The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

klai/w to&t' oi1kou tou~de sumfora_n ste/nwn
ou)x w(j ta_ pro&sq' a1rista diaponoume/nou.
20 nu~n d' eu)tuxh_j ge/noit' a)pallagh_ po&nwn
eu)agge/lou fane/ntoj o)rfnai/ou puro&j.
WATCHMAN
I ask the gods for release from this misery, the
year-long watch I lie awake keeping on the roof
of the Atreidae, up above here like a dog;
I am familiar now with the night stars’ assembly,
and those brilliant potentates which bring men summer
and winter, conspicuous in the heaven;
I mark them closely as they fade, and the risings of others.
And now I am on watch for a beacon’s sign, a gleam of fire
bringing word from Troy and report of its capture: such is the
power here of a woman whose heart in its hope plans like a man.
Whenever I find myself shifting my bed about at night, wet with
dew, unvisited by dreams—because fear instead of sleep stands
at my side to stop my eyes closing fast in slumber—and whenever
I think to sing or to hum, dispensing this remedy from music against sleep,
then I weep in lament for this house’s misfortune;
it is not managed for the best as it was before. Now I wish for a happy
release from misery when the fire in the dark has appeared with its good
news.
7
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 604-610 V B.C.
Text: D. L. Page, ed., Aeschyli. Septem quae supersunt tragoedias (Oxford, 1972).
Translation: C. Collard, tr., Aeschylus. Oresteia (Oxford, 2002).
KLUTEMNUSTRA
tau~t' a)pa&ggeilon po&sei,
605 h3kein o3pwj ta&xist' e0ra&smion po&lei:
gunai=ka pisth_n d' e0n do&moij eu3roi molw_n
oi3anper ou}n e1leipe, dwma&twn ku&na
e0sqlh_n e0kei/nwi, polemi/an toi=j du&sfrosin,
kai\ ta1ll' o(moi/an pa&nta, shmanth&rion
610 ou)de\n diafqei/rasan e0n mh&kei xro&nou:
CLYTEMNESTRA
Take this message away to my husband,
to come as soon as possible; he is the city’s beloved darling.
As to his wife, I wish he may find her when he comes
just as faithful in his home as the one he left behind, the house’s watchdog
true to him while hostile to ill-wishers
and similar in everything else,
340