-
Agamemnon : Two Excerpts
- PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
- The MIT Press
- PAJ 75 (Volume 25, Number 3), September 2003
- pp. 127-131
- Article
- Additional Information
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 25.3 (2003) 127-131
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Agamemnon:
Two Excerpts
Translated by Carl R. Mueller
I
(Opening Sequence.)
Night.
Mykenê, in Argos.
Outside the royal palace.
A WATCHMAN sits on the palace roof.
GUARDS stand below.
WATCHMAN:
Gods, I pray for an end,
an end to my pain,
an end to my yearlong watch!
I crouch here,
dog-like,
on the roof of the palace
of Atreus' sons,
and know by heart
the gatherings of the stars,
those glittering lords,
dazzling in the firmament,
that bring us winter and summer.
I know them all,
their comings and their goings.
I search even now
for a gleam, a beacon flash
in the dismal vault,
news from Troy that the city
has fallen.
Mykenê's queen, my mistress
Klytaimnêstra,
who rules here now [End Page 127]
with the confidence and the hard
will of a man—
how she waits for that word!
At night
when I wander the roof
to ease my pain,
my boredom,
restlessly, endlessly,
or lie down on my dew-drenched bed,
no dreams come.
But Fear is there,
never leaving,
never relenting,
a cruel guard against flagging eyes,
insidious sleep.
And so I whistle, I hum,
to guard against sleep,
I moan, I sigh with the thought
of how once this house
was blessed by the gods,
but now is cursed.
Gods, let it come,
the end,
let it come,
the end to my pain,
let the good news come!
Break through the dark!
A beacon in the dismal night!
(A distant pinpoint of light cuts through the dark.)
A light!
A light!
There in the dark!
A light in the sky!
A beacon in the night!
Blessèd, blessèd light!
Holy, blessèd light!
Beam of day,
beacon of hope,
bringing dawn to Argos!
Argos will thank you with
dancing for your blessing! [End Page 128]
IOOOO! IOOOO!
(To the GUARDS below.)
The sign has come!
The beacon!
Run! Tell her!
Agamemnon's wife!
The sign she's waited for!
Wake her from sleep!
Let her dance through the palace!
Shout for joy,
shouts of jubilation,
for the beacon is here,
flaming in the night!
Tell her come greet the flame!
Troy has fallen!
(The GUARDS hurry into the palace.)
If only it's true.
O I pray to the gods it's true,
this flame,
and Troy is taken,
for then
I'll dance and sing,
for my master's throw
will have been lucky and I'll
turn it to my own good,
for this flame has thrown me triple sixes!
If only he were here now,
my master, Agamemnon,
and I could hold his dear hand in mine.
But I'll say no more.
"An ox sits on my tongue,"
as the adage has it.
O if these walls had a voice,
what tales they could tell.
As for me,
I speak to those who know,
you know?
To those who don't,
I don't.
(Exit the WATCHMAN through the palace roof.) [End Page 129]
II
(The central doors open and enter SLAVES with the corpses of AGAMEMNON and KASSANDRA which they toss to the ground. KLYTAIMNÊSTRA enters close behind and stands triumphantly above them with bloodied sword.)KLYTAIMNÊSTRA:
Words.
Many.
Many, many words have I
spoken, words to suit the
moment, cautious
words, but here's an
end,
an end without
shame.
I've paid my debt.
Blood with blood.
Hate with hate.
How else could I have
strung my nets of doom high enough
to prevent overleaping? How else
have trapped an enemy who pretended loving
friendship?
And now it's done.
And I have won.
And I stand here where I struck to end the agony
of my long planning, this ancient
curse, years-long in the fermenting,
and he never knew,
there was no escape, no way
to ward off death. And I deny
none of it,
none.
I catch him then like a fish,
in a mesh of rich
webbing, and I strike, I
strike, strike twice,
twice...