It is like a breath from a charnel-house.
Chorus
You are not speaking of proud Syrian incense for the house.
Cassandra
Nay, I will go to bewail also within the palace my own and Agamemnon’s fate. Enough of life!Alas, my friends, not with vain terror do I shrink, as a bird that fears a bush. After I am dead, bear witness for me of this—when for me, a woman, another woman shall be slain, and for an ill-wedded man another man shall fall.I claim this favor from you now that my hour is come.
Chorus
Poor woman, I pity you for your death foretold.
Cassandra
Yet once more I would like to speak, but not a dirge. I pray to the sun, in presence of his latest light, that my enemiesOf this corrupt passage no emendation yet made commends itself irresistibly. The translation is based on the reading ἐχθροὺς φόνευσιν τοὺς ἐμούς, where φόνευσιν is due to Bothe, the rest to J. Pearson.may at the same time pay to my avengers a bloody penalty forslaughtering a slave, an easy prey. Alas for human fortune! When prosperous, a mere shadow can overturn itSome editors, altering the passage to σκιᾷ τις ἂν πρέψειεν, one may liken it to a shadow, understand shadow either literally or as a sketch.; if misfortune strikes, the dash of a wet sponge blots out the drawing.And this last I deem far more pitiable than that. Enters the palace
Chorus
It is the nature of all human kind to be unsatisfied with prosperity. From stately halls none bars it with warning voice that utters the words Enter no more.
So the Blessed Ones have granted to our prince to capture Priam’s town; and, divinely-honored, he returns to his home. Yet if he now must pay the penalty for the blood shed by others before him, and by dying for the deadhe is to bring to pass retribution of other deathsIf Agamemnon is now to pay the price for his father’s killing of Thyestes’ children, and by his own death is to atone for his slaying of Iphigenia, and is thus to bring about requital consisting in yet other deaths (Clytaemestra and Aegisthus)., what mortal man, on hearing this, can boast that he was born with scatheless destiny? A shriek is heard from within
Agamemnon
Alas! I am struck deep with a mortal blow!
Chorus
Silence! Who is this that cries out, wounded by a mortal blow?
AgamemnonAnd once again, alas! I am struck by a second blow.
Chorus
The deed is done, it seems—to judge by the groans of the king. But come, let us take counsel together if there is perhaps some safe plan of action.
The members of the Chorus deliver their opinion on the course to be taken—I tell you my advice: summon the townsfolk to bring rescue here to the palace.
—To my thinking we must burst in and charge them with the deed while the sword is still dripping in their hands.
—I, too, am for taking part in some such plan, and vote for action of some sort. It is no time to keep on delaying.
—It is plain. Their opening actmarks a plan to set up a tyranny in the State.
—Yes, because we are wasting time, while they, trampling underfoot that famous name, Delay, allow their hands no slumber.
—I know not what plan I could hit on to propose. It is the doer’s part likewise to do the planning.
—I too am of this mind, for I know no way to bring the dead back to life by mere words.
—What! To prolong our lives shall we thus submit to the rule of those defilers of the house?
—No, it is not to be endured. No, death would be better,