Page images
PDF
EPUB

I, thus perplex'd, yet, woman as I was,
Commanded sacrifice, and through the city
The solemn choirs of ululation rang.

But now enough! I'll hear no more from thee;
The king comes shortly; from his mouth alone
I'll hear the rest. Ay, now my noble lord

And saving Fortune sat upon our ship
Doing a seaman's duty, till we came
Safe into harbour from the seething sea,
Nor stranded on the rough stone-ribbed coast.
O how the day look'd lovely, when ashore
We crawl'd, escaped from the wat'ry jaws

Arrives! my eager thoughts fly forward to him,Of a sea-death! but yet our sense so stunn'd,

My soul's in preparation to receive him.
And how to do it fitly? O blest day!
Fairest of earthly days to her whose eyes
Behold her lord returning, by kind gods,
Safe from the edge of battle-go, speed his steps;
Bid him come quickly to his city, bid him
Back to his wife, whom he will find such as
He left her, the true watch-dog of his hearth,
Gentle and kind to him, and only hostile
To those who wish him ill; one who has ne'er
Known pleasure in the converse of another;
But still, like metal from the dyer's hand,
Stands pure, by breath of evil fame unsullied.
[Exit CLITEMNESTRA.
Her. 'Tis bravely spoken, like a noble woman.
How fair her lips spoke vaunts of conscious truth!
Chor. Indeed, and with becoming grace she
spoke

We scarce could credit it: then our fresh loss
Smote heavy on us, and thick-coming fancies
We fed upon in musing, as we thought
Of our lost comrades, and our shipwreck'd host.
And now of them, if some have life and being,
Their converse is of us as ours of them;
And now they sit around with woful face,
And as of men departed now they speak,
And we the deadmen, they the mourners are;
But be't the best it may. For Menelaus,
Look for his coming first, our chiefest care,
If still some peering sunbeam can espy
The chief among the living crowd of men,
And looking at the gladness of life's day,
By Jove's contrivances, not minded yet
The noble race of Atreus to destroy;
We still may nourish hopes he yet will come
Safe to his native home. And now, my friend,
all thou hast heard is

Those fair, clear, pearly words thy ears have Thou hast heard all, and

heard.

But let me question thee; and, Herald, say,
Is Menelaus safe? comes he with you?
Dear sovereign, ever honour'd in this land.

Her. His fate we know not; from the Achaian
host

He and his vessel both have disappeared.

true.

[Exit HERALD.

CHORUS.

When Helen came to Ilion's towers,

O what a glorious sight, I ween, was there!

Chor. How spoke the current rumour of the The tranquil beauty of the gorgeous queen

fleet?

Think they he lives, or perish'd in the storm?

Her. All is in doubt: none knows to speak for certain,

Elements*

Except indeed the orb of day would tell,
The common eye of nature and the world.
Chor. But tell us of the tempest.
Her.
Before most hostile, join'd in league together
To wreck us, fire and water; the wing'd light-
ning

And sea did both their utmost. In the night
The horrid clamour of the Thracian winds
Gave note of woe, curling the monstrous deep
With rising billows, and uprear'd the ships,
Ship against ship, with crashing mainyards roll'd.
But when the bright light of the sun arose,
We saw the wide Ægean effloresce†
With wrecks of ships, and weltering carcasses
Of Argive men, that the thick foam inlaid.
We and our ship (whose hull still bore it bravely)
Escaped their doom, stol'n or begg'd off from fate
By some superior being: 'twas not man
Who help'd us then and grasp'd our giddy
helm ;

[blocks in formation]

Hung soft as breathless summer on her cheeks,
Where on the damask sweet the glowing Zephyr

slept;

And like an idol beaming from its shrine,
So o'er the floating gold around her thrown
Her peerless face did shine;

And though sweet softness hung upon their

lids,

Yet her young eyes still wounded where they look'd.

She breathed an incense like Love's perfumed flower,

Blushing in sweetness; so she seem'd in hue,
And pained mortal eyes with her transcendent
view :

E'en so to Paris' bed the lovely Helen came.
But dark Erinnys, in the nuptial hour,
Rose in the midst of all that bridal pomp,
Seated midst the feasting throng,
Amidst the revelry and song;
Erinnys, led by Xenian Jove,
Into the halls of Priam's sons,
Erinnys of the mournful bower,
Where youthful brides weep sad in midnight

hour.

