CHORUS MEMBER 5

  Yes! And we’re wasting time, while they despise

  our caution and are pressing on with action.

  CHORUS MEMBER 6

  I’m unsure what response to recommend:

  someone who means to act must plan ahead.

  CHORUS MEMBER 7

  1360 I go along with that. It’s not as though we can

  stand up the dead again, for all our fighting talk.

  CHORUS MEMBER 8

  So are we going to give in to these violators

  of the royal house, just to save our skins?

  CHORUS MEMBER 9

  Intolerable! It’s better to be dead—

  less bitter than to live on under tyranny.

  CHORUS MEMBER 10

  So do we speculate the man is murdered

  merely on the evidence of hearing shouts?

  CHORUS MEMBER 11

  We ought to be discussing what we know for sure.

  Mere guesswork’s not like certain knowledge.

  CHORUS LEADER

  1370 I feel we are agreed: we must

  find out for sure how Agamemnon fares.

  Scene 8

  [The doors open to reveal CLYTEMNESTRA with sword in hand, standing over the bodies of AGAMEMNON and CASSANDRA lying, caught up in a net, in a bathtub.]

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  I offer no apology for saying things that contradict

  what I have said before to suit the moment.

  How else, if you are planning harm

  against your enemies, who think they’re friends—

  how else are you to rig the trap of nets

  too high to be escaped by leaping over them?

  My mind has long been working out

  this final contest in my long-drawn feud—

  and now, at last, it has arrived.

  1380 I stand here where I struck,

  with what I did in front of me.

  I managed it—and I am proud of this—

  in such a way that he could not

  escape his fate, nor fend it off.

  I cast around him an impenetrable mesh,

  like one for netting fish, a fatal luxury of fabric.

  Then I struck him twice,

  and with two cries his limbs went limp;

  once he was down, I followed with a third,

  an offering made in gratitude to Hades,

  the saver of the dead below.

  And so he gasped his life away,

  and spouted out a jet of blood

  1390 that showered me with a drizzle of dark dew.

  And I was glad, as glad as is the crop of corn

  to feel the gleaming moisture, gift of Zeus,

  when grain is brought to birth from out the husk.

  It is a proper offering to pour

  upon this corpse, this blood.

  It’s just, and even more than just,

  because this man has filled a cup

  of such accursèd crimes within this house—

  and now he has returned and drained it to the dregs.

  (1393) So that is how things are, you Argive elders.

  Be glad, if you are gladdened:

  as for me, I revel in all this.

  CHORUS LEADER

  I am astounded at your brazen tongue—

  1400 your bragging like this over your own husband.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  You patronize me like some little woman

  with no mind to call her own.

  I speak with heart devoid of fear

  to those with wit to understand,

  and you can praise me or condemn me

  as you like, it’s all the same to me.

  This man is Agamemnon,

  yes, my spouse, and yes, a corpse,

  the work of this right hand of mine,

  this architect of justice.

  And that is that.

  CHORUS

  Woman, what detested

  earth-grown venom have you tasted,

  or drunk down what poison

  dredged up from the deeps of ocean,

  to have done this murder?

  With the people’s curses shouted,

  1410 you shall be deprived of country,

  banished with the city’s hatred.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Today you sentence me to exile from my country,

  and to hatred from the people and their curses.

  Yet back then you raised no voice against this man,

  this man who rated her as nothing,

  back on that day he cut his own child’s throat—

  as though it were the slaughter of an animal,

  one from his many fleecy flocks of sheep—

  the treasure of my labor pains,

  used as a charm to quell the gusts from Thrace.

  So isn’t he the one you should have driven

  1420 from this country in atonement for pollution?

  Yet when you scrutinize my handiwork,

  oh, then you are the righteous judge!

  I tell you this in answer to such threats:

  I’m ready to submit if I am overcome

  in contest hand-to-hand:

  but if the god ordains the opposite, then you may learn

  in your old age to think more carefully.

  CHORUS

  You are proud and devious,

  and the words you speak ambitious,

  just as you are maddened

  in your mind, which murder’s reddened.

  And the blood-flecks flaring

  show up on your eye-whites clearly.

