Classic Poem

Chor. And I — I pity her, and will not rage:
Come, thou poor sufferer, empty leave thy car;
Yield to thy doom, and handsel now the yoke.

Strophe I

Cass. Woe! woe, and well-a-day!
Apollo! O Apollo!
Chor. Why criest thou so loud on Loxias?
The wailing cry of mourner suits not him.

A NTISTROPHE I

Cass. Woe! woe, and well-a-day!
Apollo! O Apollo!
Chor. Again with boding words she calls the God,
Though all unmeet as helper to men's groans.

Strophe II

Cass. Apollo! O Apollo!
God of all paths, Apollo true to me;
For still thou dost appal me and destroy.
Chor. She seems her own ills like to prophesy:
The God's great gift is in the slave's mind yet.

A NTISTROPHE II

Cass. Apollo! O Apollo!
God of all paths, Apollo true to me;
What path hast led me? To what roof hast brought?
Chor. To that of the Atreidae. This I tell,
If thou know'st not. Thou wilt not find it false.

Strophe III

Cass. Ah! Ah! Ah me!
Say rather to a house God hates — that know!
Murder, self-slaughter, ropes,
A human shamble, staining earth with blood.
Chor. Keen scented seems this stranger, like a hound,
And sniffs to see whose murder she may find.

A NTISTROPHE III

Cass. Ah! Ah! Ah me!
Lo! there the witnesses whose word I trust, —
Those babes who wail their death
The roasted flesh that made a father' meal.
Chor. We of a truth had heard thy seeress fame,
But prophets now are not the race we seek.

Strophe IV

Cass. Ah me! O horror! What ill schemes she now?
What is this new great woe?
Great evil plots she in this very house,
Hard for its friends to bear, immedicable;
And help stands far aloof.
Chor. These oracles of thine surpass my ken;
Those I know well. The whole town rings with them.

A NTISTROPHE IV

Cass. Ah me! O daring one! what work'st thou here,
Who having in his bath
Tended thy spouse, thy lord, then ... How tell the rest?
For quick it comes, and hand is following hand,
Stretched out to strike the blow.
Chor. Still I discern not; after words so dark
I am perplexed with thy dim oracles.

Strophe V

Cass. Ah, horror, horror! What is this I see?
Is it a snare of Hell?
Nay, the true net is she who shares his bed,
Who shares in working death.
Ha! let the Band insatiable in hate
Howl for the race its wild exulting cry
O'er sacrifice that calls
For death by storm of stones.

Strophe VI

Chor. What dire Erinnys bidd'st thou o'er our house
To raise shrill cry? Thy speech but little cheers;
And to my heart there rush
Blood-drops of saffron hue,
Which, when from deadly wound
They fall, together with life's setting rays
End, as it fails, their own appointed course:
And mischief comes apace.

A NTISTROPHE V

Cass. See, see, I say, from that fell heifer there
Keep thou the bull: in robes
Entangling him, she with her weapon gores
Him with the swarthy horns;
Lo! in that bath with water filled he falls,
Smitten to death, and I to thee set forth
Crime of a bath of blood,
By murderous guile devised.

A NTISTROPHE VI

Chor. I may not boast that I keen insight have
In words oracular; yet bode I ill.
What tidings good are brought
By any oracles
To mortal men? These arts,
In days of evil sore, with many words,
Do still but bring a vague, portentous fear
For men to learn and know.

Strophe VII

Cass. Woe, woe! for all sore ills that fall on me!
It is my grief thou speak'st of, blending it
With his. Ah! wherefore then
Hast thou thus brought me here,
Only to die with thee?
What other doom is mine?

Strophe VIII

Chor. Frenzied art thou, and by some God's might swayed,
And utterest for thyself
A melody which is no melody,
Like to that tawny one,
Insatiate in her wail,
The nightingale, who still with sorrowing soul,
And " Itys, Itys, " cry,
Bemoans a life o'erflourishing in ills.

A NTISTROPHE VII

Cass. Ah, for the doom of clear-voiced nightingale!
The Gods gave her a body bearing wings,
And life of pleasant days
With no fresh cause to weep:
But for me waiteth still
Stroke from the two-edged sword.

A NTISTROPHE VIII

Chor. From what source hast thou these dread agonies
Sent on thee by thy God,
Yet vague and little meaning; and thy cries
Dire with ill-omened shrieks
Dost utter as a chant,
And blendest with them strains of shrillest grief?
Whence treadest thou this track
Of evil-boding path of prophecy?

