woe for my city, woe for Ilion’s fall!
Father, how oft with sanguine stain
Streamed on thine altar–stone the blood of cattle, slain
That heaven might guard our wall!
But all was shed in vain.
Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,
And I—ah burning heart!—shall soon lie low as well.

CHORUS

Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!
Alas, what power of ill
Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell
In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?
Some woe—I know not what—must close thy piteous wail.

CASSANDRA

List! for no more the presage of my soul,
Bride–like, shall peer from its secluding veil;
But as the morning wind blows clear the east,
More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,
And as against the low bright line of dawn
Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,
So in the clearing skies of prescience
Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,
And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.
Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side—
I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.
Within this house a choir abidingly
Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill;
Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,
Man’s blood for wine, and revel in the halls,
Departing never, Furies of the home.
They sit within, they chant the primal curse,
Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,
The brother’s couch, the love incestuous
That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.
Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,
Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?
They called me once, The prophetess of lies,
The wandering hag, the pest of every door—
Attest ye now, She knows in very sooth
The house’s curse, the storied infamy.

CHORUS

Yet how should oath—how loyally soe’er
I swear it—aught avail thee? In good sooth,
My wonder meets thy claim: I stand amazed
That thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,
Dost as a native know and tell aright
Tales of a city of an alien tongue.

CASSANDRA

That is my power—a boon Apollo gave.

CHORUS

God though he were, yearning for mortal maid?

CASSANDRA

Ay! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.

CHORUS

Such finer sense suits not with slavery.

CASSANDRA

He strove to win me, panting for my love.

CHORUS

Came ye by compact unto bridal joys?

CASSANDRA

Nay—for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.

CHORUS

Wert thou already dowered with prescience?

CASSANDRA

Yea—prophetess to Troy of all her doom.

CHORUS

How left thee then Apollo’s wrath unscathed?

CASSANDRA

I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.

CHORUS

Not so—to us at least thy words seem sooth.

CASSANDRA

Woe for me, woe! Again the agony—
Dread pain that sees the future all too well
With ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.
Behold ye—yonder on the palace roof
The spectre–children sitting—look, such things
As dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,
Horrible shadows, that a kinsman’s hand
Hath marked with murder, and their arms as full—
A rueful burden—see, they hold them up,
The entrails upon which their father fed!

For this, for this, I say there plots revenge
A coward lion, couching in the lair—
Guarding the gate against my master’s foot—
My master–mine—I bear the slave’s yoke now,
And he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,
Knows not the fawning treachery of tongue
Of this thing false and dog–like—how her speech
Glazes and sleeks her purpose, till she win
By ill fate’s favour the desired chance,
Moving like Ate to a secret end.
O aweless soul! the woman slays her lord—
Woman? what loathsome monster of the earth
Were fit comparison? The double snake—
Or Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman’s bane,
Girt round about with rocks? some hag of hell,
Raving a truceless curse upon her kin?
Hark—even now she cries exultingly
The vengeful cry that tells of battle turned—
How fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored!
Nay, then, believe me not: what skills belief
Or disbelief? Fate works its will—and thou
Wilt see and say in ruth, Her tale was true.

CHORUS

Ah—’tis Thyestes’ feast on kindred flesh—
I guess her meaning and with horror thrill,
Hearing no shadow’d hint of th’ o’er—true tale,
But its full hatefulness: yet, for the rest,
Far from the track I roam, and know no more.

CASSANDRA

’Tis Agamemnon’s doom thou shalt behold.

CHORUS

Peace, hapless woman, to thy boding words!

CASSANDRA

Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.

CHORUS

Ay—were such doom at hand—which God forbid!

CASSANDRA

Thou prayest idly—these move swift to slay.

CHORUS

What man prepares a deed of such despite?

CASSANDRA

Fool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.

CHORUS

Deviser and device are dark to me.

CASSANDRA

Dark! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.

CHORUS

Ay—but in thine, as in Apollo’s strains,
Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.

CASSANDRA

Ah ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now—
Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!

Lo, how the woman–thing, the lioness
Couched with the wolf—her noble mate afar—
Will slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch,
She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord
With double death—his recompense for me!
Ay, ’tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,
That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel!
Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,
Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all—
I stamp you into death, or e’er I die—
Down, to destruction!
Thus I stand revenged—
Go, crown some other with a prophet’s woe.
Look! it is he, it is Apollo’s self
Rending from me the prophet–robe he gave.
God! while I wore it yet, thou saw’st me mocked
There at my home by each malicious mouth—
To all and each, an undivided scorn.
The name alike and fate of witch and cheat—
Woe, poverty, and famine—all I bore;
And at this last the god hath brought me here
Into death’s toils, and what his love had made,
His hate unmakes me now: and I shall stand
Not now before the altar of my home,
But me a slaughter–house and block of blood
Shall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.
Yet shall the gods have heed of me who die,
For by their will shall one requite my doom.
He, to avenge his father’s blood outpoured,
Shall smite and slay with matricidal hand.
Ay, he shall come—tho’ far away he roam,
A banished wanderer in a stranger’s land—
To crown his kindred’s edifice of ille
Called home to vengeance by his father’s fall:
Thus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.
And now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,
Since first mine Ilion has found its fate
And I beheld, and those who won the wall
Pass to such issue as the gods ordain?
I too will pass and like them dare to die!

(Turns and looks upon the palace door.)

Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail!
Grant me one boon—a swift and mortal stroke,
That all unwrong by pain, with ebbing blood
Shed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.

CHORUS

Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,
Long was thy prophecy: but if aright
Thou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,
Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom,
As fronts the knife some victim, heaven–controlled?

CASSANDRA

Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.

CHORUS

Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.

CASSANDRA

The day is come—flight were small gain to me!

CHORUS

O brave endurance of a soul resolved!

CASSANDRA

That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.

CHORUS

All fame is happy, even famous death.

CASSANDRA

Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye!

(She moves to enter the house, then starts back.)

CHORUS

What fear is this that scares thee from the house?

CASSANDRA

Pah!

CHORUS

What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?

CASSANDRA

Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.

CHORUS

How? ’tis the smell of household offerings.

CASSANDRA

’Tis rank as charnel–scent from open graves.

CHORUS

Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?

CASSANDRA

Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud
The monarch’s fate and mine—enough of life.
Ah friends!
Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,
That not as birds that shun the bush and scream
I moan in idle terror. This attest
When for my death’s revenge another dies,
A woman for a woman, and a man
Falls, for a man ill–wedded to his curse.
Grant me this boon—the last before I die.

CHORUS

Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.

CASSANDRA

Once more one utterance, but not of wail,
Though for my death—and then I speak no more.
Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls
To slay their kindred’s slayers, quit withal
The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.

Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,
A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,
One wet sponge–sweep wipes all our trace away—
And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.

(Exit into the palace.)

CHORUS

Too true it is! our mortal state
With bliss is never satiate,
And none, before the palace high
And stately of prosperity,
Cries to us with a voice of fear,
Away! ’tis ill to enter here!

Lo! this our lord hath trodden down,
By grace of heaven, old Priam’s town,
And praised as god he stands once more
On Argos’ shore!
Yet now—if blood shed long ago
Cries out that other blood shall flow—
His life–blood, his, to pay again
The stern requital of the slain—
Peace to that braggart’s vaunting vain,
Who, having heard the chieftain’s tale,
Yet boasts of bliss untouched by bale!

(A loud cry from within.)

VOICE OF AGAMEMNON

O I am sped—a deep, a mortal blow.

CHORUS

Listen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony?

VOICE OF AGAMEMNON

O! O! again, another, another blow!

CHORUS

The bloody act is over—I have heard the monarch’s cry—
Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die.

ONE OF THE CHORUS

’Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,
“Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!”

ANOTHER

Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,
And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.

ANOTHER

Such will is mine, and what thou say’st I say:
Swiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.

ANOTHER

Ay, for ’tis plain, this prelude of their song
Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong.

ANOTHER

Behold, we tarry—but thy name, Delay,
They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.

ANOTHER

I know not what ’twere well to counsel now—
Who wills to act, ’tis his to counsel how.

ANOTHER

Thy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain,
I have no words to bring his life again.

ANOTHER

What? e’en for life’s sake, bow us to obey
These house–defilers and their tyrant sway?

ANOTHER

Unmanly doom! ’twere better far to die—
Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.

ANOTHER

Think well—must cry or sign of woe or pain
Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain?

ANOTHER

Such talk befits us when the deed we see—
Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

I read one will from many a diverse word,
To know aright, how stands it with our lord!

(The central doors of the palace open, disclosing
CLYTEMNESTRA, who comes forward. She has blood smeared upon her forehead. The body of AGAMEMNON lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver–sided laver; the corpse of Cassandra is laid beside him.)

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oft
The glozing word that led me to my will—
Hear how I shrink not to unsay it all!
How else should one who willeth to requite
Evil for evil to an enemy
Disguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,
Not to be overleaped, a net of doom?
This is the sum and issue of old strife,
Of me deep–pondered and at length fulfilled.
All is avowed, and as I smote I stand
With foot set firm upon a finished thing!
I turn not to denial: thus I wrought
So that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.
Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,
I trapped him with inextricable toils,
The ill abundance of a baffling robe;
Then smote him, once, again—and at each wound
He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed
Each limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,
Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,
Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.
And thus he fell, and as he passed away,
Spirit with body chafed; each dying breath
Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,
And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood
Fell upon me; and I was fain to feel
That dew—not sweeter is the rain of heaven
To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.

Elders of Argos—since the thing stands so,
I bid you to rejoice, if such your will:
Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,
And well I ween, if seemly it could be,
’Twere not ill done to pour libations here,
Justly—ay, more than justly—on his corpse
Who filled his home with curses as with wine,
And thus returned to drain the cup he filled.

CHORUS

I marvel at thy tongue’s audacity,
To vaunt thus loudly o’er a husband slain.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will,
And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout,
Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you,
Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,
Even as ye list,—I reck not of your words.
Lo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,
My husband once—and him this hand of mine,
A right contriver, fashioned for his death.
Behold the deed!

CHORUS

Woman, what deadly birth,
What venomed essence of the earth
Or dark distilment of the wave,
To thee such passion gave,
Nerving thine hand
To set upon thy brow this burning crown,
The curses of thy land?
Our king by thee cut off, hewn down!
Go forth—they cry—accursèd and forlorn,
To hate and scorn!

CLYTEMNESTRA

O ye just men, who speak my sentence now,
The city’s hate, the ban of all my realm!
Ye had no voice of old to launch such doom
On him, my husband, when he held as light
My daughter’s life as that of sheep or goat,
One victim from the thronging fleecy fold!
Yea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,
The well–loved issue of my travail–pangs,
To lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.
That deed of his, I say, that stain and shame,
Had rightly been atoned by banishment;
But ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judge
This deed of mine that doth affront your ears.
Storm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,
That I am ready, if your hand prevail
As mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway:
If God say nay, it shall be yours to learn
By chastisement a late humility.

CHORUS

Bold is thy craft, and proud
Thy confidence, thy vaunting loud;
Thy soul, that chose a murd’ress’ fate,
Is all with blood elate—
Maddened to know
The blood not yet avenged, the damnèd spot
Crimson upon thy brow.
But Fate prepares for thee thy lot—
Smitten as thou didst smite, without a friend,
To meet thine end!

CLYTEMNESTRA

Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear—
By the great vengeance for my murdered child,
By Atè, by the Fury unto whom
This man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,
I do not look to tread the hall of Fear,
While in this hearth and home of mine there burns
The light of love—Ægisthus—as of old
Loyal, a stalwart shield of confidence—
As true to me as this slain man was false,
Wronging his wife with paramours at Troy,
Fresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there!
Behold him dead—behold his captive prize,
Seeres and harlot—comfort of his bed,
True prophetess, true paramour—I wot
The sea–bench was not closer to the flesh,
Full oft, of every rower, than was she
See, ill they did, and ill requites them now.
His death ye know: she as a dying swan
Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,
Close to his side, and to my couch has left
A sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.

CHORUS

Ah woe and well–a–day! I would that Fate—
Not bearing agony too great,
Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain—
Would bid mine eyelids keep
The morningless and unawakening sleep!
For life is weary, now my lord is slain,
The gracious among kings!
Hard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,
And for a woman’s sake, on Ilian land—
Now is his life hewn down, and by a woman’s hand!
O Helen, O infatuate soul,
Who bad’st the tides of battle roll,
O’erwhelming thousands, life on life,
’Neath Ilion’s wall!
And now lies dead the lord of all.
The blossom of thy storied sin
Bears blood’s inexpiable stain,
O thou that erst, these halls within,
Wert unto all a rock of strife,
A husband’s bane!

CLYTEMNESTRA

Peace! pray not thou for death as though
Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,
Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban
The name of Helen, nor recall
How she, one bane of many a man,
Sent down to death the Danaan lords,
To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,
And wrought the woe that shattered all.

CHORUS

Fiend of the race! that swoopest fell
Upon the double stock of Tantalus,
Lording it o’er me by a woman’s will,
Stern, manful, and imperious—
A bitter sway to me!
Thy very form I see,
Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,
Exulting o’er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain!

CLYTEMNESTRA

Right was the word—thou namest well
The brooding race–fiend, triply fell!
From him it is that murder’s thirst,
Blood–lapping, inwardly is nursed—
Ere time the ancient scar can sain,
New blood comes welling forth again.

CHORUS

Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,
That fiend of whom thy voice has cried,
Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,
An all–devouring doom!

As woe, as Zeus! from Zeus all things befall—
Zeus the high cause and finisher of all!—
Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed
All things, by him fulfilled!

Yet ah my king, my king no more!
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee?
The spider–web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,
And lo! I see thee lie,
And thro’ a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die!
A death of shame—ah woe on woe!
A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!

CLYTEMNESTRA

My guilt thou harpest, o’er and o’er!
I bid thee reckon me no more
As Agamemnon’s spouse.
The old Avenger, stern of mood
For Atreus and his feast of blood,
Hath struck the lord of Atreus’ house,
And in the semblance of his wife
The king hath slain.—
Yea, for the murdered children’s life,
A chieftain’s in requital ta’en.

CHORUS

Thou guiltless of this murder, thou!
Who dares such thought avow?
Yet it may be, wroth for the parent’s deed,
The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.
Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on
Thro’ streams of blood by kindred shed,
Exacting the accompt for children dead,
For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.

Yet ah my king, my king no more!
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee?
The spider–web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,]
And lo! I see thee lie,
And thro’ a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die!
A death of shame—ah woe on woe!
A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!

CLYTEMNESTRA

I deem not that the death he died
Had overmuch of shame:
For this was he who did provide
Foul wrong unto his house and name:
His daughter, blossom of my womb,
He gave unto a deadly doom,
Iphigenia, child of tears!
And as he wrought, even so he fares.
Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell;
For by the sword his sin he wrought,
And by the sword himself is brought
Among the dead to dwell.

CHORUS

Ah whither shall I fly?
For all in ruin sinks the kingly hall;
Nor swift device nor shift of thought have I,
To ’scape its fall.
A little while the gentler raindrops fail;
I stand distraught—a ghastly interval,
Till on the roof–tree rings the bursting hail
Of blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel
On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,
The steel that smites, in Justice’ hold,
Another death to deal.
O Earth! that I had lain at rest
And lapped for ever in thy breast,
Ere I had seen my chieftain fall
Within the laver’s silver wall,
Low–lying on dishonoured bier!
And who shall give him sepulchre,
And who the wail of sorrow pour?
Woman, ’tis thine no more!
A graceless gift unto his shade
Such tribute, by his murd’ress paid!
Strive not thus wrongly to atone
The impious deed thy hand hath done.
Ah who above the godlike chief?
Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?
Who speak above his lowly grave
The last sad praises of the brave?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Peace! for such task is none of thine.
By me he fell, by me he died,
And now his burial rites be mine!
Yet from these halls no mourners’ train
Shall celebrate his obsequies;
Only by Acheron’s rolling tide
His child shall spring unto his side,
And in a daughter’s loving wise
Shall clasp and kiss him once again!

CHORUS

Lo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg’d by sorrow—
And who the end can know?
The slayer of today shall die tomorrow—
The wage of wrong is woe.
While Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,
His law is fixed and stern;
On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured—
The tides of doom return.
The children of the curse abide within
These halls of high estate—
And none can wrench from off the home of sin
The clinging grasp of fate.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Now walks thy word aright, to tell
This ancient truth of oracle;
But I with vows of sooth will pray
To him, the power that holdeth sway
O’er all the race of Pleisthenes—
Tho’ dark the deed and deep the guilt,
With this last blood my hands have spilt,
I pray thee let thine anger cease!
I pray thee pass from us away
To some new race in other lands,
There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay
The lives of men by kindred hands.

For me’tis all sufficient meed,
Tho’ little wealth or power were won,
So I can say, ’Tis past and done.
The bloody lust and murderous,
The inborn frenzy of our house,
Is ended, by my deed!

(ÆGISTHUS and his armed attendants enter.)

ÆGISTHUS

Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail!
I dare at length aver that gods above
Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.
I, I who stand and thus exult to see
This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,
Slain in requital of his father’s craft.
Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man’s sire,
The lord and monarch of this land of old,
Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,
Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,
And drave him from his home to banishment.
Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole
And clung a suppliant to the heart divine,
And for himself won this immunity—
Not with his own blood to defile the land
That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire
Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned—
With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold
In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,
And bade my father to his board, and set
Before him flesh that was his children once.
First, sitting at the upper board alone,
He hid the fingers and the feet, but gave
The rest—and readily Thyestes took
What to his ignorance no semblance wore
Of human flesh, and ate: behold what curse
That eating brought upon our race and name!
For when he knew what all–unhallowed thing
He thus had wrought, with horror’s bitter cry
Back–starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,
On Pelops’ house a deadly curse he spake—
As darkly as I spurn this damnèd food,
So perish all the race of Pleisthenes!
Thus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,
And I—who else?—this murder wove and planned;
For me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,
Of the three children youngest, Atreus sent
To banishment by my sad father’s side:
But Justice brought me home once more, grown now
To manhood’s years; and stranger tho’ I was,
My right hand reached unto the chieftain’s life,
Plotting and planning all that malice bade.
And death itself were honour now to me,
Beholding him in Justice’ ambush ta’en.

CHORUS

Ægisthus, for this insolence of thine
That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.
Of thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain
The chieftain, by thine own unaided plot
Devised the piteous death: I rede thee well,
Think not thy head shall ’scape, when right prevails,
The people’s ban, the stones of death and doom.

ÆGISTHUS

This word from thee, this word from one who rows
Low at the oars beneath, what time we rule,
We of the upper tier? Thou’lt know anon,
’Tis bitter to be taught again in age,
By one so young, submission at the word.
But iron of the chain and hunger’s throes
Can minister unto an o’erswoln pride
Marvellous well, ay, even in the old.
Hast eyes, and seest not this? Peace—kick not thus
Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain!

CHORUS

Thou womanish man, waiting till war did cease,
Home–watcher and defiler of the couch,
And arch–deviser of the chieftain’s doom!

ÆGISTHUS

Bold words again! but they shall end in tears.
The very converse, thine, of Orpheus’ tongue:
He roused and led in ecstasy of joy
All things that heard his voice melodious;
But thou as with the futile cry of curs
Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace!
Or strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.

CHORUS

Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down—
Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,
But not with thine own hand to smite the blow!

ÆGISTHUS

That fraudful force was woman’s very part,
Not mine, whom deep suspicion from of old
Would have debarred. Now by his treasure’s aid
My purpose holds to rule the citizens.
But whoso will not bear my guiding hand,
Him for his corn–fed mettle I will drive
Not as a trace–horse, light–caparisoned,
But to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.
Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,
Shall look on him and shall behold him tame.

CHORUS

Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight
To deal in murder, while a woman’s hand,
Staining and shaming Argos and its gods,
Availed to slay him? Ho, if anywhere
The light of life smite on Orestes’ eyes,
Let him, returning by some guardian fate,
Hew down with force her paramour and her!

ÆGISTHUS

How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly understand.

CHORUS

Up to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand.
Swift, your right hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for strife—

ÆGISTHUS

Lo! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or life.

CHORUS

’Twas thy word and we accept it: onward to the chance of war!

CLYTEMNESTRA

Nay, enough, enough, my champion! we will smite and slay no more.
Already have we reaped enough the harvest–field of guilt:
Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.
Peace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed,
Lest ill valour meet our vengeance—’twas a necessary deed.
But enough of toils and troubles—be the end, if ever, now,
Ere thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.
’Tis a woman’s word of warning, and let who will list thereto.

ÆGISTHUS

But that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms of the tongue,
And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,
And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler’s word—

CHORUS

Ruler? but ’tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard lord!

ÆGISTHUS

I will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway.

CHORUS

Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way.

ÆGISTHUS

Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return.

CHORUS

Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while ’tis thy turn.

ÆGISTHUS

Thou shalt pay, be well assurèd, heavy quittance for thy pride.

CHORUS

Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock, his mate beside!

CLYTEMNESTRA

Heed not thou too highly of them—let the cur–pack growl and yell:
I and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well.

(ÆGISTHUS and CLYTEMNESTRA move towards the palace, as the CHORUS sullenly withdraws.)

THE END

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

Aeschylus

The Eumenides

translated by E. D. A. Morshead

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS
APOLLO
ORESTES
THE GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA
CHORUS OF FURIES
ATHENA
ATTENDANTS OF ATHENA
TWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS

(SCENE:—Before the temple of APOLLO at Delphi. The PYTHIAN
PRIESTESS enters and approaches the doors of the temple.)

THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS

First, in this prayer, of all the gods I name
The prophet–mother Earth; and Themis next,
Second who sat—for so with truth is said—
On this her mother’s shrine oracular.
Then by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,
There sat thereon another child of Earth—
Titanian Phoebe. She, in after time,
Gave o’er the throne, as birthgift to a god,
Phoebus, who in his own bears Phoebe’s name.
He from the lake and ridge of Delos’ isle
Steered to the port of Pallas’ Attic shores,
The home of ships; and thence he passed and came
Unto this land and to Pamassus’ shrine.
And at his side, with awe revering him,
There went the children of Hephaestus’ seed,
The hewers of the sacred way, who tame
The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.
And all this folk, and Delphos, chieftain–king
Of this their land, with honour gave him home;
And in his breast Zeus set a prophet’s soul,
And gave to him this throne, whereon he sits,
Fourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,
Gives voice to that which Zeus his sire decrees.

Such gods I name in my preluding prayer,
And after them, I call with honour due
On Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs
Who dwell around the rock Corycian,
Where in the hollow cave, the wild birds’ haunt,
Wander the feet of lesser gods; and there,
Right well I know it, Bromian Bacchus dwells,
Since he in godship led his Maenad host,
Devising death for Pentheus, whom they rent
Piecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,
I call on Pleistus’ springs, Poseidon’s might,
And Zeus most high, the great Accomplisher.
Then as a seeress to the sacred chair
I pass and sit; and may the powers divine
Make this mine entrance fruitful in response
Beyond each former advent, triply blest.
And if there stand without, from Hellas bound,
Men seeking oracles, let each pass in
In order of the lot, as use allows;
For the god guides whate’er my tongue proclaims.

(She goes into the interior of the temple; after a short interval, she returns in great fear.)

Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,
Have sped me forth again from Loxias’ shrine,
With strength unstrung, moving erect no more,
But aiding with my hands my failing feet,
Unnerved by fear. A beldame’s force is naught—
Is as a child’s, when age and fear combine.
For as I pace towards the inmost fane
Bay–filleted by many a suppliant’s hand,
Lo, at the central altar I descry
One crouching as for refuge—yea, a man
Abhorred of heaven; and from his hands, wherein
A sword new–drawn he holds, blood reeked and fell:
A wand he bears, the olive’s topmost bough,
Twined as of purpose with a deep close tuft
Of whitest wool. This, that I plainly saw,
Plainly I tell. But lo, in front of him,
Crouched on the altar–steps, a grisly band
Of women slumbers—not like women they,
But Gorgons rather; nay, that word is weak,
Nor may I match the Gorgons’ shape with theirs!
Such have I seen in painted semblance erst—
Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus’ board,—
But these are wingless, black, and all their shape
The eye’s abomination to behold.
Fell is the breath—let none draw nigh to it—
Exude the damned drops of poisonous ire:
And such their garb as none should dare to bring
To statues of the gods or homes of men.
I wot not of the tribe wherefrom can come
So fell a legion, nor in what land Earth
Could rear, unharmed, such creatures, nor avow
That she had travailed and had brought forth death.
But, for the rest, be all these things a carp
Unto the mighty Loxias, the lord
Of this our shrine: healer and prophet he,
Discerner he of portents, and the cleanser
Of other homes—behold, his own to cleanse!

(She goes out. The central doors open, disclosing the interior of the temple. ORESTES clings to the central altar; the FURIES lie slumbering at a little distance; APOLLO and HERMES appear from the innermost shrine.)

APOLLO (to ORESTES)

Lo, I desert thee never: to the end,
Hard at thy side as now, or sundered far,
I am thy guard, and to thine enemies
Implacably oppose me: look on them,
These greedy fiends, beneath my craft subdued I
See, they are fallen on sleep, these beldames old,
Unto whose grim and wizened maidenhood
Nor god nor man nor beast can e’er draw near.
Yea, evil were they born, for evil’s doom,
Evil the dark abyss of Tartarus
Wherein they dwell, and they themselves the hate
Of men on earth, and of Olympian gods.
But thou, flee far and with unfaltering speed;
For they shall hunt thee through the mainland wide
Where’er throughout the tract of travelled earth
Thy foot may roam, and o’er and o’er the seas
And island homes of men. Faint not nor fail,
Too soon and timidly within thy breast
Shepherding thoughts forlorn of this thy toil;
But unto Pallas’ city go, and there
Crouch at her shrine, and in thine arms enfold
Her ancient image: there we well shall find
Meet judges for this cause and suasive pleas,
Skilled to contrive for thee deliverance
For by my hest thou didst thy mother slay.

ORESTES

O king Apollo, since right well thou know’st
What justice bids, have heed, fulfil the same,—
Thy strength is all–sufficient to achieve.

APOLLO

Have thou too heed, nor let thy fear prevail
Above thy will. And do thou guard him, Hermes,
Whose blood is brother unto mine, whose sire
The same high God. Men call thee guide and guard,
Guide therefore thou and guard my suppliant;
For Zeus himself reveres the outlaw’s right,
Boon of fair escort, upon man conferred.

(APOLLO, HERMES, and ORESTES go out. The GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA rises.)

GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA

Sleep on! awake! what skills your sleep to me—
Me, among all the dead by you dishonoured—
Me from whom never, in the world of death,
Dieth this course, ’Tis she who smote and slew,
And shamed and scorned I roam? Awake, and hear
My plaint of dead men’s hate intolerable.
Me, sternly slain by them that should have loved,
Me doth no god arouse him to avenge,
Hewn down in blood by matricidal hands.
Mark ye these wounds from which the heart’s blood ran,
And by whose hand, bethink ye! for the sense
When shut in sleep hath then the spirit–sight,
But in the day the inward eye is blind.
List, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue
The wineless draught by me outpoured to soothe
Your vengeful ire! how oft on kindled shrine
I laid the feast of darkness, at the hour
Abhorred of every god but you alone!
Lo, all my service trampled down and scorned!
And he bath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds;
Yea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,
Hath wried his face in scorn, and flieth far.
Awake and hear—for mine own soul I cry—
Awake, ye powers of hell! the wandering ghost
That once was Clytemnestra calls—Arise!

(The FURIES mutter grimly, as in a dream.)

Mutter and murmur! He hath flown afar—
My kin have gods to guard them, I have none!

(The FURIES mutter as before.)

O drowsed in sleep too deep to heed my pain!
Orestes flies, who me, his mother, slew.

(The FURIES give a confused cry.)

Yelping, and drowsed again? Up and be doing
That which alone is yours, the deed of hell!

(The FURIES give another cry.)

Lo, sleep and toil, the sworn confederates,
Have quelled your dragon—anger, once so fell!

THE FURIES (muttering more fiercely and loudly)

Seize, seize, seize, seize—mark, yonder!

GHOST

In dreams ye chase a prey, and like some hound,
That even in sleep doth ply woodland toil,
Ye bell and bay. What do ye, sleeping here?
Be not o’ercome with toil, nor, sleep—subdued,
Be heedless of my wrong. Up! thrill your heart
With the just chidings of my tongue,—Such words
Are as a spur to purpose firmly held.
Blow forth on him the breath of wrath and blood,
Scorch him with reek of fire that burns in you,
Waste him with new pursuit—swift, hound him down!

(The GHOST sinks.)

FIRST FURY (awaking)

Up! rouse another as I rouse thee; up!
Sleep’st thou? Rise up, and spurning sleep away,
See we if false to us this prelude rang.

CHORUS OF FURIES (singing)

strophe 1

Alack, alack, O sisters, we have toiled,
O much and vainly have we toiled and borne!
Vainly! and all we wrought the gods have foiled,
And turned us to scorn!
He hath slipped from the net, whom we chased: he hath ’scaped us
who should be our prey—
O’ermastered by slumber we sank, and our quarry hath stolen away!

antistrophe 1

Thou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed us and
wronged;
Thou, a youth, hast down–trodden the right that to godship more
ancient belonged;
Thou hast cherished thy suppliant man; the slayer, the God—
forsaken,
The bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp thou hast
taken;
A god, thou hast stolen from us the avengers a matricide son—
And who shall consider thy deed and say, It is rightfully done?

strophe 2

The sound of chiding scorn
Came from the land of dream;
Deep to mine inmost heart I felt it thrill and burn,
Thrust as a strong–grasped goad, to urge
Onward the chariot’s team.
Thrilled, chilled with bitter inward pain
I stand as one beneath the doomsman’s scourge.

antistrophe 2

Shame on the younger gods who tread down right,
Sitting on thrones of might!
Woe on the altar of earth’s central fane!
Clotted on step and shrine,
Behold, the guilt of blood, the ghastly stain!

strophe 3

Woe upon thee, Apollo! uncontrolled,
Unbidden, hast thou, prophet–god, imbrued
The pure prophetic shrine with wrongful blood!
For thou too heinous a respect didst hold
Of man, too little heed of powers divine!
And us the Fates, the ancients of the earth,
Didst deem as nothing worth.

antistrophe 3

Scornful to me thou art, yet shalt not fend
My wrath from him; though unto hell he flee,
There too are we!
And he the blood–defiled, should feel and rue,
Though I were not, fiend–wrath that shall not end,
Descending on his head who foully slew.

(APOLLO enters from the inner shrine.)

APOLLO

Out! I command you. Out from this my home—
Haste, tarry not! Out from the mystic shrine,
Lest thy lot be to take into thy breast
The winged bright dart that from my golden string
Speeds hissing as a snake,—lest, pierced and thrilled
With agony, thou shouldst spew forth again
Black frothy heart’s–blood, drawn from mortal men,
Belching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds.
These be no halls where such as you can prowl—
Go where men lay on men the doom of blood,
Heads lopped from necks, eyes from their spheres plucked out,
Hacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed out,
Feet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath
The smiting stone, low moans and piteous
Of men impaled—Hark, hear ye for what feast
Ye hanker ever, and the loathing gods
Do spit upon your craving? Lo, your shape
Is all too fitted to your greed; the cave
Where lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home
More meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines,
Nor bring pollution by your touch on all
That nears you. Hence! and roam unshepherded—
No god there is to tend such herd as you.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O king Apollo, in our turn hear us.
Thou hast not only part in these ill things,
But art chief cause and doer of the same.

APOLLO

How? stretch thy speech to tell this, and have done.

LEADER

Thine oracle bade this man slay his mother.

APOLLO

I bade him quit his sire’s death,—wherefore not?

LEADER

Then didst thou aid and guard red–handed crime.

APOLLO

Yea, and I bade him to this temple flee.

LEADER

And yet forsooth dost chide us following him!,

APOLLO

Ay—not for you it is, to near this fane.

LEADER

Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.

APOLLO

What office? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.

LEADER

From home to home we chase the matricide.

APOLLO

What? to avenge a wife who slays her lord?

LEADER

That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.

APOLLO

How darkly ye dishonour and annul
The troth to which the high accomplishers,
Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus
Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,
The queen of rapture unto mortal men.
Know, that above the marriage–bed ordained
For man and woman staddeth Right as guard,
Enhancing sanctity of trothplight sworn;
Therefore, if thou art placable to those
Who have their consort slain, nor will’st to turn
On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou
In hounding to his doom the man who slew
His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath
Against one deed, but all too placable
Unto the other, minishing the crime.
But in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.

LEADER

Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.

APOLLO

Follow then, make thee, double toil in vain

LEADER

Think not by speech mine office to curtail.

APOLLO

None hast thou, that I would accept of thee!

LEADER

Yea, high thine honour by the throne of Zeus:
But I, drawn on by scent of mother’s blood,
Seek vengeance on this man and hound him down.

(The CHORUS goes in pursuit of ORESTES.)

APOLLO

But I will stand beside him; ’tis for me
To guard my suppliant: gods and men alike
Do dread the curse of such an one betrayed,
And in me Fear and Will say Leave him not.

(He goes into the temple.)

(The scene changes to Athens. In the foreground is the Temple of ATHENA on the Acropolis; her statue stands in the centre; ORESTES is seen clinging to it.)

ORESTES

Look on me, queen Athena; lo, I come
By Loxias’ behest; thou of thy grace
Receive me, driven of avenging powers—
Not now a red–hand slayer unannealed,
But with guilt fading, half–effaced, outworn
On many homes and paths of mortal men.
For to the limit of each land, each sea,
I roamed, obedient to Apollo’s best,
And come at last, O Goddess, to thy fane,
And clinging to thine image, bide my doom.

(The CHORUS OF FURIES enters, questing like hounds.)

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Ho! clear is here the trace of him we seek:
Follow the track of blood, the silent sign!
Like to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,
We snuff along the scent of dripping gore,
And inwardly we pant, for many a day
Toiling in chase that shall fordo the man;
For o’er and o’er the wide land have I ranged,
And o’er the wide sea, flying without wings,
Swift as a sail I pressed upon his track,
Who now hard by is crouching, well I wot,
For scent of mortal blood allures me here.

CHORUS (chanting)

Follow, seek him—round and round
Scent and snuff and scan the ground,
Lest unharmed he slip away,
He who did his mother slay!
Hist—he is there! See him his arms entwine
Around the image of the maid divine—
Thus aided, for the deed he wrought
Unto the judgment wills he to be brought.

It may not be! a mother’s blood, poured forth
Upon the stained earth,
None gathers up: it lies—bear witness, Hell!—
For aye indelible
And thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own
That shedding to atone!
Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,
Red, clotted, gout by gout,—
A draught abhorred of men and gods; but
Will drain it, suck thee dry;
Yea, I will waste thee living, nerve and vein;
Yea, for thy mother slain,
Will drag thee downward, there where thou shalt dree
The weird of agony!
And thou and whosoe’er of men hath sinned—
Hath wronged or God, or friend,
Or parent,—learn ye how to all and each
The arm of doom can reach!
Sternly requiteth, in the world beneath,
The judgment–seat of Death;
Yea, Death, beholding every man’s endeavour,
Recordeth it for ever.

ORESTES

I, schooled in many miseries, have learnt
How many refuges of cleansing shrines
And when imposeth silence. Lo, I stand
Fixed now to speak, for he whose word is wise
Commands the same. Look, how the stain of blood
Is dull upon mine hand and wastes away,
And laved and lost therewith is the deep curse
Of matricide; for while the guilt was new,
’Twas banished from me at Apollo’s hearth,
Atoned and purified by death of swine.
Long were my word if I should sum the tale,
How oft since then among my fellow–men
I stood and brought no curse. Time cleanses all—
Time, the coeval of all things that are.
Now from pure lips, in words of omen fair,
I call Athena, lady of this land,
To come, my champion: so, in aftertime,
She shall not fail of love and service leal,
Not won by war, from me and from my land
And all the folk of Argos, vowed to her.
Now, be she far away in Libyan land
Where flows from Triton’s lake her natal wave,—
Stand she with planted feet, or in some hour
Of rest conceal them, champion of her friends
Where’er she be,—Or whether o’er the plain
Phlegraean she look forth, as warrior bold—
I cry to her to come, where’er she be,
(And she, as goddess, from afar can hear)
And aid and free me, set among my foes.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Thee not Apollo nor Athena’s strength
Can save from perishing, a castaway
Amid the Lost, where no delight shall meet
Thy soul—a bloodless prey of nether powers,
A shadow among shadows. Answerest thou
Nothing? dost cast away my words with scorn,
Thou, prey prepared and dedicate to me?
Not as a victim slain upon the shrine,
But living shalt thou see thy flesh my food.
Hear now the binding chant that makes thee mine.

CHORUS (chanting)

Weave the weird dance,—behold the hour
To utter forth the chant of hell,
Our sway among mankind to tell,
The guidance of our power.
Of justice are we ministers,
And whosoe’er of men may stand
Lifting a pure unsullied hand,
That man no doom of ours incurs,
And walks thro’ all his mortal path
Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath.
But if, as yonder man, he hath
Blood on the hands he strives to hide,
We stand avengers at his side,
Decreeing, Thou hast wronged the dead:
We are doom’s witnesses to thee.
The price of blood, his hands have shed,
We wring from him; in life, in death,
Hard at his side are we!

strophe 1

Night, Mother Night, who brought me forth, a torment
To living men and dead,
Hear me, O hear! by Leto’s stripling son
I am dishonoured:
He hath ta’en from me him who cowers in refuge,
To me made consecrates—
A rightful victim, him who slew his mother,
Given o’er to me and fate.

refrain 1

Hear the hymn of hell,
O’er the victim sounding,—
Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,
Sense and will confounding!
Round the soul entwining
Without lute or lyre—
Soul in madness pining,
Wasting as with fire!

antistrophe 1

Fate, all–pervading Fate, this service spun, commanding
That I should bide therein:
Whosoe’er of mortals, made perverse and lawless,
Is stained with blood of kin,
By his side are we, and hunt him ever onward,
Till to the Silent Land,
The realm of death, he cometh; neither yonder
In freedom shall he stand.

refrain 1

Hear the hymn of hell,
O’er the victim sounding,—
Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,
Sense and will confounding!
Round the soul entwining
Without lute or lyre—
Soul in madness pining,
Wasting as with fire!

strophe 2

When from womb of Night we sprang, on us this labour
Was laid and shall abide.
Gods immortal are ye, yet beware ye touch not
That which is our pride!
None may come beside us gathered round the blood–feast—
For us no garments white
Gleam on a festal day; for us a darker fate is,
Another darker rite.

refrain 2

That is mine hour when falls an ancient line
When in the household’s heart
The God of blood doth slay by kindred hands,—
Then do we bear our part:
On him who slays we sweep with chasing cry:
Though he be triply strong,
We wear and waste him; blood atones for blood,
Yew pain for ancient wrong.

antistrophe 2

I hold this task—’tis mine, and not another’s.
The very gods on high,
Though they can silence and annul the prayers
Of those who on us cry,
They may not strive with us who stand apart,
A race by Zeus abhorred,
Blood–boltered, held unworthy of the council
And converse of Heaven’s lord.

strophe 3

Therefore the more I leap upon my prey;
Upon their head I bound;
My foot is hard; as one that trips a runner
I cast them to the ground;
Yea, to the depth of doom intolerable;
And they who erst were great,
And upon earth held high their pride and glory,
Are brought to low estate.
In underworld they waste and are diminished,
The while around them fleet
Dark wavings of my robes, and, subtly woven,
The paces of my feet.

antistrophe 3

Who falls infatuate, he sees not neither knows he
That we are at his side;
So closely round about him, darkly flitting,
The cloud of guilt doth glide.
Heavily ’tis uttered, how around his hearthstone
The mirk of hell doth rise.

strophe 4

Stern and fixed the law is; we have hands t’ achieve it,
Cunning to devise.
Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance.
Not by tear or prayer
Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness,
Far from gods, we fare,
Lit unto our task with torch of sunless regions,
And o’er a deadly way—
Deadly to the living as to those who see not
Life and light of day—
Hunt we and press onward.

antistrophe 4

Who of mortals hearing
Doth not quake for awe,
Hearing all that Fate thro’ hand of God hath given us
For ordinance and law?
Yea, this right to us, in dark abysm and backward
Of ages it befell:
None shall wrong mine office, tho’ in nether regions
And sunless dark I dwell.

