---

Robinson Jeffers - The Tower Beyond Tragedy
Work rating: Low

1 2 
You rock-fleas hopping in the clefts of Mycenae,
Suckers of blood, you carrying the scepter farther, Persian,
Emathian,
Roman and Mongol and American, and you half-gods
Indian and Syrian and the third, emperors of peace, I have seen
on what stage
You sing the little tragedy; the column of the ice that was before
on one side flanks it,
The column of the ice to come closes it up on the other: audience
nor author
I have never seen yet: I have heard the silence: it is I Cassandra,
Eight years the bitter watchdog of these doors,
Have watched a vision
And now approach to my end. Eight years I have seen the
phantoms
Walk up and down this stair; and the rocks groan in the night,
the great stones move when no man sees them.
And I have forgotten the fine ashlar masonry of the courts of my
father. I am not Cassandra
But a counter of sunrises, permitted to live because I am crying
to die; three thousand,
Pale and red, have flowed over the towers in the wall since I was
here watching; the deep east widens,
The cold wind blows, the deep earth sighs, the dim gray finger
of light crooks at the morning star.
The palace feasted late and sleeps with its locked doors; the last
drunkard from the alleys of the city
Long has reeled home. Whose foot is this then, what phantom
Toils on the stair?
A VOICE BELOW   Is someone watching above? Good sentinel I
am only a girl beggar.
I would sit on the stair and hold my bowl.
CASSANDRA   I here eight years have
begged for a thing and not received it.
THE VOICE
You are not a sentinel? You have been asking some great boon,
out of all reason.
CASSANDRA   No: what the meanest
Beggar disdains to take.
THE GIRL BEGGAR   Beggars disdain nothing: what is it that
they refuse you?
CASSANDRA   What`s given
Even to the sheep and to the bullock.
THE GIRL   Men give them salt, grass
they find out for themselves.
CASSANDRA   Men give them
The gift that you though a beggar have brought down from the
north to give my mistress.
THE GIRL   You speak riddles.
I am starving, a crust is my desire.
CASSANDRA   Your voice is young though
winds have hoarsened it, your body appears
Flexible under the rags: have you some hidden sickness, the
young men will not give you silver?
THE GIRL
I have a sickness: I will hide it until I am cured. You are not
a Greek woman?
CASSANDRA   But you
Born in Mycenae return home. And you bring gifts from Phocis:
for my once master who`s dead
Vengeance; and for my mistress peace, for my master the King
peace, and, by-shot of the doom`s day,
Peace for me also. But I have prayed for it.
THE GIRL   I know you, I knew
you before you spoke to me, captive woman,
And I unarmed will kill you with my hands if you babble
prophecies.
That peace you have prayed for, I will bring it to you
If you utter warnings.
CASSANDRA   To-day I shall have peace, you cannot
tempt me, daughter of the Queen, Electra.
Eight years ago I watched you and your brother going north
to Phocis: the Queen saw knowledge of you
Move in my eyes: I would not tell her where you were when
she commanded me: I will not betray you
To-day either: it is not doleful to me
To see before I die generations of destruction enter the doors
of Agamemnon.
Where is your brother?
ELECTRA   Prophetess: you see all: I will tell you
nothing.
CASSANDRA   He has well chosen his ambush,
It is true Aegisthus passes under that house to-day, to hunt in
the mountain.
ELECTRA   Now I remember
Your name. Cassandra.
CASSANDRA   Hush: the gray has turned yellow, the
standing beacons
Stream up from the east; they stir there in the palace; strange,
is it not, the dawn of one`s last day`s
Like all the others? Your brother would be fortunate if to-day
were also
The last of his.
ELECTRA   He will endure his destinies; and Cassandra hers;
and Electra mine.
He has been for years like one tortured with fire: this day will
quench it.
CASSANDRA   They are opening the gates: beg now.
To your trade, beggar-woman.
THE PORTER (coming out) Eh, pillar of miseries,
You still on guard there? Like a mare in a tight stall, never lying
down. What`s this then?
A second ragged one? This at least can bend in the middle and
sit on a stone.
ELECTRA   Dear gentleman
I am not used to it, my father is dead and hunger forces me to
beg, a crust or a penny.
THE PORTER
This tall one`s licensed in a manner. I think they`ll not let two
bundles of rag
Camp on the stair: but if you`d come to the back door and please
me nicely: with a little washing
It`d do for pastime.
ELECTRA   I was reared gently: I will sit here, the King
will see me,
And none mishandle me.
THE PORTER I bear no blame for you.
I have not seen you: you came after the gates were opened.
                                                                        (He goes in.)
