1 00:06:21,947 --> 00:06:27,277 Who from the accursed regions of the dead haleth me forth, 2 00:06:27,277 --> 00:06:31,277 snatching at food which ever fleeth from my hungry lips? 3 00:06:31,368 --> 00:06:38,280 Hath something worse been found than parching thirst midst water, 4 00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:42,318 worse than ever-gaping hunger? 5 00:06:44,128 --> 00:06:46,828 To what new suffering am I shifted? 6 00:06:47,968 --> 00:06:52,267 O whoe’er thou art, harsh judge of shades, 7 00:06:52,267 --> 00:06:55,787 who dost allot fresh punishments to the dead, 8 00:06:55,787 --> 00:06:59,607 if aught can be added to my sufferings 9 00:06:59,607 --> 00:07:03,877 whereat e’en the guardian of our dread prison-house would quake, 10 00:07:03,877 --> 00:07:07,157 whereat sad Acheron would be seized with dread, 11 00:07:07,157 --> 00:07:12,231 with fear whereof I, too, should tremble, seek thou it out. 12 00:07:15,370 --> 00:07:23,690 Now from my seed a multitude is coming up which its own race shall out-do, 13 00:07:23,690 --> 00:07:26,800 which shall make me seem innocent, 14 00:07:28,740 --> 00:07:32,740 and dare things yet undared. 15 00:07:34,177 --> 00:07:37,717 Whatever space is still empty in the unholy realm, 16 00:07:37,717 --> 00:07:39,240 I shall fill up. 17 00:07:50,597 --> 00:07:55,307 Go on, you hated shade, 18 00:07:55,307 --> 00:08:00,780 and spur the wicked house-gods with your rage. 19 00:08:00,780 --> 00:08:02,528 Let all compete in every crime, 20 00:08:02,528 --> 00:08:06,535 let each side unsheathe the sword in turn: 21 00:08:06,535 --> 00:08:10,635 no limit to this anger, no shame. 22 00:08:11,945 --> 00:08:15,205 Let heedless fury goad their minds, 23 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:21,893 let the parents’ frenzy and their ceaseless sin devolve upon the sons. 24 00:08:22,375 --> 00:08:29,305 Let the shaky fortune of this bestial house revert from king to king, 25 00:08:31,977 --> 00:08:35,977 let wretch be rendered ruler 26 00:08:35,977 --> 00:08:38,150 and ruler be made wretch. 27 00:08:39,232 --> 00:08:43,612 Let anger find no act taboo. 28 00:08:44,386 --> 00:08:47,524 Let brother fear his brother, 29 00:08:47,524 --> 00:08:51,274 father fear his son, and son his father. 30 00:08:51,496 --> 00:08:54,466 O let the children die a dreadful end, 31 00:08:55,146 --> 00:08:57,901 but let their birth be worse, 32 00:08:57,951 --> 00:09:01,451 let the wife-abomination be a menace to her mate. 33 00:09:01,451 --> 00:09:06,710 In this godless house, let incest be like any crime! 34 00:09:06,506 --> 00:09:14,860 Let right, and trust, and every law lie dead for brothers. 35 00:09:14,547 --> 00:09:16,287 Confuse the house-gods, 36 00:09:16,287 --> 00:09:19,191 summon hatred, death, and slaughter, 37 00:09:19,191 --> 00:09:22,263 and fill all the house with Tantalus. 38 00:09:22,545 --> 00:09:25,944 Let blood discolor the family hearth, 39 00:09:25,944 --> 00:09:28,334 let the dinner plates be set. 40 00:09:29,745 --> 00:09:32,365 This day’s my gift to you. 41 00:09:32,365 --> 00:09:36,365 I loose your hunger for this meal. 42 00:09:36,365 --> 00:09:38,178 Sate your starvation. 43 00:09:39,717 --> 00:09:43,217 I have found a feast which even you would flee— 44 00:09:43,217 --> 00:09:45,590 but stop! 45 00:09:45,590 --> 00:09:47,750 Where do you rush in haste? 46 00:09:49,159 --> 00:09:53,560 Back to my pools and streams and fleeing waters, 47 00:09:53,560 --> 00:09:57,103 back to the laden tree which shuns my very lips. 48 00:09:58,294 --> 00:10:03,240 Let me return to the black couch of my prison-house; 49 00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:10,154 let it be mine, if I seem too little wretched, to change my stream. 50 00:10:14,535 --> 00:10:21,895 Whoe’er thou art, by the fates’ law bidden to suffer allotted punishment: 51 00:10:22,575 --> 00:10:29,105 believe me who know, and love your punishments. 52 00:10:29,422 --> 00:10:34,802 Oh, when shall it fall to me to escape the upper world? 53 00:10:41,965 --> 00:10:45,965 First convulse your home. 54 00:10:46,718 --> 00:10:49,868 ’Tis meet for me to suffer punishments, 55 00:10:49,868 --> 00:10:51,788 not be a punishment. 56 00:10:54,145 --> 00:10:57,597 I am sent as some deadly exhalation from the riven earth, 57 00:10:57,597 --> 00:11:01,597 or as a pestilence, spreading grievous plague among the people, 58 00:11:03,772 --> 00:11:09,682 that I a grandsire may lead my grandsons into fearful crime. 59 00:11:12,543 --> 00:11:17,944 I warn ye, defile not your hands with accursed slaughter, 60 00:11:17,944 --> 00:11:21,213 nor stain your altars with a madman’s crime. 61 00:11:23,561 --> 00:11:27,101 Here will I stand and prevent the evil deed. 62 00:11:27,439 --> 00:11:30,249 Why with thy scourge dost fright mine eyes? 63 00:11:30,249 --> 00:11:39,149 Why deep in my inmost marrow dost rouse hunger pains? 64 00:11:46,832 --> 00:11:48,102 I follow thee. 65 00:12:12,236 --> 00:12:18,386 This delirium—deal this throughout your house, 66 00:12:18,386 --> 00:12:20,866 let them rave like this, 67 00:12:20,866 --> 00:12:25,306 and like this hate and thirst in turn for kindred blood. 68 00:12:28,488 --> 00:12:32,488 Your home can sense that you are home, 69 00:12:32,488 --> 00:12:36,488 it shrinks in every part from hell’s contagion. 70 00:12:41,453 --> 00:12:45,453 And now—it’s done in full! 71 00:13:01,235 --> 00:13:06,365 Daughter of Tyndareus, Queen Clytemnestra, 72 00:13:06,365 --> 00:13:09,327 What is happening? What is the news? 73 00:13:09,327 --> 00:13:12,718 What message has persuaded you, 74 00:13:12,718 --> 00:13:16,718 that you have sent round word to make sacrifices? 75 00:13:26,985 --> 00:13:32,935 I have authority to tell how the twin-throned rulers of the Achaeans 76 00:13:32,935 --> 00:13:35,985 were sped with avenging spear and hand 77 00:13:35,985 --> 00:13:40,705 to the Teucrian land by a fierce warlike bird of omen, 78 00:13:41,398 --> 00:13:45,398 the kings of birds appearing to the kings of ships, 79 00:13:47,229 --> 00:13:55,489 eating a hare, pregnant with many offspring, 80 00:13:57,392 --> 00:14:03,120 her final run cut short. 81 00:14:04,979 --> 00:14:08,169 And the worthy prophet to the army saw it, 82 00:14:08,169 --> 00:14:11,379 and recognized the two warlike Atreidae, 83 00:14:11,379 --> 00:14:13,828 different in their temper, 84 00:14:13,828 --> 00:14:17,521 in the feasters on the hare who sped the rulers on their way; 85 00:14:17,521 --> 00:14:21,531 and thus he spoke, interpreting the portent: 86 00:14:21,844 --> 00:14:27,719 “In time this expedition will capture the city of Priam: 87 00:14:28,554 --> 00:14:33,680 only let no divine resentment overshadow the great curb of Troy, 88 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:39,360 striking it before it can act, once it has been mustered. 89 00:14:39,668 --> 00:14:43,738 For holy Artemis, out of pity, 90 00:14:43,738 --> 00:14:47,818 bears a grudge against the winged hounds of her father 91 00:14:47,818 --> 00:14:51,228 who slaughtered the wretched hare, litter and all, 92 00:14:51,228 --> 00:14:55,228 before it could give birth.” 93 00:14:58,900 --> 00:15:04,140 And then the senior leader of the Achaean fleet, 94 00:15:04,140 --> 00:15:08,310 when the Achaean host was grievously afflicted by foul weather 95 00:15:08,310 --> 00:15:11,468 which emptied their stomachs at Aulis, 96 00:15:13,308 --> 00:15:17,579 and winds coming from the Strymon 97 00:15:17,579 --> 00:15:22,609 making time seem twice as long 98 00:15:23,123 --> 00:15:28,953 wore down and shredded the flower of the Argives; 99 00:15:29,947 --> 00:15:32,770 And when the prophet also cried forth 100 00:15:32,770 --> 00:15:35,582 another remedy for the hateful storms, 101 00:15:35,582 --> 00:15:39,702 one more grievous for the leaders, 102 00:15:40,195 --> 00:15:45,450 declaring Artemis as their cause, 103 00:15:45,136 --> 00:15:51,901 so that the Atreidae struck the ground with their staffs 104 00:15:53,461 --> 00:15:57,601 and could not hold back their tears— 105 00:15:57,601 --> 00:16:06,161 and the senior king spoke, and said this: 106 00:16:14,437 --> 00:16:18,607 Obey, obey, or a heavy doom will crush me! 107 00:16:18,887 --> 00:16:22,933 Oh but doom will crush me once I rend my child, 108 00:16:22,933 --> 00:16:25,503 the glory of my house— 109 00:16:25,503 --> 00:16:28,416 a father’s hands are stained, 110 00:16:28,416 --> 00:16:34,126 blood of a young girl streaks the altar. 111 00:16:36,229 --> 00:16:38,719 Pain both ways and what is worse? 112 00:16:39,759 --> 00:16:42,669 Desert the fleets, fail the alliance? 113 00:16:44,399 --> 00:16:47,283 No, but stop the winds with a virgin’s blood, 114 00:16:47,283 --> 00:16:51,570 feed their lust, their fury? Feed their fury! 115 00:16:51,570 --> 00:16:52,976 Law is law! 116 00:17:00,235 --> 00:17:01,735 Let all go well. 117 00:17:11,907 --> 00:17:17,270 And when he put on the yokestrap of necessity, 118 00:17:19,231 --> 00:17:23,231 from that point he turned to a mindset 119 00:17:26,515 --> 00:17:30,450 that would stop at nothing. 120 00:17:30,450 --> 00:17:31,750 In short, 121 00:17:32,661 --> 00:17:36,921 he brought himself to become the sacrificer of his daughter. 122 00:17:38,845 --> 00:17:45,577 Her pleas, her cries of “Father!” and her maiden years, 123 00:17:45,577 --> 00:17:50,557 were set at naught by the war-loving chieftains. 124 00:17:50,557 --> 00:17:55,297 After a prayer, her father told his attendants 125 00:17:57,147 --> 00:17:59,500 to lift her right up 126 00:17:59,500 --> 00:18:01,839 over the altar with all their strength, 127 00:18:01,839 --> 00:18:05,339 like a yearling goat, face down, 128 00:18:05,339 --> 00:18:09,943 so that her robes fell around her, 129 00:18:11,198 --> 00:18:14,318 and by putting a guard on her fair face and lips 130 00:18:14,318 --> 00:18:18,858 to restrain speech that might lay a curse on his house— 131 00:18:19,122 --> 00:18:24,332 by force, by the silencing power of a bridle. 132 00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:26,790 As she poured saffron dye 133 00:18:26,790 --> 00:18:30,357 towards the ground 134 00:18:30,357 --> 00:18:33,922 she cast on each of her sacrificers 135 00:18:33,922 --> 00:18:36,622 a glance darted from her eye, 136 00:18:39,482 --> 00:18:42,442 a glance to stir pity, 137 00:18:43,882 --> 00:18:48,120 wanting to address them by name 138 00:18:48,534 --> 00:18:51,454 —because often 139 00:18:54,874 --> 00:18:59,440 at the rich banquets in her father’s dining-chambers 140 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:01,410 she had sung. 141 00:19:10,297 --> 00:19:14,787 I have come, Clytemnestra, in reverence towards your power: 142 00:19:14,787 --> 00:19:20,857 for it is proper to honor the wife of one’s paramount ruler 143 00:19:20,857 --> 00:19:26,470 when the male throne is unoccupied. 144 00:19:26,449 --> 00:19:31,719 I would be glad to hear if you have learned any good news, 145 00:19:31,719 --> 00:19:33,668 or if you have not 146 00:19:33,668 --> 00:19:40,888 but are sacrificing in hope of receiving good tidings 147 00:19:41,228 --> 00:19:45,758 —but I will bear no grudge if you keep silence. 