October 24 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day
Clytemnestra Meets Her Rival
Cassandra knew through a prophetic vision that a sword would pierce her heart. Agamemnon, her captor, took her to his home where an avenging wife, Clytemnestra, awaited. The tragedies of the doom that requited the sins of the House of Atreus are among the most powerful ever written.
From the 1930 Reading Guide
Agamemnon
Æschylus
Cassandra
Woe for my city, woe for Ilion’s fall!Father, how oft with sanguine stainStreamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slainThat heaven might guard our wall!But all was shed in vain.Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,And I—ah burning heart!—shall soon lie low as well.
Chorus
Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!Alas, what power of illSits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tellIn tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?Some woe—I know not what—must close thy piteous wail.
Cassandra
List! for no more the presage of my soul,Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil;But as the morning wind blows clear the east,More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,And as against the low bright line of dawnHeaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,So in the clearing skies of prescienceDawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side—I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.Within this house a choir abidinglyChants in harsh unison the chant of ill;Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,Man’s blood for wine, and revel in the halls,Departing never, Furies of the home.They sit within, they chant the primal curse,Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,The brother’s couch, the love incestuousThat brought forth hatred to the ravisher.Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?They called me once, The prophetess of lies,The wandering hag, the pest of every door—Attest ye now, She knows in very soothThe house’s curse, the storied infamy.
Chorus
Yet how should oath—how loyally soe’erI swear it—aught avail thee? In good sooth,My wonder meets thy claim: I stand amazedThat thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,Dost as a native know and tell arightTales of a city of an alien tongue.
Cassandra
That is my power—a boon Apollo gave.
Chorus
God though he were, yearning for mortal maid?
Cassandra
Ay! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.
Chorus
Such finer sense suits not with slavery.
Cassandra
He strove to win me, panting for my love.
Chorus
Came ye by compact unto bridal joys?
Cassandra
Nay—for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.
Chorus
Wert thou already dowered with prescience?
Cassandra
Yea—prophetess to Troy of all her doom.
Chorus
How left thee then Apollo’s wrath unscathed?
Cassandra
I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.
Chorus
Not so—to us at least thy words seem sooth.
Cassandra
Woe for me, woe! Again the agony—Dread pain that sees the future all too wellWith ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.Behold ye—yonder on the palace roofThe spectre-children sitting—look, such thingsAs dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,Horrible shadows, that a kinsman’s handHath marked with murder, and their arms are full—A rueful burden—see, they hold them up,The entrails upon which their father fed!
For this, for this, I say there plots revengeA coward lion, couching in the lair—Guarding the gate against my master’s foot—My master—mine—I bear the slave’s yoke now,And he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,Knows not the fawning treachery of tongueOf this thing false and dog-like—how her speechGlozes and sleeks her purpose, till she winBy ill fate’s favour the desirèd chance,Moving like Atè to a secret end.O aweless soul! the woman slays her lord—Woman? what loathsome monster of the earthWere fit comparison? The double snake—Or Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman’s bane,Girt round about with rocks? some hag of hell,Raving a truceless curse upon her kin?Hark—even now she cries exultinglyThe vengeful cry that tells of battle turned—How fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored!Nay then, believe me not: what skills beliefOr disbelief? Fate works its will—and thouWilt see and say in ruth, Her tale was true.
Chorus
Ah—’tis Thyestes’ feast on kindred flesh—I guess her meaning and with horror thrill,Hearing no shadow’d hint of th’ o’er-true tale,But its full hatefulness: yet, for the rest,Far from the track I roam, and know no more.
Cassandra
’Tis Agamemnon’s doom thou shalt behold.
Chorus
Peace, hapless woman, to thy boding words!
Cassandra
Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.
Chorus
Ay—were such doom at hand—which God forbid!
Cassandra
Thou prayest idly—these move swift to slay.
Chorus
What man prepares a deed of such despite?
Cassandra
Fool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.
Chorus
Deviser and device are dark to me.
Cassandra
Dark! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.
Chorus
Ay—but in thine, as in Apollo’s strains,Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.
Cassandra
Ah ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now—Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!
Lo, how the woman-thing, the lionessCouched with the wolf—her noble mate afar—Will slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch,She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lordWith double death—his recompense for me!Ay, ’tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel!Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all—I stamp you into death, or e’er I die—Down, to destruction!Thus I stand revenged—Go, crown some other with a prophet’s woe.Look! it is he, it is Apollo’s selfRending from me the prophet-robe he gave.God! while I wore it yet, thou saw’st me mockedThere at my home by each malicious mouth—To all and each, an undivided scorn.The name alike and fate of witch and cheat—Woe, poverty, and famine—all I bore;And at this last the god hath brought me hereInto death’s toils, and what his love had made,His hate unmakes me now: and I shall standNot now before the altar of my home,But me a slaughter-house and block of bloodShall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.Yet shall the gods have heed of me who die,For by their will shall one requite my doom.He, to avenge his father’s blood outpoured,Shall smite and slay with matricidal hand.Ay, he shall come—tho’ far away he roam,A banished wanderer in a stranger’s land—To crown his kindred’s edifice of ill,Called home to vengeance by his father’s fall:Thus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.And now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,Since first mine Ilion has found its fateAnd I beheld, and those who won the wallPass to such issue as the gods ordain?I too will pass and like them dare to die!
[Turns and looks upon the palace door.
Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail!Grant me one boon—a swift and mortal stroke,That all unwrung by pain, with ebbing bloodShed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.
Chorus
Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,Long was thy prophecy: but if arightThou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom,As fronts the knife some victim, heaven-controlled?
Cassandra
Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.
