The only complete specimen of a trilogy extant is the "Oresteia" of Aeschylus, comprising the "Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe" (Mourners), and the "Eumenides" (Furies). In this series are presented the murder of Agamemnon on his return from the conquest of Troy, by his queen, Clytemnestra, and her paramour, Aegisthus; the slaying of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by the avenger of blood, Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, at the bidding of Apollo; the pursuit of Orestes as a matricide by the Furies; and his final acquittal and restoration by the favour of Apollo and Athene. The trilogy is full of political sentiment and allusion. The last piece, "Eumenides," has a distinct political purpose. In the murder of Agamemnon in his home, after his return from his victory over the Asiatic enemies of Hellas, by Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, the audience could hardly fail to see a parallel to the persecution of Cimon, the hero of the conservative party to which Aeschylus belonged, after his victories over the Persians, by the leaders of the democratic party, Pericles and Ephialtes.
* * * * *
THE FALL OF TROY ANNOUNCED AT MYCENAE, WHERE AGAMEMNON'S PALACE IS, BY BEACON FIRES.
LINES 1-39.
THE WATCHMAN.
Grant me, oh gods, deliverance from this toil,
This year-long watch, which, couched upon the roof
Of the Atridae, dog-like I have kept,
Scanning the nightly gatherings of the stars,
Those radiant potentates, that throned on high,
Lead on the changing seasons for mankind.
And now I still am looking for the sign,
The beacon light which is to flash from Troy
The tidings of the city's fall, for so
Ordains the will of our man-hearted queen.
Broken my rest, my couch is drenched with dew,
And by no pleasant dream is visited.
In place of slumber fear waits on me there,
So that my eyes can never close in sleep;
And if to sing or whistle I essay,
In hope to charm away my drowsiness,
Straightway I fall to weeping for this house,
That into evil hands of late has fallen.
Would but the light, that happy tidings bears,
Shine through the dark to end our sufferings.
(Beacon light appears,)
Offspring of night, all hail! A glorious day
Thou dost to Argos bring, with many a dance
And song in honour of this victory.
Joy! joy!
I go to call on Agamemnon's queen
To leave her couch, and forthwith in her halls
Bid the glad voice of jubilation rise
To greet this beacon fire. If true it be
That Troy is taken, as the light proclaims,
My watch the highest throw of fortune's dice
Has cast, and with my lords all must be well.
No more I say, a heavy curb is laid
Upon my lips; these walls, if they had voice,
Would tell their secret; as for me, I speak
To those who know, to others I am mute.
* * * * *
THE SACRIFICE OF IPHIGENIA.
The chorus recounts the sacrifice of Iphigenia, one of the train of horrors connected with the doom of the house of Atreus.
LINES 177-240.
CHORUS.
Wind-bound and suffering dearth, the Achaean fleet
O'er against Calchis lay.
On Aulis' tide-washed shore,
While from the Strymon gales,
Bearing delay and famine on their wing,
Bane of the mariner,
Wasting both hull and rope,
Were wearing out the flower of Argive youth.
Then did the seer proclaim
For that unwelcome wind
A new and cruel cure
In name of Artemis.
Which, hearing, the Atridae with their staves
Smote on the ground and wept.
Then spake the elder King:
"To disobey were dire,
Yet dire it is to slay
My child, the pride and beauty of my home,
And at the altar stain
A father's hand with blood of virgin sacrifice.
Which way is not despair?
How can I prove disloyal to the host,
And this alliance lose?
If for this sacrifice of virgin life,
The wind to lay, heaven calls
So sternly, I obey."
Fate's yoke when he had donned,
Over his spirit came
A dark, unholy change;
Thenceforth he doffed all pity and remorse.
From the heart of man delusion strong,
Parent of evil, casts out virtuous fear.
Unmoved, he slew his child a war to aid
Waged for a woman's wrong
Upon the fleet's behalf.
Her prayers, her calling on her father's name,
Her virgin youth,
Those royal warriors held of no account.
Prayer said, her father bade the ministers
Lift her that, fainting, in her robes sank down
Upon the altar, as it were a kid,
And guard upon her beauteous lips to set
Of forceful silence, lest
A curse might issue from them on the house.
Letting her saffron veil fall on the ground,
She smote each minister of sacrifice
With piteous glances, mute
As is a picture, and in vain essayed
To speak. She many a time
In hospitable hall
Had sung, and with her innocent, chaste voice
Wished to her sire health and prosperity.