(ATHENA enters.)

ATHENA

Far off I heard the clamour of your cry,
As by Scamander’s side I set my foot
Asserting right upon the land given o’er
To me by those who o’er Achaea’s host
Held sway and leadership: no scanty part
Of all they won by spear and sword, to me
They gave it, land and all that grew thereon,
As chosen heirloom for my Theseus’ clan.
Thence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot,—
Hummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold
Of this mine aegis, by my feet propelled,
As, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car.
And now, beholding here Earth’s nether brood,
I fear it nought, yet are mine eyes amazed
With wonder. Who are ye? of all I ask,
And of this stranger to my statue clinging.
But ye—your shape is like no human form,
Like to no goddess whom the gods behold,
Like to no shape which mortal women wear.
Yet to stand by and chide a monstrous form
Is all unjust—from such words Right revolts.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O child of Zeus, one word shall tell thee all.
We are the children of eternal Night,
And Furies in the underworld are called.

ATHENA

I know your lineage now and eke your name.

LEADER

Yea, and eftsoons indeed my rights shalt know.

ATHENA

Fain would I learn them; speak them clearly forth,

LEADER

We chase from home the murderers of men.

ATHENA

And where at last can he that slew make pause?

LEADER

Where this is law—All joy abandon here.

ATHENA

Say, do ye bay this man to such a flight?

LEADER

Yea, for of choice he did his mother slay.

ATHENA

Urged by no fear of other wrath and doom?

LEADER

What spur can rightly goad to matricide?

ATHENA

Two stand to plead—one only have I heard.

LEADER

He wiR not swear nor challenge us to oath.

ATHENA

The form of justice, not its deed, thou willest.

LEADER

Prove thou that word; thou art not scant of skill.

ATHENA

I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.

LEADER

Then test the cause, judge and award the right.

ATHENA

Will ye to me then this decision trust?

LEADER

Yea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.

ATHENA (to ORESTES)

O man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn.
Speak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes;
Then, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame—
If, as I deem, in confidence of right
Thou sittest hard beside my holy place,
Clasping this statue, as Ixion sat,
A sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse,—
To all this answer me in words made plain.

ORESTES

O queen Athena, first from thy last words
Will I a great solicitude remove.
Not one blood–guilty am I; no foul stain
Clings to thine image from my clinging hand;
Whereof one potent proof I have to tell.
Lo, the law stands—The slayer shall not plead,
Till by the hand of him who cleanses blood
A suckling creature’s blood besprinkle him.
Long since have I this expiation done,—
In many a home, slain beasts and running streams
Have cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.
Next, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn:
An Argive am I, and right well thou know’st
My sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed
The fleet and them that went therein to war—
That chief with whom thy hand combined to crush
To an uncitied heap what once was Troy;
That Agamemnon, when he homeward came,
Was brought unto no honourable death,
Slain by the dark–souled wife who brought me forth
To him,—enwound and slain in wily nets,
Blazoned with blood that in the laver ran.
And I, returning from an exiled youth,
Slew her, my mother—lo, it stands avowed!
With blood for blood avenging my loved sire;
And in this deed doth Loxias bear part,
Decreeing agonies, to goad my will,
Unless by me the guilty found their doom.
Do thou decide if right or wrong were done—
Thy dooming, whatsoe’er it be, contents me.

ATHENA

Too mighty is this matter, whosoe’er
Of mortals claims to judge hereof aright.
Yea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids
To judge the issues of blood–guilt, and wrath
That follows swift behind. This too gives pause,
That thou as one with all due rites performed
Dost come, unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.
Whate’er thou art, in this my city’s name,
As uncondemned, I take thee to my side.—
Yet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,
O’erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith
Their anger’s poison shall infect the land—
A dropping plague–spot of eternal ill.
Thus stand we with a woe on either hand:
Stay they, or go at my commandment forth,
Perplexity or pain must needs befall.
Yet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,
I choose unto me judges that shall be
An ordinance for ever, set to rule
The dues of blood–guilt, upon oath declared.
But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,
Words strong for justice, fortified by oath;
And I, whoe’er are truest in my town,
Them will I choose and bring, and straitly charge,
Look on this cause, discriminating well,
And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong.

(ATHENA withdraws.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

Now are they all undone, the ancient laws,
If here the slayer’s cause
Prevail; new wrong for ancient right shall be
If matricide go free.
Henceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,
Too ready to the hand:
Too oft shall parents in the aftertime
Rue and lament this crime,—
Taught, not in false imagining, to feel
Their children’s thrusting steel:
No more the wrath, that erst on murder fell
From us, the queens of Hell,
Shall fall, no more our watching gaze impend—
Death shall smite unrestrained.

antistrophe 1

Henceforth shall one unto another cry
Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die
Around me! and that other answers him,
O thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,
Behold, with dark increase
They throng and press upon thee; yea, and dim
Is all the cure, and every comfort vain!

strophe 2

Let none henceforth cry out, when falls the blow
Of sudden–smiting woe,
Cry out in sad reiterated strain
O Justice, aid! aid, O ye thrones of Hell!
So though a father or a mother wail
New–smitten by a son, it shall no more avail,
Since, overthrown by wrong, the fane of justice fell!

antistrophe 2

Know, that a throne there is that may not pass away,
And one that sitteth on it—even Fear,
Searching with steadfast eyes man’s inner soul:
Wisdom is child of pain, and born with many a tear;
But who henceforth,
What man of mortal men, what nation upon earth,
That holdeth nought in awe nor in the light
Of inner reverence, shall worship Right
As in the older day?

strophe 3

Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,
Nor that which bows unto a tyrant’s sway.
Know that the middle way
Is dearest unto God, and they thereon who wend,
They shall achieve the end;
But they who wander or to left or right
Are sinners in his sight.
Take to thy heart this one, this soothfast word—
Of wantonness impiety is sire;
Only from calm control and sanity unstirred
Cometh true weal, the goal of every man’s desire.

antistrophe 3

Yea, whatsoe’er befall, hold thou this word of mine:
Bow down at Justice’ shrine,
Turn thou thine eyes away from earthly lure,
Nor witk a godless foot that altar spurn.
For as thou dost shall Fate do in return,
And the great doom is sure.
Therefore let each adore a parent’s trust,
And each with loyalty revere the guest
That in his halls doth rest.

strophe 4

For whoso uncompelled doth follow what is just,
He ne’er shall be unblest;
Yea, never to the gulf of doom
That man shall come.

But he whose will is set against the gods,
Who treads beyond the law with foot impure,
Till o’er the wreck of Right confusion broods,—
Know that for him, though now he sail secure,
The day of storm shall be; then shall he strive and fail
Down from the shivered yard to furl the sail,

antistrophe 4

And call on Powers, that heed him nought, to save,
And vainly wrestle with the whirling wave.
Hot was his heart with pride—
I shall not fall, he cried.
But him with watching scorn
The god beholds, forlorn,
Tangled in toils of Fate beyond escape,
Hopeless of haven safe beyond the cape—
Till all his wealth and bliss of bygone day
Upon the reef of Rightful Doom is hurled,
And he is rapt away
Unwept, for ever, to the dead forgotten world.

(ATHENA enters, with TWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS. A large crowd follows.)

ATHENA

O herald, make proclaim, bid all men come.
Then let the shrill blast of the Tyrrhene trump,
Fulfilled with mortal breath, thro’ the wide air
Peal a loud summons, bidding all men heed.
For, till my judges fill this judgment–seat,
Silence behoves,—that this whole city learn,
What for all time mine ordinance commands,
And these men, that the cause be judged aright.

(APOLLO enters.)

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O king Apollo, rule what is thine own,
But in this thing what share pertains to thee?

APOLLO

First, as a witness come I, for this man
Is suppliant of mine by sacred right,
Guest of my holy hearth and cleansed by me
Of blood–guilt: then, to set me at his side
And in his cause bear part, as part I bore
Erst in his deed, whereby his mother fell.
Let whoso knoweth now announce the cause.

ATHENA (to the CHORUS)

’Tis I announce the cause—first speech be yours;
For rightfully shall they whose plaint is tried
Tell the tale first and set the matter clear.

LEADER

Though we be many, brief shall be our tale.

(To ORESTES)

Answer thou, setting word to match with word;
And first avow—hast thou thy mother slain?

ORESTES

I slew her. I deny no word hereof.

LEADER

Three falls decide the wrestle—this is one.

ORESTES

Thou vauntest thee—but o’er no final fall.

LEADER

Yet must thou tell the manner of thy deed.

ORESTES

Drawn sword in hand, I gashed her neck. ’Tis told.

LEADER

But by whose word, whose craft, wert thou impelled?

ORESTES

By oracles of him who here attests me.

LEADER

The prophet–god bade thee thy mother slay?

ORESTES

Yea, and thro’ him less ill I fared, till now.

LEADER

If the vote grip thee, thou shalt change that word.

ORESTES

Strong is my hope; my buried sire shall aid.

LEADER

Go to now, trust the dead, a matricide!

ORESTES

Yea, for in her combined two stains of sin.

LEADER

How? speak this clearly to the judges’ mind.

ORESTES

Slaying her husband, she did slay my sire.

LEADER

Therefore thou livest; death assoils her deed.

ORESTES

Then while she lived why didst thou hunt her not?

LEADER

She was not kin by blood to him she slew.

ORESTES

And I, am I by blood my mother’s kin?

LEADER

O cursed with murder’s guilt, how else wert thou
The burden of her womb? Dost thou forswear
Thy mother’s kinship, closest bond of love?

ORESTES

It is thine hour, Apollo—speak the law,
Averring if this deed were justly done;
For done it is, and clear and undenied.
But if to thee this murder’s cause seem right
Or wrongful, speak—that I to these may tell.

APOLLO

To you, Athena’s mighty council–court,
Justly for justice will I plead, even I,
The prophet–god, nor cheat you by one word.
For never spake I from my prophet–seat
One word, of man, of woman, or of state,
Save what the Father of Olympian gods
Commanded unto me. I rede you then,
Bethink you of my plea, how strong it stands,
And follow the decree of Zeus our sire,—
For oaths prevail not over Zeus’ command.

LEADER

Go to; thou sayest that from Zeus befell
The oracle that this Orestes bade
With vengeance quit the slaying of his sire,
And hold as nought his mother’s right of kin!

APOLLO

Yea, for it stands not with a common death,
That he should die, a chieftain and a king
Decked with the sceptre which high heaven confers—
Die, and by female hands, not smitten down
By a far–shooting bow, held stalwartly
By some strong Amazon. Another doom
Was his: O Pallas, hear, and ye who sit
In judgment, to discern this thing aright!—
She with a specious voice of welcome true
Hailed him, returning from the mighty mart
Where war for life gives fame, triumphant home;
Then o’er the laver, as he bathed himself,
She spread from head to foot a covering net,
And in the endless mesh of cunning robes
Enwound and trapped her lord, and smote him down.
Lo, ye have heard what doom this chieftain met,
The majesty of Greece, the fleet’s high lord:
Such as I tell it, let it gall your ears,
Who stand as judges to decide this cause.

LEADER

Zeus, as thou sayest, holds a father’s death
As first of crimes,—yet he of his own act
Cast into chains his father, Cronus old:
How suits that deed with that which now ye tell?
O ye who judge, I bid ye mark my words!

APOLLO

O monsters loathed of all, O scorn of gods,
He that hath bound may loose: a cure there is.
Yea, many a plan that can unbind the chain.
But when the thirsty dust sucks up man’s blood
Once shed in death, he shall arise no more.
No chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.
All else there is, he moulds and shifts at will,
Not scant of strength nor breath, whate’er he do.

LEADER

Think yet, for what acquittal thou dost plead:
He who hath shed a mother’s kindred blood,
Shall he in Argos dwell, where dwelt his sire?
How shall he stand before the city’s shrines,
How share the clansmen’s holy lustral bowl?

APOLLO

This too I answer; mark a soothfast word
Not the true parent is the woman’s womb
That bears the child; she doth but nurse the seed
New–sown: the male is parent; she for him,
As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ
Of life, unless the god its promise blight.
And proof hereof before you will I set.
Birth may from fathers, without mothers, be:
See at your side a witness of the same,
Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus,
Never within the darkness of the womb
Fostered nor fashioned, but a bud more bright
Than any goddess in her breast might bear.
And I, O Pallas, howsoe’er I may,
Henceforth will glorify thy town, thy clan,
And for this end have sent my suppliant here
Unto thy shrine; that he from this time forth
Be loyal unto thee for evermore,
O goddess–queen, and thou unto thy side
Mayst win and hold him faithful, and his line,
And that for aye this pledge and troth remain
To children’s children of AtheniaD seed.

ATHENA

Enough is said; I bid the judges now
With pure intent deliver just award.

LEADER

We too have shot our every shaft of speech,
And now abide to hear the doom of law.

ATHENA (to APOLLO and ORESTES)

Say, how ordaining shall I ’scape your blame?

APOLLO

I spake, ye heard; enough. O stranger men,
Heed well your oath as ye decide the cause.

ATHENA

O men of Athens, ye who first do judge
The law of bloodshed, hear me now ordain.
Here to all time for Aegeus’ Attic host
Shall stand this council–court of judges sworn,
Here the tribunal, set on Ares’ Hill
Where camped of old the tented Amazons,
What time in hate of Theseus they assailed
Athens, and set against her citadel
A counterwork of new sky–pointing towers,
And there to Ares held their sacrifice,
Where now the rock hath name, even Ares’ Hill.
And hence shall Reverence and her kinsman Fear
Pass to each free man’s heart, by day and night
Enjoining, Thou shalt do no unjust thing,
So long as law stands as it stood of old
Unmarred by civic change. Look you, the spring
Is pure; but foul it once with influx vile
And muddy clay, and none can drink thereof.
Therefore, O citizens, I bid ye bow
In awe to this command, Let no man live,
Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny;
Nor banish ye the monarchy of Awe
Beyond the walls; untouched by fear divine,
No man doth justice in the world of men.
Therefore in purity and holy dread
Stand and revere; so shall ye have and hold
A saving bulwark of the state and land,
Such as no man hath ever elsewhere known,
Nor in far Scythia, nor in Pelops’ realm.
Thus I ordain it now, a council–court
Pure and unsullied by the lust of gain,
Sacred and swift to vengeance, wakeful ever
To champion men who sleep, the country’s guard.
Thus have I spoken, thus to mine own clan
Commended it for ever. Ye who judge,
Arise, take each his vote, mete out the right,
Your oath revering. Lo, my word is said.

(The twelve judges come forward, one by one, to the urns of decision; the first votes; as each of the others follows, the
LEADER and APOLLO speak alternately.)

LEADER

I rede ye well, beware! nor put to shame,
In aught, this grievous company of hell.

APOLLO

I too would warn you, fear mine oracles—
From Zeus they are,—nor make them void of fruit.

LEADER

Presumptuous is thy claim, blood–guilt to judge,
And false henceforth thine oracles shall be.

APOLLO

Failed then the counsels of my sire, when turned
Ixion, first of slayers, to his side?

LEADER

These are but words; but I, if justice fail me,
Will haunt this land in grim and deadly deed.

APOLLO

Scorn of the younger and the elder gods
Art thou: ’tis I that shall prevail anon.

LEADER

Thus didst thou too of old in Pheres’ halls,
O’erreaching Fate to make a mortal deathless.

APOLLO

Was it not well, my worshipper to aid,
Then most of all when hardest was the need?

LEADER

I say thou didst annul the lots of life,
Cheating with wine the deities of eld.

APOLLO

I say thou shalt anon, thy pleadings foiled,
Spit venom vainly on thine enemies.

LEADER

Since this young god o’errides mine ancient right,
I tarry but to claim your law, not knowing
If wrath of mine shall blast your state or spare.

ATHENA

Mine is the right to add the final vote,
And I award it to Orestes’ cause.
For me no mother bore within her womb,
And, save for wedlock evermore eschewed,
I vouch myself the champion of the man,
Not of the woman, yea, with all my soul,—
In heart, as birth, a father’s child alone.
Thus will I not too heinously regard
A woman’s death who did her husband slay,
The guardian of her home; and if the votes
Equal do fall, Orestes shall prevail.
Ye of the judges who are named thereto,
Swiftly shake forth the lots from either urn.

(Two judges come forward, one to each urn.)

ORESTES

O bright Apollo, what shall be the end?

LEADER

O Night, dark mother mine, dost mark these things?

ORESTES

Now shall my doom be life, or strangling cords.

LEADER

And mine, lost honour or a wider sway.

APOLLO

O stranger judges, sum aright the count
Of votes cast forth, and, parting them, take heed
Ye err not in decision. The default
Of one vote only bringeth ruin deep,
One, cast aright. doth stablish house and home.

ATHENA

Behold, this man is free from guilt of blood,
For half the votes condemn him, half set free!

ORESTES

O Pallas, light and safety of my home,
Thou, thou hast given me back to dwell once more
In that my fatherland, amerced of which
I wandered; now shall Grecian lips say this,
The man is Argive once again, and dwells
Again within kiss father’s wealthy hall,
By Pallas saved, by Loxias, and by Him,
The great third saviour, Zeus omnipotent—
Who thus in pity for my father’s fate
Doth pluck me from my doom, beholding these,
Confederates of my mother. Lo, I pass
To mine own home, but proffering this vow
Unto thy land and people: Nevermore,
Thro’ all the manifold years of Time to be,
Shall any chieftain of mine Argive land
Bear hitherward his spears for fight arrayed.
For we, though lapped in earth we then shall lie,
By thwart adversities will work our will
On them who shall transgress this oath of mine,
Paths of despair and journeyings ill–starred
For them ordaining, till their task they rue.
But if this oath be rightly kept, to them
Will we the dead be full of grace, the while
With loyal league they honour Pallas’ town.
And now farewell, thou and thy city’s folk—
Firm be thine arms’ grasp, closing with thy foes,
And, strong to save, bring victory to thy spear.

(ORESTES and APOLLO depart.)

CHORUS (chanting)

Woe on you, younger gods! the ancient right
Ye have o’erridden, rent it from my hands.

I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!
But heavily my wrath
Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,
Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe
As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,
Shall leafless blight arise,
Wasting Earth’s offspring,—Justice, hear my call!—
And thorough all the land in deadly wise
Shall scatter venom, to exude again
In pestilence on men.
What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,
Unto this land what dark despite?
Alack, alack, forlorn
Are we, a bitter injury have borne!
Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood
Of mother Night!

ATHENA

Nay, bow ye to my words, chafe not nor moan:
Ye are not worsted nor disgraced; behold,
With balanced vote the cause had issue fair,
Nor in the end did aught dishonour thee.
But thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth,
And his own prophet–god avouched the same,
Orestes slew: his slaying is atoned.
Therefore I pray you, not upon this land
Shoot forth the dart of vengeance; be appeased,
Nor blast the land with blight, nor loose thereon
Drops of eternal venom, direful darts
Wasting and marring nature’s seed of growth.
For I, the queen of Athens’ sacred right,
Do pledge to you a holy sanctuary
Deep in the heart of this my land, made just
By your indwelling presence, while ye sit
Hard by your sacred shrines that gleam with oil
Of sacrifice, and by this folk adored.

CHORUS (chanting)

Woe on you, younger gods! the ancient right
Ye have o’erridden, rent it from my hands.

I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!
But heavily my wrath
Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,
Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe
As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,
Shall leafless blight arise,
Wasting Earth’s offspring,—justice, hear my call!—
And thorough all the land in deadly wise
Shall scatter venom, to exude again
In pestilence on men.
What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,
Unto this land what dark despite?
Alack, alack, forlorn
Are we, a bitter injury have borne!
Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood
Of mother Night!

ATHENA

Dishonoured are ye not; turn not, I pray,
As goddesses your swelling wrath on men,
Nor make the friendly earth despiteful to them.
I too have Zeus for champion—’tis enough—
I only of all goddesses do know
To ope the chamber where his thunderbolts
Lie stored and sealed; but here is no such need.
Nay, be appeased, nor cast upon the ground
The malice of thy tongue, to blast the world;
Calm thou thy bitter wrath’s black inward surge,
For high shall be thine honour, set beside me
For ever in this land, whose fertile lap
Shall pour its teeming firstfruits unto you,
Gifts for fair childbirth and for wedlock’s crown:
Thus honoured, praise my spoken pledge for aye.

CHORUS (chanting)

I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,—
Ancient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth
Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,
Woe, woe for thee, for me!
From side to side what pains be these that thrill?
Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!
Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust
And brought me to the dust—
Woe, woe is me!—with craft invincible.

ATHENA

Older art thou than I, and I will bear
With this thy fury. Know, although thou be
More wise in ancient wisdom, yet have
From Zeus no scanted measure of the same,
Wherefore take heed unto this prophecy—
If to another land of alien men
Ye go, too late shall ye feel longing dreep
For mine. The rolling tides of time bring round
A day of brighter glory for this town;
And thou, enshrined in honour by the halls
Where dwelt Erechtheus, shalt a worship win
From men and from the train of womankind,
Greater than any tribe elsewhere shall pay.
Cast thou not therefore on this soil of mine
Whetstones that sharpen souls to bloodshedding,
The burning goads of youthful hearts, made hot
With frenzy of the spirit, not of wine.
Nor pluck as ’twere the heart from cocks that strive,
To set it in the breast of citizens
Of mine, a war–god’s spirit, keen for fight,
Made stern against their country and their kin.
The man who grievously doth lust for fame,
War, full, immitigable, let him wage
Against the stranger; but of kindred birds
I hold the challenge hateful. Such the boon
I proffer thee—within this land of lands,
Most loved of gods, with me to show and share
Fair mercy, gratitude and grace as fair.

CHORUS (chanting)

I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,—
Ancient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth
Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,
Woe, woe for thee, for me!
From side to side what pains be these that thrill?
Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!
Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust
And brought me to the dust—
Woe, woe is me!—with craft invincible.

ATHENA

I will not weary of soft words to thee,
That never mayst thou say, Behold me spurned,
An elder by a younger deity,
And from this land rejected and forlorn,
Unhonoured by the men who dwell therein.
But, if Persuasion’s grace be sacred to thee,
Soft in the soothing accents of my tongue,
Tarry, I Dray thee, yet, if go thou wilt.
Not rightfully wilt thou on this my town
Sway down the scale that beareth wrath and teen
Or wasting plague uport this folk. ’Tis thine,
If so thou wilt, inheritress to be
Of this my land, its utmost grace to win.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O queen, what refuge dost thou promise me?

ATHENA

Refuge untouched by bale: take thou my boon.

LEADER

What, if I take it, shall mine honour be?

ATHENA

No house shall prosper without grace of thine.

LEADER

Canst thou achieve and grant such power to me?

ATHENA

Yea, for my hand shall bless thy worshippers.

LEADER

And wilt thou pledge me this for time eterne?

ATHENA

Yea: none can bid me pledge beyond my power.

LEADER

Lo, I desist from wrath, appeased by thee.

ATHENA

Then in the land’s heart shalt thou win thee friends.

LEADER

What chant dost bid me raise, to greet the land?

ATHENA

Such as aspires towards a victory
Unrued by any: chants from breast of earth,
From wave, from sky; and let the wild winds’ breath
Pass with soft sunlight o’er the lap of land,—
Strong wax the fruits of earth, fair teem the kine,
Unfailing, for my town’s prosperity,
And constant be the growth of mortal seed.
But more and more root out the impious,
For as a gardener fosters what he sows,
So foster I this race, whom righteousness
Doth fend from sorrow. Such the proffered boon.
But I, if wars must be, and their loud clash
And carnage, for my town, will ne’er endure
That aught but victory shall crown her fame.

CHORUS (chanting)

Lo, I accept it; at her very side
Doth Pallas bid me dwell:
I will not wrong the city of her pride,
Which even Almighty Zeus and Ares hold
Heaven’s earthly citadel,
Loved home of Grecian gods, the young, the old,
The sanctuary divine,
The shield of every shrine!
For Athens I say forth a gracious prophecy,—
The glory of the sunlight and the skies
Shall bid from earth arise
Warm wavelets of new life and glad prosperity.

ATUENA (chanting)

Behold, with gracious heart well pleased
I for my citizens do grant
Fulfilment of this covenant:
And here, their wrath at length appeased,
These mighty deities shall stay.
For theirs it is by right to sway
The lot that rules our mortal day,
And he who hath not inly felt
Their stern decree, ere long on him,
Not knowing why and whence, the grim
Life–crushing blow is dealt.
The father’s sin upon the child
Descends, and sin is silent death,
And leads him on the downward path,
By stealth beguiled,
Unto the Furies: though his state
On earth were high, and loud his boast,
Victim of silent ire and hate
He dwells among the Lost.

CHORUS (chanting)

To my blessing now give ear.—
Scorching blight nor singed air
Never blast thine olives fair!
Drouth, that wasteth bud and plant,
Keep to thine own place. Avaunt,
Famine fell, and come not hither
Stealthily to waste and wither!
Let the land, in season due,
Twice her waxing fruits renew;
Teem the kine in double measure;
Rich in new god–given treasure;
Here let men the powers adore
For sudden gifts unhoped before!

ATHENA (chanting)

O hearken, warders of the wall
That guards mine Athens, what a dower
Is unto her ordained and given!
For mighty is the Furies’ power,
And deep–revered in courts of heaven
And realms of hell; and clear to all
They weave thy doom, mortality!
And some in joy and peace shall sing;
But unto other some they bring
Sad life and tear–dimmed eye.

CHORUS (chanting)

And far away I ban thee and remove,
Untimely death of youths too soon brought low!
And to each maid, O gods, when time is come for love,
Grant ye a warrior’s heart, a wedded life to know.
Ye too, O Fates, children of mother Night,
Whose children too are we, O goddesses
Of just award, of all by sacred right
Queens, who in time and in eternity
Do rule, a present power for righteousness,
Honoured beyond all Gods, hear ye and grant my cry!

ATHENA (chanting)

And I too, I with joy am fain,
Hearing your voice this gift ordain
Unto my land. High thanks be thine,
Persuasion, who with eyes divine
Into my tongue didst look thy strength,
To bend and to appease at length
Those who would not be comforted.
Zeus, king of parley, doth prevail,
And ye and I will strive nor fail,
That good may stand in evil’s stead,
And lasting bliss for bale.

CHORUS (chanting)

And nevermore these walls within
Shall echo fierce sedition’s din,
Unslaked with blood and crime;
The thirsty dust shall nevermore
Suck up the darkly streaming gore
Of civic broils, shed out in wrath
And vengeance, crying death for death!
But man with man and state with state
Shall vow The pledge of common hate
And common friendship, that for man
Hath oft made blessing, out of ban,
Be ours unto all time.

ATHENA (chanting)

Skill they, or not, the path to find
Of favouring speech and presage kind?
Yea, even from these, who, grim and stern,
Glared anger upon you of old,
O citizens, ye now shall earn
A recompense right manifold.
Deck them aright, extol them high,
Be loyal to their loyalty,
And ye shall make your town and land
Sure, propped on justice’ saving hand,
And Fame’s eternity.

CHORUS (chanting)

Hail ye, all hail! and yet again, all hail,
O Athens, happy in a weal secured!
O ye who sit by Zeus’ right hand, nor fail
Of wisdom set among you and assured,
Loved of the well–loved Goddess–Maid! the King
Of gods doth reverence you, beneath her guarding wing.

ATHENA (chanting)

All hail unto each honoured guest!
Whom to the chambers of your rest
’Tis mine to lead, and to provide
The hallowed torch, the guard and guide.
Pass down, the while these altars glow
With sacred fire, to earth below
And your appointed shrine.
There dwelling, from the land restrain
The force of fate, the breath of bane,
But waft on us the gift and gain
Of Victory divine!
And ye, the men of Cranaos’ seed,
I bid you now with reverence lead
These alien Powers that thus are made
Athenian evermore. To you
Fair be their will henceforth, to do
Whate’er may bless and aid!

CHORUS (chanting)

Hail to you all! hail yet again,
All who love Athens, gods and men,
Adoring her as Pallas’ home!
And while ye reverence what ye grant—
My sacred shrine and hidden haunt—
Blameless and blissful be your doom!

ATHENA

Once more I praise the promise of your vows,
And now I bid the golden torches’ glow
Pass down before you to the hidden depth
Of earth, by mine own sacred servants borne,
My loyal guards of statue and of shrine.
Come forth, O flower of Attic land,
O glorious band of children and of wives,
And ye, O train of matrons crowned with eld!
Deck you with festal robes of scarlet dye
In honour of this day: O gleaming torch,
Lead onward, that these gracious powers of earth
Henceforth be seen to bless the life of men.

(ATHENA leads the procession downwards into the Cave of the
FURIES, now Eumenides, under the Areopagus: as they go, the escort of women and children chant aloud)

CHANT

With loyalty we lead you; proudly go,
Night’s childless children, to your home below!
(O citizens, awhile from words forbear!)
To darkness’ deep primeval lair,
Far in Earth’s bosom, downward fare,
Adored with prayer and sacrifice.
(O citizens, forbear your cries!)
Pass hitherward, ye powers of Dread,
With all your former wrath allayed,
Into the heart of this loved land;
With joy unto your temple wend,
The while upon your steps attend
The flames that feed upon the brand—
(Now, now ring out your chant, your joy’s acclaim!)
Behind them, as they downward fare,
Let holy hands libations bear,
And torches’ sacred flame.
All–seeing Zeus and Fate come down
To battle fair for Pallas’ town!
Ring out your chant, ring out your joy’s acclaim!

THE END

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

Aeschylus

Prometheus Bound

Characters in the Play

Kratos
Bia
Hephaestus
Prometheus
Chorus of the Oceanides
Oceanus
Io
Hermes

(SCENE:-Mountainous country, and in the middle of a deep gorge a Rock, towards which KRATOS and BIA carry the gigantic form OF PROMETHEUS.
HEPHAESTUS follows dejectedly with hammer, nails, chains, etc.)

KRATOS

Now have we journeyed to a spot of earth
Remote-the Scythian wild, a waste untrod.
And now, Hephaestus, thou must execute
The task our father laid on thee, and fetter
This malefactor to the jagged rocks
In adamantine bonds infrangible;
For thine own blossom of all forging fire
He stole and gave to mortals; trespass grave
For which the Gods have called him to account,
That he may learn to bear Zeus' tyranny
And cease to play the lover of mankind.

HEPHAESTUS

Kratos and Bia, for ye twain the hest
Of Zeus is done with; nothing lets you further.
But forcibly to bind a brother God,
In chains, in this deep chasm raked by all storms
I have not courage; yet needs must I pluck
Courage from manifest necessity,
For woe worth him that slights the Father's word.
O high-souled son of them is sage in counsel,
With heavy heart I must make thy heart heavy,
In bonds of brass not easy to be loosed,
Nailing thee to this crag where no wight dwells,
Nor sound of human voice nor shape of man
Shall visit thee; but the sun-blaze shall roast
Thy flesh; thy hue, flower-fair, shall suffer change;
Welcome will Night be when with spangled robe
She hides the light of day; welcome the sun
Returning to disperse the frosts of dawn.
And every hour shall bring its weight of woe
To wear thy heart away; for yet unborn
Is he who shall release Chee from thy pain.
This is thy wage for loving humankind.
For, being a God, thou dared'st the Gods' ill will,
Preferring, to exceeding honour, Man.
Wherefore thy long watch shall be comfortless,
Stretched on this rock, never to close an eye
Or bend a knee; and vainly shalt thou lift,
With groanings deep and lamentable cries,
Thy voice; for Zeus is hard to be entreated,
As new-born power is ever pitiless.

KRATOS

Enough! Why palter? Why wast idle pity?
Is not the God Gods loathe hateful to thee?
Traitor to man of thy prerogative?

HEPHAESTUS

Kindred and fellowship are dreaded names.

KRATOS

Questionless; but to slight the Father's word-
How sayest thou? Is not this fraught with more dread?

HEPHAESTUS

Thy heart was ever hard and overbold.

KRATOS

But wailing will not ease him! Waste no pains
Where thy endeavour nothing profiteth.

HEPHAESTUS

Oh execrable work! I handicraft!

KRATOS

Why curse thy trade? For what thou hast to do,
Troth, smithcraft is in no wise answerable.

HEPHAESTUS

Would that it were another's craft, not mine!

KRATOS

Why, all things are a burden save to rule
Over the Gods; for none is free but Zeus.

HEPHAESTUS

To that I answer not, knowing it true.

KRATOS

Why, then, make haste to cast the chains about him,
Lest glancing down on thee the Father's eye
Behold a laggard and a loiterer.

HEPHAESTUS

Here are the iron bracelets for his arms.

KRATOS

Fasten them round his arms with all thy strength!
Strike with thy hammer! Nail him to the rocks!

HEPHAESTUS

'Tis done! and would that it were done less well!

KRATOS

Harder-I say-strike harder-screw all tight
And be not in the least particular
Remiss, for unto one of his resource
Bars are but instruments of liberty.

HEPHAESTUS

This forearm's fast: a shackle hard to shift.

KRATOS

Now buckle this! and handsomely! Let him learn
Sharp though he be, he's a dull blade to Zeus.

HEPHAESTUS

None can find fault with this: -save him it tortures.

KRATOS

Now take thine iron spike and drive it in,
Until it gnaw clean through the rebel's breast.

HEPHAESTUS

Woe's me, Prometheus, for thy weight of woe!

KRATOS

Still shirking? still a-groaning for the foes
Of Zeus? Anon thou'lt wail thine own mishap.

HEPHAESTUS

Thou seest what eyes scarce bear to look upon!

KRATOS

I see this fellow getting his deserts!
But strap him with a gelt about his ribs.

HEPHAESTUS

I do what I must do: for thee-less words!

KRATOS

"Words," quotha? Aye, and shout 'em if need be.
Come down and cast a ring-bolt round his legs.

HEPHAESTUS

The thing is featly done; and 'twas quick work.

KRATOS

Now with a sound rap knock the bolt-pins home!
For heavy-handed is thy task-master.

HEPHAESTUS

So villainous a form vile tongue befits.

KRATOS

Be thou the heart of wax, but chide not me
That I am gruffish, stubborn and stiff-willed.

HEPHAESTUS

Oh, come away! The tackle holds him fast.

KRATOS

Now, where thou hang'st insult Plunder the Gods
For creatures of a day! To thee what gift
Will mortals tender to requite thy pains?
The destinies were out miscalling the
Designer: a designer thou wilt need
From trap so well contrived to twist thee free.

(Exeunt.)

PROMETHEUS.

O divine air Breezes on swift bird-wings,
Ye river fountains, and of ocean-waves
The multitudinous laughter Mother Earth!
And thou all-seeing circle of the sun,
Behold what I, a God, from Gods endure!
Look down upon my shame,
The cruel wrong that racks my frame,
The grinding anguish that shall waste my strength,
Till time's ten thousand years have measured out their length!
He hath devised these chains,
The new throned potentate who reigns,
Chief of the chieftains of the Blest. Ah me!
The woe which is and that which yet shall be
I wail; and question make of these wide skies
When shall the star of my deliverance rise.
And yet-and yet-exactly I foresee
All that shall come to pass; no sharp surprise
Of pain shall overtake me; what's determined
Bear, as I can, I must, knowing the might
Of strong Necessity is unconquerable.
But touching my fate silence and speech alike
Are unsupportable. For boons bestowed
On mortal men I am straitened in these bonds.
I sought the fount of fire in hollow reed
Hid privily, a measureless resource
For man, and mighty teacher of all arts.
This is the crime that I must expiate
Hung here in chains, nailed 'neath the open sky. Ha! Ha!
What echo, what odour floats by with no sound?
God-wafted or mortal or mingled its strain?
Comes there one to this world's end, this mountain-girt ground,
To have sight of my torment? Or of what is he fain?
A God ye behold in bondage and pain,
The foe of Zeus and one at feud with all
The deities that find
Submissive entry to the tyrant's hall;
His fault, too great a love of humankind.
Ah me! Ah me! what wafture nigh at hand,
As of great birds of prey, is this I hear?
The bright air fanned
Whistles and shrills with rapid beat of wings.
There cometh nought but to my spirit brings
Horror and fear.

(The DAUGHTERS OF OCEANUS draw near in mid-air in their winged chariot.)

CHORUS

Put thou all fear away!
In kindness cometh this array
On wings of speed to mountain lone,
Our sire's consent not lightly won.
But a fresh breeze our convoy brought,
For loud the din of iron raught
Even to our sea-cave's cold recess,
And scared away the meek-eyed bashfulness.
I tarried not to tic my sandal shoe
But haste, post haste, through air my winged chariot flew.

PROMETHEUS

Ah me! Ah me!
Fair progeny
That many-childed Tethys brought to birth,
Fathered of Ocean old
Whose sleepless stream is rolled
Round the vast shores of earth
Look on me! Look upon these chains
Wherein I hang fast held
On rocks high-pinnacled,
My dungeon and my tower of dole,
Where o'er the abyss my soul,
Sad warder, her unwearied watch sustains!

CHORUS

Prometheus, I am gazing on thee now!
With the cold breath of fear upon my brow,
Not without mist of dimming tears,
While to my sight thy giant stature rears
Its bulk forpined upon these savage rocks
In shameful bonds the linked adamant locks.
For now new steersmen take the helm
Olympian; now with little thought
Of right, on strange, new laws Zeus stablisheth his realm,
Bringing the mighty ones of old to naught.

PROMETHEUS

Oh that he had conveyed me
'Neath earth, 'neath hell that swalloweth up the dead;
In Tartarus, illimitably vast
With adamantine fetters bound me fast-
There his fierce anger on me visited,
Where never mocking laughter could upbraid me
Of God or aught beside!
But now a wretch enskied,
A far-seen vane,
All they that hate me triumph in my pain.

CHORUS

Who of the Gods is there so pitiless
That he can triumph in thy sore distress?
Who doth not inly groan
With every pang of thine save Zeus alone?
But he is ever wroth, not to be bent
From his resolved intent
The sons of heaven to subjugate;
Nor shall he cease until his heart be satiate,
Or one a way devise
To hurl him from the throne where he doth monarchize.

