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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="/comments.php?id=509101" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Tower Beyond Tragedy</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=509101" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I<br>You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's<br>burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower<br>Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she<br>the ageless, the uncontaminable-<br>This Clytemnestra was her sister, low-statured, fierce-lipped, not<br>dark nor blonde, greenish-gray-eyed,<br>Sinewed with strength, you saw, under the purple folds of the<br>queen-cloak, but craftier than queenly,<br>Standing between the gilded wooden porch-pillars, great steps of<br>stone above the steep street,<br>Awaiting the King.<br>Most of his men were quartered on the town;<br>he, clanking bronze, with fifty<br>And certain captives, came to the stair. The Queen's men were<br>a hundred in the street and a hundred<br>Lining the ramp, eighty on the great flags of the porch; she<br>raising her white arms the spear-butts<br>Thundered on the stone, and the shields clashed; eight shining<br>clarions<br>Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of<br>their metal throats, air-cleaving<br>Over the King come home. He raised his thick burnt-colored<br>beard and smiled; then Clytemnestra,<br>Gathering the robe, setting the golden-sandaled feet carefully,<br>stone by stone, descended<br>One half the stair. But one of the captives marred the comeliness<br>of that embrace with a cry<br>Gull-shrill, blade-sharp, cutting between the purple cloak and<br>the bronze plates, then Clytemnestra:<br>Who was it? The King answered: A piece of our goods out of<br>the snatch of Asia, a daughter of the king,<br>So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again. Eh,<br>you keep state here my queen.<br>You've not been the poorer for me.- In heart, in the widowed<br>chamber, dear, she pale replied, though the slaves<br>Toiled, the spearmen were faithful. What's her name, the slavegirl's?<br>AGAMEMNON Come up the stair. They tell me my kinsman's<br>Lodged himself on you.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus? He was out of refuge,<br>flits between here and Tiryns.<br>Dear: the girl's name?<br>AGAMEMNON Cassandra. We've a hundred or so other<br>captives; besides two hundred<br>Rotted in the hulls, they tell odd stories about you and your<br>guest: eh? no matter: the ships<br>Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt, I smell like an<br>old shepherd's goatskin, you'll have bath-water?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>They're making it hot. Come, my lord. My hands will pour it.<br>(They enter the palace.)<br>CASSANDRA<br>In the holy city,<br>In Troy, when the stone was standing walls and the ash<br>Was painted and carved wood and pictured curtains,<br>And those lived that are dead, they had caged a den<br>Of wolves out of the mountain, and I a maiden<br>Was led to see them: it stank and snarled,<br>The smell was the smell here, the eyes were the eyes<br>Of steep Mycenae: O God guardian of wanderers<br>Let me die easily.<br>So cried Cassandra the daughter of King Priam, treading the steps<br>of the palace at Mycenae.<br>Swaying like a drunken woman, drunk with the rolling of the<br>ship, and with tears, and with prophecy.<br>The stair may yet be seen, among the old stones that are Mycenae;<br>tall dark Cassandra, the prophetess,<br>The beautiful girl with whom a God bargained for love, high-nurtured,<br>captive, shamefully stained<br>With the ship's filth and the sea's, rolled her dark head upon her<br>shoulders like a drunken woman<br>And trod the great stones of the stair. The captives, she among<br>them, were ranked into a file<br>On the flagged porch, between the parapet and the spearmen.<br>The people below shouted for the King,<br>King Agamemnon, returned conqueror, after the ten years of<br>battle and death in Asia.<br>Then cried Cassandra:<br>Good spearmen you did not kill my father, not you<br>Violated my mother with the piercing<br>That makes no life in the womb, not you defiled<br>My tall blond brothers with the masculine lust<br>That strikes its loved one standing,<br>And leaves him what no man again nor a girl<br>Ever will gaze upon with the eyes of desire:<br>Therefore you'll tell me<br>Whether it's an old custom in the Greek country<br>The cow goring the bull, break the inner door back<br>And see in what red water how cloaked your King<br>Bathes, and my brothers are avenged a little.<br>One said: Captive be quiet. And she: What have I to be quiet for,<br>you will not believe me.<br>Such wings my heart spreads when the red runs out of any<br>Greek, I must let the bird fly. O soldiers<br>He that mishandled me dies! The first, one of your two brute<br>Aj axes, that threw me backward<br>On the temple flagstones, a hard bride-bed, I enduring him<br>heard the roofs of my city breaking,<br>The roar of flames and spearmen: what came to Ajax? Out of a<br>cloud the loud-winged falcon lightning<br>Came on him shipwrecked, clapped its wings about him, clung<br>to him, the violent flesh burned and the bones<br>Broke from each other in that passion; and now this one, returned<br>safe, the Queen is his lightning.<br>While she yet spoke a slave with haggard eyes darted from the<br>door; there were hushed cries and motions<br>In the inner dark of the great hall. Then the Queen Clytemnestra<br>issued, smiling. She drew<br>Her cloak up, for the brooch on the left shoulder was broken; the<br>fillet of her hair had come unbound;<br>Yet now she was queenly at length; and standing at the stair-head<br>spoke: Men of Mycenae, I have made<br>Sacrifice for the joy this day has brought to us, the King come<br>home, the enemy fallen, fallen,<br>In the ashes of Asia. I have made sacrifice. I made the prayer<br>with my own lips, and struck the bullock<br>With my own hand. The people murmured together, She's not<br>a priestess, the Queen is not a priestess,<br>What has she done there, what wild sayings<br>Make wing in the Queen's throat?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA I have something to tell you.<br>Too much joy is a message-bearer of misery.<br>A little is good; but come too much and it devours us. Therefore<br>we give of a great harvest<br>Sheaves to the smiling Gods; and therefore out of a full cup we<br>pour the quarter. No man<br>Dare take all that God sends him, whom God favors, or destruction<br>Rides into the house in the last basket. I have been twelve years<br>your shepherdess, I the Queen have ruled you<br>And I am accountable for you.<br>CASSANDRA<br>Why should a man kill his own mother?<br>The cub of the lion being grown<br>Will fight with the lion, but neither lion nor wolf<br>Nor the unclean jackal<br>Bares tooth against the womb that he dropped out of:<br>Yet I have seen<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Strike that captive woman with your hand, spearman; and then<br>if the spirit<br>Of the she-wolf in her will not quiet, with the butt of the spear.<br>CASSANDRA -the blade in the child's hand<br>Enter the breast that the child sucked-that woman's-<br>The left breast that the robe has dropped from, for the brooch is<br>broken,<br>That very hillock of whiteness, and she crying, she kneeling<br>(The spearman 'who is nearest CASSANDRA covers her mouth<br>twith his hand.)<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>My sister's beauty entered Troy with too much gladness. They<br>forgot to make sacrifice.<br>Therefore destruction entered; therefore the daughters of Troy<br>cry out in strange dispersals, and this one<br>Grief has turned mad. I will not have that horror march under<br>the Lion-gate of Mycenae<br>That split the citadel of Priam. Therefore I say I have made<br>sacrifice; I have subtracted<br>A fraction from immoderate joy. For consider, my people,<br>How unaccountably God has favored the city and brought home<br>the army. King Agamemnon,<br>My dear, my husband, my lord and yours,<br>Is yet not such a man as the Gods love; but insolent, fierce, overbearing,<br>whose folly<br>Brought many times many great evils<br>On all the heads and fighting hopes of the Greek force. Why,<br>even before the fleet made sail,<br>While yet it gathered on Boeotian Aulis, this man offended. He<br>slew one of the deer<br>Of the sacred herd of Artemis, out of pure impudence, hunter's<br>pride that froths in a young boy<br>Laying nock to string of his first bow: this man, grown, a grave<br>king, leader of the Greeks.