Excerpts from the carpet scene:

Professor Sarah Nooter
University of Chicago
[email protected]
TRANSLATING SYMBOLIC ACTION AND ACTUAL INACTION IN THE AGAMEMNON
Excerpts from the carpet scene:
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 905-11, 922-30
Louis MacNeice, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1936)
Κλ.
νῦν δέ µοι, φίλον κάρα,
ἔκβαιν’ ἀπήνης τῆσδε, µὴ χαµαὶ τιθεὶς
τὸν σὸν πόδ’, ὦναξ, Ἰλίου πορθήτορα
δµωιαί, τί µέλλεθ’, αἷς ἐπέσταλται τέλος
πέδον κελεύθου στορνύναι πετάσµασιν;
εὐθὺς γενέσθω πορφυρόστρωτος πόρος,
ἐς δῶµ’ ἄελπτον ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται Δίκη·
…
Αγ. θεούς τοι τοῖσδε τιµαλφεῖν χρεών,
ἐν ποικίλοις δὲ θνητὸν ὄντα κάλλεσιν
βαίνειν ἐµοὶ µὲν οὐδαµῶς ἄνευ φόβου.
λέγω κατ’ ἄνδρα, µὴ θεόν, σέβειν ἐµέ.
χωρὶς ποδοψήστρων τε καὶ τῶν ποικίλων
κληδὼν ἀυτεῖ· καὶ τὸ µὴ κακῶς φρονεῖν
θεοῦ µέγιστον δῶρον. ὀλβίσαι δὲ χρὴ
βίον τελευτήσαντ’ ἐν εὐεστοῖ φίληι.
εἰ πάντα δ’ ὣς πράσσοιµ’ ἄν, εὐθαρσὴς ἐγώ.
Clyt.
But now, dear head, come down
Out of the car, not placing upon the ground
Your foot, O King, the foot that trampled Troy
Why are you waiting, slaves, to whom the task is assigned
To spread the pavement of his path with tapestries?
At once, at once let his way be strewn with purple
That Justice lead him toward his unexpected home.
…
Agam. It is the gods should be honoured this way.
But being mortal to tread embroidered beauty
For me is no way without fear.
I tell you to honour me as a man, not god.
Footcloths are very well—Embroidered stuffs
Are stuff for gossip. And not to think unwisely
Is the greatest gift of God. Call happy only him
Who has ended his life in sweet prosperity.
I have spoken. This thing I could not do with confidence.
Ted Hughes, The Oresteia (1999)
Anne Carson, An Oresteia (2009)
CLYTEMNESTRA
Agamemnon, step down from your chariot.
But this bare earth is too poor
For the foot that trod on the neck of Troy.
Hurry—the long carpet of crimson.
Unroll the embroidery
Of vermilion and purple.
The richest silks of Argos are prostrated
To honour the King’s tread at his homecoming
And cushion every footfall of his triumph.
Justice himself shall kiss his instep
And lead him step by step into the home
He never hoped to see.
…
AGAMEMNON
That should be spread only for gods,
Yes, only for the feet of gods,
For the feet of descended gods.
Do not spread them for me.
Greet me as a man.
Greet me as a god and the gods
Will punish us all.
Klytaimestra:
And now, dear one, as a special favor to me,
I pray you descend from your car without
setting foot on the ground—
O King, this foot that wasted Troy!
True praise needs none of these trimmings.
And the gods’ greatest gift
That brings a man to the end of his days in peace
Is a nose to sniff out such imprudence.
[To servants.]
What are you waiting for? You have your
orders—strew the ground with fabrics,
now!
Make his path crimsoncovered!
purplepaved! redsaturated!
So Justice may lead him to the home he
never hoped to see.
Agamemnon:
That stuff is for gods.
I am mortal. I can’t trample luxuries
underfoot. Honor me as a man
not a divinity.
Anyway, who needs red carpets—my fame
shouts aloud.
Here discretion is key.
Count no man happy until he dies happy.
If I keep this rule, I’ll be okay.
Professor Sarah Nooter
University of Chicago
[email protected]
Excerpts from the passage of choral indecision:
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1354-67
Louis MacNeice, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1936)
Χο. ὁρᾶν πάρεστι· φροιµιάζονται γὰρ ὡς
τυραννίδος σηµεῖα πράσσοντες πόλει.
— χρονίζοµεν γάρ, οἱ δὲ τῆς µελλοῦς κλέος
πέδοι πατοῦντες οὐ καθεύδουσιν χερί.