148 00:19:47,462 --> 00:19:52,720 Good news. Joy surpassing all your hopes! 149 00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:56,322 The Greeks have captured Priam’s town! 150 00:19:59,569 --> 00:20:01,259 What are you saying? 151 00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:06,808 Your words escaped me, they were so incredible. 152 00:20:06,808 --> 00:20:09,140 Troy belongs to us! 153 00:20:09,140 --> 00:20:11,300 Clear? 154 00:20:12,502 --> 00:20:14,752 What has persuaded you of this? 155 00:20:15,116 --> 00:20:17,486 Have you any evidence for it? 156 00:20:17,802 --> 00:20:18,592 I have. 157 00:20:18,592 --> 00:20:21,662 Unless some god fooled me. 158 00:20:22,663 --> 00:20:26,663 Have you been awed by a persuasive vision in a dream? 159 00:20:28,896 --> 00:20:32,686 I would not trust a mind asleep. 160 00:20:35,670 --> 00:20:41,167 Within what time has the city actually been sacked? 161 00:20:41,476 --> 00:20:45,476 In the night, this past night. 162 00:20:47,730 --> 00:20:51,653 And what messenger could come here with such speed? 163 00:20:53,361 --> 00:20:55,364 Hephaistos, god of fire! 164 00:20:55,364 --> 00:20:57,728 He sped forth a blazing flame from Ida! 165 00:20:57,728 --> 00:21:02,923 Beacon after beacon as the fire messenger moved 166 00:21:02,923 --> 00:21:06,468 from Ida to the rock of Lemnos, 167 00:21:06,468 --> 00:21:09,715 to the crag of Athos third. 168 00:21:09,715 --> 00:21:14,206 This was my lightbringing strategy, 169 00:21:14,206 --> 00:21:21,666 torch to torch over the entire course. 170 00:21:21,666 --> 00:21:25,373 Such is the proof and evidence I offered you, 171 00:21:25,373 --> 00:21:29,373 sent by my husband from Troy to me personally. 172 00:21:31,537 --> 00:21:35,537 I would like to hear these words again, 173 00:21:35,537 --> 00:21:38,487 from beginning to end, as you have spoken them, 174 00:21:38,487 --> 00:21:42,487 and to marvel at them. 175 00:21:43,203 --> 00:21:47,232 Troy is ours on this day. 176 00:21:47,612 --> 00:21:55,152 Some fall on the bodies of their husbands, fathers, brothers 177 00:21:55,152 --> 00:22:01,152 and cry out grief from throats no longer free. 178 00:22:01,806 --> 00:22:07,216 The others quartered now in captured Trojan homes, 179 00:22:07,216 --> 00:22:12,560 escaped from frost and dew, 180 00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,216 they’ll sleep like happy men 181 00:22:14,216 --> 00:22:18,446 the whole night through without watch. 182 00:22:23,732 --> 00:22:26,820 Let no mad impulse strike the army 183 00:22:26,820 --> 00:22:30,200 to ravish what they should not, overcome by greed. 184 00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:31,191 They’re not home yet. 185 00:22:31,191 --> 00:22:33,971 Yet even if they make it home without offending gods 186 00:22:33,971 --> 00:22:36,911 the agony of those who died may wake again— 187 00:22:36,911 --> 00:22:38,641 —I pray no sudden shift to evil. 188 00:22:42,242 --> 00:22:45,975 Such are my woman words. 189 00:22:46,205 --> 00:22:49,575 May the good prevail. Unambiguously. 190 00:22:52,611 --> 00:22:55,239 Lady, you have spoken wisely, 191 00:22:56,229 --> 00:22:59,731 like a sensible man. 192 00:23:17,883 --> 00:23:22,193 Idle, inert, impotent, and unavenged: 193 00:23:22,193 --> 00:23:23,863 after so many crimes, 194 00:23:23,863 --> 00:23:26,100 after your brother’s treachery 195 00:23:26,100 --> 00:23:27,850 and the breaking of every principle, 196 00:23:27,850 --> 00:23:31,850 do you act with futile complaints—you, Atreus in anger? 197 00:23:32,310 --> 00:23:35,871 This mighty house of famous Pelops itself— 198 00:23:35,871 --> 00:23:40,243 —let it fall even on me, so long as it falls on my brother. 199 00:23:41,210 --> 00:23:46,320 I must dare some fierce, bloody outrage, 200 00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:50,320 such as my brother would have wished his own. 201 00:23:52,481 --> 00:23:57,661 You do not avenge crimes unless you surpass them. 202 00:23:57,710 --> 00:24:01,710 And what could be cruel enough to vanquish him? 203 00:24:02,208 --> 00:24:07,228 I know the man’s intractable nature: 204 00:24:07,267 --> 00:24:12,507 he cannot be bent, but he can be broken. 205 00:24:14,437 --> 00:24:16,437 He must be attacked first, 206 00:24:16,437 --> 00:24:18,147 lest he attack me at rest. 207 00:24:18,147 --> 00:24:20,897 He will either destroy or be destroyed. 208 00:24:20,977 --> 00:24:24,638 Are you not afraid the people will speak against you? 209 00:24:24,697 --> 00:24:26,947 They must want what they do not want! 210 00:24:26,947 --> 00:24:29,890 A king should want the good, 211 00:24:29,890 --> 00:24:31,289 his wishes match his people’s. 212 00:24:31,644 --> 00:24:35,924 Where a sovereign is permitted only what is honorable, 213 00:24:35,924 --> 00:24:37,998 he rules on sufferance. 214 00:24:38,245 --> 00:24:40,585 Remember that harming a brother, 215 00:24:40,585 --> 00:24:42,515 even a bad one, is wrong. 216 00:24:42,515 --> 00:24:44,540 Anything that is wrong in dealing with a brother 217 00:24:44,540 --> 00:24:46,270 is right in dealing with him. 218 00:24:46,270 --> 00:24:49,310 What has he left untouched by guilt, 219 00:24:49,310 --> 00:24:52,545 when has he refrained from crime? 220 00:24:52,545 --> 00:24:55,150 He stole my wife by adultery 221 00:24:55,150 --> 00:24:56,818 and my kingdom by theft; 222 00:24:56,818 --> 00:25:00,509 by deceit he obtained our ancient symbol of power, 223 00:25:00,509 --> 00:25:02,879 by deceit he brought turmoil on the house. 224 00:25:02,879 --> 00:25:08,141 From this act flowed all the evil of our mutual destruction. 225 00:25:08,141 --> 00:25:12,361 I roamed my own realm, a trembling exile; 226 00:25:13,532 --> 00:25:18,512 no part of what is mine is safe from treachery; 227 00:25:18,578 --> 00:25:20,980 my wife is defiled, 228 00:25:20,980 --> 00:25:22,468 my confidence in power shaken, 229 00:25:22,468 --> 00:25:28,108 my house tainted, its blood uncertain; 230 00:25:28,108 --> 00:25:30,468 nothing is sure— 231 00:25:30,468 --> 00:25:33,380 —except my brother’s enmity. 232 00:25:33,380 --> 00:25:35,796 Look to Tantalus and Pelops: 233 00:25:35,796 --> 00:25:40,726 my hands are called to follow their examples. 234 00:25:41,544 --> 00:25:46,856 Tell me how to slay that fearsome creature. 235 00:25:46,856 --> 00:25:49,326 Let your enemy die by the sword, 236 00:25:49,326 --> 00:25:50,806 and breathe his last. 237 00:25:50,871 --> 00:25:52,818 You talk about punishment’s conclusion: 238 00:25:52,818 --> 00:25:54,834 I want the punishment! 239 00:25:55,715 --> 00:25:58,750 Slaying is for a lenient tyrant; 240 00:25:59,199 --> 00:26:03,199 in my kingdom death is something people beg for. 241 00:26:03,528 --> 00:26:05,868 But are you not moved by affection? 242 00:26:05,868 --> 00:26:10,978 Begone, Affection, if ever you existed at all in our house! 243 00:26:10,978 --> 00:26:13,541 Let the dread band of Furies come, 244 00:26:13,541 --> 00:26:15,651 and the Erinys of strife 245 00:26:15,651 --> 00:26:18,791 and Megaera brandishing her twin torches. 246 00:26:18,791 --> 00:26:25,162 The madness firing my heart is not big enough, 247 00:26:25,162 --> 00:26:29,632 I want to be filled with some greater monstrosity. 248 00:26:29,905 --> 00:26:32,335 You are mad! What is your plan? 249 00:26:32,973 --> 00:26:37,483 Nothing conforming to the limits of ordinary bitterness. 250 00:26:37,483 --> 00:26:42,283 I shall leave no deed undone—and none is enough. 251 00:26:42,283 --> 00:26:43,573 Death by the sword? 252 00:26:43,573 --> 00:26:44,873 Insufficient. 253 00:26:44,873 --> 00:26:46,373 Burning? 254 00:26:46,639 --> 00:26:48,929 Still insufficient. 255 00:26:49,845 --> 00:26:53,265 Then what means can your huge resentment use? 256 00:26:53,893 --> 00:26:57,400 Thyestes himself. 257 00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:00,614 Too much! even for your rage. 258 00:27:01,999 --> 00:27:03,487 I admit it. 259 00:27:03,487 --> 00:27:06,677 The ground moans from its lowest depths, 260 00:27:06,677 --> 00:27:09,879 the sky thunders though cloudless, 261 00:27:09,879 --> 00:27:13,139 the house cracks throughout its structure as if shattered, 262 00:27:13,139 --> 00:27:16,310 and the house gods shake and avert their faces. 263 00:27:16,310 --> 00:27:19,861 Let it be done, let it be done, 264 00:27:19,861 --> 00:27:23,486 this outrage that makes you gods afraid! 265 00:27:23,539 --> 00:27:26,350 So what are you planning to do? 266 00:27:27,547 --> 00:27:31,304 Something more, greater than the commonplace, 267 00:27:31,304 --> 00:27:34,914 beyond normal human limits, 268 00:27:34,914 --> 00:27:39,500 is swelling in my spirit and jolting my sluggish hands. 269 00:27:40,300 --> 00:27:46,800 What it is I do not know, but it is something mighty! 270 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:50,190 So be it. 271 00:27:50,190 --> 00:27:51,789 Seize on it, my spirit! 272 00:27:51,789 --> 00:27:57,589 The deed is worthy of Thyestes and worthy of Atreus: 273 00:27:57,589 --> 00:27:59,603 let each perform it. 274 00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,251 Let the father rend his children avidly, 275 00:28:06,251 --> 00:28:10,810 gleefully, and eat his own flesh. 276 00:28:11,467 --> 00:28:18,527 Why has Atreus remained innocent so long? 277 00:28:18,527 --> 00:28:24,837 Now the whole picture of the carnage hovers before my eyes— 278 00:28:24,837 --> 00:28:29,700 —childlessness stuffed down the father’s throat! 279 00:28:30,615 --> 00:28:34,615 Why take fright again, my spirit? 280 00:28:34,870 --> 00:28:37,680 It must be dared; do it! 281 00:28:39,370 --> 00:28:44,222 The principal outrage in this crime— 282 00:28:44,222 --> 00:28:47,200 —he will commit it himself. 283 00:28:47,511 --> 00:28:49,761 But how will you deceive him 284 00:28:49,761 --> 00:28:52,881 to put his foot into our net and be trapped? 285 00:28:52,982 --> 00:28:56,262 He knows you hate him; he suspects you. 286 00:28:56,262 --> 00:28:58,609 He desires my kingdom. 287 00:28:58,609 --> 00:29:01,904 In this desire he will do what he thinks the greatest evil: 288 00:29:01,904 --> 00:29:03,464 see his brother. 289 00:29:03,464 --> 00:29:05,794 But who can make him trust you? 290 00:29:05,794 --> 00:29:07,894 Who can make him believe it? 291 00:29:08,469 --> 00:29:13,589 I shall give my sons a mandate to take to their uncle: 292 00:29:13,589 --> 00:29:17,859 that he should leave a wandering exile’s lodgings, 293 00:29:17,859 --> 00:29:20,148 trade his wretchedness for a throne, 294 00:29:20,148 --> 00:29:22,980 and reign in Argos as coruler. 295 00:29:22,980 --> 00:29:25,800 On the one side his old passion for power, 296 00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:29,621 on the other grim poverty and hard toils, 297 00:29:29,621 --> 00:29:32,252 will subdue the fellow, 298 00:29:32,252 --> 00:29:35,876 however toughened by so many troubles. 