WEBVTT

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Who from the accursed regions of the dead haleth me forth,

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snatching at food which ever fleeth from my hungry lips?

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Hath something worse been found than parching thirst midst water,

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worse than ever-gaping hunger?

00:06:44.128 --> 00:06:46.828
To what new suffering am I shifted?

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O whoe’er thou art, harsh judge of shades,

00:06:52.267 --> 00:06:55.787
who dost allot fresh punishments to the dead,

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if aught can be added to my sufferings

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whereat e’en the guardian of our dread prison-house would quake,

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whereat sad Acheron would be seized with dread,

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with fear whereof I, too, should tremble, seek thou it out.

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Now from my seed a multitude is coming up which its own race shall out-do,

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which shall make me seem innocent,

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and dare things yet undared.

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Whatever space is still empty in the unholy realm,

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I shall fill up.

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Go on, you hated shade,

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and spur the wicked house-gods with your rage.

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Let all compete in every crime,

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let each side unsheathe the sword in turn:

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no limit to this anger, no shame.

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Let heedless fury goad their minds,

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let the parents’ frenzy and their ceaseless sin
devolve upon the sons.

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Let the shaky fortune of this bestial house revert from king to king,

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let wretch be rendered ruler

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and ruler be made wretch.

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Let anger find no act taboo.

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Let brother fear his brother,

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father fear his son, and son his father.

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O let the children die a dreadful end,

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but let their birth be worse,

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let the wife-abomination be a menace to her mate.

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In this godless house, let incest be like any crime!

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Let right, and trust, and every law lie dead for brothers.

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Confuse the house-gods,

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summon hatred, death, and slaughter,

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and fill all the house with Tantalus.

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Let blood discolor the family hearth,

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let the dinner plates be set.

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This day’s my gift to you.

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I loose your hunger for this meal.

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Sate your starvation.

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I have found a feast which even you would flee—

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but stop!

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Where do you rush in haste?

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Back to my pools and streams and fleeing waters,

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back to the laden tree which shuns my very lips.

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Let me return to the black couch of my prison-house;

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let it be mine, if I seem too little wretched, to change my stream.

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Whoe’er thou art, by the fates’ law bidden to
suffer allotted punishment:

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believe me who know, and love your punishments.

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Oh, when shall it fall to me to escape the upper world?

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First convulse your home.

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’Tis meet for me to suffer punishments,

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not be a punishment.

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I am sent as some deadly exhalation from the riven earth,

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or as a pestilence, spreading grievous plague among the people,

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that I a grandsire may lead my grandsons into fearful crime.

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I warn ye, defile not your hands with accursed slaughter,

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nor stain your altars with a madman’s crime.

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Here will I stand and prevent the evil deed.

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Why with thy scourge dost fright mine eyes?

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Why deep in my inmost marrow dost rouse hunger pains?

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I follow thee.

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This delirium—deal this throughout your house,

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let them rave like this,

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and like this hate and thirst in turn for kindred blood.

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Your home can sense that you are home,

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it shrinks in every part from hell’s contagion.

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And now—it’s done in full!

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Daughter of Tyndareus, Queen Clytemnestra,

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What is happening? What is the news?

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What message has persuaded you,

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that you have sent round word to make sacrifices?

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I have authority to tell how the twin-throned rulers of the Achaeans

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were sped with avenging spear and hand

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to the Teucrian land by a fierce warlike bird of omen,

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the kings of birds appearing to the kings of ships,

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eating a hare, pregnant with many offspring,

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her final run cut short.

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And the worthy prophet to the army saw it,

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and recognized the two warlike Atreidae,

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different in their temper,

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in the feasters on the hare who sped the rulers on their way;

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and thus he spoke, interpreting the portent:

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“In time this expedition will capture the city of Priam:

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only let no divine resentment overshadow the great curb of Troy,

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striking it before it can act, once it has been mustered.

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For holy Artemis, out of pity,

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bears a grudge against the winged hounds of her father

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who slaughtered the wretched hare, litter and all,

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before it could give birth.”

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And then the senior leader of the Achaean fleet,

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when the Achaean host was grievously afflicted by foul weather

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which emptied their stomachs at Aulis,

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and winds coming from the Strymon

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making time seem twice as long

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wore down and shredded the flower of the Argives;

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And when the prophet also cried forth

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another remedy for the hateful storms,

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one more grievous for the leaders,

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declaring Artemis as their cause,

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so that the Atreidae struck the ground with their staffs

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and could not hold back their tears—

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and the senior king spoke, and said this:

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Obey, obey, or a heavy doom will crush me!

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Oh but doom will crush me once I rend my child,

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the glory of my house—

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a father’s hands are stained,

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blood of a young girl streaks the altar.

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Pain both ways and what is worse?

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Desert the fleets, fail the alliance?

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No, but stop the winds with a virgin’s blood,

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feed their lust, their fury? Feed their fury!

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Law is law!

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Let all go well.

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And when he put on the yokestrap of necessity,

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from that point he turned to a mindset

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that would stop at nothing.

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In short,

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he brought himself to become the sacrificer of his daughter.

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Her pleas, her cries of “Father!” and her maiden years,

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were set at naught by the war-loving chieftains.

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After a prayer, her father told his attendants

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to lift her right up

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over the altar with all their strength,

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like a yearling goat, face down,

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so that her robes fell around her,

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and by putting a guard on her fair face and lips

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to restrain speech that might lay a curse on his house—

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by force, by the silencing power of a bridle.

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As she poured saffron dye

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towards the ground

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she cast on each of her sacrificers

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a glance darted from her eye,

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a glance to stir pity,

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wanting to address them
by name

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—because often

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at the rich banquets in her father’s dining-chambers

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she had sung.

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I have come, Clytemnestra, in reverence towards your
power:

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for it is proper to honor the wife of one’s
paramount ruler

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when the male throne is unoccupied.

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I would be glad to hear if you have learned any good news,

00:19:31.719 --> 00:19:33.668
or if you have not

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but are sacrificing in hope of receiving good tidings

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—but I will bear no grudge if you keep silence.

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Good news. Joy surpassing all your hopes!

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The Greeks have captured Priam’s town!

00:19:59.569 --> 00:20:01.259
What are you saying?

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Your words escaped me, they were so incredible.

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Troy belongs to us!

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Clear?

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What has persuaded you of this?

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Have you any evidence for it?

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I have.

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Unless some god fooled me.

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Have you been awed by a persuasive vision in a dream?

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I would not trust a mind asleep.

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Within what time has the city actually been sacked?

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In the night, this past night.

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And what messenger could come here with such speed?

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Hephaistos, god of fire!

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He sped forth a blazing flame from Ida!

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Beacon after beacon as the fire messenger moved

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from Ida to the rock of Lemnos,

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to the crag of Athos third.

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This was my lightbringing strategy,

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torch to torch over the entire course.

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Such is the proof and evidence I offered you,

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sent by my husband from Troy to me personally.

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I would like to hear these words again,

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from beginning to end,
as you have spoken them,

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and to marvel at them.

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Troy is ours on this day.

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Some fall on the bodies of their husbands, fathers, brothers

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and cry out grief from throats no longer free.

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The others quartered now in captured Trojan homes,

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escaped from frost and dew,

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they’ll sleep like happy men

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the whole night through without watch.

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Let no mad impulse strike the army

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to ravish what they should not, overcome by greed.

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They’re not home yet.

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Yet even if they make it home without offending gods

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the agony of those who died may wake again—

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—I pray no sudden shift to evil.

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Such are my woman words.

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May the good prevail. Unambiguously.

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Lady, you have spoken wisely,

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like a sensible man.

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Idle, inert, impotent, and unavenged:

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after so many crimes,

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after your brother’s treachery

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and the breaking of every principle,

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do you act with futile complaints—you, Atreus in anger?

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This mighty house of famous Pelops itself—

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—let it fall even on me, so long as it falls on my brother.

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I must dare some fierce, bloody outrage,

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such as my brother would have wished his own.

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You do not avenge crimes unless you surpass them.

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And what could be cruel enough to vanquish him?

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I know the man’s intractable nature:

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he cannot be bent, but he can be broken.

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He must be attacked first,

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lest he attack me at rest.

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He will either destroy or be destroyed.

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Are you not afraid the people will speak against you?

00:24:24.697 --> 00:24:26.947
They must want what they do not want!

00:24:26.947 --> 00:24:29.890
A king should want the good,

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his wishes match his people’s.

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Where a sovereign is permitted only what is honorable,

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he rules on sufferance.

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Remember that harming a brother,

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even a bad one, is wrong.

00:24:42.515 --> 00:24:44.540
Anything that is wrong in dealing with a brother

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is right in dealing with him.

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What has he left untouched by guilt,

00:24:49.310 --> 00:24:52.545
when has he refrained from crime?

00:24:52.545 --> 00:24:55.150
He stole my wife by adultery

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and my kingdom by theft;

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by deceit he obtained our ancient symbol of power,

00:25:00.509 --> 00:25:02.879
by deceit he brought turmoil on the house.

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From this act flowed all the evil of our mutual destruction.

00:25:08.141 --> 00:25:12.361
I roamed my own realm, a trembling exile;

00:25:13.532 --> 00:25:18.512
no part of what is mine is safe from treachery;

00:25:18.578 --> 00:25:20.980
my wife is defiled,

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my confidence in power shaken,

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my house tainted, its blood uncertain;

00:25:28.108 --> 00:25:30.468
nothing is sure—

00:25:30.468 --> 00:25:33.380
—except my brother’s enmity.

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Look to Tantalus and Pelops:

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my hands are called to follow their examples.

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Tell me how to slay that fearsome creature.

00:25:46.856 --> 00:25:49.326
Let your enemy die by the sword,

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and breathe his last.

00:25:50.871 --> 00:25:52.818
You talk about punishment’s conclusion:

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I want the punishment!

00:25:55.715 --> 00:25:58.750
Slaying is for a lenient tyrant;

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in my kingdom death is something people beg for.

00:26:03.528 --> 00:26:05.868
But are you not moved by affection?

00:26:05.868 --> 00:26:10.978
Begone, Affection, if ever you existed at all in our house!

00:26:10.978 --> 00:26:13.541
Let the dread band of Furies come,

00:26:13.541 --> 00:26:15.651
and the Erinys of strife

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and Megaera brandishing her twin torches.

00:26:18.791 --> 00:26:25.162
The madness firing my heart is not big enough,

00:26:25.162 --> 00:26:29.632
I want to be filled with some greater monstrosity.

00:26:29.905 --> 00:26:32.335
You are mad! What is your plan?

00:26:32.973 --> 00:26:37.483
Nothing conforming to the limits of ordinary bitterness.

00:26:37.483 --> 00:26:42.283
I shall leave no deed undone—and none is enough.

00:26:42.283 --> 00:26:43.573
Death by the sword?

00:26:43.573 --> 00:26:44.873
Insufficient.

00:26:44.873 --> 00:26:46.373
Burning?

00:26:46.639 --> 00:26:48.929
Still insufficient.

00:26:49.845 --> 00:26:53.265
Then what means can your huge resentment use?

00:26:53.893 --> 00:26:57.400
Thyestes himself.

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Too much! even for your rage.

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I admit it.

00:27:03.487 --> 00:27:06.677
The ground moans from its lowest depths,

00:27:06.677 --> 00:27:09.879
the sky thunders though cloudless,

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the house cracks throughout its structure as if shattered,

00:27:13.139 --> 00:27:16.310
and the house gods shake and avert their faces.

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Let it be done, let it be done,

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this outrage that makes you gods afraid!

00:27:23.539 --> 00:27:26.350
So what are you planning to do?

