The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation-Bearers & the Furies (17 page)

 

LEADER:

Spoken like a man, my lady, loyal,
full of self-command. I’ve heard your sign
and now your vision.

 

Now to praise the gods.
The joy is worth the labour.

 

CHORUS:

O Zeus my king and Night, dear Night,
queen of the house who covers us with glories,
you slung your net on the towers of Troy,
neither young nor strong could leap
the giant dredge net of slavery,
all-embracing ruin.
I adore you, iron Zeus of the guests
and your revenge - you drew your longbow
year by year to a taut full draw
till one bolt, not falling short
or arching over the stars,
could split the mark of Paris!

 

The sky stroke of god! - it is all Troy’s to tell,
but even I can trace it to its cause:
god does as god decrees.
And still some say
that heaven would never stoop to punish men
who trample the lovely grace of things
untouchable. How wrong they are!
A curse bums bright on crime -
full-blown, the father’s crimes will blossom,
burst into the son’s.
Let there be less suffering . . .
give us the sense to live on what we need.

 

Bastions of wealth
are no defence for the man
who treads the grand altar of Justice
down and out of sight.

 

Persuasion, maddening child of Ruin
overpowers him - Ruin plans it all.
And the wound will smoulder on,
there is no cure,
a terrible brilliance kindles on the night.
He is bad bronze scraped on a touchstone:
put to the test, the man goes black.
Like the boy who chases
a bird on the wing, brands his city,
brings it down and prays,
but the gods are deaf
to the one who turns to crime, they tear him down.

 

So Paris learned:
he came to Atreus’ house
and shamed the tables spread for guests,
he stole away the queen.

 

And she left her land
chaos,
clanging shields,
companions tramping, bronze prows, men in bronze,
and she came to Troy with a dowry, death,
strode through the gates
defiant in every stride,
as prophets of the house looked on and wept,
‘Oh the halls and the lords of war,
the bed and the fresh prints of love.
I see him, unavenging, unavenged,
the stun of his desolation is so clear -
he longs for the one who lies across the sea
until her phantom seems to sway the house.

 

Her curving images,
her beauty hurts her lord,
the eyes starve and the touch
of love is gone,

‘and radiant dreams are passing in the night,
the memories throb with sorrow, joy with pain . . .
it is pain to dream and see desires
slip through the arms,
a vision lost for ever
winging down the moving drifts of sleep.’
So he grieves at the royal hearth
yet others’ grief is worse, far worse.
All through Greece for those who flocked to war
they are holding back the anguish now,
you can feel it rising now in every house;
I tell you there is much to tear the heart.

War, War, the great gold-broker of corpses
holds the balance of the battle on his spear!
Home from the pyres he sends them,
home from Troy to the loved ones,
heavy with tears, the urns brimmed full,
the heroes return in gold-dust,
dear, light ash for men; and they weep,
they praise them, ‘He had skill in the swordplay,’
‘He went down so tall in the onslaught,’
‘All for another’s woman.’ So they mutter
in secret and the rancour steals
towards our staunch defenders, Atreus’ sons.

 

And there they ring the walls, the young,
the lithe, the handsome hold the graves
they won in Troy; the enemy earth
rides over those who conquered.

 

The people’s voice is heavy with hatred,
now the curses of the people must be paid,
and now I wait, I listen . . .
there - there is something breathing
under the night’s shroud. God takes aim
at the ones who murder many;
the swarthy Furies stalk the man
gone rich beyond all rights - with a twist
of fortune grind him down, dissolve him
into the blurring dead - there is no help.
The reach for power can recoil,
the bolt of god can strike you at a glance.

 

Make me rich with no man’s envy,
neither a raider of cities, no,
nor slave come face to face with life
overpowered by another.

 

- Fire comes and the news is good,
it races through the streets
but is it true? Who knows?
Or just another lie from heaven?

 

- Show us the man so childish, wonderstruck,
he’s fired up with the first torch,
then when the message shifts
he’s sick at heart.

 

- Just like a woman
to fill with thanks before the truth is clear.

 

- So gullible. Their stories spread like wildfire,
they fly fast and die faster;
rumours voiced by women come to nothing.

 

LEADER:

Soon we’ll know her fires for what they are,
her relay race of torches hand-to-hand
know if they’re real or just a dream,
the hope of a morning here to take our senses.
I see a herald running from the beach
and a victor’s spray of olive shades his eyes
and the dust he kicks, twin to the mud of Troy,
shows he has a voice - no kindling timber
on the cliffs, no signal-fires for him.
He can shout the news and give us joy,
or else . . . please, not that.
Bring it on,
good fuel to build the first good fires.
And if anyone calls down the worst on Argos
let him reap the rotten harvest of his mind.

 

HERALD:

Good Greek earth, the soil of my fathers!
Ten years out, and a morning brings me back.
All hopes snapped but one - I’m home at last.
Never dreamed I’d die in Greece, assigned
the narrow plot I love the best.
And now
I salute the land, the light of the sun,
our high lord Zeus and the king of Pytho -
no more arrows, master, raining on our heads!
At Scamander’s banks we took our share,
your longbow brought us down like plague.
Now come, deliver us, heal us - lord Apollo!
Gods of the market, here, take my salute.
And you, my Hermes, Escort,
loving Herald, the herald’s shield and prayer! -
And the shining dead of the land who launched the armies,
warm us home . . . we’re all the spear has left.

