aeschylus - Conscious Evolution TV

826-880 AGAMEMNON
Leapt tower and wall, and lapped a bellyful
Of tyrant blood.
So have I opened me
Unto the Gods. And yet I call your words
To mind; your counsel squares with my own
thoughts.
How rare it is in nature, when a man
Can spare his friend, if he stands well with Fortune,
Ungrudging honour! Nay, himself grown sick
In his estate, jealousy lays to his heart
A poison that can make his burden double;
He hath his own griefs, yet must heave more sighs
To see a neighbour happy! Ah, I know
That which I speak; I am too well acquaint
With friendship's glass, the reflex of a shadow;
I mean my professed friends. There was not one
Except Odysseus, the most loth to sail,
That like a horse of mettle pulled his weight,
And whether he be dead or alive, God knows.
Enough of this. We purpose presently
To call a Council touching the state of the realm
And the service of the Gods. What's sound, we shall
Take measures to perpetuate, but where
There's need of physic, we shall in all kindness
Use cautery or the knife, till we have rid
The land of mischief.
Now let me pass within;
And in my high house, mine own hearth, stretch
out
My right hand to the Gods, that sent me forth
And brought me safely home. So victory
That followed in my train attend me still.
CLYT AlMNESTRA comes to meet him.
Cl. Good citizens, our Argive seigniory,
I think no shame to speak of the dear love
I bear my lord. Our blushes wear not well;
They pale with time, and I need little schooling
To tell you life to me was weariness
Those years when he beleaguered Ilium.
Merely to sit at home without her lord
Is for a woman to know fearful sorrow.
Scarce hath one crack-voiced kill-joy cried his news
Than comes his fellow, clamouring far worse.
An if this mould of manhood, where he stands,
Had gotten wounds as many as Rumour digged
Channels to be the conduits of his blood
And help it home, he were as full of holes
As, with your leave, a net. Had he but died
As often as men's tongues reported him,
Another triple-bodied Geryon,
Three cloaks of earth's clay-not to pry too deep
And talk of under-strewments-three fair cloaks
Of clay for coverlid-thrice over dead
And buried handsomely as many times­
Conceive his boast-three corpses, a grave apiecel
Well, but these crabbed rumours made me mad;
And many times the noose was round my neck,
Had not my people, much against my will,
Untied the knot. And this will tell you why,
When looked for most, Orestes is not here,
Lord of our plighted loves to him impawned.
You must not think it strange. Your sworn ally,
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Strophius the Phocian, hath charged him with
The nurture of the child, foreshadowing
A double jeopardy; yours before Ilium,
And here, lest many-throated Anarchy
Should patch a plot; since 'tis a vice in nature
To trample down the fallen underfoot.
This was his argument, and I believe
Honestly urged. For me the fount of weeping
Hath long run dry, and there's no drop left. Ohl
These eyes, late watchers by the lamp that burned
For thee, but thou kept'st not thy tryst, are sOre
With all the tears they shed, thinking of thee.
How often from my sleep did the thin hum
And thresh of buzzing gna t rouse me! I dreamed
More sorrows for thy sake than Time, that played
The wanton with me, reckoned minutes while
I slept. All this ha,-eI gone through; and now,
Care-free I hail our mastiff of the fold,
Our ship's great mainstay, pillar pedestalled
To bear a soaring roof up, only son,
Landfall to sailors out of hope of land!
These are the great additions of his worth!
And, I pray God 'tis no offence to Heaven
To make them heard. We have had many sorrows,
And would provoke no more.
Dear Heart, come down;
Step from thy car, but not on the bare ground;
Thv foot that desolated Ilium,
Thou royal man, must never stoop so low!
Spread your rich stuffs before him, girls; make
haste!
That he may walk the purple-paved way
Where Justice leads him to his undreamed home.
My sleepless care shall manage all the rest
As Justice and the Heavenly Will approve.
Ag. Offspring of Leda, keeper of my house,
You match your much speech to my absence, both
Are something long; the rather that fine words
Come best from others'lips. Woman me not,
Nor like an eastern slave grovel before me
With your wide-mouthed, extravagant exclaim.
Away with all these strewments! Pave for me
No highway of offence! What can we more
When we would deify the deathless Gods!
But Man to walk these sacramental splendours,
It likes me not, and I do fear it. No,
Honour.me as the mortal thing I am,
Not as a God! A foot-cloth, that will pass;
But think how ill will sound on the tongues of
men
These veilings of the precincts! God's best gift
Is to live free from wicked thoughts; call no man
Happy, till his contented clay is cold.
Now I have told .thee how I mean to act,
And keep my conscience easy.
Cl. Tell me this,
And speak thy mind to me.
Ag. My mind's made up;
I'll not rase out mine own decree.
Cl. Would'st thou,
Faced with some fearful jeopardy, have made