299 00:29:35,876 --> 00:29:38,716 Pick other agents for your savage plan. 300 00:29:38,716 --> 00:29:41,186 If you teach them to turn on their uncle, 301 00:29:41,186 --> 00:29:43,853 they will turn on their father. 302 00:29:43,853 --> 00:29:46,626 Crime often comes back round again to its teacher. 303 00:29:46,626 --> 00:29:51,319 Though no one teach them the ways of deceit and crime, 304 00:29:51,319 --> 00:29:53,422 kingship will teach it. 305 00:29:53,697 --> 00:29:55,679 You fear their becoming evil? 306 00:29:55,679 --> 00:29:57,544 They are born so. 307 00:29:57,894 --> 00:30:01,440 Will the boys be told of the plot? 308 00:30:02,547 --> 00:30:09,870 What need is there to involve my children in my crime? 309 00:30:11,577 --> 00:30:14,857 Let my hatred unfold through me— 310 00:30:15,690 --> 00:30:19,540 —You are going wrong, you are retreating, my spirit! 311 00:30:19,909 --> 00:30:23,549 If you spare your own, you will spare those too. 312 00:30:23,650 --> 00:30:27,650 Agamemnon must serve my scheme knowingly, 313 00:30:27,980 --> 00:30:30,940 and Menelaus assist his brother knowingly. 314 00:30:30,940 --> 00:30:33,266 Let me gain assurance 315 00:30:33,266 --> 00:30:35,956 about my questionable sons from this crime: 316 00:30:36,765 --> 00:30:40,527 if they reject war and refuse to pursue the feud, 317 00:30:40,527 --> 00:30:44,787 if they call him uncle, he is their father. 318 00:30:45,873 --> 00:30:50,483 But great schemes betray a person 319 00:30:51,103 --> 00:30:52,932 even against his will. 320 00:30:54,292 --> 00:30:57,932 They must not know how great a business they are agents in. 321 00:30:57,932 --> 00:31:01,962 And you, keep my venture secret. 322 00:31:01,962 --> 00:31:03,659 I need no warning. 323 00:31:20,563 --> 00:31:23,683 Prompted by the fire that brought good news, 324 00:31:23,683 --> 00:31:27,673 word has passed swiftly through the city; 325 00:31:27,673 --> 00:31:31,703 but who knows whether it is true, 326 00:31:31,703 --> 00:31:35,223 or some divine deception? 327 00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:42,200 I see, coming here from the seashore, a herald. 328 00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:44,846 Hail, soil of my fathers, land of Argos! 329 00:31:44,846 --> 00:31:46,690 On this day, after nearly ten years, 330 00:31:46,690 --> 00:31:48,876 I have come back to you, 331 00:31:48,876 --> 00:31:51,546 achieving one of my hopes, after the shipwreck of so many: 332 00:31:51,546 --> 00:31:55,106 for I never thought that I would die in this Argive land 333 00:31:55,106 --> 00:31:57,952 and be able to share my beloved family tomb. 334 00:31:57,952 --> 00:31:59,918 Hail, palace, beloved home of my kings, 335 00:31:59,918 --> 00:32:04,708 and august seats, and you deities who face the sun! 336 00:32:15,659 --> 00:32:19,659 Let these eyes of yours be bright, if they ever have been before, 337 00:32:19,659 --> 00:32:23,199 as you welcome your king home in glory at long last; 338 00:32:23,199 --> 00:32:26,579 for he has come, bringing light out of darkness to you and to all these people— 339 00:32:26,579 --> 00:32:29,675 —King Agamemnon! 340 00:32:29,675 --> 00:32:33,625 Give him a noble welcome, for that is truly proper, 341 00:32:33,625 --> 00:32:35,743 when he has dug up Troy 342 00:32:35,743 --> 00:32:37,743 with the mattock of Zeus the Avenger, 343 00:32:39,403 --> 00:32:45,443 with which the ground has been worked over 344 00:32:45,443 --> 00:32:50,343 and the seed of the whole country destroyed. 345 00:32:56,613 --> 00:32:58,300 All happiness to you, 346 00:32:58,300 --> 00:33:01,193 herald of the Achaeans returning from the war. 347 00:33:01,193 --> 00:33:02,423 I am happy; 348 00:33:02,423 --> 00:33:05,530 if the gods decree my death, I will no longer complain. 349 00:33:06,508 --> 00:33:10,968 Were you prostrated by longing for this land of your fathers? 350 00:33:10,968 --> 00:33:14,567 So much so that my eyes now fill with tears of joy. 351 00:33:18,887 --> 00:33:21,481 Just as much I often groaned aloud 352 00:33:21,481 --> 00:33:24,392 in the gloominess of my heart. 353 00:33:24,543 --> 00:33:26,263 From what source 354 00:33:26,263 --> 00:33:29,930 did this miserable bitterness come over the people? 355 00:33:29,167 --> 00:33:34,437 I have long used silence to protect me against harm. 356 00:33:34,841 --> 00:33:36,391 Why, may I ask? 357 00:33:36,391 --> 00:33:39,484 Were you afraid of someone, in the rulers’ absence? 358 00:33:39,484 --> 00:33:42,676 So that now, as you put it, 359 00:33:43,644 --> 00:33:47,644 even death would be a great favor. 360 00:33:51,367 --> 00:33:53,797 Yes, for we have been successful! 361 00:33:53,797 --> 00:33:55,897 In these affairs, over a long period, 362 00:33:55,897 --> 00:33:58,817 there are some things that one can say fall out well, 363 00:33:58,817 --> 00:34:02,817 and on the other hand some that do have drawbacks. 364 00:34:09,427 --> 00:34:13,827 Who, except the gods, is free from pain for the whole of his lifetime? 365 00:34:14,857 --> 00:34:16,767 Why should one mourn over these things? 366 00:34:17,477 --> 00:34:18,724 The suffering is past! 367 00:34:18,724 --> 00:34:20,496 For the dead, it is so thoroughly past 368 00:34:20,496 --> 00:34:23,015 that they don’t even have to worry about reveille any more. 369 00:34:23,015 --> 00:34:27,734 Why should we reckon the lost ones into the account, why should the living be expected to grieve over the spite of fortune? 370 00:34:27,734 --> 00:34:29,583 Well, you have heard everything. 371 00:34:41,790 --> 00:34:45,790 I raised my shout of joy a while ago. 372 00:34:48,358 --> 00:34:52,108 There were of course those who rebuked me saying, 373 00:34:52,108 --> 00:34:57,828 “You’ve convinced yourself that Troy is sacked because of a beacon! 374 00:34:57,828 --> 00:35:00,417 How like a woman!” 375 00:35:02,761 --> 00:35:07,041 And now, what need for you to tell me more? 376 00:35:07,041 --> 00:35:09,835 From the king himself I shall learn everything— 377 00:35:09,835 --> 00:35:11,844 —how best to welcome him oh I’m excited— 378 00:35:11,844 --> 00:35:14,085 —what day is sweeter for a wife 379 00:35:14,085 --> 00:35:17,305 than when she runs to open the door 380 00:35:17,305 --> 00:35:20,315 for her husband back from war?— 381 00:35:20,787 --> 00:35:24,787 You’ll find your loyal wife just as you left her, 382 00:35:24,787 --> 00:35:28,367 guarding the house like a good dog, 383 00:35:28,367 --> 00:35:31,317 enemy to your enemies, quite unchanged. 384 00:35:31,317 --> 00:35:35,547 She broke no seal while you were away. 385 00:35:35,547 --> 00:35:39,547 And she knows no more of secret sex or scandal 386 00:35:39,602 --> 00:35:44,582 than she does of dipping bronze. 387 00:35:51,661 --> 00:35:56,358 That is what she has said, 388 00:35:56,358 --> 00:36:01,548 and if you understand it through clear interpreters it is a . . . 389 00:36:01,548 --> 00:36:05,548 plausible speech. 390 00:36:29,133 --> 00:36:33,415 At last I see the long-desired housetops of my homeland, the wealth of Argos, 391 00:36:34,335 --> 00:36:38,335 and what seems to miserable exiles the greatest and highest good— 392 00:36:39,061 --> 00:36:44,092 the reaches of my native soil 393 00:36:44,092 --> 00:36:46,592 and the gods of my fathers 394 00:36:46,592 --> 00:36:49,692 (if there really are gods). 395 00:36:50,645 --> 00:36:52,855 Argos will come to meet me, 396 00:36:52,855 --> 00:36:55,503 the people will come in crowds— 397 00:36:55,995 --> 00:36:59,065 —but so will Atreus, of course. 398 00:37:01,395 --> 00:37:04,553 Better hurry back to your forest refuges, 399 00:37:04,553 --> 00:37:07,143 to those dense woods 400 00:37:07,143 --> 00:37:11,143 and your life among the beasts and comparable to theirs. 401 00:37:11,733 --> 00:37:14,685 There is no reason for this bright luster of kingship 402 00:37:14,685 --> 00:37:18,138 to blind your eyes with its false glitter. 403 00:37:20,029 --> 00:37:24,029 When you examine a gift, look at the giver too. 404 00:37:27,692 --> 00:37:31,692 Just now, amid what everyone considers hardships, 405 00:37:32,183 --> 00:37:36,183 I was courageous and happy. 406 00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:43,160 But now I am relapsing into fears; 407 00:37:44,855 --> 00:37:50,355 my spirit falters and wants to turn my body back, 408 00:37:53,603 --> 00:37:56,683 my steps are forced and reluctant. 409 00:37:58,463 --> 00:38:03,343 The beast is held fast in the nets I set out. 410 00:38:03,343 --> 00:38:06,104 I see both the man and, along with him, 411 00:38:06,104 --> 00:38:10,762 the hopes of that detested line, joined with their father. 412 00:38:12,285 --> 00:38:15,587 Now my hatred is on a firm footing. 413 00:38:17,147 --> 00:38:23,537 He has come into my hands, at last Thyestes has come— 414 00:38:23,537 --> 00:38:25,511 —yes, in his entirety. 415 00:38:25,511 --> 00:38:28,412 I can scarcely restrain my spirit, 416 00:38:28,412 --> 00:38:31,415 my rancor can scarcely be reined in. 417 00:38:31,415 --> 00:38:36,295 When anger senses blood, it knows no concealment. 418 00:38:36,295 --> 00:38:39,685 But concealed it must be. 419 00:38:40,305 --> 00:38:47,025 See how his hair is heavy with grime and shrouds his dismal face, 420 00:38:47,025 --> 00:38:50,265 How foul and limp his beard. 421 00:38:50,265 --> 00:38:52,475 —But good faith must be demonstrated. 422 00:38:53,843 --> 00:38:56,615 I am delighted to see my brother. 423 00:38:56,770 --> 00:39:02,340 Let me feel once more the embrace I have longed for! 424 00:39:06,523 --> 00:39:10,193 Any anger that existed must be in the past. 425 00:39:10,193 --> 00:39:16,163 From this day blood and family ties must be cherished, 426 00:39:16,823 --> 00:39:21,123 and hatred must be condemned and expelled from our hearts. 427 00:39:28,573 --> 00:39:31,179 I could explain everything away, 428 00:39:31,179 --> 00:39:33,932 if you were not like this. 429 00:39:35,822 --> 00:39:42,172 But I confess, Atreus, I confess, 430 00:39:42,172 --> 00:39:45,952 I committed all that you thought I had. 431 00:39:45,952 --> 00:39:50,832 The fraternal affection you show today has made my case indefensible. 432 00:39:50,832 --> 00:39:58,772 A man is obviously guilty if he seems guilty to such a good brother. 433 00:39:59,801 --> 00:40:03,531 I must plead with tears. 434 00:40:04,153 --> 00:40:07,733 You are the first to see me supplicate. 435 00:40:07,733 --> 00:40:13,483 These hands, that have touched no one’s feet before, implore you; 436 00:40:15,363 --> 00:40:17,696 let all anger be set aside, 437 00:40:17,696 --> 00:40:21,696 let passion be erased and gone. 438 00:40:23,437 --> 00:40:29,217 As hostages of my good faith take these innocents, brother. 439 00:40:29,232 --> 00:40:31,818 Take your hand from my knees, 440 00:40:32,388 --> 00:40:35,818 and come to my embrace instead. 441 00:40:37,317 --> 00:40:42,417 You too, protectors of old men—so many youngsters! 