The Agamemnon of Aeschylus | Page 4

discoverer, but as one devoted to
something higher and greater than himself, in the spirit of an interpreter or prophet.
AGAMEMNON
CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
AGAMEMNON, _son of Atreus and King of Argos and Mycenae;

Commander-in-Chief of the Greek armies in the War against Troy._
CLYTEMNESTRA, _daughter of Tyndareus, sister of Helen; wife to Agamemnon._
AIGISTHOS, _son of Thyestes, cousin and blood-enemy to Agamemnon lover to
Clytemnestra._
CASSANDRA, _daughter of Priam, King of Troy, a prophetess;
now slave to
Agamemnon._
A WATCHMAN.
A HERALD.
CHORUS of Argive Elders, faithful to AGAMEMNON.

CHARACTERS MENTIONED IN THE PLAY
MENELÂÜS, _brother to Agamemnon, husband of Helen, and King of Sparta. The two
sons of Atreus are called the Atreidae._
HELEN, _most beautiful of women; daughter of Tyndareus, wife to _MENELÂÜS_;
beloved and carried off by Paris._
PARIS, _son of Priam, King of Troy, lover of Helen.
Also called_ ALEXANDER.
PRIAM, _the aged King of Troy._
_The Greeks are also referred to as Achaians, Argives, Danaans; Troy is also called
Ilion._
_The play was produced in the archonship if Philocles_ (458 B.C.). _The first prize was
won by Aeschylus with the "Agamemnon", "Libation-Bearers", "Eumenides", and the
Satyr Play "Proteus"_.
THE AGAMEMNON
_The Scene represents a space in front of the Palace of Agamemnon in Argos, with an
Altar of Zeus in the centre and many other altars at the sides. On a high terrace of the roof
stands a_ WATCHMAN. _It is night_.
WATCHMAN.
This waste of year-long vigil I have prayed
God for some respite, watching
elbow-stayed,
As sleuthhounds watch, above the Atreidae's hall,
Till well I know yon
midnight festival
Of swarming stars, and them that lonely go,
Bearers to man of
summer and of snow,
Great lords and shining, throned in heavenly fire.
And still I
await the sign, the beacon pyre
That bears Troy's capture on a voice of flame

Shouting o'erseas. So surely to her aim
Cleaveth a woman's heart, man-passioned!

And when I turn me to my bed--my bed
Dew-drenched and dark and stumbling, to
which near
Cometh no dream nor sleep, but alway Fear
Breathes round it, warning,
lest an eye once fain
To close may close too well to wake again;
Think I perchance to
sing or troll a tune
For medicine against sleep, the music soon
Changes to sighing for
the tale untold
Of this house, not well mastered as of old.
Howbeit, may God yet send
us rest, and light
The flame of good news flashed across the night.
[_He is silent, watching. Suddenly at a distance in the night there is a glimmer of fire,
increasing presently to a blaze._
Ha!
0 kindler of the dark, O daylight birth
Of dawn and dancing upon Argive earth

For this great end! All hail!--What ho, within!
What ho! Bear word to Agamemnon's
queen
To rise, like dawn, and lift in answer strong

To this glad lamp her women's

triumph-song,
If verily, verily, Ilion's citadel
Is fallen, as yon beacons flaming tell.

And I myself will tread the dance before
All others; for my master's dice I score
Good,
and mine own to-night three sixes plain.
[_Lights begin to show in the Palace_.
Oh, good or ill, my hand shall clasp again
My dear lord's hand, returning! Beyond that

I speak not. A great ox hath laid his weight
Across my tongue. But these stone walls
know well,
If stones had speech, what tale were theirs to tell.
For me, to him that
knoweth I can yet
Speak; if another questions I forget.
[_Exit into the Palace. The women's "Ololûgê" or triumph-cry, is heard within and then
repeated again and again further off in the City. Handmaids and Attendants come from
the Palace, bearing torches, with which they kindle incense on the altars. Among them
comes_ CLYTEMNESTRA, _who throws herself on her knees at the central Altar in an
agony of prayer._
_Presently from the further side of the open space appear the_ CHORUS _of_ ELDERS
_and move gradually into position in front of the Palace. The day begins to dawn._
CHORUS.
Ten years since Ilion's righteous foes,
The Atreidae strong,
Menelaüs and eke
Agamemnon arose,
Two thrones, two sceptres, yoked of God;
And a thousand galleys
of Argos trod
The seas for the righting of wrong;
And wrath of battle about them
cried,
As vultures cry,
Whose nest is plundered, and up they fly
In anguish lonely, eddying
wide,
Great wings like oars in the waste of sky,
Their task gone from them, no more
to keep
Watch o'er the vulture babes asleep.
But One there is who heareth on high

Some Pan or Zeus, some lost Apollo--
That keen bird-throated suffering cry
Of the
stranger wronged in God's own sky;
And sendeth down, for the law transgressed,
The
Wrath of the Feet that follow.
So Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend,
Zeus who Prevaileth, in after quest
For
One Belovèd by Many Men
On Paris sent the Atreidae twain;
Yea, sent him dances
before the end
For his bridal cheer,
Wrestlings heavy and limbs forespent
For Greek and Trojan, the
knee earth-bent,
The bloody dust and the broken spear.
He knoweth, that which is
here is here,
And that which Shall Be