Who from the accursed regions of the dead haleth me forth,
snatching at food which ever fleeth from my hungry lips?
Hath something worse been found than parching thirst midst water,
worse than ever-gaping hunger?
To what new suffering am I shifted?
O whoe’er thou art, harsh judge of shades,
who dost allot fresh punishments to the dead,
if aught can be added to my sufferings
whereat e’en the guardian of our dread prison-house would quake,
whereat sad Acheron would be seized with dread,
with fear whereof I, too, should tremble, seek thou it out.
Now from my seed a multitude is coming up which its own race shall out-do,
which shall make me seem innocent,
and dare things yet undared.
Whatever space is still empty in the unholy realm,
I shall fill up.
Go on, you hated shade,
and spur the wicked house-gods with your rage.
Let all compete in every crime,
let each side unsheathe the sword in turn:
no limit to this anger, no shame.
Let heedless fury goad their minds,
let the parents’ frenzy and their ceaseless sin devolve upon the sons.
Let the shaky fortune of this bestial house revert from king to king,
let wretch be rendered ruler
and ruler be made wretch.
Let anger find no act taboo.
Let brother fear his brother,
father fear his son, and son his father.
O let the children die a dreadful end,
but let their birth be worse,
let the wife-abomination be a menace to her mate.
In this godless house, let incest be like any crime!
Let right, and trust, and every law lie dead for brothers.
Confuse the house-gods,
summon hatred, death, and slaughter,
and fill all the house with Tantalus.
Let blood discolor the family hearth,
let the dinner plates be set.
This day’s my gift to you.
I loose your hunger for this meal.
Sate your starvation.
I have found a feast which even you would flee—
but stop!
Where do you rush in haste?
Back to my pools and streams and fleeing waters,
back to the laden tree which shuns my very lips.
Let me return to the black couch of my prison-house;
let it be mine, if I seem too little wretched, to change my stream.
Whoe’er thou art, by the fates’ law bidden to suffer allotted punishment:
believe me who know, and love your punishments.
Oh, when shall it fall to me to escape the upper world?
First convulse your home.
’Tis meet for me to suffer punishments,
not be a punishment.
I am sent as some deadly exhalation from the riven earth,
or as a pestilence, spreading grievous plague among the people,
that I a grandsire may lead my grandsons into fearful crime.
I warn ye, defile not your hands with accursed slaughter,
nor stain your altars with a madman’s crime.
Here will I stand and prevent the evil deed.
Why with thy scourge dost fright mine eyes?
Why deep in my inmost marrow dost rouse hunger pains?
I follow thee.
This delirium—deal this throughout your house,
let them rave like this,
and like this hate and thirst in turn for kindred blood.
Your home can sense that you are home,
it shrinks in every part from hell’s contagion.
And now—it’s done in full!
Daughter of Tyndareus, Queen Clytemnestra,
What is happening? What is the news?
What message has persuaded you,
that you have sent round word to make sacrifices?
I have authority to tell how the twin-throned rulers of the Achaeans
were sped with avenging spear and hand
to the Teucrian land by a fierce warlike bird of omen,
the kings of birds appearing to the kings of ships,
eating a hare, pregnant with many offspring,
her final run cut short.
And the worthy prophet to the army saw it,
and recognized the two warlike Atreidae,
different in their temper,
in the feasters on the hare who sped the rulers on their way;
and thus he spoke, interpreting the portent:
“In time this expedition will capture the city of Priam:
only let no divine resentment overshadow the great curb of Troy,
striking it before it can act, once it has been mustered.
For holy Artemis, out of pity,
bears a grudge against the winged hounds of her father
who slaughtered the wretched hare, litter and all,
before it could give birth.”
