The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation-Bearers & the Furies (28 page)

 

LEADER:

I will never let that man go free, never.

 

APOLLO:

Hound him then, and multiply your pains.

 

LEADER:

Never try to cut my power with your logic.

 

APOLLO:

I’d never touch it, not as a gift - your power.

 

LEADER:

Of course,
great as you are, they say, throned on high with Zeus.
But blood of the mother draws me on - must hunt
the man for Justice. Now I’m on his trail!

 

APOLLO:

And I will defend my suppliant and save him.
A terror to gods and men, the outcast’s anger,
once I fail him, all of my own free will.

 

ORESTES:

Queen Athena,
under Apollo’s orders I have come.
Receive me kindly. Curst and an outcast,
no suppliant for purging . . . my hands are clean.
My murderous edge is blunted now, worn down at last
on the outland homesteads, beaten paths of men.

 

On and out over seas and dry frontiers,
I kept alive the Prophet’s strong commands.
Struggling towards your house, your idol -

Goddess,
here I keep my watch,
I await the consummation of my trial.

 

LEADER:

At last!
The clear trail of the man. After it, silent
but it tracks his guilt to light. He’s wounded -
go for the fawn, my hounds, the splash of blood,
hunt him, rake him down.
Oh, the labour,
the man-killing labour. My lungs are bursting . . .
over the wide rolling earth we’ve ranged in flock,
hurdling the waves in wingless flight and now we come,
all hot pursuit, outracing ships astern - and now
he’s here, somewhere, cowering like a hare . . .
the reek of human blood - it’s laughter to my heart!

Look, look again, you two,
scour the ground before he escapes - one dodge
and the matricide slips free.

 

FURIES:

- There he is!
Clutching the knees of power once again,
twined in the deathless goddess’ idol, look,
he wants to go on trial for his crimes.
- Never . . .
the mother’s blood that wets the ground,
you can never bring it back, dear god,
the Earth drinks, and the running life is gone.
- No,
you’ll give me blood for blood, you must!
Out of your living marrow I will drain
my red libation, out of your veins I suck my food,
my raw, brutal cups -
- Wither you alive,
drag you down and there you pay, agony
for mother-killing agony!
- And there you will see them all.
Every mortal who outraged god or guest or loving parent:
each receives the pain his pains exact.

 

- A mighty god is Hades. There
at the last reckoning underneath the earth
he scans all, he squares all men’s accounts
and graves them on the tablets of his mind.

 

ORESTES:

I have suffered into truth. Well I know
the countless arts of purging, where to speak,
where silence is the rule. In this ordeal
a compelling master urges me to speak.

The blood sleeps, it is fading on my hands,
the stain of mother’s murder washing clean.
It was still fresh at the god’s hearth. Apollo
killed the swine and the purges drove it off.
Mine is a long story
if I’d start with the many hosts I met,
I lived with, and I left them all unharmed.
Time refines all things that age with time.

 

And now with pure, reverent lips I call
the queen of the land. Athena, help me!
Come without your spear - without a battle
you will win myself, my land, the Argive people
true and just, your friends-in-arms for ever.
Where are you now? The scorching wilds of Libya,
bathed by the Triton pool where you were born?
Robes shrouding your feet
or shod and on the march to aid allies?
Or striding the Giants’ Plain, marshal of armies,
hero scanning, flashing through the ranks?
Come -
you can hear me from afar, you are a god.
Set me free from this !

 

LEADER:

Never - neither
Apollo’s nor Athena’s strength can save you.
Down you go, abandoned,
searching your soul for joy but joy is gone.
Bled white, gnawed by demons, a husk, a wraith -

No reply? you spit my challenge back?
You’ll feast me alive, my fatted calf,
not cut on the altar first. Now hear my spell,
the chains of song I sing to bind you tight.

 

FURIES:

Come, Furies, dance! -
link arms for the dancing hand-to-hand,
now we long to reveal our art,
our terror, now to declare our right
to steer the lives of men,
we all conspire, we dance! we are
the just and upright, we maintain.
Hold out your hands, if they are clean
no fury of ours will stalk you,
you will go through life unscathed.
But show us the guilty - one like this
who hides his reeking hands,
and up from the outraged dead we rise,
witness bound to avenge their blood
we rise in flames against him to the end!

 

Mother who bore me,
O dear Mother Night,
to avenge the blinded dead
and those who see by day,
now hear me! The whelp Apollo
spurns my rights, he tears this trembling victim
from my grasp - the one to bleed,
to atone away the mother-blood at last.

 

Over the victim’s burning head
this chant this frenzy striking frenzy
lightning crazing the mind
this hymn of Fury
chaining the senses, ripping cross the lyre,
withering lives of men !

This, this is our right,
spun for us by the Fates,
the ones who bind the world,
and none can shake our hold.
Show us the mortals overcome,
insane to murder kin - we track them down till they go beneath the earth,
and the dead find little freedom in the end.

 

Over the victim’s burning head
this chant this frenzy striking frenzy
lightning crazing the mind
this hymn of Fury
chaining the senses, ripping cross the lyre,
withering lives of men !

