All that’s right forbids this:

  may what’s best conclude this.”

  Once he had placed his neck beneath the harness

  of what had to be,

  220 he veered the breathings of his thought to godless,

  rank impiety.

  From then he turned his mind to foster plans of

  sheer audacity—

  for clever, scheming madness, trouble-starting,

  can make people bold.

  And so he steeled his hand to grasp his daughter’s

  sacrificial blade;

  did all this to support a war of vengeance

  for a woman’s bed.

  They count as nothing all her “father”-cries, her

  pleas, her virgin-years,

  230 those battle-loving lords. The father tells his men

  to pray and then to raise

  her high above the altar like a goat-kid

  for the sacrifice;

  with all their will to hold her and her trailing

  robes in readiness,

  neck facing down. They tie a fetter round her

  lovely cheeks and face,

  a gag to hold her tongue from words to put her

  house beneath a curse.

  They used the bridle’s brutal force

  to muffle up her voice;

  and as her saffron-tinted cloth

  fell pouring to the earth,

  240 she shot each leader standing by

  an arrow from her eye,

  imploring pity. Beauty standing out

  as in a work of art,

  she longed to call out all their names,

  since there were many times

  she’d sung the maiden paean-hymn

  within her father’s hall,

  to chime with their third good-luck toast,

  and grace her father’s feast.

  What happened next upon that day

  I neither saw nor say.

  The things that Calchas’ skill foretold

  did not go unfulfilled.

  250 The scales of Justice weigh out gain

  to those who’ve learned from pain:

  but as for what the future bears,

  you’ll hear as it occurs.

  Let be: it will emerge as bright

  as when the dawn brings light.

  Let’s hope the rest at any rate

  will turn out fortunate,

  as we would wish, the old and loyal,

  this land’s defensive wall.

  Scene 2

  [Enter CLYTEMNESTRA from the palace.]

  CHORUS LEADER

  I’m here in homage to your power, queen Clytemnestra,

  since it’s right to show respect

  toward the consort of a ruler,

  260 when the throne’s been emptied of the male.

  I would be glad to know from you if you are sacrificing

  in the knowledge of some firm good news,

  or in the hope of hearing something welcome . . .

  but I’ll not object if you stay silent.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  May dawn deliver her good news

  that’s born from kindly mother night.

  Here is intelligence more joyful far than could be hoped for:

  yes, the Greeks have taken Priam’s city.

  CHORUS LEADER

  What do you mean? I can’t quite catch your words as real.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Troy’s fallen to the Greeks—do I make that clear?

  CHORUS LEADER

  270 I am so overwhelmed with joy I can’t restrain my tears.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Your eyes profess your loyal thoughts.

  CHORUS LEADER

  But what are you relying on? Have you clear proof?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Of course I have, unless a god has played a trick on me.

  CHORUS LEADER

  Is it the tempting vision of a dream that you put faith in?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  I’d not accept the mirage of a drowsing mind.

  CHORUS LEADER

  Then has some fluttering rumor lifted you?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  You are insulting my intelligence as though I were some girl.

  CHORUS LEADER

  How long ago, then, was the city taken?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  I told you: in the kindly night that gave birth to this day.

  CHORUS LEADER

  280 Tell me, what messenger could travel here so fast?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Hephaestus.

  It was he who sent the bright gleam blazing on its way

  from Troy’s Mount Ida; and then beacon after beacon

  passed along a chain of couriers to here.

  The hills of Ida sent it to Hermaeon crag on Lemnos;

  from that island, next the towering promontory

  of Athos took in hand the mighty torch.

  Then, flaring bright to leap across the sea’s rough back,

 
  where piles of resin-pine passed on>

  the golden sunlike messenger to make its landfall

  on the lookout peak of Macistos.

  290 That stage was not delayed by carelessness or sleep,

  but flashed the beacon-signal far across the straits of Aulis

  to the watchmen on Massapion.

  They kept the sequence going strong by lighting heaps

  of dried-out brushwood, so the torch undimmed

  jumped right across the plain of Asopus

  to rouse the next link of the chain high on Cithaeron’s crags.

  (300) The watch there kindled even more, and sent the beacon

  swooping over Gorgon Lake to Mount Geranion.

  The men there waiting, keen to follow, sent the beard of flame

  across the headland overlooking the Saronic gulf.