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Something more, greater than the commonplace,

00:27:31.304 --> 00:27:34.914
beyond normal human limits,

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is swelling in my spirit and jolting my sluggish hands.

00:27:40.300 --> 00:27:46.800
What it is I do not know, but it is something mighty!

00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:50.190
So be it.

00:27:50.190 --> 00:27:51.789
Seize on it, my spirit!

00:27:51.789 --> 00:27:57.589
The deed is worthy of Thyestes and worthy of Atreus:

00:27:57.589 --> 00:27:59.603
let each perform it.

00:28:03.520 --> 00:28:06.251
Let the father rend his children avidly,

00:28:06.251 --> 00:28:10.810
gleefully, and eat his own flesh.

00:28:11.467 --> 00:28:18.527
Why has Atreus remained innocent so long?

00:28:18.527 --> 00:28:24.837
Now the whole picture of the carnage hovers before 
my eyes—

00:28:24.837 --> 00:28:29.700
—childlessness stuffed down the father’s throat!

00:28:30.615 --> 00:28:34.615
Why take fright again, my spirit?

00:28:34.870 --> 00:28:37.680
It must be dared; do it!

00:28:39.370 --> 00:28:44.222
The principal outrage in this crime—

00:28:44.222 --> 00:28:47.200
—he will commit it himself.

00:28:47.511 --> 00:28:49.761
But how will you deceive him

00:28:49.761 --> 00:28:52.881
to put his foot into our net and be trapped?

00:28:52.982 --> 00:28:56.262
He knows you hate him; he suspects you.

00:28:56.262 --> 00:28:58.609
He desires my kingdom.

00:28:58.609 --> 00:29:01.904
In this desire he will do what he thinks the greatest evil:

00:29:01.904 --> 00:29:03.464
see his brother.

00:29:03.464 --> 00:29:05.794
But who can make him trust you?

00:29:05.794 --> 00:29:07.894
Who can make him believe it?

00:29:08.469 --> 00:29:13.589
I shall give my sons a mandate to take to their uncle:

00:29:13.589 --> 00:29:17.859
that he should leave a wandering exile’s lodgings,

00:29:17.859 --> 00:29:20.148
trade his wretchedness for a throne,

00:29:20.148 --> 00:29:22.980
and reign in Argos as coruler.

00:29:22.980 --> 00:29:25.800
On the one side his old passion for power,

00:29:25.800 --> 00:29:29.621
on the other grim poverty and hard toils,

00:29:29.621 --> 00:29:32.252
will subdue the fellow,

00:29:32.252 --> 00:29:35.876
however toughened by so many troubles.

00:29:35.876 --> 00:29:38.716
Pick other agents for your savage plan.

00:29:38.716 --> 00:29:41.186
If you teach them to turn on their uncle,

00:29:41.186 --> 00:29:43.853
they will turn on their father.

00:29:43.853 --> 00:29:46.626
Crime often comes back round again to its teacher.

00:29:46.626 --> 00:29:51.319
Though no one teach them the ways of deceit 
and crime,

00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:53.422
kingship will teach it.

00:29:53.697 --> 00:29:55.679
You fear their becoming evil?

00:29:55.679 --> 00:29:57.544
They are born so.

00:29:57.894 --> 00:30:01.440
Will the boys be told of the plot?

00:30:02.547 --> 00:30:09.870
What need is there to involve my children in my crime?

00:30:11.577 --> 00:30:14.857
Let my hatred unfold through me—

00:30:15.690 --> 00:30:19.540
—You are going wrong, you are retreating, my spirit!

00:30:19.909 --> 00:30:23.549
If you spare your own, you will spare those too.

00:30:23.650 --> 00:30:27.650
Agamemnon must serve my scheme knowingly,

00:30:27.980 --> 00:30:30.940
and Menelaus assist his brother knowingly.

00:30:30.940 --> 00:30:33.266
Let me gain assurance

00:30:33.266 --> 00:30:35.956
about my questionable sons from this crime:

00:30:36.765 --> 00:30:40.527
if they reject war and refuse to pursue the feud,

00:30:40.527 --> 00:30:44.787
if they call him uncle, he is their father.

00:30:45.873 --> 00:30:50.483
But great schemes betray a person

00:30:51.103 --> 00:30:52.932
even against his will.

00:30:54.292 --> 00:30:57.932
They must not know how great a business they are agents in.

00:30:57.932 --> 00:31:01.962
And you, keep my venture secret.

00:31:01.962 --> 00:31:03.659
I need no warning.

00:31:20.563 --> 00:31:23.683
Prompted by the fire that brought good news,

00:31:23.683 --> 00:31:27.673
word has passed swiftly through the city;

00:31:27.673 --> 00:31:31.703
but who knows whether it is true,

00:31:31.703 --> 00:31:35.223
or some divine deception?

00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:42.200
I see, coming here from the seashore, a herald.

00:31:42.200 --> 00:31:44.846
Hail, soil of my fathers, land of Argos!

00:31:44.846 --> 00:31:46.690
On this day, after nearly ten years,

00:31:46.690 --> 00:31:48.876
I have come back to you,

00:31:48.876 --> 00:31:51.546
achieving one of my hopes, after the shipwreck of so many:

00:31:51.546 --> 00:31:55.106
for I never thought that I would die in this Argive land

00:31:55.106 --> 00:31:57.952
and be able to share my beloved family tomb.

00:31:57.952 --> 00:31:59.918
Hail, palace, beloved home of my kings,

00:31:59.918 --> 00:32:04.708
and august seats, and you deities who face the sun!

00:32:15.659 --> 00:32:19.659
Let these eyes of yours be bright, if they ever have been before,

00:32:19.659 --> 00:32:23.199
as you welcome your king home in glory at long last;

00:32:23.199 --> 00:32:26.579
for he has come, bringing light out of darkness to you and to all these people—

00:32:26.579 --> 00:32:29.675
—King Agamemnon!

00:32:29.675 --> 00:32:33.625
Give him a noble welcome, for that is truly proper,

00:32:33.625 --> 00:32:35.743
when he has dug up Troy

00:32:35.743 --> 00:32:37.743
with the mattock of Zeus the Avenger,

00:32:39.403 --> 00:32:45.443
with which the ground has been worked over

00:32:45.443 --> 00:32:50.343
and the seed of the whole country destroyed.

00:32:56.613 --> 00:32:58.300
All happiness to you,

00:32:58.300 --> 00:33:01.193
herald of the Achaeans returning from the war.

00:33:01.193 --> 00:33:02.423
I am happy;

00:33:02.423 --> 00:33:05.530
if the gods decree my death, I will no longer complain.

00:33:06.508 --> 00:33:10.968
Were you prostrated by longing for this land of your fathers?

00:33:10.968 --> 00:33:14.567
So much so that my eyes now fill with tears of joy.

00:33:18.887 --> 00:33:21.481
Just as much I often groaned aloud

00:33:21.481 --> 00:33:24.392
in the gloominess of my heart.

00:33:24.543 --> 00:33:26.263
From what source

00:33:26.263 --> 00:33:29.930
did this miserable bitterness come over the people?

00:33:29.167 --> 00:33:34.437
I have long used silence to protect me against harm.

00:33:34.841 --> 00:33:36.391
Why, may I ask?

00:33:36.391 --> 00:33:39.484
Were you afraid of someone, in the rulers’ absence?

00:33:39.484 --> 00:33:42.676
So that now, as you put it,

00:33:43.644 --> 00:33:47.644
even death would be a great favor.

00:33:51.367 --> 00:33:53.797
Yes, for we have been successful!

00:33:53.797 --> 00:33:55.897
In these affairs, over a long period,

00:33:55.897 --> 00:33:58.817
there are some things that one can say fall out well,

00:33:58.817 --> 00:34:02.817
and on the other hand some that do have drawbacks.

00:34:09.427 --> 00:34:13.827
Who, except the gods, is free from pain for the whole of his lifetime?

00:34:14.857 --> 00:34:16.767
Why should one mourn over these things?

00:34:17.477 --> 00:34:18.724
The suffering is past!

00:34:18.724 --> 00:34:20.496
For the dead, it is so thoroughly past

00:34:20.496 --> 00:34:23.015
that they don’t even have to worry about reveille any more.

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?

00:34:27.734 --> 00:34:29.583
Well, you have heard everything.

00:34:41.790 --> 00:34:45.790
I raised my shout of joy a while ago.

00:34:48.358 --> 00:34:52.108
There were of course those who rebuked me saying,

00:34:52.108 --> 00:34:57.828
“You’ve convinced yourself that Troy is sacked because of a beacon!

00:34:57.828 --> 00:35:00.417
How like a woman!”

00:35:02.761 --> 00:35:07.041
And now, what need for you to tell me more?

00:35:07.041 --> 00:35:09.835
From the king himself I shall learn everything—

00:35:09.835 --> 00:35:11.844
—how best to welcome him
oh I’m excited—

00:35:11.844 --> 00:35:14.085
—what day is sweeter for a wife

00:35:14.085 --> 00:35:17.305
than when she runs to open the door

00:35:17.305 --> 00:35:20.315
for her husband back from war?—

00:35:20.787 --> 00:35:24.787
You’ll find your loyal wife just as you left her,

00:35:24.787 --> 00:35:28.367
guarding the house like a good dog,

00:35:28.367 --> 00:35:31.317
enemy to your enemies, quite unchanged.

00:35:31.317 --> 00:35:35.547
She broke no seal while you were away.

00:35:35.547 --> 00:35:39.547
And she knows no more of secret sex or scandal

00:35:39.602 --> 00:35:44.582
than she does of dipping bronze.

00:35:51.661 --> 00:35:56.358
That is what she has said,

00:35:56.358 --> 00:36:01.548
and if you understand it through 
clear interpreters it is a . . .

00:36:01.548 --> 00:36:05.548
plausible speech.

00:36:29.133 --> 00:36:33.415
At last I see the long-desired housetops of my homeland, the wealth of Argos,

00:36:34.335 --> 00:36:38.335
and what seems to miserable exiles the greatest and highest good—

00:36:39.061 --> 00:36:44.092
the reaches of my native soil

00:36:44.092 --> 00:36:46.592
and the gods of my fathers

00:36:46.592 --> 00:36:49.692
(if there really are gods).

00:36:50.645 --> 00:36:52.855
Argos will come to meet me,

00:36:52.855 --> 00:36:55.503
the people will come in crowds—

00:36:55.995 --> 00:36:59.065
—but so will Atreus, of course.

00:37:01.395 --> 00:37:04.553
Better hurry back to your forest refuges,

00:37:04.553 --> 00:37:07.143
to those dense woods

00:37:07.143 --> 00:37:11.143
and your life among the beasts and comparable to theirs.

00:37:11.733 --> 00:37:14.685
There is no reason for this bright luster of kingship

00:37:14.685 --> 00:37:18.138
to blind your eyes with its false glitter.

00:37:20.029 --> 00:37:24.029
When you examine a gift, look at the giver too.

00:37:27.692 --> 00:37:31.692
Just now, amid what everyone considers hardships,

00:37:32.183 --> 00:37:36.183
I was courageous and happy.

00:37:39.160 --> 00:37:43.160
But now I am relapsing into fears;

00:37:44.855 --> 00:37:50.355
my spirit falters and wants to turn 
my body back,

00:37:53.603 --> 00:37:56.683
my steps are forced and reluctant.

00:37:58.463 --> 00:38:03.343
The beast is held fast in the nets I set out.

00:38:03.343 --> 00:38:06.104
I see both the man and, along with him,

00:38:06.104 --> 00:38:10.762
the hopes of that detested line, joined with their father.

