The Agamemnon of Aeschylus

LEADER (_turning from him to_ CLYTEMNESTRA). Woman! A soldier fresh from war! To keep Watch o’er his house and shame him in his sleep… To plot this craft against a lord of spears… [CLYTEMNESTRA, _as though in a dream, pays no heed._ AIGISTHOS _interupts._] AIGISTHOS. These be the words, old man, that lead to tears! Thou hast an opposite to Orpheus’ tongue, Who chained all things with his enchanting song, For thy mad noise will put the chains on thee. Enough! Once mastered thou shalt tamer be. LEADER. Thou master? Is old Argos so accurst? Thou plotter afar off, who never durst Raise thine own hand to affront and strike him down… AIGISTHOS. To entice him was the wife’s work. I was known By all men here, his old confessed blood-foe. Howbeit, with his possessions I will know How to be King. And who obeys not me Shall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he, Corn-flushed. Hunger, and hunger’s prison mate, The clammy murk, shall see his rage abate. LEADER. Thou craven soul! Why not in open strife Slay him? Why lay the blood-sin on his wife, Staining the Gods of Argos, making ill The soil thereof?…But young Orestes still Liveth. Oh, Fate will guide him home again, Avenging, conquering, home to kill these twain! AIGISTHOS. ’Fore God, if ’tis your pleasure thus to speak and do, ye soon shall hear! Ho there, my trusty pikes, advance! There cometh business for the spear. [_A body of Spearmen, from concealment outside, rush in and dominate the stage._] LEADER. Ho there, ye Men of Argos! Up! Stand and be ready, sword from sheath! AIGISTHOS. By Heaven, I also, sword in hand, am ready, and refuse not death! LEADER. Come, find it! We accept thy word. Thou offerest what we hunger for. [_Some of the Elders draw swords with the Leader; others have collapsed with weakness. Men from_ AGAMEMNON’S _retinue have gathered and prepare for battle, when, before they can come to blows,_ CLYTEMNESTRA _breaks from her exhausted silence._] CLYTEMNESTRA. Nay, peace, O best-belovèd! Peace! And let us work no evil more. Surely the reaping of the past is a full harvest, and not good, And wounds enough are everywhere.—Let us not stain ourselves with blood. Ye reverend Elders, go your ways, to his own dwelling every one, Ere things be wrought for which men suffer.—What we did must needs be done. And if of all these strifes we now may have no more, oh, I will kneel And praise God, bruisèd though we be beneath the Daemon’s heavy heel. This is the word a woman speaks, to hear if any man will deign. AIGISTHOS. And who are these to burst in flower of folly thus of tongue and brain, And utter words of empty sound and perilous, tempting Fortune’s frown, And leave wise counsel all forgot, and gird at him who wears the crown? LEADER. To cringe before a caitiff’s crown, it squareth not with Argive ways. AIGISTHOS. (_sheathing his sword and turning from them_). Bah, I will be a hand of wrath to fall on thee in after days. LEADER. Not so, if God in after days shall guide Orestes home again! AIGISTHOS. I know how men in exile feed on dreams…and know such food is vain. LEADER. Go forward and wax fat! Defile the right for this thy little hour! AIGISTHOS. I spare thee now. Know well for all this folly thou shalt feel my power. LEADER. Aye, vaunt thy greatness, as a bird beside his mate doth vaunt and swell. CLYTEMNESTRA. Vain hounds are baying round thee; oh, forget them! Thou and I shall dwell As Kings in this great House. We two at last will order all things well. [_The Elders and the remains of_ AGAMEMNON’S _retinue retire sullenly, leaving the Spearmen in possession._ CLYTEMNESTRA _and_ AIGISTHOS _turn and enter the Palace._] NOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON The chief characters in the play belong to one family, as is shown by the two genealogies:— I. TANTALUS | | Pelops | | ——————————————————————————— | | | | Atreus Thyestes | | | | ————————————————— | | | | | | | Agamemnon Menelaus Aigisthos (= Clytemnestra) (= Helen) (= Clytemnestra) | | ———————————————————————— | | | | | | Iphigenia Electra Orestes (Also, a sister of Agamemnon, name variously given, married Strophios, and was the mother of Pylades.) II. Tyndareus = Leda = Zeus | | | | —————— ————————————————————————— | | | | | | | | Clytemnestra Castor Polydeuces Helen [P. 1, l. 1.]—The Watchman, like most characters in Greek tragedy, comes from the Homeric tradition, though in Homer (Od. iv. 524) he is merely a servant of Aigisthos. [P. 2, l. 28, Women’s triumph cry.]—This cry of the women recurs several times in the play: cf. p. 26, ll. 587 ff., p. 55, l. 1234. It is conventionally represented by “ololû”; as the cry to Apollo, Paian is “I-ê,” l. 146, and Cassandra’s sob is “ototoi” or “otototoi,” p. 47. [Pp. 3 f., ll. 40 ff.]—With this silent scene of Clytemnestra’s, compare the long silence of Cassandra below, and the silence of Prometheus in that play until his torturers have left him. See the criticism of Aeschylus in Aristophanes, _Frogs_, ll. 911-920, pp. 68, 69 in my translation. [P. 5, l. 104, Sign of the War-Way.]—i.e. an ominous sign seen by the army as it started on its journey. In Homer, Iliad, ll. 305-329, it is a snake which eats the nine young of a mother bird and then the mother, and is turned into stone afterwards.—All through this chorus the language of the prophet Calchas is intentionally obscure and riddling—the style of prophesy. [P. 7, l. 146, But I-ê, i-ê.]