— οὐκ οἶδα βουλῆς ἧστινος τυχὼν λέγω·
τοῦ δρῶντός ἐστι καὶ τὸ βουλεῦσαι †πέρι†.
— κἀγὼ τοιοῦτός εἰµ’, ἐπεὶ δυσµηχανῶ
λόγοισι τὸν θανόντ’ ἀνιστάναι πάλιν.
— ἦ καὶ βίον τείνοντες ὧδ’ ὑπείξοµεν
δόµων καταισχυντῆρσι τοῖσδ’ ἡγουµένοις;
— ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἀνεκτόν, ἀλλὰ κατθανεῖν κρατεῖ·
πεπαιτέρα γὰρ µοῖρα τῆς τυραννίδος.
— ἦ γὰρ τεκµηρίοισιν ἐξ οἰµωγµάτων
µαντευσόµεσθα τἀνδρὸς ὡς ὀλωλότος;
5th Old Man. The case is plain. This is but the beginning.
They are going to set up dictatorship in the state.
6th Old Man. We are wasting time. The assassins tread to earth
The decencies of delay and give their hands no sleep.
7th Old Man. I do not know what plan I could hit on to propose.
The man who acts is in the position to plan.
8th Old Man. So I think, too, for I am at a loss
To raise the dead man up again with words.
9th Old Man. Then to stretch out our life shall we yield thus
To the rule of these profaners of the house?
10th Old Man. It is not to be endured. To die is better.
Death is more comfortable than tyranny.
11th Old Man. And are we on the evidence of groans
Going to give oracle that the prince is dead?
Ted Hughes, The Oresteia (1999)
Anne Carson, An Oresteia (2009)
CHORUS IV
The King is assassinated!
Out of every bloody regicide
Steps a tyrant.
CHORUS V
Talk, talk, mutter, mutter.
If we want action
We trample on caution.
CHORUS VI
But what’s our plan?
A plan has to be practical.
Oughtn’t we to wait
For their next clear step?
CHORUS VII
One thing is certain.
Whatever we do
The King stays dead.
CHORUS VIII
What, live like slaves
Under the feet
Of these gangsters
Just for peace?
CHORUS IX
Better dead
Than to have our mouths stopped
By a tyrant’s heel.
CHORUS X
We’re in too much of a hurry.
We heard the screams for sure.
But is the King dead?
Chorus. [severally] It’s obvious they’re laying the ground for
tyranny.
—And we’re wasting time while they defy the goddess named
Delay.
—Oh I don’t know what to do or what to think or what to say.
—Me neither. Words can’t raise the dead.
—Do you want those criminals down on your head?
—Unendurable. Death is better.
—So from two screams we’re saying the king’s a dead letter?
from “Fragment of a Greek Tragedy,” A. E. Houseman
ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;
And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house
Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
Once more: he purposes to kill me dead.
CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet
I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.
Works Cited
A. Carson, An Oresteia (New York 2009).
S. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (Cambridge 1984).
B. Goward, Aeschylus: Agamemnon (London 2005).
L. Hardwick, “Can (modern) poets do classical drama? The case of Ted Hughes,” in R. Rees, ed., Ted Hughes and the Classics
(Oxford 2009), 39-61.
S. J. Harrison, ed., Living Classics: Greece and Rome in Contemporary Poetry in English (Oxford 2009).
A. E. Houseman, “Fragment of a Greek tragedy” (London 1883).
T. Hughes, Aeschylus: the Oresteia (New York 1999).
A. Lebeck, The Oresteia: A Study in Language and Structure (Washington, D. C. 1971).
L. MacNeice, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (London 1936).
R. Miola, “Reading the Classics,” in D. S. Kastan, ed., A Companion to Shakespeare (Oxford 1999), 172-85.
D. Page, ed., Aeschyli: Septem quae supersunt tragoedias (Oxford 1972).
J. J. Peradotto, “Cledonomancy in the Oresteia,” American Journal of Philology 90.1 (1969) 1-21.
D. Raeburn and O. Thomas, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (Oxford 2011).
K. Sagar, “Ted Hughes and the classics,” in R. Rees, ed., Ted Hughes and the Classics (Oxford 2009), 1-24.
W. Shakespeare, Hamlet (London 1951).
J. Stallworthy, Louise MacNeice (New York 1995).
A. Wrigley, “Aeschylus’ ‘Agamemnon’ on BBC Radio, 1946-76,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 12.2 (2005) 21644.
V. Zajko, “Hughes and the classics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Ted Hughes (Cambridge 2011), 107-20.

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