00:38:12.285 --> 00:38:15.587
Now my hatred is on a firm footing.

00:38:17.147 --> 00:38:23.537
He has come into my hands, at last 
Thyestes has come—

00:38:23.537 --> 00:38:25.511
—yes, in his entirety.

00:38:25.511 --> 00:38:28.412
I can scarcely restrain my spirit,

00:38:28.412 --> 00:38:31.415
my rancor can scarcely be reined in.

00:38:31.415 --> 00:38:36.295
When anger senses blood, it knows no concealment.

00:38:36.295 --> 00:38:39.685
But concealed it must be.

00:38:40.305 --> 00:38:47.025
See how his hair is heavy with grime and shrouds his dismal face,

00:38:47.025 --> 00:38:50.265
How foul and limp his beard.

00:38:50.265 --> 00:38:52.475
—But good faith must be demonstrated.

00:38:53.843 --> 00:38:56.615
I am delighted to see my brother.

00:38:56.770 --> 00:39:02.340
Let me feel once more the embrace I have longed for!

00:39:06.523 --> 00:39:10.193
Any anger that existed must be in the past.

00:39:10.193 --> 00:39:16.163
From this day blood and family ties must be cherished,

00:39:16.823 --> 00:39:21.123
and hatred must be condemned and expelled from our hearts.

00:39:28.573 --> 00:39:31.179
I could explain everything away,

00:39:31.179 --> 00:39:33.932
if you were not like this.

00:39:35.822 --> 00:39:42.172
But I confess, Atreus, I confess,

00:39:42.172 --> 00:39:45.952
I committed all that you thought I had.

00:39:45.952 --> 00:39:50.832
The fraternal affection you show today 
has made my case indefensible.

00:39:50.832 --> 00:39:58.772
A man is obviously guilty if he seems guilty to such a good brother.

00:39:59.801 --> 00:40:03.531
I must plead with tears.

00:40:04.153 --> 00:40:07.733
You are the first to see me supplicate.

00:40:07.733 --> 00:40:13.483
These hands, that have touched no one’s feet before, implore you;

00:40:15.363 --> 00:40:17.696
let all anger be set aside,

00:40:17.696 --> 00:40:21.696
let passion be erased and gone.

00:40:23.437 --> 00:40:29.217
As hostages of my good faith take these innocents, brother.

00:40:29.232 --> 00:40:31.818
Take your hand from my knees,

00:40:32.388 --> 00:40:35.818
and come to my embrace instead.

00:40:37.317 --> 00:40:42.417
You too, protectors of old men—so many youngsters!

00:40:42.417 --> 00:40:45.337
—come cling about my neck.

00:40:49.367 --> 00:40:51.577
Off with these filthy clothes—

00:40:51.577 --> 00:40:54.093
—have pity on our eyes—

00:40:54.988 --> 00:41:00.738
—and accept finery equal to mine;

00:41:00.738 --> 00:41:06.248
prosper and take on a share of your brother’s power.

00:41:08.722 --> 00:41:10.792
The gods grant you, brother,

00:41:10.792 --> 00:41:14.792
the rewards you deserve so richly.

00:41:14.792 --> 00:41:19.703
But my foul state unfits my head for the royal 
emblem,

00:41:19.703 --> 00:41:25.963
and my luckless hand shrinks from the scepter.

00:41:26.327 --> 00:41:30.327
Let me just blend in with the common people.

00:41:30.327 --> 00:41:33.613
This throne has room for two.

00:41:33.703 --> 00:41:38.233
All that is yours, brother, I regard as mine.

00:41:39.520 --> 00:41:43.610
Who would refuse the inflow of Fortune’s gifts?

00:41:43.746 --> 00:41:47.746
Anyone who has experienced how easily they ebb.

00:41:49.985 --> 00:41:54.675
You forbid your brother to win great glory?

00:41:55.088 --> 00:41:59.088
Your glory is already complete,

00:41:59.088 --> 00:42:01.884
mine still to be won.

00:42:01.884 --> 00:42:05.884
It is my fixed purpose to reject the throne.

00:42:06.372 --> 00:42:12.522
I shall abandon my share, unless you accept yours.

00:42:34.600 --> 00:42:35.670
I accept.

00:42:36.550 --> 00:42:39.553
I shall bear the title of king imposed on me,

00:42:39.553 --> 00:42:43.553
but the laws and army will be subject to you, along with myself.

00:42:43.553 --> 00:42:49.793
Wear this bond set on your venerable head.

00:42:49.793 --> 00:42:50.993
For my part,

00:42:50.993 --> 00:42:54.993
I shall offer the designated victims to the gods above.

00:43:42.355 --> 00:43:45.695
Come now, my king,

00:43:45.695 --> 00:43:50.865
sacker of Troy, offspring of Atreus,

00:43:53.553 --> 00:43:56.213
how shall I address you?

00:43:56.213 --> 00:43:59.143
To me, at that time,

00:43:59.143 --> 00:44:03.373
when you were leading forth an expedition

00:44:03.373 --> 00:44:05.823
on account of Helen—

00:44:05.823 --> 00:44:09.383
—I will not conceal this from you—

00:44:10.283 --> 00:44:14.690
you seemed painted in very ugly colours, but now,

00:44:14.690 --> 00:44:19.790
from the depths of my heart and with affection,

00:44:19.790 --> 00:44:24.680
I am friendly to those

00:44:24.680 --> 00:44:31.030
who have made a good end of their labours.

00:44:32.513 --> 00:44:34.403
Look for the smoke—

00:44:34.403 --> 00:44:37.283
it is the city’s seamark, building even now.

00:44:37.283 --> 00:44:41.237
The storms of ruin live!

00:44:43.377 --> 00:44:48.367
For that we must thank the gods with a sacrifice

00:44:48.367 --> 00:44:54.087
our sons will long remember:

00:44:54.657 --> 00:45:03.747
crashing through their walls our bloody lion lapped its fill,

00:45:06.145 --> 00:45:13.680
gorging on the blood of kings.

00:45:17.265 --> 00:45:20.305
And your concern, old man, is on my mind.

00:45:20.305 --> 00:45:23.705
I hear you and agree, I will support you.

00:45:24.755 --> 00:45:28.364
And now this cause involving men and gods.

00:45:28.364 --> 00:45:30.544
We must summon the city for a trial,

00:45:30.544 --> 00:45:32.864
found a national tribunal.

00:45:35.591 --> 00:45:36.986
Whatever’s healthy,

00:45:36.986 --> 00:45:39.238
shore it up with law and help it flourish.

00:45:39.238 --> 00:45:41.428
Wherever something calls for drastic cures

00:45:41.428 --> 00:45:43.628
we make our noblest effort:

00:45:43.628 --> 00:45:46.858
amputate or wield the healing iron, burn the cancer at the roots.

00:45:50.338 --> 00:45:53.105
Now I go to my father’s house—

00:45:53.105 --> 00:45:55.928
I give the gods my right hand, my first salute.

00:45:55.928 --> 00:45:58.748
The ones who sent me forth have brought me home.

00:45:59.445 --> 00:46:02.375
Victory, you have sped my way before,

00:46:02.375 --> 00:46:04.995
now speed me to the last.

00:46:07.811 --> 00:46:13.911
I am not ashamed to tell you of my husband loving ways.

00:46:14.793 --> 00:46:16.523
The fact is,

00:46:16.523 --> 00:46:24.913
life got hard for me when he was off at Troy.

00:46:27.179 --> 00:46:32.489
It’s a terrible thing for a woman to sit alone in a house,

00:46:34.039 --> 00:46:39.609
listening to rumors and tales of disaster one after another arriving—

00:46:42.492 --> 00:46:49.958
why, had this man sustained as many wounds as people told me,

00:46:49.958 --> 00:46:55.128
he’d be fuller of holes than a net!

00:46:55.128 --> 00:46:59.290
To die as often as they reported

00:46:59.290 --> 00:47:02.708
he’d need three bodies

00:47:02.708 --> 00:47:05.598
and three cloaks of earth—

00:47:05.598 --> 00:47:08.018
—one for each burial.

00:47:10.252 --> 00:47:14.172
So often did nasty rumors reach me,

00:47:15.432 --> 00:47:19.912
I hung up a noose for my neck more than once.

00:47:20.552 --> 00:47:24.552
Other people had to cut me down.

00:47:32.363 --> 00:47:34.946
That’s why our boy—yours and mine—

00:47:34.946 --> 00:47:38.681
Orestes, is not standing here, as he should be.

00:47:38.681 --> 00:47:40.025
Don’t worry.

00:47:40.025 --> 00:47:46.035
Strophios has him, our Phokian ally.

00:47:46.285 --> 00:47:50.525
So now, with all that over, with my mind grief free,

00:47:50.525 --> 00:47:52.405
I salute my man:

00:47:52.405 --> 00:47:54.235
he is the watchdog of the palace,

00:47:54.235 --> 00:47:56.505
forestay of the ship,

00:47:56.505 --> 00:47:59.752
pillar of the roof,

00:47:59.752 --> 00:48:01.595
only son of his father.

00:48:05.130 --> 00:48:09.130
And now, dear one—

00:48:09.130 --> 00:48:11.550
What are you waiting for?

00:48:11.550 --> 00:48:13.630
You have your orders—

00:48:13.630 --> 00:48:15.996
—strew the ground with fabrics, now!

00:48:15.996 --> 00:48:18.106
Make his path crimsoncovered!

00:48:18.106 --> 00:48:20.276
purplepaved! redsaturated!

00:48:20.276 --> 00:48:23.876
So Justice may lead him to the home he never hoped to see.

00:48:26.701 --> 00:48:28.805
There is Leda’s daughter,

00:48:29.415 --> 00:48:32.515
the keeper of my house.

00:48:32.825 --> 00:48:35.305
And the speech to suit my absence,

00:48:35.305 --> 00:48:38.374
much too long.

00:48:39.335 --> 00:48:41.602
But the praise that does us justice,

00:48:41.602 --> 00:48:45.912
let it come from others, then we prize it.

00:48:47.907 --> 00:48:51.377
This—you treat me like a woman.

00:48:51.377 --> 00:48:54.517
Grovelling, gaping up at me—

00:48:54.667 --> 00:49:01.047
what am I, some barbarian peacocking out of Asia?

00:49:01.047 --> 00:49:04.887
Never cross my path with robes and draw the lightning.

00:49:05.467 --> 00:49:10.890
Never—only the gods deserve the pomps of honor

00:49:10.890 --> 00:49:13.997
and the stiff brocades of fame.

00:49:13.997 --> 00:49:15.637
To walk on them ...

00:49:15.637 --> 00:49:19.887
I am human, and it makes my pulses stir with dread.

00:49:22.053 --> 00:49:26.283
Give me the tributes of a man and not a god.

00:49:27.434 --> 00:49:31.434
Oh come on, relax your principles.

00:49:31.948 --> 00:49:34.808
My principles? Once I violate them I am lost.

00:49:35.184 --> 00:49:40.884
Would you have done it for the gods to satisfy a vow?

00:49:42.035 --> 00:49:47.435
Yes, if a prophet called for a last, drastic rite.

00:49:47.673 --> 00:49:54.453
What about Priam, if he’d won the war?

00:49:56.216 --> 00:49:59.746
Striding on the tapestries of god, I see him now.

00:49:59.961 --> 00:50:03.581
Still you fear the blame of common men?

00:50:04.541 --> 00:50:07.885
The voice of the people—aye, they have enormous power.

00:50:07.885 --> 00:50:11.635
Unenvied means unenviable, you know.