  You shall pay dear, friendless,

  1430 trading blow for blow relentless.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Hear this, my solemn oath,

  by Justice, now completed for my child,

  by Curse and Erinys, the powers

  I’ve sacrificed this man to satisfy:

  no pang of fear stalks through my house,

  no, not so long as one maintains

  the flame upon my hearth, Aegisthus,

  not while he stays loyal to me,

  the shield who keeps me confident.

  Here this one lies, the violator of this woman here,

  the charmer of the golden girls at Troy.

  1440 And here she is, the prisoner, the prophetess—

  his double-bedmate, fortuneteller,

  believable between the sheets—

  who used to shuttle back and forth

  across the benches on board ship.

  And so they both have met their due deserts:

  he’s here like this, while she, swanlike,

  has sung her final funeral dirge.

  And with her lying here on top of him,

  she has served up for me an extra sauce

  to top my luscious feast.

  CHORUS

  I wish it would come quick,

  not after lying sick,

  nor after pain-filled years:

  1450 that final fate that draws

  the never-ending dark

  of sleep that does not wake—

  now that our noblest guard

  is lying here, struck dead.

  He suffered many ways,

  all in a woman’s cause;

  and through a woman’s deed

  his life has been destroyed.

  Frenzied Helen, you alone

  have destroyed in front of Troy

  lives so many, all too many.

  Now you’ve bound a final crown,

  1460 stained with blood too strong to scour,

  you the war-cause in this house.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Don’t allow these things to crush you

  so you wish for death to take you.

  And don’t turn your anger onto

  Helen, calling her the fatal

  man-destroyer. It’s not right to

  claim that she, one woman, ended

  all those lives of Greeks, inflicting

  all this pain that stays unhealed.

  CHORUS

  O Daimon of the house,

  you swoop down on this place,

  and on the differing pair,

  the sons of Atreus here.

  1470 And you have lavished power

  upon the female pair,

  so similar at heart.

  It bites me deep, this hurt.

  Above the body now,

  like some detested crow,

  it struts and gloating sings

  its tuneless triumph-songs.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Now you’ve hit a truer version

  when you name the family Daimon,

  fattened for three generations.

  That’s what nourishes the lust for

  lapping blood-pools; then, before the

  ancient trauma can be mended,

  1480 yet more suppuration gathers.

  CHORUS

  Yes, it’s fraught with fury,

  that strong Daimon,

  never sated fully

  with misfortune.

  Everything that happens

  comes through Zeus all-

  causing, all-enacting.

  What’s concluded

  for us humans without

  Zeus behind it?

  How am I to weep for you,

  1490 O my king, my king?

  What heartfelt words of loyal lament

  can I turn to song?

  You lie where you breathed your last,

  in this spider’s web,

  prisoner of slavish bonds

  on this squalid bed.

  Hobbled by this deadly trick,

  you met with your end,

  chopped down by a two-edged blade

  gripped in your wife’s hand.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Are you claiming that this slaughter

  is my doing? Stop regarding

  me as Agamemnon’s spouse, then:

  no, the ancient, acrid Vengeance-

  1500 spirit has assumed the shape of

  this cadaver’s wife. Aroused by

  Atreus, heartless banquet-server,

  it has claimed this full-grown victim,

  further payment for the children.

  CHORUS

  To claim that you are guiltless

  of this slaughter:

  no one could stand as witness

  for that falsehood.

  How? How? But that some specter

  might have paired you,

  avenging ghost ancestral,

  as a partner . . .

  that is possible. And Ares,

  gore-stained and dark,

  will make more bloodstream channels

  1510 come flooding back

  to where he can claim justice

  for the babies

  whose flesh and clotted blood were

  served at table.

  How am I to weep for you,

  O my king, my king?

  What heartfelt words of loyal lament

  can I turn to song?

  You lie where you breathed your last,

  in this spider’s web,

  prisoner of slavish bonds

  on this squalid bed.

  Hobbled by this deadly trick,

  you met with your end,

  chopped down by a two-edged blade

  1520 gripped in your wife’s hand.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  In my judgment, this man’s death was

  no more squalid than was fitting.

  It is right that he has perished

  through deception, since he ruined

  this whole family with deception.

  Yes, the darling that I bore him,

  dearly-wept Iphigeneia,

  he, her father, made his victim.

  Now he’s suffered suitably to

  match his actions. He will have no

  cause to bluster down in Hades,

  now he’s paid by fatal sword-stroke.

