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.