Aeschylus, Agamemnon 176-199

 

Zeus, who guided men to think,

who has laid it down that wisdom

comes alone through suffering.

Still there drips in sleep against the heart

grief of memory; against

our pleasure we are temperate

From the gods who sit in grandeur

grace comes somehow violent.

On that day the elder king

of the Achaean ships, no more

strict against the prophet's word,

turned with the crosswinds of fortune,

when no ship sailed, no pail was full,

and the Achaean people sulked

fast against the shore at Aulis

facing Chalcis, where the tides ebb and surge….

 

Agamemnon 227-257

 

Her supplications and her cries of father

were nothing, nor the child's lamentation

to kings passioned for battle.

The father prayed, called to his men to lift her

with strength of hand swept in her robes aloft

and prone above the altar, as you might lift

a goat for sacrifice, with guards

against the lips' sweet edge, to check

the curse cried on the house of Atreus

by force of bit and speech drowned in strength.

Pouring then to the ground her saffron mantle

she struck the sacrificers

with the eyes' arrows of pity,

lovely as in a painted scene, and striving

to speak--as many times

at the kind festive table of her father

she had sung, and in the clear voice of a stainless maiden

with love had graced the song

of worship when the third cup was poured.

What happened next I saw not, neither speak it.

The crafts of Calchas fail not of outcome.

Justice so moves that those only learn

who suffer; and the future

you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.

It is grief too soon given.

All will come clear in the next dawn's sunlight.

Let good fortune follow these things as

she who is here desires,

our Apian land’s singlehearted protectress.

 

Agamemnon 320-350

 

The Achaeans have got Troy, upon this very day.

I think the city echoes with a clash of cries.

Pour vinegar and oil into the selfsame bowl,

you could not say they mix in friendship, but fight on.

Thus variant sound the voices of the conquerors

and conquered, from the opposition of their fates.

Trojans are stooping now to gather in their

their dead, husbands and brothers; children lean to clasp

the aged who begot them, crying upon the death

of those most dear, from lips that never will be free.

The Achaeans have their midnight work after the fighting

that sets them down to feed on all the city has,

ravenous, headlong, by no rank and file assigned,

but as each man has drawn his shaken lot by chance.

And in the Trojan houses that their spears have taken

they settle now, free of the open sky, the frosts

and dampness of the evening; without sentinels set

they sleep the sleep of happiness the whole night through.

And if they reverence the gods who hold the city

and all the holy temples of the captured land,

they, the despoilers, might not be despoiled in turn.

Let not their passion overwhelm them; let no lust

seize on these men to violate what they must not.

The run to safety and home is yet to make; they must turn

the pole, and run the backstretch of the double course.

Yet, though the host come home without offence to high gods,

even so the anger of these slaughtered men,

may never sleep. Oh, let there be no fresh wrong done!

Such are the thoughts you hear from me, a woman merely.

Yet may the best win through, that none may fail to see.

Of all good things to wish this is my dearest choice.

 

Agamemnon 914-930

 

Daughter of Leda, you who kept my house for me,

There is one way your welcome matched my absence well.

You strained it to great length. Yet properly to praise

me thus belongs by right to other lips, not yours.

And all this-do not try in woman's ways to make

me delicate, nor, as if I were some Asiatic

bow down to earth and with wide mouth cry out to me,

nor cross my path with jealousy by strewing the ground

with robes. Such state becomes the gods, and none beside.

I am a mortal, a man; I cannot trample upon

these tinted splendors without fear thrown in my path.

I tell you, as a man, not god, to reverence me.

Discordant is the murmur at such treading down

of lovely things; while God's most lordly gift to man

is decency of mind. Call that man only blest

who has in sweet tranquillity brought his life to close.

If  could only act as such, my hope is good.

 

Agamemnon 957-974

 

The sea is there, and who shall drain its yield? It breed

precious as silver, ever of itself renewed,

the purple ooze wherein our garments shall be dipped.

And by god's grace this house keeps full sufficiency

of all. Poverty is a thing beyond its thought.

I could have vowed to trample many splendors down

had such decree been ordained from the oracles

those days when all my study was to bring home your life.

For when the root lives yet the leaves will come again

to fence the house with shade against the Dog Star's heat,

and now you have come home to keep your hearth and house

you bring with you the symbol of our winter's warmth;

but when Zeus ripens the green clusters into wine

there shall be coolness in the house upon those days

because the master ranges his own halls once more.

 

Zeus, Zeus accomplisher, accomplish these my prayers.

Let your mind bring these things to pass. It is your will.

 

Agamemnon 1672-1673

 

These are  howls of impotent rage; forget them, dearest;

            you and I

have the power; we two shall bring good order to our house

            at least.