<br>The angry Goddess<br>Blew therefore from the horn of the Trojan shore storm without<br>end, no slackening, no turn, no slumber<br>Of the eagle bound to break the oars of the fleet and split the<br>hulls venturing: you know what answer<br>Calchas the priest gave: his flesh must pay whose hand did the<br>evil-his flesh! mine also. His? My daughter.<br>They knew that of my three there was one that I loved.<br>Blameless white maid, my Iphigenia, whose throat the knife,<br>Whose delicate soft throat the thing that cuts sheep open was<br>drawn across by a priest's hand<br>And the soft-colored lips drained bloodless<br>That had clung here-here- Oh!<br>(Drawing the robe from her breasts.)<br>These feel soft, townsmen; these are red at the tips, they have<br>neither blackened nor turned marble.<br>King Agamemnon hoped to pillow his black-haired breast upon<br>them, my husband, that mighty conqueror,<br>Come home with glory. He thought they were still a woman's,<br>they appear a woman's. I'll tell you something.<br>Since fawn slaughtered for slaughtered fawn evened the debt<br>these that feel soft and warm are wounding ice,<br>They ache with their hardness . . .<br>Shall I go on and count the other follies of the King? The<br>insolences to God and man<br>That brought down plague, and brought Achilles' anger against<br>the army? Yet God brought home a remnant<br>Against all hope: therefore rejoice.<br>But lest too much rejoicing slay us I have made sacrifice. A little<br>girl's brought you over the sea.<br>What could be great enough for safe return? A sheep's death?<br>A bull's? What thank-offering?<br>All these captives, battered from the ships, bruised with captivity,<br>damaged flesh and forlorn minds?<br>God requires wholeness in the victim. You dare not think what<br>he demands. I dared. I, I,<br>Dared.<br>Men of the Argolis, you that went over the sea and you that<br>guarded the home coasts<br>And high stone war-belts of the cities: remember how many<br>spearmen these twelve years have called me<br>Queen, and have loved me, and been faithful, and remain faithful.<br>What I bring you is accomplished.<br>VOICES<br>King Agamemnon. The King. We will hear the King.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA What I bring you is accomplished.<br>Accept it, the cities are at peace, the ways are safe between<br>them, the Gods favor us. Refuse it ...<br>You will not refuse it ...<br>VOICES The King. We will hear the King. Let<br>us see the King.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>You will not refuse it; I have my faithful They would run, the<br>red rivers,<br>From the gate and by the graves through every crooked street<br>of the great city, they would run in the pasture<br>Outside the walls: and on this stair: stemmed at this entrance-<br>CASSANDRA<br>Ah, sister, do you also behold visions? I was watching red<br>water-<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Be wise, townsmen. As for the King: slaves will bring him to you<br>when he has bathed; you will see him.<br>The slaves will carry him on a litter, he has learned Asian ways in<br>Asia, too great a ruler<br>To walk, like common spearmen.<br>CASSANDRA Who is that, standing behind<br>you, Clytemnestra? What God<br>Dark in the doorway?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Deal you with your own demons. You<br>know what I have done, captive. You know<br>I am holding lions with my two eyes: if I turn and loose<br>them . . .<br>CASSANDRA It is . . . the King. There! There! Ah!<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Or of I should make any move to increase confusion. If I should<br>say for example, Spearman<br>Kill that woman. I cannot say it this moment; so little as from<br>one spear wound in your body<br>A trickle would loose them on us.<br>CASSANDRA Yet he stands behind you.<br>A-ah! I can bear it. I have seen much lately<br>Worse.<br>A CAPTAIN (down the stair; standing forward from his men)<br>O Queen, there is no man in the world, but one (if that one<br>lives), may ask you to speak<br>Otherwise than you will. You have spoken in riddles to the<br>people . . .<br>CASSANDRA Not me! Why will you choose<br>Me! I submitted to you living, I was forced, you entered me . . .<br>THE CAPTAIN Also there was a slave here,<br>Whose eyes stood out from his chalk face, came buzzing from<br>the palace postern gate, whimpering<br>A horrible thing. I killed him. But the men have heard it.<br>CASSANDRA You were the king, I was your slave.<br>Here you see, here, I took the black-haired breast of the bull,<br>I endured it, I opened my thighs, I suffered<br>The other thing besides death that you Greeks have to give<br>us ...<br>THE CAPTAIN Though this one raves and you are silent,<br>Queen, terrible-eyed . . .<br>CASSANDRA That was the slave's part: but this<br>time . . . dead King . . .<br>I ... will . . . not submit. Ah! Ah! No!<br>If you will steal the body of someone living take your wife's,<br>take that soldier's there<br>THE CAPTAIN<br>I pray you Queen command the captive woman be quieted in a<br>stone chamber; she increases confusion,<br>The soldiers cannot know some terrible thing may not have<br>happened; you men and the King's grin<br>Like wolves over the kill, the whole city totters on a swordedge<br>over sudden<br>CASSANDRA (screaming)<br>Drive him off me! Pity, pity!<br>I have no power; I thought when he was dead another man would<br>use me, your Greek custom,<br>Not he, he, newly slain.<br>He is driving me out, he enters, he possesses, this is my last defilement.<br>Ah . . . Greeks . . .<br>Pity Cassandra!<br>With the voice the spirit seemed to fly out.<br>She upflung her shining<br>Arms with the dreadful and sweet gesture of a woman surrendering<br>utterly to force and love,<br>She in the eyes of the people, like a shameless woman, and fell<br>writhing, and the dead King's soul<br>Entered her body. In that respite the Queen:<br>Captain: and you,<br>soldiers, that shift unsoldierly<br>The weapons that should be upright, at attention, like stiff<br>grass-blades: and you, people of Mycenae:<br>While this one maddened, and you muttered, echoing together,<br>and you, soldier, with anxious questions<br>Increased confusion: who was it that stood firm, who was it that<br>stood silent, who was it that held<br>With her two eyes the whole city from splitting wide asunder?<br>Your Queen was it? I am your Queen,<br>And now I will answer what you asked. ... It is true. . . . He<br>has died. ... I am the Queen.<br>My little son Orestes will grow up and govern you.<br>While she<br>spoke the body of Cassandra<br>Arose among the shaken spears, taller than the spears, and stood<br>among the waving spears<br>Stone-quiet, like a high war-tower in a windy pinewood, but<br>deadly to look at, with blind and tyrannous<br>Eyes; and the Queen: All is accomplished; and if you are wise,<br>people of Mycenae: quietness is wisdom.<br>No tumult will call home a dead man out of judgment. The end<br>is the end. Ah, soldiers! Down spears!<br>What, now Troy's fallen you think there's not a foreigner in<br>the world bronze may quench thirst on? Lion-cubs,<br>If you will tear each other in the lair happy the wolves, happy<br>the hook-nose vultures.<br>Call the eaters of carrion? I am your Queen, I am speaking to<br>you, you will hear me out before you whistle<br>The foul beaks from the mountain nest. I tell you I will forget<br>mercy if one man moves now.<br>I rule you, I.