What then ensued I saw not nor recount.
The seer's behest was done.
* * * * *
THE MEETING OF AGAMEMNON AND CLYTAEMNESTRA.
LINES 828-947.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Friends, aged citizens of Argos here,
I will not shrink from speaking of my love,
Since years wear off a woman's bashfulness.
Myself alone can tell the life I led
While my lord lay before the walls of Troy.
Sad, passing sad, the lot of woman left
Lorn of her consort in the lonely home,
And hearing day by day reports of ill;
Every new comer bringing evil news,
And the last worse than him that went before.
Had my lord met all wounds that rumour gave,
His body had been but one net of wounds;
Had he, as oft as rumour blew him, died,
He must have been a three-lived Geryon,
And thrice put on a shroud of funeral earth
Above him, reckoning not the earth below,
Thrice dead, and in three several graves interred.
Driven to despair mid all these dark reports,
By hanging oft I sought to end my days,
And was by others saved and forced to live.
Hence is it that thy child, pledge of our love,
Orestes, is not here to greet his sire,
As had been meet. Let not that trouble thee.
Strophios the Phocian took the boy in trust,
Thine ancient friend in arms, forewarning us
That troublous times might come, should aught befall
My lord, and the unbridled multitude
O'erthrow the senate, as mankind are wont
To trample on the fallen. 'Tis truth I tell.
The very fountains of my tears are dry,
Sorrow no drop hath left, my eyes are sore
Through my night watchings for the beacon light
That should bring news of thee, but brought it not.
A gnat's light whirring broke the dream of thee
That in an hour compressed an age of woe.
Now all this past, from carking sorrow free,
I hail my lord, the watchdog of our fold,
The ship's main stay, the pillar that upbears
A lofty roof, dear as an only child,
Welcome as land to seamen tossed at sea,
As cheerful day after the stormiest night,
As well-spring to the thirsty traveller.
Sweet after careful stress is careless ease.
Such is my salutation to my lord,
Which should not draw on us the evil eye.
Enough we've borne already. Now, beloved,
Step from thy chariot; yet not on the earth
Shall Ilium's glorious conqueror set his foot.
Haste, haste, ye handmaidens, to whom the charge
Was given to spread the ground with tapestry,
And make a purple pathway for my lord,
Whom justice brings to his unlooked for home.
For aught beside, care, lovingly awake,
The gods so willing, shall good order take.
AGAMEMNON.
Daughter of Leda, guardian of my home,
Thy speech is as my absence, long drawn out.
Well measured praise from other lips must come;
I pray thee stint thy woman's blandishments,
Nor, like some proud barbarian's minion vile,
Crawl to my feet with abject flatteries.
I would not have thy draperies on me draw
The evil eye; to gods such state belongs,
Not mortals; for a mortal thus to tread
On broidery were to tempt the wrath of heaven.
Pay to me honours human, not divine.
Foot-cloths or broidery need I none to tell
What fame will voice aloud. Discretion still
Is the best gift of heaven, and he alone
Is truly blest who prospers to the end.
Let but this fortune hold, I've naught to fear.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Yet herein yield to her that loves thee well.
AGAMEMNON.
Know that I will not swerve from my resolve.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Is it some vow, vowed in an hour of fear?
AGAMEMNON.
I well knew my own mind when thus I spoke.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Had Priam conquered, what would he have done?
AGAMEMNON.
He, certes, would have trod on tapestry.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Be not affrighted by the tongues of men.
AGAMEMNON.
Yet is the people's voice a mighty power.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Who shrinks from envy dares not to be great.
AGAMEMNON
To love contention is not womanly.
CLYTAEMNESTRA
Yet the victorious can afford defeat.
AGAMEMNON.
Dost thou, too, prize defeat as victory?
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Defeat or victory, yield thee at my prayer.
AGAMEMNON.
So be it, an thou wilt. Let some one loose
My sandals, lest if, proudly shod with these,
I tread a path so costly, I may draw,
Presumptuous, from above the evil eye.
Great shame it were our substance thus to waste,
Trampling on costly web with sandaled feet.
Of that enough. Now take this stranger in
(Pointing to Cassandra.)
In kindly wise; who gently use their power
Shall merit mercy in the eye of heaven.
Misfortune, not misdoing, makes the slave.
This damsel, choicest flower of all we won,
The army's gift to me, have I brought home.
Now let me, since my will has bent to thine,
Walk over purple to my royal hall.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
There is a sea, there is a boundless sea,
And in its depths is gendered purple dye
Of costliest kind for vestments numberless.
