Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/254

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS to us, there are one or two valuable for little more than their illustration of the birth of the Attic drama, we are compensated by the preservation, not only of the sublime Prometheus Desmotes, but of the three, intense in human interest, the Agamemnon, Choëphoroi, and Eumenides, which make the Oresteian Trilogy complete. It is the one, the priceless trilogy which has come down from its author and its age. In Agamemnon the King is slain by the direful hand of Klytæmnestra herself, who then and there became the typical murderess of all aftertime. The Homeric story is discarded, and the wife kills her lord as he emerges from the bath, entangling him first in a garment as a fish in a net. Leading up to the climax of the tragedy we have a dialogue, outside the palace, between the captive Kassandra and the old men of Argos who compose the chorus. In translation I have, with few exceptions, followed Paley's text:

[Æsch., Agam. 1266-1318.]

CHORUS—KASSANDRA—AGAMEMNON

Chor.—O wretched woman indeed, and O most wise,

Much hast thou said; but if thou knowest well

Thy doom, why, like a heifer, by the Gods

Led to the altar, tread so brave of soul?

Kass.—There's no escape, O friends, the time is full.

Chor.—Natheless, the last to enter gains in time.

Kass.—The day has come; little I make by flight.

Chor.—Thou art bold indeed, and of a daring spirit!

Kass.—Such sayings from the happy none hath heard.

Chor.—Grandly to die is still a grace to mortals.

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