442 00:40:42,417 --> 00:40:45,337 —come cling about my neck. 443 00:40:49,367 --> 00:40:51,577 Off with these filthy clothes— 444 00:40:51,577 --> 00:40:54,093 —have pity on our eyes— 445 00:40:54,988 --> 00:41:00,738 —and accept finery equal to mine; 446 00:41:00,738 --> 00:41:06,248 prosper and take on a share of your brother’s power. 447 00:41:08,722 --> 00:41:10,792 The gods grant you, brother, 448 00:41:10,792 --> 00:41:14,792 the rewards you deserve so richly. 449 00:41:14,792 --> 00:41:19,703 But my foul state unfits my head for the royal emblem, 450 00:41:19,703 --> 00:41:25,963 and my luckless hand shrinks from the scepter. 451 00:41:26,327 --> 00:41:30,327 Let me just blend in with the common people. 452 00:41:30,327 --> 00:41:33,613 This throne has room for two. 453 00:41:33,703 --> 00:41:38,233 All that is yours, brother, I regard as mine. 454 00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:43,610 Who would refuse the inflow of Fortune’s gifts? 455 00:41:43,746 --> 00:41:47,746 Anyone who has experienced how easily they ebb. 456 00:41:49,985 --> 00:41:54,675 You forbid your brother to win great glory? 457 00:41:55,088 --> 00:41:59,088 Your glory is already complete, 458 00:41:59,088 --> 00:42:01,884 mine still to be won. 459 00:42:01,884 --> 00:42:05,884 It is my fixed purpose to reject the throne. 460 00:42:06,372 --> 00:42:12,522 I shall abandon my share, unless you accept yours. 461 00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:35,670 I accept. 462 00:42:36,550 --> 00:42:39,553 I shall bear the title of king imposed on me, 463 00:42:39,553 --> 00:42:43,553 but the laws and army will be subject to you, along with myself. 464 00:42:43,553 --> 00:42:49,793 Wear this bond set on your venerable head. 465 00:42:49,793 --> 00:42:50,993 For my part, 466 00:42:50,993 --> 00:42:54,993 I shall offer the designated victims to the gods above. 467 00:43:42,355 --> 00:43:45,695 Come now, my king, 468 00:43:45,695 --> 00:43:50,865 sacker of Troy, offspring of Atreus, 469 00:43:53,553 --> 00:43:56,213 how shall I address you? 470 00:43:56,213 --> 00:43:59,143 To me, at that time, 471 00:43:59,143 --> 00:44:03,373 when you were leading forth an expedition 472 00:44:03,373 --> 00:44:05,823 on account of Helen— 473 00:44:05,823 --> 00:44:09,383 —I will not conceal this from you— 474 00:44:10,283 --> 00:44:14,690 you seemed painted in very ugly colours, but now, 475 00:44:14,690 --> 00:44:19,790 from the depths of my heart and with affection, 476 00:44:19,790 --> 00:44:24,680 I am friendly to those 477 00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:31,030 who have made a good end of their labours. 478 00:44:32,513 --> 00:44:34,403 Look for the smoke— 479 00:44:34,403 --> 00:44:37,283 it is the city’s seamark, building even now. 480 00:44:37,283 --> 00:44:41,237 The storms of ruin live! 481 00:44:43,377 --> 00:44:48,367 For that we must thank the gods with a sacrifice 482 00:44:48,367 --> 00:44:54,087 our sons will long remember: 483 00:44:54,657 --> 00:45:03,747 crashing through their walls our bloody lion lapped its fill, 484 00:45:06,145 --> 00:45:13,680 gorging on the blood of kings. 485 00:45:17,265 --> 00:45:20,305 And your concern, old man, is on my mind. 486 00:45:20,305 --> 00:45:23,705 I hear you and agree, I will support you. 487 00:45:24,755 --> 00:45:28,364 And now this cause involving men and gods. 488 00:45:28,364 --> 00:45:30,544 We must summon the city for a trial, 489 00:45:30,544 --> 00:45:32,864 found a national tribunal. 490 00:45:35,591 --> 00:45:36,986 Whatever’s healthy, 491 00:45:36,986 --> 00:45:39,238 shore it up with law and help it flourish. 492 00:45:39,238 --> 00:45:41,428 Wherever something calls for drastic cures 493 00:45:41,428 --> 00:45:43,628 we make our noblest effort: 494 00:45:43,628 --> 00:45:46,858 amputate or wield the healing iron, burn the cancer at the roots. 495 00:45:50,338 --> 00:45:53,105 Now I go to my father’s house— 496 00:45:53,105 --> 00:45:55,928 I give the gods my right hand, my first salute. 497 00:45:55,928 --> 00:45:58,748 The ones who sent me forth have brought me home. 498 00:45:59,445 --> 00:46:02,375 Victory, you have sped my way before, 499 00:46:02,375 --> 00:46:04,995 now speed me to the last. 500 00:46:07,811 --> 00:46:13,911 I am not ashamed to tell you of my husband loving ways. 501 00:46:14,793 --> 00:46:16,523 The fact is, 502 00:46:16,523 --> 00:46:24,913 life got hard for me when he was off at Troy. 503 00:46:27,179 --> 00:46:32,489 It’s a terrible thing for a woman to sit alone in a house, 504 00:46:34,039 --> 00:46:39,609 listening to rumors and tales of disaster one after another arriving— 505 00:46:42,492 --> 00:46:49,958 why, had this man sustained as many wounds as people told me, 506 00:46:49,958 --> 00:46:55,128 he’d be fuller of holes than a net! 507 00:46:55,128 --> 00:46:59,290 To die as often as they reported 508 00:46:59,290 --> 00:47:02,708 he’d need three bodies 509 00:47:02,708 --> 00:47:05,598 and three cloaks of earth— 510 00:47:05,598 --> 00:47:08,018 —one for each burial. 511 00:47:10,252 --> 00:47:14,172 So often did nasty rumors reach me, 512 00:47:15,432 --> 00:47:19,912 I hung up a noose for my neck more than once. 513 00:47:20,552 --> 00:47:24,552 Other people had to cut me down. 514 00:47:32,363 --> 00:47:34,946 That’s why our boy—yours and mine— 515 00:47:34,946 --> 00:47:38,681 Orestes, is not standing here, as he should be. 516 00:47:38,681 --> 00:47:40,025 Don’t worry. 517 00:47:40,025 --> 00:47:46,035 Strophios has him, our Phokian ally. 518 00:47:46,285 --> 00:47:50,525 So now, with all that over, with my mind grief free, 519 00:47:50,525 --> 00:47:52,405 I salute my man: 520 00:47:52,405 --> 00:47:54,235 he is the watchdog of the palace, 521 00:47:54,235 --> 00:47:56,505 forestay of the ship, 522 00:47:56,505 --> 00:47:59,752 pillar of the roof, 523 00:47:59,752 --> 00:48:01,595 only son of his father. 524 00:48:05,130 --> 00:48:09,130 And now, dear one— 525 00:48:09,130 --> 00:48:11,550 What are you waiting for? 526 00:48:11,550 --> 00:48:13,630 You have your orders— 527 00:48:13,630 --> 00:48:15,996 —strew the ground with fabrics, now! 528 00:48:15,996 --> 00:48:18,106 Make his path crimsoncovered! 529 00:48:18,106 --> 00:48:20,276 purplepaved! redsaturated! 530 00:48:20,276 --> 00:48:23,876 So Justice may lead him to the home he never hoped to see. 531 00:48:26,701 --> 00:48:28,805 There is Leda’s daughter, 532 00:48:29,415 --> 00:48:32,515 the keeper of my house. 533 00:48:32,825 --> 00:48:35,305 And the speech to suit my absence, 534 00:48:35,305 --> 00:48:38,374 much too long. 535 00:48:39,335 --> 00:48:41,602 But the praise that does us justice, 536 00:48:41,602 --> 00:48:45,912 let it come from others, then we prize it. 537 00:48:47,907 --> 00:48:51,377 This—you treat me like a woman. 538 00:48:51,377 --> 00:48:54,517 Grovelling, gaping up at me— 539 00:48:54,667 --> 00:49:01,047 what am I, some barbarian peacocking out of Asia? 540 00:49:01,047 --> 00:49:04,887 Never cross my path with robes and draw the lightning. 541 00:49:05,467 --> 00:49:10,890 Never—only the gods deserve the pomps of honor 542 00:49:10,890 --> 00:49:13,997 and the stiff brocades of fame. 543 00:49:13,997 --> 00:49:15,637 To walk on them ... 544 00:49:15,637 --> 00:49:19,887 I am human, and it makes my pulses stir with dread. 545 00:49:22,053 --> 00:49:26,283 Give me the tributes of a man and not a god. 546 00:49:27,434 --> 00:49:31,434 Oh come on, relax your principles. 547 00:49:31,948 --> 00:49:34,808 My principles? Once I violate them I am lost. 548 00:49:35,184 --> 00:49:40,884 Would you have done it for the gods to satisfy a vow? 549 00:49:42,035 --> 00:49:47,435 Yes, if a prophet called for a last, drastic rite. 550 00:49:47,673 --> 00:49:54,453 What about Priam, if he’d won the war? 551 00:49:56,216 --> 00:49:59,746 Striding on the tapestries of god, I see him now. 552 00:49:59,961 --> 00:50:03,581 Still you fear the blame of common men? 553 00:50:04,541 --> 00:50:07,885 The voice of the people—aye, they have enormous power. 554 00:50:07,885 --> 00:50:11,635 Unenvied means unenviable, you know. 555 00:50:12,273 --> 00:50:16,653 And where’s the woman in all this lust for glory? 556 00:50:17,179 --> 00:50:21,529 Yet a winner must acknowledge his victory. 557 00:50:21,989 --> 00:50:25,226 Victory in this war of ours, it means so much to you? 558 00:50:25,329 --> 00:50:26,769 Agree! 559 00:50:27,003 --> 00:50:31,003 You’re still in charge if you give way to me by choice. 560 00:50:35,277 --> 00:50:37,899 Enough. If you are so determined— 561 00:50:37,899 --> 00:50:40,999 Let someone help me off with these at least. 562 00:50:47,279 --> 00:50:51,279 Hurry, and while I tread his splendours dyed red in the sea, 563 00:50:51,279 --> 00:50:55,279 may no god watch and strike me down with envy from on high. 564 00:50:55,578 --> 00:50:57,798 I feel such shame— 565 00:50:57,798 --> 00:51:00,328 to tread the life of the house, 566 00:51:00,328 --> 00:51:04,328 a kingdom’s worth of silver in the weaving. 567 00:51:07,636 --> 00:51:09,456 Done is done. 568 00:51:11,617 --> 00:51:17,345 Escort this stranger in, 569 00:51:17,345 --> 00:51:19,075 be gentle. 570 00:51:20,410 --> 00:51:28,330 The gift of the armies, flower and pride of all the wealth we won, 571 00:51:28,330 --> 00:51:30,220 she follows me from Troy. 572 00:51:36,458 --> 00:51:37,568 And now, 573 00:51:37,568 --> 00:51:40,318 since you have brought me down with your insistence, 574 00:51:40,318 --> 00:51:43,098 just this once I enter my father’s house, 575 00:51:43,098 --> 00:51:45,439 trampling royal crimson as I go. 576 00:52:04,339 --> 00:52:09,759 There is the sea and who shall drain it dry? 577 00:52:09,759 --> 00:52:11,989 It breeds the purple stain, 578 00:52:11,989 --> 00:52:14,789 the dark red dye we use to color our garments, 579 00:52:14,789 --> 00:52:15,869 costly as silver. 580 00:52:15,869 --> 00:52:20,019 This house has an abundance. 581 00:52:20,019 --> 00:52:23,509 Thanks be to gods, no poverty here. 582 00:52:28,466 --> 00:52:30,534 Zeus, Zeus, 583 00:52:32,644 --> 00:52:34,504 god of things perfect, 584 00:52:34,754 --> 00:52:36,877 accomplish my prayers. 585 00:52:39,155 --> 00:52:42,136 Concern yourself here. 586 00:52:42,136 --> 00:52:44,416 Perfect this. 587 00:52:46,444 --> 00:52:48,544 Get yourself into the house, 588 00:52:48,544 --> 00:52:51,126 I'm talking to you, Kassandra. 589 00:52:53,803 --> 00:52:55,753 She's just been talking to you, you know, and she's spoken very clearly. 590 00:52:55,753 --> 00:52:57,813 You've been captured, caught in a deadly net; you should obey her, if you're going to--— 591 00:52:57,813 --> 00:52:59,509 but perhaps you won't. 592 00:52:59,509 --> 00:53:07,149 Unless she speaks some unintelligible foreign tongue and chirrups like a swallow, 593 00:53:07,149 --> 00:53:11,149 I should be reaching through into her understanding. 594 00:53:15,085 --> 00:53:16,955 Follow her. 595 00:53:16,955 --> 00:53:24,135 Leave your seat in this carriage, and comply with her words. 596 00:53:24,976 --> 00:53:28,976 I can’t waste time like this in the doorway. 