<br>The Gods have satisfied themselves in this man's death; there<br>shall not one drop of the blood of the city<br>Be shed further. I say the high Gods are content; as for the<br>lower,<br>And the great ghost of the King: my slaves will bring out the<br>King's body decently before you<br>And set it here, in the eyes of the city: spices the ships bring from<br>the south will comfort his spirit;<br>Mycenae and Tiryns and the shores will mourn him aloud; sheep<br>will be slain for him; a hundred beeves<br>Spill their thick blood into the trenches; captives and slaves go<br>down to serve him, yes all these captives<br>Burn in the ten-day fire with him, unmeasured wine quench it,<br>urned in pure gold the gathered ashes<br>Rest forever in the sacred rock; honored; a conqueror. . . .<br>Slaves, bring the King out of the house.<br>Alas my husband! she cried, clutching the brown strands of her<br>hair in both her hands, you have left me<br>A woman among lions! Ah, the King's power, ah the King's<br>victories! Weep for me, Mycenae!<br>Widowed of the King!<br>The people stood amazed, like sheep that<br>snuff at their dead shepherd, some hunter's<br>Ill-handled arrow having struck him from the covert, all by<br>mischance; he is fallen on the hillside<br>Between the oak-shadow and the stream; the sun burns his dead<br>face, his staff lies by him, his dog<br>Licks his hand, whining. So, like sheep, the people<br>Regarded that dead majesty whom the slaves brought out of the<br>house on a gold bed, and set it<br>Between the pillars of the porch. His royal robe covered his<br>wounds, there was no stain<br>Nor discomposure.<br>Then that captain who had spoken before:<br>O Queen, before the mourning<br>The punishment: tell us who has done this. She raised her head,<br>and not a woman but a lioness<br>Blazed at him from her eyes: Dog, she answered, dog of the<br>army,<br>Who said Speak dog, and you dared speak? Justice is mine.<br>Then he was silent; but Cassandra's<br>Body standing tall among the spears, over the parapet, her body<br>but not her spirit<br>Cried with a man's voice: Shall not even the stones of the stair,<br>shall not the stones under the columns<br>Speak, and the towers of the great wall of my city come down<br>against the murderess? O Mycenae<br>I yearned to night and day under the tents by Troy, O Tiryns,<br>O Mycenae, the door<br>Of death, and the gate before the door!<br>CLYTEMNESTRA That woman lies, or the<br>spirit of a lie cries from her. Spearman,<br>Kill that woman!<br>But Cassandra's body set its back against the<br>parapet, its face<br>Terribly fronting the raised knife; and called the soldier by his<br>name, in the King's voice, saying<br>Sheathe it; and the knife lowered, and the soldier<br>Fell on his knees before the King in the woman's body; and the<br>body of Cassandra cried from the parapet:<br>Horrible things, horrible things this house has witnessed: but here<br>is the most vile, that hundreds<br>Of spears are idle while the murderess, Clytemnestra the murderess,<br>the snake that came upon me<br>Naked and bathing, the death that lay with me in bed, the death<br>that has borne children to me,<br>Stands there unslain.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Cowards, if the bawling of that bewildered<br>heifer from Troy fields has frightened you<br>How did you bear the horns of her brothers? Bring her to me.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA<br>Let no man doubt, men of Mycenae,<br>She has yet the knife hid in her clothes, the very blade that<br>stabbed her husband and the blood is on it.<br>Look, she handles it now. Look, fellows. The hand under the<br>robe. Slay her not easily, that she-wolf.<br>Do her no honor with a spear! Ah! If I could find the word, if<br>I could find it,<br>The name of her, to say husband-slayer and bed-defiler, bitch<br>and wolf-bitch, king's assassin<br>And beast, beast, beast, all in one breath, in one word: spearmen<br>You would heap your shields over this woman and crush her<br>slowly, slowly, while she choked and screamed,<br>No, you would peel her bare and on the pavement for a bridebed<br>with a spear-butt for husband<br>Dig the lewd womb until it burst: this for Agamemnon, this for<br>Aegisthus Agh, cowards of the city<br>Do you stand quiet?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Truly, soldiers,<br>I think it is he verily. No one could invent the abominable voice,<br>the unspeakable gesture,<br>The actual raging insolence of the tyrant. I am the hand ridded<br>the Argolis of him.<br>I here, I killed him, I, justly.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA You have heard her, you have<br>heard her, she has made confession.<br>Now if she'll show you the knife too<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Here. I kept it for safety.<br>And, as that beast said, his blood's yet on it.<br>Look at it, with so little a key I unlocked the kingdom of destruction.<br>Stand firm, till a God<br>Lead home this ghost to the dark country<br>So many Greeks have peopled, through his crimes, his violence,<br>his insolence, stand firm till that moment<br>And through the act of this hand and of this point no man shall<br>suffer anything again forever<br>Of Agamemnon.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA<br>I say if you let this woman live, this crime go<br>unpunished, what man among you<br>Will be safe in his bed? The woman ever envies the man, his<br>strength, his freedom, his loves.<br>Her envy is like a snake beside him, all his life through, her envy<br>and hatred: law tames that viper:<br>Law dies if the Queen die not: the viper is free then.<br>It will be poison in your meat or a knife to bleed you sleeping.<br>They fawn and slaver over us<br>And then we are slain.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA (to one of the slaves that carried the King’s<br>body)<br>Is my lord Aegisthus<br>Slain on the way? How long? How long?<br>(To the people) He<br>came, fat with his crimes.<br>Greek valor broke down Troy, your valor, soldiers, and the brain<br>of Odysseus, the battle-fury of Achilles,<br>The stubborn strength of Menelaus, the excellence of you all:<br>this dead man here, his pride<br>Ruined you a hundred times: he helped nowise, he brought bitter<br>destruction: but he gathered your glory<br>For the cloak of his shoulders. I saw him come up the stair, I saw<br>my child Iphigenia<br>Killed for his crime; I saw his harlot, the captive woman there,<br>crying out behind him, I saw . . .<br>I saw ... I saw . . . how can I speak what crowd of the dead<br>faces of the faithful Greeks,<br>Your brothers, dead of his crimes; those that perished of plague<br>and those that died in the lost battles<br>After he had soured the help of Achilles for another harlot<br>those dead faces of your brothers,<br>Some black with the death-blood, many trampled under the<br>hooves of horses, many spotted with pestilence,<br>Flew all about him, all lamenting, all crying out against him,<br>horrible horrible I gave them<br>Vengeance; and you freedom.<br>(To the slave) Go up and look,<br>for God's sake, go up to the parapets,<br>Look toward the mountain. Bring me word quickly, my strength<br>breaks,<br>How can I hold all the Argolis with my eyes forever? I alone?<br>Hell cannot hold her dead men,<br>Keep watch there-send me word by others-go, go!<br>(To the people) He<br>came triumphing.<br>Magnificent, abominable, all in bronze.<br>I brought him to the bath; my hands undid the armor;<br>My hands poured out the water;<br>Dead faces like flies buzzed all about us;<br>He stripped himself before me, loathsome, unclean, with laughter;<br>The labors of the Greeks had made him fat, the deaths of the<br>faithful had swelled his belly;<br>I threw a cloak over him for a net and struck, struck, struck,<br>Blindly, in the steam of the bath; he bellowed, netted,<br>And bubbled in the water;<br>All the stone vault asweat with steam bellowed;<br>And I undid the net and the beast was dead, and the broad vessel<br>Stank with his blood.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA<br>The word! The word! O burning mind of Godr<br>If ever I gave you bulls teach me that word, the name for her,<br>the name for her!<br>A SLAVE (running from the door; to CLYTEMNESTRA)<br>My lord. Aegisthus has come down the mountain, Queen, he<br>approaches the Lion-gate.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA It is time. I am tired now.<br>Meet him and tell him to come in the postern doorway.