CASSANDRA
O blossom of fire, bitter to men,
Watchdog of the woeful days,
How many sleepers
Bathing in peace, dreaming themselves delight,
All over the city, all over the Argolid plain, all over the dark
earth,
(Not me, a deeper draught of peace
And darker waters alone may wash me)
Do you, terrible star, star without pity,
Wolf of the east, waken to misery.
To the wants unaccomplished, to the eating desires,
To unanswered love, to hunger, to the hard edges
And mold of reality, to the whips of their masters.
They had flown away home to the happy darkness,
They were safe until sunrise.
(King Aegisthus, with his retinue, comes from the great
door.)
AEGISTHUS
Even here, in the midst of the city, the early day
Has a clear savor. (To ELECTRA) What, are you miserable, holding
the bowl out?
We`ll hear the lark to-day in the wide hills and smell the mountain.
I`d share happiness with you.
What`s your best wish, girl beggar?
ELECTRA   It is covered, my lord, how
should a beggar
Know what to wish for beyond a crust and a dark corner and a
little kindness?
AEGISTHUS   Why do you tremble?
ELECTRA
I was reared gently; my father is dead.
AEGISTHUS   Stand up: will you take
service here in the house? What country
Bred you gently and proved ungentle to you?
ELECTRA   I have wandered
north from the Eurotas, my lord,
Begging at farmsteads.
AEGISTHUS   The Queen`s countrywoman then, she`ll
use you kindly. She`ll be coming
In a moment, then I`ll speak for you. -Did you bid them yoke
the roans into my chariot, Menalcas,
The two from Orchomenus?
ONE OF THE RETINUE   Yesterday evening, my lord,
I sent to the stable.
AEGISTHUS   They cost a pretty penny, we`ll see how they
carry it. She`s coming: hold up your head, girl.
(CLYTEMNESTRA, with two serving-women, comes from
the door.)
CLYTEMNESTRA
Good hunt, dearest. Here`s a long idle day for me to look to.
Kill early, come home early.
AEGISTHUS
There`s a poor creature on the step who`s been reared nicely
and slipped into misery. I said you`d feed her,
And maybe find her a service. Farewell, sweet one.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Where did she come from? How long have you
been here?
AEGISTHUS   She says she has begged her way up from Sparta.
The horses are stamping on the cobbles, good-by, good-by.
(He goes down the stair with his huntsmen.)
CLYTEMNESTRA   Good-by, dearest. Well. Let me see your face.
ELECTRA It is filthy to look at. I am ashamed.
CLYTEMNESTRA   (to one of her serving-women) Leucippe do
you think this is a gayety of my lord`s, he`s not used to be
so kindly to beggars?
-Let me see your face.
LEUCIPPE   She is very dirty, my lady. It is possible one of the
house-boys . . .
CLYTEMNESTRA   I say draw that rag back, let me see your face.
I`d have him whipped then.
ELECTRA   It was only in hope that someone would put a crust
in the bowl, your majesty, for I am starving. I didn`t think
your majesty would see me.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Draw back the rag.
ELECTRA   I am very faint and starving but I will go down; I am
ashamed.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Stop her, Corinna. Fetch the porter, Leucippe.
You will not go so easily. (ELECTRA sinks down on the steps
and lies prone, her head covered.) I am aging out of queenship
indeed, when even the beggars refuse my bidding.
(LEUCIPPE comes in `with the porter.) You have a dirty stair,
porter. How long has this been here?
THE PORTER   O my lady it has crept up since I opened the doors,
it was not here when I opened the doors.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Lift it up and uncover its face. What is that
cry in the city? Stop: silent: I heard a cry . . .
Prophetess, your nostrils move like a dog`s, what is that shouting?
. . .
I have grown weak, I am exhausted, things frighten me ...
Tell her to be gone, Leucippe, I don`t wish to see her, I don`t
wish to see her.
                                                                              (ELECTRA rises.)
ELECTRA   Ah, Queen, I will show you my face.
CLYTEMNESTRA   No ... no ... be gone.
ELECTRA   (uncovering her face)
Mother: I have come home: I am humbled. This house keeps
a dark welcome
For those coming home out of far countries.
CLYTEMNESTRA   I Won`t look: how
could I know anyone? I am old and shaking.
He said, Over the wall beyond nature
Lightning, and the laughter of the Gods. I did not cross it,
I will not kill what I gave life to.
Whoever you are, go, go, let me grow downward to the grave
quietly now.
ELECTRA    I cannot
Go: I have no other refuge. Mother! Will you not kiss me, will
you not take me into the house,
Your child once, long a wanderer? Electra my name. I have
begged my way from Phocis, my brother is dead there,
Who used to care for me.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Who is dead, who?
ELECTRA   My brother Orestes,
Killed in a court quarrel
CLYTEMNESTRA   (weeping) Oh, you lie! The widening blue
blue eyes,
The little voice of the child . . . Liar.
