Agamemnon Quotes

Quote 1: "I cry the news aloud to Agamemnon's queen/that she may rise up from her bed of state with speed/to raise the rumor of gladness welcoming this beacon,/and singing rise, if truly the city of Ilium/has fallen, as the shining of this fire proclaims." Lines 25-29

Quote 2: "Dishonored in our old bones,/[we] cast off even then from the gathering horde,/stay here, to prop up/on staves the strength of a baby./Since the young vigor that urges/inward to the heart/is frail as age, no warcraft yet perfect,/while beyond age, leaf/withered, man goes three footed/no stronger than a child is,/a dream that falters in daylight." Lines 72-82

Quote 3: "My fate is angry if I obey these,/but angry if I slaughter/this child, the beauty of my house,/with maiden blood shed staining/these father's hands beside the altar./What of these things goes now without disaster?/How shall I fail my ships/and lose my faith of battle?" Lines 206-214

Quote 4: "I think that the city echoes with a clash of cries.../Trojans are stooping now to gather in their arms/their dead, husbands and brothers; children lean to clasp/the aged who begot them, crying upon the death/of those most dear, from lips that will never be free." Lines 320-329

Quote 5: "There is not any armor/in gold against perdition/for him who spurns the high altar/of Justice down into the darkness." Lines 381-384

Quote 6: "The gods fail not to mark/those who have killed many./The black Furies stalking the man/fortunate beyond all right/wrench back again the set of his life/and drop him to darkness.../Let me attain no envied wealth,/let me not plunder cities,/neither be taken in turn, and face/life in the power of another." Lines 461-474

Quote 7: "It is like a woman indeed/to take rapture before the fact is shown for true/They believe too easily, are too quick to shift/from ground to ground; and swift indeed/the rumor voiced by a woman dies again." Lines 483-487

Quote 8: "I call a long farewell to all our unhappiness.../And here, in this sun's shining, we can boast aloud,/whose fame has gone with wings across the land and sea: 'Upon a time the Argive host took Troy...'/And they who hear such things shall call this city blest/and the leaders of the host; and high the grace of God/shall be exalted, that did this. You have the story." Lines 571-581

Quote 9: "Men spoke like that; they thought I wandered in my wits;/yet I made the sacrifice, and in the womanish strain/voice after voice caught up the cry along the city/to echo in the temples of the gods and bless/and still the fragrant flame that melts the sacrifice." Lines 592-597

Quote 10: "But now.../what else/is light more sweet for a woman to behold than this,/to spread the gates before her husband home from war and saved by God's hand?--take this message to the king:/Come, and with speed, back to the city that longs for him,/and may he find a wife within his house as true/as on the day he left her..." Lines 600-607

Quote 11: "Who is he that named you.../Helen, which is death? Appropriately/death of ships, death of men and cities/from the bower's soft curtained/and secluded luxury she sailed then,/driven on the giant west wind,/and armored men in their thousands came,/huntsmen down the oar blade's fading footprint/to struggle in blood with those/who by the banks of Simoeis/beached their hulls where the leaves break." Lines 681-698

Quote 12: "And Righteousness is a shining in/the smoke of mean houses./Her blessing is on the just man./From high hills starred with gold by reeking hands/she turns back/with eyes that glance away into the simple in heart,/spurning the strength of gold/stamped with false flattery./And all things she steers to fulfillment." Lines 772-781

Quote 13: "Not from the lips of men the gods/heard justice, but in one firm cast they laid their votes/within the urn of blood that [Troy] must die/and all her people.../For all this we must thank the gods with grace of much/high praise and memory, who fenced within our toils/of wrath the city; and, because one woman [Helen] strayed,/the beast of [Greece] broke them." Lines 814-824

Quote 14: "And all this -- do not try in the woman's ways to make/me delicate.../nor cross my path with jealousy by strewing the ground/with robes. Such a state becomes the gods, and none beside./I am a mortal, a man; I cannot trample upon/these tinted splendors without fear thrown in my path./I tell you, as a man, not god, to reverence me." Lines 918-925