<br>THE CAPTAIN (on the stair: addressing the soldiers and the people<br>below)<br>Companions: before God, hating the smell of crimes, crushes the<br>city into gray ashes<br>We must make haste. Judge now and act. For the husband-slayer<br>I say she must die, let her pay forfeit. And for the great ghost<br>of the King, let all these captives,<br>But chiefly the woman Cassandra, the crier in a man's voice there,<br>be slain upon his pyre to quiet him.<br>He will go down to his dark place and God will spare the city.<br>(To the soldiers above, on the ramp and the porch)<br>Comrades: Mycenae is greater<br>Than the Queen of Mycenae. The King is dead: let the Queen<br>die: let the city live. Comrades,<br>We suffered something in Asia, on the stranger's coast, laboring<br>for you. We dreamed of home there<br>In the bleak wind and drift of battle; we continued ten years,<br>laboring and dying; we accomplished<br>The task set us; we gathered what will make all the Greek cities<br>glorious, a name forever;<br>We shared the spoil, taking our share to enrich Mycenae. O but<br>our hearts burned then, O comrades<br>But our hearts melted when the great oars moved the ships, the<br>water carried us, the blue sea-waves<br>Slid under the black keel; I could not see them, I was blind with<br>tears, thinking of Mycenae.<br>We have come home. Behold the dear streets of our longing,<br>The stones that we desired, the steep ways of the city and the<br>sacred doorsteps<br>Reek and steam with pollution, the accursed vessel<br>Spills a red flood over the floors.<br>The fountain of it stands there and calls herself the Queen. No<br>Queen, no Queen, that husband-slayer,<br>A common murderess. Comrades join us<br>We will make clean the city and sweeten it before God. We<br>will mourn together at the King's burying,<br>And a good year will come, we will rejoice together.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Dog, you dare<br>something. Fling no spear, soldiers,<br>He has a few fools back of him would attempt the stair if the<br>dog were slain: I will have no one<br>Killed out of need.<br>ONE OF HER MEN ON THE PORCH (flinging his spear)<br>Not at him: at you<br>Murderess!<br>But some God, no lover of justice, turned it; the<br>great bronze tip grazing her shoulder<br>Clanged on the stones behind: the gong of a change in the dance:<br>now Clytemnestra, none to help her,<br>One against all, swayed raging by the King's corpse, over the<br>golden bed: it is said that a fire<br>Stood visibly over her head, mixed in the hair, pale flames and<br>radiance.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Here am I, thieves, thieves,<br>Drunkards, here is my breast, a deep white mark for cowards to<br>aim at: kings have lain on it.<br>No spear yet, heroes, heroes?<br>See, I have no blemish: the arms are white, the breasts are deep<br>and white, the whole body is blemishless:<br>You are tired of your brown wives, draw lots for me, rabble,<br>thieves, there is loot here, shake the dice, thieves, a game yet!<br>One of you will take the bronze and one the silver,<br>One the gold, and one me,<br>Me Clytemnestra a spoil worth having:<br>Kings have kissed me, this dead dog was a king, there is another<br>King at the gate: thieves, thieves, would not this shining<br>Breast brighten a sad thief's hut, roll in his bed's filth<br>Shiningly? You could teach me to draw water at the fountain,<br>A dirty child on the other hip: where are the dice? Let me<br>throw first, if I throw sixes<br>I choose my masters: closer you rabble, let me smell you.<br>Don't fear the knife, it has king's blood on it, I keep it for an<br>ornament,<br>It has shot its sting.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA Fools, fools, Strike!<br>Are your hands dead?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA You Would see all of me<br>Before you choose whether to kill or dirtily cherish? If what<br>the King's used needs commending<br>To the eyes of thieves for thieves' use: give me room, give me<br>room, fellows, you'll see it is faultless.<br>The dress . . . there . . .<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA Fools this wide whore played wife<br>When she was going about to murder me the King; you, will<br>you let her trip you<br>With the harlot's trick? Strike! Make an end!<br>CLYTEMNESTRA I have not my<br>sister's, Troy's flame's beauty, but I have something.<br>This arm, round, firm, skin without hair, polished like marble:<br>the supple-jointed shoulders:<br>Men have praised the smooth neck, too,<br>The strong clear throat over the deep wide breasts . . .<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA She is<br>buying an hour: sheep: it may be Aegisthus<br>Is at the Lion-gate.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA If he were here, Aegisthus,<br>I’d not be the pedlar of what trifling charms I have for an<br>hour of life yet. You have wolves' eyes:<br>Yet there is something kindly about the blue ones there yours,<br>young soldier, young soldier. . . . The last,<br>The under-garment? You won't buy me yet? This dead dog,<br>The King here, never saw me naked: I had the night for nurse:<br>turn his head sideways, the eyes<br>Are only half shut. If I should touch him, and the blood came,<br>you'd say I had killed him. Nobody, nobody,<br>Killed him: his pride burst.<br>Ah, no one has pity!<br>I can serve well, I have always envied your women, the public ones.<br>Who takes me first? Tip that burnt log onto the flagstones,<br>This will be in a king's bed then. Your eyes are wolves' eyes:<br>So many, so many, so famishing<br>I will undo it, handle me not yet, I can undo it ...<br>Or I will tear it.<br>And when it is off me then I will be delivered to you beasts . . .<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA<br>Then strip her and use her to the bones, wear her through, kill<br>her with it.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>When it is torn<br>You'll say I am lovely: no one has seen before . . .<br>It won't tear: I'll slit it with this knife<br>(Aegisthus, with many spearmen, issues from the great door.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA stabs right and left with the knife; the<br>men are too close to strike her with their long spears.)<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>It's time. Cowards, goats, goats. Here! Aegisthus!<br>Aegisthus<br>I am here. What have they done?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Nothing: clear the porch: I have done something. Drive them<br>on the stair!<br>Three of them I've scarred for life: a rough bridegroom, the<br>rabble, met a fierce bride.<br>(She catches up her robe.)<br>I held them with my eyes, hours, hours. I am not tired. . . .<br>My lord, my lover:<br>I have killed a twelve-point stag for a present for you: with my<br>own hands: look, on the golden litter.<br>You arrive timely.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA<br>Tricked, stabbed, shamed, mocked at, the spoil of a lewd woman,<br>despised<br>I lie there ready for her back-stairs darling to spit on. Tricked,<br>stabbed, sunk in the drain<br>And gutter of time. I that thundered the assault, I that mustered<br>the Achaeans. Cast out of my kingdom,<br>Cast out of time, out of the light.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA One of the captives, dear.<br>It left its poor wits<br>Over the sea. If it annoys you I'll quiet it. But post your sentinels.<br>All's not safe yet, though I am burning with joy now.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA O single-eyed<br>glare of the sky<br>Flying southwest to the mountain: sun, through a slave's eyes,<br>My own broken, I see you this last day; my own darkened, no<br>dawn forever; the adulterers<br>Will swim in your warm gold, day after day; the eyes of the<br>murderess will possess you;<br>And I have gone away down: knowing that no God in the earth<br>nor sky loves justice; and having tasted<br>The toad that serves women for heart. From now on may all<br>bridegrooms<br>Marry them with swords. Those that have borne children<br>Their sons rape them with spears.