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Part VII
Part VII
[The scene opens, disclosing Clytemnestra, who comes forward. The body of
Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silversided 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 - accursed 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 damned 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 Ate, 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 - Aegisthus - 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!
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