00:50:12.273 --> 00:50:16.653
And where’s the woman in all this lust for glory?

00:50:17.179 --> 00:50:21.529
Yet a winner must acknowledge his victory.

00:50:21.989 --> 00:50:25.226
Victory in this war of ours, it means so much to you?

00:50:25.329 --> 00:50:26.769
Agree!

00:50:27.003 --> 00:50:31.003
You’re still in charge if you give way to me by choice.

00:50:35.277 --> 00:50:37.899
Enough. If you are so determined—

00:50:37.899 --> 00:50:40.999
Let someone help me off with these at least.

00:50:47.279 --> 00:50:51.279
Hurry, and while I tread his splendours dyed red in the sea,

00:50:51.279 --> 00:50:55.279
may no god watch and strike me down with envy from on high.

00:50:55.578 --> 00:50:57.798
I feel such shame—

00:50:57.798 --> 00:51:00.328
to tread the life of the house,

00:51:00.328 --> 00:51:04.328
a kingdom’s worth of silver in the weaving.

00:51:07.636 --> 00:51:09.456
Done is done.

00:51:11.617 --> 00:51:17.345
Escort this stranger in,

00:51:17.345 --> 00:51:19.075
be gentle.

00:51:20.410 --> 00:51:28.330
The gift of the armies, flower and pride of all the wealth we won,

00:51:28.330 --> 00:51:30.220
she follows me from Troy.

00:51:36.458 --> 00:51:37.568
And now,

00:51:37.568 --> 00:51:40.318
since you have brought me down with your insistence,

00:51:40.318 --> 00:51:43.098
just this once I enter my father’s house,

00:51:43.098 --> 00:51:45.439
trampling royal crimson as I go.

00:52:04.339 --> 00:52:09.759
There is the sea and who shall drain it dry?

00:52:09.759 --> 00:52:11.989
It breeds the purple stain,

00:52:11.989 --> 00:52:14.789
the dark red dye we use to color our garments,

00:52:14.789 --> 00:52:15.869
costly as silver.

00:52:15.869 --> 00:52:20.019
This house has an abundance.

00:52:20.019 --> 00:52:23.509
Thanks be to gods, no poverty here.

00:52:28.466 --> 00:52:30.534
Zeus, Zeus,

00:52:32.644 --> 00:52:34.504
god of things perfect,

00:52:34.754 --> 00:52:36.877
accomplish my prayers.

00:52:39.155 --> 00:52:42.136
Concern yourself here.

00:52:42.136 --> 00:52:44.416
Perfect this.

00:52:46.444 --> 00:52:48.544
Get yourself into the house,

00:52:48.544 --> 00:52:51.126
I'm talking to you, Kassandra.

00:52:53.803 --> 00:52:55.753
She's just been talking to you, you know, and she's spoken very clearly.

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--—

00:52:57.813 --> 00:52:59.509
but perhaps you won't.

00:52:59.509 --> 00:53:07.149
Unless she speaks some unintelligible
foreign tongue and chirrups like a swallow,

00:53:07.149 --> 00:53:11.149
I should be reaching through into her understanding.

00:53:15.085 --> 00:53:16.955
Follow her.

00:53:16.955 --> 00:53:24.135
Leave your seat in this carriage, and comply with her words.

00:53:24.976 --> 00:53:28.976
I can’t waste time like this in the doorway.

00:53:28.976 --> 00:53:34.916
Already the animals stand at the hearth ready for slaughter.

00:53:35.586 --> 00:53:39.486
So you get a move on, or you’ll miss the whole ceremony.

00:53:39.486 --> 00:53:42.316
If you really don’t understand a word I’m saying

00:53:42.316 --> 00:53:45.378
make some sign with your hand.

00:53:58.705 --> 00:54:00.325
Oh she’s mad.

00:54:00.325 --> 00:54:03.032
Hearkens only to her own mad mind.

00:54:03.032 --> 00:54:08.782
I’ll not be insulted further.

00:54:14.649 --> 00:54:20.049
I pity you, and I’m not going to be angry.

00:54:20.978 --> 00:54:23.648
Come on, poor girl.

00:54:33.742 --> 00:54:37.453
otototoi popoi da!

00:54:37.453 --> 00:54:41.453
Apollo Apollo!

00:54:42.418 --> 00:54:46.446
Why are you wailing like that about Loxias?

00:54:48.729 --> 00:54:52.729
otototoi popoi da!

00:54:53.419 --> 00:54:57.419
Apollo Apollo!

00:54:59.386 --> 00:55:03.386
He is not the sort to come in contact with one who laments.

00:55:04.950 --> 00:55:08.950
Apollo Apollo

00:55:10.085 --> 00:55:13.955
waygod destroyer

00:55:16.944 --> 00:55:19.514
where have you brought me

00:55:19.514 --> 00:55:21.504
what house is this?

00:55:24.592 --> 00:55:28.592
To the house of the Atreidae.

00:55:31.257 --> 00:55:35.857
ah ah ah god-shunners kin-killers

00:55:35.857 --> 00:55:39.494
child-charnel man-shambles

00:55:39.494 --> 00:55:41.204
babe-spattered abattoir

00:55:42.738 --> 00:55:47.688
The foreign woman seems to be as keen-scented as a hound;

00:55:47.688 --> 00:55:52.524
she has got on the right trail to track down some murders.

00:55:53.480 --> 00:55:55.030
I track down the witnesses

00:55:55.030 --> 00:55:56.510
children babes

00:55:56.510 --> 00:55:58.338
shrieking butcher

00:55:58.338 --> 00:56:00.930
barbecued childflesh wolfed down by the father

00:56:05.170 --> 00:56:08.500
Yes, we had indeed heard of your fame as a seer,

00:56:08.500 --> 00:56:11.900
but we are not looking for any prophets.

00:56:12.249 --> 00:56:13.807
io popoi

00:56:13.807 --> 00:56:16.599
I see somebody evil something

00:56:16.599 --> 00:56:19.339
agony agony more more more

00:56:19.339 --> 00:56:21.563
no-one can bear it

00:56:21.563 --> 00:56:23.696
no-one can stop it

00:56:23.696 --> 00:56:26.286
help’s far away over the ocean

00:56:27.414 --> 00:56:30.924
I do not know what this prophecy means.

00:56:32.004 --> 00:56:37.254
The other one I did know: the whole city resounds with it.

00:56:38.868 --> 00:56:39.988
io

00:56:40.287 --> 00:56:44.537
husband bed-mate

00:56:44.920 --> 00:56:49.180
body washed in your bath-trough

00:56:50.570 --> 00:56:52.701
hand over hand

00:56:55.135 --> 00:56:58.264
hauling the catch in

00:56:58.264 --> 00:57:00.774
I still don’t understand.

00:57:03.581 --> 00:57:08.501
e e papai papai

00:57:08.501 --> 00:57:10.501
net hell-net

00:57:10.726 --> 00:57:15.386
she-snare bed-mate blood-mate

00:57:15.538 --> 00:57:19.167
the deathpack howls over its victim

00:57:19.167 --> 00:57:23.167
the fiendswarm surrounds it for stoning

00:57:23.764 --> 00:57:28.415
What do you mean by bidding this Fury raise a loud cry over the house?

00:57:28.791 --> 00:57:30.078
a a

00:57:30.078 --> 00:57:31.378
look there there look

00:57:31.378 --> 00:57:33.908
bull cow bull cow don’t let them grapple

00:57:33.908 --> 00:57:37.978
he’s caught in the robe-net

00:57:37.978 --> 00:57:41.355
she gores him and gores him

00:57:43.565 --> 00:57:46.745
butting and butting with blood-crusted horn

00:57:53.492 --> 00:57:57.192
slumps into bathblood bloodsplash

00:57:57.192 --> 00:58:00.482
him me him me him me

00:58:00.482 --> 00:58:06.122
woecups mine slops over the brim

00:58:07.242 --> 00:58:09.432
what have you brought me here for?

00:58:09.432 --> 00:58:12.419
to die beside you what else?

00:58:13.217 --> 00:58:18.817
Why have you uttered these words that are all too clear?

00:58:19.057 --> 00:58:23.057
A babe hearing them could understand.

00:58:23.157 --> 00:58:26.334
I am stricken by
your painful fate as if by a bloody bite,

00:58:26.334 --> 00:58:34.214
as you cry and
whimper in a way that it shatters me to hear.

00:59:08.420 --> 00:59:17.220
Off with the brideveil then.

00:59:18.519 --> 00:59:21.019
Riddles are over.

00:59:21.269 --> 00:59:24.513
Keep close on my track now

00:59:24.513 --> 00:59:29.569
as I scent out the spoor of ancient transgression.

00:59:30.839 --> 00:59:33.399
Listen. The rooftops.

00:59:33.399 --> 00:59:39.149
Monotonous humming that drones on forever and means only terror.

00:59:39.549 --> 00:59:46.719
The blood-bolstered fiend-swarm holds its debauches,

00:59:46.719 --> 00:59:51.629
cacophonous squatters that can’t be evicted,

00:59:52.419 --> 00:59:57.541
chant over and over the crime where it started

00:59:57.541 --> 01:00:00.937
cursing a bedbond a bloodkin defiled

01:00:00.937 --> 01:00:04.578
trampling all over the flowing bed-linen.

01:00:08.169 --> 01:00:11.465
Have I shot wide

01:00:11.465 --> 01:00:14.525
or am I on target?

01:00:17.325 --> 01:00:23.705
Swear I know all the curse of this bloodclan.

01:00:25.199 --> 01:00:27.725
I marvel at you,

01:00:27.725 --> 01:00:33.730
that having been bred beyond the seas

01:00:33.730 --> 01:00:40.466
you can talk so accurately about a foreign-speaking city,

01:00:41.486 --> 01:00:45.735
as if you had been on the spot.

01:00:46.432 --> 01:00:50.552
I’ve always thought it too shameful to tell.

01:00:51.674 --> 01:00:55.674
Did you come together in the act of procreation?

01:00:56.089 --> 01:00:59.599
I told him he could then later said no.

01:00:59.691 --> 01:01:03.751
When you were already possessed by your inspired abilities?

01:01:05.679 --> 01:01:09.679
I foretold Troy’s downfall, the Trojans’ defeat.

01:01:11.140 --> 01:01:15.280
How then did you remain unharmed by the wrath of Loxias?

01:01:16.322 --> 01:01:21.862
No one ever believed me, not one single word.

01:01:23.915 --> 01:01:32.815
Well, to us your prophecies seem quite credible.

01:01:34.974 --> 01:01:36.177
iou iou

01:01:36.177 --> 01:01:38.007
ah ah ah ah

01:01:38.007 --> 01:01:43.427
look on the rooftops dream-shadows children

01:01:43.427 --> 01:01:46.527
killed by their bloodkin,

01:01:46.527 --> 01:01:50.527
their hands full of ugh offal and giblets

01:01:50.527 --> 01:02:00.577
their very own innards held out to their father as succulent morsels.

01:02:06.473 --> 01:02:10.473
The lion plots vengeance

01:02:10.473 --> 01:02:12.175
the lion that’s gutless

01:02:12.175 --> 01:02:18.076
the lion that lolls in the master’s own chamber

01:02:18.868 --> 01:02:23.918
Commander of triremes, crusher of Priam,

01:02:27.859 --> 01:02:31.179
but blind to cabal, the insatiable hell-bitch,

01:02:31.553 --> 01:02:35.553
licking his hand ears pricked in welcome.

01:02:35.553 --> 01:02:39.553
furry and cur-like concealing a Fury

01:02:44.532 --> 01:02:49.772
Whether I’m believed or not doesn’t matter.