ELECTRA   It is true. I have wept
long, on every mountain. You, mother,
Have only begun weeping. Far off, in a far country, no fit
burial . . .
CLYTEMNESTRA   And do you bringing
Bitterness ... or lies . . . look for a welcome? I have only
loved two:
The priest
killed my daughter for a lamb on a stone and now
you say the boy too . . . dead, dead?
The world`s full of it, a shoreless lake of lies and floating rumors
. . . pack up your wares, peddler,
Too false for a queen. Why, no, if I believed you . . . Beast,
treacherous beast, that shouting comes nearer,
What`s in the city?
ELECTRA   I am a stranger, I know nothing of the city,
I know only
My mother hates me, and Orestes my brother
Died pitifully, far off.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Too many things, too many things call
me, what shall I do? Electra,
Electra help me. This comes of living softly, I had a lion`s
strength
Once.
ELECTRA   Me for help? I am utterly helpless, I had help in my
brother and he is dead in Phocis.
Give me refuge: but each of us two must weep for herself, one
sorrow. An end of the world were on us
What would it matter to us weeping? Do you remember him,
Mother, mother?
CLYTEMNESTRA   I have dared too much: never dare anything,
Electra, the ache is afterward,
At the hour it hurts nothing. Prophetess, you lied.
You said he would come with vengeance on me: but now he is
dead, this girl says: and because he was lovely, blue-eyed,
And born in a most unhappy house I will believe it. But the
world`s fogged with the breath of liars,
And if she has laid a net for me . . .
I`ll call up the old lioness lives yet in my body, I have dared,
I have dared, and tooth and talon
Carve a way through. Lie to me?
ELECTRA   Have I endured for months,
with feet bleeding, among the mountains,
Between the great gulfs alone and starving, to bring you a lie
now? I know the worst of you, I looked for the worst,
Mother, mother, and have expected nothing but to die of this
home-coming: but Orestes
Has entered the cave before; he is gathered up in a lonely mountain
quietness, he is guarded from angers
In the tough cloud that spears fall back from.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Was he still beautiful?
The brown mothers down in the city
Keep their brats about them; what it is to live high! Oh!
Tell them down there, tell them in Tiryns,
Tell them in Sparta,
That water drips through the Queen`s fingers and trickles down
her wrists, for the boy, for the boy
Born of her body, whom she, fool, fool, fool,
Drove out of the world. Electra,
Make peace with me.
Oh, Oh, Oh!
I have labored violently all the days of my life for nothing--
nothing-worse than anything- this death
Was a thing I wished. See how they make fools of us.
Amusement for them, to watch us labor after the thing that will
tear us in
pieces. . . . Well, strength`s good.
I am the Queen; I will gather up my fragments
And not go mad now.
ELECTRA   Mother, what are the men
With spears gathering at the stair`s foot? Not of Mycenae by
their armor, have you mercenaries
Wanting pay? Do they serve . . . Aegisthus?
CLYTEMNESTRA   What men? I seem
not to know . . .
Who has laid a net for me, what fool
For me, me? Porter, by me.
Leucippe, my guards; into the house, rouse them. I am sorry
for him,
I am best in storm. You, Electra?
The death you`ll die, my daughter. Guards, out! Was it a lie?
No matter, no matter, no matter,
Here`s peace. Spears, out, out! They bungled the job making
me a woman. Here`s youth come back to me,
And all the days of gladness.
LEUCIPPE   (running back from the door) O, Queen, strangers ...
ORESTES   (a sword in his hand, `with spearmen following, comes
from the door) Where is that woman
The Gods utterly hate?
ELECTRA   Brother: let her not speak, kill quickly.
Is the other one safe now?
ORESTES That dog
Fell under his chariot, we made sure of him between the wheels
and the hooves, squealing. Now for this one.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Wait. I was weeping, Electra will tell you, my hands are wet
still,
For your blue eyes that death had closed she said away up in
Phocis. I die now, justly or not
Is out of the story, before I die I`d tell you wait, child, wait.
Did I quiver
Or pale at the blade? I say, caught in a net, netted in by my
enemies, my husband murdered,
Myself to die, I am joyful knowing she lied, you live, the only
creature
Under all the spread and arch of daylight
That I love, lives.
ELECTRA   The great fangs drawn fear craftiness now,
kill quickly.
CLYTEMNESTRA   As for her, the wife of a shepherd
Suckled her, but you
These very breasts nourished: rather one of your northern
spearmen do what`s needful; not you
Draw blood where you drew milk. The Gods endure much, but
beware them.
ORESTES   This, a God in his temple
Openly commanded.
CLYTEMNESTRA   Ah, child, child, who has mistaught you and
who has betrayed you? What voice had the God?
