Chapter 17, The Return from Troy
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♠ Aischylos, Agamemnon 1126-29
She has caught him in the robe (peploi) and gores him with the crafty device of her black horn! He falls in a vessel of water! It is of doom wrought by guile in a murderous bath that I am telling you. Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Agamemnon 1381-92
Round him, as if to catch a haul of fish, I cast an impassable net—fatal wealth of robe—so that he should neither escape nor ward off doom. Twice I struck him, and with two groans [1385] his limbs relaxed. Once he had fallen, I dealt him yet a third stroke to grace my prayer to the infernal Zeus, the savior of the dead. Fallen thus, he gasped away his life, and as he breathed forth quick spurts of blood, [1390] he struck me with dark drops of gory dew; while I rejoiced no less than the sown earth is gladdened in heaven’s refreshing rain at the birthtime of the flower buds. Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Choephoroi 1011
dyed by Aegisthus’ sword Greek Text
♠ Homer, Odyssey 11.421-24
But the most piteous cry that I heard was that of the daughter of Priam, Cassandra, whom guileful Clytemnestra slew by my side. And I sought to raise my hands and smite down the murderess, dying though I was, pierced through with the sword. Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Agamemnon 877-85
It is for this reason, in fact, that our boy, Orestes, does not stand here beside me, as he should—he in whom rest the pledges of my love and yours. Nor should you think this strange. [880] For he is in the protecting care of our well-intentioned ally, Strophius of Phocis, who warned me of trouble on two scores—your own peril beneath Ilium‘s walls, and then the chance that the people in clamorous revolt might overturn the Council, as it is natural [885] for men to trample all the more upon the fallen. Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Agamemnon 1625-27
Chorus
Woman that you are! Skulking at home and awaiting the return of the men from war, all the while defiling a hero’s bed, did you contrive this death against a warrior chief? Greek Text
♠ Aischylos, Agamemnon 1633-37
Chorus
As if you would ever truly be my master here in Argos, you who did contrive our king’s death, and [1635] then had not the courage to do this deed of murder with your own hand!
Aegisthus
Because to ensnare him was clearly the woman’s part; I was suspect as his enemy of old. Greek Text
Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, February 2023
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