PROMETHEUS

Yea, of a surety-though he do me wrong,
Loading my limbs with fetters strong-
The president
Of heaven's high parliament
Shall need me yet to show
What new conspiracy with privy blow
Attempts his sceptre and his kingly seat.
Neither shall words with all persuasion sweet,
Not though his tongue drop honey, cheat
Nor charm my knowledge from me; nor dures
Of menace dire, fear of more grievous pains,
Unseal my lips, till he have loosed these chains,
And granted for these injuries redress.

CHORUS

High is the heart of thee,
Thy will no whit by bitter woes unstrung,
And all too free
The licence of thy bold, unshackled tongue.
But fear hath roused my soul with piercing cry!
And for thy fate my heart misgives me! I
Tremble to know when through the breakers' roar
Thy keel shall touch again the friendly shore;
For not by prayer to Zeus is access won;
An unpersuadable heart hath Cronos' son.

PROMETHEUS

I know the heart of Zeus is hard, that he hath tied
Justice to his side;
But he shall be full gentle thus assuaged;
And, the implacable wrath wherewith he raged
Smoothed quite away, nor he nor I
Be loth to seal a bond of peace and amity.

CHORUS

All that thou hast to tell I pray unfold,
That we may hear at large upon what count
Zeus took thee and with bitter wrong affronts:
Instruct us, if the telling hurt thee not.

PROMETHEUS

These things are sorrowful for me to speak,
Yet silence too is sorrow: all ways woe!
When first the Blessed Ones were filled with wrath
And there arose division in their midst,
These instant to hurl Cronos from his throne
That Zeus might be their king, and these, adverse,
Contending that he ne'er should rule the Gods,
Then I, wise counsel urging to persuade
The Titans, sons of Ouranos and Chthon,
Prevailed not: but, all indirect essays
Despising, they by the strong hand, effortless,
Yet by main force-supposed that they might seize
Supremacy. But me my mother Themis
And Gaia, one form called by many names,
Not once alone with voice oracular
Had prophesied how power should be disposed-
That not by strength neither by violence
The mighty should be mastered, but by guile.
Which things by me set forth at large, they scorned,
Nor graced my motion with the least regard.
Then, of all ways that offered, I judged best,
Taking my mother with me, to support,
No backward friend, the not less cordial Zeus.
And by my politic counsel Tartarus,
The bottomless and black, old Cronos hides
With his confederates. So helped by me,
The tyrant of the Gods, such service rendered
With ignominious chastisement requites.
But 'tis a common malady of power
Tyrannical never to trust a friend.
And now, what ye inquired, for what arraigned
He shamefully entreats me, ye shall know.
When first upon his high, paternal throne
He took his seat, forthwith to divers Gods
Divers good gifts he gave, and parcelled out
His empire, but of miserable men
Recked not at all; rather it was his wish
To wipe out man and rear another race:
And these designs none contravened but me.
I risked the bord attempt, and saved mankind
From stark destruction and the road to hell.
Therefore with this sore penance am I bowed,
Grievous to suffer, pitiful to see.
But, for compassion shown to man, such fate
I no wise earned; rather in wrath's despite
Am I to be reformed, and made a show
Of infamy to Zeus.

CHORUS

He hath a heart
Of iron, hewn out of unfeeling rock
Is he, Prometheus, whom thy sufferings
Rouse not to wrath. Would I had ne'er beheld them,
For verily the sight hath wrung my heart.

PROMETHEUS

Yea, to my friends a woeful sight am I.

CHORUS

Hast not more boldly in aught else transgressed?

PROMETHEUS

I took from man expectancy of death.

CHORUS

What medicine found'st thou for this malady?

PROMETHEUS

I planted blind hope in the heart of him.

CHORUS

A mighty boon thou gavest there to man.

PROMETHEUS

Moreover, I conferred the gift of fire.

CHORUS

And have frail mortals now the flame-bright fire?

PROMETHEUS

Yea, and shall master many arts thereby.

CHORUS

And Zeus with such misfeasance charging thee-

PROMETHEUS

Torments me with extremity of woe.

CHORUS

And is no end in prospect of thy pains?

PROMETHEUS

None; save when he shall choose to make an end.

CHORUS

How should he choose? What hope is thine? Dost thou
Not see that thou hast erred? But how thou erredst
Small pleasure were to me to tell; to the
Exceeding sorrow. Let it go then: rather
Seek thou for some deliverance from thy woes.

PROMETHEUS

He who stands free with an untrammelled foot
Is quick to counsel and exhort a friend
In trouble. But all these things I know well.
Of my free will, my own free will, I erred,
And freely do I here acknowledge it.
Freeing mankind myself have durance found.
Natheless, I looked not for sentence so dread,
High on this precipice to droop and pine,
Having no neighbour but the desolate crags.
And now lament no more the ills I suffer,
But come to earth and an attentive ear
Lend to the things that shall befall hereafter.
Harken, oh harken, suffer as I suffer!
Who knows, who knows, but on some scatheless head,
Another's yet for the like woes reserved,
The wandering doom will presently alight?

CHORUS

Prometheus, we have heard thy call:
Not on deaf cars these awful accents fall.
Lo! lightly leaving at thy words
My flying car
And holy air, the pathway of great birds,
I long to tread this land of peak and scar,
And certify myself by tidings sure
Of all thou hast endured and must endure.

(While the winged chariot of the OCEANIDES comes to ground their father OCEANUS enters, riding on a monster.)

OCEANUS

Now have I traversed the unending plain
And unto thee, Prometheus, am I come,
Guiding this winghd monster with no rein,
Nor any bit, but mind's firm masterdom.
And know that for thy grief my heart is sore;
The bond of kind, methinks, constraineth me;
Nor is there any I would honour more,
Apart from kinship, than I reverence thee.
And thou shalt learn that I speak verity:
Mine is no smooth, false tongue; for do but show
How I can serve thee, grieved and outraged thus,
Thou ne'er shalt say thou hast, come weal, come woe,
A friend more faithful than Oceanus.

PROMETHEUS

How now? Who greets me? What! Art thou too come
To gaze upon my woes? How could'st thou leave
The stream that bears thy name, thine antres arched
With native rock, to visit earth that breeds
The massy iron in her womb? Com'st thou
To be spectator of my evil lot
And fellow sympathizer with my woes?
Behold, a thing indeed to gaze upon
The friend of Zeus, co-stablisher of his rule,
See, by this sentence with what pains I am bowed I

OCEANUS

Prometheus, all too plainly I behold:
And for the best would counsel thee: albeit
Thy brain is subtle. Learn to know thy heart,
And, as the times, so let thy manners change,
For by the law of change a new God rules.
But, if these bitter, savage, sharp-set words
Thou ventest, it may be, though he sit throned
Far off and high above thee, Zeus will hear;
And then thy present multitude of ills
Will seem the mild correction of a babe.
Rather, O thou much chastened one, refrain
Thine anger, and from suffering seek release.
Stale, peradventure, seem these words of mine:
Nevertheless, of a too haughty tongue
Such punishment, Prometheus, is the wage.
But thou, not yet brought low by suffering,
To what thou hast of ill would'st add far worse.
Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,
Thou shalt not kick against the pricks; the more
That an arch-despot who no audit dreads
Rules by his own rough will. And now I leave thee,
To strive with what success I may command
For thy deliv'rance. Keep a quiet mind
And use not over-vehemence of speech-
Knowest thou not, being exceeding wise,
A wanton, idle tongue brings chastisement?

PROMETHEUS

I marvel that thou art not in my case,
Seeing with me thou did'st adventure all.
And now, I do entreat thee, spare thyself.
Thou wilt not move him: he's not easy moved
Take heed lest thou find trouble by the way.

OCEANUS

Thou are a better counsellor to others
Than to thyself: I judge by deeds not words.
Pluck me not back when I would fain set forth.
My oath upon it, Zeus will grant my prayer
And free thee from these pangs.

PROMETHEUS

I tender the
For this my thanks and ever-during praise.
Certes, no backward friend art thou; and yet
Trouble not thyself; for at the best thy labour
Will nothing serve me, if thou mean'st to serve.
Being thyself untrammelled stand fast.
For, not to mitigate my own mischance,
Would I see others hap on evil days.
The thought be far from me. I feel the weight
Of Atlas' woes, my brother in the west
Shouldering the pillar that props heaven and earth,
No wieldy fardel for his arms to fold.
The giant dweller in Cilician dens
I saw and pitied-a terrific shape,
A hundred-headed monster-when he fell,
Resistless Typhon who withstood the Gods,
With fearsome hiss of beak-mouth horrible,
While lightning from his eyes with Gorgon-glare
Flashed for the ravage of the realm of Zeus.
But on him came the bolt that never sleeps,
Down-crashing thunder, with emitted fire,
Which shattered him and all his towering hopes
Dashed into ruin; smitten through the breast,
His strength as smoking cinder, lightning-charred.
And now a heap, a helpless, sprawling hulk,
He lies stretched out beside the narrow seas,
Pounded and crushed deep under Etna's roots.
But on the mountain-top Hephaestus sits
Forging the molten iron, whence shall burst
Rivers of fire, with red and ravening jaws
To waste fair-fruited, smooth, Sicilian fields.
Such bilious up-boiling of his ire
Shall Typho vent, with slingstone-showers red-hot,
And unapproachable surge of fiery spray,
Although combusted by the bolt of Zeus.
But thou art not unlearned, nor needest me
To be thy teacher: save thyself the way
Thou knowest and I will fortify my heart
Until the wrathfulness of Zeus abate.

OCEANUS

Nay then, Prometheus, art thou ignorant
Words are physicians to a wrath-sick soul?

PROMETHEUS

Yes, if with skill one soften the ripe core,
Not by rough measures make it obdurate.

OCEANUS

Seest thou in warm affection detriment
Or aught untoward in adventuring?

PROMETHEUS

A load of toil and a light mind withal.

OCEANUS

Then give me leave to call that sickness mine.
Wise men accounted fools attain their ends.

PROMETHEUS

But how if I am galled by thine offence?

OCEANUS

There very palpably thou thrustest home.

PROMETHEUS

Beware lest thou through pity come to broils.

OCEANUS

With one established in Omnipotence?

PROMETHEUS

Of him take heed lest thou find heaviness.

OCEANUS

I am schooled by thy calamity, Prometheus!

PROMETHEUS

Pack then! And, prithee, do not change thy mind!

OCEANUS

Thou criest "On" to one in haste to go.
For look, my dragon with impatient wings
Flaps at the broad, smooth road of level air.
Fain would he kneel him down in his own stall.

(Exit OCEANUS.)

CHORUS (after alighting)

I mourn for thee, Prometheus,
minished and brought low,
Watering my virgin cheeks with these sad drops, that flow
From sorrow's rainy fount, to fill soft-lidded eyes
With pure libations for thy fortune's obsequies.
An evil portion that none coveteth hath Zeus
Prepared for thee; by self-made laws established for his use
Disposing all, the elder Gods he purposeth to show
How strong is that right arm wherewith he smites a foe.
There hath gone up a cry from earth, a groaning for the fall
Of things of old renown and shapes majestical,
And for thy passing an exceeding bitter groan;
For thee and for thy brother Gods whose honour was thine own:
These things all they who dwell in Asia's holy seat,
Time's minions, mourn and with their groans thy groans repeat.
Yea, and they mourn who dwell beside the Colchian shore,
The hero maids unwedded that delight in war,
And Scythia's swarming myriads who their dwelling make
Around the borders of the world, the salt Maeotian lake.
Mourns Ares' stock, that flowers in desert Araby,
And the strong city mourns, the hill-fort planted high,
Near neighbour to huge Caucasus, dread mountaineers
That love the clash of arms, the counter of sharp spears.
Beforetime of all Gods one have I seen in pain,
One only Titan bound with adamantine chain,
Atlas in strength supreme, who groaning stoops, downbent
Under the burthen of the earth and heaven's broad firmament.
Bellows the main of waters, surge with foam-seethed surge
Clashing tumultuous; for thee the deep seas chant their dirge;
And Hell's dark under-world a hollow moaning fills;
Thee mourn the sacred streams with all their fountain-rills.

PROMETHEUS

Think not that I for pride and stubbornness
Am silent: rather is my heart the prey
Of gnawing thoughts, both for the past, and now
Seeing myself by vengeance buffeted.
For to these younger Gods their precedence
Who severally determined if not I?
No more of that: I should but weary you
With things ye know; but listen to the tale
Of human sufferings, and how at first
Senseless as beasts I gave men sense, possessed them
Of mind. I speak not in contempt of man;
I do but tell of good gifts I conferred.
In the beginning, seeing they saw amiss,
And hearing heard not, but, like phantoms huddled
In dreams, the perplexed story of their days
Confounded; knowing neither timber-work
Nor brick-built dwellings basking in the light,
But dug for themselves holes, wherein like ants,
That hardly may contend against a breath,
They dwelt in burrows of their unsunned caves.
Neither of winter's cold had they fixed sign,
Nor of the spring when she comes decked with flowers,
Nor yet of summer's heat with melting fruits
Sure token: but utterly without knowledge
Moiled, until I the rising of the stars
Showed them, and when they set, though much obscure.
Moreover, number, the most excellent
Of all inventions, I for them devised,
And gave them writing that retaineth all,
The serviceable mother of the Muse.
I was the first that yoked unmanaged beasts,
To serve as slaves with collar and with pack,
And take upon themselves, to man's relief,
The heaviest labour of his hands: and
Tamed to the rein and drove in wheeled cars
The horse, of sumptuous pride the ornament.
And those sea-wanderers with the wings of cloth,
The shipman's waggons, none but I contrived.
These manifold inventions for mankind
I perfected, who, out upon't, have none-
No, not one shift-to rid me of this shame.

CHORUS

Thy sufferings have been shameful, and thy mind
Strays at a loss: like to a bad physician
Fallen sick, thou'rt out of heart: nor cans't prescribe
For thine own case the draught to make thee sound.

PROMETHEUS

But hear the sequel and the more admire
What arts, what aids I cleverly evolved.
The chiefest that, if any man fell sick,
There was no help for him, comestible,
Lotion or potion; but for lack of drugs
They dwindled quite away; until I taught them
To compound draughts and mixtures sanative,
Wherewith they now are armed against disease.
I staked the winding path of divination
And was the first distinguisher of dreams,
The true from false; and voices ominous
Of meaning dark interpreted; and tokens
Seen when men take the road; and augury
By flight of all the greater crook-clawed birds
With nice discrimination I defined;
These by their nature fair and favourable,
Those, flattered with fair name. And of each sort
The habits I described; their mutual feuds
And friendships and the assemblages they hold.
And of the plumpness of the inward parts
What colour is acceptable to the Gods,
The well-streaked liver-lobe and gall-bladder.
Also by roasting limbs well wrapped in fat
And the long chine, I led men on the road
Of dark and riddling knowledge; and I purged
The glancing eye of fire, dim before,
And made its meaning plain. These are my works.
Then, things beneath the earth, aids hid from man,
Brass, iron, silver, gold, who dares to say
He was before me in discovering?
None, I wot well, unless he loves to babble.
And in a single word to sum the whole-
All manner of arts men from Prometheus learned.

CHORUS

Shoot not beyond the mark in succouring man
While thou thyself art comfortless: for
Am of good hope that from these bonds escaped
Thou shalt one day be mightier than Zeus.

PROMETHEUS

Fate, that brinks all things to an end, not thus
Apportioneth my lot: ten thousand pangs
Must bow, ten thousand miseries afflict me
Ere from these bonds I freedom find, for Art
Is by much weaker than Necessity.

CHORUS

Who is the pilot of Necessity?

PROMETHEUS

The Fates triform, and the unforgetting Furies.

CHORUS

So then Zeus is of lesser might than these?

PROMETHEUS

Surely he shall not shun the lot apportioned.

CHORUS

What lot for Zeus save world-without-end reign?

PROMETHEUS

Tax me no further with importunate questions.

CHORUS

O deep the mystery thou shroudest there

PROMETHEUS

Of aught but this freely thou may'st discourse;
But touching this I charge thee speak no word;
Nay, veil it utterly: for strictly kept
The secret from these bonds shall set me free.

CHORUS

May Zeus who all things swayeth
Ne'er wreak the might none stayeth
On wayward will of mine;
May I stint not nor waver
With offerings of sweet savour
And feasts of slaughtered kine;
The holy to the holy,
With frequent feet and lowly
At altar, fane and shrine,
Over the Ocean marches,
The deep that no drought parches,
Draw near to the divine.
My tongue the Gods estrange not;
My firm set purpose change not,
As wax melts in fire-shine.
Sweet is the life that lengthens,
While joyous hope still strengthens,
And glad, bright thoughts sustain;
But shuddering I behold thee,
The sorrows that enfold thee
And all thine endless pain.
For Zeus thou hast despised;
Thy fearless heart misprized
All that his vengeance can,
Thy wayward will obeying,
Excess of honour paying,
Prometheus, unto man.
And, oh, beloved, for this graceless grace
What thanks? What prowess for thy bold essay
Shall champion thee from men of mortal race,
The petty insects of a passing day?
Saw'st not how puny is the strength they spend?
With few, faint steps walking as dreams and blind,
Nor can the utmost of their lore transcend
The harmony of the Eternal Mind.
These things I learned seeing thy glory dimmed,
Prometheus. Ah, not thus on me was shed
The rapture of sweet music, when I hymned
The marriage-song round bath and bridal bed
At thine espousals, and of thy blood-kin,
A bride thou chosest, wooing her to thee
With all good gifts that may a Goddess win,
Thy father's child, divine Hesione.

(Enter IO, crazed and horned.)

IO

What land is this? What people here abide?
And who is he,
The prisoner of this windswept mountain-side?
Speak, speak to me;
Tell me, poor caitiff, how did'st thou transgress,
Thus buffeted?
Whither am I, half-dead with weariness,
For-wandered?
Ha! Ha!
Again the prick, the stab of gadfly-sting!
O earth, earth, hide,
The hollow shape-Argus-that evil thing-
The hundred-eyed-
Earth-born-herdsman! I see him yet; he stalks
With stealthy pace
And crafty watch not all my poor wit baulks!
From the deep place
Of earth that hath his bones he breaketh bound,
And from the pale
Of Death, the Underworld, a hell-sent hound
On the blood-trail,
Fasting and faint he drives me on before,
With spectral hand,
Along the windings of the wasteful shore,
The salt sea-sand!
List! List! the pipe! how drowzily it shrills!
A cricket-cry!
See! See! the wax-webbed reeds! Oh, to these ills
Ye Gods on high,
Ye blessed Gods, what bourne? O wandering feet
When will ye rest?
O Cronian child, wherein by aught unmeet
Have I transgressed
To be yoke-fellow with Calamity?
My mind unstrung,
A crack-brained lack-wit, frantic mad am I,
By gad-fly stung,
Thy scourge, that tarres me on with buzzing wingl
Plunge me in fire,
Hide me in earth, to deep-sea monsters fling,
But my desire-
Kneeling I pray-grudge not to grant, O King!
Too long a race
Stripped for the course have I run to and fro;
And still I chase
The vanishing goal, the end of all my woe;
Enough have I mourned!
Hear'st thou the lowing of the maid cow-horned?

PROMETHEUS

How should I hear thee not? Thou art the child
Of Inachus, dazed with the dizzying fly.
The heart of Zeus thou hast made hot with love
And Hera's curse even as a runner stripped
Pursues thee ever on thine endless round.

IO

How dost thou know my father's name? Impart
To one like thee
A poor, distressful creature, who thou art.
Sorrow with me,
Sorrowful one! Tell me, whose voice proclaims
Things true and sad,
Naming by all their old, unhappy names,
What drove me mad-
Sick! Sick! ye Gods, with suffering ye have sent,
That clings and clings;
Wasting my lamp of life till it be spent!
Crazed with your stings!
Famished I come with trampling and with leaping,
Torment and shame,
To Hera's cruel wrath, her craft unsleeping,
Captive and tame
Of all wights woe-begone and fortune-crossed,
Oh, in the storm
Of the world's sorrow is there one so lost?
Speak, godlike form,
And be in this dark world my oracle I
Can'st thou not sift
The things to come? Hast thou no art to tell
What subtle shift,
Or sound of charming song shall make me well?
Hide naught of ill
But-if indeed thou knowest-prophesy-
In words that thrill
Clear-toned through air-what such a wretch as
Must yet abide-
The lost, lost maid that roams earth's kingdoms wide?

PROMETHEUS

What thou wouldst learn I will make clear to thee,
Not weaving subtleties, but simple sooth
Unfolding as the mouth should speak to friends.
I am Prometheus, giver of fire to mortals.

IO

Oh universal succour of mankind,
Sorrowful Prometheus, why art thou punished thus?

PROMETHEUS

I have but now ceased mourning for my griefs.

IO

Wilt thou not grant me then so small a boon?

PROMETHEUS

What is it thou dost ask? Thou shalt know all.

IO

Declare to me who chained thee in this gorge.

PROMETHEUS

The hest of Zeus, but 'twas Hephaestus' hand.

IO

But what transgression dost thou expiate?

PROMETHEUS

Let this suffice thee: thou shalt know no more.

IO

Nay, but the end of my long wandering
When shall it be? This too thou must declare.

PROMETHEUS

That it is better for thee not to know.

IO

Oh hide not from me what I have to suffer!

PROMETHEUS

Poor child! Poor child! I do not grudge the gift.

IO

Why then, art thou so slow to tell me all?

PROMETHEUS

It is not from unkindness; but I fear
'Twill break thy heart.

IO

Take thou no thought for me
Where thinking thwarteth heart's desire!

PROMETHEUS

So keen
To know thy sorrows! List I and thou shalt learn.

CHORUS

Not till thou hast indulged a wish of mine.
First let us hear the story of her grief
And she herself shall tell the woeful tale.
After, thy wisdom shall impart to her
The conflict yet to come.

PROMETHEUS

So be it, then.
And, Io, thus much courtesy thou owest
These maidens being thine own father's kin.
For with a moving story of our woes
To win a tear from weeping auditors
In nought demeans the teller.

IO

I know not
How fitly to refuse; and at your wish
All ye desire to know I will in plain,
Round terms set forth. And yet the telling of it
Harrows my soul; this winter's tale of wrong,
Of angry Gods and brute deformity,
And how and why on me these horrors swooped.
Always there were dreams visiting by night
The woman's chambers where I slept; and they
With flattering words admonished and cajoled me,
Saying, "O lucky one, so long a maid?
And what a match for thee if thou would'st wed
Why, pretty, here is Zeus as hot as hot-
Love-sick-to have thee! Such a bolt as thou
Hast shot clean through his heart And he won't rest
Till Cypris help him win thee! Lift not then,
My daughter, a proud foot to spurn the bed
Of Zeus: but get thee gone to meadow deep
By Lerna's marsh, where are thy father's flocks
And cattle-folds, that on the eye of Zeus
May fall the balm that shall assuage desire."
Such dreams oppressed me, troubling all my nights,
Woe's me! till I plucked courage up to tell
My father of these fears that walked in darkness.
And many times to Pytho and Dodona
He sent his sacred missioners, to inquire
How, or by deed or word, he might conform
To the high will and pleasure of the Gods.
And they returned with slippery oracles,
Nought plain, but all to baffle and perplex-
And then at last to Inachus there raught
A saying that flashed clear; the drift, that
Must be put out from home and country, forced
To be a wanderer at the ends of the earth,
A thing devote and dedicate; and if
I would not, there should fall a thunderbolt
From Zeus, with blinding flash, and utterly
Destroy my race. So spake the oracle
Of Loxias. In sorrow he obeyed,
And from beneath his roof drove forth his child
Grieving as he grieved, and from house and home
Bolted and barred me out. But the high hand
Of Zeus bear hardly on the rein of fate.
And, instantly-even in a moment-mind
And body suffered strange distortion. Horned
Even as ye see me now, and with sharp bite
Of gadfly pricked, with high-flung skip, stark-mad,
I bounded, galloping headlong on, until
I came to the sweet and of the stream
Kerchneian, hard by Lerna's spring. And thither
Argus, the giant herdsman, fierce and fell
As a strong wine unmixed, with hateful cast
Of all his cunning eyes upon the trail,
Gave chase and tracked me down. And there he perished
By violent and sudden doom surprised.
But I with darting sting-the scorpion whip
Of angry Gods-am lashed from land to land.
Thou hast my story, and, if thou can'st tell
What I have still to suffer, speak; but do not,
Moved by compassion, with a lying tale
Warm my cold heart; no sickness of the soul
Is half so shameful as composed falsehoods.

CHORUS

Off! lost one! off! Horror, I cry!
Horror and misery
Was this the traveller's tale I craved to hear?
Oh, that mine eyes should see
A sight so ill to look upon! Ah me!
Sorrow, defilement, haunting fear,
Fan my blood cold,
Stabbed with a two-edged sting!
O Fate, Fate, Fate, tremblingly I behold
The plight of Io, thine apportioning!

PROMETHEUS

Thou dost lament too soon, and art as one
All fear. Refrain thyself till thou hast heard
What's yet to be.

CHORUS

Speak and be our instructor:
There is a kind of balm to the sick soul
In certain knowledge of the grief to come.

PROMETHEUS

Your former wish I lightly granted ye:
And ye have heard, even as ye desired,
From this maid's lips the story of her sorrow.
Now hear the sequel, the ensuing woes
The damsel must endure from Hera's hate.
And thou, O seed of Inachaean loins,
Weigh well my words, that thou may'st understand
Thy journey's end. First towards the rising sun
Turn hence, and traverse fields that ne'er felt plough
Until thou reach the country of the Scyths,
A race of wanderers handling the long-bow
That shoots afar, and having their habitations
Under the open sky in wattled cotes
That move on wheels. Go not thou nigh to them,
But ever within sound of the breaking waver,
Pass through their land. And on the left of the
The Chalybes, workers in iron, dwell.
Beware of them, for they are savages,
Who suffer not a stranger to come near.
And thou shalt reach the river Hybristes,
Well named. Cross not, for it is ill to cross,
Until thou come even unto Caucasus,
Highest of mountains, where the foaming river
Blows all its volume from the summit ridge
That o'ertops all. And that star-neighboured ridge
Thy feet must climb; and, following the road
That runneth south, thou presently shall reach
The Amazonian hosts that loathe the male,
And shall one day remove from thence and found
Themiscyra hard by Thermodon's stream,
Where on the craggy Salmadessian coast
Waves gnash their teeth, the maw of mariners
And step-mother of ships. And they shall lead the
Upon thy way, and with a right good will.
Then shalt thou come to the Cimmerian Isthmus,
Even at the pass and portals of the sea,
And leaving it behind thee, stout of heart,
Cross o'er the channel of Maeotis' lake.
For ever famous among men shall be
The story of thy crossing, and the strait
Be called by a new name, the Bosporus,
In memory of thee. Then having left
Europa's soil behind thee thou shalt come
To the main land of Asia. What think ye?
Is not the only ruler of the Gods
A complete tyrant, violent to all,
Respecting none? First, being himself a God,
He burneth to enjoy a mortal maid,
And then torments her with these wanderings.
A sorry suitor for thy love, poor girl,
A bitter wooing. Yet having heard so much
Thou art not even in the overture
And prelude of the song.

IO

Alas! Oh! Oh!

PROMETHEUS

Thou dost cryout, fetching again deep groans:
What wilt thou do when thou hast heard in full
The evils yet to come?

CHORUS

And wilt thou tell
The maiden something further: some fresh sorrow?

PROMETHEUS

A stormy sea of wrong and ruining.

IO

What does it profit me to live! Oh, why
Do I not throw myself from this rough crag
And in one leap rid me of all my pain?
Better to die at once than live, and all
My days be evil.

PROMETHEUS

Thou would'st find it hard
To bear what I must bear: for unto me
It is not given to die,-a dear release
From pain; but now of suffering there is
No end in sight till Zeus shall fall.

IO

And shall
Zeus fall? His power be taken from him?
No matter when if true-

PROMETHEUS

'Twould make thee happy
Methinks, if thou could'st see calamity
Whelm him.

IO

How should it not when all my woes
Are of his sending? learn how
These things shall be.
The tyrant's rod?
And fond imaginings.

IO

But how? Oh, speak,
If the declaring draw no evil down I

PROMETHEUS

A marriage he shall make shall vex him sore.

IO

A marriage? Whether of gods or mortals?
Speak!
If this be utterable!

PROMETHEUS

Why dost thou ask
What I may not declare?

IO

And shall he quit
The throne of all the worlds, by a new spouse
Supplanted?

PROMETHEUS

She will bear to him a child,
And he shall be in might more excellent
Than his progenitor.

IO

And he will find
No way to parry this strong stroke of fate?

PROMETHEUS

None save my own self-when these bonds are loosed.

IO

And who shall loose them if Zeus wills not?
Of thine own seed.
How say'st thou? Shall a child
Of mine release thee?

PROMETHEUS

Son of thine, but son
The thirteenth generation shall beget.

IO

A prophecy oracularly dark.

PROMETHEUS

Then seek not thou to know thine own fate.

IO

Nay,
Tender me not a boon to snatch it from me.

PROMETHEUS

Of two gifts thou hast asked one shall be thine.

IO

What gifts? Pronounce and leave to me the choice.

PROMETHEUS

Nay, thou are free to choose. Say, therefore, whether
I shall declare to thee thy future woes
Or him who shall be my deliverer.

CHORUS

Nay, but let both be granted! Unto her
That which she chooseth, unto me my choice,
That I, too, may have honour from thy lips.
First unto her declare her wanderings,
And unto me him who shall set thee free;
'Tis that I long to know.

PROMETHEUS

I will resist
No further, but to your importunacy
All things which ye-desire to learn reveal.
And, Io, first to thee I will declare
Thy far-driven wanderings; write thou my words
In the retentive tablets of thy heart.
When thou hast crossed the flood that flows between
And is the boundary of two continents,
Turn to the sun's uprising, where he treads
Printing with fiery steps the eastern sky,
And from the roaring of the Pontic surge
Do thou pass on, until before thee lies
The Gorgonean plain, Kisthene called,
Where dwell the gray-haired three, the Phorcides,
Old, mumbling maids, swan-shaped, having one eye
Betwixt the three, and but a single tooth.
On them the sun with his brightbeams ne'er glanceth
Nor moon that lamps the night. Not far from them
The sisters three, the Gorgons, have their haunt;
Winged forms, with snaky locks, hateful to man,
Whom nothing mortal looking on can live.
Thus much that thou may'st have a care of these.
Now of another portent thou shalt hear.
Beware the dogs of Zeus that ne'er give tongue,
The sharp-beaked gryphons, and the one-eyed horde
Of Arimaspians, riding upon horses,
Who dwell around the river rolling gold,
The ferry and the frith of Pluto's port.
Go not thou nigh them. After thou shalt come
To a far land, a dark-skinned race, that dwell
Beside the fountains of the sun, whence flows
The river Ethiops: follow its banks
Until thou comest to the steep-down slope
Where from the Bibline mountains Nilus old
Pours the sweet waters of his holy stream.
And thou, the river guiding thee, shalt come
To the three-sided, wedge-shaped land of Nile,
Where for thyself, Io, and for thy children
Long sojourn is appointed. If in aught
My story seems to stammer and to er
From indirectness, ask and ask again
Till all be manifest. I do not lack
For leisure, having more than well contents me

CHORUS

If there be aught that she must suffer yet,
Or aught omitted in the narrative
Of her long wanderings, I pray thee speak.
But if thou hast told all, then grant the boon
We asked and doubtless thou wilt call to mind.

PROMETHEUS

Nay, she has heard the last of her long journey.
But, as some warrant for her patient hearing
I will relate her former sufferings
Ere she came hither. Much I will omit
That had detained us else with long discourse
And touch at once her journey's thus far goal.
When thou wast come to the Molossian plain
That lies about the high top of Dodona,
Where is an oracle and shrine of Zeus
Thesprotian, and-portent past belief-
The talking oaks, the same from whom the word
Flashed clear and nothing questionably hailed the
The destined spouse-ah! do I touch old wounds?-
Of Zeus, honoured above thy sex; stung thence
In torment, where the road runs by the sea,
Thou cam'st to the broad gulf of Rhea, whence
Beat back by a strong wind, thou didst retrace
Most painfully thy course; and it shall be
That times to come in memory of thy passage
Shall call that inlet the Ionian Sea.
Thus much for thee in witness that my mind
Beholdeth more than that which leaps to light.
Now for the things to come; what I shall say
Concerns ye both alike. Return we then
And follow our old track. There is a city
Yclept Canobus, built at the land's end,
Even at the mouth and mounded silt of Nile,
And there shall Zeus restore to thee thy mind
With touch benign and laying on of hands.
And from that touch thou shalt conceive and bear
Swarth Epaphus, touch-born; and he shall reap
As much of earth as Nilus watereth
With his broad-flowing river. In descent
The fifth from him there shall come back to Argos,
Thine ancient home, but driven by hard hap,
Two score and ten maids, daughters of one house,
Fleeing pollution of unlawful marriage
With their next kin, who winged with wild desire,
As hawks that follow hard on cushat-doves,
Shall harry prey which they should not pursue
And hunt forbidden brides. But God shall be
Exceeding jealous for their chastity;
And old Pelasgia, for the mortal thrust
Of woman's hands and midnight murder done
Upon their new-wed lords, shall shelter them;
For every wife shall strike her husband down
Dipping a two-edged broadsword in his blood.
Oh, that mine enemies might wed such wivesl
But of the fifty, one alone desire
Shall tame, as with the stroke of charming-wand,
So that she shall not lift her hands to slay
The partner of her bed; yea, melting love
Shall blunt her sharp-set will, and she shall choose
Rather to be called weak and womanly
Than the dark stain of blood; and she shall be
Mother of kings in Argos. 'Tis a tale
Were't told in full, would occupy us long.
For, of her sowing, there shall spring to fame
The lion's whelp, the archer bold, whose bow
Shall set me free. This is the oracle
Themis, my ancient Mother, Titan-born,
Disclosed to me; but how and in what wise
Were long to tell, nor would it profit thee.

IO

Again they come, again
The fury and the pain!
The gangrened wound! The ache of pulses dinned
With raging throes
It beats upon my brain-the burning wind
That madness blows!
It pricks-the barb, the hook not forged with heat,
The gadfly dart!
Against my ribs with thud of trampling feet
Hammers my heart!
And like a bowling wheel mine eyeballs spin,
And I am flung
By fierce winds from my course, nor can rein in
My frantic tongue
That raves I know not what!-a random tide
Of words-a froth
Of muddied waters buffeting the wide,
High-crested, hateful wave of ruin and God's wrath!

(Exit raving.)

CHORUS

I hold him wise who first in his own mind
This canon fixed and taught it to mankind:
True marriage is the union that mates
Equal with equal; not where wealth emasculates,
Or mighty lineage is magnified,
Should he who earns his bread look for a bride.
Therefore, grave mistresses of fate, I pray
That I may never live to see the day
When Zeus takes me for his bedfellow; or
Draw near in love to husband from on high.
For I am full of fear when I behold
Io, the maid no human love may fold,
And her virginity disconsolate,
Homeless and husbandless by Hera's hate.
For me, when love is level, fear is far.
May none of all the Gods that greater are
Eve me with his unshunnable regard;
Fir in that warfare victory is hard,
And of that plenty cometh emptiness.
What should befall me then I dare not guess;
Nor whither I should flee that I might shun
The craft and subtlety of Cronos' Son.

PROMETHEUS

I tell thee that the self-willed pride of Zeus
Shall surely be abased; that even now
He plots a marriage that shall hurl him forth
Far out of sight of his imperial throne
And kingly dignity. Then, in that hour,
Shall be fulfilled, nor in one tittle fail,
The curse wherewith his father Cronos cursed him,
What time he fell from his majestic place
Established from of old. And such a stroke
None of the Gods save me could turn aside.
I know these things shall be and on what wise.
Therefore let him secure him in his seat,
And put his trust in airy noise, and swing
His bright, two-handed, blazing thunderbolt,
For these shall nothing stead him, nor avert
Fall insupportable and glory humbled.
A wrestler of such might he maketh ready
For his own ruin; yea, a wonder, strong
In strength unmatchable; and he shall find
Fire that shall set at naught the burning bolt
And blasts more dreadful that o'er-crow the thunder.
The pestilence that scourgeth the deep seas
And shaketh solid earth, the three-pronged mace,
Poseidon's spear, a mightier shall scatter;
And when he stumbleth striking there his foot,
Fallen on evil days, the tyrant's pride
Shall measure all the miserable length
That parts rule absolute from servitude.

CHORUS

Methinks the wish is father to the thought
And whets thy railing tongue.

PROMETHEUS

Not so: the wish And the accomplishment go hand in hand.

CHORUS

Then must we look for one who shall supplant
And reign instead of Zeus?
Far, far more grievous shall bow down his neck.

CHORUS

Hast thou no fear venting such blasphemy?

PROMETHEUS

What should I fear who have no part nor lot
In doom of dying?

CHORUS

But he might afflict the
With agony more dreadful, pain beyond
These pains.

PROMETHEUS

Why let him if he will
All evils I foreknow.

CHORUS

Ah, they are wise
Who do obeisance, prostrate in the dust,
To the implacable, eternal Will.

PROMETHEUS

Go thou and worship; fold thy hands in prayer,
And be the dog that licks the foot of power!
Nothing care I for Zeus; yea, less than naught!
Let him do what he will, and sway the world
His little hour; he has not long to lord it
Among the Gods.
Oh here here runner comes
The upstart tyrant's lacquey! He'll bring news,
A message, never doubt it, from his master.

(Enter HERMES.)

HERMES

You, the sophistical rogue, the heart of gall,
The renegade of heaven, to short-lived men
Purveyor of prerogatives and tities,
Fire-thief! Dost hear me? I've a word for thee.
Thou'rt to declare-this is the Father's pleasure
These marriage-feasts of thine, whereof thy tongue
Rattles a-pace, and by the which his greatness
Shall take a fall. And look you rede no riddles,
But tell the truth, in each particular
Exact. I am not to sweat for thee, Prometheus,
Upon a double journey. And thou seest
Zeus by thy dark defiance is not moved.

PROMETHEUS

A very solemn piece of insolence
Spoken like an underling of the Gods! Ye are young!
Ye are young! New come to power And ye suppose
Your towered citadel Calamity
Can never enter! Ah, and have not
Seen from those pinnacles a two-fold fall
Of tyrants? And the third, who his brief "now"
Of lordship arrogates, I shall see yet
By lapse most swift' most ignominious,
Sink to perdition. And dost thou suppose
I crouch and cower in reverence and awe
To Gods of yesterday? I fail of that
So much, the total all of space and time
Bulks in between. Take thyself hence and count
Thy toiling steps back by the way thou camest,
In nothing wiser for thy questionings.

HERMES

This is that former stubbornness of thine
That brought thee hither to foul anchorage.

PROMETHEUS

Mistake me not; I would not, if I might,
Change my misfortunes for thy vassalage.

HERMES

Oh! better be the vassal of this rock
Than born the trusty messenger of Zeus

PROMETHEUS

I answer insolence, as it deserves,
With insolence. How else should it be answered?

HERMES

Surely; and, being in trouble, it is plain
You revel in your plight.