How was it different from a man`s and did you see him? Who
sent the priest presents? They fool us,
And the Gods let them. No doubt also the envious King of
Phocis has lent you counsel as he lent you
Men: let one of them do it. Life`s not jewel enough
That I should plead for it: this much I pray, for your sake, not
with your hand, not with your hand, or the memory
Will so mother you, so glue to you, so embracing you,
Not the deep sea`s green day, no cleft of a rock in the bed of
the deep sea, no ocean of darkness
Outside the stars, will hide nor wash you. What is it to me that
I have rejoiced knowing you alive,
child, O precious to me, O alone loved, if now dying by my
manner of death
I make nightmare the heir, nightmare, horror, in all I have of
you;
And you haunted forever, never to sleep dreamless again, never
to see blue cloth
But the red runs over it; fugitive of dreams, madman at length,
the memory of a scream following you houndlike,
Inherit Mycenae? Child, for this has not been done before, there
is no old fable, no whisper
Out of the foundation, among the people that were before our
people, no echo has ever
Moved among these most ancient stones, the monsters here, nor
stirred under any mountain, nor fluttered
Under any sky, of a man slaying his mother. Sons have killed
fathers
ORESTES   And a woman her son`s father
CLYTEMNESTRA
O many times: and these old stones have seen horrors: a house
of madness and blood
I married into: and worse was done on this rock among the older
people before: but not this,
Not the son his mother; this the silent ones,
The old hard ones, the great bearers of burden have not seen yet,
Nor shall, to-day nor yet to-morrow, nor ever in the world.
Let her do it, it is not unnatural,
The daughter the mother; the little liar there,
Electra do it. Lend her the blade.
ELECTRA   Brother though the great house
is silent hark the city,
That buzzes like the hive one has dipped a wand in. End this.
Then look to our safety.
ORESTES   Dip in my sword
Into my fountain? Did I truly, little and helpless,
Lie in the arms, feed on the breast there?
ELECTRA   Another, a greater, lay
in them, another kissed the breast there,
You forget easily, the breaker of Asia, the over-shadower, the
great memory, under whose greatness
We have hung like hawks under a storm, from the beginning,
and he when this poison destroyed him
Was given no room to plead in.
ORESTES   Dip my wand into my fountain?
CLYTEMNESTRA   Men do not kill the meanest
Without defence heard
ELECTRA   Him-Agamemnon?
CLYTEMNESTRA But you, O my son, my son,
Moulded in me, made of me, made of my flesh, built with my
blood, fed with my milk, my child
I here, I and no other, labored to bear, groaning-
ELECTRA   This that
makes beastlike lamentation
Hunted us to slay us, we starving in the thicket above the stream
three days and nights watched always
Her hunters with spears beating the field: prophetess was it for
love that she looked after us?
CASSANDRA   That love
The King had tasted; that was her love.
ELECTRA   And mourning for our
father on the mountain we judged her;
And the God condemned her, what more, what more? Strike.
ORESTES   If they`d give me time, the pack there how can I
think,
And all the whelps of Mycenae yelling at the stair-foot? Decision:
a thing to be decided:
The arm`s lame, dip in, dip in? Shut your mouths, rabble.
CLYTEMNESTRA   There is one thing no man can do.
ORESTES   What, enter
his fountain?
ELECTRA
O coward!
ORESTES   I will be passive, I`m blunted. She`s not this fellow`s
mother.
ELECTRA   O spearman, spearman, do it!
One stroke: it is just.
THE SPEARMAN   As for me, my lord . . .
CLYTEMNESTRA   (calling loudly) Help, help, men
of Mycenae, to your Queen. Break them.
Rush the stair, there are only ten hold it. Up, up, kill.
ORESTES   I will kill.
CLYTEMNESTRA   (falling on her knees) Child,
Spare me, let me live! Child! Ai! . . .
ELECTRA   You have done well.
ORESTES   I have done ... I have done . . .
Who ever saw such a flow . . . was I made out of this, I`m not
red, am I?
See, father?
It was someone else did it but I told him to. Drink, drink, dog.
Drink dog.
He reaches up a tongue between the stones, lapping it. So thirsty
old dog, uh?
Rich and sticky.
CLYTEMNESTRA   (raising herself a little) Sleep ... for me ...
yes.
Not you . . . any more . . . Orestes ... I shall be there. You
will beg death . . . vainly as I have begged . . . life. Ah
. . . beast that I unkennelled! (She dies.)
ORESTES   (crouching by her) Ooh . . . Ooh . . .
ELECTRA
The face is lean and terrible. Orestes!
They are fighting on the stair. Man yourself. Come. Pick up the
sword.
