Agamemnon (745-875)

her marriage to a bitter end, sped on to the children of Priam under escort of Zeus, the warder of host and guest, ruining her sojourn and her companions, a vengeful Fury who brought tears to brides.

A venerable utterance proclaimed of old has been fashioned among mankind: the prosperity of man, when it has come to full growth, engenders offspring and does not die childless,

and from his good fortune there springs up insatiable misery. But I hold my own mind and think apart from other men. It is the evil deed that afterwards begets more iniquity

like its own breed; but when a house is righteous, the lot of its children is blessed always.

But an old Hubris tends to bring forth

in evil men, sooner or later, at the fated hour of birth, a young Hubris and that irresistible, unconquerable, unholy spirit, Recklessness,

and for the household black Curses, which resemble their parents.

But Righteousness shines in smoke-begrimed dwellings

and esteems the virtuous man. From gilded mansions, where men’s hands are foul, she departs with averted eyes and makes her way to pure homes; she does not worship the power

of wealth stamped counterfeit by the praise of men, and she guides all things to their proper end.

Enter Agamemnon and Cassandra, in a chariot, with a numerous retinue All hail, my King, sacker of Troy, off-spring of Atreus!

How shall I greet you? How shall I do you homage, not overshooting or running short of the due measure of courtesy? Many of mortal men put appearance before truth and thereby transgress the right.

Every one is ready to heave a sigh over the unfortunate, but no sting of true sorrow reaches the heart; and in seeming sympathy they join in others’ joy, forcing their faces into smiles.

But whoever is a discerning shepherd of his flock cannot be deceived by men’s eyes which, while they feign loyalty of heart, only fawn upon him with watery affection.[*] Now in the past, when you marshaled the army in Helen’s cause,

you were depicted in my eyes (for I will not hide it from you) most ungracefully and as not rightly guiding the helm of your mind in seeking through your sacrifices to bring courage to dying men.

But now, from the depth of my heart and with no lack of love ⋯ their toil is joy to those who have won success. In course of time you shall learn by enquiry who of your people has been an honest, and who an unfitting guardian of the State.

Argos first, as is right and proper, I greet, and her local gods who have helped me to my safe return and to the justice I exacted from Priam’s town. For listening to no pleadings by word of mouth, [*]without dissenting voice, they cast into the

bloody urn their ballots for the murderous destroying of Ilium; but to the urn of acquittal that no hand filled, Hope alone drew near. The smoke even now still declares the city’s fall. Destruction’s blasts still live, and

the embers, as they die, breathe forth rich fumes of wealth. For this success we should render to the gods a return in ever-mindful gratitude, seeing that we have thrown round the city the toils of vengeance, and in a woman’s cause it has been laid low by the fierce Argive beast,

brood of the horse,[*]a shield-armed folk, that launched its leap when the Pleiades waned. Vaulting over its towered walls, the ravening lion lapped up his fill of princely blood. For the gods then I have stretched out this prelude.

But, touching your sentiments—which I heard and still bear in memory—I both agree and you have in me an advocate. For few there are among men in whom it is inborn to admire without envy a friend’s good fortune. For the venom of malevolence settles upon the heart and

doubles the burden of him who suffers from that plague: he is himself weighed down by his own calamity, and groans to see another’s prosperity. From knowledge—for well I know the mirror of companionship—I may call a shadow of a shade

those who feigned exceeding loyalty to me.[*]Only Odysseus, the very man who sailed against his will, once harnessed, proved my zealous yoke-fellow. This I affirm of him whether he is alive or dead. But, for the rest, in what concerns the State and public worship,

we shall appoint open debates and consider. Where all goes well, we must take counsel so that it may long endure; but whenever there is need of healing remedy, we will by kind appliance of cautery or the knife

endeavor to avert the mischief of the disease. And now I will pass to my palace halls and to my household hearth, and first of all pay greeting to the gods. They who sent me forth have brought me home again. May victory, now that it has attended me, remain ever with me constant to the end! He descends from his chariot; enter Clytaemestra, attended by maidservants carrying purple tapestries

Citizens of Argos, you Elders present here, I shall not be ashamed to confess in your presence my fondness for my husband—with time diffidence dies away in humans. Untaught by others, I can tell of my own weary life

all the long while my husband was beneath Ilium’s walls. First and foremost, it is a terrible evil for a wife to sit forlorn at home, severed from her husband, always hearing many malignant rumors, and for one messenger after another

to come bearing tidings of disaster, each worse than the last, and cry them to the household. And as for wounds, had my husband received so many as rumor kept pouring into the house, no net would have been pierced so full of holes as he. Or if he had died as often as reports claimed,

then truly he might have had three bodies, a second Geryon,[*]and have boasted of having taken on him a triple cloak of earth ample that above, of that below I speak not, one death for each different shape. Because of such malignant tales as these,

many times others have had to loose the high-hung halter from my neck, held in its strong grip. It is for this reason, in fact, that our boy, Orestes, does not stand here beside me, as he should—he in whom rest the pledges of my love and yours. Nor should you think this strange.