And then the senior leader of the Achaean fleet,
when the Achaean host was grievously afflicted by foul weather
which emptied their stomachs at Aulis,
and winds coming from the Strymon
making time seem twice as long
wore down and shredded the flower of the Argives;
And when the prophet also cried forth
another remedy for the hateful storms,
one more grievous for the leaders,
declaring Artemis as their cause,
so that the Atreidae struck the ground with their staffs
and could not hold back their tears—
and the senior king spoke, and said this:
Obey, obey, or a heavy doom will crush me!
Oh but doom will crush me once I rend my child,
the glory of my house—
a father’s hands are stained,
blood of a young girl streaks the altar.
Pain both ways and what is worse?
Desert the fleets, fail the alliance?
No, but stop the winds with a virgin’s blood,
feed their lust, their fury? Feed their fury!
Law is law!
Let all go well.
And when he put on the yokestrap of necessity,
from that point he turned to a mindset
that would stop at nothing.
In short,
he brought himself to become the sacrificer of his daughter.
Her pleas, her cries of “Father!” and her maiden years,
were set at naught by the war-loving chieftains.
After a prayer, her father told his attendants
to lift her right up
over the altar with all their strength,
like a yearling goat, face down,
so that her robes fell around her,
and by putting a guard on her fair face and lips
to restrain speech that might lay a curse on his house—
by force, by the silencing power of a bridle.
As she poured saffron dye
towards the ground
she cast on each of her sacrificers
a glance darted from her eye,
a glance to stir pity,
wanting to address them by name
—because often
at the rich banquets in her father’s dining-chambers
she had sung.
I have come, Clytemnestra, in reverence towards your power:
for it is proper to honor the wife of one’s paramount ruler
when the male throne is unoccupied.
I would be glad to hear if you have learned any good news,
or if you have not
but are sacrificing in hope of receiving good tidings
—but I will bear no grudge if you keep silence.
Good news. Joy surpassing all your hopes!
The Greeks have captured Priam’s town!
What are you saying?
Your words escaped me, they were so incredible.
Troy belongs to us!
Clear?
What has persuaded you of this?
Have you any evidence for it?
I have.
Unless some god fooled me.
Have you been awed by a persuasive vision in a dream?
I would not trust a mind asleep.
Within what time has the city actually been sacked?
In the night, this past night.
And what messenger could come here with such speed?
Hephaistos, god of fire!
He sped forth a blazing flame from Ida!
Beacon after beacon as the fire messenger moved
from Ida to the rock of Lemnos,
to the crag of Athos third.
This was my lightbringing strategy,
torch to torch over the entire course.
Such is the proof and evidence I offered you,
sent by my husband from Troy to me personally.
I would like to hear these words again,
from beginning to end, as you have spoken them,
and to marvel at them.
Troy is ours on this day.
Some fall on the bodies of their husbands, fathers, brothers
and cry out grief from throats no longer free.
The others quartered now in captured Trojan homes,
escaped from frost and dew,
they’ll sleep like happy men
the whole night through without watch.
Let no mad impulse strike the army
to ravish what they should not, overcome by greed.
They’re not home yet.
Yet even if they make it home without offending gods
the agony of those who died may wake again—
—I pray no sudden shift to evil.
Such are my woman words.
May the good prevail. Unambiguously.
Lady, you have spoken wisely,
like a sensible man.
Idle, inert, impotent, and unavenged:
after so many crimes,
after your brother’s treachery
and the breaking of every principle,
do you act with futile complaints—you, Atreus in anger?
This mighty house of famous Pelops itself—
—let it fall even on me, so long as it falls on my brother.
I must dare some fierce, bloody outrage,
such as my brother would have wished his own.
You do not avenge crimes unless you surpass them.
And what could be cruel enough to vanquish him?
I know the man’s intractable nature:
he cannot be bent, but he can be broken.
He must be attacked first,
lest he attack me at rest.
He will either destroy or be destroyed.
Are you not afraid the people will speak against you?
They must want what they do not want!
A king should want the good,
his wishes match his people’s.
Where a sovereign is permitted only what is honorable,
he rules on sufferance.
Remember that harming a brother,
even a bad one, is wrong.
