Agamemnon (1575-1655)

of the frenzy of mutual murder.

Hail gracious light of the day of retribution! At last the hour has come when I can say that the gods who avenge mortal men look down from on high upon the crimes of earth.

Now that, to my joy, I behold this man lying here in a robe spun by the Avenging Spirits and making full payment for the deeds contrived in craft by his father’s hand. For Atreus, lord of this land, this man’s father, challenged in his sovereignty, drove forth, from city and from home, Thyestes, who (to speak it clearly) was my father

and his own brother. And when he had come back as a suppliant to his hearth, unhappy Thyestes secured such safety for his lot as not himself to suffer death and stain with his blood his native soil.

But Atreus, the godless father of this slain man, with welcome more hearty than kind, on the pretence that he was cheerfully celebrating a happy day by serving meat, served up to my father as entertainment a banquet of his own children’s flesh.

The toes and fingers he broke off ⋯ sitting apart.[*]And when all unwittingly my father had quickly taken servings that he did not recognize, he ate a meal which, as you see, has proved fatal to his race. Now, discovering his unhallowed deed, he uttered a great cry, reeled back, vomiting forth the slaughtered flesh, and invoked

an unbearable curse upon the line of Pelops, kicking the banquet table to aid his curse, thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes! This is the reason that you see this man fallen here. I am he who planned this murder and with justice. For together with my hapless father he drove me out,

me his third child, as yet a baby in swaddling-clothes. But grown to manhood, justice has brought me back again. Exile though I was, I laid my hand upon my enemy, compassing every device of cunning to his ruin.

So even death would be sweet to me now that I behold him in justice’s net.

Aegisthus, excessive triumph amid distress I do not honor. You say that of your own intent you slew this man and did alone plot this pitiful murder.

I tell you in the hour of justice that you yourself, be sure of that, will not escape the people’s curses and death by stoning at their hand.

You speak like that, you who sit at the lower oar when those upon the higher bench control the ship?[*]Old as you are, you shall learn how bitter it is

at your age to be schooled when prudence is the lesson set before you. Bonds and the pangs of hunger are far the best doctors of the spirit when it comes to instructing the old. Do you have eyes and lack understanding? Do not kick against the goads lest you strike to your own hurt.

Woman that you are! Skulking at home and awaiting the return of the men from war, all the while defiling a hero’s bed, did you contrive this death against a warrior chief?

These words of yours likewise shall prove a source of tears. The tongue of Orpheus is quite the opposite of yours.

He led all things by the rapture of his voice; but you, who have stirred our wrath by your silly yelping, shall be led off yourself. You will appear tamer when put down by force.

As if you would ever truly be my master here in Argos, you who did contrive our king’s death, and

then had not the courage to do this deed of murder with your own hand!

Because to ensnare him was clearly the woman’s part; I was suspect as his enemy of old. However, with his gold I shall endeavor to control the people; and whoever is unruly,

him I’ll yoke with a heavy collar, and in truth he shall be no well-fed trace-horse![*] No! Loathsome hunger that houses with darkness shall see him gentle.

Why then, in the baseness of your soul, did you not kill him yourself, but leave his slaying to a woman,

a plague to her country and her country’s gods? Oh, does Orestes perhaps still behold the light, that, with favoring fortune, he may come home and be the slayer of this pair with victory complete?

Oh well, since you plan to act and speak like that, you shall be taught a lesson soon.

On guard, my trusty guardsmen, your work lies close to hand.

On guard then! Let every one make ready his sword with hand on hilt.

My hand too is laid on my sword hilt, and I do not shrink from death.

Death for yourself, you say. We hail the omen. We welcome fortune’s test.

No, my dearest, let us work no further ills. Even these are many to reap, a wretched harvest. Of woe we have enough; let us have no bloodshed. Venerable elders, go back to your homes, and yield in time to destiny before you come to harm. What we did had to be done. But should this trouble prove enough, we will accept it,

sorely battered as we are by the heavy hand of fate. Such is a woman’s counsel, if any care to learn from it.

But to think that these men should let their wanton tongues thus blossom into speech against me and cast about such insults, putting their fortune to the test! To reject wise counsel and insult their master!