Epeisodion 4
Agamemnon
O fate revered, O destiny, and my fortune!
Clytemnestra
Yes, and mine and hers too; the three share one bad fortune.
Agamemnon
Whom have I injured?
Clytemnestra
Do you ask this question? A thought like that itself amounts to tboughtlessness.
Agamemnon
Ruined! my secret betrayed!
1140
Clytemnestra
I know all; I have heard what you are bent on doing to me.Paley regards this line as spurious; the use of σύ, where no emphasis seems intended, is his main reason for rejecting it. Your very silence and those frequent groans are a confession; do not tire yourself by telling it.
Agamemnon
See, I am silent; for why should I tell you a falsehood,
and add effrontery to misfortune?
1145
Clytemnestra
Well, now listen; for I will unfold my meaning and no longer employ dark riddles. In the first place—to reproach you first with this—it was not of my own free will but by force that you took and wed me,
after slaying Tantalus, my former husband, and dashingReading προσούδισας πέδῳ (Scaliger) and ζῶν (Musgrave) for the MSS. σῷ προσούρισας πάλῳ, which Hermann explains as meaning having added him to yoar share in the division of the spoils. Hartung gives προσώρισας. my baby on the ground when you had torn him from my breast with brutal violence. Then those two sons of Zeus, who were my brothers, came flashing on horseback to war with you;
1150
but Tyndareus, my old father, rescued you because of your suppliant prayers, and you in turn had me to wife. Once I was reconciled to you upon this footing, you will bear me witness I have been a blameless wife to you and your family, chaste in love,
1155
an honor to your house, that so your coming in might be with joy and your going out with gladness. And it is seldom a man secures a wife like this, though the getting of a worthless woman Is no rarity.
1160
Besides three daughters, of one of whom you are heartlessly depriving me,
I am the mother of this son of yours. If anyone asks you your reason for slaying her, tell me, what will you say? or must I say it for you? It is that Menelaus may recover Helen. An honorable exchange, indeed, to pay a wicked woman’s price in children’s lives!
1165
It is buying what we most detestReading τἄχθιστα τοῖσι. with what we hold most dear. Again, if you go forth with the army, leaving me in your halls and are long absent at Troy, what will my feelings be at home, do you think? when I behold each vacant chair
1170
and her chamber now deserted, and then sit down alone in tears, making ceaseless lamentation for her, Ah! my child, he that begot you has slain you himself, he and no one else, nor are was it by another’s hand,Paley thinks a line has here fallen out to the effect, How wilt thou dare to return to thy wife and . . . Monks rejects l. 1179; omitting it, the sense might be continuous, thus; Thy father was the real murderer and no one else; for it only needed a slight excuse on thy part and the sacrifice might have been prevented . . .; but this is extremely awkward, and Paley’s view is preferable. leaving behind him such a return to his home.
1175
For it needsReading ἐνδεῖ with Reiske. now only a trifling pretext for me and the daughters remaining to give you the reception it is right you should receive. I adjure you by the gods, do not compel me to sin against you, or sin yourself.
1180
Well; suppose you sacrifice the child; what prayer will you utter, when it is done? what will the blessing be that you will invoke upon yourself as you are slaying our daughter? An ill returning, seeing the disgrace that speeds your going forth? Is it right that I should pray for any luck to attend you? Surely we should deem the gods devoid of sense,
1185
if we harbored a kindly feeling towards murder? Shall you embrace your children on your coming back to Argos? No, you have no right. Will any child of yours ever face you, if you have surrendered one of them to death?Reading ἐὰν σφῶν προέμενος, as Nauck edits from the joint correction of Hartung and Elmsley. Has this ever entered into your calculations, or does your one duty consist
1190
in carrying a scepter about and marching at the head of an army? When you might have made this fair proposal among the Argives; Is it your wish, Achaeans, to sail for Phrygia’s shores? Why then, cast lots whose daughter has to die. For that would have been a fair course for you to pursue, instead of picking out
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