Anything that is wrong in dealing with a brother
is right in dealing with him.
What has he left untouched by guilt,
when has he refrained from crime?
He stole my wife by adultery
and my kingdom by theft;
by deceit he obtained our ancient symbol of power,
by deceit he brought turmoil on the house.
From this act flowed all the evil of our mutual destruction.
I roamed my own realm, a trembling exile;
no part of what is mine is safe from treachery;
my wife is defiled,
my confidence in power shaken,
my house tainted, its blood uncertain;
nothing is sure—
—except my brother’s enmity.
Look to Tantalus and Pelops:
my hands are called to follow their examples.
Tell me how to slay that fearsome creature.
Let your enemy die by the sword,
and breathe his last.
You talk about punishment’s conclusion:
I want the punishment!
Slaying is for a lenient tyrant;
in my kingdom death is something people beg for.
But are you not moved by affection?
Begone, Affection, if ever you existed at all in our house!
Let the dread band of Furies come,
and the Erinys of strife
and Megaera brandishing her twin torches.
The madness firing my heart is not big enough,
I want to be filled with some greater monstrosity.
You are mad! What is your plan?
Nothing conforming to the limits of ordinary bitterness.
I shall leave no deed undone—and none is enough.
Death by the sword?
Insufficient.
Burning?
Still insufficient.
Then what means can your huge resentment use?
Thyestes himself.
Too much! even for your rage.
I admit it.
The ground moans from its lowest depths,
the sky thunders though cloudless,
the house cracks throughout its structure as if shattered,
and the house gods shake and avert their faces.
Let it be done, let it be done,
this outrage that makes you gods afraid!
So what are you planning to do?
Something more, greater than the commonplace,
beyond normal human limits,
is swelling in my spirit and jolting my sluggish hands.
What it is I do not know, but it is something mighty!
So be it.
Seize on it, my spirit!
The deed is worthy of Thyestes and worthy of Atreus:
let each perform it.
Let the father rend his children avidly,
gleefully, and eat his own flesh.
Why has Atreus remained innocent so long?
Now the whole picture of the carnage hovers before my eyes—
—childlessness stuffed down the father’s throat!
Why take fright again, my spirit?
It must be dared; do it!
The principal outrage in this crime—
—he will commit it himself.
But how will you deceive him
to put his foot into our net and be trapped?
He knows you hate him; he suspects you.
He desires my kingdom.
In this desire he will do what he thinks the greatest evil:
see his brother.
But who can make him trust you?
Who can make him believe it?
I shall give my sons a mandate to take to their uncle:
that he should leave a wandering exile’s lodgings,
trade his wretchedness for a throne,
and reign in Argos as coruler.
On the one side his old passion for power,
on the other grim poverty and hard toils,
will subdue the fellow,
however toughened by so many troubles.
Pick other agents for your savage plan.
If you teach them to turn on their uncle,
they will turn on their father.
Crime often comes back round again to its teacher.
Though no one teach them the ways of deceit and crime,
kingship will teach it.
You fear their becoming evil?
They are born so.
Will the boys be told of the plot?
What need is there to involve my children in my crime?
Let my hatred unfold through me—
—You are going wrong, you are retreating, my spirit!
If you spare your own, you will spare those too.
Agamemnon must serve my scheme knowingly,
and Menelaus assist his brother knowingly.
Let me gain assurance
about my questionable sons from this crime:
if they reject war and refuse to pursue the feud,
if they call him uncle, he is their father.
But great schemes betray a person
even against his will.
They must not know how great a business they are agents in.
And you, keep my venture secret.
I need no warning.
Prompted by the fire that brought good news,
word has passed swiftly through the city;
but who knows whether it is true,
or some divine deception?
I see, coming here from the seashore, a herald.
Hail, soil of my fathers, land of Argos!
On this day, after nearly ten years,
I have come back to you,
achieving one of my hopes, after the shipwreck of so many:
for I never thought that I would die in this Argive land
and be able to share my beloved family tomb.
