Agamemnon
Aeschylus
Aeschylus. The poetical works of Robert Browning, Volume 13. Browning, Robert, translator; Berdoe, Edward, editor. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1889.
- Fatherland, house and home has mowed to atoms:
- Debts the Priamidai have paid twice over.
- Hail, herald from the army of Achaians!
- I hail: — to die, will gainsay gods no longer!
- Love of this fatherland did exercise thee?
- So that I weep, at least, with joy, my eyes full.
- What, of this gracious sickness were ye gainers?
- How now? instructed, I this speech shall master.
- For those who loved you back, with longing stricken.
- This land yearned for the yearning army, say’st thou?
- So as to set me oft, from dark mind, groaning.
- Whence came this ill mind — hatred to the army?
- Of old, I use, for mischiefs physic, silence.
- And how, the chiefs away, did you fear any?
- So that now, — late thy word, — much joy were — dying!
- For well have things been worked out: these, — in much time,
- Some of them, one might say, had luck in falling,
- While some were faulty: since who, gods excepted,
- Goes, through the whole time of his life, ungrieving?
- For labours should I tell of, and bad lodgments,