'Twas said of old, and men maintain it still,
Fortune, how great soe'er, is never crown'd,
But when the great possessor, at the close
And sinks not childless to his grave.
Of earthly grandeur, leaves an heir behind,
But then they say it often haps

Fortune will wither on the father's grave,

[blocks in formation]

Agamemnon now returns, borne in a sort of triumphal procession; and seated in another car, laden with booty, follows Cassandra, his prisoner of war, and mistress, according to the privilege of the heroes of those days. Clytemnestra greets him with hypocritical joy and veneration; she orders her slaves to cover the ground with the most costly embroideries of purple, that it might not be touched by the foot of the conqueror. Agamemnon, with wise moderation, at first refuses to receive an honour due only to the Gods; at last he yields to her invitations, and enters the house. The Chorus then begin to utter dark forebodings. Clytemnestra returns to allure Cassandra to her destruction by the art of soft persuasion. The latter remains dumb and motionless; but the queen is hardly gone, when, seized with a prophectic rage, she breaks out into the most perplexing lamentations, and afterwards unveils her prophecies more distinctly to the Chorus: she sees in her mind all the enormities which have been perpetrated in that house: the repast of Thyestes, which the sun refused to look on; the shadows of the dilacerated children gazing down on her from the battlements of the palace. She sees also, the death prepared both for Agamemnon and herself-and then, as if seized with overpowering fury, rushes maniaclike, into the house to meet her doom.

CLYTEMNESTRA, CASSANDRA, CHORUS.

Clyt. Go in-go in! Cassandra! thee I mean, Enter thou too! since in this mansion Jove Has placed thee, nothing wrathfully, to share With many a slave the lavers, as thou stand'st By th' altar of our fortune-giving God.* Come forth from out that wain: neither be thou O'erweening, too high-stomach'd for thy lot;Such once was that of great Alcmena's son.

Chor. O be persuaded; come down from thy

car.

Clyt. I have no time for dallying here; already The victims, rang'd for sacrifice, demand Our presence.-Wouldst thou do our bidding, Take no long time in doing it. If thy tongue

*KTATÍOU Baμ. The altar placed in the buttery, or place where provisions were kept, was consecrated to Ctesian Jove, or Jove the Guardian of Property.

[blocks in formation]

Ay-but we want no prophets in this house.

Cass. Alas! ye Gods, what is she thinking on? And what is this that looks so young and fresh? Mighty, mighty is the load

She is unravelling in these dark halls!
A foul deed for her dear friends plotteth she,
Too sore to bear, and waxing past all cure!
Where's Pity? dead! Where's Succour? far
away.

Chor. What means she?
Cass.
Wretch! ah, what art thou about?
A man's in the bath-beside him there stands
One wrapping him round-the bathing clothes
drop,

Like shrouds they appear to me, dabbled in blood!

Yet 'twill be quick-'tis now upon the stroke!
A hand is stretch'd out-and another too!
As though it were a grasping-look, look, look!

Chor. 'Tis yet all dark to me: by riddles posed I find no way in these blind oracles.

Cass. Ha! ha! Alas! alas! what's that?
Is that Hell's dragnet that I see?
Dragnet! or woman? she, the very she
Who slept beside thee in the midnight bower,
Wife and murd'ress! Howl, dark choirs!

Howl in timbrel'd anthems dark
For Atreus' deadly line,

And the stony shower of blood.

Chor. Ye Gods! what vengeance of a Fury's this!

Cass. Ha! ha! see there! see there!

Cass. O Troy! Woes of Troy! now all-prostrate

and lone!

O ye altars, that blaz'd before Priam's high throne! Vain, vain your blood-offerings, your victims, to

save

Troy's towers from destruction, Troy's sons from the grave.

Even I soon on earth must my warm blood out

pour.

Chor. That strain's a sequel to the strain before. Cass. Pale phantoms brood within these guarded towers;

Screams are heard nightly, and a dismal din

Keep the bull from the heifer, drive, drive her Of strange, terrific, and unearthly choirs,

away!

The bull is enchafed and hoodwink'd, and roars; His black branching horns have received the death-stab.

Singing in horrid, full, harmonious chord.
What do they sing of? Nothing good I ween.
For, blood of mortal man since they have drank,
Still more unquenchable their riot grows.

He sprawls and falls headlong! he lies in the The Masque of Sisters! the Erinnyes drear!

bath,

Beside the great smouldering caldron that burns! The caldron burns,—it has a deadly blue!

Chor. No deep skill boast I in the spell of Gods; And yet methinks all that she says bears in't The stamp of ill; but when has aught of good From the divining power to man accrued? Its deep ambiguous terms the truth invest With mysteries that awe the inmost soul.

Cass. Alas! alas! ah, wretch! ah, luckless fate! Myself, myself I moan!

Wretch that I am! why hast thou brought me here,

Unless to lie beside him in his death?
Is't not? what else? what other can it be?

Chor. O sure thou art one of a deep-raging soul, Driven mad by some god, and, (like her, the sweet bird,

Who wails Ityn, her Ityn,) with unwearied voice, But vex'd heart, pouring forth thy sad lay.

Cass. Ah, ah! the shrill Nightingale! O how I

moan

As I think of her fate, so unlike to my own; She has wings, and she lives without sorrow or fear,

But my doom is the axe or the sharp-edg'd spear! Chor. Ah! whence are these sorrows, that gush from thine eyes,

As if thou wert dreaming of woe? And that ominous cry, that wild scream of affright?

Whence, whence that dark spell of more than man's lore,

That ill-boding, horrible spell?

Cass. O nuptials of Paris! O nuptials of death To his friends! O Scamander, my sweet native

stream!

Ah, wretch that I am! then I roved by thy

stream,

Young, careless, and happy! but now I must go To Cocytus' banks,-there to sing my dark woe! Chor. What's this thou hast oracled?-horrid, yet clear

A babe might e'en know it.—Mine engored heart Is with terror struck down, as thou wail'st thy dark fate,

Making moan, that astounds me to hear.

They are all seated in the rooms above,
Chanting how Atè came into the house*
In the beginning: gloomily they look!
Each sings the lay in catches round, each has
Foam on her lips, and gnashes grim her teeth,
Where heavily the incestuous brother sleeps,
Stretch'd in pale slumber on the haunted bed.
Ha! do the shafts fly upright at the mark?
Fly the shafts right, or has the yew-bow miss'd?
Methinks the wild beast in the covert's hit;
Or rave I, dreaming of prophetic lies?
Come, bear thou witness, out with it on oath,
That I know well the old sins of this house.

Chor. How can an oath, the evil fix'd so fast, Help it or cure it? But thou movest our wonder, Bred in strange land, in city stranger-tongued, Far beyond seas, that thou shouldst speak as if Thou hadst been present at the scenes thou speak'st of.

Cass. Prophet Apollo gave me this high boon. Chor. From love of thee? the God, felt he de

[blocks in formation]

Cass. I said it should be, but I spoke him false.t Chor. At that time was thou of his arts possest? Cass. E'en so, that I was then a prophetess Foretelling to my country all its woes!

The crime in the family of Atreus, here alluded to, was the adultery of Thyestes with Aërope, his brother's Otherwise the first crime upon record of this unfortunate wife, which formed the subject of Euripides' Cressæ. family was the treacherous murder of Myrtilus by Pelops, on the false accusation of his wife Hippodamia. See the story told at full length, and not much to the credit of this young Grecian princess, in Eustathius, 185, edit. Rom. The intrigue of Thyestes and Aërope is alluded to also in Eurip. Elec. 720.

to her of inspiration, and her chaste deception of him, All this story of Apollo's love for Cassandra, his gift are commonly known. Lycophron, in his Alexandra, makes her give the same history of it.

Chor. How then? And didst thou 'scape | Off with ye, laurels, necklaces, and wands! The crown of the prophetic maiden's gone!

Apollo's wrath?

Cass. For my transgression, none believed my
words!

Chor. To us thy words seem worthy of belief.
Cass.
O! O! hu! hu! alas!
The pains again have seized me! my brain turns!
Hark to the alarum and prophetic cries!
The dizziness of horror swims my head!
D'ye see those yonder, sitting on the towers?
Like dreams their figures! Blood-red is their hair!
Like young ones murder'd by some kinsman
false!

[Tearing her robes.

Away, away! die ye ere yet I die!
I will requite your blessings, thus, thus, thus!
Find out some other maiden, dight her rich,
Ay, dight her rich in miseries like me!
And lo! Apollo! himself! tearing off
My vest oracular! Oh! cruel God!
Thou hast beheld me, e'en in these thy robes,
Scoff'd at when I was with my kinsmen dear,
And made my enemies' most piteous despite,
And many a bad name had I for thy sake;
A Cybele's mad-woman, beggar priestess,
Despised, unheeded, beggar'd, and in hunger;
And yet I bore it all for thy sweet sake.
And now to fill thy cup of vengeance up,
Prophet, thou hast undone thy prophetess!
And led me to these passages of death!
A block stands for the altar of my sire;
It waits for me, upon its edge to die,
Stagger'd with blows-in hot red spouting blood!
Oh! oh! but the great gods will hear my cries
Shrilling for vengeance through the vaulted roofs !
The gods will venge us when we're dead and
cold.

Horrible shadows! with hands full of flesh!
Their bowels and their entrails they hold up,
Their own flesh, O most execrable dish!
They hold it! out of it their father ate!
But in revenge of them there's one who plots,
A certain homebred, crouching, coward lion;
Upon his lair the rolling lion turns,
And keeps house close, until the coming of
My master! said I master? Out! alas!
I am a slave, and I must bear the yoke.
King of the ships, and sacker of great Troy,
Thou know'st not what a hateful bitch's tongue
Glozing and fawning, sleekfaced all the while,
Will do! like Atè stealing in the dark!
Out on such daring! female will turn slayer
And kill the male! What name to call her? Snake,
Horrible monster, crested amphisbæna,
Or some dire Scylia dwelling amid rocks!
Ingulphing seamen in her howling caves!
The raving of Hell's mother fires her cheeks,
And, like a pitiless Mars, her nostrils breathe
To all around her war and trumpet's rage.
O what a shout was there! it tore the skies
As in the battle when the tide rolls back!
'Twas the great championess-how fierce, how What mourning still? what still my eyes in tears?

fell!

No, 'tis all joy, and welcome home, sweet lord,
The war is o'er, the merry feast's begun.
Well, well, ye don't believe me-'tis all one.
For why? what will be, will be; time will come;
Ye will be there, and pity me, and say,
'She was indeed too true a prophetess.'

Another gallant at death-deeds will come!
Who's at the gates? a young man fair and tall,
A stranger, by his garb, from foreign parts;
Or one who long since has been exiled here:
A stripling, murderer of his mother's breast!
Brave youth, avenger of his father's death!
He'll come to build the high-wrought architrave,
Surmounting all the horrors of the dome.

I

I say, the gods have sworn that he shall come.
His father's corse (his crest lies on the ground)
Rises, and towers before him on the road!

And here, too, weeping on a foreign land?
I, who have seen high-tower'd Ilion's town
Fall, as it fell; whilst they who dwelt therein
Are, as they are! before high-judging Heaven!
I'll go and do it! I'll be bold to die!

I have a word with ye, ye gates of hell!
[To the gates of the palace as she is about to enter.

Chor. Thyestes' bloody feast I oft have heard I pray ye, let me have a mortal stroke,

of

Her drift beyond that point I cannot see.

Cass. I say, thou shalt see Agamemnon's death!
Chor. What man such execrable deed designs?
Cass. What man? I pity thee; thou art won-
drous dim,

And hast o'erlooked my oracles indeed.

Chor. But they are dark, and hard for us to find.
Cass. O what a mighty fire comes rolling on
me!

Help! help! Lycean Apollo! Ah me! ah me!
She there, that two-legg'd lioness! lying with
A wolf, the highbred lion being away,
Will kill me! woeful creature that I am!
And like one busy mixing poison up,
She'll fill me such a cup too in her ire!
She cries out, whetting all the while a sword
'Gainst him, 'tis me, and for my bringing here
That such a forfeit must be paid with death!
O why then keep this mockery on my head?

That without struggling, all this body's blood
Pouring out plenteously, in gentle stream
Of easy dying, I may close my eyes!

Chor. O woeful creature, woeful, too, and wise!
O maid, thou hast been wand'ring far and wide!
But if in earnest thou dost know thy fate,
Why like a heifer, goaded by a god,
Dost thou thus fearless to the altar walk?

Cass. Hide where I will; there's no escape

from fate.

Chor. Yet is there some advantage in delay.
Cass. My day is come, by flight I should gain

little.

Chor. Know then, thou'lt suffer from being
over bold.

Cass. But to die gloriously is honour's crown.
Chor. None ever hears the happy speak such

words.

