Agamemnon
Aeschylus
Aeschylus, Volume 2. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1926.
- Ah, ah! Oh, oh, the agony!
- Once more the dreadful throes of true prophecy whirl and distract me with their ill-boding onset. Do you see them there—sitting before the house—young creatures like phantoms of dreams? Children, they seem, slaughtered by their own kindred,
- their hands full of the meat of their own flesh; they are clear to my sight, holding their vitals and their inward parts (piteous burden!), which their father tasted. For this cause I tell you that a strengthless lion, wallowing in his bed, plots vengeance,
- a watchman waiting (ah me!) for my master’s coming home—yes, my master, for I must bear the yoke of slavery. The commander of the fleet and the overthrower of Ilium little knows what deeds shall be brought to evil accomplishment by the hateful hound, whose tongue licked his hand, who stretched forth her ears in gladness,
- like treacherous Ate. Such boldness has she, a woman to slay a man. What odious monster shall I fitly call her? An Amphisbaena[*](Amphisbaena, a fabulous snake moving both ways, backwards and forwards. Tennyson’s an amphisbaena, each end a sting, reproduces Pliny’s description.)? Or a Scylla, tenanting the rocks, a pest to mariners,
- a raging, devil’s mother, breathing relentless war against her husband? And how the all-daring woman raised a shout of triumph, as when the battle turns, the while she feigned to joy at his safe return! And yet, it is all one, whether or not I am believed. What does it matter?
- What is to come, will come. And soon you, yourself present here, shall with great pity pronounce me all too true a prophetess.
- Thyestes’ banquet on his children’s flesh I understood, and I tremble. Terror possesses me as I hear the truth, nothing fashioned out of falsehood to resemble truth.
- But as for the rest I heard I am thrown off the track.
- I say you shall look upon Agamemnon dead.
- To words propitious, miserable girl, lull your speech.
- Over what I tell no healing god presides.
- No, if it is to be; but may it not be so!
- You do but pray; their business is to slay.
- What man is he that contrived this wickedness?
- Surely you must have missed the meaning of my prophecies.
- I do not understand the scheme of him who is to do the deed.
- And yet all too well I understand the Greek language.
- So too do the Pythian oracles; yet they are hard to understand.
- Oh, oh! What fire! It comes upon me! Woe, woe! Lycean Apollo! Ah me, ah me! This two-footed lioness, who mates with a wolf in the absence of the noble lion,