 

You halls of the kings, you roofs I cherish,
sacred seats - you gods that catch the sun,
if your glances ever shone on him in the old days,
greet him well - so many years are lost.
He comes, he brings us light in the darkness,
free for every comrade, Agamemnon lord of men.

 

Give him the royal welcome he deserves!
He hoisted the pickaxe of Zeus who brings revenge,
he dug Troy down, he worked her soil down,
the shrines of her gods and the high altars, gone! -
and the seed of her wide earth he ground to bits.
That’s the yoke he claps on Troy. The king,
the son of Atreus comes. The man is blest,
the one man alive to merit such rewards.

 

Neither Paris nor Troy, partners to the end,
can say their work outweighs their wages now.
Convicted of rapine, stripped of all his spoils,
and his father’s house and the land that gave it life—
he’s scythed them to the roots. The sons of Priam
pay the price twice over.

 

LEADER:

Welcome home
from the wars, herald, long live your joy.

 

HERALD:

Our
joy -
now I could die gladly. Say the word, dear gods.

 

LEADER:

Longing for your country left you raw?

 

HERALD:

The tears fill my eyes, for joy.

 

LEADER:

You too,
down with the sweet disease that kills a man
with kindness . . .

 

HERALD:

Go on, I don’t see what you—

 

LEADER :

Love
for the ones who love you—that’s what took you.

 

HERALD:

You mean
the land and the armies hungered for each other?

 

LEADER:

There were times I thought I’d faint with longing.

 

HERALD:

So anxious for the armies, why?

 

LEADER:

For years now,
only my silence kept me free from harm.

 

HERALD:

What,
with the kings gone did someone threaten you?

 

LEADER:

So much . . .
now as you say, it would be good to die.

 

HERALD:

True, we
have
done well.
Think back in the years and what have you?
A few runs of luck, a lot that’s bad.
Who but a god can go through life unmarked?

 

A long, hard pull we had, if I would tell it all.
The iron rations, penned in the gangways
hock by jowl like sheep. Whatever miseries
break a man, our quota, every sun-starved day.

 

Then on the beaches it was worse. Dug in
under the enemy ramparts - deadly going.
Out of the sky, out of the marshy flats
the dews soaked us, turned the ruts we fought from
into gullies, made our gear, our scalps
crawl with lice.
And talk of the cold,
the sleet to freeze the gulls, and the big snows
come avalanching down from Ida. Oh but the heat,
the sea and the windless noons, the swells asleep,
dropped to a dead calm . . .

 

But why weep now?
It’s over for us, over for them.
The dead can rest and never rise again;
no need to call their muster. We’re alive,
do we have to go on raking up old wounds?
Good-bye to all that. Glad I am to say it.

 

For us, the remains of the Greek contingents,
the good wins out, no pain can tip the scales,
not now. So shout this boast to the bright sun -
fitting it is - wing it over the seas and rolling earth:

 

‘Once when an Argive expedition captured Troy
they hauled these spoils back to the gods of Greece,
they bolted them high across the temple doors,
the glory of the past!’
And hearing that,
men will applaud our city and our chiefs,
and Zeus will have the hero’s share of fame -
he did the work.
That’s all I have to say.

 

LEADER:

I’m convinced, glad that I was wrong.
Never too old to learn; it keeps me young.
CLYTAEMNESTRA
enters with her women.
First the house and the queen, it’s their affair,
but I can taste the riches.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

I cried out long ago! -
for joy, when the first herald came burning
through the night and told the city’s fall.
And there were some who smiled and said,
‘A few fires persuade you Troy’s in ashes.
Women, women, elated over nothing.’

 

You made me seem deranged.
For all that I sacrificed - a woman’s way,
you’ll say - station to station on the walls
we lifted cries of triumph that resounded
in the temples of the gods. We lulled and blessed
the fires with myrrh and they consumed our victims.

But enough. Why prolong the story?
From the king himself I’ll gather all I need.
Now for the best way to welcome home
my lord, my good lord . . .
No time to lose!
What dawn can feast a woman’s eyes like this?
I can see the light, the husband plucked from war
by the Saving God and open wide the gates.

 

Tell him that, and have him come with speed,
the people’s darling — how they long for him.
And for his wife,
may he return and find her true at hall,
just as the day he left her, faithful to the last.
A watchdog gentle to him alone,

savage
to those who cross his path. I have not changed.
The strains of time can never break our seal.
In love with a new lord, in ill repute I am
as practised as I am in dyeing bronze.

 

That is my boast, teeming with the truth.
I am proud, a woman of my nobility -
I’d hurl it from the roofs!

 

LEADER:

She speaks well, but it takes no seer to know
she only says what’s right.

 

Wait, one thing.
Menelaus, is he home too, safe with the men?
The power of the land - dear king.

 

HERALD:

I doubt that lies will help my friends,
in the lean months to come.

 

LEADER:

Help us somehow, tell the truth as well.
But when the two conflict it’s hard to hide-
out with it.

 

HERALD:

He’s lost, gone from the fleets!
He and his ship, it’s true.

 

LEADER:

After you watched him
pull away from Troy? Or did some storm
attack you all and tear him off the line?

 

HERALD:

There,
like a marksman, the whole disaster cut to a word.

 

LEADER:

How do the escorts give him out - dead or alive?

 

HERALD:

No clear report. No one knows . . .
only the wheeling sun that heats the earth to life.

 

LEADER: