The Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers, the Eumenides
wailing, skewered on the sword,
their flesh charred, the father gorging on their parts -
LEADER:
We’d heard your fame as a seer,
but no one looks for seers in Argos.
CASSANDRA:
Oh no, what horror, what new plot,
new agony this? -
it’s growing, massing, deep in the house,
a plot, a monstrous - thing
to crush the loved ones, no,
there is no cure, and rescue’s far away and -
LEADER:
I can’t read these signs; I knew the first,
the city rings with them.
CASSANDRA:
You, you godforsaken - you’d do this?
The lord of your bed,
you bathe him . . . his body glistens, then -
how to tell the climax? -
comes so quickly, see,
hand over hand shoots out, hauling ropes -
then lunge!
LEADER:
Still lost. Her riddles, her dark words of god -
I’m groping, helpless.
CASSANDRA:
No no, look there! -
what’s that? some net flung out of hell -
No, she is the snare,
the bedmate, deathmate, murder’s strong right arm I
Let the insatiate discord in the race
rear up and shriek ‘Avenge the victim — stone them dead!’
LEADER:
What Fury is this? Why rouse it, lift its wailing
through the house? I hear you and lose hope.
CHORUS:
Drop by drop at the heart, the gold of life ebbs out.
We are the old soldiers . . . wounds will come
with the crushing sunset of our lives.
Death is close, and quick.
CASSANDRA:
Look out! look out!—
Ai, drag the great bull from the mate! -
a thrash of robes, she traps him -
writhing-
black horn glints, twists -
she gores him through!
And now he buckles, look, the bath swirls red-
There’s stealth and murder in the cauldron, do you hear?
LEADER:
I’m no judge, I’ve little skill with the oracles,
but even I know danger when I hear it.
CHORUS:
What good are the oracles to men? Words, more words,
and the hurt comes on us, endless words
and a seer’s techniques have brought us
terror and the truth.
CASSANDRA:
The agony - O I am breaking! - Fate’s so hard,
and the pain that floods my voice is mine alone.
Why have you brought me here, tormented as I am?
Why, unless to die with him, why else?
LEADER AND CHORUS:
Mad with the rapture - god speeds you on
to the song, the deathsong,
like the nightingale that broods on sorrow,
mourns her son, her son,
her life inspired with grief for him,
she lilts and shrills, dark bird that lives for night.
CASSANDRA:
The nightingale - O for a song, a fate like hers!
The gods gave her a life of ease, swathed her in wings,
no tears, no wailing. The knife waits for me.
They’ll splay me on the iron’s double edge.
LEADER AND CHORUS:
Why? - what god hurls you on, stroke on stroke
to the long dying fall?
Why the horror clashing through your music,
terror struck to song? -
why the anguish, the wild dance?
Where do your words of god and grief begin?
CASSANDRA:
Ai, the wedding, wedding of Paris,
death to the loved ones. Oh Scamander,
you nursed my father . . . once at your banks
I nursed and grew, and now at the banks
of Acheron, the stream that carries sorrow,
it seems I’ll chant my prophecies too soon.
LEADER AND CHORUS:
What are you saying? Wait, it’s clear,
a child could see the truth, it wounds within,
like a bloody fang it tears -
I hear your destiny - breaking sobs,
cries that stab the ears.
CASSANDRA:
Oh the grief, the grief of the city
ripped to oblivion. Oh the victims,
the flocks my father burned at the wall,
rich herds in flames . . . no cure for the doom
that took the city after all, and I,
her last ember, I go down with her.
LEADER AND CHORUS:
You cannot stop, your song goes on -
some spirit drops from the heights and treads you down
and the brutal strain grows -
your death-throes come and come and
I cannot see the end!
CASSANDRA:
Then off with the veils that hid the fresh young bride-
we will see the truth.
Flare up once more, my oracle! Clear and sharp
as the wind that blows towards the rising sun,
I can feel a deeper swell now, gathering head
to break at last and bring the dawn of grief.
No more riddles. I will teach you.
Come, bear witness, run and hunt with me.
We trail the old barbaric works of slaughter.
These roofs - look up - there is a dancing troupe
that never leaves. And they have their harmony
but it is harsh, their words are harsh, they drink
beyond the limit. Flushed on the blood of men
their spirit grows and none can turn away
their revel breeding in the veins - the Furies!
They cling to the house for life. They sing,
sing of the frenzy that began it all,
strain rising on strain, showering curses
on the man who tramples on his brother’s bed.
There. Have I hit the mark or not? Am I a fraud,
a fortune-teller babbling lies from door to door?
Swear how well I know the ancient crimes
that live within this house.
LEADER:
And if I did?
Would an oath bind the wounds and heal us?
But you amaze me. Bred across the sea,
your language strange, and still you sense the truth
as if you had been here.
CASSANDRA:
Apollo the Prophet
introduced me to his gift.
LEADER:
A god — and moved with love?
CASSANDRA:
I was ashamed to tell this once,
but now . . .
LEADER:
We spoil ourselves with scruples,
long as things go well.
CASSANDRA:
He came like a wrestler,
magnificent, took me down and breathed his fire
through me and -
LEADER:
You bore him a child?
CASSANDRA:
I yielded,
then at the climax I recoiled - I deceived Apollo I
LEADER:
But the god’s skills - they seized you even then?
CASSANDRA:
Even then I told my people all the grief to come.
LEADER:
And Apollo’s anger never touched you? - is it possible?
CASSANDRA:
Once I betrayed him I could never be believed.
LEADER:
We believe you. Your visions seem so true.
CASSANDRA:
Aieeeee!—
the pain, the terror! the birth-pang of the seer
who tells the truth -
it whirls me, oh,
the storm com
es again, the crashing chords !
Look, you see them nestling at the threshold?
Young, young in the darkness like a dream,
like children really, yes, and their loved ones
brought them down . . .
their hands, they fill their hands
with their own flesh, they are serving it like food,
holding out their entrails . . . now it’s clear,
I can see the armfuls of compassion, see the father
reach to taste and -
For so much suffering,
I tell you, someone plots revenge.
A lion who lacks a lion’s heart,
he sprawled at home in the royal lair
and set a trap for the lord on his return.
My lord . . . I must wear his yoke, I am his slave.
The lord of the men-of-war, he obliterated Troy—
he is so blind, so lost to that detestable hellhound
who pricks her ears and fawns and her tongue draws out
her glittering words of welcome -
No, he cannot see
the stroke that Fury’s hiding, stealth, and murder.
What outrage - the woman kills the man!
What to call
that . . . monster of Greece, and bring my quarry down?
Viper coiling back and forth?
Some sea-witch? -
Scylla crouched in her rocky nest - nightmare of sailors?
Raging mother of death, storming deathless war against
the ones she loves!
And how she howled in triumph,
boundless outrage. Just as the tide of battle
broke her way, she seems to rejoice that he
is safe at home from war, saved for her.
Believe me if you will. What will it matter
if you won’t? It comes when it comes,
and soon you’ll see it face to face
and say the seer was all too true.
You will be moved with pity.
LEADER:
Thyestes’ feast,
the children’s flesh - that I know,
and the fear shudders through me. It’s true,
real, no dark signs about it. I hear the rest
but it throws me off the scent.
CASSANDRA:
Agamemnon.
You will see him dead.
LEADER:
Peace, poor girl!
Put those words to sleep.
CASSANDRA:
No use,
the Healer has no hand in this affair.
LEADER:
Not if it’s true - but god forbid it is!
CASSANDRA:
You pray, and they close in to kill!
LEADER:
What man prepares this, this dreadful -
CASSANDRA:
Man?
You are lost, to every word I’ve said.
LEADER:
Yes -
I don’t see who can bring the evil off.
CASSANDRA:
And yet I know my Greek, too well.
LEADER:
So does the Delphic oracle,
but he’s hard to understand.
CASSANDRA:
His fire!—
sears me, sweeps me again - the torture
Apollo Lord of the Light, you burn,
you blind me—
Agony!
She is the lioness,
she rears on her hind legs, she beds with the wolf
when her lion king goes ranging -
she will kill me -
Ai, the torture!
She is mixing her drugs,
adding a measure more of hate for me.
She gloats as she whets the sword for him.
He brought me home and we will pay in carnage.
Why mock yourself with these - trappings, the rod,
the god’s wreath, his yoke around my throat?
Before I die I’ll tread you -Ripping off her regalia, stamping it into the ground.
Down, out,
die die die!
Now you’re down. I’ve paid you back.
Look for another victim - I am free at last -
make her rich in all your curse and doom.
Staggering backwards as if wrestling with a spirit tearing at her robes.
See,
Apollo himself, his fiery hands - I feel him again,
he’s stripping off my robes, the Seer’s robes!
And after he looked down and saw me mocked,
even in these, his glories, mortified by friends
I loved, and they hated me, they were so blind
to their own demise -
I went from door to door,
I was wild with the god, I heard them call me
‘Beggar! Wretch! Starve for bread in hell!’
And I endured it all, and now he will
extort me as his due. A seer for the Seer.
He brings me here to die like this,
not to serve at my father’s altar. No,
the block is waiting. The cleaver steams
with my life blood, the first blood drawn
for the king’s last rites.
Regaining her composure and moving to the altar.
We will die,
but not without some honour from the gods.
There will come another to avenge us,
born to kill his mother, born
his father’s champion. A wanderer, a fugitive
driven off his native land, he will come home
to cope the stones of hate that menace all he loves.
The gods have sworn a monumental oath: as his father lies
upon the ground he draws him home with power like a prayer.
Then why so pitiful, why so many tears?
I have seen my city faring as she fared,
and those who took her, judged by the gods,
faring as they fare. I must be brave.
It is my turn to die.
Approaching the doors.
I address you as the Gates of Death.
I pray it comes with one clear stroke,
no convulsions, the pulses ebbing out
in gentle death. I’ll close my eyes and sleep.
LEADER:
So much pain, poor girl, and so much truth,
you’ve told so much. But if you see it coming,
clearly - how can you go to your own death,
like a beast to the altar driven on by god,
and hold your head so high?
CASSANDRA:
No escape, my friends,
not now.
LEADER:
But the last hour should be savoured.
CASSANDRA:
My time has come. Little to gain from flight.
LEADER:
You’re brave, believe me, full of gallant heart.
CASSANDRA:
Only the wretched go with praise like that.
LEADER:
But to go nobly lends a man some grace.
CASSANDRA:
My noble father - you and your noble children.
She nears the threshold and recoils, groaning in revulsion.
LEADER:
What now? what terror flings you back?
Why? Unless some horror in the brain-
CASSANDRA:
Murder.
The house breathes with murder - bloody shambles!
LEADER:
No, no, only the victims at the hearth.
CASSANDRA:
I know that odour. I smell the open grave.
LEADER:
But the Syrian myrrh, it fills the halls with splendour,
can’t you sense it?
CASSANDRA:
Well, I must go in now,
mourning Agamemnon’s death and mine.
Enough of life!
Approaching the doors again and crying out.
Friends - I cried out,
not from fear like a bi
rd fresh caught,
but that you will testify to how I died.
When the queen, woman for woman, dies for me,
and a man falls for the man who married grief.
That’s all I ask, my friends. A stranger’s gift
for one about to die.
LEADER:
Poor creature, you
and the end you see so clearly. I pity you.
CASSANDRA:
I’d like a few words more, a kind of dirge,
it is my own. I pray to the sun,
the last light I’ll see,
that when the avengers cut the assassins down
they will avenge me too, a slave who died,
an easy conquest.
Oh men, your destiny.
When all is well a shadow can overturn it.
When trouble comes a stroke of the wet sponge,
and the picture’s blotted out. And that,
I think that breaks the heart.
She goes through the doors.
CHORUS:
But the lust for power never dies -