597 00:53:28,976 --> 00:53:34,916 Already the animals stand at the hearth ready for slaughter. 598 00:53:35,586 --> 00:53:39,486 So you get a move on, or you’ll miss the whole ceremony. 599 00:53:39,486 --> 00:53:42,316 If you really don’t understand a word I’m saying 600 00:53:42,316 --> 00:53:45,378 make some sign with your hand. 601 00:53:58,705 --> 00:54:00,325 Oh she’s mad. 602 00:54:00,325 --> 00:54:03,032 Hearkens only to her own mad mind. 603 00:54:03,032 --> 00:54:08,782 I’ll not be insulted further. 604 00:54:14,649 --> 00:54:20,049 I pity you, and I’m not going to be angry. 605 00:54:20,978 --> 00:54:23,648 Come on, poor girl. 606 00:54:33,742 --> 00:54:37,453 otototoi popoi da! 607 00:54:37,453 --> 00:54:41,453 Apollo Apollo! 608 00:54:42,418 --> 00:54:46,446 Why are you wailing like that about Loxias? 609 00:54:48,729 --> 00:54:52,729 otototoi popoi da! 610 00:54:53,419 --> 00:54:57,419 Apollo Apollo! 611 00:54:59,386 --> 00:55:03,386 He is not the sort to come in contact with one who laments. 612 00:55:04,950 --> 00:55:08,950 Apollo Apollo 613 00:55:10,085 --> 00:55:13,955 waygod destroyer 614 00:55:16,944 --> 00:55:19,514 where have you brought me 615 00:55:19,514 --> 00:55:21,504 what house is this? 616 00:55:24,592 --> 00:55:28,592 To the house of the Atreidae. 617 00:55:31,257 --> 00:55:35,857 ah ah ah god-shunners kin-killers 618 00:55:35,857 --> 00:55:39,494 child-charnel man-shambles 619 00:55:39,494 --> 00:55:41,204 babe-spattered abattoir 620 00:55:42,738 --> 00:55:47,688 The foreign woman seems to be as keen-scented as a hound; 621 00:55:47,688 --> 00:55:52,524 she has got on the right trail to track down some murders. 622 00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:55,030 I track down the witnesses 623 00:55:55,030 --> 00:55:56,510 children babes 624 00:55:56,510 --> 00:55:58,338 shrieking butcher 625 00:55:58,338 --> 00:56:00,930 barbecued childflesh wolfed down by the father 626 00:56:05,170 --> 00:56:08,500 Yes, we had indeed heard of your fame as a seer, 627 00:56:08,500 --> 00:56:11,900 but we are not looking for any prophets. 628 00:56:12,249 --> 00:56:13,807 io popoi 629 00:56:13,807 --> 00:56:16,599 I see somebody evil something 630 00:56:16,599 --> 00:56:19,339 agony agony more more more 631 00:56:19,339 --> 00:56:21,563 no-one can bear it 632 00:56:21,563 --> 00:56:23,696 no-one can stop it 633 00:56:23,696 --> 00:56:26,286 help’s far away over the ocean 634 00:56:27,414 --> 00:56:30,924 I do not know what this prophecy means. 635 00:56:32,004 --> 00:56:37,254 The other one I did know: the whole city resounds with it. 636 00:56:38,868 --> 00:56:39,988 io 637 00:56:40,287 --> 00:56:44,537 husband bed-mate 638 00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:49,180 body washed in your bath-trough 639 00:56:50,570 --> 00:56:52,701 hand over hand 640 00:56:55,135 --> 00:56:58,264 hauling the catch in 641 00:56:58,264 --> 00:57:00,774 I still don’t understand. 642 00:57:03,581 --> 00:57:08,501 e e papai papai 643 00:57:08,501 --> 00:57:10,501 net hell-net 644 00:57:10,726 --> 00:57:15,386 she-snare bed-mate blood-mate 645 00:57:15,538 --> 00:57:19,167 the deathpack howls over its victim 646 00:57:19,167 --> 00:57:23,167 the fiendswarm surrounds it for stoning 647 00:57:23,764 --> 00:57:28,415 What do you mean by bidding this Fury raise a loud cry over the house? 648 00:57:28,791 --> 00:57:30,078 a a 649 00:57:30,078 --> 00:57:31,378 look there there look 650 00:57:31,378 --> 00:57:33,908 bull cow bull cow don’t let them grapple 651 00:57:33,908 --> 00:57:37,978 he’s caught in the robe-net 652 00:57:37,978 --> 00:57:41,355 she gores him and gores him 653 00:57:43,565 --> 00:57:46,745 butting and butting with blood-crusted horn 654 00:57:53,492 --> 00:57:57,192 slumps into bathblood bloodsplash 655 00:57:57,192 --> 00:58:00,482 him me him me him me 656 00:58:00,482 --> 00:58:06,122 woecups mine slops over the brim 657 00:58:07,242 --> 00:58:09,432 what have you brought me here for? 658 00:58:09,432 --> 00:58:12,419 to die beside you what else? 659 00:58:13,217 --> 00:58:18,817 Why have you uttered these words that are all too clear? 660 00:58:19,057 --> 00:58:23,057 A babe hearing them could understand. 661 00:58:23,157 --> 00:58:26,334 I am stricken by your painful fate as if by a bloody bite, 662 00:58:26,334 --> 00:58:34,214 as you cry and whimper in a way that it shatters me to hear. 663 00:59:08,420 --> 00:59:17,220 Off with the brideveil then. 664 00:59:18,519 --> 00:59:21,019 Riddles are over. 665 00:59:21,269 --> 00:59:24,513 Keep close on my track now 666 00:59:24,513 --> 00:59:29,569 as I scent out the spoor of ancient transgression. 667 00:59:30,839 --> 00:59:33,399 Listen. The rooftops. 668 00:59:33,399 --> 00:59:39,149 Monotonous humming that drones on forever and means only terror. 669 00:59:39,549 --> 00:59:46,719 The blood-bolstered fiend-swarm holds its debauches, 670 00:59:46,719 --> 00:59:51,629 cacophonous squatters that can’t be evicted, 671 00:59:52,419 --> 00:59:57,541 chant over and over the crime where it started 672 00:59:57,541 --> 01:00:00,937 cursing a bedbond a bloodkin defiled 673 01:00:00,937 --> 01:00:04,578 trampling all over the flowing bed-linen. 674 01:00:08,169 --> 01:00:11,465 Have I shot wide 675 01:00:11,465 --> 01:00:14,525 or am I on target? 676 01:00:17,325 --> 01:00:23,705 Swear I know all the curse of this bloodclan. 677 01:00:25,199 --> 01:00:27,725 I marvel at you, 678 01:00:27,725 --> 01:00:33,730 that having been bred beyond the seas 679 01:00:33,730 --> 01:00:40,466 you can talk so accurately about a foreign-speaking city, 680 01:00:41,486 --> 01:00:45,735 as if you had been on the spot. 681 01:00:46,432 --> 01:00:50,552 I’ve always thought it too shameful to tell. 682 01:00:51,674 --> 01:00:55,674 Did you come together in the act of procreation? 683 01:00:56,089 --> 01:00:59,599 I told him he could then later said no. 684 01:00:59,691 --> 01:01:03,751 When you were already possessed by your inspired abilities? 685 01:01:05,679 --> 01:01:09,679 I foretold Troy’s downfall, the Trojans’ defeat. 686 01:01:11,140 --> 01:01:15,280 How then did you remain unharmed by the wrath of Loxias? 687 01:01:16,322 --> 01:01:21,862 No one ever believed me, not one single word. 688 01:01:23,915 --> 01:01:32,815 Well, to us your prophecies seem quite credible. 689 01:01:34,974 --> 01:01:36,177 iou iou 690 01:01:36,177 --> 01:01:38,007 ah ah ah ah 691 01:01:38,007 --> 01:01:43,427 look on the rooftops dream-shadows children 692 01:01:43,427 --> 01:01:46,527 killed by their bloodkin, 693 01:01:46,527 --> 01:01:50,527 their hands full of ugh offal and giblets 694 01:01:50,527 --> 01:02:00,577 their very own innards held out to their father as succulent morsels. 695 01:02:06,473 --> 01:02:10,473 The lion plots vengeance 696 01:02:10,473 --> 01:02:12,175 the lion that’s gutless 697 01:02:12,175 --> 01:02:18,076 the lion that lolls in the master’s own chamber 698 01:02:18,868 --> 01:02:23,918 Commander of triremes, crusher of Priam, 699 01:02:27,859 --> 01:02:31,179 but blind to cabal, the insatiable hell-bitch, 700 01:02:31,553 --> 01:02:35,553 licking his hand ears pricked in welcome. 701 01:02:35,553 --> 01:02:39,553 furry and cur-like concealing a Fury 702 01:02:44,532 --> 01:02:49,772 Whether I’m believed or not doesn’t matter. 703 01:02:50,074 --> 01:02:54,484 Whatever you do the future will happen. 704 01:02:54,484 --> 01:02:58,484 Through pity and tears you’ll know the true prophet. 705 01:02:59,181 --> 01:03:04,741 I understood about Thyestes feasting on his children’s flesh, 706 01:03:04,741 --> 01:03:09,971 and I shudder, and terror grips me, 707 01:03:09,971 --> 01:03:13,951 now I have heard it in terms that truly were anything but figurative. 708 01:03:13,951 --> 01:03:16,571 But as to the rest of what I’ve heard, 709 01:03:16,571 --> 01:03:18,681 I’m running like a hound that’s lost the scent. 710 01:03:19,590 --> 01:03:23,590 Agamemnon. He’s the one you’ll see dead! 711 01:03:24,188 --> 01:03:27,108 Speak only of good things, poor girl; put your tongue to sleep. 712 01:03:27,108 --> 01:03:31,108 And while you’re appealing his throat’s being slit! 713 01:03:31,677 --> 01:03:39,022 By what man is this grievous crime being committed? 714 01:03:39,337 --> 01:03:42,787 If you say man then you don’t understand. 715 01:03:43,636 --> 01:03:48,466 Because I didn’t understand what method he, the perpetrator, could use. 716 01:03:49,459 --> 01:03:53,459 And yet it’s your language you’re hearing me speak. 717 01:03:54,037 --> 01:03:56,357 The pronouncements of Pytho are also in Greek, 718 01:03:56,357 --> 01:03:58,497 but they’re still hard to understand. 719 01:04:04,632 --> 01:04:07,013 ah ah 720 01:04:07,013 --> 01:04:09,513 fire in me 721 01:04:09,513 --> 01:04:17,007 Apollo’s two-legged lioness tupped by the wolfman 722 01:04:17,007 --> 01:04:20,407 when the great lion’s gone she’ll kill Cassandra 723 01:04:21,764 --> 01:04:25,830 She sharpens the swordblade to hack down her husband 724 01:04:25,830 --> 01:04:29,830 a hacking he earned by bringing me with him 725 01:04:34,894 --> 01:04:38,661 Why do I wear these garments that mock me, 726 01:04:38,661 --> 01:04:42,101 the trappings of prophetess, rod, garb and raiment. 727 01:04:42,101 --> 01:04:46,101 I’m going to die but you’ll go before me. 728 01:04:46,101 --> 01:04:49,971 It’s some satisfaction to trample these trappings. 729 01:04:49,971 --> 01:04:53,221 Go and bestow these gifts on another. 730 01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:03,610 ah Apollo Apollo clawing my clothes off. 731 01:05:03,666 --> 01:05:07,216 He grabs the prophetess garb off my body. 732 01:05:07,216 --> 01:05:15,676 He mocked me, Apollo, though dressed as his prophet, 733 01:05:15,676 --> 01:05:18,916 called vagabond, mountebank, pauper and starveling. 734 01:05:19,446 --> 01:05:22,555 The god-seer casts his prophetess to disaster. 735 01:05:22,555 --> 01:05:26,735 My father’s own priestess now mere beast 736 01:05:26,735 --> 01:05:32,424 oblation lifeblood flowing hot off the hackblock. 737 01:05:35,912 --> 01:05:37,604 We won’t die forgotten. 738 01:05:37,604 --> 01:05:39,892 Gods always notice. 739 01:05:40,777 --> 01:05:43,497 He'll come our avenger, our bloodgrudge-fulfiller. 740 01:05:43,497 --> 01:05:46,727 He'll come motherkiller, wanderer, exile, 741 01:05:46,727 --> 01:05:50,782 setting the copestone on this bloodclan's corruption. 742 01:05:53,647 --> 01:05:57,191 the father's corpse drawing the song back to Argos. 743 01:05:59,071 --> 01:06:01,996 Why these tears? 744 01:06:03,556 --> 01:06:11,324 These eyes saw Troy levelled. 745 01:06:11,324 --> 01:06:13,088 Now it’s for me to die. 746 01:06:13,088 --> 01:06:14,968 The doorway to death. 