Chorus A/ The Watchman Lines

Oresteia

CLYTEMNESTRA: “Deaf to the wailing of women over bodies.”

They sleep,

CHORUS G: “Surely nothing / can harm them now.”

Surely nothing can harm them now

CLYTEMNESTRA: “…I must prepare to greet my returning hero.”

Why is no one rejoicing? The war is finished.

CHORUS I: “Our / king.”

Our king.

CHORUS I: “We thought he was a man who could do anything.”

Anything

CHORUS F: “Any terrible thing” *pause*

But what choice / did we have?

CHORUS B: “He was our king.”

He was our king. We gave him / what he wanted.

CHORUS G: “At the scent of so much slaughter and swagger.”

Foreboding / Wakes

*Agamemnon enters*

Great King!

CHORUS I AND B: “Great King.”

Welcome Home! -pause- We have not prepared a way to address you.

CLYTEMNESTRA: “And now, Justice, perfect me.” *follows agamemnon into the house - moment of silence*

This terror that has ruled me for so long, why won’t you release me?

CHORUS B: “Our fleet is restored, our long desires realized.”

And yet

CHORUS I: “And yet”

And yet

CHORUS D: “And yet”

Today is exultant

CHORUS B: “All our prayers answered”

And yet

CHORUS I AND C: “And yet”

And yet

CHORUS I: “Why do these black wings rustle in my chest?”

Deep in the darkness of my fisted heart a match is struck to light the bright little fire of dread.”

CLYTEMNESTRA: “…she can bloody her mouth, but she’ll have to take it to the bit in time” *she exits back into the house*

Come on now, it’s time. Come. Just get it over with, submit.

CHORUS H: “Broken things and ruined lives.”

Things to fix,

CASSANDRA: “This is the killing floor of innocents”

That ancient story, the dog has caught the scent, tracked the blood-

CASSANDRA: “But what is happening? Up the stairs, out of sight. The sound of the water? The wife welcoming her beloved, no, despised, bully, no, victim, no,…”

This makes no sense.

CHORUS I: “Why is she so bitter with us? We didn’t do this to her.”

It’s her nightmare, that’s all.

CHORUS B: “To fear something is to create it.”

Their visions climb into our heads and make themselves at home.

CHORUS B: “So we can forget it for good?”

The past. Which is not past.

CHORUS F: “Or something I know I don’t know.” (another sound)

Do I remember this?

CHORUS G: “-when we finally realize this is no dream, no vision-”

-this is no dream-

CHORUS G: “why are we never, ever-”

-never, ever-

CLYTEMNESTRA: “…Oh the glory of it. The Rightness. My arm is heavy with justice.”

Oh, my king. Where do we live now? A place where this can happen?

CHORUS B: “Trying to ignore the creaking of the rafters and the rumbles from beneath the floorboards. Sounds of the household’s two sovereign deities biding their time.”

In the basement, the ancient lion spirit of household memory circles, then settles onto his haunches and looks up.

CHORUS C: What she might make us become.

Can we ever be released from the past?

CHORUS H: “What mercy can we hope for from the future?”

The corrupting blood of the old stories never dries.

Chorus B: “They will see to / that.”

They will see to / that.

CHORUS C: “Blood on Blood”

Crime on crime

CHORUS F: “That’s the question.”

No. Something else is being demanded of us. Something-

CHORUS C: “-Something, a problem must be-”

Him. This man here. The question is: what will we do with him?

CHORUS C: “If there is a judgement to be made, it seems… we are the ones to do it.”

Yes. This is a human problem and it demands a human solution.

CHORUS I: “Wait! This isn’t right, this isn’t-”

Something more has been asked of us than to just-

CHORUS C: “No matter what they did, they deserve something from us, something / like-”

What they deserve is justice.

CHORUS C: “We do. We have a part in these crimes. But after the catastrophe has done its worst, someone must judge. That falls to us. Because something like justice must be done.”

But justice for who? His father? His mother? How can it be for both?

CHORUS D: “Retribution in kind is the only way, the only means to satisfaction.”

Aren’t we better than our worst crimes? Are we just going to go on trading blood endlessly back and forth? What is the sense of that? Aren’t we tired?

CHORUS C: “But it has to make sense to all of us. We will all have to submit whatever we decide.”

How can we? Any judgement will only serve one side.

CHORUS I: “Don’t we also owe something to the guilty? Isn’t justice also for him?”

But he is both. Isn’t he? Look at him. He is a victim of his own crime.

CHORUS C: “He did it, yes, but he is of us. We can’t abandon him without abandoning ourselves. And there is no justice without him at the center of it.”

If we can’t figure out how to forgive him, / then we can’t-

CHORUS D: “He deserves to die, anything else / would be-”

This is not some / clear-cut-

CHORUS I: “You really think death is what is / needed here-?”

-More death?-

ORESTES: “.. What can we expect from anyone? What do we deserve?”

Justice. But not by blood this time. No more. There has to be another way.

CHORUS C: “We have heard this dream before.”

Terrible, terrible.