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA More yet, more, more, more,<br>while my hand's in? It's not a little<br>You easily living lords of the sky require of who'd be like you,<br>who'd take time in the triumph,<br>Build joy solid. Do we have to do everything? I have killed<br>what I hated:<br>Kill what I love? The prophetess said it, this dead man says it:<br>my little son, the small soft image<br>That squirmed in my arms be an avenger? Love, from your loins<br>Seed: I begin new, I will be childless for you. The child my son,<br>the child my daughter!<br>Though I cry I feel nothing.<br>AEGISTHUS O strongest spirit in the world.<br>We have dared enough, there is an end to it.<br>We may pass nature a little, an arrow-flight,<br>But two shots over the wall you come in a cloud upon the feasting<br>Gods, lightning and madness.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Dear: make them safe. They may try to run away, the children.<br>Set spears to watch them: no harm, no harm,<br>But stab the nurse if they go near a door. Watch them, keep the<br>gates, order the sentinels,<br>While I make myself Queen over this people again. I can do it.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA The sun's gone; that glimmer's<br>The moon of the dead. The dark God calls me. Yes, God,<br>I'll come in a moment.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA (at the head of the great stairs)<br>Soldiers: townsmen: it seems<br>I am not at the end delivered to you: dogs, for the lion came:<br>the poor brown and spotted women<br>Will have to suffice you. But is it nothing to have come within<br>handling distance of the clear heaven<br>This dead man knew when he was young and God endured him?<br>Is it nothing to you?<br>It is something to me to have felt the fury<br>And concentration of you: I will not say I am grateful: I am<br>not angry: to be desired<br>Is wine even to a queen. You bathed me in it, from brow to foot-sole,<br>I had nearly enough.<br>But now remember that the dream is over. I am the Queen:<br>Mycenae is my city. If you grin at me<br>I have spears: also Tiryns and all the country people of the<br>Argolis will come against you and swallow you,<br>Empty out these ways and walls, stock them with better subjects.<br>A rock nest for new birds here, townsfolk:<br>You are not essential.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA. I hear him calling through the shewolf's<br>noise, Agamemnon, Agamemnon,<br>The dark God calls. Some old king in a fable is it?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA So choose.<br>What choices? To reenter my service<br>Unpunished, no thought of things past, free of conditions . . .<br>Or dine at this man's table, have new mouths made in you to<br>eat bronze with.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA Who is Agamemnon?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>You letting go of the sun: is it dark the land you are running<br>away to?<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA It is dark.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA IS it Sorrowful?<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA<br>There is nothing but misery.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Has any man ever come back thence?<br>Hear me, not the dark God.<br>THE BODY OF CASSANDRA No man has ever.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Go then, go, go down. You will not choose to follow him, people<br>of the rock-city? No one<br>Will choose to follow him. I have killed: it is easy: it may be<br>I shall kill nearer than this yet:<br>But not you, townsfolk, you will give me no cause; I want<br>security; I want service, not blood.<br>I have been desired of the whole city, publicly; I want service,<br>not lust. You will make no sign<br>Of your submission; you will not give up your weapons; neither<br>shall your leaders be slain;<br>And he that flung the spear, I have forgotten his face.<br>AEGISTHUS (entering) Dearest,<br>they have gone, the nurse and the children,<br>No one knows where.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA I am taming this people: send men after<br>them. If any harm comes to the children<br>Bring me tokens. I will not be in doubt, I will not have the arch<br>fall on us. I dare<br>What no one dares. I envy a little the dirty mothers of the city.<br>O, O!<br>Nothing in me hurts. I have animal waters in my eyes, but the<br>spirit is not wounded. Electra and Orestes<br>Are not to live when they are caught. Bring me sure tokens.<br>CASSANDRA Who is this woman like a beacon<br>Lit on the stair, who are these men with dogs' heads?<br>I have ranged time and seen no sight like this one.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Have you returned, Cassandra? . . . The dead king has gone<br>down to his place, we may bury his leavings.<br>CASSANDRA<br>I have witnessed all the wars to be; I am not sorrowful<br>For one drop from the pail of desolation<br>Spilt on my father's city; they were carrying it forward<br>To water the world under the latter starlight.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA (to her slaves)<br>Take up the poles of the bed; reverently; careful on the stair;<br>give him to the people. (To the people) O soldiers<br>This was your leader; lay him with honor in the burial-chapel;<br>guard him with the spears of victory;<br>Mourn him until to-morrow, when the pyre shall be built.<br>Ah, King of men, sleep, sleep, sleep!<br>. . . But when shall I? ... They are after their corpse, like<br>dogs after the butcher's cart. Cleomenes, that captain<br>With the big voice: Neobulus was the boy who flung the spear<br>and missed. I shall not miss<br>When spear-flinging-time comes. . . . Captive woman, you have<br>seen the future, tell me my fortune.<br>(Aegisthus comes from the doorway.)<br>Aegisthus,<br>Have your hounds got them?<br>AEGISTHUS I've covered every escape with men,<br>they'll not slip through me. But commanded<br>To bring them here living.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA That's hard: tigresses don't do it: I<br>have some strength yet: don't speak of it<br>And I shall do it.<br>AEGISTHUS It is a thing not to be done: we'll guard them<br>closely: but mere madness<br>Lies over the wall of too-much.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA King of Mycenae, new-crowned<br>king, who was your mother?<br>AEGISTHUS Pelopia.<br>What mark do you aim at?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA And your father?<br>AEGISTHUS Thyestes.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA And her father?<br>AEGISTHUS The<br>same man, Thyestes.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>See, dearest, dearest? They love what men call crime, they have<br>taken her crime to be the king of Mycenae.<br>Here is the stone garden of the plants that pass nature: there is<br>no too-much here: the monstrous<br>Old rocks want monstrous roots to serpent among them. I will<br>have security. I'd burn the standing world<br>Up to this hour and begin new. You think I am too much used<br>for a new brood? Ah, lover,<br>I have fountains in me. I had a fondness for the brown cheek<br>of that boy, the curl of his<br>lip,<br>The widening blue of the doomed eyes ... I will be spared<br>nothing. Come in, come in, they'll have news for us.<br>no<br>CASSANDRA<br>If anywhere in the world<br>Were a tower with foundations, or a treasure-chamber<br>With a firm vault, or a walled fortress<br>That stood on the years, not staggering, not moving<br>As the mortar were mixed with wine for water<br>And poppy for lime: they reel, they are all drunkards,<br>The piled strengths of the world: no pyramid<br>In bitter Egypt in the desert<br>But skips at moonrise; no mountain<br>Over the Black Sea in awful Caucasus<br>But whirls like a young kid, like a bud of the herd,<br>Under the hundredth star: I am sick after steadfastness<br>Watching the world cataractlike<br>Pour screaming onto steep ruins: for the wings of prophecy<br>God once my lover give me stone sandals<br>Planted on stone: he hates me, the God, he will never<br>Take home the gift of the bridleless horse<br>The stallion, the unbitted stallion: the bed<br>Naked to the sky on Mount Ida,<br>The soft clear grass there,<br>Be blackened forever, may vipers and Greeks<br>In that glen breed<br>Twisting together, where the God<br>Come golden from the sun<br>Gave me for a bride-gift prophecy and I took it for a treasure:<br>I a fool, I a maiden,<br>I would not let him touch me though love of him maddened me<br>Till he fed me that poison, till he planted that fire in me,<br>The girdle flew loose then.