—(Pronounce _Ee-ay_.) Calchas, catching sight in his vision of the further consequences which Artemis will exact if she fulfils the sign, calls on Apollo Paian, the Healer, to check her. [P. 7, l. 160, Zeus, whate’er He be.]—This conception of Zeus is expressed also in Aeschylus’ _Suppliant Women_, and was probably developed in the Prometheus Trilogy. See my _Rise of the Greek Epic_, p. 291 (Ed. 2). It is connected with the common Greek conception of the _Tritos Sôtêr_— the Saviour Third. First, He who sins; next, He who avenges; third, He who saves. In vegetation worship it is the Old Year who has committed Hubris, the sin of pride, in summer; the Winter who slays him; the New Year which shall save. In mythology the three successive Rulers of Heaven are given by Hesiod as Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus (cf. _Prometheus_, 965 ff.), but we cannot tell if Aeschylus accepted the Hesiodic story. Cf. note on l. 246, and Clytemnestra’s blasphemy at l. 1387, p. 63. [P. 9, l. 192, Winds from Strymon.]—From the great river gorge of Thrace, NNE; cf. below, l. 1418. [P. 9, l. 201, Artemis.]—Her name was terrible, because of its suggestion. She demanded the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenîa. (See Euripides’ two plays, _Iphigenia in Tauris_ and _Iphigenia in Aulis_.) In other poets Agamemnon has generally committed some definite sin against Artemis, but in Aeschylus the death of Iphigenîa seems to be merely one of the results of his acceptance of the Sign. [P. 10, l. 215, ’Tis a Rite of old.]—Literally “it is Themis.” Human sacrifice had had a place in the primitive religion of Greece; hence Agamemnon could not reject the demand of the soldiers as an obvious crime. See _Rise of Greek Epic_, pp. 150-157. [P. 11, l. 246, The Third Cup.]—Regularly poured to Zeus Sôtêr, the Saviour, and accompanied by a paean or cry of joy. [P. 11, l. 256, This Heart of Argos, this frail Tower:]—i.e. themselves. [P. 11, l. 264, Glad-voiced.]—Clytemnestra is in extreme suspense, as the return of Agamemnon will mean either her destruction or her deliverance. At such a moment there must be no ill-omened word, so she challenges fate. [P. 12, l. 276, A word within that hovereth without wings.]—i.e. a presentiment. “Winged words” are words spoken, which fly from speaker to hearer. A ‘wingless’ word is unspoken. The phrase occurs in Homer. [Pp. 13 ff., ll. 281 ff.]—Beacon Speech. There is no need to inquire curiously into the practical possibility of this chain of beacons. Greek tragedies do not care to be exact about this kind of detail. There may well have been a tradition that Agamemnon, like the Great King of Persia, used a chain of beacons across the Aegean.—Note how vividly Clytemnestra’s imagination is working in her excitement. She seems to see before her every leaping light in the chain, just as in the next speech she imagines the scene in Troy almost with the intensity of a vision. [P. 14, l. 314, Victory in the first as in the last.]—All are Victory beacons; the spirit of Victory infects them all equally. Cf. l. 854 below, where Agamemnon prays that the Victory which is now with him, or in him, may abide. [P. 15, l. 348, A woman’s word.]—Her hatred and fear of Agamemnon, making her feel vividly the horrors of the sack and the peril overhanging the conquerors, have carried her dangerously far. She checks herself and apologizes for her womanlike anxiety. Cf. l. 1661, p. 77. [P. 18, ll. 409 ff., Seers they saw visions.]—A difficult and uncertain passage. I think the seers attached to the royal household (cf. _Libation-Bearers,_ l. 37, where they are summoned to read a dream) were rather like what we call clairvoyants. Being consulted, they look into some pool of liquid or the like; there they see gradually emerging the palace, the injured King, the deserted room, and at last a wraith of Helen herself, haunting the place. [P. 21, l. 487.]—This break in the action, covering a space of several days, was first pointed out by Dr. Walter Headlam. Incidentally it removes the gravest of the difficulties raised by Dr. Verrall in his famous essay upon the plot of the _Agamemnon_. [P. 21, l. 495, Dry dust, own brother to the mire of war.]—i.e. “I can see by the state of his clothes, caked with dry dust which was once the mire of battle, that he comes straight from the war and can speak with knowledge.” The Herald is probably (though perhaps not quite consistently) conceived as having rushed post-haste with his news. [Pp. 22 ff., HERALD.]—The Herald bursts in overcome with excitement and delight, full of love for his home and everything he sees. A marked contrast to Agamemnon, ll. 810 ff. Note that his first speech confirms all the worst fears suggested by Clytemnestra. Agamemnon has committed all the sins she prayed against, and more. The terrible lines 527 ff., “Till her Gods’ Houses, etc.,” are very like a passage in the _Persae_, 811 ff., where exactly the same acts by the Persian invaders of Greece make their future punishment inevitable. [P. 22, l. 509, Pythian Lord.]—Apollo is often a sinister figure in tragedy. Cf. Sophocles _Oedipus_ , ll. 915 ff., pp. 52 ff., and the similar scene, _Electra_, 655 ff. Here it is a shock to the Herald to come suddenly on the god who was the chief enemy of the Greeks at Troy. One feels Apollo an evil presence also in the Cassandra scene, 11. 1071 ff., pp. 47 ff.