Of this, the gods be thanked, our palace holds
Abundance, want or stint is there unknown.
Purple enow would I have gladly given
To trample in the mire, had oracles
Enjoined to pay such ransom for thy life.
With thee unto the leafless trunk has come
A leafy shelter from the dog-star's heat;
Since thy return to thy beloved hearth,
Our wintry frost shall yield to summer's sun,
And coolness, in the heat that turns the grape,
Reign in the house whose head is there once more.
Zeus, father in whose hands all issues are,
Give issue to thy counsels and my prayer.
* * * * *
CASSANDRA'S PROPHECY.
LINES 1149-1391.
CASSANDRA.
Now shall my oracle no more peer forth
As from her virgin veil a bashful bride;
It shall grow clearer as the sky is cleared
By the brisk wind, and like a sunlit wave
Shall mount the billows of calamity.
No more in riddles will I prophesy.
Follow and bear me witness as I hunt,
Upon the trail of immemorial crime.
Within this house a company abides,
Singing in unison no mirthful strain,
A band of revellers that, to fire its heart,
Hath quaffed, not wine, but blood of murdered men,
The Furies that shall never quit these gates.
A hymn they sing, within the haunted hall,
Of the primeval curse, and tell in turn
What loathly vengeance paid a brother's shame.
[Footnote: Alluding to the banquet of Thyestes.]
Say, does my arrow miss or hit the mark?
Am I a begging, babbling soothsayer?
Bear witness on thy oath how well I know,
Untaught, the sinful record of this house.
CHORUS.
What virtue hath an oath's solemnity
To make wrong right? Amazement fills my soul
To hear a stranger from beyond the sea
Thus hit the truth as though thou hadst been here.
CASSANDRA.
Apollo bade me be a prophetess.
CHORUS.
Was the god smitten with a mortal love?
CASSANDRA.
Shame ever to this hour hath sealed my lips.
CHORUS.
Prosperity is always delicate.
CASSANDRA.
A wooer he who well could touch my heart.
CHORUS.
Were children then begotten of your love?
CASSANDRA.
I broke my plighted troth to Loxias.
CHORUS.
When thou already hadst received the gift?
CASSANDRA.
Yea; I foretold my country all its woes.
CHORUS.
How was it Loxias failed to punish thee?
CASSANDRA.
My punishment was ne'er to be believed.
CHORUS.
To us what thou foreshow'st seems all too true.
CASSANDRA.
Once more prophetic pangs come over me.
Mark ye those children on the palace there,
In aspect like the spectral shapes of dreams?
Meseems they by a kinsman's sword were slain.
See, in their hands they bear a loathsome feast,
The piteous flesh of which their father ate.
Vengeance is coming, yonder in the lair
A lion lurks, a coward skulking beast,
Plotting against my late returned lord.
My lord, I say, for slavery is my doom.
The army's chief that o'erthrew Ilium
Knows little what yon shameless paramour,
After her long and so fair-seeming speech,
Is bent to do in an accursed hour,
Like a fell fiend lurking in ambush there.
O crime of crimes, a woman slays her mate,—
What can I call her? The most poisonous snake;
A Scylla, with her lair among the rocks,
Lying in wait for luckless mariners;
Death's dam, against her kin implacably
Breathing her venom. What a shout she raised
Of exultation, as for battle won!
She feigns rejoicing at her lord's return.
Believe or disbelieve me; naught I care
That which must come, must come. Thou soon shalt see
And rue the truth of this my prophecy.
CHORUS.
Thyestes, feasted with his children's flesh,
Shuddering, I understood, and am appalled
At hearing all so painted to the life.
But for the rest, I wander from the course.
CASSANDRA.
I say thou shalt see Agamemnon die.
CHORUS.
Hush, hapless maid, speak no ill-omened words.
CASSANDRA.
Place for well-omened words this work has none.
CHORUS.
Not if it come to pass, which heaven forfend.
CASSANDRA.
While thou art praying they prepare to smite.
CHORUS.
Where is the man to do so foul a deed?
CASSANDRA.
Ill hast thou understood my prophecy.
CHORUS.
By whom and how thy words have not revealed.
CASSANDRA.
And yet I know too well thy country's tongue.
CHORUS.
So do our prophets, yet their words are dark.
CASSANDRA.
Ah, me! how fierce the fire, it fills my veins.
