Monologue

Clytemnestra Monologue from The Agamemnon of Aeschylus Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes

From The Agamemnon of Aeschylus Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes by Aeschylus

female · defiant · 2:16 min

Oh, lies enough and more have I this day Spoken, which now I shame not to unsay. How should a woman work, to the utter end, Hate on a damnèd hater, feigned a friend; How pile perdition round him, hunter-wise, Too high for overleaping, save by lies? To me this hour was dreamed of long ago; A thing of ancient hate. ’Twas very slow In coming, but it came. And here I stand Even where I struck, with all the deed I planned Done! ’Twas so wrought—what boots it to deny?— The man could neither guard himself nor fly. An endless web, as by some fisher strung, A deadly plenteousness of robe, I flung All round him, and struck twice; and with two cries His limbs turned water and broke; and as he lies I cast my third stroke in, a prayer well-sped To Zeus of Hell, who guardeth safe his dead! So there he gasped his life out as he lay; And, gasping, the blood spouted … Like dark spray That splashed, it came, a salt and deathly dew; Sweet, sweet as God’s dear rain-drops ever blew O’er a parched field, the day the buds are born! … Which things being so, ye Councillors high-born, Depart in joy, if joy ye will. For me, I glory. Oh, if such a thing might be As o’er the dead thank-offering to outpour, On this dead it were just, aye, just and more, Who filled the cup of the House with treacheries Curse-fraught, and here hath drunk it to the lees!

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