Words, endless words I've said to serve the moment -now it makes me proud
to tell the truth. How else to prepare a d**h for deadly men who seem to love you? How to rig the nets of pain so high no man can overleap them?
I brooded on this trial, this ancient blood feud
year by year. At last my hour came.
Here I stand and here I struck and here my work is done.
I did it all. I don't deny it, no.
He had no way to flee or fight his destiny -
Unwinding the robes from Agamemnon's body, spreading them before the altar where the old men cluster around them, unified as a chorus once again.
our never-ending, all embracing net, I cast it
wide for the royal haul, I coil him round and round
in the wealth, the robes of doom, and then I strike him
once, twice, and at each stroke he cries in agony -
he buckles at the knees and crashes here!
And when he's down I add the third, last blow,
to the Zeus who saves the dead beneath the ground
I send that third blow home in homage like a prayer.
So he goes down, and the life is bursting out of him -
great sprays of blood, and the murderous shower
wounds me, dyes me black and I, I revel
like the Earth when the spring rains come down, the blessed gifts of god, and the new green spear
splits the sheath and rips to birth in glory!
So it stands, elders of Argos gathered here. Rejoice if you can rejoice - I glory.
And if I'd pour upon his body the libation
it deserves, what wine could match my words?
It is right and more than right. He flooded
the vessel of our proud house with misery,
with the vintage of the curse and now
he drains the dregs. My lord is home at last.