with the blade of justice-wielding Zeus.

  Their soil has been completely turned,

  the country’s every seed eliminated.

  Such is the shackle he’s imposed on Troy,

  this man of happy fate, the elder son of Atreus—

  530 and he’s coming home.

  Of every man alive he is the one most worthy

  to be praised, because that Paris can no longer claim

  his exploits pay more than his sufferings.

  He’s been found guilty of both rape and robbery:

  so now he’s lost his takings,

  harvesting the total devastation of his dynasty—

  the family of Priam has incurred a double punishment.

  CHORUS LEADER

  Herald from the army of the Greeks, I wish you joy!

  HERALD

  And joy I have. I would no longer grudge the gods my death.

  CHORUS LEADER

  540 Has longing for your fatherland so worn you down?

  HERALD

  So deeply that my eyes flood now with tears of joy.

  CHORUS LEADER

  Stirred up by longing for the ones who needed you.

  HERALD

  This country yearned for those who yearned for it, you mean?

  CHORUS LEADER

  So much that I would grieve with gloomy sorrow.

  HERALD

  But what provoked this sullen state of mind?

  CHORUS LEADER

  I’ve always said that silence is the antidote to harm.

  HERALD

  Some people made you fearful in the rulers’ absence?

  CHORUS LEADER

  550 So much that, as you said, to die would be a blessing.

  HERALD

  Well, things have been achieved; and we could say

  that some, in this long stretch of years, have turned out well,

  while others are more questionable.

  But who except the gods can stay entirely free

  from pain throughout the whole of time?

  I might describe the labors and discomforts

  on board ship, the narrow gangways

  where we bedded down, the many deprivations

  every day provided for complaint!

  And then on land conditions were more loathsome still.

  We had to camp out near the enemy walls,

  where rainstorms pouring down and dampness

  560 rising from the ground combined to keep us soaking wet,

  so all our clothing was infested by the lice and leeches.

  And then the winters, cold enough to kill the birds,

  with winds from off the mountain snows.

  And next the heat . . . the noondays when the sea

  lay fast asleep in waveless torpor.

  But why complain of all these things?

  The pain is past, well past—so far so for the dead

  that they don’t need to think of getting up again.

  For us, the ones left living, benefit wins out,

  and gains outweigh the losses—

  (570) so good riddance to those sufferings!

  It’s justified to boast before this sunlight

  that the fame of our achievement

  shall go flying over sea and land.

  And we shall offer dedications that proclaim:

  “The expedition of the Greeks defeated Troy,

  and fixed these trophies to adorn the walls of shrines

  throughout all Greece, a glory gleaming from the past.”

  580 And now that you’ve heard this, it’s surely right

  you offer praises to the country and its generals.

  And thanks to Zeus who brought all this to be.

  There, that’s my story for you.

  CHORUS LEADER

  I’m gladly won round by your speech—

  capacity to learn stays ever youthful in old men.

  But all these things, besides enriching me,

  should rightly most concern the house,

  and Clytemnestra.

  [As the HERALD is about to go in, CLYTEMNESTRA comes out through the door.]

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  A while ago I raised my joyful triumph-cry,

  back when the fiery messenger first came at night

  to tell me of the capture and the sack of Troy.

  590 And there were some who carped:

  “What? Put such confidence in beacon-fires

  as to suppose that Troy has now been taken?

  Just like a woman to allow her heart

  to be so easily elated!”—

  they made me sound a lunatic.

  All the same I offered sacrifice,

  and, following the female custom,

  throughout all the city first one woman here,

  and then one there struck up the triumph-cry of joy,

  and in the temples made the altars smoke with incense.

  So now there is no need for you to talk to me

  at greater length, when I shall hear

  the tale in full told by the king himself.

  600 I must make efforts, though, to welcome

  my respected spouse as finely as I can when he arrives.

  What day is sweeter for a wife than this:

  to open wide the gates before her man

  when he’s been safely brought home

  by the gods from his campaigns?

  So give this message to my husband:

  to return as quickly as he can, the darling of the city.

  And he should find his wife at home, as faithful

  as the day he left her, guard dog of the house,

  so loyal to him and fierce against his enemies.

  In keeping with this task I have not broken

  610 any seal or lock in all this stretch of time.

  I have no deeper knowledge of enjoyment

  or of scandal with another man

  than I know how to dip and temper red-hot metal.

