Richmond Lattimore - Agamemnon, Lines 1372-1576 lyrics

CLYTAEMESTRA Much have I said before to serve necessity, but I will feel no shame now to unsay it all. How else could I, arming hate against hateful men disguised in seeming tenderness, fence high the nets of ruin beyond overleaping? Thus to me the conflict born of ancient bitterness is not a thing new thought upon, but pondered deep in time. I stand now where I struck him down. The thing is done. Thus have I wrought, and I will not deny it now. That he might not escape nor beat aside his d**h, as fishermen cast their huge circling nets, I spread deadly abundance of rich robes, and caught him fast. I struck him twice. In two great cries of agony he buckled at the knees and fell. When he was down I struck him the third blow, in thanks and reverence to Zeus beneath the ground, the prayed-for Savior of the dead. Thus he went down, and the life struggled out of him; [and as he died he spattered me with the dark red and violent driven rain of bitter-savored blood to make me glad, as plants stand strong amidst the showers of god in glory at the birthtime of the buds. These being the facts, elders of Argos a**embled here, be glad, if it be your pleasure; but for me, I glory. Iflibations were proper to pour above the slain, this man deserved, more than deserved, such sacrament. He filled our cup with evil things unspeakable and now himself come home has drunk it to the dregs. CHORUS LEADER We stand here stunned. How can you speak this way, with mouth so arrogant, to vaunt above your fallen lord? CLYTAEMESTRA You try me out as if I were a woman and vain; but my heart is not fluttered as I speak before you. You know it. You can praise or blame me as you wish; it is all one to me. That man is Agamemnon, my husband; he is dead; the work of this right hand that struck in strength of righteousness. And that is that. CHORUS [singing] STROPHE A Woman, what evil thing planted upon the earth or dragged from the running salt sea could you have tasted now to show such brutality and walk in the people's hate? You have cast away,you have cut away. You shall go homeless now, crushed with men's bitterness. CLYTAEMESTRA Now it is I you vote to be cast out from my city with men's hate heaped and curses roaring in my ears. Yet look upon this dead man; you did not cross him once when with no thought more than as if a beast were butchered, when his ranged pastures swarmed with the deep fleece of flocks, he slaughtered at the altar his own child, my pain grown into love, to charm away the winds of Thrace. Were you not bound to hunt him then clear of this soil for the guilt stained upon him? Yet you hear what I have done, and 10, you are a stern judge. But I say to you: go on and threaten me, but know that I am ready, if fairly you can beat me down beneath your hand, for you to rule; but if the god grant otherwise, you shall be taught—too late, for sure—to keep your place. CHORUS [singing] ANTISTROPHE A Big are your thoughts, your speech is a clamor of pride. Swung to the red act drives the fury within your brain signed clear in the flecks of blood on your eyes. Yet to come is stroke given for stroke avenging, when you are forlorn of friends. CLYTAEMESTRA Now hear you this, the right behind my sacrament: By my child's Justice driven to fulfillment, by her Wrath and Fury, to whom I sacrificed this man, the hope that walks my chambers is not traced with fear while yet Aegisthus makes the fire shine in my hearth, my good friend, now as always, who shall be for us the shield of our defiance, no weak thing; while he, this other, is fallen, stained with this woman you behold, plaything of all the golden girls at Ilium; and here lies she, the captive of his spear, who saw wonders, who shared his bed, the wise in revelations and loving mistress, who yet knew the feel as well of the men's rowing benches. Their reward is not unworthy. He lies there; and she who swanlike cried aloud her lyric dying lamentation, now lies next to him, his lover, and to me has given a delicate excitement, spicing my delight. CHORUS [singing] STROPHE B O that in speed, without pain and the slow bed of sickness, d**h could come to us now, d**h that forever carries sleep without ending, now that our lord is down, our shield, kindest of men, who for a woman's grace suffered so much, struck down at last by a woman. [chanting] Alas, Helen, crazed heart for the multitudes, for the thousand lives you