Hail, palace, beloved home of my kings,
and august seats, and you deities who face the sun!
Let these eyes of yours be bright, if they ever have been before,
as you welcome your king home in glory at long last;
for he has come, bringing light out of darkness to you and to all these people—
—King Agamemnon!
Give him a noble welcome, for that is truly proper,
when he has dug up Troy
with the mattock of Zeus the Avenger,
with which the ground has been worked over
and the seed of the whole country destroyed.
All happiness to you,
herald of the Achaeans returning from the war.
I am happy;
if the gods decree my death, I will no longer complain.
Were you prostrated by longing for this land of your fathers?
So much so that my eyes now fill with tears of joy.
Just as much I often groaned aloud
in the gloominess of my heart.
From what source
did this miserable bitterness come over the people?
I have long used silence to protect me against harm.
Why, may I ask?
Were you afraid of someone, in the rulers’ absence?
So that now, as you put it,
even death would be a great favor.
Yes, for we have been successful!
In these affairs, over a long period,
there are some things that one can say fall out well,
and on the other hand some that do have drawbacks.
Who, except the gods, is free from pain for the whole of his lifetime?
Why should one mourn over these things?
The suffering is past!
For the dead, it is so thoroughly past
that they don’t even have to worry about reveille any more.
Why should we reckon the lost ones into the account, why should the living be expected to grieve over the spite of fortune?
Well, you have heard everything.
I raised my shout of joy a while ago.
There were of course those who rebuked me saying,
“You’ve convinced yourself that Troy is sacked because of a beacon!
How like a woman!”
And now, what need for you to tell me more?
From the king himself I shall learn everything—
—how best to welcome him oh I’m excited—
—what day is sweeter for a wife
than when she runs to open the door
for her husband back from war?—
You’ll find your loyal wife just as you left her,
guarding the house like a good dog,
enemy to your enemies, quite unchanged.
She broke no seal while you were away.
And she knows no more of secret sex or scandal
than she does of dipping bronze.
That is what she has said,
and if you understand it through clear interpreters it is a . . .
plausible speech.
At last I see the long-desired housetops of my homeland, the wealth of Argos,
and what seems to miserable exiles the greatest and highest good—
the reaches of my native soil
and the gods of my fathers
(if there really are gods).
Argos will come to meet me,
the people will come in crowds—
—but so will Atreus, of course.
Better hurry back to your forest refuges,
to those dense woods
and your life among the beasts and comparable to theirs.
There is no reason for this bright luster of kingship
to blind your eyes with its false glitter.
When you examine a gift, look at the giver too.
Just now, amid what everyone considers hardships,
I was courageous and happy.
But now I am relapsing into fears;
my spirit falters and wants to turn my body back,
my steps are forced and reluctant.
The beast is held fast in the nets I set out.
I see both the man and, along with him,
the hopes of that detested line, joined with their father.
Now my hatred is on a firm footing.
He has come into my hands, at last Thyestes has come—
—yes, in his entirety.
I can scarcely restrain my spirit,
my rancor can scarcely be reined in.
When anger senses blood, it knows no concealment.
But concealed it must be.
See how his hair is heavy with grime and shrouds his dismal face,
How foul and limp his beard.
—But good faith must be demonstrated.
I am delighted to see my brother.
Let me feel once more the embrace I have longed for!
Any anger that existed must be in the past.
From this day blood and family ties must be cherished,
and hatred must be condemned and expelled from our hearts.
I could explain everything away,
if you were not like this.
But I confess, Atreus, I confess,
I committed all that you thought I had.
The fraternal affection you show today has made my case indefensible.
A man is obviously guilty if he seems guilty to such a good brother.
I must plead with tears.
You are the first to see me supplicate.
These hands, that have touched no one’s feet before, implore you;
let all anger be set aside,
let passion be erased and gone.
As hostages of my good faith take these innocents, brother.
Take your hand from my knees,
and come to my embrace instead.