PROMETHEUS

Revel, forsooth!
I would my enemies might hold such revels
And thou amongst the first.

HERMES

Dost thou blame me
For thy misfortunes?

PROMETHEUS

I hate all the Gods,
Because, having received good at my hands,
They have rewarded me with evil.
Proves thee stark mad!

HERMES

This proves thee stark mad!

PROMETHEUS

Mad as you please, if hating
Your enemies is madness

HERMES

Were all well
With thee, thou'dst be insufferable!

PROMETHEUS

Alas!

HERMES

Alas, that Zeus knows not that word, Alas!

PROMETHEUS

But ageing Time teacheth all knowledge.

HERMES

Time
Hath not yet taught thy rash, imperious will
Over wild impulse to win mastery.

PROMETHEUS

Nay: had Time taught me that, I had not stooped
To bandy words with such a slave as thou.

HERMES

This, then, is all thine answer: thou'lt not
One syllable of what our Father asks.

PROMETHEUS

Oh, that I were a debtor to his kindness!
I would requite him to the uttermost!

HERMES

A cutting speech! You take me for a boy
Whom you may taunt and tease.

PROMETHEUS

Why art thou not
A boy-a very booby-to suppose
Thou wilt get aught from me? There is no wrong
However shameful, nor no shift of malice
Whereby Zeus shall persuade me to unlock
My lips until these shackles be cast loose.
Therefore let lightning leap with smoke and flame,
And all that is be beat and tossed together,
With whirl of feathery snowflakes and loud crack
Of subterranean thunder; none of these
Shall bend my will or force me to disclose
By whom 'tis fated he shall fall from power.

HERMES

What good can come of this? Think yet again!

PROMETHEUS

I long ago have thought and long ago
Determined.

HERMES

Patience! patience! thou rash fool
Have so much patience as to school thy mind
To a right judgment in thy present troubles.

PROMETHEUS

Lo, I am rockfast, and thy words are wave
That weary me in vain. Let not the thought
Enter thy mind, that I in awe of Zeus
Shall change my nature for a girl's, or beg
The Loathed beyond all loathing-with my hands
Spread out in woman's fashion-to cast loose
These bonds; from that I am utterly removed.

HERMES

I have talked much, yet further not my purpose;
For thou art in no whit melted or moved
By my prolonged entreaties: like a colt
New to the harness thou dost back and Plunge.
Snap at thy bit and fight against the rein.
And yet thy confidence is in a straw;
For stubbornness, if one be in the wrong,
Is in itself weaker than naught at all.
See now, if thou wilt not obey my words,
What storm, what triple-crested wave of woe
Unshunnable shall come upon thee. First,
This rocky chasm shall the Father split
With earthquake thunder and his burning bolt,
And he shall hide thy form, and thou shalt hang
Bolt upright, dandled in the rock's rude arms.
Nor till thou hast completed thy long term
Shalt thou come back into the light; and then
The hound of Zeus, the tawny eagle,
Shall violently fall upon thy flesh
And rend it as 'twere rags; and every day
And all day long shall thine unbidden guest
Sit at thy table, feasting on thy liver
Till he hath gnawn it black. Look for no term
To such an agony till there stand forth
Among the Gods one who shall take upon him
Thy sufferings and consent to enter hell
Far from the light of Sun, yea, the deep pit
And mirk of Tartarus, for thee. Be advised;
This is not stuffed speech framed to frighten the
But woeful truth. For Zeus knows not to lie

CHORUS

To our mind
The words of Hermes fail not of the mark.
For he enjoins thee to let self-will go
And follow after prudent counsels. Him
Harken; for error in the wise is shame.

PROMETHEUS

These are stale tidings I foreknew;
Therefore, since suffering is the due
A foe must pay his foes,
Let curled lightnings clasp and clash
And close upon my limbs: loud crash
The thunder, and fierce throes
Of savage winds convulse calm air:
The embowelled blast earth's roots uptear
And toss beyond its bars,
The rough surge, till the roaring deep
In one devouring deluge sweep
The pathway of the stars
Finally, let him fling my form
Down whirling gulfs, the central storm
Of being; let me lie
Plunged in the black Tartarean gloom;
Yet-yet-his sentence shall not doom
This deathless self to die!

HERMES

These are the workings of a brain
More than a little touched; the vein
Of voluble ecstasy!
Surely he wandereth from the way,
His reason lost, who thus can pray
A mouthing mad man he!
Therefore, O ye who court his fate,
Rash mourners-ere it be too late
And ye indeed are sad
For vengeance spurring hither fast-
Hence! lest the bellowing thunderblast
Like him should strike you mad I

CHORUS

Words which might work persuasion speak
If thou must counsel me; nor seek
Thus, like a stream in spate,
To uproot mine honour. Dost thou dare
Urge me to baseness! I will bear
With him all blows of fate;
For false forsakers I despise;
At treachery my gorge doth rise:
I spew it forth with hate!

HERMES

Only-with ruin on your track-
Rail not at fortune; but look back
And these my words recall;
Neither blame Zeus that he hath sent
Sorrow no warning word forewent!
Ye labour for your fall
With your own hands I Not by surprise
Nor yet by stealth, but with clear eyes,
Knowing the thing ye do,
Ye walk into the yawning net
That for the feet of is set
And Ruin spreads for you.

(Exit.)

PROMETHEUS

The time is past for words; earth quakes
Sensibly: hark! pent thunder rakes
The depths, with bellowing din
Of echoes rolling ever nigher:
Lightnings shake out their locks of fire;
The dust cones dance and spin;
The skipping winds, as if possessed
By faction-north, south, east and west,
Puff at each other; sea
And sky are shook together: Lo
The swing and fury of the blow
Wherewith Zeus smiteth me
Sweepeth apace, and, visibly,
To strike my heart with fear. See, see,
Earth, awful Mother! Air,
That shedd'st from the revolving sky
On all the light they see thee by,
What bitter wrongs I bear!

(The scene closes with earthquake and thunder, in the midst of which PROMETHEUS and the DAUGHTERS OF OCEANUS sink into the abyss.)

THE END

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

Aeschylus

The Choephori

translated by E.D.A. Morshead

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

ORESTES, son of AGAMEMNON and CLYTEMNESTRA
CHORUS OF SLAVE WOMEN
ELECTRA, sister of ORESTES
A NURSE
CLYTEMNESTRA
AEGISTHUS
AN ATTENDANT
PYLADES, friend of ORESTES

(SCENE:—By the tomb of Agamemnon near the palace in Argos.
ORESTES and PYLADES enter, dressed as travellers. ORESTES carries two locks of hair in his hand.)

ORESTES

Lord of the shades and patron of the realm
That erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,
Hermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,
Me who from banishment returning stand
On this my country; lo, my foot is set
On this grave–mound, and herald–like, as thou,
Once and again, I bid my father hear.
And these twin locks, from mine head shorn, I bring,
And one to Inachus the river–god,
My young life’s nurturer, I dedicate,
And one in sign of mourning unfulfilled
I lay, though late, on this my father’s grave.
For O my father, not beside thy corse
Stood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand
Stretched out to bear thee forth to burial.

What sight is yonder? what this woman–throng
Hitherward coming, by their sable garb
Made manifest as mourners? What hath chanced?
Doth some new sorrow hap within the home?
Or rightly may I deem that they draw near
Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire
Of dead men angered, to my father’s grave?
Nay, such they are indeed; for I descry
Electra mine own sister pacing hither,
In moody grief conspicuous. Grant, O Zeus,
Grant me my father’s murder to avenge—
Be thou my willing champion!
Pylades,
Pass we aside, till rightly I discern
Wherefore these women throng in suppliance.

(PYLADES and ORESTES withdraw; the CHORUS enters bearing vessels for libation; ELECTRA follows them; they pace slowly towards the tomb of Agamemnon.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

Forth from the royal halls by high command
I bear libations for the dead.
Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,
And all my cheek is rent and red,
Fresh–furrowed by my nails, and all my soul
This many a day doth feed on cries of dole.
And trailing tatters of my vest,
In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,
Hang rent around my breast,
Even as I, by blows of Fate most stern
Saddened and torn.

antistrophe 1

Oracular thro’ visions, ghastly clear,
Bearing a blast of wrath from realms below,
And stiffening each rising hair with dread,
Came out of dream–land Fear,
And, loud and awful, bade
The shriek ring out at midnight’s witching hour,
And brooded, stern with woe,
Above the inner house, the woman’s bower
And seers inspired did read the dream on oath,
Chanting aloud In realms below
The dead are wroth;
Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.

strophe 2

Therefore to bear this gift of graceless worth—
O Earth, my nursing mother!—
The woman god–accurs’d doth send me forth
Lest one crime bring another.
Ill is the very word to speak, for none
Can ransom or atone
For blood once shed and darkening the plain.
O hearth of woe and bane,
O state that low doth lie!
Sunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood
Above the home of murdered majesty.

antistrophe 2

Rumour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,
Pervading ears and soul of lesser men,
Is silent now and dead.
Yet rules a viler dread;
For bliss and power, however won,
As gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.

Justice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,
Some that are yet in light;
Others in interspace of day and night,
Till Fate arouse them, stay;
And some are lapped in night, where all things are undone

strophe 3

On the life–giving lap of Earth
Blood hath flowed forth;
And now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain—
Unmelting, uneffaced the stain.
And Ate tarries long, but at the last
The sinner’s heart is cast
Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain.

antistrophe 3

Lo, when man’s force doth ope
The virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hope
For what is lost,—even so, I deem,
Though in one channel ran Earth’s every stream,
Laving the hand defiled from murder’s stain,
It were in vain.

epode

And upon me—ah me!—the gods have laid
The woe that wrapped round Troy,
What time they led me down from home and kin
Unto a slave’s employ—
The doom to bow the head
And watch our master’s will
Work deeds of good and ill—
To see the headlong sway of force and sin,
And hold restrained the spirit’s bitter hate,
Wailing the monarch’s fruitless fate,
Hiding my face within my robe, and fain
Of tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.

ELECTRA

Handmaidens, orderers of the palace–halls,
Since at my side ye come, a suppliant train,
Companions of this offering, counsel me
As best befits the time: for I, who pour
Upon the grave these streams funereal,
With what fair word can I invoke my sire?
Shall I aver, Behold, I bear these gifts
From well–loved wife unto her well–loved lord,
When ’tis from her, my mother, that they come?
I dare not say it: of all words I fail
Wherewith to consecrate unto my sire
These sacrificial honours on his grave.
Or shall I speak this word, as mortals use—
Give back, to those who send these coronals,
Full recompense—of ills for acts malign?
Or shall I pour this draught for Earth to drink,
Sans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,
And homeward pass with unreverted eyes,
Casting the bowl away, as one who flings
The household cleansings to the common road?
Be art and part, O friends, in this my doubt,
Even as ye are in that one common hate
Whereby we live attended: fear ye not
The wrath of any man, nor hide your word
Within your breast: the day of death and doom
Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.
Speak, then, if aught thou know’st to aid us more.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Thou biddest; I will speak my soul’s thought out,
Revering as a shrine thy father’s grave.

ELECTRA

Say then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest.

LEADER

Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.

ELECTRA

And of his kin whom dare I name as kind?

LEADER

Thyself; and next, whoe’er Aegisthus scorns.

ELECTRA

Then ’tis myself and thou, my prayer must name.

LEADER

Whoe’er they be, ’tis thine to know and name them.

ELECTRA

Is there no other we may claim as ours?

LEADER

Think of Orestes, though far–off he be.

ELECTRA

Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.

LEADER

Mindfully, next, on those who shed the blood—

ELECTRA

Pray on them what? expound, instruct my doubt.

LEADER

This: Upon them some god or mortal come—

ELECTRA

As judge or as avenger? speak thy thought.

LEADER

Pray in set terms, Who shall the slayer slay.

ELECTRA

Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven?

LEADER

How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe?

ELECTRA (praying at the tomb)

O mighty Hermes, warder of the shades,
Herald of upper and of under world,
Proclaim and usher down my prayer’s appeal
Unto the gods below, that they with eyes
Watchful behold these halls. my sire’s of old—
And unto Earth, the mother of all things,
And loster–nurse, and womb that takes their seed.

Lo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,
Call on my father, who yet holds in ruth
Me and mine own Orestes, Father, speak—
How shall thy children rule thine halls again?
Homeless we are and sold; and she who sold
Is she who bore us; and the price she took
Is he who joined with her to work thy death,
Aegisthus, her new lord. Behold me here
Brought down to slave’s estate, and far away
Wanders Orestes, banished from the wealth
That once was thine, the profit of thy care,
Whereon these revel in a shameful joy.
Father, my prayer is said; ’tis thine to hear—
Grant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,
And unto me grant these—a purer soul
Than is my mother’s, a more stainless hand.

These be my prayers for us; for thee, O sire,
I cry that one may come to smite thy fops,
And that the slayers may in turn be slain.
Cursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,
Praying mine own, a counter–curse on them.
And thou, send up to us the righteous boon
For which we pray; thine aids be heaven and earth,
And justice guide the right to victory.

(To the CHORUS)

Thus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,
And follow ye the wont, and as with flowers
Crown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge
Your lips ring out above the dead man’s grave.

(She pours the libations.)

CHORUS (chanting)

Woe, woe, woe!
Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground
Where our lord lies low:
Fall and cleanse away the cursed libation’s stair.,
Shed on this grave–mound,
Fenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane
From the dead are found.
Lord of Argos, hearken!
Though around thee darken
Mist of death and hell, arise and hear
Hearken and awaken to our cry of woe!
Who with might of spear
Shall our home deliver?
Who like Ares bend until it quiver,
Bend the northern bow?
Who with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust with glaive,
Thrust and slay and save?

ELECTRA

Lo! the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass—

(She notices the locks Of ORESTES.)

Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.

ELECTRA

I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.

LEADER

Shorn from wnat man or what deep–girded maid?

ELECTRA

That may he, guess who will; the sign is plain.

LEADER

Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.

ELECTRA

None is there here but I, to clip such gift.

LEADER

For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.

ELECTRA

And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like—

LEADER

Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.

ELECTRA

Like unto those my father’s children wear.

LEADER

Then is this lock Orestes’ secret gift?

ELECTRA

Most like it is unto the curls he wore.

LEADER

Yet how dared he to come unto his home?

ELECTRA

He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.

LEADER

It is a sorrow grievous as his death,
That he should live yet never dare return.

ELECTRA

Yea, and my heart o’erflows with gall of grief,
And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart;
Like to the first drops after drought, my tears
Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,
As on this lock I gaze; I cannot deem
That any Argive save Orestes’ self
Was ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,
Hath she, the murd’ress, shorn and laid this lock
To mourn him whom she slew—my mother she,
Bearing no mother’s heart, but to her race
A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven!
Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,
That this adornment cometh of the hand
Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,
I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair!
Ah well–a–day, that this dumb hair had voice
To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,
Bidding me sway no more ’twixt fear and hope,
Clearly commanding, Cast me hence away,
Clipped was I from some head thou lovest not;
Or, I am kin to thee, and here, as thou,
I come to weep and deck our father’s grave.
Aid me, ye gods! for well indeed ye know
How in the gale and counter–gale of doubt,
Like to the seaman’s bark, we whirl and stray.
But, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,
From seed how small, the new tree of our home!—
Lo ye, a second sign—these footsteps, looks—
Like to my own, a corresponsive print;
And look, another footmark,—this his own,
And that the foot of one who walked with him.
Mark, how the heel and tendons’ print combine,
Measured exact, with mine coincident!
Alas, for doubt and anguish rack my mind.

(ORESTES and PYLADES enter suddenly.)

ORESTES

Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled,
Fair fall the rest of what I ask of heaven.

ELECTRA

Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?

ORESTES

This, that thine eyes behold thy heart’s desire.

ELECTRA

On whom of mortals know’st thou that I call?

ORESTES

I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.

ELECTRA

Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?

ORESTES

I, I am he; seek not one more akin.

ELECTRA

Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?

ORESTES

Against myself I weave it, if I weave.

ELECTRA

Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woel

ORESTES

’Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.

ELECTRA

Speak I with thee then as Orestes’ self?

ORESTES

My very face thou see’st and know’st me not,
And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock
Shorn for my father’s grave, and when thy quest
Was eager on the footprints I had made,
Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,
Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me!
Lay now this ringlet whence ’twas shorn, and judge,
And look upon this robe, thine own hands’ work,
The shuttle–prints, the creature wrought thereon—
Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,
For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.

ELECTRA

O thou that art unto our father’s home
Love, grief and hope, for thee the tears ran down,
For thee, the son, the saviour that should be;
Trust thou thine arm and win thy father’s halls!
O aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,
Whom upon thee the heart’s constraint bids cal
As on my father, and the claim of love
From me unto my mother turns to thee,
For she is very hate; to thee too turns
What of my heart went out to her who died
A ruthless death upon the altar–stone;
And for myself I love thee—thee that wast
A brother leal, sole stay of love to me.
Now by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus
Saviour almighty, stand to aid the twain!

ORESTES

Zeus, Zeus! look down on our estate and us,
The orphaned brood of him, our eagle–sire,
Whom to his death a fearful serpent brought,
Enwinding him in coils; and we, bereft
And foodless, sink with famine, all too weak
To bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,
Such quarry as he slew. Lo! I and she,
Electra, stand before thee, fatherless,
And each alike cast out and homeless made.

ELECTRA

And if thou leave to death the brood of him
Whose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence
Was thine, all thine,—whence, in the after years,
Shall any hand like his adorn thy shrine
With sacrifice of flesh? the eaglets slain,
Thou wouldst not have a messenger to bear
Thine omens, once so clear, to mortal men;
So, if this kingly stock be withered all,
None on high festivals will fend thy shrine.
Stoop thou to raise us! strong the race shall grow,
Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.

LEADER

O children, saviours of your father’s home,
Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear
And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,
Unto our masters—whom God grant to me
In pitchy reek of fun’ral flame to seel

ORESTES

Nay, mighty is Apollo’s oracle
And shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass
Thro’ all this peril; clear the voice rang out
With many warnings, sternly threatening
To my hot heart the wintry chill of pain,
Unless upon the slayers of my sire
I pressed for vengeance: this the god’s command—
That I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,
Should with a craft like theirs the slayers slay:
Else with my very life I should atone
This deed undone, in many a ghastly wise.
For he proclaimed unto the ears of men
That offerings, poured to angry powers of death,
Exude again, unless their will be done,
As grim disease on those that poured them forth—
As leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh
And with fell fangs corroding what of old
Wore natural form; and on the brow arise
White poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.
He spake moreover of assailing fiends
Empowered to quit on me my father’s blood,
Wreaking their wrath on me, what time in night
Beneath shut lids the spirit’s eye sees clear.
The dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell
By spirits of the murdered dead who call
Unto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,
The night–tide’s visitant, and madness’ curse
Should drive and rack me; and my tortured frame
Should be chased forth from man’s community
As with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.
For me and such as me no lustral bowl
Should stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God
For me, and wrath unseen of my dead sire
Should drive me from the shrine; no man should dare
To take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me:
Slow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,
And pitiless horror wind me for the grave.
This spake the god—this dare I disobey?
Yea, though I dared, the deed must yet be done;
For to that end diverse desires combine,—
The god’s behest, deep grief for him who died,
And last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled—
All these weigh on me, urge that Argive men,
Minions of valour, who with soul of fire
Did make of fenced Troy a ruinous heap,
Be not left slaves to two and each a woman!
For he, the man, wears woman’s heart; if not,
Soon shall he know, confronted by a man.

(ORESTES, ELECTRA, and the CHORUS gather round the tomb of
Agamemnon. The following lines are chanted responsively.)

CHORUS

Mighty Fates, on you we call!
Bid the will of Zeus ordain
Power to those, to whom again
Justice turns with hand and aid!
Grievous was the prayer one made
Grievous let the answer fall!
Where the mighty doom is set,
Justice claims aloud her debt.
Who in blood hath dipped the steel,
Deep in blood her meed shall feel
List an immemorial word—
Whosoe’er shall take the sword
Shall perish by the sword.

ORESTES

Father, unblest in death, O father mine!
What breath of word or deed
Can I waft on thee from this far confine
Unto thy lowly bed,—
Waft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,
Hope’s counter–gleam of fire?
Yet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying
Unto each parted sire.

CHORUS

O child, the spirit of the dead,
Altho’ upon his flesh have fed
The grim teeth of the flame,
Is quelled not; after many days
The sting of wrath his soul shall raise,
A vengeance to reclaim!
To the dead rings loud our cry—
Plain the living’s treachery—
Swelling, shrilling, urged on high,
The vengeful dirge, for parents slain,
Shall strive and shall attain.

ELECTRA

Hear me too, even me, O father, hear!
Not by one child alone these groans, these tears are shed
Upon thy sepulchre.
Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,
Stands, a suppliant, homeless made:
Ah, and all is full of ill,
Comfort is there none to say!
Strive and wrestle as we may,
Still stands doom invincible.

CHORUS

Nay, if so he will, the god
Still our tears to joy can turn.
He can bid a triumph–ode
Drown the dirge beside this urn;
He to kingly halls can greet
The child restored, the homeward–guided feet.

ORESTES

Ah my father! hadst thou lain
Under Ilion’s wall,
By some Lycian spearman slain,
Thou hadst left in this thine hall
Honour; thou hadst wrought for us
Fame and life most glorious.
Over–seas if thou hadst died,
Heavily had stood thy tomb,
Heaped on high; but, quenched in pride,
Grief were light unto thy home.

CHORUS

Loved and honoured hadst thou lain
By the dead that nobly fell,
In the under–world again,
Where are throned the kings of hell,
Full of sway, adorable
Thou hadst stood at their right hand—
Thou that wert, in mortal land,
By Fate’s ordinance and law,
King of kings who bear the crown
And the staff, to which in awe
Mortal men bow down.

ELECTRA

Nay, O father, I were fain
Other fate had fallen on thee.
Ill it were if thou hadst lain
One among the common slain,
Fallen by Scamander’s side—
Those who slew thee there should be!
Then, untouched by slavery,
We had heard as from afar
Deaths of those who should have died
’Mid the chance of war.

CHORUS

O child, forbear! things all too high thou sayest.
Easy, but vain, thy cry!
A boon above all gold is that thou prayest,
An unreached destiny,
As of the blessed land that far aloof
Beyond the north wind lies;
Yet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof;
A double scourge of sighs
Awakes the dead; th’ avengers rise, though late;
Blood stains the guilty pride
Of the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate
Stands on the children’s side.

ELECTRA

That hath sped thro’ mine ear, like a shaft from a bow!
Zeus, Zeus! it is thou who dost send from below
A doom on the desperate ere long
On a mother a father shall visit his wrong.

CHORUS

Be it mine to upraise thro’ the reek of the pyre
The chant of delight, while the funeral fire
Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain
And a woman laid low!
For who bids me conceal it! out–rending control,
Blows ever the stern blast of hate thro’ my soul,
And before me a vision of wrath and of bane
Flits and waves to and fro.

ORESTES

Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.
Smite with a rending blow
Upon their heads, and bid the land be well:
Set right where wrong hath stood; and thou give ear,
O Earth, unto my prayer—
Yea, hear O mother Earth, and monarchy of hell

CHORUS

Nay, the law is sternly set—
Blood–drops shed upon the ground
Plead for other bloodshed yet;
Loud the call of death doth sound,
Calling guilt of olden time,
A Fury, crowning crime with crime.

ELECTRA

Where, where are ye, avenging powers,
Puissant Furies of the slain?
Behold the relics of the race
Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place!
O Zeus, what borne henceforth is ours,
What refuge to attain?

CHORUS

Lo, at your wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred;
Now am I lorn with sadness,
Darkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow’s word
Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise,—
She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes
To the new dawn of gladness.

ORESTES

Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,
Wrought by our mother’s deed?
Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong
Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed.
Her children’s soul is wolfish, born from hers,
And softens not by prayers.

CHORUS

I dealt upon my breast the blow
That Asian mourning women know;
Wails from my breast the fun’ral cry,
The Cissian weeping melody;
Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,
My clenched hands wander, here and there,
From head to breast; distraught with blows
Throb dizzily my brows.

ELECTRA

Aweless in hate, O mother, sternly brave!
As in a foeman’s grave
Thou laid’st in earth a king, but to the bier
No citizen drew nears—
Thy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,
Thou bad’st no wail arise!

ORESTES

Alas, the shameful burial thou dost speak!
Yet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak—
That do the gods command!
That shall achieve mine hand!
Grant me to thrust her life away, and
Will dare to die!

CHORUS

List thou the deed! Hewn down and foully torn,
He to the tomb was borne;
Yea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,
With like dishonour to the grave was brought,
And by her hand she strove, with strong desire,
Thy life to crush, O child, by murder of thy sire:
Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain
Wherewith that sire was slain!

ELECTRA

Yea, such was the doom of my sire; well–a–day,
I was thrust from his side,—
As a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,
And in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears,
As in darkness I lay.
O father, if this word can pass to thine ears,
To thy soul let it reach and abide!

CHORUS

Let it pass, let it pierce, through the sense of thine ear,
To thy soul, where in silence it waiteth the hour!
The past is accomplished; but rouse thee to hear
What the future prepareth; awake and appear,
Our champion, in wrath and in power!

ORESTES

O father, to thy loved ones come in aid.

ELECTRA

With tears I call on thee.

CHORUS

Listen and rise to light!
Be thou with us, be thou against the foe!
Swiftly this cry arises—even so
Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed!

ORESTES

Let their might meet with mine, and their right with my right.

ELECTRA

O ye Gods, it is yours to decree.

CHORUS

Ye call unto the dead; I quake to hear.
Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.

ELECTRA

Alas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,
Of Ate’s bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound!
Alas, the deep insufferable doom,
The stanchless wound!

ORESTES

It shall be stanched, the task is ours,—
Not by a stranger’s, but by kindred hand,
Shall be chased forth the blood–fiend of our land.
Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth’s nether powers!

CHORUS

Lords of a dark eternity,
To you has come the children’s cry,
Send up from hell, fulfil your aid
To them who prayed.

(The chant is concluded.)

ORESTES

O father, murdered in unkingly wise,
Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.

ELECTRA

To me, too, grant this boon—dark death to deal
Unto Aegisthus, and to ’scape my doom.

ORESTES

So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay
Be set for thee; else, not for thee shall rise
The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,
But thou shalt lie dishonoured: hear thou me!

ELECTRA

I too, from my full heritage restored,
Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass
Forth as a bride from these paternal halls,
And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.

ORESTES

Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight!

ELECTRA

Give fair–faced fortune, O Persephone!

ORESTES

Bethink thee, father, in the laver slain—

ELECTRA

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

ORESTES

Bonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.

ELECTRA

Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.

ORESTES

By this our bitter speech arise, O sire!

ELECTRA

Raise thou thine head at love’s last, dearest call!

ORESTES

Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen’s cause;
Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou
Willest in triumph to forget thy fall.

ELECTRA

Hear me, O father, once again hear me.
Lo! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood—
A man–child and a maid; hold them in ruth,
Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops’ line.
For while they live, thou livest from the dead;
Children are memory’s voices, and preserve
The dead from wholly dying: as a net
Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,
Which save the flax–mesh, in the depth submerged.
Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,
And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length—
The tomb’s requital for its dirge denied:
Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,
Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.

ORESTES

The doom is set; and yet I fain would ask—
Not swerving from the course of my resolve,—
Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why
She softens all too late her cureless deed?
An idle boon it was, to send them here
Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.
I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween
Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.
Be blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives
Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured
To atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.
Yet would I know her thought; speak, if thou knowest.

LEADER

I know it, son; for at her side I stood.
’Twas the night–wandering terror of a dream
That flung her shivering from her couch, and bade her—
Her, the accursed of God—these offerings send.

ORESTES

Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?

LEADER

Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.

ORESTES

What then the sum and issue of the tale?

LEADER

Even as a swaddled child, she lull’d the thing.

ORESTES

What suckling craved the creature, born full–fanged?

LEADER

Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.

ORESTES

How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?

LEADER

Yea, and sucked forth a blood–gout in the milk.

ORESTES

Not vain this dream—it bodes a man’s revenge.

LEADER

Then out of sleep she started with a cry,
And thro’ the palace for their mistress’ aid
Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night,
Flared into light; then, even as mourners use,
She sends these offerings, in hope to win
A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.

ORESTES

Earth and my father’s grave, to you I call—
Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro’ me.
I read it in each part coincident
With what shall be; for mark, that serpent sprang
From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands
By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast,
And sucking forth the same sweet mother’s–milk
Infused a clot of blood; and in alarm
She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.
The rede is clear: the thing of dread she nursed,
The death of blood she dies; and I, ’tis I,
In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.
Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.

LEADER

So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,
Bidding some act, some, by not acting, aid.

ORESTES

Brief my command: I bid my sister pass
In silence to the house, and all I bid
This my design with wariness conceal,
That they who did by craft a chieftain slay
May by like craft and in like noose be talen,
Dying the death which Loxias foretold—
Apollo, king and prophet undisproved.
I with this warrior Pylades will come
In likeness of a stranger, full equipt
As travellers come, and at the palace gates
Will stand, as stranger yet in friendship’s bond
Unto this house allied; and each of us
Will speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,
Feigning such speech as Phocian voices use.
And what if none of those that tend the gates
Shall welcome us with gladness, since the house
With ills divine is baunted? If this hap,
We at the gate will bide, till, passing by,
Some townsman make conjecture and proclaim,
How? is Aegisthus here, and knowingly
Keeps suppliants aloof, by bolt and bar?
Then shall I win my way; and if I cross
The threshold of the gate, the palace’ guard,
And find him throned where once my father sat—
Or if he come anon, and face to face
Confronting, drop his eyes from mine—I swear
He shall not utter, Who art thou and whence?
Ere my steel leap, and compassed round with death
Low he shall lie: and thus, full–fed with doom,
The Fury of the house shall drain once more
A deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.
But thou, O sister, look that all within
Be well prepared to give these things event.
And ye—I say ’twere well to bear a tongue
Full of fair silence and of fitting speech
As each beseems the time; and last, do thou,
Hermes the warder–god, keep watch and ward,
And guide to victory my striving sword.

(ORESTES, PYLADES, and ELECTRA depart.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

Many and marvellous the things of fear
Earth’s breast doth bear;
And the sea’s lap with many monsters teems,
And windy levin–bolts and meteor gleams
Breed many deadly things—
Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,
And in their tread is death;
And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath
Man’s tongue can tell.

antistrophe 1

But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,
The aweless soul, within man’s breast inhabiting?
Who tell how, passion–fraught and love–distraught,
The woman’s eager, craving thought
Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell?
Yea, how the loveless love that doth posses
The woman, even as the lioness,
Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,
The link of wedded life?

strophe 2

Let him be the witness, whose thought is not borne on light wings
thro’ the air,
But abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought by Althea’s
despair;
For she marr’d the life–grace of her son, with ill counsel
rekindled the flame
That was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what time from his
mother he came,
With the cry of a new–born child; and the brand from the burning
she won,
For the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in death, with
her son.

antistrophe 2

Yea, and man’s hate tells of another, even Scylla of murderous
guile,
Who slew for an enemy’s sake her father, won o’er by the wile
And the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high–wrought gold;
For she clipped from her father’s head the lock that should never
wax old,
As he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not her craft and
her crime—
But Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her, in fulness of
time.

strophe 3

And since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my singing record
The bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these halls
outpoured,
The crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain fall,
A warrior stern in his wrath, the fear of his enemies all,—
A song of dishonour, untimely! and cold is the hearth that was
warm,
And ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman’s unwomanly arm.

antistrophe 3
But the summit and crown of all crimes is that which in Lemnos
befell;
A woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting to tell;
And he that in after time doth speak of his deadliest thought,
Doth say, It is like to the deed that of old time in Lemnos was
wrought;
And loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they and their
seed,
For the gods brought hate upon them; none loveth the impious
deed.

strophe 4

It is well of these tales to tell; for the sword in the grasp of
Right
With a cleaving, a piercing blow to the innermost heart doth
smite,
And the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down nor forgot,
When the sinner out–steppeth the law and heedeth the high God not;

antistrophe 4

But justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth the sword
That shall smite in her chosen time; by her is the child restored;
And, darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world–cursed, will
repay
The price of the blood of the slain, that was shed in the bygone
day.

(The scene now is before the palace. ORESTES and PYLADES enter, still dressed as travellers.)

ORESTES (knocking at the palace gate)

What ho! slave, ho! I smite the palace gate
In vain, it seems; what ho, attend within,—
Once more, attend; come forth and ope the halls,
If yet Aegisthus holds them hospitable.

SLAVE (from within)

Anon, anon! (Opens the door)
Speak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom?

ORESTES

Go, tell to them who rule the palace–halls,
Since ’tis to them I come with tidings new—
(Delay not—Night’s dark car is speeding on,
And time is now for wayfarers to cast
Anchor in haven, wheresoe’er a house
Doth welcome strangers)—that there now come forth
Some one who holds authority within—
The queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it;
For when man standeth face to face with man,
No stammering modesty confounds their speech,
But each to each doth tell his meaning clear.

(CLYTEMNESTRA comes out of the palace.)

CLYTEMNESTRA

Speak on, O strangers: have ye need of aught?
Here is whate’er beseems a house like this—
Warm bath and bed, tired Nature’s soft restorer,
And courteous eyes to greet you; and if aught
Of graver import needeth act as well,
That, as man’s charge, I to a man will tell.

ORESTES

A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,
And as with mine own travel–scrip self–laden
I went toward Argos, parting hitherward
With travelling foot, there did encounter me
One whom I knew not and who knew not me,
But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,
And, as we talked together, told his name—
Strophius of Phocis; then he said, "Good sir,
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,
Forget not this my message, heed it well,
Tell to his own, Orestes is no more.
And—whatsoe’er his kinsfolk shall resolve.
Whether to bear his dust unto his home,
Or lay him here, in death as erst in life
Exiled for aye, a child of banishment—
Bring me their hest, upon thy backward road;
For now in brazen compass of an urn
His ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid."
So much I heard, and so much tell to thee,
Not knowing if I speak unto his kin
Who rule his home; but well, I deem, it were,
Such news should earliest reach a parent’s ear.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ah woe is me! thy word our ruin tells;
From roof–tree unto base are we despoiled.—
O thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,
Thou Fury of this home, how oft and oft
Thou dost descry what far aloof is laid,
Yea, from afar dost bend th’ unerring bow
And rendest from my wretchedness its friends;
As now Orestes—who, a brief while since,
Safe from the mire of death stood warily,—
Was the home’s hope to cure th’ exulting wrong;
Now thou ordainest, Let the ill abide.

ORESTES

To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,
Lief had I come with better news to bear
Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship;
For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond
Of guest and host? and wrong abhorred it were,
As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith
To one, and greetings from the other had,
Bore not aright the tidings ’twixt the twain.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Whate’er thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,
Meet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.
Hadst thou thyself not come, such tale to tell,
Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.
But lo! the hour is here when travelling guests,
Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,
Should win their rightful due. (To the slave)
Take him within
To the man–chamber’s hospitable rest—
Him and these fellow–farers at his side;
Give them such guest–right as beseems our halls;
I bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it,
And I unto the prince who rules our home
Will tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,
With them will counsel how this hap to bear.

(CLYTEMNESTRA goes back into the palace. ORESTES and
PYLADES are conducted to the guest quarters.)

CHORUS (singing)

So be it done—
Sister–servants, when draws nigh
Time for us aloud to cry
Orestes and his victory?

O holy earth and holy tomb
Over the grave–pit heaped on high,
Where low doth Agamemnon lie,
The king of ships, the army’s lord!
Now is the hour—give ear and come,
For now doth Craft her aid afford,
And Hermes, guard of shades in hell,
Stands o’er their strife, to sentinel
The dooming of the sword.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

I wot the stranger worketh woe within—
For lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,
Orestes’ nurse. (The NURSE enters from the palace.)
What ho, Kilissa—thou
Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks
Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.

NURSE

My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,
Call in Aegisthus to the stranger guests,
That he may come, and stinding face to face,
A man with men, way thus more clearly learn
This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves
Laughter for what is wrought—to her desire
Too well; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,
Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear.
And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart
Hearing this rumour. Woe and well–a–day!
The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,
Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus’ house
Befell, was grievous to mine inmost heart,
But never yet did I endure such pain.
All else I bore with set soul patiently;
But now—alack, alack!—Orestes dear,
The day and night–long travail of my soul
Whom from his mother’s womb, a new–born child,
I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft
Toilsome and profitless my service was,
When his shrill outcry called me from my couch!
For the young child, before the sense is born,
Hath but a dumb thing’s life, must needs be nursed
As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing
Hath nought of speech, whate’er discomfort come,—
Hunger or thirst or lower weakling need,—
For the babe’s stomach works its own relief.
Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised,
’Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes—poor
Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white:
Two works in one, two handicrafts I took,
When in mine arms the father laid the boy.
And now he’s dead—alack and well–a–day!
Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power
Pollutes this house—fair tidings these to him!

LEADER

Say then, with what array she bids him come?

NURSE

What say’st thou! Speak. more clearly for mine ear.

LEADER

Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?

NURSE

She bids him bring a spear–armed body–guard.
Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,
But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,
Say, Come alone, fear nought, the news is good:
A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.

NURSE

Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?

LEADER

What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?

NURSE

And how? the home’s hope with Orestes dies.

LEADER

Not yet—a seer, though feeble, this might see.

NURSE

What say’st thou? Know’st thou aught, this tale belying?

LEADER

Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,—
What the gods will, themselves can well provide.

NURSE

Well, I will go, herein obeying thee;
And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.

(She goes out.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,
Hear thou, O hear my prayer!
Grant to my rightful lords to prosper well
Even as their zeal is fair!
For right, for right goes up aloud my cry—
Zeus, aid him, stand anigh!

refrain 1

Into his father’s hall he goes
To smite his father’s foes.
Bid him prevail by thee on throne of triumph set,
Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.

antistrophe 1

Bethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal
Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car
Of doom is harnessed fast.
Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,
Speed thou his pace,—O that no chance may mar
The homeward course, the last!

strophe 2

And ye who dwell within the inner chamber
Where shines the stored joy of gold—
Gods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember;
Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old,
With sudden rightful blow;
Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed
With progeny of blood,—
Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low!

refrain 2

O thou who dwell’st in Delphi’s mighty cave,
Grant us to see this home once more restored
Unto its rightful lord!
Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye
Unto the dawning light of liberty;

antistrophe 2

And Hermes, Maia’s child, lend hand to save,
Willing the right, and guide
Our state with Fortune’s breeze adown the favouring tide.
Whate’er in darkness hidden lies,
He utters at his will;
He at his will throws darkness on our eyes,
By night and eke by day inscrutable.

strophe 3

Then, then shall wealth atone
The ills that here were done.
Then, then will we unbind,
Fling free on wafting wind
Of joy, the woman’s voice that waileth now
In piercing accents for a chief laid low;

refrain 3

And this our song shall be—
Hail to the commonwealth restored!
Hail to the freedom won to me!
All hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well–loved lord!

antistrophe 3

And thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree,
Up to the deed that for thy sire is done!
And if she wail unto thee, Spare, O son—
Cry, Aid, O father—and achieve the deed,
The horror of man’s tongue, the gods’ great need!
Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,
The bitter woe work forth,
Appease the summons of the dead,
The wrath of friends on earth;
Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom,
And do to utter death him that polilites thy home.