Let her be, two of ours are down, they yield on the stair. Stand
up, speak or fight, speak to the people
Or we go where she is.
ORESTES   There`s a red and sticky sky that you
can touch here.
And though it`s unpleasant we are at peace.
ELECTRA   (catching up the sword) Agamemnon failed
here. Not in me. Hear, Mycenaeans.
I am Agamemnon`s daughter, we have avenged him, the crime`s
paid utterly.
You have not forgotten the great King what, in eight years?
I am Electra, I am his daughter.
My brother is Orestes. My brother is your King and has killed
his murderers. The dog Aegisthus is dead,
And the Queen is dead: the city is at peace.
ORESTES   (standing up) Must I dip my wand
into my fountain, give it to me.
The male plaything. (He catches ELECTRA`S army snatching at
the sword.)
ELECTRA   For what? Be quiet, they have heard me.
ORESTES   You said I must do it, I will do it.
ELECTRA   It is done!
Brother, brother? (ORESTES takes the sword from her by force.)
O Mycenae
With this sword he did justice, he let it fall, he has retaken it,
He is your King.
ORESTES   Whom must I pierce, the girl that plotted with
me in the mountain? There was someone to kill . . .
Sweet Electra?
ELECTRA   It is done, it is finished!
CASSANDRA   The nearest, the most
loved, her, truly. Strike! Electra,
My father has wanted vengeance longer.
THE PEOPLE BELOW   Orestes, Orestes!
ELECTRA   (pointing to CASSANDRA) Her
your mother she killed him.
ORESTES   (turning and striking) How tall you have grown,
mother.
CASSANDRA   (falling) I ... waited long for it ...
ORESTES
I have killed my mother and my mother-two mothers-see,
there they lie-I have gone home twice. You put it in
And the flesh yields to it ... (He goes down the stair.) Now,
to find her again
All through the forest . . .
ELECTRA   Let him pass, Mycenaeans. Avoid his
sword. Let him pass, pass. The madness of the house
Perches on him.
A LEADER OF THE MYCENAEANS   Daughter of Agamemnon,
You with constancy and force
In the issueless thing have found an issue. Now it is for us the
kingless city
To find a ruler. Rest in the house. As for the young man,
Though he has done justice, and no hand in Mycenae is raised
against him, for him there is no issue.
We let him go on; and if he does not slay himself with the red
sword he will die in the mountain.
With us be peace. Rest in the house, daughter of Agamemnon.
The old madness, with your brother,
Go out of our gates.
ELECTRA    A house to rest in! ... Gather up the
dead: I will go in; I have learned strength.
 
III
They carried the dead down the great stair; the slaves with pails
of water and sand scoured the dark stains.
The people meeting in another place to settle the troubled city
the stair was left vacant,
The porch untrampled, and about twilight one of the great
stones: the world is younger than we are,
Yet now drawing to an end, now that the seasons falter. Then
another, that had been spared the blood-bath:
What way do they falter? There fell warm rain, the first answered,
in the midst of summer. A little afterward
Cold rain came down; and sand was rubbed over me as when the
winds blow. This in the midst of summer.
I did not feel it, said the second sleepily. And a third: The
noisy and very mobile creatures
Will be quieted long before the world`s end. What creatures?
The active ones, that have two ends let downward,
A mongrel race, mixed of soft stone with fugitive water. The
night deepened, the dull old stones
Droned at each other, the summer stars wheeled over above them.
Before dawn the son of Agamemnon
Came to the stair-foot in the darkness.
ORESTES    O stones of the house:
I entreat hardness: I did not live with you
Long enough in my youth. ... I will go up to where I killed
her. . . . We must face things down, mother,
Or they`d devour us. ... Nobody? . . . Even the stones have
been scrubbed. A keen housekeeper, sweet Electra.
... It would be childish to forget it; the woman has certainly
been killed, and I think it was I
Her son did it. Something not done before in the world. Here is
the penalty:
You gather up all your forces to the act, and afterward
Silence, no voice, no ghost, vacancy, but all`s not expended.
Those powers want bitter action. No object.
Deeds are too easy. Our victims are too fragile, they ought to have
thousands of lives, you strike out once only
The sky breaks like a bubble. . . . No, wife of Aegisthus, why
should I mask it? mother, my mother,
The one soft fiber that went mad yesterday`s
Burnt out of me now, there is nothing you could touch if you
should come; but you have no power, you dead
Are a weak people. This is the very spot: I was here, she here:
and I walk over it not trembling,
Over the scrubbed stones to the door. (He knocks with the
sword-hilt.) They sleep well. But my sister having all her
desire
Better than any. (He knocks again.)
THE PORTER   (through the door) Who is there?
ORESTES   The owner of the house. Orestes.
