1 Aeschylus,Agamemnon GUARD The gods relieve my watch: that's all I ask. Year-long I've haunched here on this palace roof, year-long been the all-fours watch-dog of the Atreids, learning by rote the slow dance of the stars, spectator of the brilliance in black skies that brings to men their winters and their suns: the stately light-lords' settings and their rise. I'm here still. Still watching for the fire, the relayed beacon that will bring the word that Troy is taken: watching by command10 of the heart of a woman who waits, her mind like a man's. My rest is a sleep-walk, sweated clammy dew, a sleep-walk which no kind dreams over-watch. The presence by my bed's not rest but terror, eyelid-spasming drowse-out-jolting terror. And when I think to sing or hum some tune to inject alertness since no sleep will come, the tune becomes tears how miss-fortune freights his house, the song is miss-rule capsizing mastership. But now, gods, change my luck. Relieve my task,20 shine out the dark good news for which I ask! The beacon is seen. A blaze in the night, as bright as day—it's here! O how I welcome you, you telltale flame speaking to me of dancing of the streets, all Argos celebrating Troy's downfall! Awake—aiai—awake! I signal too, to Agamemnon's wife: to leave her bed at once and set the house aright with victory-howl to bless this blaze... If the citadel of Troy is really taken... ...that's what this shining messengershouldmean.30 —Why, yes; and I will dance the overture! What falls well for my lord, falls well for me: this semaphore's my dice rolled six times three. And may it be my master, when he comes, will clasp this hand with his love-hallowed hand. There's more, but I won’t say it. The saying goes: “My tongue's become where the trampling oxen stand.” You could ask the house. If this house had a mouth, this house would speak. I mean my words just so.
They’re dark to those in the dark: not to those in the know. He descends and goes into the palace. CHORUS Decade of home-emptiness40 this, since the Priam-war moved to prosecution: Menelaus led it and Agamemnon, Zeus-set on twin thrones and twin-sceptred, twin-yoked in honour as Atreus's sons: launched here a fleet of a thousand destroyers packed out with warriors, a military task-force off from this land: calling the war-god great in their fury, screaming like eagles at peak of grief's ecstasy50 over their young: wheeling and turning high in the vortex, rowing the air with the blades of their wing-tips over their nests, lost to them now their confinement of care lost for so long. But higher up still, they are heard by some Apollo, by some Pan or Zeus—the harsh scream of these guests in his realm; overdue, slow, he hunts down the eagles' assailants, he strikes them all low overwhelmed.
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