747 01:06:14,968 --> 01:06:18,089 I pray for a clean blow, no painful convulsions, 748 01:06:18,089 --> 01:06:20,452 my blood ebbing gently, closing my eyes. 749 01:06:23,124 --> 01:06:26,314 Woman unfortunate in so many ways 750 01:06:26,314 --> 01:06:29,564 and also wise in so many ways, 751 01:06:29,564 --> 01:06:32,640 you have spoken at length; 752 01:06:33,332 --> 01:06:38,262 but if you truly have foreknowledge of your own death, 753 01:06:38,545 --> 01:06:42,239 how comes it that you are walking boldly towards it 754 01:06:42,239 --> 01:06:45,599 like an ox driven by god to the altar? 755 01:06:48,317 --> 01:06:52,317 There’s no escape now. No more delay. 756 01:06:53,622 --> 01:06:58,742 But people put special value on the last bit of time they have. 757 01:07:00,074 --> 01:07:01,884 No hope for me though. 758 01:07:01,884 --> 01:07:04,344 It’s pointless all flight. 759 01:07:06,083 --> 01:07:11,868 Well, I tell you, your resolution comes from a courageous heart. 760 01:07:12,006 --> 01:07:15,256 Yes only the doomed are ever called brave. 761 01:07:17,802 --> 01:07:21,802 But it’s a gratification to any mortal, you know, to die creditably. 762 01:07:31,021 --> 01:07:32,681 Friends! 763 01:07:33,927 --> 01:07:34,917 What’s the matter? 764 01:07:34,917 --> 01:07:36,137 What fear is making you turn away? 765 01:07:36,137 --> 01:07:37,227 PHEU PHEU! 766 01:07:37,227 --> 01:07:39,857 Why are you going “pheu” like that? 767 01:07:39,857 --> 01:07:43,857 The palace! It stinks like an abattoir drain! 768 01:07:47,365 --> 01:07:52,065 What on earth do you mean? 769 01:07:52,065 --> 01:07:58,375 That’s the smell of sacrifices at the hearth. 770 01:07:58,965 --> 01:08:02,725 It stinks like the gas from a burial urn! 771 01:08:06,826 --> 01:08:08,936 I’m no frightened fledgling 772 01:08:08,936 --> 01:08:12,184 flinching with fear when the bushes get shaken. 773 01:08:12,184 --> 01:08:15,274 From you what I beg is the bearing of witness. 774 01:08:28,639 --> 01:08:34,599 A few last words, a requiem dirgesong 775 01:08:36,989 --> 01:08:41,859 I ask the sun whose last rays I’m addressing 776 01:08:41,859 --> 01:08:48,299 that when the avengers cut down the assassins 777 01:08:49,499 --> 01:08:54,729 one stroke’s for the slave butchered defenseless. 778 01:08:58,499 --> 01:09:00,429 Man’s life! 779 01:09:03,238 --> 01:09:07,660 Luck’s blotted out by the slenderest shadow. 780 01:09:07,660 --> 01:09:15,020 Trouble—a wet sponge wipes the slate empty. 781 01:09:16,556 --> 01:09:20,556 That pain’s also nothing makes life a heartbreak. 782 01:10:17,887 --> 01:10:20,841 What wind can whirl me sky-high through the air 783 01:10:20,841 --> 01:10:23,810 and wrap me in dark clouds, 784 01:10:23,930 --> 01:10:27,080 to tear my eyes away from such abomination? 785 01:10:28,270 --> 01:10:31,670 This house would make blush even Pelops and Tantalus. 786 01:10:33,365 --> 01:10:35,377 What is your news? 787 01:10:36,531 --> 01:10:38,511 What country is this? 788 01:10:40,521 --> 01:10:45,511 What is this place that knows such a terrible enormity? 789 01:10:48,245 --> 01:10:57,585 Tell us, reveal the evil, whatever it is. 790 01:10:59,059 --> 01:11:01,132 If my heart stops fluttering, 791 01:11:01,132 --> 01:11:04,622 if my body, stiff with fear, can let my limbs be free. 792 01:11:06,052 --> 01:11:11,382 The vision of that crime will not go from my eyes. 793 01:11:12,808 --> 01:11:16,347 Do not keep us suffering in suspense! 794 01:11:16,347 --> 01:11:18,427 Tell us what you shudder at! 795 01:11:18,427 --> 01:11:20,147 Reveal the criminal! 796 01:11:20,147 --> 01:11:23,468 I ask not “Who?” but “Which of them?” it was. 797 01:11:23,788 --> 01:11:25,118 Out with it! 798 01:11:27,744 --> 01:11:29,148 On top of the citadel, 799 01:11:29,148 --> 01:11:32,982 one side of Pelops’ castle is turned towards the south. 800 01:11:33,875 --> 01:11:37,135 An ancient grove buried in a deep valley, 801 01:11:37,135 --> 01:11:40,945 at the centre of the kingdom, 802 01:11:40,945 --> 01:11:45,749 where no tree blossomed or put forth fruit; 803 01:11:45,749 --> 01:11:49,325 no gardener pruned them. 804 01:11:50,304 --> 01:11:53,634 The yew and cypress and the black holm-oak 805 01:11:55,346 --> 01:11:57,586 swayed in that shadowy wood. 806 01:11:57,586 --> 01:12:03,746 Above them all the oak tree dominates the grove from its great height. 807 01:12:03,832 --> 01:12:07,832 From here the sons of Tantalus begin their reigns 808 01:12:08,252 --> 01:12:13,052 from here they ask for help when things look bleak or doubtful. 809 01:12:13,537 --> 01:12:15,707 Gifts hang from the trees; 810 01:12:16,147 --> 01:12:21,394 there is the trumpet, the broken chariot, spoils of the Myrtoan Sea; 811 01:12:21,394 --> 01:12:25,394 the wheels hang down from the pole that deceived the king. 812 01:12:26,074 --> 01:12:28,284 All the family’s history is here. 813 01:12:30,575 --> 01:12:33,325 Under the shadows is set a dismal fountain, 814 01:12:33,325 --> 01:12:35,935 stuck in a black and stagnant pool; 815 01:12:36,002 --> 01:12:39,362 most like the ugly water of terrible Styx, 816 01:12:39,362 --> 01:12:42,712 by which the gods swear faith. 817 01:12:42,712 --> 01:12:47,752 They say the spirits groan here in the dead o night, 818 01:12:47,752 --> 01:12:51,862 the grove resounds with the clattering of chains, 819 01:12:51,862 --> 01:12:53,662 and the ghosts howl. 820 01:12:53,662 --> 01:12:57,022 All things that make one shudder even to hear, are there made visible. 821 01:12:57,022 --> 01:13:01,022 Old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead. 822 01:13:01,022 --> 01:13:06,472 Everywhere spring unprecedented wonders. 823 01:13:11,671 --> 01:13:18,361 This was the place where angry Atreus dragged his brother’s children. 824 01:13:18,361 --> 01:13:21,431 The altars are adorned— 825 01:13:21,431 --> 01:13:23,121 —how can I say this?— 826 01:13:24,411 --> 01:13:28,425 the little princes have their hands tied back; 827 01:13:28,895 --> 01:13:32,895 he binds their poor little heads with a purple band. 828 01:13:33,219 --> 01:13:36,804 Incense was not forgotten, or the holy juice of Bacchus, 829 01:13:36,804 --> 01:13:40,134 and with the knife he daubed the victims with salted grains. 830 01:13:40,323 --> 01:13:42,778 All due ritual was observed, 831 01:13:42,778 --> 01:13:46,778 in case such a horrible crime be done improperly. 832 01:13:47,655 --> 01:13:51,655 Who held the sword? 833 01:13:52,073 --> 01:13:54,240 He was the priest himself, 834 01:13:54,240 --> 01:13:58,780 he was the one who gabbled out the deadly prayers, 835 01:13:58,780 --> 01:14:00,902 the rites of murder. 836 01:14:00,902 --> 01:14:02,912 He stood there at the altar, 837 01:14:02,912 --> 01:14:04,877 he checked the victim’s bodies, 838 01:14:04,877 --> 01:14:08,457 and he himself arranged them for the knife, 839 01:14:08,457 --> 01:14:10,117 and acted as the audience. 840 01:14:10,557 --> 01:14:12,697 No part of the rite was lost. 841 01:14:13,764 --> 01:14:15,664 The woods were trembling, 842 01:14:16,094 --> 01:14:18,284 the whole ground was shaken, 843 01:14:18,284 --> 01:14:20,604 making the courtyard totter: 844 01:14:20,604 --> 01:14:24,028 it seems to hesitate, unsure where it can set its weight. 845 01:14:24,028 --> 01:14:30,868 The dedicated wine is changed to blood and flows into the fire. 846 01:14:30,868 --> 01:14:35,008 His royal crown kept falling down. 847 01:14:35,008 --> 01:14:37,428 In the temples the statues wept. 848 01:14:38,002 --> 01:14:40,800 All were aghast, 849 01:14:41,870 --> 01:14:45,870 but Atreus himself alone remained unmoved. 850 01:14:46,327 --> 01:14:53,487 Without delay he stood at the altar and scowled. 851 01:14:54,734 --> 01:14:58,111 He wonders which to slaughter first, 852 01:14:58,111 --> 01:15:01,431 and which to butcher second. 853 01:15:01,472 --> 01:15:03,560 It makes no difference, 854 01:15:03,560 --> 01:15:06,922 but he ponders, and enjoys order in brutality. 855 01:15:08,696 --> 01:15:11,676 So which did he strike? 856 01:15:14,105 --> 01:15:18,415 Do not imagine he lacked family feeling: 857 01:15:18,415 --> 01:15:21,135 first to be killed was his father’s namesake, Tantalus. 858 01:15:21,135 --> 01:15:25,135 The wild murderer buried his sword in a deep thrust, and pressing down he fixed his hand on his throat; 859 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 when he drew out the sword the corpse still stood; 860 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 it was unclear for a while where it should fall, but it fell on the uncle. 861 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Then that barbarian dragged Plisthenes to the altar, 862 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and added him to his brother. 863 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He cut through his neck; 864 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the body without its head flopped to the ground, 865 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 while the head rolled down, protesting indistinctly. 866 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 After the double murder what did he do? 867 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Did he spare the little one, or heap more crime on crime? 868 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Atreus rages and swells with his rage, 869 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 holding out the sword drenched in the two boys’ blood, 870 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 careless where his fury leads him, cruelly, 871 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 he drives the blade in the chest of the child, right through, 872 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and all at once it pokes out from his back. 873 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He fell and put the fires out with his blood, 874 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 wounded on both sides, he died. 875 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What savagery! 876 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Are you horrified? 877 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If the crime stopped there, Atreus would be holy. 878 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What more could he do? 879 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Did he throw the bodies to wild beasts to tear, refuse cremation? 880 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If only he had! 881 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If only they lay unburied, uncremated corpses, dragged away to be a dismal dinner for wild beasts. 882 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This man makes normal pain desirable: 883 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 if only the father could see his children unburied! 884 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Incredible evil! Historians will deny it. 885 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The father rips apart his sons, 886 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 putting into his murderous mouth his own dear flesh and blood. 887 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 His hair is wet and shiny with perfume, his body heavy with wine; 888 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 his mouth is overstuffed, his jaws can hardly hold new morsels. 