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=509101" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Queen considered this rock, she gazed on the great stone<br>blocks of Mycenae's acropolis;<br>Monstrous they seemed to her, solid they appeared to her, safe<br>rootage for monstrous deeds: Ah fierce one<br>Who knows who laid them for a snare? What people in the<br>world's dawn breathed on chill air and the vapor<br>Of their breath seemed stone and has stood and you dream it is<br>established? These also are a foam on the stream<br>Of the falling of the world: there is nothing to lay hold on:<br>No crime is a crime, the slaying of the King was a meeting of<br>two bubbles on the lip of the cataract,<br>One winked . . . and the killing of your children would be<br>nothing: I tell you for a marvel that the earth is a dancer,<br>The grave dark earth is less quiet than a fool's fingers,<br>That old one, spinning in the emptiness, blown by no wind in<br>vain circles, light-witted and a dancer.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA (entering)<br>You are prophesying: prophesy to a purpose, captive woman.<br>My children, the boy and the girl,<br>Have wandered astray, no one can find them.<br>CASSANDRA Shall I tell the lioness<br>Where meat is, or the she-wolf where the lambs wander astray?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA But look into the darkness<br>And foam of the world: the boy has great tender blue eyes,<br>brown hair, disdainful lips, you'll know him<br>By the gold stripe bordering his garments; the girl's eyes are<br>my color, white her clothing<br>CASSANDRA Millions<br>Of shining bubbles burst and wander<br>On the stream of the world falling . . .<br>CLYTEMNESTRA These are my children!<br>CASSANDRA I see<br>mountains, I see no faces.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Tell me and I make you free; conceal it from me and a soldier's<br>spear finishes the matter.<br>CASSANDRA<br>I am the spear's bride, I have been waiting, waiting for that<br>ecstasy<br>CLYTEMNESTRA (striking her) Live then. It will not be unpainful.<br>(CLYTEMNESTRA goes in.)<br>CASSANDRA<br>O fair roads north where the land narrows<br>Over the mountains between the great gulfs,<br>that I too with the King's children<br>Might wander northward hand in hand.<br>Mine are worse wanderings:<br>They will shelter on Mount Parnassus,<br>For me there is no mountain firm enough,<br>The storms of light beating on the headlands,<br>The storms of music undermine the mountains, they stumble<br>and fall inward,<br>Such music the stars<br>Make in their courses, the vast vibration<br>Plucks the iron heart of the earth like a harp-string.<br>Iron and stone core, O stubborn axle of the earth, you also<br>Dissolving in a little time like salt in water,<br>What does it matter that I have seen Macedon<br>Roll all the Greek cities into one billow and strand in Asia<br>The anthers and bracts of the flower of the world?<br>That I have seen Egypt and Nineveh<br>Crumble, and a Latian village<br>Plant the earth with javelins? It made laws for all men, it dissolved<br>like a cloud.<br>I have also stood watching a storm of wild swans<br>Rise from one river-mouth . . . O force of the earth rising,<br>O fallings of the earth: forever no rest, not forever<br>From the wave and the trough, from the stream and the slack,<br>from growth and decay: O vulture-<br>Pinioned, my spirit, one flight yet, last, longest, unguided,<br>Try into the gulf,<br>Over Greece, over Rome, you have space O my spirit for the<br>years</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=509101" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II<br>Are not few of captivity: how many have I stood here<br>Among the great stones, while the Queen's people<br>Go in and out of the gate, wearing light linen<br>For summer and the wet spoils of wild beasts<br>In the season of storms: and the stars have changed, I have<br>watched<br>The grievous and unprayed-to constellations<br>Pile steaming spring and patient autumn<br>Over the enduring walls: but you over the walls of the world,<br>Over the unquieted centuries, over the darkness-hearted<br>Millenniums wailing thinly to be born, O vulture-pinioned<br>Try into the dark,<br>Watch the north spawn white bodies and red-gold hair,<br>Race after race of beastlike warriors; and the cities<br>Burn, and the cities build, and new lands be uncovered<br>In the way of the sun to his setting ... go on farther, what<br>profit<br>In the wars and the toils? but I say<br>Where are prosperous people my enemies are, as you pass them<br>O my spirit<br>Curse Athens for the joy and the marble, curse Corinth<br>For the wine and the purple, and Syracuse<br>For the gold and the ships; but Rome, Rome,<br>With many destructions for the corn and the laws and the javelins,<br>the insolence, the threefold<br>Abominable power: pass the humble<br>And the lordships of darkness, but far down<br>Smite Spain for the blood on the sunset gold, curse France<br>For the fields abounding and the running rivers, the lights in the<br>cities, the laughter, curse England<br>For the meat on the tables and the terrible gray ships, for old<br>laws, far dominions, there remains<br>A mightier to be cursed and a higher for malediction<br>When America has eaten Europe and takes tribute of Asia, when<br>the ends of the world grow aware of each other<br>And are dogs in one kennel, they will tear<br>The master of the hunt with the mouths of the pack: new fallings,<br>new risings, O winged one<br>No end of the fallings and risings? An end shall be surely,<br>Though unnatural things are accomplished, they breathe in the<br>sea's depth,<br>They swim in the air, they bridle the cloud-leaper lightning to<br>carry their messages:<br>Though the eagles of the east and the west and the falcons of<br>the north were not quieted, you have seen a white cloth<br>Cover the lands from the north and the eyes of the lands and the<br>claws of the hunters,<br>The mouths of the hungry with snow<br>Were filled, and their claws<br>Took hold upon ice in the pasture, a morsel of ice was their<br>catch in the rivers,<br>That pure white quietness<br>Waits on the heads of the mountains, not sleep but death, will<br>the fire<br>Of burnt cities and ships in that year warm you my enemies?<br>The frost, the old frost,<br>Like a cat with a broken-winged bird it will play with you,<br>It will nip and let go; you will say it is gone, but the next<br>Season it increases: O clean, clean,<br>White and most clean, colorless quietness,<br>Without trace, without trail, without stain in the garment, drawn<br>down<br>From the poles to the girdle. ... I have known one Godhead<br>To my sore hurt: I am growing to come to another: O grave<br>and kindly<br>Last of the lords of the earth, I pray you lead my substance<br>Speedily into another shape, make me grass, Death, make me<br>stone,<br>Make me air to wander free between the stars and the peaks;<br>but cut humanity<br>Out of my being, that is the wound that festers in me,<br>Not captivity, not my enemies: you will heal the earth also,<br>Death, in your time; but speedily Cassandra.<br>You rock-fleas hopping in the clefts of Mycenae,<br>Suckers of blood, you carrying the scepter farther, Persian,<br>Emathian,<br>Roman and Mongol and American, and you half-gods<br>Indian and Syrian and the third, emperors of peace, I have seen<br>on what stage<br>You sing the little tragedy; the column of the ice that was before<br>on one side flanks it,<br>The column of the ice to come closes it up on the other: audience<br>nor author<br>I have never seen yet: I have heard the silence: it is I Cassandra,<br>Eight years the bitter watchdog of these doors,<br>Have watched a vision<br>And now approach to my end. Eight years I have seen the<br>phantoms<br>Walk up and down this stair; and the rocks groan in the night,<br>the great stones move when no man sees them.