01:02:50.074 --> 01:02:54.484
Whatever you do the future will happen.

01:02:54.484 --> 01:02:58.484
Through pity and tears you’ll know the true prophet.

01:02:59.181 --> 01:03:04.741
I understood about Thyestes feasting on his children’s flesh,

01:03:04.741 --> 01:03:09.971
and I shudder, and terror grips me,

01:03:09.971 --> 01:03:13.951
now I have heard it in terms that truly were anything but figurative.

01:03:13.951 --> 01:03:16.571
But as to the rest of what I’ve heard,

01:03:16.571 --> 01:03:18.681
I’m running like a hound that’s lost the scent.

01:03:19.590 --> 01:03:23.590
Agamemnon. He’s the one you’ll see dead!

01:03:24.188 --> 01:03:27.108
Speak only of good things, poor girl; put your tongue to sleep.

01:03:27.108 --> 01:03:31.108
And while you’re appealing his throat’s being slit!

01:03:31.677 --> 01:03:39.022
By what man is this grievous crime being committed?

01:03:39.337 --> 01:03:42.787
If you say man then you don’t understand.

01:03:43.636 --> 01:03:48.466
Because I didn’t understand what method he, the perpetrator, could use.

01:03:49.459 --> 01:03:53.459
And yet it’s your language you’re hearing me speak.

01:03:54.037 --> 01:03:56.357
The pronouncements of Pytho are also in Greek,

01:03:56.357 --> 01:03:58.497
but they’re still hard to understand.

01:04:04.632 --> 01:04:07.013
ah ah

01:04:07.013 --> 01:04:09.513
fire in me

01:04:09.513 --> 01:04:17.007
Apollo’s two-legged lioness tupped by the wolfman

01:04:17.007 --> 01:04:20.407
when the great lion’s gone she’ll kill Cassandra

01:04:21.764 --> 01:04:25.830
She sharpens the swordblade to hack down her husband

01:04:25.830 --> 01:04:29.830
a hacking he earned by bringing me with him

01:04:34.894 --> 01:04:38.661
Why do I wear these garments that mock me,

01:04:38.661 --> 01:04:42.101
the trappings of prophetess, rod, garb and raiment.

01:04:42.101 --> 01:04:46.101
I’m going to die but you’ll go before me.

01:04:46.101 --> 01:04:49.971
It’s some satisfaction to trample these trappings.

01:04:49.971 --> 01:04:53.221
Go and bestow these gifts on another.

01:04:58.280 --> 01:05:03.610
ah Apollo Apollo clawing my clothes off.

01:05:03.666 --> 01:05:07.216
He grabs the prophetess garb off my body.

01:05:07.216 --> 01:05:15.676
He mocked me, Apollo, though dressed as his prophet,

01:05:15.676 --> 01:05:18.916
called vagabond, mountebank, pauper and starveling.

01:05:19.446 --> 01:05:22.555
The god-seer casts his prophetess to disaster.

01:05:22.555 --> 01:05:26.735
My father’s own priestess now mere beast

01:05:26.735 --> 01:05:32.424
oblation lifeblood flowing hot off the hackblock.

01:05:35.912 --> 01:05:37.604
We won’t die forgotten.

01:05:37.604 --> 01:05:39.892
Gods always notice.

01:05:40.777 --> 01:05:43.497
He'll come our avenger, our bloodgrudge-fulfiller.

01:05:43.497 --> 01:05:46.727
He'll come motherkiller, wanderer, exile,

01:05:46.727 --> 01:05:50.782
setting the copestone on this bloodclan's corruption.

01:05:53.647 --> 01:05:57.191
the father's corpse drawing the song back to Argos.

01:05:59.071 --> 01:06:01.996
Why these tears?

01:06:03.556 --> 01:06:11.324
These eyes saw Troy levelled.

01:06:11.324 --> 01:06:13.088
Now it’s for me to die.

01:06:13.088 --> 01:06:14.968
The doorway to death.

01:06:14.968 --> 01:06:18.089
I pray for a clean blow, no painful convulsions,

01:06:18.089 --> 01:06:20.452
my blood ebbing gently, closing my eyes.

01:06:23.124 --> 01:06:26.314
Woman unfortunate in so many ways

01:06:26.314 --> 01:06:29.564
and also wise in so many ways,

01:06:29.564 --> 01:06:32.640
you have spoken at length;

01:06:33.332 --> 01:06:38.262
but if you truly have foreknowledge of your own death,

01:06:38.545 --> 01:06:42.239
how comes it that you are walking boldly towards it

01:06:42.239 --> 01:06:45.599
like an ox driven by god to the altar?

01:06:48.317 --> 01:06:52.317
There’s no escape now. No more delay.

01:06:53.622 --> 01:06:58.742
But people put special value on the last bit of time they have.

01:07:00.074 --> 01:07:01.884
No hope for me though.

01:07:01.884 --> 01:07:04.344
It’s pointless all flight.

01:07:06.083 --> 01:07:11.868
Well, I tell you, your resolution comes from a courageous heart.

01:07:12.006 --> 01:07:15.256
Yes only the doomed are ever called brave.

01:07:17.802 --> 01:07:21.802
But it’s a gratification to any mortal, you know, to die creditably.

01:07:31.021 --> 01:07:32.681
Friends!

01:07:33.927 --> 01:07:34.917
What’s the matter?

01:07:34.917 --> 01:07:36.137
What fear is making you turn away?

01:07:36.137 --> 01:07:37.227
PHEU PHEU!

01:07:37.227 --> 01:07:39.857
Why are you going “pheu” like that?

01:07:39.857 --> 01:07:43.857
The palace! It stinks like an abattoir drain!

01:07:47.365 --> 01:07:52.065
What on earth do you mean?

01:07:52.065 --> 01:07:58.375
That’s the smell of sacrifices at the hearth.

01:07:58.965 --> 01:08:02.725
It stinks like the gas from a burial urn!

01:08:06.826 --> 01:08:08.936
I’m no frightened fledgling

01:08:08.936 --> 01:08:12.184
flinching with fear when the bushes get shaken.

01:08:12.184 --> 01:08:15.274
From you what I beg is the bearing of witness.

01:08:28.639 --> 01:08:34.599
A few last words, a requiem dirgesong

01:08:36.989 --> 01:08:41.859
I ask the sun whose last rays I’m addressing

01:08:41.859 --> 01:08:48.299
that when the avengers cut down the assassins

01:08:49.499 --> 01:08:54.729
one stroke’s for the slave butchered defenseless.

01:08:58.499 --> 01:09:00.429
Man’s life!

01:09:03.238 --> 01:09:07.660
Luck’s blotted out by the slenderest shadow.

01:09:07.660 --> 01:09:15.020
Trouble—a wet sponge wipes the slate empty.

01:09:16.556 --> 01:09:20.556
That pain’s also nothing makes life a heartbreak.

01:10:17.887 --> 01:10:20.841
What wind can whirl me sky-high through the air

01:10:20.841 --> 01:10:23.810
and wrap me in dark clouds,

01:10:23.930 --> 01:10:27.080
to tear my eyes away from such abomination?

01:10:28.270 --> 01:10:31.670
This house would make blush even Pelops and Tantalus.

01:10:33.365 --> 01:10:35.377
What is your news?

01:10:36.531 --> 01:10:38.511
What country is this?

01:10:40.521 --> 01:10:45.511
What is this place that knows such a terrible enormity?

01:10:48.245 --> 01:10:57.585
Tell us, reveal the evil, whatever it is.

01:10:59.059 --> 01:11:01.132
If my heart stops fluttering,

01:11:01.132 --> 01:11:04.622
if my body, stiff with fear, can let my limbs be free.

01:11:06.052 --> 01:11:11.382
The vision of that crime will not go from my eyes.

01:11:12.808 --> 01:11:16.347
Do not keep us suffering in suspense!

01:11:16.347 --> 01:11:18.427
Tell us what you shudder at!

01:11:18.427 --> 01:11:20.147
Reveal the criminal!

01:11:20.147 --> 01:11:23.468
I ask not “Who?” but “Which of them?” it was.

01:11:23.788 --> 01:11:25.118
Out with it!

01:11:27.744 --> 01:11:29.148
On top of the citadel,

01:11:29.148 --> 01:11:32.982
one side of Pelops’ castle is turned towards the south.

01:11:33.875 --> 01:11:37.135
An ancient grove buried in a deep valley,

01:11:37.135 --> 01:11:40.945
at the centre of the kingdom,

01:11:40.945 --> 01:11:45.749
where no tree blossomed or put forth fruit;

01:11:45.749 --> 01:11:49.325
no gardener pruned them.

01:11:50.304 --> 01:11:53.634
The yew and cypress and the black holm-oak

01:11:55.346 --> 01:11:57.586
swayed in that shadowy wood.

01:11:57.586 --> 01:12:03.746
Above them all the oak tree dominates the grove from its great height.

01:12:03.832 --> 01:12:07.832
From here the sons of Tantalus begin their reigns

01:12:08.252 --> 01:12:13.052
from here they ask for help when things look bleak or doubtful.

01:12:13.537 --> 01:12:15.707
Gifts hang from the trees;

01:12:16.147 --> 01:12:21.394
there is the trumpet, the broken chariot, spoils of the Myrtoan Sea;

01:12:21.394 --> 01:12:25.394
the wheels hang down from the pole that deceived the king.

01:12:26.074 --> 01:12:28.284
All the family’s history is here.

01:12:30.575 --> 01:12:33.325
Under the shadows is set a dismal fountain,

01:12:33.325 --> 01:12:35.935
stuck in a black and stagnant pool;

01:12:36.002 --> 01:12:39.362
most like the ugly water of terrible Styx,

01:12:39.362 --> 01:12:42.712
by which the gods swear faith.

01:12:42.712 --> 01:12:47.752
They say the spirits groan here in the dead o night,

01:12:47.752 --> 01:12:51.862
the grove resounds with the clattering of chains,

01:12:51.862 --> 01:12:53.662
and the ghosts howl.

01:12:53.662 --> 01:12:57.022
All things that make one shudder even to hear, are there made visible.

01:12:57.022 --> 01:13:01.022
Old tombs break open, releasing hordes of wandering dead.

01:13:01.022 --> 01:13:06.472
Everywhere spring unprecedented wonders.

01:13:11.671 --> 01:13:18.361
This was the place where angry Atreus dragged his brother’s children.

01:13:18.361 --> 01:13:21.431
The altars are adorned—

01:13:21.431 --> 01:13:23.121
—how can I say this?—

01:13:24.411 --> 01:13:28.425
the little princes have their hands tied back;

01:13:28.895 --> 01:13:32.895
he binds their poor little heads with a purple band.

01:13:33.219 --> 01:13:36.804
Incense was not forgotten, or the holy juice of Bacchus,

01:13:36.804 --> 01:13:40.134
and with the knife he daubed the victims with salted grains.

01:13:40.323 --> 01:13:42.778
All due ritual was observed,

01:13:42.778 --> 01:13:46.778
in case such a horrible crime be done improperly.

01:13:47.655 --> 01:13:51.655
Who held the sword?

01:13:52.073 --> 01:13:54.240
He was the priest himself,

01:13:54.240 --> 01:13:58.780
he was the one who gabbled out the deadly prayers,

01:13:58.780 --> 01:14:00.902
the rites of murder.

01:14:00.902 --> 01:14:02.912
He stood there at the altar,

01:14:02.912 --> 01:14:04.877
he checked the victim’s bodies,

01:14:04.877 --> 01:14:08.457
and he himself arranged them for the knife,

01:14:08.457 --> 01:14:10.117
and acted as the audience.

