The Journal Wk. 42
The Oresteia: Agamemnon
Agamemnon, 184-257
The sacrifice of Iphigenia
Too well loved of Agamemnon
Was Iphigenia; too well loved
Among those Achaean lords,
paramours of war;
Too well loved was she
To do otherwise than die –
May the right prevail, he prayed,
And o, forgot.
Agamemnon, 320-350
Clytemnestra tells of the Trojan captives, and the restless dead
In Troy the living are as ghosts
Among their captors, who do eat
Of what they will, men fed by Fortune
Unguarded: let them recall
The dead, who starving lie
And lipless cry down vengeance;
May they sleep sound, the right
Is all my desire, may it prevail.
The Journal is a section where I post weekly poems responding to something I’m reading. The current subject is Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, and you can find last week’s edition here:
