Mythology Exam 3

WATCHMAN

I cry the news aloud to Agamemnon’s queen, that she may rise up from her bed of state with speed to raise the rumor of gladness welcoming this beacon, and singing rise, if truly the citadel fo Ilium had fallen, as the shining of the flare proclaims.

Chorus

So drives Zeus, the great god of guests the a against Alexander: for one woman’s promiscuous sake the struggling masses, legs tired, knees grinding in dust, spears broken I the onset.

Chorus leader and Clytemnestra

The charm, then, of some rumor, that made rich your hope?

Am I some young girl, that you find my thoughts so silly?

Clytemnestra

The Acheans have their midnight work after the fighting that sets them down to feed on al the city has, ravenous, headlong, by no rank and file assigned,

Clytemnestra

And if they reverence the gods who hold the city and all the holy temples of the captured land, they, the despoilers, might not be despoiled in turn.

Clytemnestra

Oh, let there be no fresh wrong done! Such are the thoughts you hear from me, a woman merely.

Herald

Soil fo my fathers, Argive earth I tread upon, in daylight of the tenth year I have come back to you. All my hopes broke but one, this I have at last. I never could have dared to dream that I might die in Argos, and be buried in this beloved soil.

Clytemnestra

I raised my cry of joy, and it was long ago when the first beacon flare of message came by night to speak of capture and of Ilium’s overthrow. But there was one who laughed at me, who said: “You trust in beacons so, and you believe that Troy has fallen? How like a woman, for the heart to lift so light.”

Clytemnestra

Come, with speed, back tot he city that longs for him, and may he find a wife within his house as true as on the day he left her, watchdog of the house gentle to him alone, fierce to his enemies, and such a woman in all her ways as this, who has not broken the seal upon her in the length of days, With no man else I have known delight, nor any shame of evil speech, more than I know how to temper bronze

Agamemnon

To Argos first, and to the gods within the land, I must give due greeting; they have worked with me to bring me home;

Clytemnestra

Grave gentleman of Argolis assembled here, I take no shame to speak to aloud before you all the love I bear my husband. In the lapse of time modesty fades; it is human

Clytemnestra

Such is my greeting to him, that he well deserves. Let none bear malice; for the harm that went before I took, and it was great.

Agamemnon

Daughter of Leda, you who kept my house for me, there is one way your welcome matched my absence well. You strained it to great length

Agamemnon

So much for all this. Take this stranger girl within now, and be kind. The conqueror who uses softly his power is watched benevolently by god from afar,

Cassandra

What does it matter now if men believe of no? What is to come will come. And soon you too will stand beside, the murmur pity that my words were true.

Clytemnestra

Much have I said before to serve necessity, but I will feel no shame now to unsay it all. How else could I , alarming hate against hateful men disguised in seeming tenderness, fence high the nets of ruin beyond overleaping.

Clytemnestra

Deadly abundance of rich robes , and caught him fast. I struck him twice. In two great cries of agony he buckled at the knees and fell. When he was down I struck him the third blow, in thanks and reverence. to Zeus beneath the ground, the prayed-for Savior of the dead.

Oedipus

I pity you, children. You have come full of longing, but I have known the story before you told it only too well. I know you are all sick, yet there is not one of you, sick though you are, that is as sick as I myself. Your several sorrows each have single scope and touch but one of you.

Oedipus

Upon the murderer I invoke this curse—whether he is one man and all unknown, or one of many— may he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom! If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth O pray that I myself may feel my curse.

Teiresias

Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise! This I knew well, but had forgotten it, else I would not have come here.

Ismene

We must remember that we two are women, so not to fight with men; and that since we are subject to stronger power we must head these orders, or any that may be worse.

Antigone

If that’s your saying, I shall hate you first, and next the dead will hate you in all justice. But let me and my own ill counseling suffer this terror.. I shall suffer nothing so great as to stop me dying with honor.

Creon

Each by each other’s hand, now it comes that I hold all the power and the royal throne through close connection with the perished men. You cannot learn of any man the soul, the mind, and the intent until he shows his practice of the government and law.

Creon

Ans further, as I still revere great Zeus, understand this, I tell you under oath: if you don’t find the very man whose hands buried the corpse and bring him for me to see, not death alone shall be enough for you till living, strung up, you make clear the crime.

Antigone

For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind. Nor did I think your orders were so strong that you, a mortal man, could overrun the gods’ unwritten and unfailing lawss.

Antigone

And if you think my acts are foolishness the foolishness may be in a fool’s eye

Creon

I am no man and she the man instead

Ismene

I did the deed if she agrees I did.

Creon

Whoever breeds a child that will not help, what has he sown but trouble for himself, and for his enemies laughter full and free? Son, do not let your lust mislead your mind, all for a woman’s sake

Creon

To take her where the foot of man comes not. There shall I hide her in a hollowed cave living, and leave her just so much to eat as clears the city from the guilt of death, There, if she prays to Death, the only god of her respect, she may manage not to die. Or she may learn at last, though much too late, how honoring the dead is wasted labor.

Aphrodite (Cypris)

Her suffering shall not weigh in the scale so much that I should let my enemies go untouched.

Servant

O sovereign Cypris, we must not imitate young men when they have such thoughts as these. As fits a slave to speak, here at your image I pray and worship. You should be forgiving when one that has a young tempestuous heart speaks foolish words. Seem not to hear them. You should be wiser than mortals, being gods.

Nurse

The life of humankind is complete misery: we find no resting place from calamity

Nurse

If you are sick and it is some unmentionable malady, here are women standing at your side to help. But if your trouble may be told to men, speak, that doctor may pronounce upon it. So, not a word! Oh, why will you not speak? There is no remedy in silence child.