HANDBOUND AT THE THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY EDITED BY ^* ' 'T ' E. CAPPS, PH.D., LL.D. T. E. PAGE, mti-.d. W. H. D. ROUSE, Lirr.D. AESCHYLUS II AESCHYLUS WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY HERBERT WEIR SMYTH, Ph.D. ELIOT PROFESSOR OF GREEK LITERATURE IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY IN TWO VOLUMES II AGAMEMNON LIBATION-BEARERS EUMENIDES FRAGMENTS LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN NP:vv YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS MCMXXVI 2-2>.(I.S^ Printed in Great Britain. CONTENTS OF VOLUME II AGAMEMNON THE LIBATiON-BEARERS 155 EUMENIDES 269 FRAGMENTS 374 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 522 (i ata slip, Aesch. — Vol. II. ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS TO VOL. I Additions to the List of Editions (p. xxxi ff.).—All the plays : 1853-54, Buckley. 1920-25, Mazon. Choe- phoroe : 1729, Oxford. 1774, Foulis press. 1776, Vollborth. Eumenides : 1901, Barnett. 1901, Plaistowe (w. prose translation). Persians ; 1847, Paley. Undated, Haydon. Prometheus : 1887, Plaistowe and Masom (w. prose trans- lation). 1900, Plaistowe and Mills (w. prose translation). Seven against Thehes : 1847, Paley. 1897 (1900), Plaistowe (w. prose translation). — Additions to the List of Translations. Agamemnon : 1823, Boyd (prose). 1839, Fox. 1846, Sewell. 1848, Anon. 1880, Anon, (prose). 1886, Students of the Univer- sity of Sydney (prose). 1888, Anon, (prose). 1890, Cooper (Oresteia). 1893, Campbell (Oresteia, prose). 1900(1911), Sixth Form Boys of Bradfield College. 1919, Davis. 1920, Ellis. 1920, Murray. 1920, Trevelyan (Oresteia). 1921, Robinson in " The Genius of the Greek Drama." Choephoroe, Eumenides : 1890, Cooper (Oresteia), 1893, Campbell (Oresteia, prose). 1920, Trevelyan (Oresteia). 1923-25, Murray. Persians : 1829, Palin. 1855, Wood (prose). 1873, Staunton. 1922, Cookson. Prometheus : 1822, Anon, (prose). 1823, Edwards (prose). 1835, Fox. 1839, Giles. 1846, Swayne. 1848 (1881), Mongan (prose). 1870, Lang. 1870, Perkins (prose). 1903, Bouchier. 1907, Whitelaw. 1916, Wier. 1920, Harman (prose and verse). 1922, Cookson. Seven against Thebes : 1881, Mongan (prose). 1922, Cookson. Suppliants : 1839, Giles (prose). 1922, Cookson. Full List of the Editions of the Fragments.— 1619, Meursius. 1663, Stanley. 1745, Pauw, 1805 (1844), Bothe. 1816, Butler. 1821, Schutz. 1830 (1869), Dindorf. 1842, E. A. J. Ahrens. 1852 (1859), Hermann. 1855, Hartung. 1856 (1889), Nauck. 1893 (Berlin), 1896 (Athens), Wecklein. 1899 (1902), Sidgwick. Unlisted fragments: Smyth, Am. Journ. Phil, xli (1920). ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS TO VOL. I P. 17, line 5: for "shall not Zeus" read "Zeus Shall" and change punctuation. * P. 48, verse 458 : put the after yvvai^l not after hv. * P. 49, at bottom : read rvxa." ywaiKwu : rdx &v Mark- scheffel, ywai^iv Wecklein, 7i)i'ai^' Tucker. " P. 71, line 3, and in note 1 : read Lyceus." P. 103, line 14: for "is our destiny" read "be our destiny,". " P. 135, line 2 from below : read Darius in his time so scatheless a lord of the bow unto his people, to the men of Susa a leader dear," P. 180, verse 815 : Kptinh vveanv corr. by Housman to " KpTjvis dir€<x(3rjK ; translate not yet quenched is the spring of their woes ". P. 336, verse 206 : for dirvov read dtrvav (Anon.) and trans- late " heard the noise of the ". " " " ". P. 355, line 7 : for shield read shield within " " " ". P. 357, line 10 from below : for a read another P. 389, line 14, and p. 391, line 5 from below : read " But our princes, of the self-same seed— ". " ". P. 393, line 14 : delete against his sons P. 415, line 7 from below: read "And yet ruthless is a " " ". people ; and line 5 from below : Let it be ruthless ! AGAMEMNON VOL. II TA TOY APAMAT02 nP02i2nA <i>TAAS XOPOS KATTAIMHSTPA KHPTS AFAMEMNfiN KASANAPA Ainseos DRAMATIS PERSONAE Watchman Chorus of Argive Elders Clytaemestra Herald Agamemnon Cassandra Aegisthus Scene.—Argos. Time.—The heroic age. Date.—458 b.c, at the City Dionysia. ARGUMENT When that Helen had Jied with Paris to Troyland, her husband Menelaiis and his brother Agamemnon, the sons of Atreus and two-throned Kings of Argos, sought to take vengeance on him who had done outrage to Zeus, the guardian of the rights of hospitality. Before their palace appeared a portent, which the seer Calchas inter- preted to them : the two eagles were the Kings themselves and the pregnant hare seized in their talons was the city ,1-^ which held Priam's son a?id Helen and her wealth. But ..