Strophe IX

Cass. Woe for the marriage-ties, the marriage-ties
Of Paris that brought ruin on his friends!
Woe for my native stream,
Scamandros, that I loved!
Once on thy banks my maiden youth was reared,
(Ah, miserable me!)
Now by Cokytos and by Acheron's shores
I seem too likely soon to utter song
Of wild, prophetic speech.

Strophe X

Chor. What hast thou spoken now
With utterance all too clear?
Even a boy its gist might understand;
I to the quick am pierced
With throe of deadly pain,
Whilst thou thy moaning cries art uttering
Over thy sore mischance,
Wondrous for me to hear.

A NTISTROPHE IX

Cass. Woe for the toil and trouble, toil and trouble
Of city that is utterly destroyed!
Woe for the victims slain
Of herds that roamed the fields,
My father's sacrifice to save his towers!
No healing charm they brought
To save the city from its present doom:
And I with hot thoughts wild myself shall cast
Full soon upon the ground.

A NTISTROPHE X

Chor. This that thou utterest now
With all before agrees.
Some Power above dooms thee with purpose ill,
Down-swooping heavily,
To utter with thy voice
Sorrows of deepest woe, and bringing death.
And what the end shall be
Perplexes in the extreme.
Cass. Nay, now no more from out of maiden veils
My oracle shall glance, like bride fresh wed;
But seems as though 'twould rush with speedy gales
In full, clear brightness to the morning dawn;
So that a greater war than this shall surge
Like wave against the sunlight. Now I'll teach
No more in parables. Bear witness ye,
As running with me, that I scent the track
Of evil deeds that long ago were wrought:
For never are they absent from this house,
That choral band which chants in full accord,
Yet no good music; good is not their theme.
And now, as having drunk men's blood, and so
Grown wilder, bolder, see, the revelling band,
Erinnyes of the race, still haunt the halls,
Not easy to dismiss. And so they sing,
Close cleaving to the house, its primal woe,
And vent their loathing in alternate strains
On marriage-bed of brother ruthless found
To that defiler. Miss I now, or hit,
Like archer skilled? or am I seeress false,
A babbler vain that knocks at every door?
Yea, swear beforehand, ere I die, I know
(And not by rumour only) all the sins
Of ancient days that haunt and vex this house.
Chor. How could an oath, how firm soe'er confirmed,
Bring aught of healing? Lo, I marvel at thee,
That thou, though born far off beyond the sea,
Should'st tell an alien city's tale as clear
As though thyself had stood by all the while.
Cass. The seer Apollo set me to this task.
Chor. Was he a God, so smitten with desire?
Cass. There was a time when shame restrained my speech.
Chor. True; they who prosper still are shy and coy.
Cass. He wrestled hard, breathing hot love on me.
Chor. And were ye one in act whence children spring?
Cass. I promised Loxias, then I broke my vow.
Chor. Wast thou e'en then possessed with arts divine?
Cass. E'en then my country's woes I prophesied.
Chor. How wast thou then unscathed by Loxias' wrath?
Cass. I for that fault with no man gained belief.
Chor. To us, at least, thou seem'st to speak the truth.
Cass. Ah, woe is me! Woe's me! Oh, ills on ills!
Again the dread pang of true prophet's gift
With preludes of great evil dizzies me.
See ye those children sitting on the house
In fashion like to phantom forms of dreams?
Infants who perished at their own kin's hands,
Their palms filled full with meat of their own flesh,
Loom on my sight, the heart and entrails bearing,
(A sorry burden that!) on which of old
Their father fed. And in revenge for this,
I say a lion, dwelling in his lair,
With not a spark of courage, stay-at-home,
Plots 'gainst my master, now he's home returned,
(Yes mine — for still I must the slave's yoke bear;)
And the ship's ruler, Ilion's conqueror,
Knows not what things the tongue of that lewd bitch
Has spoken and spun out in welcome smooth,
And, like a secret Ate, will work out
With dire success: thus 'tis she plans: the man
Is murdered by the woman. By what name
Shall I that loathed monster rightly call?
An Amphisbaena? or a Skylla dwelling
Among the rocks, the sailors' enemy?
Hades' fierce raging mother, breathing out
Against her friends a curse implacable?
Ah, how she raised her cry, (oh, daring one!)
As for the rout of battle, and she feigns
To hail with joy her husband's safe return!
And if thou dost not credit this, what then?
