Klytemnestra
Klytemnestra
Klytemnestra, you baleful broad!
What words have come out of your mouth?
Agamemnon is your wedded husband; loyalty is his due.
What dishonor ran through your mind when your thoughts headed south?
Your dear bridegroom fights nobly,
And with the gods favor will destroy
Every wall, every beast, every bower,
Every temple, every priest, every tower,
And each man, child and woman that is a scion of Troy.
He has cost you one daughter—
No matter, you will produce more,
But only when your wedding bed is filled by your master
And chastity lies unbroken, not sold for the pleasures of a whore.
Hateful, scornful woman!
To relinquish what was never yours to give
By taking Aigisthos into your arms nightly, as suppliant to sovereign;
You have spoiled the crown and soiled the life your husband made for you to live!
“I have always loved my king,
As a mule loves its master, until its bit is removed
And it glances ‘round, its freedom found with no one at the reigns,
And wanders to another field and feeds on sweeter grass with no one to reprove.
“More fortunate than I, that mule;
I thought I’d found my freedom in my feeding ground,
So much did I revel in each caress,
But too soon and too subtly ignorant caresses became self-forged shackles, binding without sound.
“I find myself now with a newer, tighter bit,
Unsure whose control I prefer,
Yet hoping that, with one reign-holder dead,
The other might go off to war!
“Now my own son, too anxious to become his father,
Stares at me, sorrow and disdain in his eyes;
And as he plunges his sword into my ladder-climbing lover, I slowly realize
That liberty has no room for me, except to scandalize.
“’Forgive me, my son,’ I plead,
As a solitary tear slips down his cheek
And I place my hand over his on the hilt,
Helping him to pierce me deep, heedless of the blood being spilt.
“Only in death have I ever found
The freedom I could not above ground.”