(AEGISTHUS enters alone.)

AEGISTHUS

Hither and not unsummoned have I come;
For a new rumour, borne by stranger men
Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears,
Of hap unwished–for, even Orestes’ death.
This were new sorrow, a blood–bolter’d load
Laid on the house that doth already bow
Beneath a former wound that festers deep.
Dare I opine these words have truth and life?
Or are they tales, of woman’s terror born,
That fly in the void air, and die disproved?
Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul?

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

What we have heard, we heard; go thou within
Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale.
Strengthless are tidings, thro’ another heard;
Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.

AEGISTHUS

I too will meet and test the messenger,
Whether himself stood witness of the death,
Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt:
None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.

(He goes into the palace.)

CHORUS (singing)

Zeus, Zeus! what word to me is given?
What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,
Shall first by me be uttered?
What speech of craft—nor all revealing,
Nor all too warily concealing—
Ending my speech, shall aid the deed?
For lo! in readiness is laid
The dark emprise, the rending blade;
Blood–dropping daggers shall achieve
The dateless doom of Atreus’ name,
Or—kindling torch and joyful flame
In sign of new–won liberty—
Once more Orestes shall retrieve
His father’s wealth, and, throned on high,
Shall hold the city’s fealty.
So mighty is the grasp whereby,
Heaven–holpen, he shall trip and throw,
Unseconded, a double foe.
Ho for the victory!

(A loud cry is heard within.)

VOICE OF AEGISTHUS

Help, help, alas!

CHORUS

Ho there, ho I how is’t within?
Is’t done? is’t over? Stand we here aloof
While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem
Of this dark deed; with death is strife fulfilled.

(An ATTENDANT enters from the palace.)

ATTENDANT

O woe, O woe, my lord is done to death!
Woe, woe, and woe again, Aegisthus gone!
Hasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts
Of the queen’s chamber. O for some young strength
To match the need! but aid availeth nought
To him laid low for ever. Help, help, help
Sure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain
To slumber ineffectual. What ho!
The queen! how fareth Clytemnestra’s self?
Her neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,
And soon shall sing, hewn thro’ as justice wills.

(CLYTEMNESTRA enters.)

CLYTEMNESTRA

What ails thee, raising this ado for us?

ATTENDANT

I say the dead are come to slay the living.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Alack, I read thy riddles all too clear—
We slew by craft and by like craft shall die.
Swift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old;
I’ll know anon or death or victory—
So stands the curse, so I confront it here.

(ORESTES rushes from the palace; his sword dripping with blood. PYLADES is with him.)

ORESTES

Thee too I seek: for him what’s done will serve.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Woe, woe! Aegisthus, spouse and champion, slain!

ORESTES

What, lov’st the man? then in his grave lie down,
Be his in death, desert him nevermore!

CLYTEMNESTRA

Stay, child, and fear to strike. O son, this breast
Pillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,
Thy toothless mouth drew mother’s milk from me.

ORESTES

Can I my mother spare? speak, Pylades.

PYLADES

Where then would fall the hest Apollo gave
At Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn?
Choose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.

ORESTES

Thou dost prevail; I hold thy counsel good.

(To CLYTEMNESTRA)

Follow; I will to slay thee at his side.
With him whom in his life thou loved’st more
Than Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed
For hate where love, and love where hate was due!

CLYTEMNESTRA

I nursed thee young; must I forego mine eld?

ORESTES

Thou slew’st my father; shalt thou dwell with me?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Fate bore a share in these things, O my child

ORESTES

Fate also doth provide this doom for thee.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Beware, O child, a parent’s dying curse.

ORESTES

A parent who did cast me out to ill!

CLYTEMNESTRA

Not cast thee out, but to a friendly home.

ORESTES

Born free, I was by twofold bargain sold.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Where then the price that I received for thee?

ORESTES

The price of shame; I taunt thee not more plainly.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Nay, but recount thy father’s lewdness too.

ORESTES

Home–keeping, chide not him who toils without.

CLYTEMNESTRA

’Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.

ORESTES

The absent husband toils for them at home.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Thou growest fain to slay thy mother, child.

ORESTES

Nay, ’tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Beware thy mother’s vengeful hounds from hell.

ORESTES

How shall I ’scape my father’s, sparing thee?

CLYTEMNESTRA

Living, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.

ORESTES

My father’s fate ordains this doom for thee.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ah me! this snake it was I bore and nursed.

ORESTES

Ay, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.
Shameful thy deed was—die the death of shame!

(He drives her into the house before him.)

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Lo, even for these I mourn, a double death:
Yet since Orestes, driven on by doom,
Thus crowns the height of murders manifold,
I say, ’tis well—that not in night and death
Should sink the eye and light of this our home.

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

There came on Priam’s race and name
A vengeance; though it tarried long,
With heavy doom it came.
Came, too, on Agamemnon’s hall
A lion–pair, twin swordsmen strong.
And last, the heritage doth fall
To him, to whom from Pythian cave
The god his deepest counsel gave.

refrain 1
Cry out, rejoice! our kingly hall
Hath ’scaped from ruin—ne’er again
Its ancient wealth be wasted all
By two usurpers, sin–defiled—
An evil path of woe and bane!

antistrophe 1

On him who dealt the dastard blow
Comes Craft, Revenge’s scheming child.
And hand in hand with him doth go,
Eager for fight,
The child of Zeus, whom men below
Call justice, naming her aright.
And on her foes her breath
Is as the blast of death;

strophe 2

For her the god who dwells in deep recess
Beneath Parnassus’ brow,
Summons with loud acclaim
To rise, though late and lame,
And come with craft that worketh righteousness.

For even o’er Powers divine this law is strong—
Thou shalt not serve the wrong.

refrain 2

To that which ruleth heaven beseems it that we bow
Lo, freedom’s light hath come!
Lo, now is rent away
The grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.
Up to the light, ye halls I this many a day
Too low on earth ye lay.

antistrophe 2

And Time, the great Accomplisher,
Shall cross the threshold, whensoe’er
He choose with purging hand to cleanse
The palace, driving all pollution thence.
And fair the cast of Fortune’s die
Before our state’s new lords shall lie,
Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom.
Lo, freedom’s light hath come!

(The central doors of the palace open, disclosing ORESTES standing over the corpses of AEGISTHUS and CLYTEMNESTRA; in one hand he holds his sword, in the other the robe in which
AGAMEMNON was entangled and slain.)

ORESTES

There lies our country’s twofold tyranny,
My father’s slayers, spoilers of my home.
Erst were they royal, sitting on the throne,
And loving are they yet,—their common fate
Tells the tale truly, shows their trothplight firm.
They swore to work mine ill–starred father’s death,
They swore to die together; ’tis fulfilled.
O ye who stand, this great doom’s witnesses,
Behold this too, the dark device which bound
My sire unhappy to his death,—behold
The mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet
Stand round, unfold it—’tis the trammel–net
That wrapped a chieftain; hold it that he see,
The father—not my sire, but he whose eye
Is judge of all things, the all–seeing Sun!
Let him behold my mother’s damned deed,
Then let him stand, when need shall be to me,
Witness that justly I have sought and slain
My mother; blameless was Aegisthus’ doom—
He died the death law bids adulterers die.
But she who plotted this accursed thing
To slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath
Her girdle once the burden of her babes,
Beloved erewhile, now turned to hateful foes—
What deem ye of her? or what venomed thing,
Sea–snake or adder, had more power than she
To poison with a touch the flesh unscarred?
So great her daring, such her impious will.
How name her, if I may not speak a curse?
A lion–springe! a laver’s swathing cloth,
Wrapping a dead man, twining round his feet—
A net, a trammel, an entangling robe?
Such were the weapon of some strangling thief,
The terror of the road, a cut–purse hound—
With such device full many might he kill,
Full oft exult in heat of villainy.
Ne’er have my house so cursed an indweller—
Heaven send me, rather, childless to be slain!

CHORUS (chanting)

Woe for each desperate deed!
Woe for the queen, with shame of life bereft!
And ah, for him who still is left,
Madness, dark blossom of a bloody seed!

ORESTES

Did she the deed or not? this robe gives proof,
Imbrued with blood that bathed Aegisthus’ sword:
Look, how the spurted stain combines with time
To blur the many dyes that once adorned
Its pattern manifold! I now stand here,
Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing—
Hear, O thou woven web that slew my sire!
I grieve for deed and death and all my home—
Victor, pollution’s damned stain for prize.

CHORUS (chanting)

Alas, that none of mortal men
Can pass his life untouched by pain!
Behold, one woe is here—
Another loometh near.

ORESTES

Hark ye and learn—for what the end shall be
For me I know not: breaking from the curb
My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,
Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught
Far from the course, and madness in my breast
Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave—
Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes!
I say that rightfully I slew my mother,
A thing God–scorned, that foully slew my sire.
And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me
Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer
Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,
The guilt of murder done should pass from me;
But if I spared, the fate that should be mine
I dare not blazon forth—the bow of speech
Can reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.
And now behold me, how with branch and crown
I pass, a suppliant made meet to go
Unto Earth’s midmost shrine, the holy ground
Of Loxias, and that renowned light
Of ever–burning fire, to ’scape the doom
Of kindred murder: to no other shrine
(So Loxias bade) may I for refuge turn.
Bear witness, Argives, in the after time,
How came on me this dread fatality.
Living, I pass a banished wanderer hence,
To leave in death the memory of this cry.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Nay, but the deed is well; link not thy lips
To speech ill–starred, nor vent ill–boding words—
Who hast to Argos her full freedom given,
Lopping two serpents’ heads with timely blow.

ORESTES

Look, look, alas!
Handmaidens, see—what Gorgon shapes throng up
Dusky their robes and all their hair enwound—
Snakes coiled with snakes—off, off,—I must away!

LEADER

Most loyal of all sons unto thy sire,
What visions thus distract thee? Hold, abide;
Great was thy victory, and shalt thou fear?

ORESTES

These are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,
But clear to sight another’s hell–hounds come!

LEADER

Nay, the fresh bloodshed still imbrues thine hands,
And thence distraction sinks into thy soul.

ORESTES

O king Apollo—see, they swarm and throng—
Black blood of hatred dripping from their eyes!

LEADER

One remedy thou hast; go, touch the shrine
Of Loxias, and rid thee of these woes.

ORESTES

Ye can behold them not, but I behold them.
Up and away! I dare abide no more.

(He rushes out.)

LEADER

Farewell then as thou mayst,—the god thy friend
Guard thee and aid with chances favouring.

CHORUS (chanting)

Behold, the storm of woe divine
That raves and beats on Atreus’ line
Its great third blast hath blown.
First was Thyestes’ loathly woe
The rueful feast of long ago,
On children’s flesh, unknown.
And next the kingly chief’s despite,
When he who led the Greeks to fight
Was in the bath hewn down.
And now the offspring of the race
Stands in the third, the saviour’s place,
To save—or to consume?
O whither, ere it be fulfilled,
Ere its fierce blast be hushed and stilled,
Shall blow the wind of doom?

THE END

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

Aeschylus

The Persians

translated by Robert Potter

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

ATOSSA, widow of Darius and mother of XERXES
MESSENGER
GHOST OF DARIUS
XERXES
CHORUS OF PERSIAN ELDERS, who compose the Persian Council of State

(SCENE:—Before the Council-Hall of the Persian Kings at Susa. The tomb of Darius the Great is visible. The time is 480 B.C., shortly after the battle of Salamis. The play opens with the CHORUS OF
PERSIAN ELDERS singing its first choral lyric.)

CHORUS

While o’er the fields of Greece the embattled troops
Of Persia march with delegated sway,
We o’er their rich and gold-abounding seats
Hold faithful our firm guard; to this high charge
Xerxes, our royal lord, the imperial son
Of great Darius, chose our honour’d age.
But for the king’s return, and his arm’d host
Blazing with gold, my soul presaging ill
Swells in my tortured breast: for all her force
Hath Asia sent, and for her youth I sigh.
Nor messenger arrives, nor horseman spurs
With tidings to this seat of Persia’s kings.
The gates of Susa and Ecbatana
Pour’d forth their martial trains; and Cissia sees
Her ancient towers forsaken, while her youth,
Some on the bounding steed, the tall bark some
Ascending, some with painful march on foot,
Haste on, to arrange the deep’ning files of war.
Amistres, Artaphernes, and the might
Of great Astaspes, Megabazes bold,
Chieftains of Persia, kings, that, to the power
Of the great king obedient, march with these
Leading their martial thousands; their proud steeds
Prance under them; steel bows and shafts their arms,
Dreadful to see, and terrible in fight,
Deliberate valour breathing in their souls.
Artembares, that in his fiery horse
Delights; Masistress; and Imaeus bold,
Bending with manly strength his stubborn bow;
Pharandaces, and Sosthanes, that drives
With military pomp his rapid steeds.
Others the vast prolific Nile hath sent;
Pegastagon, that from Aegyptus draws
His high birth; Susiscanes; and the chief
That reigns o’er sacred Memphis, great Arsames;
And Ariomardus, that o’er ancient Thebes
Bears the supreme dominion; and with these,
Drawn from their watery marshes, numbers train’d
To the stout oar. Next these the Lycian troops,
Soft sons of luxury; and those that dwell
Amid the inland forests, from the sea
Far distant; these Metragathes commands,
And virtuous Arceus, royal chiefs, that shine
In burnish’d gold, and many a whirling car
Drawn by six generous steeds from Sardis lead,
A glorious and a dreadful spectacle.
And from the foot of Tmolus, sacred mount,
Eager to bind on Greece the servile yoke,
Mardon and Tharybis the massy spear
Grasp with unwearied vigour; the light lance
The Mysians shake. A mingled multitude
Swept from her wide dominions skill’d to draw
The unerring bow, in ships Euphrates sends
From golden Babylon. With falchions arm’d
From all the extent of Asia move the hosts
Obedient to their monarch’s stern command.
Thus march’d the flower of Persia, whose loved youth
The world of Asia nourish’d, and with sighs
Laments their absence; many an anxious look
Their wives, their parents send, count the slow days,
And tremble at the long-protracted time.

strophe 1

Already o’er the adverse strand
In arms the monarch’s martial squadrons spread;
The threat’ning ruin shakes the land,
And each tall city bows its tower’d head.
Bark bound to bark, their wondrous way
They bridge across the indignant sea;
The narrow Hellespont’s vex’d waves disdain,
His proud neck taught to wear the chain.
Now has the peopled Asia’s warlike lord,
By land, by sea, with foot, with horse,
Resistless in his rapid course,
O’er all their realms his warring thousands pour’d;
Now his intrepid chiefs surveys,
And glitt’ring like a god his radiant state displays.

antistrophe 1

Fierce as the dragon scaled in gold
Through the deep files he darts his glowing eye;
And pleased their order to behold,
His gorgeous standard blazing to the sky,
Rolls onward his Assyrian car,
Directs the thunder of the war,
Bids the wing’d arrows’ iron storm advance
Against the slow and cumbrous lance.
What shall withstand the torrent of his sway
When dreadful o’er the yielding shores
The impetuous tide of battle roars,
And sweeps the weak opposing mounds away?
So Persia, with resistless might,
Rolls her unnumber’d hosts of heroes to the fight.

strophe 2

For when misfortune’s fraudful hand
Prepares to pour the vengeance of the sky,
What mortal shall her force withstand?
What rapid speed the impending fury fly?
Gentle at first with flatt’ring smiles
She spreads her soft enchanting wiles,
So to her toils allures her destined prey,
Whence man ne’er breaks unhurt away.
For thus from ancient times the Fates ordain
That Persia’s sons should greatly dare,
Unequall’d in the works of war;
Shake with their thund’ring steeds the ensanguined plain,
Dreadful the hostile walls surround,
And lay their rampired towers in ruins on the ground.

antistrophe 2

Taught to behold with fearless eyes
The whitening billows foam beneath the gale,
They bid the naval forests rise,
Mount the slight bark, unfurl the flying sail,
And o’er the angry ocean bear
To distant realms the storm of war.
For this with many a sad and gloomy thought
My tortured breast is fraught:
Ah me! for Persia’s absent sons I sigh;
For while in foreign fields they fight,
Our towns exposed to wild affright
An easy prey to the invader lie:
Where, mighty Susa, where thy powers,
To wield the warrior’s arms, and guard thy regal towers?

epode

Crush’d beneath the assailing foe
Her golden head must Cissia bend;
While her pale virgins, frantic with despair,
Through all her streets awake the voice of wo;
And flying with their bosoms bare,
Their purfled stoles in anguish rend:
For all her youth in martial pride,
Like bees that, clust’ring round their king,
Their dark imbodied squadrons bring,
Attend their sceptred monarch’s side,
And stretch across the watery way
From shore to shore their long array.
The Persian dames, with many a tender fear,
In grief’s sad vigils keep the midnight hour;
Shed on the widow’d couch the streaming tear,
And the long absence of their loves deplore.
Each lonely matron feels her pensive breast
Throb with desire, with aching fondness glow,
Since in bright arms her daring warrior dress’d
Left her to languish in her love-lorn wo.

Now, ye grave Persians, that your honour’d seats
Hold in this ancient house, with prudent care
And deep deliberation, so the state
Requires, consult we, pond’ring the event
Of this great war, which our imperial lord,
The mighty Xerxes from Darius sprung,
The stream of whose rich blood flows in our veins,
Leads against Greece; whether his arrowy shower
Shot from the strong-braced bow, or the huge spear
High brandish’d, in the deathful field prevails.
But see, the monarch’s mother: like the gods
Her lustre blazes on our eyes: my queen,
Prostrate I fall before her: all advance
With reverence, and in duteous phrase address her,

(ATOSSA enters with her retinue. The Elders do their obeisance to her.)

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Hail, queen, of Persia’s high-zoned dames supreme,
Age-honour’d mother of the potent Xerxes,
Imperial consort of Darius, hail!
The wife, the mother of the Persians’ god,
If yet our former glories fade not from us.

ATOSSA

And therefore am I come, leaving my house
That shines with gorgeous ornaments and gold,
Where in past days Darius held with me
His royal residence. With anxious care
My heart is tortured: I will tell you, friends,
My thoughts, not otherwise devoid of fear,
Lest mighty wealth with haughty foot o’erturn
And trample in the dust that happiness,
Which, not unbless’d by Heaven, Darius raised.
For this with double force unquiet thoughts
Past utterance fill my soul; that neither wealth
With all its golden stores, where men are wanting,
Claims reverence; nor the light, that beams from power,
Shines on the man whom wealth disdains to grace.
The golden stores of wealth indeed are ours;
But for the light (such in the house I deem
The presence of its lord) there I have fears.
Advise me then, you whose experienced age
Supports the state of Persia: prudence guides
Your councils, always kind and faithful to me.

LEADER

Speak, royal lady, what thy will, assured
We want no second bidding, where our power
In word or deed waits on our zeal: our hearts
In this with honest duty shall obey thee.

ATOSSA

Oft, since my son hath march’d his mighty host
Against the lonians, warring to subdue
Their country, have my slumbers been disturb’d
With dreams of dread portent; but most last night,
With marks of plainest proof. I’ll tell thee then:
Alethought two women stood before my eyes
Gorgeously vested, one in Persian robes
Adorn’d, the other in the Doric garb.
With more than mortal majesty they moved,
Of peerless beauty; sisters too they seem’d,
Though distant each from each they chanced to dwell,
In Greece the one, on the barbaric coast
The other. ’Twixt them soon dissension rose:
My son then hasted to compose their strife,
Soothed them to fair accord, beneath his car
Yokes them, and reins their harness’d necks. The one,
Exulting in her rich array, with pride
Arching her stately neck, obey’d the reins;
The other with indignant fury spurn’d
The car, and dash’d it piecemeal, rent the reins,
And tore the yoke asunder; down my son
Fell from the seat, and instant at his side
His father stands, Darius, at his fall
Impress’d with pity: him when Xerxes saw,
Glowing with grief and shame he rends his robes.
This was the dreadful vision of the night.
When I arose, in the sweet-flowing stream
I bathed my hands, and on the incensed altars
Presenting my oblations to the gods
To avert these ills, an eagle I behold
Fly to the altar of the sun; aghast
I stood, my friends, and speechless; when a hawk
With eager speed runs thither, furious cuffs
The eagle with his wings, and with his talons
Unplumes his head; meantime the imperial bird
Cowers to the blows defenceless. Dreadful this
To me that saw it, and to you that hear.
My son, let conquest crown his arms, would shine
With dazzling glory; but should Fortune frown,
The state indeed presumes not to arraign
His sovereignty; yet how, his honour lost,
How shall he sway the sceptre of this land?

LEADER

We would not, royal lady, sink thy soul
With fear in the excess, nor raise it high
With confidence. Go then, address the gods;
If thou hast seen aught ill, entreat their power
To avert that ill, and perfect ev’ry good
To thee, thy sons, the state, and all thy friends.
Then to the earth, and to the mighty dead
Behooves thee pour libations; gently cal
Him that was once thy husband, whom thou saw’st
In visions of the night; entreat his shade
From the deep realms beneath to send to light
Triumph to thee and to thy son; whate’er
Bears other import, to inwrap, to hide it
Close in the covering earth’s profoundest gloom.
This, in the presage of my thoughts that flow
Benevolent to thee, have I proposed;
And all, we trust, shall be successful to thee.

ATOSSA

Thy friendly judgment first hath placed these dreams
In a fair light, confirming the event
Benevolent to my son and to my house.
May all the good be ratified! These rites
Shall, at thy bidding, to the powers of heaven,
And to the manes of our friends, be paid
In order meet, when I return; meanwhile
Indulge me, friends, who wish to be inform’d
Where, in what clime, the towers of Athens rise.

LEADER

Far in the west, where sets the imperial sun.

ATOSSA

Yet my son will’d the conquest of this town.

LEADER

May Greece through all her states bend to his power!

ATOSSA

Send they embattled numbers to the field?

LEADER

A force that to the Medes hath wrought much wo.

ATOSSA

Have they sufficient treasures in their houses?

LEADER

Their rich earth yields a copious fount of silver.

ATOSSA

From the strong bow wing they the barbed shaft?

LEADER

They grasp the stout spear, and the massy shield.

ATOSSA

What monarch reigns, whose power commands their ranks?

LEADER

Slaves to no lord, they own no kingly power.

ATOSSA

How can they then resist the invading foe?

LEADER

As to spread havoc through the numerous host,
That round Darius form’d their glitt’ring files.

ATOSSA

Thy words strike deep, and wound the parent’s breast
Whose sons are march’d to such a dangerous field.

LEADER

But, if I judge aright, thou soon shalt hear
Each circumstance; for this way, mark him, speeds
A Persian messenger; he bears, be sure,
Tidings of high import, or good or ill.

(A MESSENGER enters.)

MESSENGER

Wo to the towns through Asia’s peopled realms!
Wo to the land of Persia, once the port
Of boundless wealth, how is thy glorious state
Vanish’d at once, and all thy spreading honours
Fall’n, lost! Ah me! unhappy is his task
That bears unhappy tidings: but constraint
Compels me to relate this tale of wo.
Persians, the whole barbaric host is fall’n.

CHORUS (chanting)

O horror, horror! What a baleful train
Of recent ills! Ah, Persians, as he speaks
Of ruin, let your tears stream to the earth.

MESSENGER

It is ev’n so, all ruin; and myself,
Beyond all hope returning, view this light.

CHORUS (chanting)

How tedious and oppressive is the weight
Of age, reserved to hear these hopeless ills!

MESSENGER

I speak not from report; but these mine eyes
Beheld the ruin which my tongue would utter.

CHORUS (chanting)

Wo, wo is me! Then has the iron storm,
That darken’d from the realms of Asia, pour’d
In vain its arrowy shower on sacred Greece.

MESSENGER

In heaps the unhappy dead lie on the strand
Of Salamis, and all the neighbouring shores.

CHORUS (chanting)

Unhappy friends, sunk, perish’d in the sea;
Their bodies, mid the wreck of shatter’d ships,
Mangled, and rolling on the encumber’d waves!

MESSENGER

Naught did their bows avail, but all the troops
In the first conflict of the ships were lost.

CHORUS (chanting)

Raise the funereal cry, with dismal notes
Wailing the wretched Persians. Oh, how ill
They plann’d their measures, all their army perish’d!

MESSENGER

O Salamis, how hateful is thy name!
And groans burst from me when I think of Athens.

CHORUS (chanting)

How dreadful to her foes! Call to remembrance
How many Persian dames, wedded in vain,
Hath Athens of their noble husbands widow’d?

ATOSSA

Astonied with these ills, my voice thus long
Hath wanted utterance: griefs like these exceed
The power of speech or question: yet ev’n such,
Inflicted by the gods, must mortal man
Constrain’d by hard necessity endure.
But tell me all, without distraction tell me,
All this calamity, though many a groan
Burst from thy labouring heart. Who is not fallen?
What leader must we wail? What sceptred chief
Dying hath left his troops without a lord?

MESSENGER

Xerxes himself lives, and beholds the light.

ATOSSA

That word beams comfort on my house, a ray
That brightens through the melancholy gloom.

MESSENGER

Artembares, the potent chief that led
Ten thousand horse, lies slaughtered on the rocks
Of rough Sileniae. The great Dadaces,
Beneath whose standard march’d a thousand horse,
Pierced by a spear, fell headlong from the ship.
Tenagon, bravest of the Bactrians, lies
Roll’d on the wave-worn beach of Ajax’ isle.
Lilaeus, Arsames, Argestes, dash
With violence in death against the rocks
Where nest the silver doves. Arcteus, that dwelt
Near to the fountains of the Egyptian Nile,
Adeues, and Pheresba, and Pharnuchus
Fell from one ship. Matallus, Chrysa’s chief,
That led his dark’ning squadrons, thrice ten thousand,
On jet-black steeds, with purple gore distain’d
The yellow of his thick and shaggy beard.
The Magian Arabus, and Artames
From Bactra, mould’ring on the dreary shore
Lie low. Amistris, and Amphistreus there
Grasps his war-wear spear; there prostrate lies
The illustrious Ariomardus; long his los
Shall Sardis weep: thy Mysian Sisames,
And Tharybis, that o’er the burden’d deep
Led five times fifty vessels; Lerna gave
The hero birth, and manly race adorn’d
His pleasing form, but low in death he lies
Unhappy in his fate. Syennesis,
Cilicia’s warlike chief, who dared to front
The foremost dangers, singly to the foes
A terror, there too found a glorious death.
These chieftains to my sad remembrance rise,
Relating but a few of many ills.

ATOSSA

This is the height of ill, ah me! and shame
To Persia, grief, and lamentation loud.
But tell me this, afresh renew thy tale:
What was the number of the Grecian fleet,
That in fierce conflict their bold barks should dare
Rush to encounter with the Persian hosts.

MESSENGER

Know then, in numbers the barbaric fleet
Was far superior: in ten squadrons, each
Of thirty ships, Greece plough’d the deep; of these
One held a distant station. Xerxes led
A thousand ships; their number well I know;
Two hundred more, and seven, that swept the seas
With speediest sail: this was their full amount.
And in the engagement seem’d we not secure
Of victory? But unequal fortune sunk
Our scale in fight, discomfiting our host.

ATOSSA

The gods preserve the city of Minerva.

MESSENGER

The walls of Athens are impregnable,
Their firmest bulwarks her heroic sons.

ATOSSA

Which navy first advanced to the attack?
Who led to the onset, tell me; the bold Greeks,
Or, glorying in his numerous fleet, my son?

MESSENGER

Our evil genius, lady, or some god
Hostile to Persia, led to ev’ry ill.
Forth from the troops of Athens came a Greek,
And thus address’d thy son, the imperial Xerxes:—
"Soon as the shades of night descend, the Grecians
Shall quit their station; rushing to their oars
They mean to separate, and in secret flight
Seek safety." At these words, the royal chief,
Little conceiving of the wiles of Greece
And gods averse, to all the naval leaders
Gave his high charge:—"Soon as yon sun shall cease
To dart his radiant beams, and dark’ning night
Ascends the temple of the sky, arrange
In three divisions your well-ordered ships,
And guard each pass, each outlet of the seas:
Others enring around this rocky isle
Of Salamis. Should Greece escape her fate,
And work her way by secret flight, your heads
Shall answer the neglect." This harsh command
He gave, exulting in his mind, nor knew
What Fate design’d. With martial discipline
And prompt obedience, snatching a repast,
Each mariner fix’d well his ready oar.
Soon as the golden sun was set, and night
Advanced, each train’d to ply the dashing oar,
Assumed his seat; in arms each warrior stood,
Troop cheering troop through all the ships of war.
Each to the appointed station steers his course;
And through the night his naval force each chief
Fix’d to secure the passes. Night advanced,
But not by secret flight did Greece attempt
To escape. The morn, all beauteous to behold,
Drawn by white steeds bounds o’er the enlighten’d earth;
At once from ev’ry Greek with glad acclaim
Burst forth the song of war, whose lofty notes
The echo of the island rocks return’d,
Spreading dismay through Persia’s hosts, thus fallen
From their high hopes; no flight this solemn strain
Portended, but deliberate valour bent
On daring battle; while the trumpet’s sound
Kindled the flames of war. But when their oars
The paean ended, with impetuous force
Dash’d the resounding surges, instant all
Rush’d on in view: in orderly array
The squadron on the right first led, behind
Rode their whole fleet; and now distinct we heard
From ev’ry part this voice of exhortation:—
"Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thraldom save
Your country, save your wives, your children save,
The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb
Where rest your honour’d ancestors; this day
The common cause of all demands your valour."
Meantime from Persia’s hosts the deep’ning shout
Answer’d their shout; no time for cold delay;
But ship ’gainst ship its brazen beak impell’d.
First to the charge a Grecian galley rush’d;
Ill the Phoenician bore the rough attack,
Its sculptured prow all shatter’d. Each advanced
Daring an opposite. The deep array
Of Persia at the first sustain’d the encounter;
But their throng’d numbers, in the narrow seas
Confined, want room for action; and, deprived
Of mutual aid, beaks clash with beaks, and each
Breaks all the other’s oars: with skill disposed
The Grecian navy circled them around
With fierce assault; and rushing from its height
The inverted vessel sinks: the sea no more
Wears its accustomed aspect, with foul wrecks
And blood disfigured; floating carcasses
Roll on the rocky shores: the poor remains
Of the barbaric armament to flight
Ply every oar inglorious: onward rush
The Greeks amid the ruins of the fleet,
As through a shoal of fish caught in the net,
Spreading destruction: the wide ocean o’er
Wailings are heard, and loud laments, till night
With darkness on her brow brought grateful truce.
Should I recount each circumstance of wo,
Ten times on my unfinished tale the sun
Would set; for be assured that not one day
Could close the ruin of so vast a host.

ATOSSA

Ah, what a boundless sea of wo hath burst
On Persia, and the whole barbaric race!

MESSENGER

These are not half, not half our ills; on these
Came an assemblage of calamities,
That sunk us with a double weight of wo.

ATOSSA

What fortune can be more unfriendly to us
Than this? Say on, what dread calamity
Sunk Persia’s host with greater weight of wo.

MESSENGER

Whoe’er of Persia’s warriors glow’d in prime
Of vig’rous youth, or felt their generous souls
Expand with courage, or for noble birth
Shone with distinguish’d lustre, or excell’d
In firm and duteous loyalty, all these
Are fall’n, ignobly, miserably fall’n.

ATOSSA

Alas, their ruthless fate, unhappy friends!
But in what manner, tell me, did they perish?

MESSENGER

Full against Salamis an isle arises,
Of small circumference, to the anchor’d bark
Unfaithful; on the promontory’s brow,
That overlooks the sea, Pan loves to lead
The dance: to this the monarch sends these chiefs,
That when the Grecians from their shatter’d ships
Should here seek shelter, these might hew them down
An easy conquest, and secure the strand
To their sea-wearied friends; ill judging what
The event: but when the fav’ring god to Greece
Gave the proud glory of this naval fight,
Instant in all their glitt’ring arms they leap’d
From their light ships, and all the island round
Encompass’d, that our bravest stood dismay’d;
While broken rocks, whirl’d with tempestuous force,
And storms of arrows crush’d them; then the Greeks
Rush to the attack at once, and furious spread
The carnage, till each mangled Persian fell.
Deep were the groans of Xerxes when he saw
This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound
Commanding the wide sea, o’erlook’d his hosts.
With rueful cries he rent his royal robes,
And through his troops embattled on the shore
Gave signal of retreat; then started wild,
And fled disorder’d. To the former ills
These are fresh miseries to awake thy sighs.

ATOSSA

Invidious Fortune, how thy baleful power
Hath sunk the hopes of Persia! Bitter fruit
My son hath tasted from his purposed vengeance
On Athens, famed for arms; the fatal field
Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood,
Sufficed not; that defeat he thought to avenge,
And pull’d this hideous ruin on his head.
But tell me, if thou canst, where didst thou leave
The ships that happily escaped the wreck?

MESSENGER

The poor remains of Persia’s scatter’d fleet
Spread ev’ry sail for flight, as the wind drives,
In wild disorder; and on land no less
The ruin’d army; in Boeotia some,
With thirst oppress’d, at Crene’s cheerful rills
Were lost; forespent with breathless speed some pass
The fields of Phocis, some the Doric plain,
And near the gulf of Melia, the rich vale
Through which Sperchius rolls his friendly stream.
Achaea thence and the Thessalian state
Received our famish’d train; the greater part
Through thirst and hunger perish’d there, oppress’d
At once by both: but we our painful steps
Held onwards to Magnesia, and the land
Of Macedonia, o’er the ford of Axius,
And Bolbe’s sedgy marshes, and the heights
Of steep Pangaeos, to the realms of Thrace.
That night, ere yet the season, breathing frore,
Rush’d winter, and with ice incrusted o’er
The flood of sacred Strymon: such as own’d
No god till now, awe-struck, with many a prayer
Adored the earth and sky. When now the troops
Had ceased their invocations to the gods,
O’er the stream’s solid crystal they began
Their march; and we, who took our early way,
Ere the sun darted his warm beams, pass’d safe:
But when this burning orb with fiery rays
Unbound the middle current, down they sunk
Each over other; happiest he who found
The speediest death: the poor remains, that ’scaped,
With pain through Thrace dragg’d on their toilsome march,
A feeble few, and reach’d their native soil;
That Persia sighs through all her states, and mourns
Her dearest youth. This is no feigned tale:
But many of the ills, that burst upon us
In dreadful vengeance, I refrain to utter.

(The MESSENGER withdraws.)

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O Fortune, heavy with affliction’s load,
How bath thy foot crush’d all the Persian race!

ATOSSA

Ah me, what sorrows for our ruin’d host
Oppress my soul! Ye visions of the night
Haunting my dreams, how plainly did you show
These ills!-You set them in too fair a light.
Yet, since your bidding hath in this prevail’d,
First to the gods wish I to pour my prayers,
Then to the mighty dead present my off ’rings,
Bringing libations from my house: too late,
I know, to change the past; yet for the future,
If haply better fortune may await it,
Behooves you, on this sad event, to guide
Your friends with faithful counsels. Should my son
Return ere I have finish’d, let your voice
Speak comfort to him; friendly to his house
Attend him, nor let sorrow rise on sorrows.

(ATOSSA and her retinue go out.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe

Awful sovereign of the skies,
When now o’er Persia’s numerous host
Thou badest the storm with ruin rise,
All her proud vaunts of glory lost,
Ecbatana’s imperial head
By thee was wrapp’d in sorrow’s dark’ning shade;
Through Susa’s palaces with loud lament,
By their soft hands their veils all rent,
The copious tear the virgins pour,
That trickles their bare bosoms o’er.
From her sweet couch up starts the widow’d bride,
Her lord’s loved image rushing on her soul,
Throws the rich ornaments of youth aside,
And gives her griefs to flow without control:
Her griefs not causeless; for the mighty slain
Our melting tears demand, and sorrow-soften’d strain.

antistrophe

Now her wailings wide despair
Pours these exhausted regions o’er:
Xerxes, ill-fated, led the war;
Xerxes, ill-fated, leads no more;
Xerxes sent forth the unwise command,
The crowded ships unpeopled all the land;
That land, o’er which Darius held his reign,
Courting the arts of peace, in vain,
O’er all his grateful realms adored,
The stately Susa’s gentle lord.
Black o’er the waves his burden’d vessels sweep,
For Greece elate the warlike squadrons fly;
Now crush’d, and whelm’d beneath the indignant deep
The shatter’d wrecks and lifeless heroes lie:
While, from the arms of Greece escaped, with toil
The unshelter’d monarch roams o’er Thracia’s dreary soil.

epode

The first in battle slain
By Cychrea’s craggy shore
Through sad constraint, ah me! forsaken lie,
All pale and smear’d with gore:—
Raise high the mournful strain,
And let the voice of anguish pierce the sky:—
Or roll beneath the roaring tide,
By monsters rent of touch abhorr’d;
While through the widow’d mansion echoing wide
Sounds the deep groan, and wails its slaughter’d lord:
Pale with his fears the helpless orphan there
Gives the full stream of plaintive grief to flow;
While age its hoary head in deep despair
Bends; list’ning to the shrieks of wo.
With sacred awe
The Persian law
No more shall Asia’s realms revere;
To their lord’s hand
At his command,
No more the exacted tribute bear.
Who now falls prostrate at the monarch’s throne?
His regal greatness is no more.
Now no restraint the wanton tongue shall own,
Free from the golden curb of power;
For on the rocks, wash’d by the beating flood,
His awe commanding nobles lie in blood.

(ATOSSA returns, clad in the garb of mourning; she carries offerings for the tomb of Darius.)

ATOSSA

Whoe’er, my friends, in the rough stream of life
Hath struggled with affliction, thence is taught
That, when the flood begins to swell, the heart
Fondly fears all things; when the fav’ring gale
Of Fortune smooths the current, it expands
With unsuspecting confidence, and deems
That gale shall always breathe. So to my eyes
All things now wear a formidable shape,
And threaten from the gods: my ears are pierced
With sounds far other than of song. Such ills
Dismay my sick’ning soul: hence from my house
Nor glitt’ring car attends me, nor the train
Of wonted state, while I return, and bear
Libations soothing to the father’s shade
In the son’s cause; delicious milk, that foams
White from the sacred heifer; liquid honey,
Extract of flowers; and from its virgin fount
The running crystal; this pure draught, that flow’d
From the ancient vine, of power to bathe the spirits
In joy; the yellow olive’s fragrant fruit,
That glories in its leaves’ unfading verdure;
With flowers of various hues, earth’s fairest offspring
Inwreathed. But you, my friends, amid these rites
Raise high your solemn warblings, and invoke
Your lord, divine Darius; I meanwhile
Will pour these off’rings to the infernal gods.

CHORUS (chanting)

Yes, royal lady, Persia’s honour’d grace,
To earth’s dark chambers pour thy off’rings: we
With choral hymns will supplicate the powers
That guide the dead, to be propitious to us.
And you, that o’er the realms of night extend
Your sacred sway, thee mighty earth, and the
Hermes; thee chief, tremendous king, whose throne
Awes with supreme dominion, I adjure:
Send, from your gloomy regions, send his shade
Once more to visit this ethereal light;
That he alone, if aught of dread event
He sees yet threat’ning Persia, may disclose
To us poor mortals Fate’s extreme decree.