What will be will. Soon, present, pitying me
Thou'lt own I am too true a prophetess.
Chor. Thyestes' banquet on his children's flesh
I know and shudder at, and fear o'ercomes me,
Hearing not counterfeits of fact, but truths;
Yet in the rest I hear and miss my path.
Cass. I say thou'lt witness Agamemnon's death.
Chor. Hush, wretched woman, close those lips of thine!
Cass. For this my speech no healing God's at hand.
Chor. True, if it must be; but may God avert it!
Cass. Thou utterest prayers, but others murder plot.
Chor. And by what man is this dire evil wrought?
Cass. Sure, thou hast seen my bodings all amiss.
Chor. I see not his device who works the deed.
Cass. And yet I speak the Hellenic tongue right well.
Chor. So does the Pythian, yet her words are hard.
Cass. Ah me, this fire! It comes upon me now!
Ah me, Apollo, wolf-slayer! woe is me!
This biped lioness who takes to bed
A wolf in absence of the noble lion,
Will slay me, wretched me. And, as one
Mixing a poisoned draught, she boasts that she
Will put my price into her cup of wrath,
Sharpening her sword to smite her spouse with death,
So paying him for bringing me. Oh, why
Do I still wear what all men flout and scorn,
My wand and seeress wreaths around my neck?
Thee, ere myself I die I will destroy:
Perish ye thus: I soon shall follow you:
Make rich another Ate in my place;
Behold Apollo's self is stripping me
Of my divining garments, and that too,
When he has seen me even in this garb
Scorned without cause among my friends and kin,
By foes, with no diversity of mood.
Reviled as vagrant, wandering prophetess,
Poor, wretched, famished, I endured to live:
And now the Seer who me a seeress made
Hath brought me to this lot of deadly doom.
Now for my father's altar there awaits me
A butcher's block, where I am smitten down
By slaughtering stroke, and with hot gush of blood.
But the Gods will not slight us when we're dead;
Another yet shall come as champion for us,
A son who slays his mother, to avenge
His father; and the exiled wanderer
Far from his home, shall one day come again,
Upon these woes to set the coping-stone:
For the high Gods have sworn a mighty oath,
His father's fall, laid low, shall bring him back.
Why then do I thus groan in this new home,
When, to begin with, Ilion's town I saw
Faring as it did fare, and they who held
That town are gone by judgment of the Gods?
I too will fare as they, and venture death:
So I these gates of Hades now address,
And pray for blow that bringeth death at once,
That so with no fierce spasm, while the blood
Flows in calm death, I then may close mine eyes.
Chor. O thou most wretched, yet again most wise:
Long hast thou spoken, lady, but if well
Thou know'st thy doom, why to the altar go'st thou,
Like heifer driven of God, so confidently?
Cass. For me, my friends, there is no time to 'scape.
Chor. Yea; but he gains in time who comes the last.
Cass. The day is come: small gain for me in flight.
Chor. Know then thou sufferest with a heart full brave.
Cass. Such words as these the happy never hear.
Chor. Yet mortal man may welcome noble death.
Cass. Woe's me for thee and thy brave sons, my father!
Chor. What cometh now? What fear oppresseth thee?
Cass. Fie on't, fie!
Chor. Whence comes this " Fie? " unless from mind that loathes?
Cass. The house is tainted with the scent of death.
Chor. How so? This smells of victims on the hearth.
Cass. Nay, it is like the blast from out a grave.
Chor. No Syrian ritual tell'st thou for our house.
Cass. Well then I go, and e'en within will wail
My fate and Agamemnon's. And for me,
Enough of life. Ah, friends! Ah! not for nought
I shrink in fear, as bird shrinks from the brake.
When I am dead do ye this witness bear,
When in revenge for me, a woman, Death
A woman smites, and man shall fall for man
In evil wedlock wed. This friendly office,
As one about to die, I pray you do me.
Chor. Thy doom foretold, poor sufferer, moves my pity.
Cass. I fain would speak once more, yet not to wail
Mine own death-song; but to the Sun I pray,
To his last rays, that my avengers wreak
Upon my hated murderers judgment due
For me, who die a slave's death, easy prey.
Ah, life of man! when most it prospereth,
It is but limned in outline; and when brought
To low estate, then doth the sponge, full soaked,
Wipe out the picture with its frequent touch:
And this I count more piteous e'en than that.