k**ed under Troy's shadow: now as your final memorial. you're adorned in blood never to be washed out. Surely a demon then of Strife walked in the house, men's agony. CLYTAEMESTRA [chanting throughout the following interchange with the Chorus] No, be not so harsh, and don't invoke in prayer d**h's ending, neither turn all wrath against Helen for men dead, that she alone k**ed all those Danaan lives, to work the grief that is past all healing. CHORUS [singing] ANTISTROPHE B Spirit that kneels on this house and on the two strains of the blood of Tantalus, in the hands and hearts of women you steer the strength tearing my heart. Standing above the corpse, obscene as some carrion crow it sings the crippled song and is proud. CLYTAEMESTRA Now have you set the speech of your lips straight, calling by name the spirit thrice glutted that lives in this race. From it, deep in the nerve is given the love and the blood drunk, that before the old wound dries, it bleeds again. CHORUS [singing] STROPHE C Surely it is a huge and angry spirit haunting the house you cry; alas, the bitter story of a doom that shall never be done with; and all through Zeus, Zeus, first cause, prime mover. For what thing without Zeus is done among mortals? What here is without god's blessing? [chanting] O king, my king, by your lady's hand of treachery how shall I weep for you? What can I say out of my heart of pity? Caught in this spider's web you lie. Your life gasped out in indecent d**h, struck prone to this shameful bed by your lady's hand of treachery and the stroke twin-edged of the iron. CLYTAEMESTRA Can you claim I have done this? Speak of me never more as the wife of Agamemnon. In the image of this corpse's queen the old stark avenger of Atreus for his revel of hate struck down this man, last blood for slaughtered children. CHORUS [singing] ANTISTROPHE C What man shall testify your hands are clean of this murder? How? How? Yet from his father's blood might swarm some fiend to a**ist you. The black ruin that shoulders through the streaming blood of brothers strides at last where he shall win requital for the children who were eaten. [chanting] O king, my king how shall I weep for you? What can I say out of my heart of pity? Caught in this spider's web you lie, your life gasped out in indecent d**h, struck prone to this shameful bed by your lady's hand of treachery and the stroke twin-edged of the iron. CLYTAEMESTRA No shame, I think, in the d**h given this man. And did he not first of all in this house wreak d**h by treachery? The flower of this man's love and mine, Iphigeneia of many tears— he dealt with her even as he has suffered now. So let his speech in d**h's house be not loud. With the sword he struck; with the sword he paid for his own act. CHORUS [singing] STROPHE D My thoughts are swept away and I go bewildered. Where shall I turn the brain's activity in speed when the house is falling? There is fear in the beat of the blood rain breaking wall and tower. The drops come thicker. Still fate grinds on yet more stones the blade for more acts of terror. [chanting] Earth, my earth, why did you not fold me under before ever I saw this man lie dead fenced in by the tub of silver? Who shall bury him? Who shall mourn him? Shall you dare this who have k**ed your lord? Make lamentation, render the graceless grace to his soul for huge things done in wickedness? Who over this great man's grave shall lay the blessing of tears worked soberly from a true heart? CLYTAEMESTRA Not for you to speak of such tendance. Through us he fell, by us he died; we shall bury. There will be no tears in this house for him. It must be Iphigeneia his child—who else shall greet her father by the whirling stream and the ferry of tears to close him in her arms and kiss him. CHORUS [singing] ANTISTROPHE D Here is anger for anger. Between them who shall judge lightly? The spoiler is robbed; he k**ed, he has paid. The truth stands ever beside god's throne eternal: he who has done shall suffer; that is law. Then who shall tear the curse from their blood? The house is glued to ruin. CLYTAEMESTRA You see truth in the future at last. Yet I wish to seal my oath with the Spirit in the house: I will endure all things as they stand now, hard though it be. Hereafter let it go forth to make bleed with d**h and guilt the houses of others. I will take some small measure of our riches, and be content that I swept from these halls the murder, the sin, and the fury.