Agamemnon
Aeschylus
Aeschylus, Volume 2. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1926.
- Surely some malignant spirit, falling upon you with heavy swoop, moves you to chant your piteous woes fraught with death. But the end I am helpless to discover.
- And now, no more shall my prophecy peer forth from behind a veil like a new-wedded bride; but
- it will rush upon me clear as a fresh wind blowing against the sun’s uprising so as to dash against its rays, like a wave, a woe far mightier than mine. No more by riddles will I instruct you. And bear me witness, as, running close behind,
- I scent the track of crimes done long ago. For from this roof never departs a choir chanting in unison, but singing no harmonious tune; for it tells not of good. And so, gorged on human blood, so as to be the more emboldened, a revel-rout of kindred Furies haunts the house,
- hard to be drive away. Lodged within its halls they chant their chant, the primal sin; and, each in turn, they spurn with loathing a brother’s bed, for they bitterly spurn the one who defiled it.[*](Thyestes’ corruption of Aerope, wife of his brother Atreus.)Have I missed the mark, or, like a true archer, do I strike my quarry?
- Or am I prophet of lies, a door-to-door babbler? Bear witness upon your oath that I know the deeds of sin, ancient in story, of this house.
- How could an oath, a pledge although given in honor, effect any cure? Yet I marvel at you that,
- though bred beyond the sea, you speak truth of a foreign city, even as if you had been present there.
- The seer Apollo appointed me to this office.
- Can it be that he, a god, was smitten with desire?
- Before now I was ashamed to speak of this.
- In prosperity all take on airs.
- Oh, but he struggled to win me, breathing ardent love for me.
- Did you in due course come to the rite of marriage?
- I consented to Loxias but broke my word.
- Were you already possessed by the art inspired of the god?
- Already I prophesied to my countrymen all their disasters.
- How came it then that you were unharmed by Loxias’ wrath?
- Ever since that fault I could persuade no one of anything.
- And yet to us at least the prophecies you utter seem true enough.