Chorus
Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.
Cassandra
The day is come—flight were small gain to me!
Chorus
O brave endurance of a soul resolved!
Cassandra
That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.
Chorus
All fame is happy, even famous death.
Cassandra
Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye!
[She moves to enter the house, then starts back.
Chorus
What fear is this that scares thee from the house?
Cassandra
Pah!
Chorus
What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?
Cassandra
Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.
Chorus
How? ’tis the smell of household offerings.
Cassandra
’Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.
Chorus
Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?
Cassandra
Nay, let me pass within to cry aloudThe monarch’s fate and mine—enough of life.Ah friends!Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,That not as birds that shun the bush and screamI moan in idle terror. This attestWhen for my death’s revenge another dies,A woman for a woman, and a manFalls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.Grant me this boon—the last before I die.
Chorus
Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.
Cassandra
Once more one utterance, but not of wail,Though for my death—and then I speak no more.
Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance callsTo slay their kindred’s slayers, quit withalThe death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.
Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away—And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.
[Exit into the palace.
Chorus
Too true it is! our mortal stateWith bliss is never satiate,And none, before the palace highAnd stately of prosperity,Cries to us with a voice of fear,Away! ’tis ill to enter here!
Lo! this our lord hath trodden down,By grace of heaven, old Priam’s town,And praised as god he stands once moreOn Argos’ shore!Yet now—if blood shed long agoCries out that other blood shall flow—His life-blood, his, to pay againThe stern requital of the slain—Peace to that braggart’s vaunting vain,Who, having heard the chieftain’s tale,Yet boasts of bliss untouched by bale!
[A loud cry from within.
Voice of Agamemnon
O I am sped—a deep, a mortal blow.
Chorus
Listen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony?
Voice of Agamemnon
O! O! again, another, another blow!
Chorus
The bloody act is over—I have heard the monarch’s cry—Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die.
One of the Chorus
’Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,“Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!”
Another
Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.
Another
Such will is mine, and what thou say’st I say:Swiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.
Another
Ay, for ’tis plain, this prelude of their songForetells its close in tyranny and wrong.
Another
Behold, we tarry—but thy name, Delay,They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.
Another
I know not what ’twere well to counsel now—Who wills to act, ’tis his to counsel how.
Another
Thy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain,I have no words to bring his life again.
Another
What? e’en for life’s sake, bow us to obeyThese house-defilers and their tyrant sway?
Another
Unmanly doom! ’twere better far to die—Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.
Another
Think well—must cry or sign of woe or painFix our conclusion that the chief is slain?
Another
Such talk befits us when the deed we see—Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.
Leader of the Chorus
I read one will from many a diverse word,To know aright, how stands it with our lord!
[The scene opens, disclosing Clytemnestra, who comes forward. The body of Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver; the corpse of Cassandra is laid beside him.
Clytemnestra
Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oftThe glozing word that led me to my will—Hear how I shrink not to unsay it all!How else should one who willeth to requiteEvil for evil to an enemyDisguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,Not to be overleaped, a net of doom?This is the sum and issue of old strife,Of me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.All is avowed, and as I smote I standWith foot set firm upon a finished thing!I turn not to denial: thus I wroughtSo that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,I trapped him with inextricable toils,The ill abundance of a baffling robe;Then smote him, once, again—and at each woundHe cried aloud, then as in death relaxedEach limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.And thus he fell, and as he passed away,Spirit with body chafed; each dying breathFlung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,And the dark sprinklings of the rain of bloodFell upon me; and I was fain to feelThat dew—not sweeter is the rain of heavenTo cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.
Elders of Argos—since the thing stands so,I bid you to rejoice, if such your will:Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,And well I ween, if seemly it could be,’Twere not ill done to pour libations here,Justly—ay, more than justly—on his corpseWho filled his home with curses as with wine,And thus returned to drain the cup he filled.
Chorus
I marvel at thy tongue’s audacity,To vaunt thus loudly o’er a husband slain.
Clytemnestra
Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will,And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout,Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you,Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,Even as ye list,—I reck not of your words.Lo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,My husband once—and him this hand of mine,A right contriver, fashioned for his death.Behold the deed!
Chorus
Woman, what deadly birth,What venomed essence of the earthOr dark distilment of the wave,To thee such passion gave,Nerving thine handTo set upon thy brow this burning crown,The curses of thy land?Our king by thee cut off, hewn down!Go forth—they cry—accursèd and forlorn,To hate and scorn!
Clytemnestra
O ye just men, who speak my sentence now,The city’s hate, the ban of all my realm!Ye had no voice of old to launch such doomOn him, my husband, when he held as lightMy daughter’s life as that of sheep or goat,One victim from the thronging fleecy fold!Yea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,The well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,To lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.That deed of his, I say, that stain and shame,Had rightly been atoned by banishment;But ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judgeThis deed of mine that doth affront your ears.Storm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,That I am ready, if your hand prevailAs mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway:If God say nay, it shall be yours to learnBy chastisement a late humility.
Chorus
Bold is thy craft, and proudThy confidence, thy vaunting loud;Thy soul, that chose a murd’ress’ fate,Is all with blood elate—Maddened to knowThe blood not yet avenged, the damnèd spotCrimson upon thy brow.But Fate prepares for thee thy lot—Smitten as thou didst smite, without a friend,To meet thine end!
Page 64 ends inside a choral stanza; the reading runs on to the stanza’s end, three lines on page 65.
Volume 8, pages 52–64 · See the scanned page on archive.org
This is the reading for October 24 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 82. There the assignment reads “Vol. 8, pp. 52–64.” Read it in the guide.