You too, protectors of old men—so many youngsters!
—come cling about my neck.
Off with these filthy clothes—
—have pity on our eyes—
—and accept finery equal to mine;
prosper and take on a share of your brother’s power.
The gods grant you, brother,
the rewards you deserve so richly.
But my foul state unfits my head for the royal emblem,
and my luckless hand shrinks from the scepter.
Let me just blend in with the common people.
This throne has room for two.
All that is yours, brother, I regard as mine.
Who would refuse the inflow of Fortune’s gifts?
Anyone who has experienced how easily they ebb.
You forbid your brother to win great glory?
Your glory is already complete,
mine still to be won.
It is my fixed purpose to reject the throne.
I shall abandon my share, unless you accept yours.
I accept.
I shall bear the title of king imposed on me,
but the laws and army will be subject to you, along with myself.
Wear this bond set on your venerable head.
For my part,
I shall offer the designated victims to the gods above.
Come now, my king,
sacker of Troy, offspring of Atreus,
how shall I address you?
To me, at that time,
when you were leading forth an expedition
on account of Helen—
—I will not conceal this from you—
you seemed painted in very ugly colours, but now,
from the depths of my heart and with affection,
I am friendly to those
who have made a good end of their labours.
Look for the smoke—
it is the city’s seamark, building even now.
The storms of ruin live!
For that we must thank the gods with a sacrifice
our sons will long remember:
crashing through their walls our bloody lion lapped its fill,
gorging on the blood of kings.
And your concern, old man, is on my mind.
I hear you and agree, I will support you.
And now this cause involving men and gods.
We must summon the city for a trial,
found a national tribunal.
Whatever’s healthy,
shore it up with law and help it flourish.
Wherever something calls for drastic cures
we make our noblest effort:
amputate or wield the healing iron, burn the cancer at the roots.
Now I go to my father’s house—
I give the gods my right hand, my first salute.
The ones who sent me forth have brought me home.
Victory, you have sped my way before,
now speed me to the last.
I am not ashamed to tell you of my husband loving ways.
The fact is,
life got hard for me when he was off at Troy.
It’s a terrible thing for a woman to sit alone in a house,
listening to rumors and tales of disaster one after another arriving—
why, had this man sustained as many wounds as people told me,
he’d be fuller of holes than a net!
To die as often as they reported
he’d need three bodies
and three cloaks of earth—
—one for each burial.
So often did nasty rumors reach me,
I hung up a noose for my neck more than once.
Other people had to cut me down.
That’s why our boy—yours and mine—
Orestes, is not standing here, as he should be.
Don’t worry.
Strophios has him, our Phokian ally.
So now, with all that over, with my mind grief free,
I salute my man:
he is the watchdog of the palace,
forestay of the ship,
pillar of the roof,
only son of his father.
And now, dear one—
What are you waiting for?
You have your orders—
—strew the ground with fabrics, now!
Make his path crimsoncovered!
purplepaved! redsaturated!
So Justice may lead him to the home he never hoped to see.
There is Leda’s daughter,
the keeper of my house.
And the speech to suit my absence,
much too long.
But the praise that does us justice,
let it come from others, then we prize it.
This—you treat me like a woman.
Grovelling, gaping up at me—
what am I, some barbarian peacocking out of Asia?
Never cross my path with robes and draw the lightning.
Never—only the gods deserve the pomps of honor
and the stiff brocades of fame.
To walk on them ...
I am human, and it makes my pulses stir with dread.
Give me the tributes of a man and not a god.
Oh come on, relax your principles.
My principles? Once I violate them I am lost.
Would you have done it for the gods to satisfy a vow?
Yes, if a prophet called for a last, drastic rite.
What about Priam, if he’d won the war?
Striding on the tapestries of god, I see him now.
Still you fear the blame of common men?
The voice of the people—aye, they have enormous power.
Unenvied means unenviable, you know.
And where’s the woman in all this lust for glory?
