Agamemnon
Aeschylus
Aeschylus, Volume 2. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1926.
- 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.[*](Abounding health, ignoring its limitations, is separated from disease only by a slight dividing line. The suppressed thought is that remedies, if applied at the right time, may save the body.)
- 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.[*](The house of Agamemnon, full of calamity, is likened to an overloaded ship, which will founder if some part of its freight is not jettisoned. By confusion of the symbol and the thing signified, δόμος is boldly said to sink its 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[*](Aesculapius, who was blasted by the thunderbolt of Zeus for this offence.)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[*](The further expression of their forebodings is checked by the desperate hope that since divine forces sometimes clash, the evil destiny of Agamemnon may yet be averted by a superior fate, which they dimly apprehend will ordain his deliverance from the consequences of his shedding the blood of Iphigenia.);
- 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[*](I have retained the ordinary form of the name in Greek and English.); 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[*](Heracles, because of his murder of Iphitus, was sold as a slave to Omphale, queen of Lydia.), 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