AEGISTHUS:
O what a brilliant day
it is for vengeance! Now I can say once more
there are gods in heaven avenging men,
blazing down on all the crimes of earth.
Now at last I see this man brought down
in the Furies' tangling robes. It feasts my eyes -
he pays for the plot his father's hand contrived.
Atreus, this man's father, was king of Argos.
My father, Thyestes - let me make this clear -
Atreus' brother challenged him for the crown,
and Atreus drove him out of house and home
then lured him back, and home Thyestes came,
poor man, a suppliant to his own hearth,
to pray that Fate might save him.
So it did.
There was no dying, no staining our native ground
with his blood. Thyestes was the guest,
and this man's godless father -
Pointing to AGAMEMNON.
the zeal of the host outstripping a brother's love,
made my father a feast that seemed a feast for gods,
a love feast of his children's flesh.
He cuts
the extremities, feet and delicate hands
into small pieces, scatters them over the dish
and serves it to Thyestes throned on high.
He picks at the flesh he cannot recognize,
the soul of innocence eating the food of ruin –
look,
Pointing to the bodies at his feet.
that feeds upon the house! And then,
when he sees the monstrous thing he's done, he shrieks,
he reels back head first and vomits up that butchery,
tramples the feast - brings down the curse of Justice:
'Crash to ruin, all the race of Pleisthenes, crash down!'
So you see him, down. And I, the weaver of Justice,
plotted out the k**. Atreus drove us into exile,
my struggling father and I, a babe-in arms,
his last son, but I became a man
and Justice brought me home. I was abroad
but I reached out and seized my man,
link by link I clamped the fatal scheme
together. Now I could die gladly, even I -
now I see this monster in the nets of Justice.
Leader:
Aegisthus, you revel in pain - you sicken me.
You say you k**ed the king in cold blood,
single-handed planned his pitiful d**h?
I say there's no escape. In the hour of judgement,
trust to this, your head will meet the people's
rocks and curses.