Yet a winner must acknowledge his victory.
Victory in this war of ours, it means so much to you?
Agree!
You’re still in charge if you give way to me by choice.
Enough. If you are so determined—
Let someone help me off with these at least.
Hurry, and while I tread his splendours dyed red in the sea,
may no god watch and strike me down with envy from on high.
I feel such shame—
to tread the life of the house,
a kingdom’s worth of silver in the weaving.
Done is done.
Escort this stranger in,
be gentle.
The gift of the armies, flower and pride of all the wealth we won,
she follows me from Troy.
And now,
since you have brought me down with your insistence,
just this once I enter my father’s house,
trampling royal crimson as I go.
There is the sea and who shall drain it dry?
It breeds the purple stain,
the dark red dye we use to color our garments,
costly as silver.
This house has an abundance.
Thanks be to gods, no poverty here.
Zeus, Zeus,
god of things perfect,
accomplish my prayers.
Concern yourself here.
Perfect this.
Get yourself into the house,
I'm talking to you, Kassandra.
She's just been talking to you, you know, and she's spoken very clearly.
You've been captured, caught in a deadly net; you should obey her, if you're going to--—
but perhaps you won't.
Unless she speaks some unintelligible foreign tongue and chirrups like a swallow,
I should be reaching through into her understanding.
Follow her.
Leave your seat in this carriage, and comply with her words.
I can’t waste time like this in the doorway.
Already the animals stand at the hearth ready for slaughter.
So you get a move on, or you’ll miss the whole ceremony.
If you really don’t understand a word I’m saying
make some sign with your hand.
Oh she’s mad.
Hearkens only to her own mad mind.
I’ll not be insulted further.
I pity you, and I’m not going to be angry.
Come on, poor girl.
otototoi popoi da!
Apollo Apollo!
Why are you wailing like that about Loxias?
otototoi popoi da!
Apollo Apollo!
He is not the sort to come in contact with one who laments.
Apollo Apollo
waygod destroyer
where have you brought me
what house is this?
To the house of the Atreidae.
ah ah ah god-shunners kin-killers
child-charnel man-shambles
babe-spattered abattoir
The foreign woman seems to be as keen-scented as a hound;
she has got on the right trail to track down some murders.
I track down the witnesses
children babes
shrieking butcher
barbecued childflesh wolfed down by the father
Yes, we had indeed heard of your fame as a seer,
but we are not looking for any prophets.
io popoi
I see somebody evil something
agony agony more more more
no-one can bear it
no-one can stop it
help’s far away over the ocean
I do not know what this prophecy means.
The other one I did know: the whole city resounds with it.
io
husband bed-mate
body washed in your bath-trough
hand over hand
hauling the catch in
I still don’t understand.
e e papai papai
net hell-net
she-snare bed-mate blood-mate
the deathpack howls over its victim
the fiendswarm surrounds it for stoning
What do you mean by bidding this Fury raise a loud cry over the house?
a a
look there there look
bull cow bull cow don’t let them grapple
he’s caught in the robe-net
she gores him and gores him
butting and butting with blood-crusted horn
slumps into bathblood bloodsplash
him me him me him me
woecups mine slops over the brim
what have you brought me here for?
to die beside you what else?
Why have you uttered these words that are all too clear?
A babe hearing them could understand.
I am stricken by your painful fate as if by a bloody bite,
as you cry and whimper in a way that it shatters me to hear.
Off with the brideveil then.
Riddles are over.
Keep close on my track now
as I scent out the spoor of ancient transgression.
Listen. The rooftops.
Monotonous humming that drones on forever and means only terror.
The blood-bolstered fiend-swarm holds its debauches,
cacophonous squatters that can’t be evicted,
chant over and over the crime where it started
cursing a bedbond a bloodkin defiled
trampling all over the flowing bed-linen.
Have I shot wide
or am I on target?
Swear I know all the curse of this bloodclan.