889 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 O Thyestes, your only blessing is your ignorance. 890 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But you will lose that too. 891 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We must see this evil; all is now revealed. 892 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OIMOI! Struck deep—the death-blow, deep— 893 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Hush! Who’s that screaming about being struck and mortally wounded? 894 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OIMOI, again—second blow—struck home. 895 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 To judge by the king’s cries, I think the deed has been done. 896 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Are we to divine that the man is dead just from the evidence of some cries we hear? 897 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Peer of the stars I stride, out-topping all men, 898 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 my proud head reaching to the lofty sky. 899 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now I hold the kingdom’s glories, 900 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 now my father’s throne. 901 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I discharge the gods: 902 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I have reached the pinnacle. But why should it be enough? 903 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I shall go on, and fill the father with the death of his sons. 904 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I long to see what color he turns as he looks on his sons’ heads, 905 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 what words his first torment pours forth, how his body stiffens, breathless with shock. 906 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This is the fruit of my work: 907 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I do not want to see him broken, but being broken. 908 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I said a lot of things before that sounded nice. 909 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I’m not ashamed to contradict them now. 910 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I stand where I struck with the deed done! 911 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I did it. I make no denial. 912 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So he could neither flee nor save himself 913 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I threw round him a cloth with no way out—a sort of dragnet—evil wealth of cloth. 914 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I strike him twice. 915 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Two screams and his limbs go slack. 916 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He falls. 917 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I strike him one more time—three for Zeus the savior of corpses! 918 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And as he sputters out his life in blood 919 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 he sprays me with black drops like dew 920 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 gladdening me no less than when 921 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the green buds of the corn feel showers from heaven! 922 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This man has the libation he deserves. 923 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He filled this house like a mixing bowl to the brim with evils, 924 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 now he has drunk it down. 925 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Opened up, the house is bright with myriad torches. 926 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He is lying on purple and gold, sprawled backward, 927 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 propping his wine-heavy head on his left hand. 928 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He belches! 929 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Oh, I am highest of heavenly gods, and king of kings! 930 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I have surpassed my own prayers. 931 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He is stuffed, he imbibes pure wine from a great silver cup. 932 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Do not stint your drinking! 933 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There still remains the blood of so many victims; 934 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the color of vintage wine will disguise it. 935 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Yes, let this be the cup to close the feast! 936 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Let the father drink the blended blood of his sons: 937 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 he would have drunk mine. 938 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Heart made dreary by long troubles, now set aside your fretful cares. 939 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Away with grief, away with fear, 940 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 away with the comrade of anxious exile, 941 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 gloomy poverty, and shame that weighs upon misfortune. 942 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Smile once more at happiness, 943 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 cast from your heart the old Thyestes. 944 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Why hold me back and forbid my celebrating this festive day, why bid me weep, 945 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 pain arising without a cause? 946 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who prevents me from binding my hair with comely flowers? 947 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I long to utter ill-omened laments, 948 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I long to rend these garments steeped in Tyrian purple, 949 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I long to howl. 950 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What griefs, what upheavals are you conjuring for yourself, you madman? 951 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Your fear of whatever is either groundless or too late now. 952 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 —Poor me, I resist, but terror roves and prowls inside me, my eyes pour forth these sudden tears, based on no cause. 953 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Is it grief or fear? 954 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Or does great pleasure make for weeping? 955 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We are amazed at your language, the arrogance of it, 956 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 uttering boastful words like these over your husband! 957 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Don’t squawk at me. 958 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I’m not some witless female. 959 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I am fearless and you know it. 960 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Whether you praise or blame me I don’t care. 961 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Here lies Agamemnon, my husband, a dead body, work of my righteous right hand. 962 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That’s how things stand. 963 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What evil thing have you tasted, lady, 964 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 what food or what drink, whether growing from the earth 965 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 or having its origin in the flowing seas, 966 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to make you bring on your head this slaughter and loud public curses? 967 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You have cast them aside, you have cut them off; you shall be banished from the city. 968 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My own brother, we must celebrate this festive day in mutual harmony. 969 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I am stayed by a surfeit of fine fare, and equally of wine. 970 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The final addition that could increase my pleasure would be the chance to enjoy my happiness with my boys. 971 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Consider your sons as here in their father’s embrace. 972 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Here they are, and will stay. 973 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 No portion of your offspring will be taken from you. 974 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I shall show you shortly the faces you long for, 975 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and give the father his fill of his own dear throng. 976 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You will be surfeited, never fear! 977 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 At the moment, in company with mine, 978 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 they are observing the sweet communion of the young men’s table. 979 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But they will be summoned. 980 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Take this cup of our bloodline, with an infusion of wine. 981 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Oh now you pull out your code of justice— 982 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 call me accursed, demand my exile! 983 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What about them? 984 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What about him? 985 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This man who, without a second thought, 986 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 as if it were a goat dying, sacrificed his own child, 987 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 my most beloved, my birthpang, my own— 988 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and he had flocks of animals to charm the winds of Thrace! 989 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Isn’t it this man you should have sent into exile, to pay for that polluted deed? 990 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Instead you pass judgment on me! 991 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Well I warn you, threaten me all you like. 992 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I take the gift, as part of my brother’s feast. 993 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The wine shall be poured to our fathers’ gods, then swallowed. 