Quote 15: "Hope is gone utterly,/the sweet strength is far away./Surely this is not fantasy./Surely it is real, this whirl of drifts/that spin the stricken heart. Still I pray; may all this/expectation fade as vanity/into unfulfillment, and not be." Lines 992-1000

Quote 16: "But when the black and mortal blood of man/has fallen to the ground before his feet, who then/can sing spells to call it back again?/Did Zeus not warn us once/when he struck to impotence/that one who could in truth charm back the dead men?/Had the gods not so ordained/that fate should stand against fate/to check any man's excess." Lines 1019-1027

Quote 17: "I have no leisure to stand outside the house and waste/time on this woman. At the central altarstone/the flocks are standing, ready for sacrifice/we make to this glad day we never hoped to see./You: if you are obeying my commands at all, be quick./But if in ignorance you fail to comprehend,/speak not, but make with your barbarian hand some sign." Lines 1055-1061

Quote 18: "Keep from his mate the bull./Caught in the folded web's/entanglement she pinions him and with the black horn/strikes. And he crumples in the watered bath./Guile, I tell you, and death there in the cauldron wrought." Lines 1125-1129

Quote 19: "Did I go wide, or hit, like a real archer? Am I/some swindling seer who hawks his lies from door to door?/Upon your oath, bear witness that I know by heart/the legend of ancient wickedness within this house." Lines 1194-1197

Quote 20: "For there/shall come one to avenge us also, born to slay/his mother, and to wreak death for his father's blood./Outlaw and murderer, driven far from his own land,/he will come back to cope these stones of inward hate./For this is a strong oath and sworn by the high gods, that he shall cast men headlong for his father felled./Why am I then so pitiful? Why must I weep?" Lines 1279-1286

Quote 21: "[Cassandra prayed] against that ultimate shining when the avengers strike/these monsters down in blood, that they avenge as well/one simple slave who died, a small thing, lightly killed." Lines 1324-1326

Quote 22: "Must he give blood for generations gone,/die for those slain and in death pile up/more death to come for the blood shed,/what mortal else who hears shall claim/he was born clear of the dark angel?" Lines 1338-1342

Quote 23: "You cry out as if I were a woman and vain;/but my heart is not fluttered as I speak before you./You know it. You can praise or blame me as you wish;/it is all one to me. That man is Agamemnon,/my husband; he is dead; the work of this right hand/that struck in strength of righteousness. And that is that." Lines 1401-1406

Quote 24: "Go on and threaten me, but know that I am ready,/if fairly you can beat me down beneath your hand,/for you to rule; but if the god grant otherwise,/you shall be taught--too late, for sure--to keep your place." Lines 1422-1425

Quote 25: "Can you claim I have done this?/Speak of me never/more as the wife of Agamemnon./In the shadow of this corpse's queen/the old stark avenger/of Atreus for his revel of hate/struck down this man,/last blood for the slaughtered children." Lines 1497-1504

Quote 26: "Out of such acts you see this dead man stricken here,/and it was I, in my right, who wrought this murder.../driven, a helpless baby in [Thyestes'] arms, to banishment./Yet I grew up, and justice brought me home again,/till from afar I laid my hands upon this man,/since it was I who pieced together the fell plot./Now I can die in honor again, if die I must,/having seen him caught in the cords of just punishment." Lines 1603-1611

Quote 27: "So then you, like a woman, waited the war out/here in the house, shaming the master's bed with lust,/and planned against the lord of war this treacherous death?" Lines 1625-1627

Quote 28: "But why, why then, you coward, could you not have slain your man yourself? Why must it be his wife who killed,/to curse the country and the gods within the ground?/Oh, can Orestes live, be somewhere in sunlight still?/Shall fate grown gracious ever bring him back again/in strength of hand to overwhelm these murderers?" Lines 1642-1648

Quote 29: "These are the howls or impotent rage; forget them, dearest; you/and I/have the power; we two shall bring good order to our house/at least." Lines 1673-1676