Greek Monologues

Aeschylus, Agamemnon (ed. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D.)

Clytaemestra

Citizens of Argos, you Elders present here, I shall not be ashamed to confess in your presence my fondness for my husband--with time diffidence dies away in humans.

Untaught by others, I can tell of my own weary life all the long while my husband was beneath Ilium's walls. First and foremost, it is a terrible evil for a wife to sit forlorn at home, severed from her husband, always hearing many malignant rumors, and for one messenger after another to come bearing tidings of disaster, each worse than the last, and cry them to the household. And as for wounds, had my husband received so many as rumor kept pouring into the house, no net would have been pierced so full of holes as he. Or if he had died as often as reports claimed, then truly he might have had three bodies, a second Geryon, and have boasted of having taken on him a triple cloak of earth ample that above, of that below I speak not, one death for each different shape. Because of such malignant tales as these, many times others have had to loose the high-hung halter from my neck, held in its strong grip. It is for this reason, in fact, that our boy, Orestes, does not stand here beside me, as he should--he in whom rest the pledges of my love and yours. Nor should you think this strange.  For he is in the protecting care of our well-intentioned ally, Strophius of Phocis, who warned me of trouble on two scores--your own peril beneath Ilium's walls, and then the chance that the people in clamorous revolt might overturn the Council, as it is natural for men to trample all the more upon the fallen. Truly such an excuse supports no guile.

Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (ed. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D.)

Orestes

Behold this pair, oppressors of the land, who murdered my father and ransacked my house! They were majestic then, when they sat on their thrones, and are lovers even now, as one may judge by what has happened to them, and their oath holds true to their pledges. Together they vowed a league of death against my unhappy father, and together they vowed to die, and they have kept their promise well.

But now regard again, you who hear this account of ills, the device for binding my unhappy father, with which his hands were manacled, his feet fettered. Spread it out! Stand around in a circle, and display this covering for a man, that the Father may see--not mine, but he who surveys all this, the Sun--that he may see the impious work of my own mother, that he may be my witness in court that I justly pursued this death, my own mother's. For I do not speak of Aegisthus' death: he has suffered the penalty prescribed for adulterers.

But she who devised this abhorrent deed against her husband, whose children she bore, a burden under her belt, a burden once dear, but now a hateful ill, as it seems: what do you think of her? Had she been born a seasnake or a viper, I think her very touch without her bite would have caused anyone else to rot, if shamelessness and an immoral disposition could do so. He again takes up the bloody robe

What name shall I give it, however tactful I may be? A trap for a wild beast? Or a shroud for a corpse in his bier,1 wrapped around his feet? No, rather it is a net: you might call it a hunting net, or robes to entangle a man's feet.  This would be the kind of thing a highwayman might posses, who deceives strangers and earns his living by robbery, and with this cunning snare he might kill many men and warm his own heart greatly.

May such a woman not live with me in my house! Before that may the gods grant me to perish childless!