I marvel at you,
that having been bred beyond the seas
you can talk so accurately about a foreign-speaking city,
as if you had been on the spot.
I’ve always thought it too shameful to tell.
Did you come together in the act of procreation?
I told him he could then later said no.
When you were already possessed by your inspired abilities?
I foretold Troy’s downfall, the Trojans’ defeat.
How then did you remain unharmed by the wrath of Loxias?
No one ever believed me, not one single word.
Well, to us your prophecies seem quite credible.
iou iou
ah ah ah ah
look on the rooftops dream-shadows children
killed by their bloodkin,
their hands full of ugh offal and giblets
their very own innards held out to their father as succulent morsels.
The lion plots vengeance
the lion that’s gutless
the lion that lolls in the master’s own chamber
Commander of triremes, crusher of Priam,
but blind to cabal, the insatiable hell-bitch,
licking his hand ears pricked in welcome.
furry and cur-like concealing a Fury
Whether I’m believed or not doesn’t matter.
Whatever you do the future will happen.
Through pity and tears you’ll know the true prophet.
I understood about Thyestes feasting on his children’s flesh,
and I shudder, and terror grips me,
now I have heard it in terms that truly were anything but figurative.
But as to the rest of what I’ve heard,
I’m running like a hound that’s lost the scent.
Agamemnon. He’s the one you’ll see dead!
Speak only of good things, poor girl; put your tongue to sleep.
And while you’re appealing his throat’s being slit!
By what man is this grievous crime being committed?
If you say man then you don’t understand.
Because I didn’t understand what method he, the perpetrator, could use.
And yet it’s your language you’re hearing me speak.
The pronouncements of Pytho are also in Greek,
but they’re still hard to understand.
ah ah
fire in me
Apollo’s two-legged lioness tupped by the wolfman
when the great lion’s gone she’ll kill Cassandra
She sharpens the swordblade to hack down her husband
a hacking he earned by bringing me with him
Why do I wear these garments that mock me,
the trappings of prophetess, rod, garb and raiment.
I’m going to die but you’ll go before me.
It’s some satisfaction to trample these trappings.
Go and bestow these gifts on another.
ah Apollo Apollo clawing my clothes off.
He grabs the prophetess garb off my body.
He mocked me, Apollo, though dressed as his prophet,
called vagabond, mountebank, pauper and starveling.
The god-seer casts his prophetess to disaster.
My father’s own priestess now mere beast
oblation lifeblood flowing hot off the hackblock.
We won’t die forgotten.
Gods always notice.
Why these tears?
Now it’s for me to die.
The doorway to death.
I pray for a clean blow, no painful convulsions,
my blood ebbing gently, closing my eyes.
Woman unfortunate in so many ways and also wise in so many ways,
you have spoken at length;
but if you truly have foreknowledge of your own death,
how comes it that you are walking boldly towards it like an ox driven by god to the altar?
There’s no escape now. No more delay.
But people put special value on the last bit of time they have.
No hope for me though.
It’s pointless all flight.
Well, I tell you, your resolution comes from a courageous heart.
Yes only the doomed are ever called brave.
But it’s a gratification to any mortal, you know, to die creditably.
Friends!
What’s the matter? What fear is making you turn away?
PHEU PHEU!
Why are you going “pheu” like that?
Unless it’s some mental horror.
The palace! It stinks like an abattoir drain!
What on earth do you mean? That’s the smell of sacrifices at the hearth.
It stinks like the gas from a burial urn!
I’m no frightened fledgling flinching with fear when the bushes get shaken.
From you what I beg is the bearing of witness.
Unhappy one, I pity you for the death you have foretold.
A few last words, a requiem dirgesong
I ask the sun whose last rays I’m addressing
that when the avengers cut down the assassins
one stroke’s for the slave butchered defenseless.
Man’s life!
Luck’s blotted out by the slenderest shadow.
Trouble—a wet sponge wipes the slate empty.
That pain’s also nothing makes life a heartbreak.