Spare me, Apollo, god of Lycia, spare.
Yon lioness that, since her royal mate
Departed, with a caitiff wolf has lain,
Will slay me, and as one that poison brews
Will in the caldron cast her jealousy,
And while she whets the knife to slay her lord
Say she takes vengeance for his lawless love.
Why do I bear on me these mockeries,
This prophet's wand, this fillet round my neck?
Go, lead the way to death; I follow soon;
Go, and adorn some other curse than me.
Behold Apollo's self is stripping me
Of my prophetic garb, and in that garb
Already has he, with unpitying eyes,
Seen me and mine the foeman's laughing-stock.
I had to bear the name of tramp, be spurned
As a poor famished beggar on the street.
And now the prophet to unprophet me
Has led me into this decoy of death,
Where for the altars of my sire, the block
Of butchery soon must my hot life-blood drink.
Yet shall we not fall unavenged of heaven.
Another minister of justice comes,
His sire's avenger on the womb that bore him.
A wanderer banished from his native land,
He shall return to put the coping stone
On murder's pile; for so the gods have sworn,
And his fall'n father's hand shall beckon him.
But why should I, forlorn, bemoan my fate,
Since I have seen Ilium, my fatherland,
Faring as it has fared, and they who dwelt
Therein so worsted in the court of heaven?
Be it accomplished, to my doom I go.
Hear me, ye gates of death, sure be the stroke,
That easily with no long agony
My blood may flow, and the last sleep be mine.
CHORUS.
O maiden, thrice unhappy, yet inspired,
If truly, as thy long address imports,
Thou dost foresee thy fate, what bids thee go
As goes a doomed steer to the sacrifice?
CASSANDRA.
Friends, there is no escaping by delay.
CHORUS.
And yet of times to die the last is best.
CASSANDRA.
The day has come; naught shall I gain by flight.
CHORUS.
Great-hearted maiden, strong is thy resolve.
CASSANDRA.
Not on the happy is such praise bestowed.
CHORUS.
Yet to die gloriously is happiness.
CASSANDRA.
Father, alas, for thee and thy brave sons!
CHORUS.
How now? What fearful object meets thine eye?
CASSANDRA.
Ah, me! Ah, me!
CHORUS.
What means thy shriek? What phantom dost thou see?
CASSANDRA.
There is a smell of murder from that house.
CHORUS.
Nay, 'tis the smell of household sacrifice.
CASSANDRA.
It is the odour of a charnel-house.
CHORUS.
No savour that of Syrian frankincense.
CASSANDRA.
I go my own and Agamemnon's dirge
To chant within the halls. Good-bye to life.
Strangers, alas!
Not like a foolish bird scared at the bush
Am I. Bear witness, when I am no more,
When for my woman's blood a woman dies,
And for a man ill-wed a man is slain;
With my last breath I crave of ye this boon.
CHORUS.
I weep to see thee going to thy doom.
CASSANDRA.
Once more I fain would speak; not to renew
Weak wailings, but to call on yonder sun
And bid him bring the avenger to requite
The cruel murderess of a poor weak slave.
Alas! for man, if in his prosperous hour,
Fate faintly limns the shape of happiness,
Soon comes the sponge and wipes the picture out;
And sad is the beginning, worse the end.
* * * * *
CASSANDRA'S PROPHECY FULFILLED.
The doorway of the palace opens and reveals Clytaemnestra within the portal standing over the corpse of Agamemnon. She has slain him with an axe in the bath, having entangled him in a sleeveless robe.
LINES 1343-1554.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Much did I say before to serve the time
Which now to contradict I think no shame.
How else could hate encircle with its toils
The enemy that was a seeming friend,
So that the prey might not o'erleap the net?
Old is the quarrel; over my revenge
Long have I brooded, now it comes at last.
Here where I stand the deed of death was done,
And I so managed, I deny it not,
That he could neither fly nor fend the blow.
As he had been a fish I round him cast,
Like a close net, a rich but deadly robe.
Twice did I strike, twice did he groan, then sank;
And as he lay another stroke I gave,
To make the lucky number, and commend
His soul to Hades, guardian of the dead.
So did his angry spirit pass away,
While over me he threw a jet of blood,
Which gladdened me as doth the rain from heaven
The corn-field in the swelling of the ear.
Elders of Argos, hear! This have I done,
And in this glory, take it as ye will.
To pour a glad libation on the corpse,
Did piety permit, were more than just.