01:14:10.557 --> 01:14:12.697
No part of the rite was lost.

01:14:13.764 --> 01:14:15.664
The woods were trembling,

01:14:16.094 --> 01:14:18.284
the whole ground was shaken,

01:14:18.284 --> 01:14:20.604
making the courtyard totter:

01:14:20.604 --> 01:14:24.028
it seems to hesitate,
unsure where it can set its weight.

01:14:24.028 --> 01:14:30.868
The dedicated wine is changed to blood and flows into the fire.

01:14:30.868 --> 01:14:35.008
His royal crown kept falling down.

01:14:35.008 --> 01:14:37.428
In the temples the statues wept.

01:14:38.002 --> 01:14:40.800
All were aghast,

01:14:41.870 --> 01:14:45.870
but Atreus himself alone remained unmoved.

01:14:46.327 --> 01:14:53.487
Without delay he stood at the altar and scowled.

01:14:54.734 --> 01:14:58.111
He wonders which to slaughter first,

01:14:58.111 --> 01:15:01.431
and which to butcher second.

01:15:01.472 --> 01:15:03.560
It makes no difference,

01:15:03.560 --> 01:15:06.922
but he ponders, and enjoys order in brutality.

01:15:08.696 --> 01:15:11.676
So which did he strike?

01:15:14.105 --> 01:15:18.415
Do not imagine he lacked family feeling:

01:15:18.415 --> 01:15:21.135
first to be killed was his father’s namesake, Tantalus.

01:15:21.135 --> 01:15:25.789
The wild murderer buried his sword in a deep thrust,

01:15:25.789 --> 01:15:29.139
and pressing down
he fixed his hand on his throat;

01:15:29.139 --> 01:15:31.535
when he drew out the sword
the corpse still stood;

01:15:31.535 --> 01:15:34.965
it was unclear for a while where it should fall,

01:15:34.965 --> 01:15:36.805
but it fell on the uncle.

01:15:36.805 --> 01:15:40.805
Then that barbarian dragged Plisthenes to the altar,

01:15:41.378 --> 01:15:43.738
and added him to his brother.

01:15:44.032 --> 01:15:46.532
He cut through his neck;

01:15:48.065 --> 01:15:51.548
the body without its head flopped to the ground,

01:15:51.548 --> 01:15:55.548
while the head rolled down, protesting indistinctly.

01:16:02.032 --> 01:16:07.588
After the double murder what did he do?

01:16:10.788 --> 01:16:17.538
Did he spare the little one, or heap more crime on crime?

01:16:17.836 --> 01:16:21.836
Atreus rages and swells with his rage,

01:16:21.836 --> 01:16:25.836
holding out the sword drenched in the two boys’ blood,

01:16:25.836 --> 01:16:30.220
careless where his fury leads him, cruelly,

01:16:30.220 --> 01:16:34.060
he drives the blade in the chest of the child, right through,

01:16:34.060 --> 01:16:37.050
and all at once it pokes out from his back.

01:16:37.520 --> 01:16:42.550
He fell and put the fires out with his blood,

01:16:42.550 --> 01:16:46.290
wounded on both sides, he died.

01:16:46.926 --> 01:16:49.686
What savagery!

01:16:50.690 --> 01:16:52.360
Are you horrified?

01:16:53.534 --> 01:16:57.444
If the crime stopped there,
Atreus would be holy.

01:16:57.570 --> 01:16:59.645
What more could he do?

01:16:59.818 --> 01:17:06.123
Did he throw the bodies to wild beasts to tear, refuse cremation?

01:17:06.123 --> 01:17:08.343
If only he had!

01:17:08.808 --> 01:17:12.098
If only they lay unburied, uncremated corpses,

01:17:12.098 --> 01:17:17.498
dragged away to be a dismal dinner for wild beasts.

01:17:17.498 --> 01:17:20.368
This man makes normal pain desirable:

01:17:20.434 --> 01:17:23.594
if only the father could see his children unburied!

01:17:23.594 --> 01:17:29.284
Incredible evil! Historians will deny it.

01:17:31.312 --> 01:17:34.622
The father rips apart his sons,

01:17:34.622 --> 01:17:38.622
putting into his murderous mouth his own dear flesh and blood.

01:17:40.120 --> 01:17:43.950
His hair is wet and shiny with perfume,

01:17:44.917 --> 01:17:47.157
his body heavy with wine;

01:17:47.157 --> 01:17:49.185
his mouth is overstuffed,

01:17:49.185 --> 01:17:51.775
his jaws can hardly hold new morsels.

01:17:52.405 --> 01:17:59.905
O Thyestes, your only blessing is your ignorance.

01:18:01.488 --> 01:18:03.568
But you will lose that too.

01:18:04.750 --> 01:18:08.240
We must see this evil; all is now revealed.

01:18:31.476 --> 01:18:34.422
OIMOI!

01:18:34.422 --> 01:18:37.222
Struck deep—the death-blow, deep—

01:18:38.146 --> 01:18:39.786
Hush!

01:18:39.786 --> 01:18:44.246
Who’s that screaming about being struck and mortally wounded?

01:18:44.443 --> 01:18:49.763
OIMOI, again—second blow—struck home.

01:18:50.929 --> 01:18:57.839
To judge by the king’s cries, I think the deed has been done.

01:18:59.273 --> 01:19:01.943
Are we to divine that the man is dead

01:19:01.943 --> 01:19:07.333
just from the evidence of some cries we hear?

01:19:10.188 --> 01:19:14.188
Peer of the stars I stride, out-topping all men,

01:19:14.188 --> 01:19:18.188
my proud head 
reaching to the lofty sky.

01:19:20.022 --> 01:19:23.502
Now I hold the kingdom’s glories,

01:19:23.502 --> 01:19:26.882
now my father’s throne.

01:19:27.062 --> 01:19:29.082
I discharge the gods:

01:19:29.189 --> 01:19:32.519
I have reached the pinnacle.

01:19:33.551 --> 01:19:35.914
But why should it be enough?

01:19:35.914 --> 01:19:40.744
I shall go on, and fill the father with the death of his sons.

01:19:41.363 --> 01:19:47.483
I long to see what color he turns as he looks on his sons’ heads,

01:19:47.483 --> 01:19:50.613
what words his first torment pours forth,

01:19:50.613 --> 01:19:56.973
how his body stiffens, breathless with shock.

01:19:57.499 --> 01:20:01.190
This is the fruit of my work:

01:20:01.190 --> 01:20:07.110
I do not want to see him broken, but being broken.

01:20:16.508 --> 01:20:20.508
I said a lot of things before that sounded nice.

01:20:20.508 --> 01:20:24.148
I’m not ashamed to contradict them now.

01:20:24.148 --> 01:20:29.268
I stand where I struck with the deed done!

01:20:29.327 --> 01:20:33.327
I did it. I make no denial.

01:20:33.680 --> 01:20:37.680
So he could neither flee nor save himself

01:20:38.520 --> 01:20:41.715
I threw round him a cloth with no way out—

01:20:41.715 --> 01:20:45.715
—a sort of dragnet—evil wealth of cloth.

01:20:45.939 --> 01:20:48.059
I strike him twice.

01:20:48.770 --> 01:20:53.600
Two screams and his limbs go slack.

01:20:53.901 --> 01:20:55.101
He falls.

01:20:55.101 --> 01:20:57.541
I strike him one more time—

01:20:57.639 --> 01:21:02.939
—three for Zeus the savior of corpses!

01:21:03.242 --> 01:21:06.280
And as he sputters out his life in blood

01:21:06.760 --> 01:21:14.070
he sprays me with black drops like dew

01:21:14.070 --> 01:21:17.188
gladdening me no less than when

01:21:17.188 --> 01:21:23.468
the green buds of the corn feel showers from heaven!

01:21:25.474 --> 01:21:36.014
This man has the libation he deserves.

01:21:36.014 --> 01:21:40.424
He filled this house like a mixing bowl to the brim with evils,

01:21:40.424 --> 01:21:45.454
now he has drunk it down.

01:21:47.435 --> 01:21:51.435
Opened up, the house is bright with myriad torches.

01:21:51.448 --> 01:21:56.878
He is lying on purple and gold, sprawled backward,

01:21:56.878 --> 01:22:00.440
propping his wine-heavy head on his left hand.

01:22:00.440 --> 01:22:01.970
He belches!

01:22:02.279 --> 01:22:08.029
Oh, I am highest of heavenly gods, and 
king of kings!

01:22:08.029 --> 01:22:11.469
I have surpassed my own prayers.

01:22:12.188 --> 01:22:14.088
He is stuffed,

01:22:14.088 --> 01:22:17.378
he imbibes pure wine from a great silver cup.

01:22:17.378 --> 01:22:19.238
Do not stint your drinking!

01:22:19.238 --> 01:22:23.968
There still remains the blood 
of so many victims;

01:22:23.968 --> 01:22:28.308
the color of vintage wine will 
disguise it.

01:22:28.308 --> 01:22:33.908
Yes, let this be the cup to close the feast!

01:22:34.025 --> 01:22:38.565
Let the father drink the blended blood of his sons:

01:22:39.385 --> 01:22:41.971
he would have drunk mine.

01:22:45.857 --> 01:22:50.447
Heart made dreary by long troubles,

01:22:52.050 --> 01:22:56.050
now set aside your fretful cares.

01:22:58.783 --> 01:23:04.193
Away with grief, away with fear,

01:23:04.910 --> 01:23:09.530
away with the comrade of anxious exile,

01:23:10.502 --> 01:23:15.842
gloomy poverty, and shame 
that weighs upon misfortune.

01:23:19.291 --> 01:23:22.001
Smile once more at happiness,

01:23:22.500 --> 01:23:25.990
cast from your heart the old Thyestes.

01:23:28.567 --> 01:23:33.417
Why hold me back and forbid my celebrating this festive day,

01:23:36.576 --> 01:23:38.610
why bid me weep,

01:23:38.610 --> 01:23:41.430
pain arising without a cause?

01:23:42.715 --> 01:23:48.275
Who prevents me from binding my hair with comely flowers?


01:23:50.528 --> 01:23:54.528
I long to utter ill-omened laments,

01:23:54.528 --> 01:23:59.458
I long to rend these garments steeped in Tyrian purple,

01:23:59.962 --> 01:24:02.452
I long to howl.

01:24:10.183 --> 01:24:18.283
What griefs, what upheavals are you conjuring for 
yourself, you madman?

01:24:20.078 --> 01:24:27.178
Your fear of whatever is 
either groundless or too late now.

01:24:28.846 --> 01:24:30.420
—Poor me, I resist,

01:24:30.420 --> 01:24:34.560
but terror roves and prowls inside me,

01:24:35.163 --> 01:24:41.843
my eyes pour forth these sudden tears, based on no cause.

01:24:43.916 --> 01:24:46.306
Is it grief or fear?

01:24:48.404 --> 01:24:52.404
Or does great pleasure make 
for weeping?

01:25:03.254 --> 01:25:07.334
We are amazed at your language,

01:25:09.198 --> 01:25:12.658
the arrogance of it,

01:25:12.658 --> 01:25:19.518
uttering boastful words like these over your husband!

01:25:23.141 --> 01:25:24.791
Don’t squawk at me.

01:25:24.791 --> 01:25:27.381
I’m not some witless female.

01:25:27.381 --> 01:25:31.381
I am fearless and you know it.

01:25:31.381 --> 01:25:37.051
Whether you praise or blame me I don’t care.