  So there’s my boast, brim full of truth,

  appropriate calling from a noble woman.

  [Exit CLYTEMNESTRA back into the palace.]

  CHORUS LEADER

  So that is what she says to you;

  and clear enough, if taken with interpretation,

  speech that may sound well and good.

  But tell me, herald, what of Menelaus?

  Is he, the much-loved ruler of this land,

  returning safe along with you?

  HERALD

  620 There is no way that, if I give a false account,

  it would sustain true friends for long.

  CHORUS LEADER

  I wish you could give news that is both good and true:

  but if the two are split, there is no way to hide the rift.

  HERALD

  He’s disappeared. The truth is that the man himself,

  and his ship too, are missing from our fleet.

  CHORUS LEADER

  But did he set sail by himself from Troy?

  Or did a tempest tear him from the rest of you?

  HERALD

  Like a skillful archer you have hit the mark,

  and put a great disaster in few words.

  CHORUS LEADER

  630 And do the other sailors reckon him alive or dead?

  HERALD

  There’s none can give a sure report,

  except the Sun that nurtures all that grows on earth.

  CHORUS LEADER

  So tell us how this storm that struck the fleet began and ended.

  HERALD

  It’s not appropriate to sully a propitious day

  with telling of bad news.

  Suppose a messenger, his face all sorrow, has to tell a city

  of atrocious sufferings for their defeated army,

  640 and to bring one common wound for all the people;

  it’s then appropriate for one who’s burdened

  with a task like that to chant

  a paean-hymn for the Erinyes.

  But when a messenger comes with good news

  about successes to a city that’s rejoicing . . .

  how on earth am I to mix up good and bad

  with telling of the storm

  the gods brought down against the Greeks?

  650 Two powers that have been always enemies

  conspired together, Fire and Sea,

  and sealed their pact by shattering

  the wretched navy of the Greeks.

  During the night a hell of waves arose:

  gales from the north collided ships together,

  driven by the lightning-swirls and pelting torrents

  into goring one another’s flanks,

  until they got all scattered, as though chased

  by sheepdogs ordered by a vicious herdsman.

  And when the shining sun arose, we saw

  the plain of the Aegean waters blossoming

  660 with corpses of Greek men and debris of their ships.

  But as for us, our ship survived unscathed,

  thanks to the stealth or pleading of a god—

  it was no human took the helm,

  but our preserving fortune must have steered

  to rescue us from being swamped

  upon the open sea, or driven on the rocks.

  Then, once we had avoided watery death,

  we turned our minds by light of day toward

  670 this new disaster that had smashed our fleet.

  And now if any of the others still remain alive,

  they must be thinking we are drowned,

  just as we think the same’s befallen them.

  But may things turn out for the best.

  And Menelaus you might think, if anyone,

  will get safe back, if light shines somewhere

  on him still alive, thanks to the schemes of Zeus,

  who does not wish his line to die out yet.

  In that case there is still some hope

  that he’ll return back home.

  680 Now that you’ve heard all this, you’ve heard the truth.

  [Exit the HERALD.]

  Choral Song

  CHORUS

  Who could have named her quite so fitly?

  —unless it was some unseen deity,

  one whose foreknowing tongue dictated

  precisely what was to be fated—

  matching the war-in-law bride, spelling

  her proper name for conflict: Helen,

  which predicts hell for ships and sailors,

  and hell for soldiers, hell for cities.

  690 She sailed from her fine-spun bower,

  with zephyrs from the west to blow her,

  pursued by many men with sword blades

  behind the ripples of her oar blades,

  until they reached the leafy babble

  of Simois—through blood-stained Trouble.

  Wrath brought to Troy a fateful marriage—

  700 “marriage” that aptly sounds like “damage.”

  This god-sent Wrath drove to the finish

  its sentence, after time, to punish

  insults against the host-shared table

  that Zeus himself protects as central;

  to punish the song that rose raucous,

  from her new family’s wedding chorus.

  710 But Priam’s ancient town is learning

  a newer kind of tune, and turning

  that song to soulful dirge inside them,

  renaming Paris “deadly bridegroom.”

  He brought a wave of devastation

  that spilled the blood of his whole nation.

  Once there was a man

  who raised a lion cub

  starved of mother’s milk;

  hand-fed it like a babe,

  raised it in his house.