THE PORTER   Go away, drunkard.
ORESTES   Shall I tell my servants to break in the door and whip
the porter?
THE PORTER   Oh, Oh! You men from Phocis, stand by me while
I speak to the door. (Having opened the door, holding a
torch.) Is it you truly, my lord? We thought, we thought
... we pray you to enter the house, my lord Orestes.
ORESTES   You are to waken my sister.
I`ll speak with her here.
ELECTRA   (at the door) Oh! You are safe, you are well! Did you
think I could be sleeping? But it is true,
I have slept soundly. Come, come.
ORESTES   A fellow in the forest
Told me you`d had the stone scrubbed ... I mean, that you`d
entered the house, received as Agamemnon`s daughter
In the honor of the city. So I free to go traveling have come with
what`s the word, Electra? farewell.
Have come to bid you farewell.
ELECTRA   It means you are going somewhere?
Come into the house, Orestes, tell me ...
ORESTES
The cape`s rounded. I have not shipwrecked.
ELECTRA   Around the rock
we have passed safely is the hall of this house,
The throne in the hall, the shining lordship of Mycenae.
ORESTES   No:
the open world, the sea and its wonders.
You thought the oars raked the headland in the great storm
what, for Mycenae?
ELECTRA   Not meanest of the Greek cities:
Whose king captained the world into Asia. Have you suddenly
become ... a God, brother, to over-vault
Agamemnon`s royalty? O come in, come in. I am cold, cold.
I pray you.
ORESTES   Fetch a cloak, porter.
If I have outgrown the city a littleI have earned it. Did you
notice, Electra, she caught at the sword
As the point entered: the palm of her right hand was slashed to
the bone before the mercy of the point
Slept in her breast: the laid-open palm it was that undermined
me . . . Oh, the cloak. It`s a blond night,
Well walk on the stones: no chill, the stars are mellow. If I dare
remember
Yesterday . . . because I have conquered, the soft fiber`s burnt
out.
ELECTRA   You have conquered: possess: enter the house,
Take up the royalty.
ORESTES   You were in my vision to-night in the
forest, Electra, I thought I embraced you
More than brotherwise . . . possessed, you call it ... entered
the fountain
ELECTRA   Oh, hush. Therefore you would not kill her!
ORESTES
I killed. It is foolish to darken things with words. I was here, she
there, screaming. Who if not I?
ELECTRA
The hidden reason: the bitter kernel of your mind that has made
you mad: I that learned strength
Yesterday, I have no fear.
ORESTES   Fear? The city is friendly and took
you home with honor, they`ll pay
Phocis his wage, you will be quiet.
ELECTRA   Are you resolved to understand
nothing, Orestes?
I am not Agamemnon, only his daughter. You are Agamemnon.
Beggars and the sons of beggars
May wander at will over the world, but Agamemnon has his
honor and high Mycenae
Is not to be cast.
ORESTES   Mycenae for a ship: who will buy kingdom
And sell me a ship with oars?
ELECTRA   Dear: listen. Come to the parapet
where it hangs over the night:
The ears at the door hinder me. Now, let the arrow-eyed stars
hear, the night, not men, as for the Gods
No one can know them, whether they be angry or pleased, tall
and terrible, standing apart,
When they make signs out of the darkness. ... I cannot tell you.
. . . You will stay here, brother?
ORESTES   I`ll go
To the edge and over it. Sweet sister, if you`ve got a message for
them, the dark ones?
ELECTRA   You do not mean
Death; but a wandering; what does it matter what you mean?
I know two ways and one will quiet you.
You shall choose either.
ORESTES   But I am quiet. It is more regular than
a sleeping child`s: be untroubled,
Yours burns, it is you trembling.
ELECTRA   Should I not tremble? It is only
a little to offer,
But all that I have.
ORESTES   Offer?
ELECTRA   It is accomplished: my father is
avenged: the fates and the body of Electra
Are nothing. But for Agamemnon to rule in Mycenae: that is not
nothing. O my brother
You are Agamemnon: rule: take all you will: nothing is denied
you. The Gods have redressed evil
And clamped the balance.
ORESTES   No doubt they have done what they desired.
ELECTRA   And yours,
yours? I will not suffer her
Justly punished to dog you over the end of the world. Your desire?
Speak it openly, Orestes.
She is to be conquered: if her ghost were present on the stones
let it hear you. I will make war on her
With my life, or with my body.
ORESTES   What strange martyrdom, Electra,
what madness for sacrifice
Makes your eyes burn like two fires on a watch-tower, though
the night darkens?
