The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation-Bearers & the Furies (26 page)

This way -
I want to butcher you - right across his body!
In life you thought he dwarfed my father -
Die
! -
go down with him forever !
You love this man,
the man you should have loved you hated.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

I gave you life. Let me grow old with you.

 

ORESTES:

What - kill my father, then you’d live with me?

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

Destiny had a hand in that, my child.

 

ORESTES:

This too: destiny is handing you your death.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA :

You have no fear of a mother’s curse, my son?

 

ORESTES:

Mother? You flung me to a life of pain.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

Never flung you, placed you in a comrade’s house.

 

ORESTES:

- Disgraced me, sold me, a freeborn father’s son.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

Oh? then name the price I took for you.

 

ORESTES:

I am ashamed to mention it in public.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

Please, and tell your father’s failings, too.

 

ORESTES:

Never judge him - he suffered, you sat here at home.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

It hurts women, being kept from men, my son.

 

ORESTES:

Perhaps . . . but the man slaves to keep them safe at home.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

- I see murder in your eyes, my child - mother’s murder I

 

ORESTES:

You are the murderer, not I - and you will kill yourself.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

Watch out - the hounds of a mother’s curse will hunt you
down.

 

ORESTES:

But how to escape a father’s if I fail?

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

I must be spilling live tears on a tomb of stone.

 

ORESTES:

Yes, my father’s destiny - it decrees your death.

 

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

Ai- you are the snake I bore - I gave you life!

 

ORESTES:

Yes!
That was the great seer, that terror in your dreams.
You killed and it was outrage - suffer outrage now.

 

LEADER:

I even mourn the victims’ double fates.
But Orestes fought, he reached the summit
of bloodshed here - we’d rather have it so.
The bright eye of the halls must never die.

 

CHORUS:

Justice came at last to the sons of Priam,
late but crushing vengeance, yes,
but to Agamemnon’s house returned
the double lion,
the double onslaught
drove to the hilt - the exile sped by god,
by Delphi’s just command that drove him home.

 

Lift the cry of triumph O! the master’s house
wins free of grief, free of the ones
who bled its wealth, the couple stained with murder,
free of Fate’s rough path.

 

He came back with a lust for secret combat,
stealthy, cunning vengeance, yes,
but his hand was steered in open fight
by god’s true daughter,
Right, Right we call her,
we and our mortal voices aiming well -
she breathes her fury, shatters all she hates.

 

Lift the cry of triumph O! the master’s house
wins free of grief, free of the ones
who bled its wealth, the couple stained with murder,
free of Fate’s rough path.

 

Apollo wills it so ! -
Apollo, clear from the Earth’s deep cleft
his voice came shrill, Now stealth will master stealth!’
And the pure god came down and healed our ancient wounds,
the heavens come, somehow, to lift our yoke of grief -
Now to praise the heavens’ just command.

 

Look, the light is breaking!
The huge chain that curbed the halls gives way.
Rise up, proud house, long, too long
your walls lay fallen, strewn along the earth.

 

Time brings all to birth -
soon Time will stride through the gates with blessings,
once the hearth bums off corruption, once
the house drives off the Furies. Look, the dice of Fate
fall well for all to see. We sing how fortune smiles -
the aliens in the house are routed out at last!

 

 

Look, the light is breaking!
The huge chain that curbed the halls gives way.
Rise up, proud house, long, too long
your walls lay fallen, strewn along the earth.

 

ORESTES:

Behold the double tyranny of our land!
They killed my father, stormed my fathers’ house.
They had their power when they held the throne.
Great lovers still, as you may read their fate.
True to their oath, hand in hand they swore
to kill my father, hand in hand to die.
Now they keep their word.

Look once more on this,
you who gather here to attend our crimes -
the master-plot that bound my wretched father,
shackled his ankles, manacled his hands.
Spread it out! Stand in a ring around it,
a grand shroud for a man.
Here, unfurl it
so the Father - no, not mine but the One
who watches over all, the Sun can behold
my mother’s godless work. So he may come,
my witness when the day of judgement comes,
that I pursued this bloody death with justice,
mother’s
death.
Aegisthus, why mention him?
The adulterer dies. An old custom, justice.
But she who plotted this horror against her husband,
she carried his children, growing in her womb
and she - I loved her once
and now I loathe, I have to loathe -
what is she?

Some moray eel, some viper born to rot her mate
with a single touch, no fang to strike him,
just the wrong, the reckless fury in her heart!

