Translator’s preface
 
 
 MAY I be permitted to chat a little, by way of recreation,
 at the end of a somewhat toilsome and perhaps fruitless
 adventure?
 If, because of the immense fame of the following
 Tragedy, I wished to acquaint myself with it, and could
 only do so by the help of a translator, I should require
 him to be literal at every cost save that of absolute
 violence to our language. The use of certain allowable
 constructions which, happening to be out of daily favour,
 are all the more appropriate to archaic workmanship, is
 no violence: but I would be tolerant for once,—in the
 case of so immensely famous an original,—of even a
 clumsy attempt to furnish me with the very turn of each
 phrase in as Greek a fashion as English will bear: while,
 with respect to amplifications and embellishments,—anything rather than, with the good farmer, experience that
 most signal of mortifications, to gape for Aeschylus and
 get Theognis. I should especially decline,—what may
 appear to brighten up a passage,—the employment of a
 new word for some old one— πόνος , or μέγας , or τέλος ,
 with its congeners, recurring four times in three lines:
 for though such substitution may be in itself perfectly
 justifiable, yet this exercise of ingenuity ought to be
 within the competence of the unaided English reader
 if he likes to show himself ingenious. Learning Greek
 teaches Greek, and nothing else: certainly not common
 sense, if that have failed to precede the teaching. Further,—if I obtained a mere strict bald version of thing
 by thing, or at least word pregnant with thing, I should
 hardly look for an impossible transmission of the reputed
 magniloquence and sonority of the Greek; and this with
 the less regret, inasmuch as there is abundant musicality
 elsewhere, but nowhere else than in his poem the ideas
 of the poet. And lastly, when presented with these
 ideas, I should expect the result to prove very hard
 reading indeed if it were meant to resemble Aeschylus,
 ξυμβαλεῖν οὐ ῥᾴδιος (Frogs 931) , not easy to understand, in the
 opinion of his stoutest advocate among the ancients;
 while, I suppose, even modern scholarship sympathizes
 with that early declaration of the redoubtable Salmasius,
 when, looking about for an example of the truly obscure
 for the benefit of those who found obscurity in the sacred
 books, he protested that this particular play leaves them
 all behind in this respect, with their Hebraisms, Syriasms,
 Hellenisms, and the whole of such bag and baggage. Quis Aeschylum possit affirmare Graece nunc scienti magis
 patere explicabilem quam Evangelia aut Epistolas Apostolicas?
 Unus ejus Agamemnon obscuritate superat quantum est librorum
 sacrorum cum suis Hebraismis et Syriasmis et tota Hellenisticae
 supellectili vel farragine. SALMASIUS de Hellenistica, Epist. Dedic. 
 For, over and above the purposed ambiguity of the Chorus,
 the text is sadly corrupt, probably interpolated, and certainly mutilated; and no unlearned person enjoys the
 scholar’s privilege of trying his fancy upon each obstacle
 whenever he comes to a stoppage, and effectually clearing the way by suppressing what seems to lie in it.
 All I can say for the present performance is, that I
 have done as I would be done by, if need were. Should
 anybody, without need, honour my translation by a comparison with the original, I beg him to observe that,
 following no editor exclusively, I keep to the earlier
 readings so long as sense can be made out of them, but
 disregard, I hope, little of importance in recent criticism
 so far as I have fallen in with it. Fortunately, the
 poorest translation, provided only it be faithful,—though
 it reproduce all the artistic confusion of tenses, moods,
 and persons, with which the original teems,—will not
 only suffice to display what an eloquent friend maintains
 to be the all-in-all of poetry— the action of the piece —
 but may help to illustrate his assurance that the Greeks
 are the highest models of expression, the unapproached
 masters of the grand style: their expression is so excellent because it is so admirably kept in its right degree
 of prominence, because it is so simple and so well subordinated, because it draws its force directly from the
 pregnancy of the matter which it conveys . . . not a
 word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown in,
 stroke on stroke! Poems by Matthew Arnold , Preface. So may all happen!
 Just a word more on the subject of my spelling—in a
 transcript from the Greek and there exclusively—Greek
 names and places precisely as does the Greek author. I
 began this practice, with great innocency of intention,
 some six-and-thirty years ago. Leigh Hunt, I remember,
 was accustomed to speak of his gratitude, when ignorant
 of Greek, to those writers (like Goldsmith) who had
 obliged him by using English characters, so that he
 might relish, for instance, the smooth quality of such a
 phrase as hapalunetai galené; he said also that Shelley
 was indignant at Firenze having displaced the Dantesque Fiorenza, and would contemptuously English
 the intruder Firence. I supposed I was doing a simple
 thing enough: but there has been till lately much astonishment
 at os and us , ai and oi , representing the same
 letters in Greek. Of a sudden, however, whether in
 translation or out of it, everybody seems committing the
 offence, although the adoption of u for v still presents
 such difficulty that it is a wonder how we have hitherto
 escaped Eyripides. But there existed a sturdy Briton
 who, Ben Jonson informs us, wrote The Life of the
 Emperor Anthony Pie — whom we now acquiesce in as
 Antoninus Pius: for with time and patience the mulberry
 leaf becomes satin. Yet there is, on all sides, much
 profession of respect for what Keats called vowelled
 Greek — consonanted, one would expect; and, in a
 criticism upon a late admirable translation of something
 of my own, it was deplored that, in a certain verse corresponding in measure to the fourteenth of the sixth
 Pythian Ode, neither Professor Jebb in his Greek, nor
 Mr. Browning in his English, could emulate that matchlessly musical γόνον ἰδὼν κάλλιστον ἀνδρῶν (Pyth. 4.123) . Now,
 undoubtedly, Seeing her son the fairest of men has
 more sense than sound to boast of: but then, would not
 an Italian roll us out Rimirando il figliuolo bellissimo
 degli uomini! whereat Pindar, no less than Professor
 Jebb and Mr. Browning, τριακτῆρος οἴχεται τυχών (Ag. 171) .
 It is recorded in the annals of Art Lettres à un jeune Prince, traduites du Suédois . that there was
 once upon a time, practising so far north as Stockholm , a
 painter and picture-cleaner — sire of a less unhappy son
 — Old Muytens: and the annalist, Baron de Tessé, has
 not concealed his profound dissatisfaction at Old Muytens’
 conceit to have himself had something to do with the
 work of whatever master of eminence might pass through
 his hands. Whence it was,—the Baron goes on to
 deplore,—that much detriment was done to that excellent
 piece The Recognition of Achilles, by Rubens, through
 the perversity of Old Muytens, who must needs take on
 him to beautify every nymph of the twenty by the bestowment of a widened eye and an enlarged mouth. I,
 at least, have left eyes and mouths everywhere as I found
 them, and this conservatism is all that claims praise for —
 what is, after all, ἀκέλευστος ἄμισθος ἀοιδά (Ag. 979) . No, neither
 uncommanded nor unrewarded : since it was commanded of me by my venerated friend Thomas Carlyle,
 and rewarded will it indeed become if I am permitted to
 dignify it by the prefatory insertion of his dear and noble
 name.
 
