Agamemnon (958-1065)

There is the sea (and who shall drain it dry?) producing stain of abundant purple, costly as silver

and ever fresh, with which to dye our clothes; and of these our house, through the gods, has ample store; it knows no poverty. Vestments enough I would have devoted to be trampled underfoot had it been so ordered in the seat of oracles

when I was devising a ransom for your life. For if the root still lives, leaves come again to the house and spread their over-reaching shade against the scorching dog star; so, now that you have come to hearth and home, you show that warmth has come in wintertime;

and again, when Zeus makes wine from the bitter grape,[*]then immediately there is coolness in the house when its rightful lord occupies his halls. As Agamemnon enters the palace O Zeus, Zeus, you who bring things to fulfilment, fulfill my prayers! May you see to that which you mean to fulfill! Exit

Why does this terror so persistently hover standing before my prophetic soul? Why does my song, unbidden and unfed, chant strains of augury? Why does assuring confidence not sit on my heart’s throne

and spurn the terror like an uninterpretable dream? But Time has collected the sands of the shore upon the cables cast thereon

when the shipborn army sped forth for Ilium.[*]

Of their coming home I learn with my own eyes and need no other witness.

Yet still my soul within me, self-inspired, intones the lyreless dirge of the avenging spirit, and cannot wholly win its customary confidence of hope.

Not for nothing is my bosom disquieted as my heart throbs against my justly fearful breast in eddying tides that warn of some event. But I pray that my expectation may fall out false

and not come to fulfilment.

Truly blooming health does not rest content within its due bounds; for disease ever presses close against it, its neighbor with a common wall.[*]

So human fortune, when holding onward in straight course strikes upon a hidden reef. And yet, if with a well-measured throw, caution heaves overboard

a portion of the gathered wealth, the whole house, with woe overladen, does not founder nor engulf the hull.[*]Truly the generous gift from Zeus,

rich and derived from yearly furrows, makes an end of the plague of famine.

But a man’s blood, once it has first fallen by murder to earth

in a dark tide—who by magic spell shall call it back? Even he[*]who possessed the skill to raise from the dead—did not Zeus make an end of him as warning?

And unless one fate ordained of the gods restrains another fate from winning the advantage, my heart would outstrip my tongue and pour forth its fears[*];

but, as it is, it mutters only in the dark, distressed and hopeless ever to unravel anything in time when my soul’s aflame.

Get inside, you too, Cassandra[*]; since not unkindly has Zeus appointed you to share the holy water of a house where you may take your stand, with many another slave, at the altar of the god who guards its wealth. Get down from the car and do not be too proud;

for even Alcmene’s son[*], men say, once endured to be sold and eat the bread of slavery. But if such fortune should of necessity fall to the lot of any, there is good cause for thankfulness in having masters of ancient wealth; for they who, beyond their hope, have reaped a rich harvest of possessions,

are cruel to their slaves in every way, even exceeding due measure. You have from us such usage as custom warrants.

It is to you she has been speaking and clearly. Since you are in the toils of destiny, perhaps you will obey, if you are so inclined; but perhaps you will not.

Well, if her language is not strange and foreign, even as a swallow’s, I must speak within her comprehension and move her to comply.

Go with her. With things as they now stand, she gives you the best. Do as she bids and leave your seat in the car.

I have no time to waste with this woman here outside; for already the victims stand by the central hearth awaiting the sacrifice—a joy we never expected to be ours. As for you, if you will take any part, make no delay.

But if, failing to understand, you do not catch my meaning, then, instead of speech, make a sign with your barbarian hand.

It is an interpreter and a plain one that the stranger seems to need. She bears herself like a wild creature newly captured.

No, she is mad and listens to her wild mood,

since she has come here from a newly captured city, and does not know how to tolerate the bit until she has foamed away her fretfulness in blood. No! I will waste no more words upon her to be insulted thus. Exit