<br>And I have forgotten the fine ashlar masonry of the courts of my<br>father. I am not Cassandra<br>But a counter of sunrises, permitted to live because I am crying<br>to die; three thousand,<br>Pale and red, have flowed over the towers in the wall since I was<br>here watching; the deep east widens,<br>The cold wind blows, the deep earth sighs, the dim gray finger<br>of light crooks at the morning star.<br>The palace feasted late and sleeps with its locked doors; the last<br>drunkard from the alleys of the city<br>Long has reeled home. Whose foot is this then, what phantom<br>Toils on the stair?<br>A VOICE BELOW Is someone watching above? Good sentinel I<br>am only a girl beggar.<br>I would sit on the stair and hold my bowl.<br>CASSANDRA I here eight years have<br>begged for a thing and not received it.<br>THE VOICE<br>You are not a sentinel? You have been asking some great boon,<br>out of all reason.<br>CASSANDRA No: what the meanest<br>Beggar disdains to take.<br>THE GIRL BEGGAR Beggars disdain nothing: what is it that<br>they refuse you?<br>CASSANDRA What's given<br>Even to the sheep and to the bullock.<br>THE GIRL Men give them salt, grass<br>they find out for themselves.<br>CASSANDRA Men give them<br>The gift that you though a beggar have brought down from the<br>north to give my mistress.<br>THE GIRL You speak riddles.<br>I am starving, a crust is my desire.<br>CASSANDRA Your voice is young though<br>winds have hoarsened it, your body appears<br>Flexible under the rags: have you some hidden sickness, the<br>young men will not give you silver?<br>THE GIRL<br>I have a sickness: I will hide it until I am cured. You are not<br>a Greek woman?<br>CASSANDRA But you<br>Born in Mycenae return home. And you bring gifts from Phocis:<br>for my once master who's dead<br>Vengeance; and for my mistress peace, for my master the King<br>peace, and, by-shot of the doom's day,<br>Peace for me also. But I have prayed for it.<br>THE GIRL I know you, I knew<br>you before you spoke to me, captive woman,<br>And I unarmed will kill you with my hands if you babble<br>prophecies.<br>That peace you have prayed for, I will bring it to you<br>If you utter warnings.<br>CASSANDRA To-day I shall have peace, you cannot<br>tempt me, daughter of the Queen, Electra.<br>Eight years ago I watched you and your brother going north<br>to Phocis: the Queen saw knowledge of you<br>Move in my eyes: I would not tell her where you were when<br>she commanded me: I will not betray you<br>To-day either: it is not doleful to me<br>To see before I die generations of destruction enter the doors<br>of Agamemnon.<br>Where is your brother?<br>ELECTRA Prophetess: you see all: I will tell you<br>nothing.<br>CASSANDRA He has well chosen his ambush,<br>It is true Aegisthus passes under that house to-day, to hunt in<br>the mountain.<br>ELECTRA Now I remember<br>Your name. Cassandra.<br>CASSANDRA Hush: the gray has turned yellow, the<br>standing beacons<br>Stream up from the east; they stir there in the palace; strange,<br>is it not, the dawn of one's last day's<br>Like all the others? Your brother would be fortunate if to-day<br>were also<br>The last of his.<br>ELECTRA He will endure his destinies; and Cassandra hers;<br>and Electra mine.<br>He has been for years like one tortured with fire: this day will<br>quench it.<br>CASSANDRA They are opening the gates: beg now.<br>To your trade, beggar-woman.<br>THE PORTER (coming out) Eh, pillar of miseries,<br>You still on guard there? Like a mare in a tight stall, never lying<br>down. What's this then?<br>A second ragged one? This at least can bend in the middle and<br>sit on a stone.<br>ELECTRA Dear gentleman<br>I am not used to it, my father is dead and hunger forces me to<br>beg, a crust or a penny.<br>THE PORTER<br>This tall one's licensed in a manner. I think they'll not let two<br>bundles of rag<br>Camp on the stair: but if you'd come to the back door and please<br>me nicely: with a little washing<br>It'd do for pastime.<br>ELECTRA I was reared gently: I will sit here, the King<br>will see me,<br>And none mishandle me.<br>THE PORTER I bear no blame for you.<br>I have not seen you: you came after the gates were opened.<br>(He goes in.)<br>CASSANDRA<br>O blossom of fire, bitter to men,<br>Watchdog of the woeful days,<br>How many sleepers<br>Bathing in peace, dreaming themselves delight,<br>All over the city, all over the Argolid plain, all over the dark<br>earth,<br>(Not me, a deeper draught of peace<br>And darker waters alone may wash me)<br>Do you, terrible star, star without pity,<br>Wolf of the east, waken to misery.<br>To the wants unaccomplished, to the eating desires,<br>To unanswered love, to hunger, to the hard edges<br>And mold of reality, to the whips of their masters.<br>They had flown away home to the happy darkness,<br>They were safe until sunrise.<br>(King Aegisthus, with his retinue, comes from the great<br>door.)<br>AEGISTHUS<br>Even here, in the midst of the city, the early day<br>Has a clear savor. (To ELECTRA) What, are you miserable, holding<br>the bowl out?<br>We'll hear the lark to-day in the wide hills and smell the mountain.<br>I'd share happiness with you.<br>What's your best wish, girl beggar?<br>ELECTRA It is covered, my lord, how<br>should a beggar<br>Know what to wish for beyond a crust and a dark corner and a<br>little kindness?<br>AEGISTHUS Why do you tremble?<br>ELECTRA<br>I was reared gently; my father is dead.<br>AEGISTHUS Stand up: will you take<br>service here in the house? What country<br>Bred you gently and proved ungentle to you?<br>ELECTRA I have wandered<br>north from the Eurotas, my lord,<br>Begging at farmsteads.<br>AEGISTHUS The Queen's countrywoman then, she'll<br>use you kindly. She'll be coming<br>In a moment, then I'll speak for you. -Did you bid them yoke<br>the roans into my chariot, Menalcas,<br>The two from Orchomenus?<br>ONE OF THE RETINUE Yesterday evening, my lord,<br>I sent to the stable.<br>AEGISTHUS They cost a pretty penny, we'll see how they<br>carry it. She's coming: hold up your head, girl.<br>(CLYTEMNESTRA, with two serving-women, comes from<br>the door.)<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Good hunt, dearest. Here's a long idle day for me to look to.<br>Kill early, come home early.<br>AEGISTHUS<br>There's a poor creature on the step who's been reared nicely<br>and slipped into misery. I said you'd feed her,<br>And maybe find her a service. Farewell, sweet one.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Where did she come from? How long have you<br>been here?<br>AEGISTHUS She says she has begged her way up from Sparta.<br>The horses are stamping on the cobbles, good-by, good-by.<br>(He goes down the stair with his huntsmen.)<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Good-by, dearest. Well. Let me see your face.<br>ELECTRA It is filthy to look at. I am ashamed.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA (to one of her serving-women) Leucippe do<br>you think this is a gayety of my lord's, he's not used to be<br>so kindly to beggars?<br>-Let me see your face.<br>LEUCIPPE She is very dirty, my lady. It is possible one of the<br>house-boys . . .<br>CLYTEMNESTRA I say draw that rag back, let me see your face.<br>I'd have him whipped then.<br>ELECTRA It was only in hope that someone would put a crust<br>in the bowl, your majesty, for I am starving. I didn't think<br>your majesty would see me.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Draw back the rag.<br>ELECTRA I am very faint and starving but I will go down; I am<br>ashamed.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Stop her, Corinna. Fetch the porter, Leucippe.<br>You will not go so easily. (ELECTRA sinks down on the steps<br>and lies prone, her head covered.) I am aging out of queenship<br>indeed, when even the beggars refuse my bidding.<br>(LEUCIPPE comes in 'with the porter.) You have a dirty stair,<br>porter. How long has this been here?<br>THE PORTER O my lady it has crept up since I opened the doors,<br>it was not here when I opened the doors.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Lift it up and uncover its face. What is that<br>cry in the city? Stop: silent: I heard a cry . . .<br>Prophetess, your nostrils move like a dog's, what is that shouting?<br>. . .