Monologue

Leader 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

male · contemplative · 1:43 min

All hail, O King! Hail, Atreus’ Son! Sacker of Cities! Ilion’s bane! With what high word shall I greet thee again, How give thee worship, and neither outrun The point of pleasure, nor stint too soon? For many will cling. To fair seeming The faster because they have sinned erewhile; And a man may sigh with never a sting Of grief in his heart, and a man may smile With eyes unlit and a lip that strains. But the wise Shepherd knoweth his sheep, And his eyes pierce deep The faith like water that fawns and feigns. But I hide nothing, O King. That day When in quest of Helen our battle array Hurled forth, thy name upon my heart’s scroll Was deep in letters of discord writ; And the ship of thy soul, Ill-helmed and blindly steered was it, Pursuing ever, through men that die, One wild heart that was fain to fly. But on this new day, From the deep of my thought and in love, I say “Sweet is a grief well ended;” And in time’s flow Thou wilt learn and know The true from the false, Of them that were left to guard the walls Of thine empty Hall unfriended. (During the above CLYTEMNESTRA has appeared on the Palace steps, with a train of Attendants, to receive her Husband.)

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