  And then it swooped and safe arrived

  on Arachnaeon’s height, our neighboring lookout point.

  So finally it leapt upon this rooftop

  310 of the sons of Atreus—this light,

  direct descendant from the fire of Troy.

  This is the way I organized my relay race

  of beacons, carried to its end

  by handing on from one stage to the next.

  Such is the quality of proof I tell you of,

  transmitted from my man at Troy to me.

  CHORUS LEADER

  I shall pray later to the gods, my lady;

  but first in my astonishment I’d dearly like

  to hear again these things that you have spoken of.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  320 The Greeks are occupying Troy this very day.

  And I imagine there’s discordant shouting in the town.

  Put oil and vinegar together in a jar,

  they stay apart, irreconcilable, you’d say:

  just so the sounds you hear from conquerors

  and conquered—fates so different.

  One side falls down and clutches at the bodies

  of dead husbands, brothers, parents’ parents,

  as they mourn their dearest dead from throats enslaved.

  330 Meanwhile the others, after roaming through the night,

  all weary from the battle, turn to feeding,

  hungry for whatever they can find—

  not orderly but grasping at what chance may grant.

  They occupy the captured Trojan dwellings,

  and, relieved from camping in the open

  with the dew and frost, they sleep like happy men

  all through the kindly night, no need of guards.

  Provided that they show due reverence to the gods

  who hold that conquered land, and to their shrines,

  340 the captors should not then become

  the captured in their turn.

  I fear, though, that the lust to plunder what they should not

  may invade the troops as they give in to greed.

  Remember they have yet to make their journey

  safely back around the homeward section of the course.

  But if the army can return

  without offense against the gods,

  the price paid by the dead might be appeased—

  provided no disastrous twist of fate intrudes.

  Well, that’s the lesson that you hear from me,

  the woman. May what’s best win out,

  (350) and in a way that’s clear beyond dispute.

  [CLYTEMNESTRA goes back into the palace.]

  CHORUS LEADER

  You’ve spoken, woman,

  shrewdly as a man, one of good sense.

  And now that I have heard persuasive evidence from you,

  I shall prepare to offer to the gods due thanks,

  since such high favor has been granted

  in return for all our pains.

  Choral Song

  CHORUS

  Mighty Zeus along with star-lit

  Night in league, you threw your tightly

  clinging meshes over all the

  topmost towers of Troy to make it

  sure no adults, no young children

  360 could escape the vast enslaving

  trawl-net, all-entrapping ruin.

  And to Zeus the host-protector,

  who achieved this, I pay homage.

  Long has he been waiting with his

  bowstring drawn to shoot at Paris,

  aiming so his arrow does not

  fall short wasted, nor go flying

  off above the constellations.

  The hammer-blow of Zeus

  you might well call it;

  it can be traced to source

  if you explore it.

  Some people say the gods

  370 will take no notice

  when mortals trample things

  which are so precious

  they should not be touched—

  but that is impious.

  Disaster’s sure for those

  with too much daring,

  and those whose puffed-up pride

  is overbearing,

  with houses full of goods

  to overflowing.

  Enough is good enough

  380 for wise discretion:

  a man with excess wealth

  has no protection—

  not once he’s idly kicked

  the altar-base

  of mighty Justice into

  darkest space.

  His downfall is enforced

  by hard Persuasion;

  no remedy can cure

  his infestation,

  which glows with ghastly light

  that can’t be hidden.

  390 Like counterfeited bronze,

  with scuffs and hitting

  he tarnishes to black;

  once brought to justice,

  indelibly he smears

  his city’s fortunes.

  None of the gods will hear

  his invocations,

  as Justice crushes him

  for those distortions.

  One such corrupting man

  was Trojan Paris,

  who in the palace of

  400 the sons of Atreus

  breached hospitality

  and decent life

  by stealing and corrupting

  his host’s wife.

  So Helen went, and left behind

  military raging,

  recruiting of battalions,

  troops to man the navy.

  She brought to Troy catastrophe

  as her marriage dowry;

  tripped lightly in there through the gates,

  reckless in her daring.

  The seer back in the palace sighed,

  sensing the disaster:

  “Alas the house for what’s to come,

  410 alas the house and master,

  the empty bed, her trail of lust.

  Sitting silent, broken,

  he’ll waste with pining, long for her

  far across the ocean;

  and it will seem the house is ruled

  by a fading phantom.