01:25:37.380 --> 01:25:40.110
Here lies Agamemnon,

01:25:40.422 --> 01:25:44.802
my husband, a dead body,

01:25:44.802 --> 01:25:48.963
work of my righteous right hand.

01:25:48.963 --> 01:25:50.583
That’s how things stand.

01:25:52.228 --> 01:25:54.738
What evil thing have you tasted, lady,

01:25:54.738 --> 01:25:57.848
what food or what drink, whether growing from the earth

01:25:57.848 --> 01:26:01.431
or having its origin in the flowing seas,

01:26:01.431 --> 01:26:05.581
to make you bring on your head this slaughter and loud public curses?

01:26:06.369 --> 01:26:08.849
You have cast them aside, you have cut them off;

01:26:08.849 --> 01:26:10.819
you shall be banished from the city.

01:26:14.008 --> 01:26:19.134
My own brother, we must celebrate this festive 
day

01:26:19.134 --> 01:26:21.738
in mutual harmony.

01:26:23.946 --> 01:26:27.946
I am stayed by a surfeit of fine fare, and equally of wine.

01:26:27.946 --> 01:26:31.946
The final addition that could increase my pleasure

01:26:31.946 --> 01:26:35.946
would be the chance to enjoy my happiness with my boys.

01:26:46.568 --> 01:26:52.028
Consider your sons as here in their father’s embrace.

01:26:52.028 --> 01:26:55.188
Here they are, and will stay.

01:26:55.188 --> 01:27:01.008
No portion of your offspring will be taken from you.

01:27:01.008 --> 01:27:04.488
I shall show you shortly the faces you long for,

01:27:04.488 --> 01:27:09.718
and give the father his fill of his own dear throng.

01:27:09.718 --> 01:27:12.757
You will be surfeited, never fear!

01:27:13.106 --> 01:27:16.186
At the moment, in company 
with mine,

01:27:16.186 --> 01:27:21.420
they are observing the sweet communion of the young men’s table.

01:27:21.420 --> 01:27:23.550
But they will be summoned.

01:27:24.162 --> 01:27:31.892
Take this cup of our bloodline, with an infusion of wine.

01:27:35.806 --> 01:27:38.896
Oh now you pull out your code of justice—

01:27:38.896 --> 01:27:43.064
call me accursed, demand my exile!

01:27:43.064 --> 01:27:44.774
What about them?

01:27:44.774 --> 01:27:46.527
What about him?

01:27:46.527 --> 01:27:50.477
This man who, without a second thought,

01:27:50.477 --> 01:27:55.983
as if it were a goat dying, sacrificed his own child—

01:27:55.983 --> 01:27:59.153
—my most beloved, my birthpang, my own—

01:27:59.153 --> 01:28:02.201
and he had flocks of animals to charm the winds of Thrace!

01:28:02.201 --> 01:28:06.824
Isn’t it this man you should have sent into exile,

01:28:06.824 --> 01:28:09.024
to pay for that polluted deed?

01:28:09.024 --> 01:28:12.414
Instead you pass judgment on me!

01:28:16.074 --> 01:28:22.704
Well I warn you, threaten me all you like.

01:28:27.534 --> 01:28:30.794
I take the gift, as part of my brother’s feast.

01:28:31.084 --> 01:28:34.674
The wine shall be poured to our fathers’
gods,

01:28:34.674 --> 01:28:37.614
then swallowed.

01:28:53.068 --> 01:28:55.088
But what is this?

01:29:00.158 --> 01:29:02.228
My hands will not obey.

01:29:05.608 --> 01:29:09.608
When raised, the wine flees from my very lips,

01:29:11.391 --> 01:29:14.421
cheats my mouth
and swirls around my open jaws.

01:29:17.665 --> 01:29:19.025
What is this?

01:29:19.465 --> 01:29:22.805
Darkness gathers more thickly amid dense 
shadows,

01:29:22.805 --> 01:29:26.805
and night buries itself in night.

01:29:31.147 --> 01:29:36.377
Whatever it is, I pray it may spare my brother and sons.

01:29:37.353 --> 01:29:39.563
Now return my sons to me!

01:29:40.147 --> 01:29:45.927
I shall return them, and no day will steal them from you.

01:29:47.983 --> 01:29:53.493
What is this turmoil that shakes my guts?

01:29:54.239 --> 01:29:56.599
What trembles inside me?

01:29:57.629 --> 01:30:01.209
My breast groans
with groaning not my own.

01:30:02.631 --> 01:30:09.211
Come, sons, your
unhappy father calls you, come!

01:30:11.876 --> 01:30:15.876
Once I see you
this pain will vanish.

01:30:17.111 --> 01:30:21.111
They interrupt—but from where?

01:30:21.215 --> 01:30:24.545
Unfold your welcoming arms, father:

01:30:24.696 --> 01:30:26.556
They have come.

01:30:29.429 --> 01:30:34.609
I suppose you recognize your sons?

01:30:40.444 --> 01:30:44.444
Hope does not walk the halls of fear in me

01:30:44.444 --> 01:30:48.444
so long as Aigisthos lights the fire on my hearth.

01:30:48.671 --> 01:30:51.879
Aigisthos is loyal.

01:30:51.879 --> 01:30:53.971
A good defender.

01:30:53.971 --> 01:30:56.071
My personal shield.

01:30:56.146 --> 01:30:59.510
Here lies the man who despoiled me,

01:30:59.510 --> 01:31:02.580
darling of every fancy girl at Troy.

01:31:02.580 --> 01:31:08.382
And by his side the little prophetess who sweetened his sheets.

01:31:08.382 --> 01:31:14.482
Sweetened the whole army’s sheets, I shouldn’t doubt.

01:31:17.002 --> 01:31:19.702
They got what they deserve those two.

01:31:20.162 --> 01:31:22.052
Yes here he lies.

01:31:22.542 --> 01:31:27.752
And she like a swan that has sung its last song beside him,

01:31:27.752 --> 01:31:32.052
his truelove, his little spiceberry.

01:31:32.052 --> 01:31:38.012
You know, to look at them kind of excites me.

01:31:41.123 --> 01:31:44.503
IO IO, demented Helen,

01:31:45.333 --> 01:31:47.883
who alone brought death to so many,

01:31:47.883 --> 01:31:52.413
so very many souls at Troy,

01:31:53.207 --> 01:31:57.281
now you have adorned yourself with a final adornment,

01:31:57.281 --> 01:31:59.510
never to be forgotten,

01:31:59.510 --> 01:32:03.020
through the shedding of blood that nothing can wash away!

01:32:03.747 --> 01:32:06.667
Truly the house then contained
a spirit that stirred up strife

01:32:06.667 --> 01:32:10.667
and brought woe to the man.

01:32:18.287 --> 01:32:21.557
I recognize my brother.

01:32:23.826 --> 01:32:28.736
Oh stop whining.

01:32:28.736 --> 01:32:31.871
And why get angry at Helen?

01:32:31.871 --> 01:32:36.861
As if she singlehandedly destroyed those multitudes of men.

01:32:36.861 --> 01:32:40.861
As if she all alone made this wound in us.

01:32:40.861 --> 01:32:45.104
Spirit that assails this house

01:32:45.104 --> 01:32:50.128
and the two Tantalids so different in their nature,

01:32:50.128 --> 01:32:53.648
and controls it, in a way that rends my heart,

01:32:53.648 --> 01:32:59.798
through the agency of women whose souls were alike!

01:33:00.188 --> 01:33:03.508
Standing over the corpse,

01:33:03.508 --> 01:33:08.264
in the manner of a loathsome raven,

01:33:08.264 --> 01:33:13.254
it glories
in tunelessly singing a song.

01:33:16.849 --> 01:33:19.790
Come now, rather than this,

01:33:19.790 --> 01:33:23.489
receive with joy
the boys you missed so long.

01:33:24.209 --> 01:33:27.719
Your brother is not stopping you.

01:33:27.879 --> 01:33:30.549
Enjoy them, kiss them,

01:33:30.549 --> 01:33:33.119
split your embraces among the three of them.

01:33:36.914 --> 01:33:39.354
Is this our agreement?

01:33:40.122 --> 01:33:45.742
Is this your goodwill, your brotherly promise?

01:33:46.048 --> 01:33:48.798
Is this how you set aside hatred?

01:33:50.344 --> 01:33:56.394
I do not ask as a father to have my sons safe.

01:33:56.787 --> 01:34:05.797
What can be granted with no damage to your crime and hatred,

01:34:06.348 --> 01:34:10.348
I ask you brother to brother:

01:34:11.279 --> 01:34:13.469
let me bury them.

01:34:13.854 --> 01:34:17.014
I ask you for nothing 
to keep as a father,

01:34:17.683 --> 01:34:20.407
only something to lose.

01:34:20.407 --> 01:34:26.637
All that remains of your children you have,

01:34:26.887 --> 01:34:30.887
all that does not remain you have.

01:34:31.759 --> 01:34:36.509
Are they lying as fodder for cruel birds,

01:34:36.640 --> 01:34:40.240
or being devoured 
by sea monsters,

01:34:40.595 --> 01:34:42.965
or feeding beasts of the field?

01:34:43.496 --> 01:34:47.496
You yourself banqueted on your sons—

01:34:47.496 --> 01:34:51.156
a sacrilegious meal.

01:34:58.575 --> 01:35:01.315
Now you’re making sense—

01:35:01.315 --> 01:35:07.245
to call upon the thricegorged evil demon of
this family.

01:35:07.245 --> 01:35:14.705
Deep in its nerves is a lust to lick blood

01:35:14.705 --> 01:35:20.565
and no wound heals
before the next starts oozing.

01:35:23.526 --> 01:35:30.346
IO IO, my king, my king,

01:35:30.755 --> 01:35:33.005
how shall I weep for you?

01:35:34.372 --> 01:35:39.612
Here you lie in this spider’s web

01:35:39.612 --> 01:35:46.652
after breathing your life out in an impious death—

01:35:48.569 --> 01:35:55.129
OIMOI MOI—lying in a state unfit for a free man,

01:35:56.014 --> 01:35:59.774
laid low in treacherous murder

01:35:59.774 --> 01:36:03.994
by this hand with a two-edged weapon.

01:36:04.419 --> 01:36:08.509
You call this deed mine?

01:36:08.509 --> 01:36:12.534
And I his wife? You’re wrong.

01:36:12.534 --> 01:36:15.354
Some ancient bitter spirit of revenge

01:36:15.354 --> 01:36:18.544
disguised as Agamemnon’s wife

01:36:21.334 --> 01:36:23.724
arose from Atreus’ brutal feast

01:36:23.724 --> 01:36:29.214
to sacrifice this man for those little children.

01:36:36.478 --> 01:36:39.488
What words shall I utter in such wretchedness,

01:36:39.488 --> 01:36:41.206
what laments?

01:36:43.069 --> 01:36:47.069
What speech will suffice me?

01:36:47.558 --> 01:36:50.474
I see the lopped-off heads,

01:36:50.474 --> 01:36:52.031
the wrenched-off hands,

01:36:52.031 --> 01:36:55.853
the feet torn from broken legs.

01:36:58.716 --> 01:37:05.976
This is what the 
greedy father could not take in!

01:37:07.774 --> 01:37:11.979
The flesh churns within me,

01:37:11.979 --> 01:37:16.599
the imprisoned horror struggles with no way
out,

01:37:16.599 --> 01:37:21.189
seeking to escape.

01:37:25.772 --> 01:37:28.582
Give me your sword, brother—

01:37:28.582 --> 01:37:32.288
it already has much of my blood:

01:37:33.577 --> 01:37:37.947
the blade must give my children a path.

01:37:39.801 --> 01:37:41.871
You refuse the sword?