Hears the honour’d godlike king?
These barbaric notes of wo,
Taught in descant sad to ring,
Hears he in the shades below?
Thou, O Earth, and you, that lead
Through your sable realms the dead,
Guide him as he takes his way,
And give him to the ethereal light of day!

Let the illustrious shade arise
Glorious in his radiant state,
More than blazed before our eyes,
Ere sad Susa mourn’d his fate.
Dear he lived, his tomb is dear,
Shrining virtues we revere:
Send then, monarch of the dead,
Such as Darius was, Darius’ shade.

He in realm-unpeopling war
Wasted not his subjects’ blood,
Godlike in his will to spare,
In his councils wise and good.
Rise then, sovereign lord, to light;
On this mound’s sepulchral height
Lift thy sock in saffron died,
And rear thy rich tiara’s regal pride!

Great and good, Darius, rise:
Lord of Persia’s lord, appear:
Thus involved with thrilling cries
Come, our tale of sorrow hear!
War her Stygian pennons spreads,
Brooding darkness o’er our heads;
For stretch’d along the dreary shore
The flow’r of Asia lies distain’d with gore.

Rise, Darius, awful power;
Long for thee our tears shall flow.
Why thy ruin’d empire o’er
Swells this double flood of wo?
Sweeping o’er the azure tide
Rode thy navy’s gallant pride:
Navy now no more, for all
Beneath the whelming wave—

(While the CHORUS Sings, ATOSSA performs her ritual by the tomb.
As the song concludes the GHOST OF DARIUS appears from the tomb.)

GHOST OF DARIUS

Ye faithful Persians, honour’d now in age,
Once the companions of my youth, what ills
Afflict the state? The firm earth groans, it opes,
Disclosing its vast deeps; and near my tomb
I see my wife: this shakes my troubled soul
With fearful apprehensions; yet her off’rings
Pleased I receive. And you around my tomb
Chanting the lofty strain, whose solemn air
Draws forth the dead, with grief-attemper’d notes
Mournfully call me: not with ease the way
Leads to this upper air; and the stern gods,
Prompt to admit, yield not a passage back
But with reluctance: much with them my power
Availing, with no tardy step I come.
Say then, with what new ill doth Persia groan?

CHORUS (chanting)

My wonted awe o’ercomes me; in thy presence
I dare not raise my eyes, I dare not speak.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Since from the realms below, by thy sad strains
Adjured, I come, speak; let thy words be brief;
Say whence thy grief, tell me unawed by fear.
I dread to forge a flattering tale, I dread
To grieve thee with a harsh offensive truth.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Since fear hath chained his tongue, high-honour’d dame,
Once my imperial consort, check thy tears,
Thy griefs, and speak distinctly. Mortal man
Must bear his lot of wo; afflictions rise
Many from sea, many from land, if life
Be haply measured through a lengthen’d course.

ATOSSA

O thou that graced with Fortune’s choicest gifts
Surpassing mortals, while thine eye beheld
Yon sun’s ethereal rays, lived’st like a god
Bless’d amid thy Persians; bless’d I deem thee now
In death, ere sunk in this abyss of ills,
Darius, hear at once our sum of wo;
Ruin through all her states hath crush’d thy Persia.

GHOST OF DARIUS

By pestilence, or faction’s furious storms?

ATOSSA

Not so: near Athens perish’d all our troops.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Say, of my sons, which led the forces thither?

ATOSSA

The impetuous Xerxes, thinning all the land.

GHOST OF DARIUS

By sea or land dared he this rash attempt?

ATOSSA

By both: a double front the war presented.

GHOST OF DARIUS

A host so vast what march conducted o’er?

ATOSSA

From shore to shore he bridged the Hellespont.

GHOST OF DARIUS

What! could he chain the mighty Bosphorus?

ATOSSA

Ev’n so, some god assisting his design.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Some god of power to cloud his better sense.

ATOSSA

The event now shows what mischiefs he achieved.

GHOST OF DARIUS

What suffer’d they, for whom your sorrows flow?

ATOSSA

His navy sunk spreads ruin through the camp.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Fell all his host beneath the slaught’ring spear?

ATOSSA

Susa, through all her streets, mourns her lost sons.

GHOST OF DARIUS

How vain the succour, the defence of arms?

ATOSSA

In Bactra age and grief are only left.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Ah, what a train of warlike youth is lost!

ATOSSA

Xerxes, astonished, desolate, alone—

GHOST OF DARIUS

How will this end? Nay, pause not. Is he safe?

ATOSSA

Fled o’er the bridge, that join’d the adverse strands.

GHOST OF DARIUS

And reach’d this shore in safety? Is this true?

ATOSSA

True are thy words, and not to be gainsay’d.

GHOST OF DARIUS

With what a winged course the oracles
Haste their completion! With the lightning’s speed
Jove on my son hath hurled his threaten’d vengeance:
Yet I implored the gods that it might fall
In time’s late process: but when rashness drives
Impetuous on, the scourge of Heaven upraised
Lashes the Fury forward; hence these ills
Pour headlong on my friends. Not weighing this,
My son, with all the fiery pride of youth,
Hath quickened their arrival, while he hoped
To bind the sacred Hellespont, to hold
The raging Bosphorus, like a slave, in chains,
And dared the advent’rous passage, bridging firm
With links of solid iron his wondrous way,
To lead his numerous host; and swell’d with thoughts
Presumptuous, deem’d, vain mortal! that his power
Should rise above the gods, and Neptune’s might.
And was riot this the phrensy of the soul?
But much I fear lest all my treasured wealth
Fall to some daring hand an easy prey.

ATOSSA

This from too frequent converse with bad men
The impetuous Xerxes learn’d; these caught his ear
With thy great deeds, as winning for thy sons
Vast riches with thy conquering spear, while he
Tim’rous and slothful, never, save in sport,
Lifted his lance, nor added to the wealth
Won by his noble fathers. This reproach
Oft by bad men repeated, urged his soul
To attempt this war, and lead his troops to Greece.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Great deeds have they achieved, and memorable
For ages: never hath this wasted state
Suffer’d such ruin, since heaven’s awful king
Gave to one lord Asia’s extended plains
White with innumerous flocks, and to his hands
Consign’d the imperial sceptre. Her brave hosts
A Mede first led; the virtues of his son
Fix’d firm the empire, for his temperate soul
Breathed prudence. Cyrus next, by fortune graced,
Adorn’d the throne, and bless’d his grateful friends
With peace: he to his mighty monarchy
Join’d Lydia, and the Phrygians; to his power
Ionia bent reluctant; but the gods
His son then wore the regal diadem.
With victory his gentle virtues crown’d
His son then wore the regal diadem.
Next to disgrace his country, and to stain
The splendid glories of this ancient throne,
Rose Mardus: him, with righteous vengeance fired
Artaphernes, and his confederate chiefs
Crush’d in his palace: Maraphis assumed
The sceptre: after him Artaphernes.
Me next to this exalted eminence,
Crowning my great ambition, Fortune raised.
In many a glorious field my glittering spear
Flamed in the van of Persia’s numerous hosts;
But never wrought such ruin to the state.
Xerxes, my son, in all the pride of youth
Listens to youthful counsels, my commands
No more remember’d; hence, my hoary friends,
Not the whole line of Persia’s sceptred lords,
You know it well, so wasted her brave sons.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Why this? To what fair end are these thy words
Directed? Sovereign lord, instruct thy Persians
How, mid this ruin, best to guide their state.

GHOST OF DARIUS

No more ’gainst Greece lead your embattled hosts;
Not though your deep’ning phalanx spreads the field
Outnumb’ring theirs: their very earth fights for them.

LEADER

What may thy words import? How fight for them?

GHOST OF DARIUS

With famine it destroys your cumbrous train.

LEADER

Choice levies, prompt for action, will we send,

GHOST OF DARIUS

Those, in the fields of Greece that now remain,
Shall not revisit safe the Persian shore.

LEADER

What! shall not all the host of Persia pass
Again from Europe o’er the Hellespont?

GHOST OF DARIUS

Of all their numbers few, if aught avails
The faith of heaven-sent oracles to him
That weighs the past, in their accomplishment
Not partial: hence he left, in faithless hope
Confiding, his selected train of heroes.
These have their station where Asopus flows
Wat’ring the plain, whose grateful currents roll
Diffusing plenty through Boeotia’s fields.
There misery waits to crush them with the load
Of heaviest ills, in vengeance for their proud
And impious daring; for where’er they held
Through Greece their march, they fear’d not to profane
The statues of the gods; their hallow’d shrines
Emblazed, o’erturn’d their altars, and in ruins,
Rent from their firm foundations, to the ground
Levell’d their temples; such their frantic deeds,
Nor less their suff’rings; greater still await them;
For Vengeance hath not wasted all her stores;
The heap yet swells; for in Plataea’s plains
Beneath the Doric spear the clotted mas
Of carnage shall arise, that the high mounds,
Piled o’er the dead, to late posterity
Shall give this silent record to men’s eyes,
That proud aspiring thoughts but ill beseem
Weak mortals: for oppression, when it springs,
Puts forth the blade of vengeance, and its fruit
Yields a ripe harvest of repentant wo.
Behold this vengeance, and remember Greece,
Remember Athens: henceforth let not pride,
Her present state disdaining, strive to grasp
Another’s, and her treasured happiness
Shed on the ground: such insolent attempts
Awake the vengeance of offended Jove.
But you, whose age demands more temperate thoughts,
With words of well-placed counsel teach his youth
To curb that pride, which from the gods calls down
Destruction on his head. (To ATOSSA) And thou, whose age
The miseries of thy Xerxes sink with sorrow,
Go to thy house, thence choose the richest robe,
And meet thy son; for through the rage of grief
His gorgeous vestments from his royal limbs
Are foully rent. With gentlest courtesy
Soothe his affliction; for is duteous ear,
I know, will listen to thy voice alone.
Now to the realms of darkness I descend.
My ancient friends, farewell, and mid these ills
Each day in pleasures battle your drooping spirits,
For treasured riches naught avail the dead.

(The GHOST OF DARIUS vanishes into the tomb.)

LEADER

These many present, many future ills
Denounced on Persia, sink my soul with grief.

ATOSSA

Unhappy fortune, what a tide of ills
Bursts o’er me! Chief this foul disgrace, which shows
My son divested of his rich attire,
His royal robes all rent, distracts my thoughts.
But I will go, choose the most gorgeous vest,
And liaste to meet my son. Ne’er in his woes
Will I forsake whom my soul holds most dear.

(ATOSSA departs as the CHORUS begins its song.)

CHORUS

strophe 1

Ye powers that rule the skies,
Memory recalls our great, our happy fate,
Our well-appointed state,
The scenes of glory opening to our eyes,
When this vast empire o’er
The good Darius, with each virtue bless’d
That forms a monarch’s breast,
Shielding his subjects with a father’s care
Invincible in war,
Extended like a god his awful power,
Then spread our arms their glory wide,
Guarding to peace her golden reign:
Each tower’d city saw with pride
Safe from the toils of war her homeward-marching train.

antistrophe 1

Nor Haly’s shallow strand
He pass’d, nor from his palace moved his state;
He spoke; his word was Fate.
What strong-based cities could his might withstand?
Not those that lift their heads
Where to the sea the floods of Strymon pass,
Leaving the huts of Thrace;
Nor those, that far the extended ocean o’er
Stand girt with many a tower;
Nor where the Hellespont his broad wave spreads;
Nor the firm bastions’ rampired might,
Whose foot the deep Propontis laves;
Nor those, that glorying in their height
Frown o’er the Pontic sea, and shade his darken’d waves.

strophe 2

Each sea-girt isle around
Bow’d to this monarch: humbled Lesbos bow’d;
Paros, of its marble proud;
Naxos with vines, with olives Samos crown’d:
Him Myconos adored;
Chios, the seat of beauty; Andros steep,
That stretches o’er the deep
To meet the wat’ry Tenos; him each bay
Bound by the Icarian sea,
Him Melos, Gnidus, Rhodes confess’d their lord;
O’er Cyprus stretch’d his sceptred hand:
Paphos and Solos own’d his power,
And Salamis, whose hostile strand,
The cause of all our wo, is red with Persian gore.

antistrophe 2

Ev’n the proud towns, that rear’d
Sublime along the lonian coast their towers,
Where wealth her treasures pours,
Peopled from Greece, his prudent reign revered.
With such unconquer’d might
His hardy warriors shook the embattled fields,
Heroes that Persia yields,
And those from distant realms that took their way,
And wedged in close array
Beneath his glitt’ring banners claim’d the fight.
But now these glories are no more:
Farewell the big war’s plumed pride:
The gods have crush’d this trophied power;
Sunk are our vanquish’d arms beneath the indignant tide.

(XERXES enters, with a few followers. His royal raiment is torn,
The entire closing scene is sung or chanted.)

XERXES

Ah me, how sudden have the storms of Fate,
Beyond all thought, all apprehension, burst
On my devoted head! O Fortune, Fortune!
With what relentless fury hath thy hand
Hurl’d desolation on the Persian race!
Wo unsupportable! The torturing thought
Of our lost youth comes rushing on my mind,
And sinks me to the ground. O Jove, that
Had died with those brave men that died in fight I

CHORUS

O thou afflicted monarch, once the lord
Of marshall’d armies, of the lustre beam’d
From glory’s ray o’er Persia, of her sons
The pride, the grace, whom ruin now hath sunk
In blood! The unpeopled land laments her youth
By Xerxes led to slaughter, till the realms
Of death are gorged with Persians; for the flower
Of all the realm, thousands, whose dreadful bows
With arrowy shower annoy’d the foe, are fall’n.

XERXES

Your fall, heroic youths, distracts my soul.

CHORUS

And Asia sinking on her knee, O king,
Oppress’d, with griefs oppress’d, bends to the earth.

XERXES

And I, O wretched fortune, I was born
To crush, to desolate my ruin’d country!

CHORUS

I have no voice, no swelling harmony,
No descant, save these notes of wo,
Harsh, and responsive to the sullen sigh,
Rude strains, that unmelodious flow,
To welcome thy return.

XERXES

Then bid them flow, bid the wild measures flow
Hollow, unmusical, the notes of grief;
They suit my fortune, and dejected state.

CHORUS

Yes, at thy royal bidding shall the strain
Pour the deep sorrows of my soul;
The suff’rings of my bleeding country plain,
And bid the mournful measures roll.
Again the voice of wild despair
With thrilling shrieks shall pierce the air;
For high the god of war his flaming crest
Raised, with the fleet of Greece surrounded,
The haughty arms of Greece with conquest bless’d,
And Persia’s wither’d force confounded,
Dash’d on the dreary beach her heroes slain,
Or whelm’d them in the darken’d main.

XERXES

To swell thy griefs ask ev’ry circumstance.

CHORUS

Where are thy valiant friends, thy chieftains where?
Pharnaces, Susas, and the might
Of Pelagon, and Dotamas? The spear
Of Agabates bold in fight?
Psammis in mailed cuirass dress’d,
And Susiscanes’ glitt’ring crest?

XERXES

Dash’d from the Tyrian vessel on the rocks
Of Salamis they sunk, and smear’d with gore
The heroes on the dreary strand are stretch’d.

CHORUS

Where is Pharnuchus? Ariomardus where,
With ev’ry gentle virtue graced?
Lilaeus, that from chiefs renown’d in war
His high-descended lineage traced?
Where rears Sebalces his crown-circled head:
Where Tharybis to battles bred,
Artembares, Hystaechmes bold,
Memphis, Masistress sheath’d in gold?

XERXES

Wretch that I am! These on the abhorred town
Ogygian Athens, roll’d their glowing eyes
Indignant; but at once in the fierce shock
Of battle fell, dash’d breathless on the ground.

CHORUS

There does the son of Batanochus lie,
Through whose rich veins the unsullied blood
Of Susamus, down from the lineage high
Of noble Mygabatas flow’d:
Alpistus, who with faithful care
Number’d the deep’ning files of war,
The monarch’s eye; on the ensanguined plain
Low is the mighty warrior laid?
Is great Aebares ’mong the heroes slain,
And Partheus number’d with the dead?—
Ah me! those bursting groans, deep-charged with wo,
The fate of Persia’s princes show.

XERXES

To my grieved memory thy mournful voice,
Tuned to the saddest notes of wo, recalls
My brave friends lost; and my rent heart returns
In dreadful symphony the sorrowing strain.

CHORUS

Yet once more shall I ask thee, yet once more,
Where is the Mardian Xanthes’ might,
The daring chief, that from the Pontic shore
Led his strong phalanx to the fight?
Anchares where, whose high-raised shield
Flamed foremost in the embattled field?
Where the high leaders of thy mail-clad horse,
Daixis and Arsaces where?
Where Cigdadatas and Lythimnas’ force,
Waving untired his purple spear?

XERXES

Entomb’d, I saw them in the earth entomb’d;
Nor did the rolling car with solemn state
Attend their rites: I follow’d: low they lie

(Ah me, the once great leaders of my host!
Low in the earth, without their honours lie.

CHORUS

O wo, wo, wo! Unutterable wo
The demons of revenge have spread;
And Ate from her drear abode below
Rises to view the horrid deed.

XERXES

Dismay, and rout, and ruin, ills that wait
On man’s afflicted fortune, sink us down.

CHORUS

Dismay, and rout, and ruin on us wait,
And all the vengeful storms of Fate:
Ill flows on ill, on sorrows sorrows rise;
Misfortune leads her baleful train;
Before the Ionian squadrons Persia flies,
Or sinks ingulf’d beneath the main.
Fall’n, fall’n is her imperial power,
And conquest on her banners waits no more.

XERXES

At such a fall, such troops of heroes lost,
How can my soul but sink in deep despair!
Cease thy sad strain.

CHORUS

Is all thy glory lost?

XERXES

Seest thou these poor remains of my rent robes?

CHORUS

I see, I see.

XERXES

And this ill-furnish’d quiver?

CHORUS

Wherefore preserved?

XERXES

To store my treasured arrows.

CHORUS

Few, very few.

XERXES

And few my friendly aids.

CHORUS

I thought these Grecians shrunk appall’d at arms.

XERXES

No: they are bold and daring: these sad eyes
Beheld their violent and deathful deeds.

CHORUS

The ruin, sayst thou, of thy shattered fleet?

XERXES

And in the anguish of my soul I rent
My royal robes.

CHORUS

Wo, wo!

XERXES

And more than wo.

CHORUS

Redoubled, threefold wo!

XERXES

Disgrace to me,
But triumph to the foe.

CHORUS

Are all thy powers
In ruin crush’d?

XERXES

No satrap guards me now.

CHORUS

Thy faithful friends sunk in the roaring main.

XERXES

Weep, weep their loss, and lead me to my house;
Answer my grief with grief, an ill return
Of ills for ills. Yet once more raise that strain
Lamenting my misfortunes; beat thy breast,
Strike, heave the groan; awake the Mysian strain
To notes of loudest wo; rend thy rich robes,
Pluck up thy beard, tear off thy hoary locks,
And battle thine eyes in tears: thus through the streets
Solemn and slow with sorrow lead my steps;
Lead to my house, and wail the fate of Persia.

CHORUS

Yes, once more at thy bidding shall the strain
Pour the deep sorrows of my soul;
The suff’rings of my bleeding untry plain,
And bid the Mysian measures roll.
Again the voice of wild despair
With thrilling shrieks shall pierce the air;
For high the god of war his flaming crest
Raised, with the fleet of Greece surrounded,
The haughty arms of Greece with conquest bless’d,
And Persia’s withered force confounded,
Dash’d on the dreary beach her heroes slain.,
Or whelm’d them in the darken’d main.

THE END

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

Aeschylus

The Seven against Thebes

translated by E.D.A. Morshead

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

ETEOCLES, son of Oedipus, King of Thebes
A SPY
CHORUS OF THEBAN WOMEN
ANTIGONE
ISMENE
sisters of ETEOCLES
A HERALD

SCENE:-Within the Citadel of Thebes. There is an altar with the statues of several gods visible. A crowd of citizens are present as ETEOCLES enters with his attendants.)

ETEOCLES

Clansmen of Cadmus, at the signal given
By time and season must the ruler speak
Who sets the course and steers the ship of State
With hand upon the tiller, and with eye
Watchful against the treachery of sleep.
For if all go aright, thank Heaven, men say,
But if adversely-which may God forefend!-
One name on many lips, from street to street,
Would bear the bruit and rumour of the time,
Down witk Eteocles!-a clamorous curse,
A dirge of ruin. May averting Zeus
Make good his title here, in Cadmus' hold!
You it beseems now-boys unripened yet
To lusty manhood, men gone past the prime
And increase of the full begetting seed,
And those whom youth and manhood well combined
Array for action-all to rise in aid
Of city, shrines, and altars of all powers
Who guard our land; that ne'er, to end of time,
Be blotted out the sacred service due
To our sweet mother-land and to her brood.
For she it was who to their guest-right called
Your waxing youth, was patient of the toil,
And cherished you on the land's gracious lap,
Alike to plant the hearth and bear the shield
In loyal service, for an hour like this.
Mark now! until to-day, luck rules our scale;
For we, though long beleaguered, in the main
Have with our sallies struck the foemen hard.
But now the seer, the feeder of the birds
(Whose art unerring and prophetic skill
Of ear and mind divines their utterance
Without the lore of fire interpreted)
Foretelleth, by the mastery of his art,
That now an onset of Achaea's host
Is by a council of the night designed
To fall in double strength upon our walls.
Up and away, then, to the battlements,
The gates, the bulwarks! don your panoplies,
Array you at the breast-work, take your stand
On the floorings of the towers, and with good heart
Stand firm for sudden sallies at the gates,
Nor hold too heinous a respect for hordes
Sent on you from afar: some god will guard!
I too, for shrewd espial of their camp,
Have sent forth scouts, and confidence is mine
They will not fail nor tremble at their task,
And, with their news, I fear no foeman's guile.

(A Spy enters.)

THE SPY

Eteocles, high king of Cadmus' folk,
I stand here with news certified and sure
From Argos' camp, things by myself descried.
Seven warriors yonder, doughty chiefs of might,
Into the crimsoned concave of a shield
Have shed a bull's blood, and, with hands immersed
Into the gore of sacrifice, have sworn
By Ares, lord of fight, and by thy name,
Blood-lapping Terror, Let our oath be heard-
Either to raze the walls, make void the hold
Of Cadmus-strive his children as they may-
Or, dying here, to make the foemen's land
With blood impasted. Then, as memory's gift
Unto their parents at the far-off home,
Chaplets they hung upon Adrastus' car,
With eyes tear-dropping, but no word of moan.
For their steeled spirit glowed with high resolve,
As lions pant, with battle in their eyes.
For them, no weak alarm delays the clear
Issues of death or life! I parted thence
Even as they cast the lots, how each should lead,
Against which gate, his serried company.
Rank then thy bravest, with what speed thou may'st,
Hard by the gates, to dash on them, for now,
Full-armed, the onward ranks of Argos come!
The dust whirls up, and from their panting steeds
White foamy flakes like snow bedew the plain.
Thou therefore, chieftain! like a steersman skilled,
Enshield the city's bulwarks, ere the blast
Of war comes darting on them! hark, the roar
Of the great landstorm with its waves of men
Take Fortune by the forelock! for the rest,
By yonder dawn-light will I scan the field
Clear and aright, and surety of my word
Shall keep thee scatheless of the coming storm.

ETEOCLES

O Zeus and Earth and city-guarding gods,
And thou, my father's Curse, of baneful might,
Spare ye at least this town, nor root it up,
By violence of the foemen, stock and stem!
For here, from home and hearth, rings Hellas' tongue.
Forbid that e'er the yoke of slavery
Should bow this land of freedom, Cadmus' hold!
Be ye her help! your cause I plead with mine-
A city saved doth honour to her gods!

(ETEOCLES, his attendants and most of the crowd go out. The
CHORUS OF THEBAN WOMEN enters. They appear terror-stricken.)

CHORUS (singing)

I wail in the stress of my terror, and shrill is my cry of
despair.
The foemen roll forth from their camp as a billow, and onward they
bear!
Their horsemen are swift in the forefront, the dust rises up to
the sky,
A signal, though speechless, of doom, a herald more clear than a
cry!
Hoof-trampled, the land of my love bears onward the din to mine
ears.
As a torrent descending a mountain, it thunders and echoes and
nears!
The doom is unloosened and cometh! O kings and O queens of high
Heaven,
Prevail that it fall not upon us! the sign for their onset is
given-
They stream to the walls from without, white-shielded and keen for
the fray.
The rush of their feet? to what shrine shall I bow me in terror
and pray?

(They rush to pray to the gods.)

O gods high-throned in bliss, we must crouch at the shrines in
your home!
Not here must we tarry and wail: shield clashes on shield as they
come
And now, even now is the hour for the robes and the chaplets of
prayer!
Mine eyes feel the flash of the sword, the clang is instinct with
the spear!
Is thy hand set against us, O Ares, in ruin and wrath to o'erwhelm
Thine own immemorial land, O god of the golden helm?
Look down upon us, we beseech thee, on the land that thou lovest
of old.

strophe 1

And ye, O protecting gods, in pity your people behold!
Yea, save us, the maidenly troop, from the doom and despair of the
slave,
For the crests of the foemen come onward, their rush is the rush
of a wave
Rolled on by the War-god's breath! almighty one, hear us and save
From the grasp of the Argives' might! to the ramparts of Cadmus
they crowd,
And, clenched in the teeth of the steeds, the bits clink horror
aloud
And seven high chieftains of war, with spear and with panoply
bold,
Are set, by the law of the lot, to storm the seven gates of our
hold!

antistrophe 1

Be near and befriend us, O Pallas, the Zeus-born maiden of might!
O lord of the steed and the sea, be thy trident uplifted to smite
In eager desire of the fray, Poseidon! and Ares come down,
In fatherly presence revealed, to rescue Harmonia's town!
Thine too, Aphrodite, we are! thou art mother and queen of our
race,
To thee we cry out in our need, from thee let thy children have
grace!
Ye too, to scare back the foe, be your cry as a wolf's howl wild,
Thou, O the wolf-lord, and thou, of she-wolf Leto the child!

strophe 2

Woe and alack for the sound, for the rattle of cars to the wall,
And the creak of the griding axles! O Hera, to thee is our call!
Artemis, maiden beloved! the air is distraught with the spears,
And whither doth destiny drive us, and where is the goal of our
fears?

antistrophe 2

The blast of the terrible stones on the ridge of our wall is not
stayed,
At the gates is the brazen clash of the bucklers-Apollo to aid!
Thou too, O daughter of Zeus, who guidest the wavering fray
To the holy decision of fate, Athena! be with us to-day!
Come down to the sevenfold gates and harry the foemen away!

strophe 3

O gods and O sisters of gods, our bulwark and guard! we beseech
That ye give not our war-worn hold to a rabble of alien speech!
List to the call of the maidens, the hands held up for the right,

antistrophe 3

Be near us, protect us, and show that the city is dear in your
sight!
Have heed for her sacrifice holy, and thought of her offerings
take,
Forget not her love and her worship, be near her and smite for
her sake!

(ETEOCLES and his retinue re-enter.)

ETEOCLES (addressing the CHORUS)

Hark to my question, things detestable!
Is this aright and for the city's weal,
And helpful to our army thus beset,
That ye before the statues of our gods
Should fling yourselves, and scream and shriek your fears?
Immodest, uncontrolled! Be this my lot-
Never in troublous nor in peaceful days
To dwell with aught that wears a female form!
Where womankind has power, no man can house,
Where womankind feeds panic, ruin rules
Alike in house and city! Look you now-
Your flying feet, and rumour of your fears,
Have spread a soulless panic on our walls,
And they without do go from strength to strength,
And we within make breach upon ourselves!
Such fate it brings, to house with womankind.
Therefore if any shall resist my rule
Or man, or woman, or some sexless thing-
The vote of sentence shall decide their doom,
And stones of execution, past escape,
Shall finish all. Let not a woman's voice
Be loud in council! for the things without,
A man must care; let women keep within-
Even then is mischief all too probable!
Hear ye? or speak I to unheeding ears?

CHORUS (chanting)

Ah, but I shudder, child of Oedipus!
I heard the clash and clang!
The axles rolled and rumbled; woe to us,
Fire-welded bridles rang!
Say-when a ship is strained and deep in brine,
Did eer a seaman mend his chance, who left
The helm, t' invoke the image at the prow?

CHORUS (chanting)

Ah, but I fled to the shrines, I called to our helpers on high,
When the stone-shower roared at the portals!
I sped to the temples aloft, and loud was my call and my cry,
Look down and deliver, Immortals!

ETEOCLES

Ay, pray amain that stone may vanquish steel!
Where not that grace of gods? ay, ay-methinks,
When cities fall, the gods go forth from them!

CHORUS (chanting)

Ah, let me die, or ever I behold
The gods go forth, in conflagration dire!
The foemen's rush and raid, and all our hold
Wrapt in the burning fire!

ETEOCLES

Cry not on Heaven, in impotent debate!
What saith the saw?-Good saving Strength, in verity,
Out of Obedience breeds the babe Prosperity.

CHORUS (chanting)

'Tis true: yet stronger is the power divine,
And oft, when man's estate is overbowed
With bitter pangs, disperses from his eyne
The heavy, hanging cloud!

ETEOCLES

Let men with sacrifice and augury
Approach the gods, when comes the tug of war:
Alaids must be silent and abide within.

CHORUS (chanting)

By grace of the gods we hold it, a city untamed of the spear,
And the battlement wards from the wall the foe and his aspect of
fear!
What need of displeasure herein?

ETEOCLES

Ay, pay thy vows to Heaven; I grudge them not,
But-so thou strike no fear into our men-
Have calm at heart, nor be too much afraid.
Alack, it is fresh in mine ears, the clamour and crash of the
fray,
And up to our holiest height I sped on my timorous way,
Bewildered, beset by the din!

ETEOCLES

Now, if ye hear the bruit of death or wounds,
Give not yourselves o'ermuch to shriek and scream,
For Ares ravins upon human flesh.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Ah, but the snorting of the steeds I hear!

ETEOCLES

Then, if thou hearest, hear them not too well

LEADER

Hark, the earth rumbles, as they close us round!

ETEOCLES

Enough if I am here, with plans prepared.

LEADER

Alack, the battering at the gates is loud!

ETEOCLES

Peace! stay your tongue, or else the town may hear!

LEADER

O warders of the walls, betray them not!

ETEOCLES

Beshrew your cries! in silence face your fate.

LEADER

Gods of our city, see me not enslaved!

ETEOCLES

On me, on all, thy cries bring slavery.

LEADER

Zeus, strong to smite, turn upon foes thy blow!

ETEOCLES

Zeus, what a curse are women, wrought by thee!

LEADER

Weak wretches, even as men, when cities fall.
What! clasping gods, yet voicing thy despair?

LEADER

In the sick heart, fear maketh prey of speech.

ETEOCLES

Light is the thing I ask thee-do my will!

LEADER

Ask swiftly: swiftly shall I know my power.

ETEOCLES

Silence, weak wretch! nor put thy friends in fear.

LEADER

I speak no more: the general fate be mine!

ETEOCLES

I take that word as wiser than the rest.
Nay, more: these images possess thy will-
Pray, in their strength, that Heaven be on our side!
Then hear my prayers withal, and then ring out
The female triumph-note, thy privilege-
Yea, utter forth the usage Hellas knows,
The cry beside the altars, sounding clear
Encouragement to friends, alarm to foes.
But I unto all gods that guard our walls,
Lords of the plain or warders of the mart
And to Ismenus' stream and Dirce's rills,
I swear, if Fortune smiles and saves our town,
That we will make our altars reek with blood
Of sheep and kine, shed forth unto the gods,
And with victorious tokens front our fanes-
Corslets and casques that once our foemen wore,
Spear-shattered now-to deck these holy homes!
Be such thy vows to Heaven-away with sighs,
Away with outcry vain and barbarous,
That shall avail not, in a general doom!
But I will back, and, with six chosen men
Myself the seventh, to confront the foe
In this great aspect of a poised war,
Return and plant them at the sevenfold gates,
Or e'er the prompt and clamorous battle-scouts
Haste to inflame our counsel with the need.

(ETEOCLES and his retinue go out.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

I mark his words, yet, dark and deep,
My heart's alarm forbiddeth sleep!
Close-clinging cares around my soul
Enkindle fears beyond control,
Presageful of what doom may fall
From the great leaguer of the wall!
So a poor dove is faint with fear
For her weak nestlings, while anew
Glides on the snaky ravisher!
In troop and squadron, hand on hand,
They climb and throng, and hemmed we stand,
While on the warders of our town
The flinty shower comes hurtling down!
Gods born of Zeus! put forth your might
For Cadmus' city, realm, and right!

antistrophe 1

What nobler land shall e'er be yours,
If once ye give to hostile powers
The deep rich soil, and Dirce's wave,
The nursing stream, Poseidon gave
And Tethys' children? Up and save!
Cast on the ranks that hem us round
A deadly panic, make them fling
Their arms in terror on the ground,
And die in carnage! thence shall spring
High honour for our clan and king!
Come at our wailing cry, and stand
As throned sentries of our land!

strophe 2

For pity and sorrow it were that this immemorial town
Should sink to be slave of the spear, to dust and to ashes gone
down,
By the gods of Achaean worship and arms of Achaean might
Sacked and defiled and dishonoured, its women the prize of the
fight-
That, haled by the hair as a steed, their mantles dishevelled and
torn,
The maiden and matron alike should pass to the wedlock of scorn!
I hear it arise from the city, the manifold wail of despair-
Woe, woe for the doom that shall be-as in grasp of the foeman
they fare!

antistrophe 2

For a woe and a weeping it is, if the maiden inviolate flower
Is plucked by the foe in his might, not culled in the bridal
bower!
Alas for the hate and the horror-how say it?-less hateful by far
Is the doom to be slain by the sword, hewn down in the carnage of
war!
For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the
wall;
There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods
over all,
And wild is the war-god's breath, as in frenzy of conquest he
springs,
And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest
things!

strophe 3

Up to the citadel rise clash and din,
The war-net closes in,
The spear is in the heart: with blood imbrued
Young mothers wail aloud,
For children at their breast who scream and die!
And boys and maidens fly,
Yet scape not the pursuer, in his greed
To thrust and grasp and feed!
Robber with robber joins, each calls his mate
Unto the feast of hate-
The banquet, lo! is spread-seize, rend, and tear!
No need to choose or share!

antistrophe 3

And all the wealth of earth to waste is poured-
A sight by all abhorred!
The grieving housewives eye it; heaped and blent,
Earth's boons are spoiled and spent,
And waste to nothingness; and O alas,
Young maids, forlorn ye pass-
Fresh horror at your hearts-beneath the power
Of those who crop the flower!
Ye own the ruffian ravisher for lord,
And night brings rites abhorred!
Woe, woe for you! upon your grief and pain
There comes a fouler stain.

(On one side THE Spy enters; on the other, ETEOCLES and the SIX CHAMPIONS.)

LEADER OF THE FIRST SEMI-CHORUS

Look, friends! methinks the scout, who parted hence
To spy upon the foemen, comes with news,
His feet as swift as wafting chariot-wheels.

LEADER OF THE SECOND SEMI-CHORUS

Ay, and our king, the son of Oedipus,
Comes prompt to time, to learn the spy's report-
His heart is fainer than his foot is fast!

THE SPY

Well have I scanned the foe, and well can say
Unto which chief, by lot, each gate is given.
Tydeus already with his onset-cry
Storms at the gate called Proetides; but him
The seer Amphiaraus holds at halt,
Nor wills that he should cross Ismenus' ford,
Until the sacrifices promise fair.
But Tydeus, mad with lust of blood and broil,
Like to a cockatrice at noontide hour,
Hisses out wrath and smites with scourge of tongue
The prophet-son of Oecleus-Wise thou art,
Faint against war, and holding back from death!
With such revilings loud upon his lips
He waves the triple plumes that o'er his helm
Float overshadowing, as a courser's mane;
And at his shield's rim, terror in their tone,
Clang and reverberate the brazen bells.
And this proud sign, wrought on his shield, he bears,-
The vault of heaven, inlaid with blazing stars;
And, for the boss, the bright moon glows at full,
The eye of night, the first and lordliest star.
Thus with high-vaunted armour, madly bold,
He clamours by the stream-bank, wild for war,
As a steed panting grimly on his bit,
Held in and chafing for the trumpet's bray!
Whom wilt thou set against him? when the gates
Of Proetus yield, who can his rush repel?

ETEOCLES

To me, no blazon on a foeman's shield
Shall e'er present a fear! such pointed threats
Are powerless to wound; his plumes and bells,
Without a spear, are snakes without a sting.
Nay, more-that pageant of which thou tellest-
The nightly sky displayed, ablaze with stars,
Upon his shield, palters with double sense
One headstrong fool will find its truth anon!
For, if night fall upon his eyes in death,
Yon vaunting blazon will its own truth prove,
And he is prophet of his folly's fall.
Mine shall it be, to pit against his power
The loyal son of Astacus, as guard
To hold the gateways-a right valiant soul,
Who has in heed the throne of Modesty
And loathes the speech of Pride, and evermore
Shrinks from the base, but knows no other fear.
He springs by stock from those whom Ares spared,
The men called Sown, a right son of the soil,
And Melanippus styled. Now, what his arm
To-day shall do, rests with the dice of war,
And Ares shall ordain it; but his cause
Hath the true badge of Right, to urge him on
To guard, as son, his motherland from wrong.

(MELANIPPUS goes out.)

CHORUS (chanting)

Then may the gods give fortune fair
Unto our chief, sent forth to dare
War's terrible arbitrament!
But ah! when champions wend away,
I shudder, lest, from out the fray,
Only their blood-stained wrecks be sent!

THE SPY

Nay, let him pass, and the gods' help be his!
Next, Capaneus comes on, by lot to lead
The onset at the gates Electran styled:
A giant be, more huge than Tydeus' self,
And more than human in his arrogance-
May fate forefend his threat against our walls!
God willing, or unwilling-such his vaunt-
I will lay waste this city; Pallas' self,
Zeus's warrior maid, although she swoop to earth
And plant her in my path, shall stay me not.
And, for the flashes of the levin-bolt,
He holds them harmless as the noontide rays.
Mark, too, the symbol on his shield-a man
Scornfully weaponless but torch in hand,
And the flame glows witbin his grasp, prepared
For ravin: lo, the legend, wrought in words,
Fire for the city bring I, flares in gold!
Against such wight, send forth-yet whom? what man
Will front that vaunting figure and not fear?

ETEOCLES

Aha, this profits also, gain on gain!
In sooth, for mortals, the tongue's utterance
Bewrays unerringly a foolish pride!
Hither stalks Capaneus, with vaunt and threat
Defying god-like powers, equipt to act,
And, mortal though he be, he strains his tongue
In folly's ecstasy, and casts aloft
High swelling words against the ears of Zeus.
Right well I trust-if justice grants the word-
That, by the might of Zeus, a bolt of flame
In more than semblance shall descend on him.
Against his vaunts, though reckless, I have set,
To make assurance sure, a warrior stern-
Strong Polyphontes, fervid for the fray;-
A sturdy bulwark, he, by grace of Heaven
And favour of his champion Artemis!
Say on, who holdeth the next gate in ward?