994 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But what is this? 995 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My hands will not obey. 996 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When raised, the wine flees from my very lips, cheats my mouth and swirls around my open jaws. 997 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What is this? 998 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Darkness gathers more thickly amid dense shadows, and night buries itself in night. 999 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Whatever it is, I pray it may spare my brother and sons. 1000 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now return my sons to me! 1001 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I shall return them, and no day will steal them from you. 1002 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What is this turmoil that shakes my guts? 1003 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What trembles inside me? 1004 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My breast groans with groaning not my own. 1005 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Come, sons, your unhappy father calls you, come! 1006 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Once I see you this pain will vanish. 1007 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They interrupt—but from where? 1008 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Unfold your welcoming arms, father: 1009 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 they have come. I suppose you recognize your sons? 1010 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Hope does not walk the halls of fear in me so long as Aigisthos lights the fire on my hearth. 1011 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Aigisthos is loyal. A good defender. My personal shield. 1012 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Here lies the man who despoiled me, darling of every fancy girl at Troy. 1013 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And by his side the little prophetess who sweetened his sheets. 1014 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Sweetened the whole army’s sheets, I shouldn’t doubt. 1015 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They got what they deserve those two. 1016 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Yes here he lies. 1017 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And she like a swan that has sung its last song beside him, his truelove, his little spiceberry. 1018 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You know, to look at them kind of excites me. 1019 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 IO IO, demented Helen, 1020 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 who alone brought death to so many, 1021 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 so very many souls at Troy, 1022 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 now you have adorned yourself with a final adornment, never to be forgotten, 1023 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 through the shedding of blood that nothing can wash away! 1024 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Truly the house then contained a spirit that stirred up strife and brought woe to the man. 1025 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I recognize my brother. 1026 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Oh stop whining. 1027 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And why get angry at Helen? 1028 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 As if she singlehandedly destroyed those multitudes of men. 1029 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 As if she all alone made this wound in us. 1030 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Spirit that assails this house 1031 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and the two Tantalids so different in their nature, 1032 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and controls it, in a way that rends my heart, 1033 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 through the agency of women whose souls were alike! 1034 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Standing over the corpse, in the manner of a loathsome raven, 1035 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 it glories in tunelessly singing a song. 1036 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Come now, rather than this, receive with joy the boys you missed so long. 1037 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Your brother is not stopping you. 1038 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Enjoy them, kiss them, split your embraces among the three of them. 1039 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Is this our agreement? Is this your goodwill, your brotherly promise? 1040 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Is this how you set aside hatred? 1041 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I do not ask as a father to have my sons safe. 1042 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What can be granted with no damage to your crime and hatred, I ask you brother to brother: 1043 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 let me bury them. 1044 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I ask you for nothing to keep as a father, only something to lose. 1045 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 All that remains of your children you have, all that does not remain you have. 1046 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Are they lying as fodder for cruel birds, or being devoured by sea monsters, or feeding beasts of the field? 1047 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You yourself banqueted on your sons— a sacrilegious meal. 1048 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now you’re making sense— 1049 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to call upon the thricegorged evil demon of this family. 1050 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Deep in its nerves is a lust to lick blood and no wound heals before the next starts oozing. 1051 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 IO IO, my king, my king, 1052 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 how shall I weep for you? 1053 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Here you lie in this spider’s web after breathing your life out in an impious death— 1054 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 OIMOI MOI—lying in a state unfit for a free man, 1055 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 laid low in treacherous murder by this hand with a two-edged weapon. 1056 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You call this deed mine? 1057 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And I his wife? You’re wrong. 1058 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Some ancient bitter spirit of revenge 1059 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 disguised as Agamemnon’s wife arose from Atreus’ brutal feast 1060 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to sacrifice this man for those little children. 1061 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What words shall I utter in such wretchedness, what laments? 1062 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What speech will suffice me? 1063 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I see the lopped-off heads, the wrenched-off hands, the feet torn from broken legs. 1064 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This is what the greedy father could not take in! 1065 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The flesh churns within me, the imprisoned horror struggles with no way out, seeking to escape. 1066 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Give me your sword, brother— it already has much of my blood: 1067 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the blade must give my children a path. 1068 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You refuse the sword? 1069 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Let me batter my breast, smash resounding blows against it— 1070 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 no, hold your hand, poor wretch, we must spare the dead. 1071 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who has ever seen such horror? 1072 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 See, a father burdening his sons, and burdened by his sons. 1073 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Is there some limit to crime? 1074 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Even this is too little for me. 1075 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Straight from the wound I should have poured 1076 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Did he not bring lies and ruin on this house? 1077 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My poor little green shoot Iphigeneia— 1078 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 she’s the one who suffered unworthy. 1079 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He has nothing to complain about. 1080 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He paid by the sword for what he himself began. 1081 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I cut away limbs and sinews from the living bodies, 1082 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 pierced the organs with thin spits and watched them moan, 1083 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 piled up fires with my own hands: all this the father could have done better. 1084 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My anger was to no avail. 1085 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He tore his sons in his sacrilegious mouth, 1086 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 but he did not know it, they did not know it. 1087 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Robbed of the rich resources of thought, 1088 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I am at a loss for an idea which way to turn, now the house is falling. 1089 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who will bury him? Who will sing his lament? 1090 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Will you dare to do it—after slaying your own husband, to wail for him 1091 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and to perform, without right, a favor that will be no favor to his soul, in return for his great deeds? 1092 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now I commend my hands, now the true pain is won. 1093 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My crime would have been wasted if you did not feel pain like this. 1094 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Now I believe that the children are mine, and that my bed is faithful and chaste once more!