 

Even at birth, I say, our rights were so ordained.
The deathless gods must keep their hands far off -
no god may share our cups, our solemn feasts.
We want no part of their pious white robes -
the Fates who gave us power made us free.

 

Mine is the overthrow of houses, yes,
when warlust reared like a tame beast
seizes near and dear -
down on the man we swoop, aie!
for all his power black him out! -
for the blood still fresh from slaughter on his hands.

 

So now, striving to wrench our mandate from the gods.
we make ourselves exempt from their control,
we brook no trial - no god can be our judge.

His breed, worthy of loathing, streaked with blood,
Zeus slights, unworthy his contempt.

 

Mine is the overthrow of houses, yes,
when warlust reared like a tame beast
seizes near and dear -
down on the man we swoop, aie!
for all his power black him out! -
for the blood still fresh from slaughter on his hands.

 

And all men’s dreams of grandeur
tempting the heavens,
all melt down, under earth their pride goes down -
lost in our onslaught, black robes swarming,
Furies throbbing, dancing out our rage.

 

Yes! leaping down from the heights,
dead weight in the crashing footfall
down we hurl on the runner
breakneck for the finish -
cut him down, our fury stamps him down!

 

Down he goes, sensing nothing,
blind with defilement . . .
darkness hovers over the man, dark guilt,
and a dense pall overhangs his house,
legend tells the story through her tears.

 

Yes! leaping down from the heights,
dead weight in the crashing footfall
down we hurl on the runner
breakneck for the finish -
cut him down, our fury stamps him down!

 

So the centre holds.
We are the skilled, the masterful,
we the great fulfillers,
memories of grief, we awesome spirits
stern, unappeasable to man,
disgraced, degraded, drive our powers through;
banished far from god to a sunless, torchlit dusk,
we drive men through their rugged passage,
blinded dead and those who see by day.

 

Then where is the man
not stirred with awe, not gripped by fear
to hear us tell the law that
Fate ordains, the gods concede the Furies,
absolute till the end of time?
And so it holds, our ancient power still holds.
We are not without our pride, though beneath the earth
our strict battalions form their lines,
grouping through the mist and sun-starved night.

 

ATHENA:

From another world I heard a call for help.
I was on the Scamander’s banks, just claiming Troy.
The Achaean warlords chose the hero’s share
of what their spear had won - they decreed that land,
root and branch all mine, for all time to be,
for Theseus’ sons a rare, matchless gift.

 

Home from the wars I come, my pace unflagging,
wingless, flown on the whirring, breasting cape
that yokes my racing spirit in her prime.

 

And I see some new companions on the land.
Not fear, a sense of wonder fills my eyes.

 

Who are you? I address you all as one:
you, the stranger seated at my idol,
and you, like no one born of the sown seed,
no goddess watched by the gods, no mortal either,
not to judge by your look at least, your features . . .
Wait, I call my neighbours into question.
They’ve done nothing wrong. It offends the rights,
it violates tradition.

 

LEADER:

You will learn it all,
young daughter of Zeus, cut to a few words.
We are the everlasting children of the Night.
Deep in the halls of Earth they call us Curses.

 

ATHENA:

Now I know your birth, your rightful name -

 

LEADER:

But not our powers, and you will learn them quickly.

 

ATHENA:

I can accept the facts, just tell them clearly.

 

LEADER:

Destroyers of life: we drive them from their houses.

 

ATHENA:

And the murderer’s flight, where does it all end?

 

LEADER:

Where there is no joy, the word is never used.

 

ATHENA:

Such flight for him? You shriek him on to that?

 

LEADER:

Yes,
he murdered his mother - called that murder just.

 

ATHENA:

And nothing forced him on, no fear of someone’s anger?

 

LEADER:

What spur could force a man to kill his mother?

 

ATHENA:

Two sides are here, and only half is heard.

 

LEADER:

But the oath - he will neither take the oath nor give it,
no, his will is set.

 

ATHENA:

And you are set
on the name of justice rather than the act.

 

LEADER:

How? Teach us. You have a genius for refinements.

 

ATHENA:

Injustice, I mean, should never triumph thanks to oaths.

 

LEADER:

Then examine him yourself, judge him fairly.

 

ATHENA:

You would turn over responsibility to me,
to reach the final verdict?

 

LEADER:

Certainly.
We respect you. You show us respect.

 

ATHENA:

Your turn, stranger. What do you say to this?
Tell us your land, your birth, your fortunes.
Then defend yourself against their charge,
if trust in your rights has brought you here to guard
my hearth and idol, a suppliant for purging
like Ixion, sacred. Speak to all this clearly,
speak to me.

 

ORESTES:

Queen Athena, first,
the misgiving in your final words is strong.
Let me remove it. I haven’t come for purging.
Look, not a stain on the hands that touch your idol.
I have proof for all I say, and it is strong.

 

The law condemns the man of the violent hand
to silence, till a master trained at purging
slits the throat of a young suckling victim,
blood absolves his blood. Long ago
at the halls of others I was fully cleansed
in the cleansing springs, the blood of many victims.
Threat of pollution - sweep it from your mind.