(POLYPHONTES goes out.)

CHORUS (chanting)

Perish the wretch whose vaunt affronts our home!
On him the red bolt come,
Ere to the maiden bowers his way he cleave,
To ravage and bereave!

THE SPY

I will say on. Eteoclus is third-
To him it fell, what time the third lot sprang
O'er the inverted helmet's brazen rim,
To dash his stormers on Neistae gate.
He wheels his mares, who at their frontlets chafe
And yearn to charge upon the gates amain.
They snort the breath of pride, and, filled therewith,
Their nozzles whistle with barbaric sound.
High too and haughty is his shield's device-
An armed man who climbs, from rung to rung,
A scaling ladder, up a hostile wall,
Afire to sack and slay; and he too cries

(By letters, full of sound, upon the shield)

Not Ares' self shall cast me from the wall.
Look to it, send, against this man, a man
Strong to debar the slave's yoke from our town.
ETEOCLES (pointing to MEGAREUS)

Send will I-even this man, with luck to aid-

(MEGAREUS departs as soon as he has been marked out.)

By his worth sent already, not by pride
And vain pretence, is he. 'Tis Megareus,
The child of Creon, of the Earth-sprung born!
He will not shrink from guarding of the gates,
Nor fear the maddened charger's frenzied neigh,
But, if he dies, will nobly quit the score
For nurture to the land that gave him birth,
Or from the shield-side hew two warriors down-
Eteoclus and the figure that he lifts-
Ay, and the city pictured, all in one,
And deck with spoils the temple of his sire!
Announce the next pair, stint not of thy tongue!

CHORUS (chanting)

O thou, the warder of my home,
Grant, unto us, Fate's favouring tide,
Send on the foemen doom!
They fling forth taunts of frenzied pride,
On them may Zeus with glare of vengeance come

THE SPY

Lo, next him stands a fourth and shouts amain,
By Pallas Onca's portal, and displays
A different challenge; 'tis Hippomedon!
Huge the device that starts up from his targe
In high relief; and, I deny it not,
I shuddered, seeing how, upon the rim,
It made a mighty circle round the shield-
No sorry craftsman he, who wrought that work
And clamped it all around the buckler's edge!
The form was Typhon: from his glowing throat
Rolled lurid smoke, spark-litten, kin of fire!
The flattened edge-work, circling round the whole,
Made strong support for coiling snakes that grew
Erect above the concave of the shield:
Loud rang the warrior's voice; inspired for war,
He raves to slay, as doth a Bacchanal,
His very glance a terror! of such wight
Beware the onset! closing on the gates,
He peals his vaunting and appalling cry!

ETEOCLES

Yet first our Pallas Onca-wardress she,
Planting her foot hard by her gate-shall stand,
The Maid against the ruffian, and repel
His force, as from her brood the mother-bird
Beats back the wintered serpent's venom'd fang.
And next, by her, is Oenops' gallant son,
Hyperbius, chosen to confront this foe,
Ready to seek his fate at Fortune's shrine!
In form, in valour, and in skill of arms,
None shall gainsay him. See how wisely well
Hermes hath set the brave against the strong!
Confronted shall they stand, the shield of each
Bearing the image of opposing gods:
One holds aloft his Typhon breathing fire,
But, on the other's shield, in symbol sits
Zeus, calm and strong, and fans his bolt to flame-
Zeus, seen of all, yet seen of none to fail!
Howbeit, weak is trust reposed in Heaven-
Yet are we upon Zeus' victorious side,
The foe, with those he worsted-if in sooth
Zeus against Typhon held the upper hand,
And if Hyperbius (as well may hap
When two such foes such diverse emblems bear)

Have Zeus upon his shield, a saving sign.

(HYPERBIUS goes out.)

CHORUS (chanting)

High faith is mine that he whose shield
Bears, against Zeus, the thing of hate.
The giant Typhon, thus revealed,
A monster loathed of gods eterne
And mortal men-this doom shall earn
A shattered skull, before the gate!

THE SPY

Heaven send it so! A fifth assailant now
Is set against our fifth, the northern, gate,
Fronting the death-mound where Amphion lies
The child of Zeus. This foeman vows his faith,
Upon a mystic spear-head which he deems
More holy than a godhead and more sure
To find its mark than any glance of eye,
That, will they, nill they, he will storm and sack
The hold of the Cadmeans. Such his oath-
His, the bold warrior, yet of childish years,
A bud of beauty's foremost flower, the son
Of Zeus and of the mountain maid. I mark
How the soft down is waxing on his cheek,
Thick and close-growing in its tender prime-
In name, not mood, is he a maiden's child-
Parthenopaeus; large and bright his eyes
But fierce the wrath wherewith he fronts the gate:
Yet not unheralded he takes his stand
Before the portal; on his brazen shield,
The rounded screen and shelter of his form,
I saw him show the ravening Sphinx, the fiend
That shamed our city-how it glared and moved,
Clamped on the buckler, wrought in high relief!
And in its claws did a Cadmean bear-
Nor heretofore, for any single prey,
Sped she aloft, through such a storm of darts
As now awaits her. So our foe is here-
Like, as I deem, to ply no stinted trade
In blood and broil, but traffick as is meet
In fierce exchange for his long wayfaring!

ETEOCLES

Ah, may they meet the doom they think to bring-
They and their impious vaunts-from those on high!
So should they sink, hurled down to deepest death!
This foe, at least, by thee Arcadian styled,
Is faced by one who bears no braggart sign,
But his hand sees to smite, where blows avail-
Actor, own brother to Hyperbius!
He will not let a boast without a blow
Stream through our gates and nourish our despair,
Nor give him way who on his hostile shield
Bears the brute image of the loathly Sphinx!
Blocked at the gate, she will rebuke the man
Who strives to thrust her forward, when she feels
Thick crash of blows, up to the city wall.
With Heaven's goodwill, my forecast shall be true.

(ACTOR goes out.)

CHORUS (chanting)

Home to my heart the vaunting goes,
And, quick with terror, on my head
Rises my hair, at sound of those
Who wildly, impiously rave!
If gods there be, to them I plead-
Give them to darkness and the grave.

THE Spy
Fronting the sixth gate stands another foe,
Wisest of warriors, bravest among seers-
Such must I name Amphiaraus: he,
Set steadfast at the Homoloid gate,
Berates strong Tydeus with reviling words-
The man of blood, the bane of state and home
To Argos, arch-allurer to all ill,
Evoker of the Fury-fiend of hell,
Death's minister, and counsellor of wrong
Unto Adrastus in this fatal field.
Ay, and with eyes upturned and mien of scorn
He chides thy brother Polyneices to
At his desert, and once and yet again
Dwells hard and meaningly upon his name
Where it saith glory yet importeth feud.
Yea, such thou art in act, and such thy grace
In sight of Heaven, and such in aftertime
Thy fame, for lips and ears of mortal men!
"He strove to sack the city of his sires
And temples of her gods, and brought on her
An alien armament of foreign foes.
The fountain of maternal blood outpoured
What power can staunck? even so, thy fatherland
Once by thine ardent malice stormed and ta'en,
Shall ne'er join force with thee." For me, I know
It doth remain to let my blood enrich
The border of this land that loves me not-
Blood of a prophet, in a foreign grave!
Now, for the battle! I foreknow my doom,
Yet it shall be with honour. So he spake,
The prophet, holding up his targe of bronze
Wrought without blazon, to the ears of men
Who stood around and heeded not his word.
For on no bruit and rumour of great deeds,
But on their doing, is his spirit set,
And in his heart he reaps a furrow rich,
Wherefrom the foison of good counsel springs.
Against him, send brave heart and hand of might;
For the god-lover is man's fiercest foe.

ETEOCLES

Out on the chance that couples mortal men,
Linking the just and impious in one!
In every issue, the one curse is this-
Companionship with men of evil heart!
A baneful harvest, let none gather it!
The field of sin is rank, and brings forth death
At whiles a righteous man who goes aboard
With reckless mates, a horde of villainy,
Dies by one death with that detested crew;
At whiles the just man, joined with citizens
Ruthless to strangers, recking nought of Heaven,
Trapped, against nature, in one net with them,
Dies by God's thrust and all-including blow.
So will this prophet die, even Oecleus' child,
Sage, just, and brave, and loyal towards Heaven,
Potent in prophecy, but mated here
With men of sin, too boastful to be wise!
Long is their road, and they return no more,
And, at their taking-off, by hard of Zeus,
The prophet too shall take the downward way.
He will not-so I deem-assail the gate-
Not as through cowardice or feeble will,
But as one knowing to what end shall be
Their struggle in the battle, if indeed
Fruit of fulfilment lie in Loxias' word.
He speaketh not, unless to speak avails!
Yet, for more surety, we will post a man,
Strong Lasthenes, as warder of the gate,
Stern to the foeman; he hath age's skill,
Mated with youthful vigour, and an eye
Forward, alert; swift too his hand, to catch
The fenceless interval 'twixt shield and spear!
Yet man's good fortune lies in hand of Heaven.

(LASTHENES goes out.)

CHORUS (chanting)

Unto our loyal cry, ye gods, give ear!
Save, save the city! turn away the spear,
Send on the foemen fear!
Outside the rampart fall they, rent and riven
Beneath the bolt of heaven!

THE SPY

Last, let me name yon seventh antagonist,
Thy brother's self, at the seventh portal set-
Hear with what wrath he imprecates our doom,
Vowing to mount the wall, though banished hence,
And peal aloud the wild exulting cry-
The town is ta'en-then clash his sword with thine,
Giving and taking death in close embrace,
Or, if thou 'scapest, flinging upon thee,
As robber of his honour and his home,
The doom of exile such as he has borne.
So clamours he and so invokes the gods
Who guard his race and home, to hear and heed
The curse that sounds in Polyneices' name!
He bears a round shield, fresh from forge and fire,
And wrought upon it is a twofold sign-
For lo, a woman leads decorously
The figure of a warrior wrought in gold;
And thus the legend runs-I Justice am,
And I will bring the hero home again,
To hold once more his place within this town,
Once more to pace his sire's ancestral hall.
Such are the symbols, by our foemen shown-
Now make thine own decision, whom to send
Against this last opponent! I have said-
Nor canst thou in my tidings find a flaw-
Thine is it, now, to steer the course aright.

ETEOCLES

Ah me, the madman, and the curse of Heaven
And woe for us, the lamentable line
Of Oedipus, and woe that in this house
Our father's curse must find accomplishment!
But now, a truce to tears and loud lament,
Lest they should breed a still more rueful wail!
As for this Polyneices, named too well,
Soon shall we know how this device shall end-
Whether the gold-wrought symbols on his shield,
In their mad vaunting and bewildered pride,
Shall guide him as a victor to his home!
For had but justice, maiden-child of Zeus,
Stood by his act and thought, it might have been!
Yet never, from the day he reached the light
Out of the darkness of his mother's womb,
Never in childhood, nor in youthful prime,
Nor when his chin was gathering its beard,
Hath justice hailed or claimed him as her own.
Therefore I deem not that she standeth now
To aid him in this outrage on his home!
Misnamed, in truth, were justice, utterly,
If to impiety she lent her hand.
Sure in this faith, I will myself go forth
And match me with him; who hath fairer claim?
Ruler, against one fain to snatch the rule,
Brother with brother matched, and foe with foe,
Will I confront the issue. To the wall!

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O thou true heart, O child of Oedipus,
Be not, in wrath, too like the man whose name
Murmurs an evil omen! 'Tis enough
That Cadmus' clan should strive with Arges' host,
For blood there is that can atone that stain!
But-brother upon brother dealing death-
Not time itself can expiate the sin!

ETEOCLES

If man find hurt, yet clasp his honour still,
'Tis well; the dead have honour, nought beside.
Hurt, with dishonour, wins no word of praise!

CHORUS (chanting)

Ah, what is thy desire?
Let not the lust and ravin of the sword
Bear thee adown the tide accursed, abhorred!
Fling off thy passion's rage, thy spirit's prompting dire!

ETEOCLES

Nay-since the god is urgent for our doom,
Let Laius' house, by Phoebus loathed and scorned,
Follow the gale of destiny, and win
Its great inheritance, the gulf of hell!

CHORUS (chanting)

Ruthless thy craving is-
Craving for kindred and forbidden blood
To be outpoured-a sacrifice imbrued
With sin, a bitter fruit of murderous enmities!

ETEOCLES

Yea, my own father's fateful Curse proclaims-
A ghastly presence, and her eyes are dry-
Strike! honour is the prize, not life prolonged!

CHORUS (chanting)

Ah, be not urged of her! for none shall dare
To call thee coward, in thy throned estate!
Will not the Fury in her sable pal
Pass outward from these halls, what time the gods
Welcome a votive offering from our hands?

ETEOCLES

The gods! long since they hold us in contempt,
Scornful of gifts thus offered by the lost!
Why should we fawn and flinch away from doom?

CHORUS (chanting)

Now, when it stands beside thee! for its power
May, with a changing gust of milder mood,
Temper the blast that bloweth wild and rude
And frenzied, in this hour!

ETEOCLES

Ay, kindled by the curse of Oedipus-
All too prophetic, out of dreamland came
The vision, meting out our sire's estate!

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Heed women's voices, though thou love them not!

ETEOCLES

Say aught that may avail, but stint thy words.

LEADER

Go not thou forth to guard the seventh gate!

ETEOCLES

Words shall not blunt the edge of my resolve.

LEADER

Yet the god loves to let the weak prevail.

ETEOCLES

That to a swordsman, is no welcome word!

LEADER

Shall thine own brother's blood be victory's palm?

ETEOCLES

Ill which the gods have sent thou canst no-shun!

(ETEOCLES goes out.)

CHORUS (singing)

strophe 1

I shudder in dread of the power, abhorred by the gods of high
heaven,
The ruinous curse of the home till roof-tree and rafter be riven!
Too true are the visions of ill, too true the fulfilment they
bring
To the curse that was spoken of old by the frenzy and wrath of the
king!
Her will is the doom of the children, and Discord is kindled
amain,
antistrophe 1
And strange is the Lord of Division, who cleaveth the birthright
in twain,-
The edged thing, born of the north, the steel that is ruthless
and keen,
Dividing in bitter division the lot of the children of teen!
Not the wide lowland around, the realm of their sire, shall they
have,
Yet enough for the dead to inherit, the pitiful space of a grave!

strophe 2

Ah, but when kin meets kin, when sire and child,
Unknowing, are defiled
By shedding common blood, and when the pit
Of death devoureth it,
Drinking the clotted stain, the gory dye-
Who, who can purify?
Who cleanse pollution, where the ancient bane
Rises and reeks again?

antistrophe 2

Whilome in olden days the sin was wrought,
And swift requital brought-
Yea on the children of the child came still
New heritage of ill!
For thrice Apollo spoke this word divine,
From Delphi's central shrine,
To Laius-Die thou childless! thus alone
Can the land's weal be won!

strophe 3

But vainly with his wife's desire he strove,
And gave himself to love,
Begetting Oedipus, by whom he died,
The fateful parricide!
The sacred seed-plot, his own mother's womb,
He sowed, his house's doom,
A root of blood! by frenzy lured, they came
Unto their wedded shame.

antistrophe 3

And now the waxing surge, the wave of fate,
Rolls on them, triply great-
One billow sinks, the next towers, high and dark,
Above our city's bark-
Only the narrow barrier of the wal
Totters, as soon to fall;
And, if our chieftains in the storm go down,
What chance can save the town?

strophe 4

Curses, inherited from long ago,
Bring heavy freight of woe:
Rich stores of merchandise o'erload the deck,
Near, nearer comes the wreck-
And all is lost, cast out upon the wave,
Floating, with none to save!

antistrophe 4

Whom did the gods, whom did the chief of men,
Whom did each citizen
In crowded concourse, in such honour hold,
As Oedipus of old,
When the grim fiend, that fed on human prey,
He took from us away?

strophe 5

But when, in the fulness of days, he knew of his bridal unblest,
A twofold horror he wrought, in the frenzied despair of his
breast-
Debarred from the grace of the banquet, the service of goblets
of gold
He flung on his children a curse for the splendour they dared to
withhold.

antistrophe 5

A curse prophetic and bitter-The glory of wealth and of pride,
With iron, not gold, in your hands, ye shall come, at the last,
to divide!
Behold, how a shudder runs through me, lest now, in the fulness
of time,
The house-fiend awake and return, to mete out the measure of
crime!

(THE Spy enters.)

THE SPY

Take heart, ye daughters whom your mothers' milk
Made milky-hearted! lo, our city stands,
Saved from the yoke of servitude: the vaunts
Of overweening men are silent now,
And the State sails beneath a sky serene,
Nor in the manifold and battering waves
Hath shipped a single surge, and solid stands
The rampart, and the gates are made secure,
Each with a single champion's trusty guard.
So in the main and at six gates we hold
A victory assured; but, at the seventh,
The god that on the seventh day was born,
Royal Apollo, hath ta'en up his rest
To wreak upon the sons of Oedipus
Their grandsire's wilfulness of long ago.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

What further woefulness besets our home?

THE SPY

The home stands safe-but ah, the princes twain-

LEADER

Who? what of them? I am distraught with fear.

THE SPY

Hear now, and mark! the sons of Oedipus-

LEADER

Ah, my prophetic soul! I feel their doom.

THE SPY

Have done with questions!-with I-with their lives crushed out-

LEADER

Lie they out yonder? the full horror speak!
Did hands meet hands more close than brotherly?
Came fate on each. and in the selfsame hour?

THE SPY

Yea, blotting out the lineage ill-starred!
Now mix your exultation and your tears,
Over a city saved, the while its lords,
Twin leaders of the fight, have parcelled out
With forged arbitrament of Scythian steel
The full division of their fatherland,
And, as their father's imprecation bade,
Shall have their due of land, a twofold grave.
So is the city saved; the earth has drunk
Blood of twin princes, by each other slain.

CHORUS (chanting)

O mighty Zeus and guardian powers,
The strength and stay of Cadmus' towers!
Shall I send forth a joyous cry,
Hail to the lord of weal renewed?
Or weep the misbegotten twain,
Born to a fatal destiny
Each numbered now among the slain,
Each dying in ill fortitude,
Each truly named, each child of feud?
O dark and all-prevailing ill,
That broods o'er Oedipus and all his line,
Numbing my heart with mortal chill!
Ah me, this song of mine,
Which, Thyad-like, I woke, now falleth still,
Or only tells of doom,
And echoes round a tomb!
Dead are they, dead! in their own blood they lie
Ill-omened the concent that hails our victory!
The curse a father on his children spake
Hath faltered not, nor failed!
Nought, Laius! thy stubborn choice availed-
First to beget, then, in the after day
And for the city's sake,
The child to slay!
For nought can blunt nor mar
The speech oracular!
Children of teen! by disbelief ye erred-
Yet in wild weeping came fulfilment of the word!

(ANTIGONE and ISMENE approach, with a train of mourners.
bearing the bodies of ETEOCLES and POLYNEICES.)

Look up, look forth! the doom is plain,
Nor spake the messenger in vain!
A twofold sorrow, twofold strife-
Each brave against a brother's life!
In double doom hath sorrow come
How shall I speak it?-on the home!
Alas, my sisters! be your sighs the gale,
The smiting of your brows the plash of oars,
Wafting the boat, to Acheron's dim shores
That passeth ever, with its darkened sail,
On its uncharted voyage and sunless way,
Far from thy beams, Apollo, god of day-
The melancholy bark
Bound for the common bourn, the harbour of the dark!

Look up, look yonder! from the home
Antigone, Ismene come,
On the last, saddest errand bound,
To chant a dirge of doleful sound,
With agony of equal pain
Above their brethren slain!
Their sister-bosoms surely swell,
Heart with rent heart according well
In grief for those who fought and fell!
Yet-ere they utter forth their woe
We must awake the rueful strain
To vengeful powers, in realms below,
And mourn hell's triumph o'er the slain!

Alas! of all, the breast who bind,-
Yea, all the race of womankind-
O maidens, ye are most bereaved!
For you, for you the tear-drops start-
Deem that in truth, and undeceived,
Ye hear the sorrows of my heart!

(To the dead)

Children of bitterness, and sternly brave-
One, proud of heart against persuasion's voice,
One, against exile proof! ye win your choice-
Each in your fatherland, a separate grave!
Alack, on house and heritage
They brought a baneful doom, and death for wage!
One strove through tottering walls to force his way,
One claimed, in bitter arrogance, the sway,
And both alike, even now and here,
Have closed their suit, with steel for arbiter!
And lo, the Fury-fiend of Oedipus, their sire,
Hath brought his curse to consummation dire
Each in the left side smitten, see them laid-
The children of one womb,
Slain by a mutual doom!
Alas, their fate! the combat murderous,
The horror of the house,
The curse of ancient bloodshed, now repaid!
Yea, deep and to the heart the deathblow fell,
Edged by their feud ineffable-
By the grim curse, their sire did imprecate
Discord and deadly hate!
Hark, how the city and its towers make moan-
How the land mourns that held them for its own!
Fierce greed and fell division did they blend,
Till death made end!
They strove to part the heritage in twain,
Giving to each a gain-
Yet that which struck the balance in the strife,
The arbitrating sword,
By those who loved the twain is held abhorred-
Loathed is the god of death, who sundered each from life!
Here, by the stroke of steel, behold! they lie-
And rightly may we cry
Beside their fathers, let them here be laid-
Iron gave their doom, witk iron their graves be made-
A lack, the slaying sword, alack, th' entombing spade!
Alas, a piercing shriek, a rending groan,
A cry unfeigned of sorrow felt at heart!
With shuddering of grief, with tears that start,
With wailful escort, let them hither come-
For one or other make divided moan!
No light lament of pity mixed with gladness,
But with true tears, poured from the soul of sadness,
Over the princes dead and their bereaved home
Say we, above these brethren dead,
On citizen, on foreign foe,
Brave was their rush, and stern their blow-
Now, lowly are they laid!
Beyond all women upon earth
Woe, woe for her who gave them birth!
Unknowingly, her son she wed-
The children of that marriage-bed,
Each in the self-same womb, were bred-
Each by a brother's hand lies dead!

Yea, from one seed they sprang, and by one fate
Their heritage is desolate,
The heart's division sundered claim from claim,
And, from their feud, death came!
Now is their hate allayed,
Now is their life-stream shed,
Ensanguining the earth with crimson dye-
Lo, from one blood they sprang, and in one blood they lie!
A grievous arbiter was given the twain-
The stranger from the northern main,
The sharp, dividing sword,
Fresh from the forge and fire
The War-god treacherous gave ill award
And brought their father's curse to a fulfilment dire!
They have their portion-each his lot and doom,
Given from the gods on high!
Yea, the piled wealth of fatherland, for tomb,
Shall underneath them lie!
Alas, alas! with flowers of fame and pride
Your home ye glorified;
But, in the end, the Furies gathered round
With chants of boding sound,
Shrieking, In wild defeat and disarray,
Behold, ye pass away!
The sign of Ruin standeth at the gate,
There, where they strove with Fate-
And the ill power beheld the brothers' fall,
And triumphed over all!

(ANTIGONE, ISMENE, and the CHORUS all take part in the following responsive dirge.)

Thou wert smitten, in smiting,
Thou didst slay, and wert slain-
By the spear of each other
Ye lie on the plain,
And ruthless the deed that ye wrought was, and ruthless the death of the twain!

Take voice, O my sorrow!
Flow tear upon tear-
Lay the slain by the slayer,
Made one on the bier!
Our soul in distraction is lost, and we mourn o'er the prey of the spear!

Ah, woe for your ending,
Unbrotherly wrought!
And woe for the issue,
The fray that ye fought,
The doom of a mutual slaughter whereby to the grave ye are brought!

Ah, twofold the sorrow-
The heard and the seen!
And double the tide
Of our tears and our teen,
As we stand by our brothers in death and wail for the love that has been!

O grievous the fate
That attends upon wrong!
Stern ghost of our sire,
Thy vengeance is long!
Dark Fury of hell and of death, the hands of thy kingdom are.
strong!

O dark were the sorrows
That exile hath known!
He slew, but returned not
Alive to his own!
He struck down a brother, but fell, in the moment of triumph hewn down!

O lineage accurst,
O doom and despair!
Alas, for their quarrel,
The brothers that were!
And woe! for their pitiful end, who once were our love and our care!

O grievous the fate
That attends upon wrong)

Stern ghost of our sire,
Thy vengeance is long!
Dark Fury of hell and of death, the hands of thy kingdom are
strong!

By proof have ye learnt it!
At once and as one,
O brothers beloved,
To death ye were, done!
Ye came to the strife of the sword, and behold! ye are both
overthrown!

O grievous the tale is,
And grievous their fall,
To the house, to the land,
And to me above all!
Ah, God! for the curse that hath come, the sin and the ruin
withal!

O children distraught,
Who in madness have died!
Shall ye rest with old kings
In the place of their pride?
Alas for the wrath of your sire if he findeth you laid by his
side!

(A HERALD enters.)

HERALD

I bear command to tell to one and all
What hath approved itself and now is law,
Ruled by the counsellors of Cadmus' town.
For this Eteocles, it is resolved
To lay him on his earth-bed, in this soil,
Not without care and kindly sepulture.
For why? he hated those who hated us,
And, with all duties blanielessly performed
Unto the sacred ritual of his sires,
He met such end as gains our city's grace,-
With auspices that do ennoble death.
Such words I have in charge to speak of him:
But of his brother Polyneices, this-
Be he cast out unburied, for the dogs
To rend and tear: for he presumed to waste
The land of the Cadmeans, had not Heaven-
Some god of those who aid our fatherland-
Opposed his onset, by his brother's spear,
To whom, tho' dead, shall consecration come!
Against him stood this wretch, and brought a horde
Of foreign foemen, to beset our town.
He therefore shall receive his recompense,
Buried ignobly in the maw of kites-
No women-wailers to escort his corpse
Nor pile his tomb nor shrill his dirge anew-
Unhouselled, unattended, cast away
So, for these brothers, doth our State ordain.

ANTIGONE

And I-to those who make such claims of rule
In Cadmus' town-I, though no other help,

(Pointing to the body of POLYNEICES)

I, I will bury this my brother's corse
And risk your wrath and what may come of it!
It shames me not to face the State, and set
Will against power, rebellion resolute:
Deep in my heart is set my sisterhood,
My common birthright with my brothers, born
All of one womb, her children who, for woe,
Brought forth sad offspring to a sire ill-starred.
Therefore, my soul! take thou thy willing share,
In aid of him who now can will no more,
Against this outrage: be a sister true,
While yet thou livest, to a brother dead!
Him never shall the wolves with ravening maw
Rend and devour: I do forbid the thought!
I for him, I-albeit a woman weak-
In place of burial-pit, will give him rest
By this protecting handful of light dust
Which, in the lap of this poor linen robe,
I bear to hallow and bestrew his corpse
With the due covering. Let none gainsay!
Courage and craft shall arm me, this to do.

HERALD

I charge thee, not to flout the city's law!

ANTIGONE

I charge thee, use no useless heralding!

HERALD

Stern is a people newly 'scaped from death.

ANTIGONE

Whet thou their sternness! burial he shall have.

HERALD

How? grace of burial, to the city's foe?

ANTIGONE

God hath not judged him separate in guilt.

HERALD

True-till he put this land in jeopardy.

ANTIGONE

His rights usurped, he answered wrong with wrong.

HERALD

Nay-but for one man's sin he smote the State.

ANTIGONE

Contention doth out-talk all other gods!
Prate thou no more-I will to bury him.

HERALD

Will, an thou wilt! but I forbid the deed.

(The HERALD goes out.)

CHORUS (singing)

Exulting Fates, who waste the line
And whelm the house of Oedipus!
Fiends, who have slain, in wrath condign,
The father and the children thus!
What now befits it that I do,
What meditate, what undergo?
Can I the funeral rite refrain,
Nor weep for Polyneices slain?
But yet, with fear I shrink and thrill,
Presageful of the city's will!
Thou, O Eteocles, shalt have
Full rites, and mourners at thy grave,
But he, thy brother slain, shall he,
With none to weep or cry Alas,
To unbefriended burial pass?
Only one sister o'er his bier,
To raise the cry and pour the tear-
Who can obey such stern decree?

SEMI-CHORUS

Let those who hold our city's sway
Wreak, or forbear to wreak, their will
On those who cry, Ah, well-a-day!
Lamenting Polyneices still!
We will go forth and, side by side
With her, due burial will provide!
Royal he was; to him be paid
Our grief, wherever he be laid!
The crowd may sway, and change, and still
Take its caprice for justice' will
But we this dead Eteocles,
As Justice wills and Right decrees,
Will bear unto his grave!
For-under those enthroned on high
And Zeus' eternal royalty-
He unto us salvation gave!
He saved us from a foreign yoke,-
A wild assault of outland folk,
A savage, alien wave!

THE END

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

Aeschylus

The Suppliants

translated by E.D.A. Morshead

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

DANAUS
THE KING OF ARGOS
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS
CHORUS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF DANAUS
Attendants

(SCENE:-A sacred precinct near the shore in Argos. Several statues of the gods can be seen, as well as a large altar. As the play opens, DANAUS, and his fifty daughters, the maidens who compose the CHORUS, enter. Their costumes have an oriental richness about them not characteristic of the strictly Greek. They carry also the wands of suppliants. The CHORUS is singing.)

CHORUS

Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands
Look down benign on us who crave
Thine aid-whom winds and waters drave
From where, through drifting shifting sands,
Pours Nilus to the wave.
From where the green land, god-possest,
Closes and fronts the Syrian waste,
We flee as exiles, yet unbanned
By murder's sentence from our land;
But-since Aegyptus had decreed
His sons should wed his brother's seed,-
Ourselves we tore from bonds abhorred,
From wedlock not of heart but hand,
Nor brooked to call a kinsman lord!

And Danaus, our sire and guide,
The king of counsel, pond'ring well
The dice of fortune as they fell,
Out of two griefs the kindlier chose,
And bade us fly, with him beside,
Heedless what winds or waves arose,
And o'er the wide sea waters haste,
Until to Argos' shore at last
Our wandering pinnace came-
Argos, the immemorial home
Of her from whom we boast to come-
Io, the ox-horned maiden, whom,
After long wandering, woe, and scathe,
Zeus with a touch, a mystic breath,
Made mother of our name.
Therefore, of all the lands of earth,
On this most gladly step we forth,
And in our hands aloft we bear-
Sole weapon for a suppliant's wear-
The olive-shoot, with wool enwound!
City, and land, and waters wan
Of Inachus, and gods most high,
And ye who, deep beneath the ground,
Bring vengeance weird on mortal man,
Powers of the grave, on you we cry!
And unto Zeus the Saviour, guard
Of mortals' holy purity!
Receive ye us-keep watch and ward
Above the suppliant maiden band!
Chaste be the heart of this your land
Towards the weak! but, ere the throng,
The wanton swarm, from Egypt sprung,
Leap forth upon the silted shore,
Thrust back their swift-rowed bark again,
Repel them, urge them to the main!
And there, 'mid storm and lightning's shine,
And scudding drift and thunder's roar,
Deep death be theirs, in stormy brine!
Before they foully grasp and win
Us, maiden-children of their kin,
And climb the couch by law denied,
And wrong each weak reluctant bride.

strophe 1

And now on her I call,
Mine ancestress, who far on Egypt's shore
A young cow's semblance wore,-
A maiden once, by Hera's malice changed!
And then on him withal,
Who, as amid the flowers the grazing creature ranged,
Was in her by a breath of Zeus conceived;
And, as the hour of birth drew nigh,
By fate fulfilled, unto the light he came;-
And Epaphus for name,
Born from the touch of Zeus, the child received antistrophe 1

On him, on him I cry,
And him for patron hold-
While in this grassy vale I stand,
Where lo roamed of old!
And here, recounting all her toil and pain,
Signs will I show to those who rule the land
That I am child of hers; and all shall understand,
Hearing the doubtful tale of the dim past made plain.

strophe 2

And, ere the end shall be,
Each man the truth of what I tell shall see.
And if there dwell hard by
One skilled to read from bird-notes augury,
That man, when through his ears shall thrill our tearful wail,
Shall deem he hears the voice, the plaintive tale
Of her, the piteous spouse of Tereus, lord of guile-
Whom the hawk harries yet, the mourning nightingale.

antistrophe 2

She, from her happy home and fair streams scared away,
Wails wild and sad for haunts beloved erewhile.
Yea, and for Itylus-ah, well-a-day!
Slain by her own, his mother's hand,
Maddened by lustful wrong, the deed by Tereus planned!

strophe 3

Like her I wail and wail, in soft lonian tones,
And as she wastes, even so
Wastes my soft cheek, once ripe with Nilus' suns,
And all my heart dissolves in utter woe.
Sad flowers of grief I cull,
Fleeing from kinsmen's love unmerciful-
Yea, from the clutching hands, the wanton crowd,
I sped across the waves, from Egypt's land of cloud.

antistrophe 3

Gods of the ancient cradle of my race,
Hear me, just gods! With righteous grace
On me, on me look down!
Grant not to youth its heart's unchaste desire,
But, swiftly spurning lust's unholy fire,
Bless only love and willing wedlock's crown!
The war-worn fliers from the battle's wrack
Find refuge at the hallowed altar-side,
The sanctuary divine,-
Ye gods! such refuge unto me provide-
Such sanctuary be mine!

strophe 4

Though the deep will of Zeus be hard to track,
Yet doth it flame and glance,
A beacon in the dark, 'mid clouds of chance
That wrap mankind.

antistrophe 4

Yea, though the counsel fall, undone it shall not lie,
Whate'er be shaped and fixed within Zeus' ruling mind-
Dark as a solemn grove, with sombre leafage shaded,
His paths of purpose wind,
A marvel to man's eye.

strophe 5

Smitten by him, from towering hopes degraded,
Mortals lie low and still.-
Tireless and effortless, works forth its will
The arm divine!
God from His holy seat, in calm of unarmed power,
Brings forth the deed, at its appointed hour!

antistrophe 5

Let Him look down on mortal wantonness!
Lo! how the youthful stock of Belus' line
Craves for me, uncontrolled-
With greed and madness bold-
Urged on by passion's shunless stress-
And, cheated, learns too late the prey has 'scaped their hold!

strophe 6

Ah, listen, listen to my grievous tale,
My sorrow's words, my shrill and tearful cries!
Ah woe, ah woe!
Loud with lament the accents rise,
And from my living lips my own sad dirges flow!

refrain 1

O Apian land of hill and dale,
Thou kennest yet, O land, this faltered foreign wail-
Have mercy, hear my prayer!
Lo, how again, again, rend and tear
My woven raiment, and from off my hair
Cast the Sidonian veil!

antistrophe 6

Ah, but if fortune smile, if death be driven away,
Vowed rites, with eager haste, we to the gods will pay!
Alas, alas again!
O whither drift the waves? and who shall loose the pain?

refrain 1

O Apian land of hill and dale,
Thou kennest yet, O land, this faltered foreign wail
Have mercy, hear my prayer!
Lo, how again, again, I rend and tear
My woven raiment, and from off my hair
Cast the Sidonian veil!

strophe 7

The wafting oar, the bark with woven sail,
From which the sea foamed back,
Sped me, unharmed of storms, along the breeze's track-
Be it unblamed of me!
But ah, the end, the end of my emprise!
May He, the Father, with all-seeing eyes,
Grant me that end to see!

refrain 2

Grant that henceforth unstained as heretofore
I may escape the forced embrace
Of those proud children of the race That sacred Io bore.

antistrophe 7

And thou, O maiden-goddess chaste and pure-
Queen of the inner fane-
Look of thy grace on me, O Artemis,
Thy willing suppliant-thine, thine it is;,
Who from the lustful onslaught fled secure,
To grant that I too without stain
The shelter of thy purity may gain!

refrain 2

Grant that henceforth unstained as heretofore
I may escape the forced embrace
Of those proud children of the race
That sacred Io bore!

strophe 8

Yet if this may not be,
We, the dark race sun-smitten, we
Will speed with suppliant wands
To Zeus who rules below, with hospitable hands
Who welcomes all the dead from all the lands:
Yea, by our own hands strangled, we will go,
Spurned by Olympian gods, unto the gods below!

refrain 3

Zeus, hear and save!
The searching, poisonous hate, that Io vexed and drave,
Was of a goddess: well I know
The bitter ire, the wrathful woe
Of Hera, queen of heaven-
A storm, a storm her breath, whereby we yet are driven!

antistrophe 8

Bethink thee, what dispraise
Of Zeus himself mankind will raise,
If now he turn his face averted from our cries!
If now, dishonoured and alone,
The ox-horned maiden's race shall be undone,
Children of Epaphus, his own begotten son-
Zeus, listen from on high!-to thee our prayers arise.

refrain 3

Zeus, hear and save!
The searching poisonous hate, that lo vexed and drave,
Was of a goddess: well I know
The bitter ire, the wrathful woe
Of Hera, queen of heaven-
A storm, a storm her breath, whereby we yet are driven!

(After the CHORUS has finished its song and dance, DANAUS comes forward.)

DANAUS

Children, be wary-wary he with whom
Ye come, your trusty sire and steersman old:
And that same caution hold I here on land,
And bid you hoard my words, inscribing them
On memory's tablets. Lo, I see afar
Dust, voiceless herald of a host, arise;
And hark, within their griding sockets ring
Axles of hurrying wheels! I see approach,
Borne in curved cars, by speeding horses drawn,
A speared and shielded band. The chiefs, perchance.
Of this their land are hitherward intent
To look on us, of whom they yet have heard
By messengers alone. But come who may,
And come he peaceful or in ravening wrath
Spurred on his path, 'twere best, in any case,
Damsels, to cling unto this altar-mound
Made sacred to their gods of festival,-
A shrine is stronger than a tower to save,
A shield that none may cleave. Step swift thereto,
And in your left hands hold with reverence
The white-crowned wands of suppliance, the sign
Beloved of Zeus, compassion's lord, and speak
To those that question you, words meek and low
And piteous, as beseems your stranger state,
Clearly avowing of this flight of yours
The bloodless cause; and on your utterance
See to it well that modesty attend;
From downcast eyes, from brows of pure control,
Let chastity look forth; nor, when ye speak,
Be voluble nor eager-they that dwell
Within this land are sternly swift to chide.
And be your words submissive: heed this well;
For weak ye are, outcasts on stranger lands,
And froward talk beseems not strengthless hands.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

O father, warily to us aware
Thy words are spoken, and thy wisdom's hest
My mind shall hoard, with Zeus our sire to aid.

DANAUS

Even so-with gracious aspect let him aid.

LEADER

Fain were I now to seat me by thy side-

DANAUS

Now dally not, but put our thought in act.

LEADER

Zeus, pity our distress, or e'er we die.

DANAUS

If so he will, your toils to joy will turn.

LEADER

Lo, on this shrine, the semblance of a bird.

DANAUS

Zeus' bird of dawn it is; invoke the sign.

LEADER

Thus I invoke the saving rays of morn.

DANAUS

Next, bright Apollo, exiled once from heaven.