^•^. Artemis, she that loves the wild things of the feld, was fvroth with the Kings : and when all their host was gathered at Aulis and would sail with its thousand ships, , , ^ . she made adverse winds to blow ; so that the ships rotted ^^\^\a,nd the crews lost heart. Then the seer, albeit in darkling J^ V^ords, spake unto Agamemnon : " If thou wilt appease !r{Jj^ the goddess and so free the fleet, thou must sacrifice with V1[ thine own hand thy daughter Iphigenia." And he did even so, and the Greeks sailed away in their ships. J Nine years did they lay siege to Troytown, but they could not take it ; for it was fated that it should%ot be taken until the tenth year. Now when King Agamemnon fared forth from Argos, he left at home his Queen, Clytaemestra, Leda's child and Helen's sister (though she had for father Tyndareus, but Helen s was Zeus himself) ; and in her loneliness and because Agamemnon had slain her daughter, she 4 AGAMEMNON gave ear to the whisperings of another's love, even of Aegisthus, son of that Thyestes who had lain with the wife of his brother Atreus ; and for revenge Atreus slew other of Thyestes' sons and gave their father thereof to eat ; and when Thyestes learned whereof he had eaten, he cursed his brother's race. With the coming of the tenth year of the war, Queen Clytaemestra, plotting with Aegisthus against her hus- band's life, ordered that watch be kept upon the roof of her palace at Argos ; for a succession of beacon-fires was to flash the news from Troy when the city should be captured by Agamemnon. For weary months the watchman has been on the look-out—but at last the signal blazes forth in the night. In celebration of the glad event, the Quee?i has altar-fires kindled throughout the city. The Chorus of Elders will not credit the tidings ; nor are their doubts resolved until a herald announces the approach of Agamemnon, whose ship had alone escaped the storm that had raged in the night Just passed. Welcomed by his Queen, Agamemnon bespeaks a kindly reception for his captive, Cassandra, Priam's daughter, and on his wife's urgence consents to walk to his palace on costly tapestries. Cassandra seeks in vain to con- vince the Eiders of their master's peril ; and, conscious also of her own doom, passes within. Agamemnon's death-shriek is heard ; the two corpses are displayed. Clytaemestra exults in her deed and defies the Elders. Aegisthus enters to declare that Agamemnon has been slain in requital for his father's crime. The Elders, on the point of coming to blows with Aegisthus and his body-guard, are restrained by Clytaemestra, but not before they utter the warning that Orestes will return to exact vengeance for the murder of his father. AFAMEMNQN *TAAH Qeovs fJiev alroj tcDj/8' dTra?0^ayrjv ttovcov <f>povpds irelas jxrJKOs, rjv^ KoipiiLfxevos areyais ^ Arpeihcov dyKadev, kvvos Slktjv, aarpcov /carotSa vvKrepcov ofxtjyvpLv, /cat 5 Tovs (ficpovras x^^H-'^ '<^<^^ depos ^porols XajjiTTpovs Svvdcrras, efXTTpeTTOvras aWepi [aarepas, orav (j>divaiai.v, dvroXds re tcov].^ /cat vvv <f>vXdaaco Aa/xTraSo? to avjX^oXov, avyrjv irvpos (jiipovaav eV Tpocas (jydriv 10 aXaxjifiov re ^d^iv toSe yap KpareZ yvvaiKos dvSpo^ovXov eATTt^ov-^ Keap. evr dv Se vvKriTrXayKrov evhpoaov r €)(co evv7]V oveipoLS ovk e7naKOTrovp,evrjv ifi7]v (f>6Pos yap dvd^ vttvov TTapaararei, 15 TO fJiTj ^e^aiojs ^X4(f)apa av/jb^aXeZv vttpco' orav 8 deiSeiv rj fxtvvpeadai Sokco, VTTVOV ToS' duripLoXiTOV ivre/xvcov* a/co?, /cAaio) tot' oiKov rovSe avfi^opdv areviov ovx ios ra irpoad dpiara SLaTTOuovpievov 20 vvv 8' evrvxrjs yevoir diraXXayrj ttovojv 1 3' 9jv MV, 7)^ FV3N. 2 Bracketed by Pauw. ' iXirll^uv with over w M. * iKrifivwv FiRom.V3. AGAMEMNON Watchman [ Upon the roof of the palace of Agamemnon at Argos] Release from this weary task of mine has been my cry unto the gods throughout my long year's watch, wherein, couchant upon the palace roof of the Atreidae, upon my bended arm, like a hound, I have learned to know aright the conclave of the stars of night, yea those radiant potentates conspicuous in the firmament, bringers of winter and summer unto mankind [the constellations, what time they wane and rise]. So now I am still awatch for the signal-flame, the gleaming fire that is to harbinger news from Troy and tidings of its capture. For thus rules my Queen, woman in sanguine heart and man in strength of purpose. And whenever I make here my bed, restless and dank with dew and unvisited by dreams —for instead of sleep fear stands ever by my side, so that I cannot close my eyelids fast in sleep—and whenever I am minded to sing or hum a stave (and thus apply an antidote of song to ward off drowsi- ness), then it is my tears start forth, as I bewail the fortunes of this our house, not ordered for the best as in days agone. But to-night may there come 7 AESCHYLUS evayyeXov ^areWoj op^vaiov irvpos. CO xatpe XafXTTTTjp vvktos, rjfMepr^atov Karauraaiv (f>dos 7n(f>avaK<x)V kol X'^P^^ TToAAcDv eV "kpyei, rrjaSe avp,<j>opas X^P^^- 26 lov lov.