This - how can I dignify this . . . snare for a beast? -
sheath for a corpse’s feet?
This winding-sheet,
this tent for the bath of death!
No, a hunting net,
a coiling - what to call - ?
Foot-trap -
woven of robes . . .
why, this is perfect gear for the highwayman
who entices guests and robs them blind and plies
the trade of thieves. With a sweet lure like this
he’d hoist a hundred lives and warm his heart.

 

Live with such a woman, marry
her?
Sooner
the gods destroy me - die without an heir!

 

CHORUS:

Oh the dreadful work . . .
Death calls and she is gone.
But oh, for you, the survivor,
suffering is just about to bloom.

 

ORESTES:

Did she do the work or not? - Here, come close -
This shroud’s my witness, dyed with Aegisthus’ blade -
Look, the blood ran here, conspired with time to blot
the swirling dyes, the handsome old brocade.

Now I can praise you, now I am here to mourn.
You were my father’s death, great robe, I hail you!
Even if I must suffer the work and the agony
and all the race of man -
I embrace you . . . you,
my victory, are my guilt, my curse, and still -

 

CHORUS:

No man can go through life
and reach the end unharmed.
Aye, trouble is now,
and trouble still to come.

 

ORESTES:

But
still,
that you may know -
I see no end in sight,
I am a charioteer - the reins are flying, look,
the mares plunge off the track -
my bolting heart,
it beats me down and terror beats the drum,
my dance-and-singing master pitched to fury -

 

And still, while I still have some self-control,
I say to my friends in public: I killed my mother,
not with a little justice. She was stained
with father’s murder, she was cursed by god.
And the magic spells that fired up my daring?
One comes first. The Seer of Delphi who declared,
‘Go through with this and you go free of guilt.
Fail and -’
I can’t repeat the punishment.
What bow could hit the crest of so much pain?

Now look on me, armed with the branch and wreath,
a suppliant bound for the Navelstone of Earth,
Apollo’s sacred heights
where they say the fire of heaven can never die.

I must escape this blood . . . it is my own.
- Must turn towards his hearth,
none but his, the Prophet God decreed.

 

I ask you, Argos and all my generations,
remember how these brutal things were done.
Be my witness to Menelaus when he comes.
And now I go, an outcast driven off the land,
in life, in death, I leave behind a name for -

 

LEADER:

But you’ve done well. Don’t burden yourself
with bad omens, lash yourself with guilt.
You’ve set us free, the whole city of Argos,
lopped the heads of these two serpents once for all.

 

ORESTES:

No, no ! Women - look - like Gorgons,
shrouded in black, their heads wreathed,
swarming serpents !
- Cannot stay, I must move on.

 

LEADER:

What dreams can whirl you so? You of all men,
you have your father’s love. Steady, nothing
to fear with all you’ve won.

 

ORESTES:

No dreams, these torments,
not to me, they’re clear, real - the hounds
of mother’s hate.

 

LEADER:

The blood’s still wet on your hands.
It puts a kind of frenzy in you . . .

 

ORESTES:

God Apollo
!
Here they come, thick and fast,
their eyes dripping hate -

 

LEADER :

One thing
will purge you. Apollo’s touch will set you free
from all your . . . torments.

 

ORESTES:

You can’t see them
I
can
, they drive me on! I must move on -

 

LEADER:

Farewell then. God look down on you with kindness,
guard you, grant you fortune.

 

CHORUS:

Here once more, for the third time,
the tempest in the race has struck
the house of kings and run its course.
First the children eaten,
the cause of all our pain, the curse.
And next the kingly man’s ordeal,
the bath where the proud commander,
lord of Achaea’s armies lost his life.
And now a third has come, but who?
A third like Saving Zeus?
Or should we call him death?
Where will it end? -
where will it sink to sleep and rest,
this murderous hate, this Fury?

FOR MY DAUGHTERS

What climbs the stair?
Nothing that common women ponder on
If you are worth my hope ! Neither Content
Nor satisfied Conscience, but that great family
Some ancient famous authors misrepresent,
The Proud Furies each with her torch on high.

-W. B. YEATS,
‘To Dorothy Wellesley’

THE PYTHIA,
the priestess of Apollo
APOLLO
HERMES
ORESTES
THE GHOST OF CLYTAEMNESTRA
CHORUS OF FURIES AND THEIR LEADER
ATHENA
Escorting Chorus of Athenian women
Men of the jury, herald, citizens