 
 R. B. 
 LONDON : October 1st, 1877. 
 
 
 
 
 Warder. Choros of Old Men. KLUTAIMNESTRA. TALTHUBIOS, AGAMEMNON. KASSANDRA. AIGISTHOS. 
 WARDER. The gods I ask deliverance from these labours, Watch of a year’s length whereby, slumbering through it On the Atreidai’s roofs on elbow, — dog-like — I know of nightly star-groups the assemblage, And those that bring to men winter and summer Bright dynasts, as they pride them in the aether — Stars, when they wither, and the uprisings of them. And now on ward I wait the torch’s token, The glow of fire, shall bring from Troia message And word of capture: so prevails audacious The man’s-way-planning hoping heart of woman. But when I, driven from night-rest, dew-drenched hold to This couch of mine — not looked upon by visions, Since fear instead of sleep still stands beside me, So as that fast I fix in sleep no eyelids — And when to sing or chirp a tune I fancy, For slumber such song-remedy infusing, I wail then, for this House’s fortune groaning, Not, as of old, after the best ways governed. Now, lucky be deliverance from these labours, At good news — the appearing dusky fire! O hail, thou lamp of night, a day-long lightness Revealing, and of dances the ordainment! Halloo, halloo! To Agamemnon’s wife I show, by shouting, That, from bed starting up at once, i’ the household Joyous acclaim, good-omened to this torch-blaze, She send aloft, if haply Ilion ’s city Be taken, as the beacon boasts announcing.