Cass. Oh Father! oh!-Thou and thy noble
sons!
[Starting back.

Chor. What ails thee now? What caus'd that | sidered, in some degree, as a history of that great

[blocks in formation]

Chor. What means foh, foh? Some loathing at thy heart?

Cass. The house breathes scents of murder.
Chor.
'Tis the scent
Of burning sacrifice upon our altars.
Cass. No; rather like a vapour from the tomb!
Chor. There breathes no Syrian odour in thy
words.

Cass. Wailing my own and Agamemnon's fate,
These domes I enter! Life, enough of thee!
And, strangers see! Not like a timorous bird,
Do I draw back to shun the fowler's snare.
O bear this witness to a dying woman,
When the day comes that blood shall flow for
blood,

Woman's for woman's; Man's for man's, for this
Ill-mated man's-O then remember me.

Chor. Oh! I do pity thee, unhappy maid!
For thy sad tragic and predestined fate.

Cass. Once more! once more! oh let my voice be heard!

I love to sing the dirges of the dead,

My own death knell, myself my death knell
ring!

The sun rides high, but soon will set for me;
O sun! I pray to thee by thy last light,
And unto those who will me honour do,
Upon my hateful murderers wreak the blood
Of the poor slave they murder in her chains,
A helpless, easy, unresisting victim!
Alas for mortals!-what their power and pride?
A little shadow sweeps it from the earth!
And if they suffer-why the fatal hour
Comes o'er the record like a moisten'd spunge
And blots it out.

[Exit CASSANDRA.

Scarcely has the prophetess withdrawn, than we hear behind the scenes the groans of the murdered king. The palace opens and Clytemnestra is seen standing beside the dead body of her lord-an undaunted criminal, who not only confesses the deed, but boasts of it as a just requital for Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigeneia to his own ambition.

ON THOSE WHO FELL AT THER-
MOPYLE.

THESE, too, defenders of their country fell;

event. The scene is at Susa, and near the tomb of Darius.

ATOSSA, CHORUS.

Atoss. Indulge me, friends, who wish to be informed.

Where, in what clime, the towers of Athens rise?

Chor. Far in the west, where sets the imperial

sun.

Atoss. Yet my son willed the conquest of this

town.

Chor. May Greece, through all her states, bend to his power.

Atoss. Do they send numerous armies to the field?

Chor. Armies, that to the Medes have wrought much woe.

Atoss. Have they sufficient treasures in their houses?

Chor. Their rich earth is a copious fount of silver.

Atoss. From the strong bow wing they the barbed shaft?

Chor. No; but they have stout spears and massy bucklers.

Atoss. What monarch reigns, and who commands their army?

Chor. Slaves to no lord, they own not kingly power.

Atoss. How can they then resist the invading
foes?

Chor. So as to destroy the armies of Darius.
Atoss. Serious your words to parents, who have

sons there.

Chor. But if I judge aright, thou soon shalt hear Each circumstance; for here's a Persian messenger.

Tidings, no doubt, he brings of good or ill.

Enter MESSENGER.

Mess. Woe to the towns of Asia's peopled
realms!

Woe to the land of Persia, once the port
Of boundless wealth! All, at a blow, has
perished!

Ah me! How sad his task, who brings ill tidings.
But to my tale of woe-I needs must tell it.
Persians, the whole barbaric host has fallen.
Chor. O horror, horror, what a train of ills.
Mess. I speak not from report; but these mine
eyes

Their mighty souls to gloomy death betray'd: Beheld the ruin which my tongue would utter.

Immortal is their fame who, suffering well,
Of Ossa's dust a glorious garment made.

FROM THE PERSIANS.

"THE PERSIANS" may be considered rather in the light of a proud triumphal song in honour of Liberty, than of a regular tragedy. It was exhibited eight years after the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis, whilst the memory of each circumstance was yet recent, so that the narration may be con

Chor. Alas! Is Ellas then unscathed? And has
Our arrowy tempest spent its force in vain?
Mess. In heaps the unhappy dead lie on the

strand

Of Salamis and all the neighbouring shores.
Chor. Raise the funereal cry, with dismal

notes

Wailing the wretched Persians. Oh, how ill
They planned their measures! All their army
perished!

Mess. O Salamis, how hateful is thy name!
Oh, how my heart groans but to think of Athens!

« PreviousContinue »