He mixed a bowl of curses for the house,
And what he mixed himself came home to drink.
CHORUS.
Amazement fills us at thy hardihood
That thus dost triumph o'er thy murdered lord.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Ye think to deal with a weak woman's heart,
But I, with soul unquailing, to your face
Tell you, approve or damn me as you may,
Here Agamemnon lies, my lord that was,
A corpse that is, the work of this right hand,
Its righteous work. There is no more to say.
CHORUS.
Lady, what baleful herb
Of earth or potion dire
Drawn from the flowing ocean, hadst thou drunk,
That on thee thou hast brought the public curse?
Thou hast cast off, cut off;
Thyself will be cast out,
A thing of loathing to our citizens.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Yea, thy award to me is banishment,
And execration, and the people's curse.
But no such measure didst thou mete this man
When recklessly, as it had been a beast,
While in his pastures sheep were numberless,
He sacrificed his child, the dearest child
That I had borne, to charm the Thracian gales.
Him from the land to drive for his foul deed
Thy justice moved thee not. But now I come
Before the bar, the judge is merciless.
I warn thee that thy threats are launched at one
Who, if thou canst in equal combat win,
Will yield; but, should heaven otherwise ordain,
Thou may'st too late be put to wisdom's school.
CHORUS.
High, lady, is thy heart,
And haughty is thy speech;
Thy soul with murder is intoxicate;
Upon thy brow is the red stain of blood
Unexpiated. Yet
Wilt thou, of aid bereft,
As thou hast struck, feel the avenging blow.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Hear while once more my solemn oath I pledge.
By the accomplished vengeance of my child,
By those dread powers whose sacrifice lies there,
I look not to see fear within my halls,
While on the hearth Aegisthus lights the fire
And to his mate is true as he is now.
With him for shield I shall not be afraid.
Low lies the man that did betray my love,
That toy of each Chryseis in the camp;
And with him lies this captive soothsayer,
His faithful leman and his sea-mate too.
For what they did the pair have dearly paid.
One there ye see, the other like a swan,
When she had sung her dying melody,
Fell in her paramour's embrace and lent
Fresh relish to my feast of happiness.
CHORUS.
Would that a death, painless, not lingering,
Would on me bring the everlasting sleep,
Since my kind guard,
That for a woman's sake so much
Braved, by a woman's hand has met his end.
O Helen, thou for whom beneath Troy's wall
Myriads were doomed to die,
At last through thee the gout
Of blood which in this house
Was uneffaced, fresh murder has begot.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Pray not for death to come
In ire at this my deed,
With Helen be not wroth
Because her murderous face
Many a bold Danaan slew
And woe unmeasured brought.
CHORUS.
Fiend, that dost haunt the hall
Of the Tantalidae,
And in a woman showed
A man's strength to my bane,
See how upon the dead,
Perched like a raven dire,
She chants her impious strain.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Now speakest thou aright,
Calling upon the fiend
That raveneth this race.
From him proceeds that lust
Congenital of blood
That ever craves fresh gore.
CHORUS.
A demon dire and fell
Thou to this house
Would'st in dark strain assign.
Ah, me! All comes from Zeus,
Of all things source and cause,
Without whom naught befalls
Mankind. Of all this train
Of woes, what was there not by heaven decreed?
How shall I wail thee, king,
How vent my loyal grief?
In this fell spider's web thou liest low,
Expiring by a stroke
Accursed as no freeman ought to lie,
By treachery struck down
With its two-handed axe.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Charge not on me this deed.
Imagine not that I
Am Agamemnon's queen.
Like to the dead man's wife
The fiend that vengeance takes
For Atreus' ghastly feast
Here hath repaid the debt,
A man for infants slain.
CHORUS.
Oh, whither can I turn,
In vain my mind I task.
The house thus wrecked, despair lies every way.
I shudder at this pouring rain of blood,
No more by drops it falls.
Fate for some other murderous deed
On a new whetstone sharpens her knife's edge.
Would earth had swallowed me
Ere in the silver vessel of the bath
I saw my king laid low.
Who will his funeral rites
Perform? Wilt thou be able unabashed,
Having thy husband slain,
To wail for him, and to his injured shade
Requital for such wrong
By unloved service pay?
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
Not unto thee belongs
This care. 'Twas we that slew,
And we will bury him.
Not from his house shall go
His mourning train.
By the swift-flowing stream
Of lamentation his loved child,
Iphigenia, shall her father meet,
Embrace and fondly kiss.
