previous next

Clytemnestra
[900] No longer will I let shame prevent my kneeling to you, a mortal to one goddess-born; why do I affect reserve? whose interests should I consult before my child's? Throwing herself before Achilles. Oh! help me, goddess-born, in my sore distress, and her that was called your bride, in vain, it is true, yet called she was. [905] For you it was I wreathed her head and led her forth as if to marriage, but now it is to slaughter I am bringing her. On you will come reproach because you did not help her; for though not wedded to her, yet were you the loving husband of my hapless girl in name at any rate. By your beard, your right hand, and mother too I do implore you; [910] for your name it was that worked my ruin, and you are bound to stand by that. Except your knees I have no altar to fly to; and not a friend stands at my side. You have heard the cruel abandoned scheme of Agamemnon; and I, a woman, have come, as you see, to a camp of lawless sailor-folk, bold in evil's cause, [915] though useful when they wish; Now if you boldly stretch forth your arm in my behalf, our safety is assured; but if not, we are lost.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (Gilbert Murray, 1913)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (2 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: