Agamemnon (130-240)

Only may no jealous god-sent wrath cast its shadow upon the embattled host, the mighty bit forged for Troy’s mouth, and strike it before it reaches its goal!

For, in her pity, holy Artemis is angry at the winged hounds of her father, for they sacrifice a wretched timorous thing, together with her young, before she has brought them forth. An abomination to her is the eagles’ feast. Sing the song of woe, the song of woe, but may the good prevail!

Although, O Lovely One, you are so gracious to the tender whelps of fierce lions, and take delight in the suckling young of every wild creature that roams the field, promise that the issue be brought to pass in accordance with these signs, portents

auspicious yet filled with ill. And I implore Paean[*], the healer, that she may not raise adverse gales with long delay to stay the Danaan fleet from putting forth,

by urging another sacrifice, one that knows no law, unsuited for feast, worker of family strife, dissolving wife’s reverence for husband. For there abides wrath—

terrible, not to be suppressed, a treacherous guardian of the home, a wrath that never forgets and that exacts vengeance for a child. Such utterances of doom, derived from auguries on the march, together with many blessings, did Calchas proclaim to the royal house; and in harmony with this, Sing the song of woe, the song of woe, but may the good prevail!

Zeus, whoever he may be,—if by this name it pleases him to be invoked, by this name I call to him—as I weigh all things in the balance, I have nothing to compare

save Zeus, if in truth I must cast aside this vain burden from my heart.

He[*] who once was mighty, swelling with insolence for every fight,

he shall not even be named as having ever existed; and he[*]who arose later, he has met his overthrower and is past and gone. But whoever willingly sings a victory song for Zeus,

he shall gain wisdom altogether,—

Zeus, who sets mortals on the path to understanding, Zeus, who has established as a fixed law that wisdom comes by suffering. But even as trouble, bringing memory of pain, drips over the mind in sleep,

so wisdom comes to men, whether they want it or not. Harsh, it seems to me, is the grace of gods enthroned upon their awful seats.

So then the captain of the Achaean ships, the elder of the two—

holding no seer at fault, bending to the adverse blasts of fortune, when the Achaean folk, on the shore over against Chalcis

in the region where Aulis’ tides surge to and fro, were very distressed by opposing winds and failing stores.

The breezes that blew from the Strymon, bringing harmful leisure, hunger, and tribulation of spirit in a cruel port, idle wandering of men, and sparing neither ship

nor cable, began, by doubling the season of their stay, to rub away and wither the flower of Argos; and when the seer, pointing to Artemis as cause, proclaimed to the chieftains another remedy,

more oppressive even than the bitter storm, so that the sons of Atreus struck the ground with their canes and did not stifle their tears—

Then the elder king spoke and said: It is a hard fate to refuse obedience, and hard, if I must slay my child, the glory of my home, and at the altar-side stain

a father’s hand with streams of virgin’s blood. Which of these courses is not filled with evil? How can I become a deserter to my fleet and fail my allies in arms?

For that they should with all too impassioned passion crave a sacrifice to lull the winds—even a virgin’s blood—stands within their right. May all be for the best.

But when he had donned the yoke of Necessity, with veering of mind,

impious, unholy, unsanctified, from that moment he changed his intention and began to conceive that deed of uttermost audacity. For wretched delusion, counsellor of ill, primal source of woe, makes mortals bold. So then he hardened his heart to sacrifice his daughter

so that he might further a war waged to avenge a woman, and as an offering for the voyage of a fleet!

For her supplications, her cries of Father, and her virgin life,

the commanders in their eagerness for war cared nothing. Her father, after a prayer, bade his ministers lay hold of her as, enwrapped in her robes, she lay fallen forward,

and with stout heart to raise her, as if she were a young goat, high above the altar; and with a gag upon her lovely mouth to hold back the shouted curse against her house—

by the bit’s strong and stifling might. Then, as she shed to earth her saffron robe, she

struck each of her sacrificers with a glance from her eyes beseeching pity, looking as if in a picture, wishing she could speak; for she had often sung where men met at her father’s hospitable table,