  CHORUS

  1530 I remain at a loss,

  helpless without resource

  which way to turn my mind

  before the falling house.

  I fear the drumming storm

  beating upon the home,

  the deluge turned to blood,

  a pelting hurricane.

  Now fate whets action’s edge

  keen on the sharpening-stone,

  preparing to ensure

  that there’s more justice done.

  O earth, O earth, I wish you’d covered me

  before I’d set my eyes

  1540 on this man brought to such a lowly bed,

  this bath with silver sides.

  Who comes to bury him, who to lament?

  Could you now have the gall,

  when you have killed your man, to stand up there

  and lead the funeral wail?

  to favor his past life disfavoredly

  in tribute for his deeds?

  Who shall proclaim the graveside eulogy

  1550 with heart that truly bleeds?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  It is not your proper place to

  raise this matter. By my hand he

  dropped down, downed in death, and by my

  hand he shall be laid down under,

  not with mourning from outsiders.

  Aptly shall his daughter greet him,

  his adored Iphigeneia,

  meet her father at the ferry–

  landing by the aching river,

  and embrace him, planting kisses.

  CHORUS

  1560 Damnation meets with condemnation back:

  to judge is difficult.

  The plunderer gets plundered in his turn,

  the killer pays for guilt.

  Yet this remains as long as Zeus remains

  upon his throne secure:

  who does the deed must suffer for the deed—

  that’s the eternal law.

  Who can eliminate the seed, expel

  the household curse at last?

  This family and dire catastrophe

  are glued together fast.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Yes, you’ve hit upon the truth with

  that pronouncement. So I’m willing

  1570 to agree a solemn promise

  with the Daimon of this bloodline:

  that if only it will go and

  leave this palace, and oppress some

  other house with kindred murders,

  I shall be content to manage

  with a fraction of our riches,

  just enough and nothing further.

  This I promise, if I can then

  purge this household from the madness

  of our killing one another.

  Scene 9

  [AEGISTHUS, accompanied by bodyguards, enters abruptly.]

  AEGISTHUS

  I greet you, welcome light of day that brings me justice.

  I can say at last that gods look down from high

  upon the crimes of earth and make sure humans

  1580 pay the price, since now I see this man here

  lying in the woven cloths of the Erinyes,

  and paying for the plot his father perpetrated.

  That father, Atreus, was the ruler of this land:

  when he was challenged for the kingship

  by Thyestes, my own father and his brother,

  Atreus drove him out, an exile from his house and land.

  Unfortunate Thyestes then returned,

  a suppliant at the hearth, which was a way

  to save his blood from staining his ancestral soil.

  1590 But as an act of hospitality, and with enthusiasm

  more than love toward my father, godless Atreus

  made out to be arranging a great celebration-feast;

  and there he served him up a dish of children-flesh.

  He hacked away their heads and hands and feet,

  and served Thyestes, as he sat apart,

  with portions that could not be recognized.

  So in his ignorance he ate—a dish which, as you see,

  has proved disastrous for the dynasty.

  Then, once he’d realized his monstrous act,

  he cried out in revulsion and, recoiling,

  (1600) spewed the gobbets out.

  He kicked the feasting table over,

  and so made it fit the justice of his curse:

  “Like this I pray the whole bloodline be overturned.”

  In consequence of that you see this man brought low;

  and I have pieced this death together with the thread of justice.

  For I was the third child, left alive and driven

  into exile as a little baby with my wretched father.

  Justice has returned me here, now that I am full-grown;

  and I have got this man into my grip,

  although I was outside the house itself,

  by linking the whole scheme behind this deadly plot.

  1610 So even death would seem acceptable for me,

  now that I’ve seen him tangled

  in the cords of Justice.

  CHORUS LEADER

  Aegisthus, I have no respect for one

  who acts all high and mighty in bad circumstances.

  You claim you meant to kill this man,

  and planned this pitiable murder:

  well, I proclaim that, once you’re brought to justice,

  you shall not escape the people’s

  stones and curses flung at you.

  AEGISTHUS

  You dare to talk like this, although you’re down

  upon the lowest rowing-bench,

  while those in charge are on the bridge?

  1620 You’ll find, when brought to see some sense,

  that learning can be tough for people of your age.

  Prison and starvation-pangs remain

  outstanding teachers, even for the agèd mind.

  You have your sight, yet don’t see that?