Agamemnon

God hears his prayer, or, have they heard,
The man so base-beguiled
They cast to scorn.

Paris to Argos came;
Love of a woman led him;
So God’s altar he brought to shame,
Robbing the hand that fed him.

Helen’s flight; the visions seen by the King’s seers; the phantom of Helen and the King’s grief.

She hath left among her people a noise of shield and sword,
A tramp of men armèd where the long ships are moored;
She hath ta’en in her goings Desolation as a dower;
She hath stepped, stepped quickly, through the great gated Tower,
And the thing that could not be, it hath been!
And the Seers they saw visions,18 and they spoke of strange ill:
“A Palace, a Palace; and a great King thereof:
A bed, a bed empty, that was once pressed in love:
And thou, thou, what art thou? Let us be, thou so still,
Beyond wrath, beyond beseeching, to the lips reft of thee!”
For she whom he desireth is beyond the deep sea,
And a ghost in his castle shall be queen.

Images in sweet guise
Carven shall move him never,
Where is Love amid empty eyes?
Gone, gone for ever!

His dreams and his suffering; but the War that he made caused greater and wider suffering.

But a shape that is a dream, ’mid the phantoms of the night,
Cometh near, full of tears, bringing vain vain delight:
For in vain when, desiring, he can feel the joy’s breath
—Nevermore! Nevermore!⁠—from his arms it vanisheth,
On wings down the pathways of sleep.

In the mid castle hall, on the hearthstone of the Kings,
These griefs there be, and griefs passing these,
But in each man’s dwelling of the host that sailed the seas,
A sad woman waits; she has thoughts of many things,
And patience in her heart lieth deep.

Knoweth she them she sent,
Knoweth she? Lo, returning,
Comes in stead of the man that went
Armour and dust of burning.

The return of the funeral urns; the murmurs of the People.

And the gold-changer, Ares, who changeth quick for dead,
Who poiseth his scale in the striving of the spears,
Back from Troy sendeth dust, heavy dust, wet with tears,
Sendeth ashes with men’s names in his urns neatly spread.
And they weep over the men, and they praise them one by one,
How this was a wise fighter, and this nobly-slain⁠—
“Fighting to win back another’s wife!”
Till a murmur is begun,
And there steals an angry pain
Against Kings too forward in the strife.

There by Ilion’s gate
Many a soldier sleepeth,
Young men beautiful; fast in hate
Troy her conqueror keepeth.

For the Shedder of Blood is in great peril, and not unmarked by God. May I never be a Sacker of Cities!

But the rumour of the People, it is heavy, it is chill;
And though no curse be spoken, like a curse doth it brood;
And my heart waits some tiding which the dark holdeth still,
For of God not unmarked is the shedder of much blood.
And who conquers beyond right … Lo, the life of man decays;
There be Watchers dim his light in the wasting of the years;
He falls, he is forgotten, and hope dies.
There is peril in the praise
Over-praisèd that he hears;
For the thunder it is hurled from God’s eyes.

Glory that breedeth strife,
Pride of the Sacker of Cities;
Yea, and the conquered captive’s life,
Spare me, O God of Pities!

Divers Elders

—The fire of good tidings it hath sped the city through,
But who knows if a god mocketh? Or who knows if all be true?
’Twere the fashion of a child,
Or a brain dream-beguiled,
To be kindled by the first
Torch’s message as it burst,
And thereafter, as it dies, to die too.

—’Tis like a woman’s sceptre, to ordain
Welcome to joy before the end is plain!

—Too lightly opened are a woman’s ears;
Her fence downtrod by many trespassers,
And quickly crossed; but quickly lost
The burden of a woman’s hopes or fears. Here a break occurs in the action,19 like the descent of the curtain in a modern theatre. A space of some days is assumed to have passed and we find the Elders again assembled.

Leader

Soon surely shall we read the message right;
Were fire and beacon-call and lamps of light
True speakers, or but happy lights, that seem
And are not, like sweet voices in a dream.
I see a Herald yonder by the shore,
Shadowed with olive sprays. And from his sore
Rent raiment cries a witness from afar,
Dry Dust, born brother to the Mire of war,20
That mute he comes not, neither through the smoke
Of mountain forests shall his tale be spoke;
But either shouting for a joyful day,
Or else.⁠ ⁠… But other thoughts I cast away.
As good hath dawned, may good shine on, we pray!
—And whoso for this City prayeth aught
Else, let him reap the harvest of his thought! Enter the Herald,21 running. His garments are torn and war-stained. He falls upon his knees and kisses the Earth, and salutes each Altar in turn.

Herald

Land of my fathers! Argos! Am I here⁠ ⁠…
Home, home at this tenth shining of the year,
And all Hope’s anchors broken save this one!
For scarcely dared I dream, here in mine own
Argos at last to fold me to my rest.⁠ ⁠…
But now⁠—All Hail, O Earth! O Sunlight blest!
And Zeus Most High! Checking himself as he sees the altar of Apollo. And thou, O Pythian Lord;22
No more on us be thy swift arrows poured!
Beside Scamander well we learned how true
Thy hate is. Oh, as thou art Healer too,
Heal us! As thou art Saviour of the Lost,
Save also us, Apollo, being so tossed
With tempest!⁠ ⁠… All ye Daemons of the Pale!
And Hermes! Hermes, mine own guardian, hail!
Herald beloved, to whom all heralds bow.⁠ ⁠…
Ye Blessèd Dead that sent us, receive now
In love your children whom the spear hath spared.

O House of Kings, O roof-tree thrice-endeared,
O solemn thrones! O gods that face the sun!
Now, now, if ever in the days foregone,
After these many years, with eyes that burn,
Give hail and glory to your King’s return!
For Agamemnon cometh! A great light
Cometh to men and gods out