  Her husband takes no pleasure in

  lovely shapes of statues,

  because, without her living eyes,

  Aphrodite’s absent.”

  The visions that appear in his

  420 melancholy dreaming,

  though vivid, bring no true relief,

  only futile seeming;

  for if what seems a rare delight

  slips out from embraces,

  it never will rejoin the joys

  that wingèd sleep releases.

  Distress like this pervades the house:

  yet the grief spreads wider.

  For every man who went from Greece

  ready for the fighting,

  conspicuous in each one’s house

  there’s a woman sighing.

  This is a thing that touches all

  430 with heart-piercing passion,

  since each of those that they sent off

  was a living person.

  Contrast the shape that comes back home,

  entering their houses,

  voiceless and cold: a hollow urn

  filled with crumbling ashes.

  Ares makes exchange for gold,

  holding up his weighing-scales

  on the bloody battlefield,

  trading bodies for his sales.

  He refines men through his fires

  into gold-dust by the ton

  440 sent back home from Trojan pyres,

  bringing loved ones heavy pain.

  Ares trades men into jars,

  ashes for lament and praise:

  “He,” they say, “knew battle skill”;

  “this one sacrificed his life”;

  “bravely in the field he fell”;

  “died for . . . someone else’s wife.”

  This they growl through gritted teeth;

  450 and suppressed resentment burns,

  aggravating spread of grief,

  finding fault with Atreus’ sons.

  Far away from here their men—

  bodies that were beautiful—

  win a burial in the earth

  under hard-won Trojan soil.

  With their low, resentful voice

  citizens can raise a debt

  that in time works as a curse.

  There is a fear stays with me yet,

  460 something roofed beneath the night:

  gods maintain a watchful eye

  on those who go beyond what’s right,

  and who kill excessively.

  And the dark Erinyes

  wear away relentlessly

  men who have unjust success,

  and they punish them below.

  Those who preen with too much praise

  470 catch the lightning bolt from Zeus.

  I would choose an easy life

  free from envy’s ranging eye;

  I’m not one to relish pain,

  or to rage destructively.

  May I not lay cities low,

  putting people to the sword;

  nor ever know captivity

  subjected to an alien lord.

  Prompted by the beacons, news

  spread like wildfire through the city:

  yet is it really true—who knows?—

  or divine duplicity?

  Who’s so childish, wonderstruck,

  as to have their heart set blazing

  480 by some new fire-message trick,

  just as liable to changes?

  This kind of guesswork will occur

  when control rests with a woman:

  she celebrates before it’s clear.

  Gullible and rash, that’s women;

  their chattering is quick to spread,

  but, once flared, is quick to fade.

  Scene 3

  CHORUS LEADER

  We soon shall know for sure about the lookout posts

  490 and message-chains of flaming beacons:

  whether they were true, or whether like some dream

  this light of joy has made a fool of us.

  I see a herald running from the shore,

  an olive garland on his head;

  the cloud of flying dust is evidence

  this messenger will not be one without a voice

  who kindles signal-fires and smoke from mountain timber.

  He shall either speak out loud a stronger call

  for celebration, or . . . but I recoil

  from uttering the opposite of that.

  I trust he will establish well

  500 what has apparently seemed well.

  And if there’s anyone with other wishes for this land,

  I hope they reap the harvest of their own misguided thoughts.

  [The HERALD has arrived by now.]

  HERALD

  O soil of Argos, my ancestral country,

  after ten long years I have returned to you this day!

  At least I have achieved this,

  even though so many of my hopes lay shattered

  that I had despaired of ever dying here in Argos,

  and of resting in our family tomb.

  So greetings, land, and greetings, sun,

  and Zeus, our highest guardian—

  510 and you, Apollo, now restrain your arrows aimed at us

  implacably upon Scamander’s banks,

  and now once more be healer and protector.

  I greet you, gods of gatherings, and you,

  my guardian Hermes, herald-god of heralds;

  and these local hero-gods, who sent us off:

  I ask you all to welcome heartily

  those of our men who have survived the war.

  O palace of our rulers,

  and you thrones and deities in front,

  now, as before, receive our king,

  520 so long away, with those bright eyes of yours,

  because he brings illumination

  through the dark to you and all in common here:

  lord Agamemnon.

  Welcome him right royally,

  the man who has uprooted Troy by hacking