01:37:44.036 --> 01:37:46.646
Let me batter my breast,

01:37:47.006 --> 01:37:49.876
smash resounding blows against it—

01:37:49.876 --> 01:37:53.876
no, hold your hand, poor wretch,

01:37:55.756 --> 01:37:58.866
we must spare
the dead.

01:38:00.485 --> 01:38:04.485
Who has ever seen such horror?

01:38:05.876 --> 01:38:10.156
See, a father burdening his sons,

01:38:10.646 --> 01:38:13.536
and burdened by his sons.

01:38:14.646 --> 01:38:19.366
Is there some limit to crime?

01:38:23.173 --> 01:38:28.323
Even this is too little for me.

01:38:30.127 --> 01:38:32.717
Straight from the wound

01:38:32.717 --> 01:38:37.517
I should have poured the hot blood into your mouth,

01:38:37.517 --> 01:38:41.517
so you could drink their lifeblood while they lived.

01:38:43.341 --> 01:38:47.292
I dealt wounds, pressing the blade home,

01:38:47.292 --> 01:38:50.142
I slaughtered at the altar,

01:38:50.142 --> 01:38:55.442
I propitiated the hearth with votive killing,

01:38:55.442 --> 01:38:58.357
I chopped up the lifeless bodies,

01:38:58.747 --> 01:39:01.529
pulled the flesh into small pieces

01:39:01.919 --> 01:39:06.959
and plunged some into boiling cauldrons,

01:39:07.508 --> 01:39:13.308
bade others drip over slow fires.

01:39:16.410 --> 01:39:21.170
Did he not bring lies and ruin on this house?

01:39:21.170 --> 01:39:26.820
My poor little green shoot Iphigeneia—

01:39:42.408 --> 01:39:49.198
she’s the one
who suffered unworthy.

01:39:49.258 --> 01:39:52.473
He has nothing to complain about.

01:39:52.473 --> 01:39:56.973
He paid by the sword for what he himself began.

01:40:03.739 --> 01:40:08.749
I cut away limbs and sinews from the
living bodies,

01:40:08.749 --> 01:40:12.908
pierced the organs with thin spits

01:40:12.908 --> 01:40:15.598
and watched them moan,

01:40:15.598 --> 01:40:19.476
piled up fires
with my own hands:

01:40:20.633 --> 01:40:27.273
All this the father could
have done better.

01:40:27.273 --> 01:40:30.443
My anger was to no avail.

01:40:30.968 --> 01:40:35.878
He tore his sons in his sacrilegious mouth,

01:40:35.920 --> 01:40:40.550
but he did not know it, they did not know it.

01:40:42.686 --> 01:40:49.086
Robbed of the rich resources of thought,

01:40:49.086 --> 01:40:52.856
I am at a loss for an idea

01:40:55.705 --> 01:40:58.151
which way to turn,

01:40:58.151 --> 01:41:00.655
now the house is falling.

01:41:03.649 --> 01:41:09.469
Who will bury him?

01:41:11.774 --> 01:41:15.680
Who will sing his lament?

01:41:15.680 --> 01:41:18.830
Will you dare to do it—

01:41:18.830 --> 01:41:22.400
—after slaying your own husband, to wail for him

01:41:22.400 --> 01:41:26.380
and to perform, without right,

01:41:28.600 --> 01:41:33.160
a favor that will be no favor to his soul,

01:41:33.333 --> 01:41:36.743
in return for his great deeds?

01:41:42.077 --> 01:41:46.517
Now I commend my hands,

01:41:46.517 --> 01:41:50.458
now the true pain is won.

01:41:51.146 --> 01:41:56.266
My crime would have been wasted if you did not feel pain like this.

01:41:56.991 --> 01:42:02.421
Now I believe that the children are mine,

01:42:02.421 --> 01:42:07.821
and that my bed is faithful and chaste once more!

01:42:09.862 --> 01:42:14.172
That’s not your concern.

01:42:14.172 --> 01:42:17.942
By me he fell, by me he died,

01:42:17.942 --> 01:42:19.652
I shall bury him.

01:42:19.652 --> 01:42:22.580
Not with wailing from this house.

01:42:22.580 --> 01:42:26.018
No, Iphigeneia will open her arms

01:42:26.018 --> 01:42:29.108
and run to meet him in Hades—

01:42:29.108 --> 01:42:33.718
a father-daughter embrace,

01:42:33.718 --> 01:42:36.288
won’t that be perfect!

01:43:04.706 --> 01:43:08.216
What was my children’s guilt?

01:43:08.849 --> 01:43:11.384
That they were yours.

01:43:12.831 --> 01:43:18.072
You gave sons to their father—

01:43:18.072 --> 01:43:19.422
I admit it: 


01:43:20.212 --> 01:43:22.891
and definitely your own sons,

01:43:22.891 --> 01:43:25.221
I am delighted to say.

01:43:30.956 --> 01:43:35.976
I for one propose to swear a truce with 
the demon of this house.

01:43:35.976 --> 01:43:39.250
I’ll be content with where we’ve got to now,

01:43:39.250 --> 01:43:41.816
hard though it is to bear.

01:43:41.816 --> 01:43:49.766
Let the demon go grind out murders on 
some other family.

01:43:49.861 --> 01:43:56.381
I’m happy with a tiny share of the wealth here

01:43:56.381 --> 01:44:02.191
if I can stop us all killing one another.

01:44:13.715 --> 01:44:21.815
O genial sun that lights the day of justice!

01:44:22.691 --> 01:44:29.261
At last I think the gods above look down

01:44:29.261 --> 01:44:32.561
on the earth’s pain and vindicate us mortals,

01:44:35.521 --> 01:44:39.231
now that I see the man who lies here

01:44:39.231 --> 01:44:44.071
wearing the robe the Furies wore—

01:44:44.791 --> 01:44:48.361
—heartwarming sight!—

01:44:48.361 --> 01:44:53.663
and paying for the trap

01:44:53.663 --> 01:44:58.543
set by his father 
who reigned here, Atreus.

01:44:58.932 --> 01:45:03.893
That man, in plain terms,
banished Thyestes—

01:45:03.893 --> 01:45:05.743
—my own father—

01:45:05.743 --> 01:45:10.533
—though he was his brother,

01:45:10.533 --> 01:45:14.953
from his home and city,

01:45:14.953 --> 01:45:19.853
when the right to rule this country was disputed.

01:45:21.313 --> 01:45:26.017
On his return to Atreus’ hearth for mercy,

01:45:26.017 --> 01:45:30.867
wretched Thyestes’ life remained secure—

01:45:30.867 --> 01:45:37.067
which means he didn’t bloody native ground
with his own death.

01:45:38.933 --> 01:45:43.883
But this man’s godless father

01:45:43.883 --> 01:45:47.513
made a show of sacrifice
on the special day,

01:45:48.523 --> 01:45:53.703
but served up children’s flesh.

01:45:57.160 --> 01:46:03.500
Then, when Thyestes sensed the monstrous thing he’d done,

01:46:04.262 --> 01:46:08.262
he fell back, howling, retching out the slaughter,

01:46:09.803 --> 01:46:13.803
and called down harrowing doom on Pelops’ sons.

01:46:13.905 --> 01:46:17.995
The table he kicked over sealed the curse:

01:46:18.364 --> 01:46:24.064
annihilation for the race of Pleisthenes;

01:46:29.414 --> 01:46:33.204
so on these grounds, he’s there to look at, fallen,

01:46:33.204 --> 01:46:36.684
and I’m the one who—justly—stitched this murder.

01:46:37.103 --> 01:46:43.503
Atreus drove out my poor father and me—

01:46:43.503 --> 01:46:45.688
the third born,

01:46:46.768 --> 01:46:49.838
still in my baby clothes,

01:46:51.323 --> 01:46:57.843
and Justice brought me back when I was grown.

01:47:00.607 --> 01:47:05.457
I fastened this whole grim device together

01:47:06.400 --> 01:47:13.140
and caught him in my hand before I came here.

01:47:20.112 --> 01:47:22.943
Aegisthus,

01:47:22.943 --> 01:47:28.163
I am not in the habit of being insolent at a time of trouble;

01:47:28.163 --> 01:47:31.953
but I say that you will not escape getting what you deserve—

01:47:31.953 --> 01:47:35.953
—curses flung at your head like stones by the people.

01:47:37.510 --> 01:47:40.440
You’re not too old to learn

01:47:40.440 --> 01:47:45.570
how hard a lesson prudent obedience can be—

01:47:45.570 --> 01:47:50.293
—at your age.

01:47:51.163 --> 01:47:54.614
Kick back when goaded?

01:47:54.614 --> 01:47:58.634
You’ll grow sore from beatings.

01:48:02.693 --> 01:48:08.203
As though I’ll let you be tyrant of the Argives—

01:48:08.574 --> 01:48:13.544
you who, when you’d planned the death of this man,

01:48:13.544 --> 01:48:19.724
didn’t have the courage to do the deed with your own hands!

01:48:22.589 --> 01:48:27.299
Plainly, it was a woman’s job to trick him,

01:48:28.233 --> 01:48:32.883
while I, the clan’s old enemy, was suspect.

01:48:36.963 --> 01:48:37.673
Now

01:48:43.212 --> 01:48:46.127
I’ll deploy his property to rule the citizens,

01:48:46.127 --> 01:48:49.032
and set a heavy yoke
on those who won’t obey.

01:48:54.862 --> 01:49:05.102
Why were you so cowardly as not to slay this man yourself?

01:49:08.114 --> 01:49:12.114
Does Orestes somewhere still look on the light of day,

01:49:12.114 --> 01:49:16.434
so that with fortune’s favor he may come back here

01:49:16.434 --> 01:49:20.434
and be the triumphant killer of both these two?

01:49:27.982 --> 01:49:34.632
You choose to say and do this—

01:49:35.572 --> 01:49:38.242
—soon you’ll learn.

01:49:38.471 --> 01:49:42.471
No, no, no, no, my dear darling,

01:49:42.471 --> 01:49:45.211
no more evil.

01:49:45.697 --> 01:49:47.687
The harvest is in:

01:49:47.687 --> 01:49:52.397
we have enough pain, enough bloodshed.

01:49:52.397 --> 01:49:55.577
Venerable elders, go back to your homes, before you suffer.

01:49:55.577 --> 01:49:58.547
What we did had to be done.

01:49:58.547 --> 01:50:01.400
And if it ends here, we’re content.

01:50:01.696 --> 01:50:05.446
Some demon of luck has clipped us with a sharp hoof.

01:50:05.446 --> 01:50:09.446
That’s a woman’s opinion, for what it’s worth.

01:50:09.856 --> 01:50:15.436
These people talk as if they’re picking flowers,

01:50:15.436 --> 01:50:20.456
pelt me with silly words—and take their chance.

01:50:34.334 --> 01:50:45.984
It would not be the Argive way to fawn on a wicked man.

01:50:47.841 --> 01:50:57.431
I’ll settle with you in the days ahead.

01:51:01.201 --> 01:51:06.641
Not if god guides Orestes to come back here.

01:51:07.352 --> 01:51:16.042
I know myself that exiles feed on hope.

01:51:17.322 --> 01:51:19.464
Brag away confidently,

01:51:19.464 --> 01:51:22.294
like a cock standing next to his hen!

01:51:22.294 --> 01:51:24.914
Ignore their yelpings.

01:51:24.914 --> 01:51:27.024
You and I, as masters of this house,

01:51:27.024 --> 01:51:29.424
will dispose all things as they should be.

01:51:29.424 --> 01:51:32.624
Beautifully.