ELECTRA   What you want you shall have:
And rule in Mycenae. Nothing, nothing is denied you. If I knew
which of the two choices
Would quiet you, I would do and not speak, not ask you. Tell
me, tell me. Must I bear all the burden,
I weaker, and a woman? You and I were two hawks quartering
the field for living flesh Orestes
Under the storm of the memory
Of Agamemnon: we struck: we tore the prey, that dog and that
woman. Suddenly since yesterday
You have shot up over me and left me,
You are Agamemnon, you are the storm of the living presence,
the very King, and I, lost wings
Under the storm, would die for you. . , . You do not speak yet?
. . . Mine to say it all? . . . You know me a maiden, Orestes,
You have always been with me, no man has even touched my
cheek. It is not easy for one unmarried
And chaste, to name both choices. The first is easy. That terrible
dream in the forest: if fear of desire
Drives you away: it is easy for me not to be. I never have known
Sweetness in life: all my young days were given
ORESTES   I thought to
be silent was better,
And understand you: afterwards I`ll speak.
ELECTRA   to the noise of
blood crying for blood, a crime to be punished,
A house to be emptied: these things are done: and now I am
lonely, and what becomes of me is not important.
There`s water, and there are points and edges, pain`s only a
moment: I`d do it and not speak, but nobody knows
Whether it would give you peace or madden you again, I`d not
be leagued with that bad woman against you,
And these great walls sit by the crater, terrible desires blow
through them. O brother I`ll never blame you,
I share the motherhood and the fatherhood, I can conceive the
madness, if you desire too near
The fountain: tell me: I also love you: not that way, but enough
to suffer. What needs to be done
To make peace for you, tell me. I shall so gladly die to make it
for you: or so gladly yield you
What you know is maiden. You are the King; have all your will:
only remain in steep Mycenae,
In the honor of our father. Not yet: do not speak yet. You have
said it is not
Remorse drives you away: monsters require monsters, to have
let her live a moment longer
Would have been the crime: therefore it cannot be but desire
drives you: or the fear of desire: dearest,
It is known horror unlocks the heart, a shower of things hidden:
if that which happened yesterday unmasked
A beautiful brother`s love and showed more awful eyes in it: all
that our Gods require is courage.
Let me see the face, let the eyes pierce me. What, dearest? Here
in the stiff cloth of the sacred darkness
Fold over fold hidden, above the sleeping city,
By the great stones of the door, under the little golden falcons
that swarm before dawn up yonder,
In the silence . . . must I dare to woo you,
I whom man never wooed? to let my hand glide under the cloak.
. . . O you will stay! these arms
Making so soft and white a bond around you ... I also begin
to love that way, Orestes,
Feeling the hot hard flesh move under the loose cloth, shudder
against me. . . . Ah, your mouth, Ah,
The burning-kiss me-
ORESTES   We shall never ascend this mountain.
So it might come true: we have to be tough against them,
Our dreams and visions, or they true themselves into flesh. It is
sweet: I faint for it: the old stones here
Have seen more and not moved. A custom of the house. To
accept you, little Electra, and go my journey
To-morrow: you`d call cheating. Therefore: we shall not go up
this mountain dearest, dearest,
To-night nor ever. It`s Clytemnestra in you. But the dead are a
weak tribe. If I had Agamemnon`s
We`d live happily sister and lord it in Mycenae-be a king like
the others royalty and incest
Run both in the stream of the blood. Who scrubbed the stones
there?
ELECTRA   Slaves. O fire burn me! Enter and lay waste,
Deflower, trample, break down, pillage the little city,
Make what breach you will, with flesh or a spear, give it to the
spoiler. See, as I tear the garment.
What if I called it cheating? Be cruel and treacherous: I`ll run
my chances
On the bitter mercies of to-morrow.
ORESTES   Bitter they would be. No.
ELECTRA   It`s clear
that for this reason
You`d sneak out of Mycenae and be lost outward. Taste first, bite
the apple, once dared and tried
Desire will be not terrible. It`s doglike to run off whining. Remember
it was I that urged
Yesterday`s triumph. You: life was enough: let them live. I drove
on, burning; your mind, reluctant metal,
I dipped it in fire and forged it sharp, day after day I beat and
burned against you, and forged
A sword: I the arm. Are you sorry it`s done? Now again with
hammer and burning heat I beat against you,
You will not be sorry. We two of all the world, we alone,
Are fit for each other, we have so wrought . . . O eyes scorning
the world, storm-feathered hawk my hands
Caught out of the air and made you a king over this rock, O axe
with the gold helve, O star
Alone over the storm, beacon to men over blown seas, you will
not flee fate, you will take
What the Gods give. What is a man not ruling? An ant in the hill:
ruler or slave the choice is,
Or a runaway slave, your pilgrim portion, buffeted over the
borders of the lands, publicly
Whipped in the cities. But you, you will bind the north-star on
your forehead, you will stand up in Mycenae
Stone, and a king.