LEADER

The exiled god will pity our exile.

DANAUS

Yea, may he pity, giving grace and aid.

LEADER

Whom next invoke I, of these other gods?

DANAUS

Lo, here a trident, symbol of a god.

LEADER

Who gave sea-safety; may he bless on land!

DANAUS

This next is Hermes, carved in Grecian wise.

LEADER

Then let him herald help to freedom won.

DANAUS

Lastly, adore this altar consecrate
To many lesser gods in one; then crouch
On holy ground, a flock of doves that flee,
Scared by no alien hawks, a kin not kind,
Hateful, and fain of love more hateful still,
Foul is the bird that rends another bird,
And foul the men who hale unwilling maids,
From sire unwilling, to the bridal bed.
Never on earth, nor in the lower world,
Shall lewdness such as theirs escape the ban:
There too, if men say right, a God there is
Who upon dead men turns their sin to doom,
To final doom. Take heed, draw hitherward,
That from this hap your safety ye may win.

(The KING OF ARGOS enters, followed by his attendants and soldiers.)

THE KING OF ARGOS

Speak-of what land are ye? No Grecian band
Is this to whom I speak, with Eastern robes
And wrappings richly dight: no Argive maid,
No woman in all Greece such garb doth wear,
This too gives marvel, how unto this land,
Unheralded, unfriended, without guide,
And without fear, ye came? yet wands I see,
True sign of suppliance, by you laid down
On shrines of these our gods of festival.
No land but Greece can rede such signs aright.
Much else there is, conjecture well might guess,
But let words teach the man who stands to hear.

LEADER

True is the word thou spakest of my garb;
But speak I unto thee as citizen,
Or Hermes' wandbearer, or chieftain king?

THE KING OF ARGOS

For that, take heart and answer without fear.
I am Pelasgus, ruler of this land,
Child of Palaichthon, whom the earth brought forth;
And, rightly named from me, the race who reap
This country's harvests are Pelasgian called.
And o'er the wide and westward-stretching land,
Through which the lucent wave of Strymon flows,
I rule; Perrhaebia's land my boundary is
Northward, and Pindus' further slopes, that watch
Paeonia, and Dodona's mountain ridge.
West, east, the limit of the washing seas
Restrains my rule-the interspace is mine.
But this whereon we stand is Apian land,
Styled so of old from the great healer's name;
For Apis, coming from Naupactus' shore
Beyond the strait, child of Apollo's self
And like him seer and healer, cleansed this land
From man-devouring monsters, whoin the earth,
Stained with pollution of old bloodshedding,
Brought forth in malice, beasts of ravening jaws,
A grisly throng of serpents manifold.
And healings of their hurt, by knife and charm,
Apis devised, unblamed of Argive men,
And in their prayers found honour, for reward.
-Lo, thou hast heard the tokens that I give:
Speak now thy race, and tell a forthright tale;
In sooth, this people loves not many words.

LEADER

Short is my word and clear. Of Argive race
We come, from her, the ox-horned maiden who
Erst bare the sacred child. My word shall give
Whate'er can stablish this my soothfast tale.

THE KING OF ARGOS

O stranger maids, I may not trust this word,
That ye have share in this our Argive race.
No likeness of our country do ye bear,
But semblance as of Libyan womankind.
Even such a stock by Nilus' banks might grow;
Yea, and the Cyprian stamp, in female forms,
Shows, to the life, what males impressed the same.
And, furthermore, of roving Indian maids
Whose camping-grounds by Aethiopia lie,
And camels burdened even as mules, and bearing
Riders, as horses bear, mine ears have heard;
And tales of flesh-devouring mateless maids
Called Amazons: to these, if bows ye bare,
I most had deemed you like. Speak further yet,
That of your Argive birth the truth I learn.

LEADER

Here in this Argive land-so runs the tale-
Io was priestess once of Hera's fane.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Yea, truth it is, and far this word prevails:
Is't said that Zeus with mortal mingled love?

LEADER

Ay, and that Hera that embrace surmised.

THE KING OF ARGOS

How issued then this strife of those on high?

LEADER

By Hera's will, a heifer she became.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Held Zeus aloof then from the horned beast?

LEADER

'Tis said, he loved, in semblance of a bull.

THE KING OF ARGOS

And his stern consort, did she aught thereon?

LEADER

One myriad-eyed she set, the heifer's guard.

THE KING OF ARGOS

How namest thou this herdsman many-eyed?

LEADER

Argus, the child of Earth, whom Hermes slew.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Still did the goddess vex the beast ill-starred?

LEADER

She wrought a gadfly with a goading sting.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Thus drave she Io hence, to roam afar?

LEADER

Yea-this thy word coheres exact with mine.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Then to Canopus and to Memphis came she?

LEADER

And by Zeus' hand was touched, and bare a child.

THE KING of ARGOS

Who vaunts him the Zeus-mated creature's son?

LEADER

Epaphus, named rightly from the saving touch.

THE KING OF ARGOS

And whom in turn did Epaphus beget?

LEADER

Libya, with name of a wide land endowed.

THE KING OF ARGOS

And who from her was born unto the race?

LEADER

Belus: from him two sons, my father one.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Speak now to me his name, this greybeard wise.

LEADER

Danaus; his brother fifty sons begat.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Grudge not, in telling, his name too to tell.

LEADER

Aegyptus: thou my lineage old hast heard-
Strive then to aid a kindred Argive band.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Yea of a truth, in backward scope of time,
Of Argive race ye seem: but say what chance
Fell on you, goading you from home and land?

LEADER

Lord of Pelasgian men, calamity
Is manifold and diverse; as of birds
Feather from feather differs, so of men
The woes are sundry. Who had dared foretell
That this our sudden flight, this hate and fear
Of loathly wedlock, would on Argos' shore
Set forth a race of kindred lineage?

THE KING OF ARGOS

What crave ye of these gods of festival,
Holding up newly-plucked white-tufted boughs?

LEADER

Ne'er to be slaves unto Aegyptus' race.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Doth your own hate, or doth the law forbid?

LEADER

Not as our lords, but as unloved, we chide them.

THE KING OF ARGOS

'Tis from such wedlock that advancement comes,

LEADER

How easy is it, from the weak to turn!

THE KING OF ARGOS

How then toward you can I be conscience-clear?

LEADER

Deny us, though Aegyptus' race demand.

THE KING OF ARGOS

A heavy task thou namest, a rash war.

LEADER

But Justice champions them who strike for her.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Yea, if their side was from the outset hers.

LEADER

Revere the gods thus crowned, who steer the State.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Awe thrills me, seeing these shrines with leafage crowned.

(The whole CHORUS now sings its responses to the KING.)

CHORUS

strophe 1

Yea, stern the wrath of Zeus, the suppliants' lord.
Child of Palaichthon, royal chief
Of thy Pelasgians, hear!
Bow down thine heart to my relief-
A fugitive, a suppliant, swift with fear,
A creature whom the wild wolves chase
O'er toppling crags; in piteous case
Aloud, afar she lows,
Calling the herdsman's trusty arm to save her from her foes!

THE KING OF ARGOS

Lo, with bowed heads beside our city shrines
Ye sit 'neath shade of new-plucked olive-boughs.
Our distant kin's resentment Heaven forefend!
Let not this hap, unhoped and unforeseen,
Bring war on us: for strife we covet not.

CHORUS

antistrophe 1

Justice, the daughter of right-dealing Zeus,
Justice, the queen of suppliants, look down,
That this our plight no ill may loose
Upon your town!
This word, even from the young, let age and wisdom learn:
If thou to suppliants show grace,
Thou shalt not lack Heaven's grace in turn,
So long as virtue's gifts on heavenly shrines have place.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Not at my private hearth ye sit and sue;
And if the city bear a common stain,
Be it the common toil to cleanse the same:
Therefore no pledge, no promise will I give,
Ere counsel with the commonwealth be held.

CHORUS

strophe 2

Nay, but the source of sway, the city's self, art thou,
A power unjudged! thine, only thine,
To rule the right of hearth and shrine!
Before thy throne and sceptre all men bow!
Thou, in all causes lord, beware the curse divine!

THE KING OF ARGOS

May that curse fall upon mine enemies!
I cannot aid you without risk of scathe,
Nor scorn your prayers-unmerciful it were.
Perplexed, distraught I stand, and fear alike
The twofold chance, to do or not to do.

CHORUS

antistrophe 2

Have heed of him who looketh from on high,
The guard of woeful mortals, whosoe'er
Unto their fellows cry,
And find no pity, find no justice there.
Abiding in his wrath, the suppliants' lord
Doth smite, unmoved by cries, unbent by prayerful word.

THE KING OF ARGOS

But if Aegyptus' children grasp you here,
Claiming, their country's right, to hold you theirs
As next of kin, who dares to counter this?
Plead ye your country's laws, if plead ye may,
That upon you they lay no lawful hand.

CHORUS

strophe 3

Let me not fall, O nevermore,
A prey into the young men's hand;
Rather than wed whom I abhor,
By pilot-stars I flee this land;
O king, take justice to thy side,
And with the righteous powers decide!

THE KING OF ARGOS

Hard is the cause-make me not judge thereof.
Already I have vowed it, to do nought
Save after counsel with my people ta'en,
King though I be; that ne'er in after time,
If ill fate chance, my people then may say-
In aid of strangers thou the State hast slain.

CHORUS

antistrophe 3

Zeus, lord of kinship, rules at will
The swaying balance, and surveys
Evil and good; to men of ill
Gives evil, and to good men praise,
And thou-since true those scales do sway-
Shalt thou from justice shrink away?

THE KING OF ARGOS

A deep, a saving counsel here there needs-
An eye that like a diver to the depth
Of dark perplexity can pass and see,
Undizzied, unconfused. First must we care
That to the State and to ourselves this thing
Shall bring no ruin; next, that wrangling hands
Shall grasp you not as prey, nor we ourselves
Betray you thus embracing sacred shrines,
Nor make the avenging all-destroying god,
Who not in hell itself sets dead men free,
A grievous inmate, an abiding bane.
-Spake I not right, of saving counsel's need?

CHORUS

strophe 4

Yea, counsel take and stand to aid
At justice' side and mine.
Betray not me, the timorous maid
Whom far beyond the brine
A godless violence cast forth forlorn.

antistrophe 4

O King, wilt thou behold-
Lord of this land, wilt thou behold me torn
From altars manifold?
Bethink thee of the young men's wrath and lust,
Hold off their evil pride;

strophe 5

Steel not thyself to see the suppliant thrust
From hallowed statues' side,
Haled by the frontlet on my forehead bound,
As steeds are led, and drawn
By hands that drag from shrine and altar-mound
My vesture's fringed lawn.

antistrophe 5

Know thou that whether for Aegyptus' race
Thou dost their wish fulfil,
Or for the gods and for each holy place-
Be thy choice good or ill,
Blow is with blow requited, grace with grace.
Such is Zeus' righteous will.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Yea, I have pondered: from the sea of doubt
Here drives at length the bark of thought ashore;
Landward with screw and windlass haled, and firm,
Clamped to her props, she lies. The need is stern;
With men or gods a mighty strife we strive
Perforce, and either hap in grief concludes.
For, if a house be sacked, new wealth for old
Not hard it is to win-if Zeus the lord
Of treasure favour-more than quits the loss,
Enough to pile the store of wealth full high;
Or if a tongue shoot forth untimely speech,
Bitter and strong to goad a man to wrath,
Soft words there be to soothe that wrath away:
But what device shall make the war of kin
Bloodless? that woe, the blood of many beasts,
And victims manifold to many gods,
Alone can cure. Right glad I were to shun
This strife, and am more fain of ignorance
Than of the wisdom of a woe endured.
The gods send better than my soul foretells!

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Of many cries for mercy, hear the end.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Say on, then, for it shall not 'scape mine ear.

LEADER

Girdles we have, and bands that bind our robes.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Even so; such things beseem a woman's wear.

LEADER

Know, then, with these a fair device there is-

THE KING OF ARGOS

Speak, then: what utterance doth this foretell?

LEADER

Unless to us thou givest pledge secure

THE KING OF ARGOS

What can thy girdles' craft achieve for thee?

LEADER

Strange votive tablets shall these statues deck.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Mysterious thy resolve-avow it clear.

LEADER

Swiftly to hang me on these sculptured gods!

THE KING OF ARGOS

Thy word is as a lash to urge my heart.

LEADER

Thou seest truth, for I have cleared thine eyes.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Yea, and woes manifold, invincible,
A crowd of ills, sweep on me torrent-like.
My bark goes forth upon a sea of troubles
Unfathomed, ill to traverse, harbourless.
For if my deed shall match not your demand,
Dire, beyond shot of speech, shall be the bane
Your death's pollution leaves unto this land.
Yet if against your kin, Aegyptus' race,
Before our gates I front the doom of war,
Will not the city's loss be sore? Shall men
For women's sake incarnadine the ground?
But yet the wrath of Zeus, the suppliants' lord,
I needs must fear: most awful unto man
The terror of his anger. Thou, old man,
The father of these maidens, gather up
Within your arms these wands of suppliance,
And lay them at the altars manifold
Of all our country's gods, that all the town
Know, by this sign, that ye come here to sue.
Nor, in thy haste, do thou say aught of me.
Swift is this folk to censure those who rule;
But, if they see these signs of suppliance,
It well may chance that each will pity you,
And loathe the young men's violent pursuit;
And thus a fairer favour you may find:
For, to the helpless, each man's heart is kind.

DANAUS

To us, beyond gifts manifold it is
To find a champion thus compassionate;
Yet send with me attendants, of thy folk,
Rightly to guide me, that I duly find
Each altar of your city's gods that stands
Before the fane, each dedicated shrine;
And that in safety through the city's ways
I may pass onwards: all unlike to yours
The outward semblance that I wear-the race
That Nilus rears is all dissimilar
To that of Inachus. Keep watch and ward
Lest heedlessness bring death: full oft, I ween,
Friend hath slain friend, not knowing whom he slew.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Go at his side, attendants,-he saith well.
On to the city's consecrated shrines!
Nor be of many words to those ye meet,
The while this suppliant voyager ye lead.

(DANAUS departs with attendants.)

LEADER

Let him go forward, thy command obeying.
But me how biddest, how assurest thou?

THE KING OF ARGOS

Leave there the new-plucked boughs, thy sorrow's sign.

LEADER

Thus beckoned forth, at thy behest I leave them.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Now to this level precinct turn thyself.

LEADER

Unconsecrate it is, and cannot shield me.

THE KING OF ARGOS

We will not yield thee to those falcons' greed.

LEADER

What help? more fierce they are than serpents fell.

THE KING OF ARGOS

We spake thee fair-speak thou them fair in turn.

LEADER

What marvel that we loathe them, scared in soul?

THE KING OF ARGOS

Awe towards a king should other fears transcend.

LEADER

Thus speak, thus act, and reassure my mind.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Not long thy sire shall leave thee desolate.
But I will call the country's indwellers,
And with soft words th' assembly will persuade,
And warn your sire what pleadings will avail.
Therefore abide ye, and with prayer entreat
The country's gods to compass your desire;
The while I go, this matter to provide,
Persuasion and fair fortune at my side.

(The KING OF ARGOS departs with his retinue. The CHORUS forms to sing its prayer to Zeus.)

CHORUS

strophe 1

O King of Kings, among the blest
Thou highest and thou happiest,
Listen and grant our prayer,
And, deeply loathing, thrust
Away from us the young men's lust,
And deeply drown
In azure waters, down and ever down,
Benches and rowers dark,
The fatal and perfidious bark!

antistrophe 1

Unto the maidens turn thy gracious care;
Think yet again upon the tale of fame,
How from the maiden loved of thee there sprung
Mine ancient line, long since in many a legend sung!
Remember, O remember, thou whose hand
Did Io by a touch to human shape reclaim.
For from this Argos erst our mother came
Driven hence to Egypt's land,
Yet sprung of Zeus we were, and hence our birth we claim.

strophe 2

And now have I roamed back
Unto the ancient track
Where Io roamed and pastured among flowers,
Watched o'er by Argus' eyes,
Through the lush grasses and the meadow bowers.
Thence, by the gadfly maddened, forth she flies
Unto far lands and alien peoples driven
And, following fate, through paths of foam and surge,
Sees, as she goes, the cleaving strait divide
Greece, from the Eastland riven.

antistrophe 2

And swift through Asian borders doth she urge
Her course, o'er Phrygian mountains' sheep-clipt side;
Thence, where the Mysian realm of Teuthras lies,
Towards Lydian lowlands hies,
And o'er Cilician and Pamphylian hills
And ever-flowing rills,
And thence to Aphrodite's fertile shore,
The land of garnered wheat and wealthy store.

strophe 3

And thence, deep-stung by wild unrest,
By the winged fly that goaded her and drave,
Unto the fertile land, the god-possest
(Where, fed from far-off snows,
Life-giving Nilus flows,
Urged on by Typho's strength, a fertilizing wave),
She roves, in harassed and dishonoured flight,
Scathed by the blasting pangs of Hera's dread despite.

antistrophe 3

And they within the land
With terror shook and wanned,
So strange the sight they saw, and were afraid-
A wild twy-natured thing, half heifer and half maid.

Whose hand was laid at last on Io, thus forlorn,
With many roamings worn?
Who bade the harassed maiden's peace return?

strophe 4

Zeus, lord of time eterne.
Yea, by his breath divine, by his unscathing strength,
She lays aside her bane,
And softened back to womanhood at length
Sheds human tears again.
Then, quickened with Zeus' veritable seed,
A progeny she bare,
A stainless babe, a child of heavenly breed.

antistrophe 4

Of life and fortune fair.
His is the life of life-so all men say,-
His is the seed of Zeus.
Who else had power stern Hera's craft to stay,
Her vengeful curse to loose?

Yea, all from Zeus befel!
And rightly wouldst thou tell
That we from Epaphus, his child, were born:
Justly his deed was done;

strophe 5

Unto what other one,
Of all the gods, should I for justice turn?
From him our race did spring;
Creator he and King,
Ancient of days and wisdom he, and might.
As bark before the wind,
So, wafted by his mind,
Moves every counsel, each device aright.

antistrophe 5

Beneath no stronger hand
Holds he a weak command,
No throne doth he abase him to adore;
Swift as a word, his deed
Acts out what stands decreed
In counsels of his heart, for evermore.

(DANAUS re-enters.)

DANAUS

Take heart, my children: the land's heart is kind,
And to full issue has their voting come.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

All hail, my sire; thy word brings utmost joy.
Say, to what issue is the vote made sure,
And how prevailed the people's crowding hands?

DANAUS

With one assent the Argives spake their will,
And, hearing, my old heart took youthful cheer.
The very sky was thrilled when high in air
The concourse raised right hands and swore their oath:-
Free shall the maidens sojourn in this land.
Unharried, undespoiled by mortal wight:
No native hand, no hand of foreigner
Shall drag them hence; if any man use force-
Whoe'er of all our countrymen shall fail
To come unto their aid, let him go forth,
Beneath the people's curse, to banishment.
So did the king of this Pelasgian folk
Plead on behalf of us, and bade them heed
That never, in the after-time, this realm
Should feed to fulness the great enmity
Of Zeus, the suppliants' guard, against itself!
A twofold curse, for wronging stranger-guests
Who are akin withal, confrontingly
Should rise before this city and be shown
A ruthless monster, fed on human doom.
Such things the Argive people heard, and straight,
Without proclaim of herald, gave assent:
Yea, in full conclave, the Pelasgian folk
Heard suasive pleas, and Zeus through them resolved.

(The CHORUS now sings a prayer of thankfulness.)

CHORUS

Arouse we now to chant our prayer
For fair return of service fair
And Argos' kindly will.
Zeus, lord of guestright, look upon
The grace our stranger lips have won.
In right and truth, as they begun,
Guide them, with favouring hand, until
Thou dost their blameless wish fulfil!

strophe 1

Now may the Zeus-born gods on high
Hear us pour forth
A votive prayer for Argos' clan!-
Never may this Pelasgian earth,
Amid the fire-wrack, shrill the dismal cry
On Ares, ravening lord of fight,
Who in an alien harvest mows down man!
For lo, this land had pity on our plight,
And unto us were merciful and leal,
To us, the piteous flock, who at Zeus' altar kneel!

antistrophe 1

They scorned not the pleas of maidenhood,
Nor with the young men's will hath their will stood.
They knew right well
Th' unearthly watching fiend invincible,
The foul avenger-let him not draw near!
For he, on roofs ill-starred,
Defiling and polluting, keeps a ghastly ward!
They knew his vengeance, and took holy heed
To us, the sister suppliants, who cry
To Zeus, the lord of purity:
Therefore with altars pure they shall the gods revere.
Thus, through the boughs that shade our lips, fly forth in air,

strophe 2

Fly forth, O eager prayer!
May never pestilence efface
This city's race,
Nor be the land with corpses strewed,
Nor stained with civic blood!
The stem of youth, unpluckt, to manhood come,
Nor Ares rise from Aphrodite's bower,
The lord of death and bane, to waste our youthful flower.

antistrophe 2

Long may the old
Crowd to the altars kindled to consume
Gifts rich and manifold-
Offered to win from powers divine
A benison on city and on shrine:
Let all the sacred might adore
Of Zeus most high, the lord
Of guestright and the hospitable board,
Whose immemorial law doth rule Fate's scales aright:
The garners of earth's store
Be full for evermore,
And grace of Artemis make women's travail light;

strophe 3

No devastating curse of fell disease
This city seize;
No clamour of the State arouse to war
Ares, from whom afar
Shrinketh the lute, by whom the dances fail-
Ares, the lord of wail.
Swarm far aloof from Argos' citizens
All plague and pestilence,
And may the Archer-God our children spare!

antistrophe 3

May Zeus with foison and with fruitfulness
The land's each season bless,
And, quickened with Heaven's bounty manifold,
Teem grazing flock and fold.
Beside the altars of Heaven's hallowing
Loud let the minstrels sing,
And from pure lips float forth the harp-led strain in air!

strophe 4

And let the people's voice, the power
That sways the State, in danger's hour
Be wary, wise for all;
Nor honour in dishonour hold,
But-ere the voice of war be bold-
Let them to stranger peoples grant
Fair and unbloody covenant-
Justice and peace withal;

antistrophe 4

And to the Argive powers divine
The sacrifice of laurelled kine,
By rite ancestral, pay.
Among three words of power and awe,
Stands this, the third, the mighty law-
Your gods, your fathers deified,
Ye shall adore. Let this abide
For ever and for aye.

DANAUS

Dear children, well and wisely have ye prayed;
I bid you now not shudder, though ye hear
New and alarming tidings from your sire.
From this high place beside the suppliants' shrine
The bark of our pursuers I behold,
By divers tokens recognized too well.
Lo, the spread canvas and the hides that screen
The gunwale; lo, the prow, with painted eyes
That seem her onward pathway to descry,
Heeding too well the rudder at the stern
That rules her, coming for no friendly end.
And look, the seamen-all too plain their race-
Their dark limbs gleam from out their snow-white garb;
Plain too the other barks, a fleet that comes
All swift to aid the purpose of the first,
That now, with furled sail and with pulse of oars
Which smite the wave together, comes aland.
But ye, be calm, and, schooled not scared by fear,
Confront this chance, be mindful of your trust
In these protecting gods. And I will hence,
And champions who shall plead your cause aright
Will bring unto your side. There come perchance
Heralds or envoys, eager to lay hand
And drag you captive hence; yet fear them not;
Foiled shall they be. Yet well it were for you
(If, ere with aid I come, I tarry long)
Not by one step this sanctuary to leave.
Farewell, fear nought: soon shall the hour be born
When he that scorns the gods shall rue his scorn.

CHORUS (chanting)

Ah, but I shudder, father!-ah, even now,
Even as I speak, the swift-winged ships draw nigh!

strophe 1

I shudder, I shiver, I perish with fear:
Overseas though I fled,
Yet nought it avails; my pursuers are near!

DANAUS

Children, take heart; they who decreed to aid
Thy cause will arm for battle, well I ween.

CHORUS

But desperate is Aegyptus' ravening race,
With fight unsated; thou too know'st it well.

antistrophe 1

In their wrath they o'ertake us; the prow is deep-dark
In the which they have sped,
And dark is the bench and the crew of the bark!

DANAUS

Yea but a crew as stout they here shall find,
And arms well steeled beneath a noon-day sun.

CHORUS

Ah yet, O father, leave us not forlorn!
Alone, a maid is nought, a strengthless arm.

strophe 2

With guile they pursue me, with counsel malign,
And unholy their soul;
And as ravens they seize me, unheeding the shrine!

DANAUS

Fair will befall us, children, in this chance,
If thus in wrath they wrong the gods and you.

CHORUS

Alas, nor tridents nor the sanctity
Of shrines will drive them, O my sire, from us!

antistrophe 2
Unholy and daring and cursed is their ire,
Nor own they control
Of the gods, but like jackals they glut their desire!

DANAUS

Ay, but Come wolf, flee jackal, saith the saw;
Nor can the flax-plant overbear the corn.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

Lustful, accursed, monstrous is their will
As of beasts ravening-'ware we of their power

DANAUS

Look you, not swiftly puts a fleet to sea,
Nor swiftly to its moorings; long it is
Or e'er the saving cables to the shore
Are borne, and long or e'er the steersmen cry,
The good ship swings at anchor-all is well.
Longest of all, the task to come aland
Where haven there is none, when sunset fades
In night. To pilot wise, the adage saith,
Night is a day of wakefulness and pain.
Therefore no force of weaponed men, as yet,
Scatheless can come ashore, before the bark
Lie at her anchorage securely moored.
Bethink thee therefore, nor in panic leave
The shrine of gods whose succour thou hast won.
I go for aid-men shall not blame me long,
Old, but with youth at heart and on my tongue.

(DANAUS departs as the CHORUS sings in terror.)

CHORUS

strophe 1

O land of hill and dale, O holy land,
What shall befall us? whither shall we flee,
From Apian land to some dark lair of earth?

O would that in vapour of smoke I might rise to the clouds of the
sky,
That as dust which flits up without wings I might pass and evanish
and die!

antistrophe 1

I dare not, I dare not abide: my heart yearns, eager to fly;
And dark is the cast of my thought; I shudder and tremble for
fear.
My father looked forth and beheld: I die of the sight that draws
near.
And for me be the strangling cord, the halter made ready by Fate,
Before to my body draws nigh the man of my horror and hate.
Nay, ere I will own him as lord, as handmaid to Hades I go!

strophe 2

And oh, that aloft in the sky, where the dark clouds are frozen
to snow,
A refuge for me might be found, or a mountain-top smooth and too
high
For the foot of the goat, where the vulture sits lonely, and none
may descry
The pinnacle veiled in the cloud, the highest and sheerest of
all,
Ere to wedlock that rendeth my heart, and love that is loveless,
I fall!

antistrophe 2

Yea, a prey to the dogs and the birds of the mount will I give me
to be,-
From wailing and curse and pollution it is death, only death, sets
me free:
Let death come upon me before to the ravisher's bed I am thrust;
What champion, what saviour but death can I find, or what refuge
from lust?

strophe 3

I will utter my shriek of entreaty, a prayer that shrills up to
the sky,
That calleth the gods to compassion, a tuneful, a pitiful cry,
That is loud to invoke the releaser. O father, look down on the
fight;
Look down in thy wrath on the wronger, with eyes that are eager
for right.
Zeus, thou that art lord of the world, whose kingdom is strong
over all,
Have mercy on us! At thine altar for refuge and safety we call.

antistrophe 3

For the race of Aegyptus is fierce, with greed and with malice
afire;
They cry as the questing hounds, they sweep with the speed of
desire.
But thine is the balance of fate, thou rulest the wavering scale,
And without thee no mortal emprise shall have strength to achieve
or prevail.

(The CHORUS rushes to the altar during the final part of the song.)

Alack, alack! the ravisher-
He leaps from boat to beach, he draweth near!
Away, thou plunderer accurst!
Death seize thee first,
Or e'er thou touch me-off! God, hear our cry,
Our maiden agony!
Ah, ah, the touch, the prelude of my shame.
Alas, my maiden fame!
O sister, sister, sister, to the altar cling,
For he that seizeth me,
Grim is his wrath and stern, by land as on the sea.
Guard us, O king!

(The HERALD OF AEGYPTUS enters with attendants. The lines in the following scene between the HERALD and the CHORUS are sung and are accompanied by a frenzied symbolic dance.)

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Hence to my barge-step swiftly, tarry not.

CHORUS

Alack, he rends-he rends my hair! O wound on wound!
Help! my lopped head will fall, my blood gush o'er the ground!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Aboard, ye cursed-with a new curse, go!

CHORUS

Would God that on the wand'ring brine
Thou and this braggart tongue of thine
Had sunk beneath the main-
Thy mast and planks, made fast in vain!
Thee would I drive aboard once more,
A slayer and a dastard, from the shore!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Be still, thou vain demented soul;
My force thy craving shall control.
Away, aboard! What, clingest to the shrine?
Away! this city's gods I hold not for divine.

CHORUS

Aid me, ye gods, that never, never
I may again behold
The mighty, the life-giving river,
Nilus, the quickener of field and fold!
Alack, O sire, unto the shrine I cling-
Shrine of this land from which mine ancient line did spring!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Shrines, shrines, forsooth!-the ship, the ship be shrine
Aboard, perforce and will-ye nill-ye, go!
Or e'er from hands of mine
Ye suffer torments worse and blow on blow.

CHORUS

Alack, God grant those hands may strive in vain
With the salt-streaming wave,
When 'gainst the wide-blown blasts thy bark shall strain
To round Sarpedon's cape, the sandbank's treach'rous grave.

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Shrill ye and shriek unto what gods ye may,
Ye shall not leap from out Aegyptus' bark,
How bitterly soe'er ye wail your woe.

CHORUS

Alack, alack my wrong!
Stern is thy voice, thy vaunting loud and strong.
Thy sire, the mighty Nilus, drive thee hence,
Turning to death and doom thy greedy violence!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Swift to the vessel of the double prow,
Go quickly! let none linger, else this hand
Ruthless will hale you by your tresses hence.

CHORUS

Alack, O father! from the shrine
Not aid but agony is mine.
As a spider he creeps and he clutches his prey,
And he hales me away.
A spectre of darkness, of darkness. Alas and alas! well-a-day!
O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her
child!
Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and threatenings
wild!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Peace! I fear not this country's deities.
They fostered not my childhood nor mine age.

CHORUS

Like a snake that is human he comes, he shudders and crawls to my
side:
As an adder that biteth the foot, his clutch on my flesh doth
abide.
O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her
child!
Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and threatenings
wild!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Swift each unto the ship; repine no more,
Or my hand shall not spare to rend your robe.

CHORUS

O chiefs, O leaders, aid me, or I yield!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Peace! if ye have not ears to hear my words,
Lo, by these tresses must I hale you hence.

CHORUS

Undone we are, O king! all hope is gone.

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Ay, kings enow ye shall behold anon,
Aegyptus' sons-Ye shall not want for kings.

(The KING OF ARGOS enters with his retinue.)

THE KING OF ARGOS

Sirrah, what dost thou? in what arrogance
Darest thou thus insult Pelasgia's realm?
Deemest thou this a woman-hearted town?
Thou art too full of thy barbarian scorn
For us of Grecian blood, and, erring thus,
Thou dost bewray thyself a fool in all!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Say thou wherein my deeds transgress my right.

THE KING OF ARGOS

First, that thou play'st a stranger's part amiss.

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Wherein? I do but search and claim mine own.

THE KING OF ARGOS

To whom of our guest-champions hast appealed?

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

To Hermes, herald's champion, lord of search.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Yea, to a god-yet dost thou wrong the gods!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

The gods that rule by Nilus I revere.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Hear I aright? our Argive gods are nought?

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

The prey is mine, unless force rend it from me.

THE KING OF ARGOS

At thine own peril touch them-'ware, and soon!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

I hear thy speech, no hospitable word.

THE KING OF ARGOS

I am no host for sacrilegious hands.

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

I will go tell this to Aegyptus' sons.

THE KING OF ARGOS

Well it I my pride will ponder not thy word.

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Yet, that I have my message clear to say
(For it behoves that heralds' words be clear,
Be they or ill or good), how art thou named?
By whom despoiled of this sister-band
Of maidens pass I homeward?-speak and say!
For lo, henceforth in Ares' court we stand,
Who judges not by witness but by war:
No pledge of silver now can bring the cause
To issue: ere this thing end, there must be
Corpse piled on corpse and many lives gasped forth.

THE KING OF ARGOS

What skills it that I tell my name to thee?
Thou and thy mates shall learn it ere the end.
Know that if words unstained by violence
Can change these maidens' choice, then mayest thou,
With full consent of theirs, conduct them hence.
But thus the city with one voice ordained-
No force shall bear away the maiden band.
Firmly this word upon the temple wall
Is by a rivet clenched, and shall abide:
Not upon wax inscribed and delible,
Nor upon parchment sealed and stored away.-
Lo, thou hast heard our free mouths speak their will:
Out from our presence-tarry not, but go!

HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

Methinks we stand on some new edge of war:
Be strength and triumph on the young men's side!

THE KING OF ARGOS

Nay but here also shall ye find young men,
Unsodden with the juices oozed from grain.

(The HERALD OF AEGYPTUS and his followers withdraw.)

But ye, O maids, with vour attendants true,
Pass hence with trust into the fenced town,
Ringed with a wide confine of guarding towers.
Therein are many dwellings for such guests
As the State honours; there myself am housed
Within a palace neither scant nor strait.
There dwell ye, if ye will to lodge at ease
In halls well-thronged: yet, if your soul prefer,
Tarry secluded in a separate home.
Choose ye and cull, from these our proffered gifts,
Whiche'er is best and sweetest to your will:
And I and all these citizens whose vote
Stands thus decreed, will your protectors be.
Look not to find elsewhere more loyal guard.

CHORUS (singing)

O godlike chief, God grant my prayer:
Fair blessings on thy proffers fair,
Lord of Pelasgia's race!
Yet, of thy grace, unto our side
Send thou the man of courage tried,
Of counsel deep and prudent thought
Be Danaus to his children brought;
For his it is to guide us well
And warn where it behoves to dwell-
What place shall guard and shelter us
From malice and tongues slanderous:
Swift always are the lips of blame
A stranger-maiden to defame-
But Fortune give us grace!

THE KING OF ARGOS

A stainless fame, a welcome kind
From all this people shall ye find:
Dwell therefore, damsels, loved of us,
Within our walls, as Danaus
Allots to each, in order due,
Her dower of attendants true.

(DANAUS re-enters. A troop of soldiers accompanies him.)

DANAUS

High thanks, my children, unto Argos con,
And to this folk, as to Olympian gods,
Give offerings meet of sacrifice and wine;
For saviours are they in good sooth to you.
From me they heard, and bitter was their wrath,
How those your kinsmen strove to work you wrong,
And how of us were thwarted: then to me
This company of spearmen did they grant,
That honoured I might walk, nor unaware
Die by some secret thrust and on this land
Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not.
Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay
A deeper reverence from a soul sincere.
Ye, to the many words of wariness
Spoken by me your father, add this word,
That, tried by time, our unknown company
Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues
To slander strangers, over-light is speech
To bring pollution on a stranger's name.
Therefore I rede you, bring no shame on me
Now when man's eye beholds your maiden prime.
Lovely is beauty's ripening harvest-field,
But ill to guard; and men and beasts, I wot,
And birds and creeping things make prey of it.
And when the fruit is ripe for love, the voice
Of Aphrodite bruiteth it abroad,
The while she guards the yet unripened growth.
On the fair richness of a maiden's bloom
Each passer looks, o'ercome with strong desire,
With eyes that waft the wistful dart of love.
Then be not such our hap, whose livelong toil
Did make our pinnace plough the mighty main:
Nor bring we shame upon ourselves, and joy
Unto my foes. Behold, a twofold home-
One of the king's and one the people's gift-
Unbought, 'tis yours to hold,-a gracious boon.
Go-but remember ye your sire's behest,
And hold your life less dear than chastity.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

The gods above grant that all else be well.
But fear not thou, O sire, lest aught befal
Of ill unto our ripened maidenhood.
So long as Heaven have no new ill devised,
From its chaste path my spirit shall not swerve.

(The members of the CHORUS divide into two groups, to sing the final choral lyric responsively.)

SEMI-CHORUS

strophe 1

Pass and adore ye the Blessed, the gods of the city who dwell
Around Erasinus, the gush of the swift immemorial tide.

SEMI-CHORUS

Chant ye, O maidens; aloud let the praise of Pelasgia swell;
Hymn we no longer the shores where Nilus to ocean doth glide.

SEMI-CHORUS

antistrophe 1

Sing we the bounteous streams that ripple and gush through the
city;
Quickening flow they and fertile, the soft new life of the plain.

SEMI-CHORUS

Artemis, maiden most pure, look on us with grace and with pity-
Save us from forced embraces: such love hath no crown but a pain.

SEMI-CHORUS

strophe 2

Yet not in scorn we chant, but in honour of Aphrodite;
She truly and Hera alone have power with Zeus and control.
Holy the deeds of her rite, her craft is secret and mighty,
And high is her honour on earth, and subtle her sway of the soul.

SEMI-CHORUS

Yea, and her child is Desire: in the train of his mother he goeth-
Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny or repel:
Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth
The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that lovers love
well.

SEMI-CHORUS
antistrophe 2

Ah, but I tremble and quake lest again they should sail to
reclaim!
Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the carnage of war.
Ah, by whose will was it done that o'er the wide ocean they came,
Guided by favouring winds, and wafted by sail and by oar?

SEMI-CHORUS

Peace! for what Fate hath ordained will surely not tarry but come;
Wide is the counsel of Zeus, by no man escaped or withstood:
Only I pray that whate'er, in the end, of this wedlock he doom,
We, as many a maiden of old, may win from the ill to the good.

SEMI-CHORUS

strophe 3

Great Zeus, this wedlock turn from me-
Me from the kinsman bridegroom guard!

SEMI-CHORUS

Come what come may, 'tis Fate's decree.

SEMI-CHORUS

Soft is thy word-the doom is hard.

SEMI-CHORUS

Thou know'st not what the Fates provide.

SEMI-CHORUS

antistrophe 3

How should I scan Zeus' mighty will,
The depth of counsel undescried?

SEMI-CHORUS

Pray thou no word of omen ill.

SEMI-CHORUS

What timely warning wouldst thou teach?

SEMI-CHORUS

Beware, nor slight the gods in speech.

SEMI-CHORUS

strophe 4

Zeus, hold from my body the wedlock detested, the bridegroom
abhorred!
It was thou, it was thou didst release
Mine ancestress Io from sorrow: thine healing it was that
restored,
The touch of thine hand gave her peace.

SEMI-CHORUS

antistrophe 4

Be thy will for the cause of the maidens! of two ills, the lesser
I pray-
The exile that leaveth me pure.
May thy justice have heed to my cause, my prayers to thy mercy
find way!
For the hands of thy saving are sure.

THE END

Rendered into HTML by Steve Thomas for The University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection.

Table of Contents

- Agamemnon
- Eumendides
- Prometheus Bound
- The Choephori
- The Persians
- The Seven Against Thebes
- The Suppliants