<br>I have grown weak, I am exhausted, things frighten me ...<br>Tell her to be gone, Leucippe, I don't wish to see her, I don't<br>wish to see her.<br>(ELECTRA rises.)<br>ELECTRA Ah, Queen, I will show you my face.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA No ... no ... be gone.<br>ELECTRA (uncovering her face)<br>Mother: I have come home: I am humbled. This house keeps<br>a dark welcome<br>For those coming home out of far countries.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA I Won't look: how<br>could I know anyone? I am old and shaking.<br>He said, Over the wall beyond nature<br>Lightning, and the laughter of the Gods. I did not cross it,<br>I will not kill what I gave life to.<br>Whoever you are, go, go, let me grow downward to the grave<br>quietly now.<br>ELECTRA I cannot<br>Go: I have no other refuge. Mother! Will you not kiss me, will<br>you not take me into the house,<br>Your child once, long a wanderer? Electra my name. I have<br>begged my way from Phocis, my brother is dead there,<br>Who used to care for me.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Who is dead, who?<br>ELECTRA My brother Orestes,<br>Killed in a court quarrel<br>CLYTEMNESTRA (weeping) Oh, you lie! The widening blue<br>blue eyes,<br>The little voice of the child . . . Liar.<br>ELECTRA It is true. I have wept<br>long, on every mountain. You, mother,<br>Have only begun weeping. Far off, in a far country, no fit<br>burial . . .<br>CLYTEMNESTRA And do you bringing<br>Bitterness ... or lies . . . look for a welcome? I have only<br>loved two:<br>The priest<br>killed my daughter for a lamb on a stone and now<br>you say the boy too . . . dead, dead?<br>The world's full of it, a shoreless lake of lies and floating rumors<br>. . . pack up your wares, peddler,<br>Too false for a queen. Why, no, if I believed you . . . Beast,<br>treacherous beast, that shouting comes nearer,<br>What's in the city?<br>ELECTRA I am a stranger, I know nothing of the city,<br>I know only<br>My mother hates me, and Orestes my brother<br>Died pitifully, far off.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Too many things, too many things call<br>me, what shall I do? Electra,<br>Electra help me. This comes of living softly, I had a lion's<br>strength<br>Once.<br>ELECTRA Me for help? I am utterly helpless, I had help in my<br>brother and he is dead in Phocis.<br>Give me refuge: but each of us two must weep for herself, one<br>sorrow. An end of the world were on us<br>What would it matter to us weeping? Do you remember him,<br>Mother, mother?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA I have dared too much: never dare anything,<br>Electra, the ache is afterward,<br>At the hour it hurts nothing. Prophetess, you lied.<br>You said he would come with vengeance on me: but now he is<br>dead, this girl says: and because he was lovely, blue-eyed,<br>And born in a most unhappy house I will believe it. But the<br>world's fogged with the breath of liars,<br>And if she has laid a net for me . . .<br>I'll call up the old lioness lives yet in my body, I have dared,<br>I have dared, and tooth and talon<br>Carve a way through. Lie to me?<br>ELECTRA Have I endured for months,<br>with feet bleeding, among the mountains,<br>Between the great gulfs alone and starving, to bring you a lie<br>now? I know the worst of you, I looked for the worst,<br>Mother, mother, and have expected nothing but to die of this<br>home-coming: but Orestes<br>Has entered the cave before; he is gathered up in a lonely mountain<br>quietness, he is guarded from angers<br>In the tough cloud that spears fall back from.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Was he still beautiful?<br>The brown mothers down in the city<br>Keep their brats about them; what it is to live high! Oh!<br>Tell them down there, tell them in Tiryns,<br>Tell them in Sparta,<br>That water drips through the Queen's fingers and trickles down<br>her wrists, for the boy, for the boy<br>Born of her body, whom she, fool, fool, fool,<br>Drove out of the world. Electra,<br>Make peace with me.<br>Oh, Oh, Oh!<br>I have labored violently all the days of my life for nothing--<br>nothing-worse than anything- this death<br>Was a thing I wished. See how they make fools of us.<br>Amusement for them, to watch us labor after the thing that will<br>tear us in<br>pieces. . . . Well, strength's good.<br>I am the Queen; I will gather up my fragments<br>And not go mad now.<br>ELECTRA Mother, what are the men<br>With spears gathering at the stair's foot? Not of Mycenae by<br>their armor, have you mercenaries<br>Wanting pay? Do they serve . . . Aegisthus?<br>CLYTEMNESTRA What men? I seem<br>not to know . . .<br>Who has laid a net for me, what fool<br>For me, me? Porter, by me.<br>Leucippe, my guards; into the house, rouse them. I am sorry<br>for him,<br>I am best in storm. You, Electra?<br>The death you'll die, my daughter. Guards, out! Was it a lie?<br>No matter, no matter, no matter,<br>Here's peace. Spears, out, out! They bungled the job making<br>me a woman. Here's youth come back to me,<br>And all the days of gladness.<br>LEUCIPPE (running back from the door) O, Queen, strangers ...<br>ORESTES (a sword in his hand, 'with spearmen following, comes<br>from the door) Where is that woman<br>The Gods utterly hate?<br>ELECTRA Brother: let her not speak, kill quickly.<br>Is the other one safe now?<br>ORESTES That dog<br>Fell under his chariot, we made sure of him between the wheels<br>and the hooves, squealing. Now for this one.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA<br>Wait. I was weeping, Electra will tell you, my hands are wet<br>still,<br>For your blue eyes that death had closed she said away up in<br>Phocis. I die now, justly or not<br>Is out of the story, before I die I'd tell you wait, child, wait.<br>Did I quiver<br>Or pale at the blade? I say, caught in a net, netted in by my<br>enemies, my husband murdered,<br>Myself to die, I am joyful knowing she lied, you live, the only<br>creature<br>Under all the spread and arch of daylight<br>That I love, lives.<br>ELECTRA The great fangs drawn fear craftiness now,<br>kill quickly.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA As for her, the wife of a shepherd<br>Suckled her, but you<br>These very breasts nourished: rather one of your northern<br>spearmen do what's needful; not you<br>Draw blood where you drew milk. The Gods endure much, but<br>beware them.<br>ORESTES This, a God in his temple<br>Openly commanded.<br>CLYTEMNESTRA Ah, child, child, who has mistaught you and<br>who has betrayed you? What voice had the God?<br>How was it different from a man's and did you see him? Who<br>sent the priest presents? They fool us,<br>And the Gods let them. No doubt also the envious King of<br>Phocis has lent you counsel as he lent you<br>Men: let one of them do it. Life's not jewel enough<br>That I should plead for it: this much I pray, for your sake, not<br>with your hand, not with your hand, or the memory<br>Will so mother you, so glue to you, so embracing you,<br>Not the deep sea's green day, no cleft of a rock in the bed of<br>the deep sea, no ocean of darkness<br>Outside the stars, will hide nor wash you. What is it to me that<br>I have rejoiced knowing you alive,<br>child, O precious to me, O alone loved, if now dying by my<br>manner of death<br>I make nightmare the heir, nightmare, horror, in all I have of<br>you;<br>And you haunted forever, never to sleep dreamless again, never<br>to see blue cloth<br>But the red runs over it; fugitive of dreams, madman at length,<br>the memory of a scream following you houndlike,<br>Inherit Mycenae? Child, for this has not been done before, there<br>is no old fable, no whisper<br>Out of the foundation, among the people that were before our<br>people, no echo has ever<br>Moved among these most ancient stones, the monsters here, nor<br>stirred under any mountain, nor fluttered<br>Under any sky, of a man slaying his mother. Sons have kil</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br/></a><a href="https://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="https://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Robinson+Jeffers">Robinson Jeffers</a></strong></div>

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