Agamemnon
- 380
Keep harm off, so that in himself he find
- 381
Sufficiency — the well-endowed of mind!
- 382
For there’s no bulwark in man’s wealth to him
- 383
Who, through a surfeit, kicks — into the dim
- 384
And disappearing — Right’s great altar.
- 385
Yes —
- 385a
It urges him, the sad persuasiveness,
- 386
Até’s insufferable child that schemes
- 387
Treason beforehand: and all cure is vain.
- 388
It is not hidden: out it glares again,
- 389
A light dread-lamping-mischief, just as gleams
- 390
The badness of the bronze;
- 391
Through rubbing, puttings to the touch,
- 392
Black-clotted is he, judged at once.
- 393
He seeks — the boy — a flying bird to clutch,
- 394
The insufferable brand
- 395
Setting upon the city of his land
- 396
Whereof not any god hears prayer;
- 397
While him who brought about such evils there,
- 398
That unjust man, the god in grapple throws.
- 399
Such an one, Paris goes
- 400
Within the Atreidai’s house —
- 401
Shamed the guest’s board by robbery of the spouse.
- 403
And, leaving to her townsmen throngs a-spread
- 404
With shields, and spear-thrusts of sea-armament,
- 405
And bringing Ilion, in a dowry’s stead,
- 406
Destruction — swiftly through the gates she went,
- 407
Daring the undareable. But many a groan outbroke
- 408
From prophets of the House as thus they spoke.
- 409
Woe, woe the House, the House and Rulers, — woe
- 410
The marriage-bed and dints
- 411
A husband’s love imprints!
- 412
There she stands silent! meets no honour — no
- 413
Shame — sweetest still to see of things gone long ago!
- 414
And, through desire of one across the main,
- 415
A ghost will seem within the house to reign.
- 416
And hateful to the husband is the grace
- 417
Of well-shaped statues: from — in place of eyes
- 418
Those blanks — all Aphrodite dies.
- 420
But dream-appearing mournful fantasies —
- 421
There they stand, bringing grace that’s vain.
- 423
For vain ’t is, when brave things one seems to view;
- 424
The fantasy has floated off, hands through;
- 425
Gone, that appearance, — nowise left to creep, —
- 426
On wings, the servants in the paths of sleep!
- 427
Woes, then, in household and on hearth, are such
- 428
As these—and woes surpassing these by much.
- 429
But not these only: everywhere —
- 429a
For those who from the land
- 429b
Of Hellas issued in a band,
- 430
Sorrow, the heart must bear,
- 431
Sits in the home of each, conspicuous there.
- 432
Many a circumstance, at least,
- 433
Touches the very breast.
- 434
For those
- 434a
Whom any sent away, — he knows:
- 434b
And in the live man’s stead,
- 435
Armour and ashes reach
- 436
The house of each.
- 437
For Ares, gold-exchanger for the dead,
- 438
And balance-holder in the fight o’ the spear,
- 439
Due-weight from Ilion sends —
- 440
What moves the tear on tear —
- 441
A charred scrap to the friends:
- 442
Filling with well-packed ashes every urn,
- 443
For man — that was — the sole return.
- 444
And they groan — praising much, the while,
- 445
Now this man as experienced in the strife,
- 446
Now that, fallen nobly on a slaughtered pile,
- 447
Because of — not his own — another’s wife.
- 448
But things there be, one barks,
- 449
When no man harks:
- 450
A surreptitious grief that’s grudge
- 451
Against the Atreidai who first sought the judge.
- 452
But some there, round the rampart, have
- 453
In Ilian earth, each one his grave:
- 454
All fair-formed as at birth,
- 455
It hid them — what they have and hold — the hostile earth.
- 456
And big with anger goes the city’s word,
- 457
And pays a debt by public curse incurred.
- 458
And ever with me— as about to hear
- 460
A something night-involved — remains my fear:
- 461
Since of the many-slayers — not
- 462
Unwatching are the gods.
- 463
The black Erinues, at due periods —
- 464
Whoever gains the lot
- 464a
Of fortune with no right —
- 465
Him, by life’s strain and stress
- 465a
Back-again-beaten from success,
- 466
They strike blind: and among the out-of-sight
- 467
For who has got to be, avails no might.
- 468
The being praised outrageously
- 469
Is grave, for at the eyes of such an one
- 470
Is launched, from Zeus, the thunder-stone.
- 471
Therefore do I decide
- 471a
For so much and no more prosperity
- 472
Than of his envy passes unespied.
- 473
Neither a city-sacker would I be,
- 474
Nor life, myself by others captive, see.
- 475
A swift report has gone our city through,
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Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0085.tlg005.perseus-eng4. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.