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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AGAMEMNON: WELCOME TO AGAMEMNON, by AESCHYLUS Poet's Biography First Line: My reverend elders, worthy citizens Last Line: Sweet is escape from every harsh constraint. | |||
AESCHYLUS CLYT. My reverend Elders, worthy citizens, I shall not blush now to confess before you My amorous fondness; fear and diffidence Fade from us all in time. O 'tis not from Instruction I can tell The story of my own unhappy life All the long while my lord lay under Ilium. First for a woman 'tis a passing trial To sit forlorn at home with no man present, Always malignant rumours in her ears, One bawler tumbling on another's heels With cruel blows each heavier than the last: -- Wounds! if my lord had got as many wounds As rumour channelling to us homeward gave him, He had been more riddled than a net with holes. Or had his deaths but tallied with all tales! He might have been a second Geryon, Three-bodied, with a triple coverture Of earth above -- one for each several corpse. By reason of These cross malignant rumours, other hands Full many a time have set my desperate neck Free from the hanging noose, recovering me Against my dearest will. -- Hence too it is We see not present by our side this day The child, Orestes, in whose person dwell The pledges of our love; nor wonder at it: He rests in keeping of our trusty cousin, Strophius the Phocian, my forewarner oft Of danger on two scores, -- thy jeopardy At Troy, and fear of popular tumult hatching Plots in the lack of master, as 'tis common When the man's down the more to trample on him: Under which showing lies not trace of guile. For me, the gushing fountains of my tears Are e'en dried up, there's not a drop now left; And my late-rested eyes have suffered hurt From weeping o'er the lanterns lit for thee That still were unregarded. If I slept, The puniest whining of a pulsing gnat Would rouse me from beholding in my dreams More accidents to thee than could befall Within the time that was my bedfellow. Now, after all this borne, with heart unpined I hail my lord, safe watchdog of the fold, Main forestay of the ship, firm-footed pillar Bearing the roof up, sole-born child vouchsafed To father, to the wave-tossed seaman land, Bright day that greets the eyesight after storm, Well-water to the thirsty wayfarer! Sweet is escape from every harsh constraint. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRAGMENT FROM THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLOS by AESCHYLUS AGAMEMNON: CHORUS by AESCHYLUS AGAMEMNON: HELEN. CHORUS by AESCHYLUS AGAMEMNON: THE BEACONS by AESCHYLUS AGAMEMNON: THE PURPLE CARPER by AESCHYLUS AGAMEMNON: THE SACRIFICE OF IPHIGENIA. CHORUS by AESCHYLUS CHOEPHOROI: INVOCATION OF AGAMEMNON'S GHOST by AESCHYLUS CHOEPHOROI: ORESTES GOES MAD by AESCHYLUS CRY WOE, WOE, AND LET THE GOOD PREVAIL, FR. AGAMEMNON by AESCHYLUS |
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