  720 And through its kitten-time

  it was a playful pet,

  beloved by children, tame,

  favorite for the old,

  and often cradle-held,

  dandled in their arms

  like a human child.

  It nuzzled fondly,

  and with a shining eye

  looked up at their hands

  to be fed, hungrily.

  But, as time went by,

  it grew mature and showed

  the inherited

  true nature of its blood.

  As repayment to

  its rearers for their help,

  it showed gratitude

  730 by slaughtering their sheep;

  served the household with

  an uninvited meal—

  many cruelly killed,

  and blood splashed round the hall.

  The creature that was housed

  in its infancy

  was god-raised as a priest

  of catastrophe.

  To Troy’s old citadel there came

  in early days, one might well say,

  740 a sense of calm tranquility,

  a jewel of prosperity;

  her glance shot out a gentle dart,

  rose of desire to pique the heart.

  She brought them, though, a bitter end

  by twisting round that marriage-bond.

  She was for Priam’s family

  a bad inmate, bad company,

  dispatched by host-protecting Zeus

  to make brides weep, an Erinys.

  750 There is an age-old commonplace

  that when a man’s wealth multiplies

  and crops with gain a thousandfold,

  it does not die without a child,

  and from a growth so bountiful

  bad trouble springs insatiable.

  But I for one do not agree:

  I say it is the evil deed

  that later grows in quantity,

  760 and copies through heredity.

  The houses that keep justice straight

  will breed a line that’s fortunate.

  And ancient arrogance

  has a way of breeding

  new young arrogance

  in human evil dealing.

  When it comes, the day,

  one time or another,

  that appointed day

  gives birth to fresh anger.

  770 Godless insolence,

  too intense to master,

  makes the house collapse

  engulfed in dark disaster.

  Justice radiates

  in houses smoke has tarnished;

  Justice elevates

  the man whose life is honest.

  Mansions decked in gold,

  where grasping hands are dirtied,

  she condemns as soiled,

  and leaves with eyes averted;

  780 wealth-power she disdains

  as a mere illusion

  falsified by praise.

  She guides all to conclusion.

  Scene 4

  [AGAMEMNON approaches on an open carriage, with attendants; CASSANDRA, who has the robes and regalia of a prophet, sits behind him.]

  CHORUS LEADER

  Welcome, mighty sovereign, sacker

  of the Trojans’ city, son of

  Atreus. What way should I greet you?

  How to pay due homage, yet not

  overshoot, nor send my arrow

  falling short of proper honor?

  There are many who have wrongly

  favored seeming over being.

  Just as all are prompt to grieve with

  790 someone who has suffered, yet no

  anguish stabs their deepest feelings:

  so too people make out that they

  take delight in someone else’s

  happy fortune, while they’re forcing

  mirthless faces into smiling.

  There’s no way, though, that a person’s

  look can fool the expert flock-judge,

  if they merely seem to greet him

  with a friendly fawning manner

  which is really thin as water.

  Back then at the time you led your

  800 army off to fight for Helen—

  I’ll not hide it—in my eyes you

  did not paint a pleasing picture;

  you were steering far from wisdom’s

  channel when, in order to retrieve a

  wayward woman, you recruited

  men to face their deaths. However,

  I rejoice now with deep gladness

  for these labors well completed.

  As time passes you’ll discover

  which among the city’s keepers

  have been honest, which corrupted.

  AGAMEMNON

  810 First it is right for me to greet this land of Argos

  and its guardian gods; they share with me the credit

  for this safe return, and for the justice

  that I’ve visited upon the land of Priam.

  For the gods decided on the case from listening,

  not to speeches: to the death of soldiers.

  And unanimously they then cast their votes

  into the urn for blood, the blood of Troy and its destruction:

  only hope approached the other urn, but left it empty.

  And now the conquered city still remains

  conspicuous by its plume of smoke;

  the winds of ruination blow in lively gusts,

  while dying embers spread about

  820 a greasy stench of wealth.

  For this the gods should be repaid with mindful thanks,

  because we have exacted punishment

  for a presumptuous act of theft.

  And, in a woman’s cause, the beast of Argos,

  offspring from the horse’s womb,

  has ground the city into fragments—

  I mean the armored troop, which launched its leap

  at dead of night, a flesh-devouring lion

  that jumped the walls and lapped its fill of princely blood.

  It’s for the gods that I’ve drawn out this prelude.