ORESTES   I am stone enough not to be changed by
words, nor by the sweet and burning flame of you,
Beautiful Electra.
ELECTRA   Well then: we`ve wasted our night. See, there`s
the morning star
I might have draggled into a metaphor of you. A fool: a boy:
no king.
ORESTES   It would have been better
To have parted kindlier, for it is likely
We shall have no future meeting.
ELECTRA   You will let this crime (the
God commanded) that dirtied the old stones here
Make division forever?
ORESTES   Not the crime, the wakening. That deed is
past, it is finished, things past
Make no division afterward, they have no power, they have become
nothing at all: this much
I have learned at a crime`s knees.
ELECTRA   Yet we are divided.
ORESTES Because I
have suddenly awakened, I will not waste inward
Upon humanity, having found a fairer object.
ELECTRA   Some nymph of
the field? I knew this coldness
Had a sick root: a girl in the north told me about the hill-shepherds
who living in solitude
Turn beast with the ewes, their oreads baa to them through the
matted fleece and they run mad, what madness
Met you in the night and sticks to you?
ORESTES   I left the madness of the
house, to-night in the dark, with you it walks yet.
How shall I tell you what I have learned? Your mind is like a
hawk`s or like a lion`s, this knowledge
Is out of the order of your mind, a stranger language. To wild
beasts and the blood of kings
A verse blind in the book.
ELECTRA   At least my eyes can see dawn graying:
tell and not mock me, our moment
Dies in a moment.
ORESTES   Here is the last labor
To spend on humanity. I saw a vision of us move in the dark:
all that we did or dreamed of
Regarded each other, the man pursued the woman, the woman
clung to the man, warriors and kings
Strained at each other in the darkness, all loved or fought inward,
each one of the lost people
Sought the eyes of another that another should praise him; sought
never his own but another`s; the net of desire
Had every nerve drawn to the center, so that they writhed like a
full draught of fishes, all matted
In the one mesh; when they look backward they see only a man
standing at the beginning,
Or forward, a man at the end; or if upward, men in the shining
bitter sky striding and feasting,
Whom you call Gods . . .
It is all turned inward, all your desires incestuous, the woman the
serpent, the man the rose-red cavern,
Both human, worship forever . . .
ELECTRA   You have dreamed wretchedly.
ORESTES I have
seen the dreams of the people and not dreamed them.
As for me, I have slain my mother.
ELECTRA   No more?
ORESTES   And the gate`s open,
the gray boils over the mountain, I have greater
Kindred than dwell under a roof. Didn`t I say this would be dark
to you? I have cut the meshes
And fly like a freed falcon. To-night, lying on the hillside, sick
with those visions, I remembered
The knife in the stalk of my humanity; I drew and it broke;
I entered the life of the brown forest
And the great life of the ancient peaks, the patience of stone,
I felt the changes in the veins
In the throat of the mountain, a grain in many centuries, we have
our own time, not yours; and I was the stream
Draining the mountain wood; and I the stag drinking; and I was
the stars,
Boiling with light, wandering alone, each one the lord of his own
summit; and I was the darkness
Outside the stars, I included them, they were a part of me. I was
mankind also, a moving lichen
On the cheek of the round stone . . . they have not made words
for it, to go behind things, beyond hours and ages,
And be all things in all time, in their returns and passages, in the
motionless and timeless center,
In the white of the fire . . . how can I express the excellence
I have found, that has no color but clearness;
No honey but ecstasy; nothing wrought nor remembered; no
undertone nor silver second murmur
That rings in love`s voice, I and my loved are one; no desire but
fulfilled; no passion but peace,
The pure flame and the white, fierier than any passion; no time
but spheral eternity: Electra,
Was that your name before this life dawned
ELECTRA   Here is mere death.
Death like a triumph I`d have paid to keep you
A king in high Mycenae: but here is shameful death, to die because
I have lost you. They`ll say
Having done justice Agamemnon’s son ran mad and was lost in
the mountain; but Agamemnon`s daughter
Hanged herself from a beam of the house: O bountiful hands of
justice! This horror draws upon me
Like stone walking.
ORESTES   What fills men`s mouths is nothing; and your
threat is nothing; I have fallen in love outward.
If I believed you it is I that am like stone walking.
ELECTRA   I can endure
even to hate you,
But that`s no matter. Strength`s good. You are lost. I here remember
the honor of the house, and Agamemnon`s.
She turned and entered the ancient house. Orestes walked in the
clear dawn; men say that a serpent
Killed him in high Arcadia. But young or old, few years or many,
signified less than nothing
To him who had climbed the tower beyond time, consciously,
and cast humanity, entered the earlier fountain.
Source
The script ran 0.008 seconds.