Mine eyes are sick with vigil, endlessly
Weeping the beacon-piles that watched for thee
For ever answerless. And did I dream,
A gnat’s thin whirr would start me, like a scream
Of battle, and show me thee by terrors swept,
Crowding, too many for the time I slept.
From all which stress delivered and free-souled,
I greet my lord: O watchdog of the fold,
O forestay sure that fails not in the squall,
O strong-based pillar of a towering hall;
O single son to a father age-ridden;
O land unhoped for seen by shipwrecked men;
Sunshine more beautiful when storms are fled;
Spring of quick water in a desert dead. …
How sweet to be set free from any chain!
These be my words to greet him home again.
No god shall grudge them. Surely I and thou
Have suffered in time past enough! And now
Dismount, O head with love and glory crowned,
From this high car; yet plant not on bare ground
Thy foot, great King, the foot that trampled Troy.
Ho, bondmaids, up! Forget not your employ,
A floor of crimson broideries to spread
For the King’s path. Let all the ground be red
Where those feet pass; and Justice, dark of yore,
Home light him to the hearth he looks not for!
What followeth next, our sleepless care shall see
Ordered as God’s good pleasure may decree. The attendants spread tapestries of crimson34 and gold from the Chariot to the Door of the Palace. Agamemnon does not move.
Daughter of Leda, watcher of my fold,
In sooth thy welcome, grave and amply told,
Fitteth mine absent years. Though it had been
Seemlier, methinks, some other, not my Queen,
Had spoke these honours. For the rest, I say,
Seek not to make me soft in woman’s way;
Cry not thy praise to me wide-mouthed, nor fling
Thy body down, as to some barbarous king.
Nor yet with broidered hangings strew my path,
To awake the unseen ire. ’Tis God that hath
Such worship; and for mortal man to press
Rude feet upon this broidered loveliness …
I vow there is danger in it. Let my road
Be honoured, surely; but as man, not god.
Rugs for the feet and yonder broidered pall …
The names ring diverse! … Aye, and not to fall
Suddenly blind is of all gifts the best
God giveth, for I reckon no man blest
Ere to the utmost goal his race be run.
So be it; and if, as this day I have done,
I shall do always, then I fear no ill.
Tell me but this,36 nowise against thy will …
My will, be sure, shall falter not nor fade.
Was this a vow in some great peril made?
Enough! I have spoke my purpose, fixed and plain.
Were Priam the conqueror … Think, would he refrain?
Oh, stores of broideries would be trampled then!
Lord, care not for the cavillings of men!
The murmur of a people hath strange weight.
Who feareth envy, feareth to be great.
’Tis graceless when a woman strives to lead.
When a great conqueror yields, ’tis grace indeed,
So in this war thou must my conqueror be?
Yield! With good will to yield is victory!
Well, if I needs must … Be it as thou hast said!
Quick! Loose me these bound slaves37 on which I tread,
And while I walk yon wonders of the sea
God grant no eye of wrath be cast on me
From far! The Attendants untie his shoes. For even now it likes me not
To waste mine house, thus marring underfoot
The pride thereof, and wondrous broideries
Bought in far seas with silver. But of these
Enough.—And mark, I charge thee, this princess38
Of Ilion; tend her with all gentleness.
God’s eye doth see, and loveth from afar,
The merciful conqueror. For no slave of war
Is slave by his own will. She is the prize
And chosen flower of Ilion’s treasuries,
Set by the soldiers’ gift to follow me.
Now therefore, seeing I am constrained by thee
And do thy will, I walk in conqueror’s guise
Beneath my Gate, trampling sea-crimson dyes. As he dismounts and sets foot on the Tapestries Clytemnestra’s women utter again their Cry of Triumph. The people bow or kneel as he passes.
There is the sea—its caverns who shall drain?—
Breeding of many a purple-fish the stain
Surpassing silver, ever fresh renewed,
For robes of kings. And we, by right indued,
Possess our fill thereof. Thy house, O King,
Knoweth no stint, nor lack of anything.
What trampling of rich raiment, had the cry39
So sounded in the domes of prophesy,
Would I have vowed these years, as price to pay
For this dear life in peril far away!
Where the root is, the leafage cometh soon
To clothe an house, and spread its leafy boon
Against the burning star; and, thou being come,
Thou, on the midmost hearthstone of thy home,
Oh, warmth in winter leapeth to thy sign.
And when God’s summer melteth into wine
The green grape, on that house shall coolness fall
Where the true man, the master, walks his hall.
Zeus, Zeus! True Master, let my prayers be true!
And, oh, forget not that thou art willed to do! She follows Agamemnon into the Palace.40 The retinues of both King and Queen go in after them. Cassandra remains.
Strophe 1
What is this that evermore,
A cold terror at the door
Of this bosom presage-haunted,
Pale as death hovereth?
While a song unhired, unwanted,
By some inward prophet chanted,
Speaks the secret at its core;
And to cast it from my blood
Like a dream not understood
No sweet-spoken Courage now
Sitteth at my heart’s dear prow.
Yet I know that manifold
Days, like sand, have waxen old
Since the day those shoreward-thrown
Cables flapped and line on line
Standing forth for Ilion
The long galleys took the brine
Antistrophe 1
And in harbour—mine own eye
Hath beheld—again they lie;
Yet that lyreless music hidden
Whispers still words of ill,
’Tis the Soul of me unbidden,
Like some Fury sorrow-ridden,
Weeping over things that die.
Neither waketh in my sense
Ever Hope’s dear confidence;
For this