Aeschylus, Eumenides (ed. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D.)Athena What do you want to say to this, stranger, in turn? After you name your country and family and fortunes, then defend yourself against this charge; if indeed, relying on the justice of your case, you sit clinging to my image near my hearth, as a sacred suppliant, like Ixion.  To all this give me a plain answer. Orestes Lady Athena, first of all I will take away a great anxiety from your last words. I am not a suppliant in need of purification, nor did I sit at your image with pollution on my hands. I will give you strong proof of this. It is the law for one who is defiled by shedding blood to be barred from speech until he is sprinkled with the blood of a new-born victim by a man who can purify from murder.  Long before at other houses I have been thus purified both by victims and by flowing streams. And so I declare that this concern is out of the way. As to my family, you will soon learn. I am an Argive; my father--you rightly inquire about him--was Agamemnon, the commander of the naval forces; along with him, you made Troy, the city of Ilion, to be no city. He did not die nobly, after he came home; but my black-hearted mother killed him after she covered him in a crafty snare that still remains to witness his murder in the bath. And when I came back home, having been an exile in the time before, I killed the woman who gave birth to me, I will not deny it, as the penalty in return for the murder of my dearly-loved father. Together with me Loxias is responsible for this deed, because he threatened me with pains, a goad for my heart, if I should fail to do this deed to those who were responsible. You judge whether I acted justly or not; whatever happens to me at your hands, I will be content.   Euripides, Medea (ed. David Kovacs) Medea O Zeus and Zeus's justice, o light of the sun, now, my friends, I shall be victorious over my enemies: I have set my foot on the path. Now I may confidently expect that my enemies will pay the penalty. For this man, at the very point where I was most in trouble, has appeared as a harbor for my plans: to him will I tie my cable when I go to the city of Pallas Athena. Now I shall tell you all of my designs. Hear, then, words that will give you no pleasure. I shall send one of my servants and ask Jason to come to see me. When he arrives, I shall speak soothing words to him, saying that I hold the same opinion as he, that the royal marriage he has made by abandoning me is well made, that these are beneficial and good decisions.  I shall ask that the children be allowed to stay, not with the thought that I might leave my children behind on hostile soil for my enemies to insult, but so that I may kill the princess by guile. I shall send them bearing gifts, bearing them to the bride so as not to be exiled, a finely-woven gown and a diadem of beaten gold. If she takes this finery and puts it on, she will die a painful death, and likewise anyone who touches her: with such poisons will I smear these gifts.   Euripides, Medea (ed. David Kovacs) Messenger When your two children came with their father and entered the bride's house, all of us servants who were troubled by your misfortunes were cheered. For our ears buzzed with the loud report that you and your husband had brought your former quarrel to an end. And someone kissed the hands and another the blond heads of the children. And I myself for very joy went along with the children into the women's quarters. Here the mistress we now honor instead of you, before she saw the two children, had eyes only for Jason. Then she veiled her eyes and turned her white cheek away, disgusted at seeing the children come in. But your husband tried to take away the girl's wrathful mood and said, ‘You must not be unkind to your kin but must cease your anger and turn your face towards us again, regarding those as near and dear your husband so regards. Receive these gifts and ask your father to grant these children release from their exile for my sake.’ When she had seen the raiment, she could not wait but consented to all her husband asked, and before your children and their father had gone far from the house, she took the many-colored gown and put it on, and setting the gold crown about her locks, she arranged her hair in a bright mirror, smiling at the lifeless image of her body. And then getting up from her seat she paraded about the room, her white feet making dainty steps, entranced with the gifts, glancing back again and again at the straight tendon of her leg. But thereafter there was a terrible sight to behold. For her color changed, and with legs trembling she staggered back sidelong, and by falling on the chair barely escaped collapsing on the floor. And one old woman among the servants, thinking, I suppose, that a frenzy from Pan or one of the other gods had come upon her, raised a festal shout to the god, until she saw the white foam coming between her lips and her eyes starting out of their sockets and her skin all pale and bloodless. Then indeed she raised a wail in answer to her former shout. And at once one servant went to her father's house, another to her new husband to tell of the bride's misfortune: the whole house rang with the sound of drumming footsteps.   Euripides, Medea (ed. David Kovacs) Jason O detestable creature, utterly hateful to the gods, to me, and to the whole human race, you brought yourself to take the sword to your own children and destroyed my life with childlessness! And having done this can you look on the sun and the earth, when you are guilty of a most abominable deed? Death and ruin seize you! Now I am in my right mind, though I was insane before when I brought you from your home among the barbarians to a Greek house. A great curse you were even then, betrayer of father and of the land that nourished you. But the avenging spirit meant for you the gods have visited on me. For you killed your own brother at the hearth and then stepped aboard the fair-prowed Argo. It was with acts like these that you began. But now when you were married to me and had borne me children, you killed them because of sex and the marriage-bed. No Greek woman would have dared to do this, yet I married you in preference to them, and a hateful and destructive match it has proved. You are a she-lion, not a woman, with a nature more savage than Scylla the Tuscan monster. But since ten thousand insults of mine would fail to sting you--such is your native impudence--be gone, doer of disgraceful deeds and murderer of your children! Mine is a fate to bewail: I shall never have the benefit of my new bride, nor will I be able to speak to my children alive, the children I begot and raised, but have lost them. Medea Long would have been the speech I had made in reply to these words of yours if Father Zeus did not know clearly what kind of treatment you have had from me and how you have repaid it. You were not going to cast aside my bed and then spend a pleasant life laughing at me, no, nor the princess either, nor was Creon, who offered you his daughter, going to exile me with impunity. Call me a she-lion, then, if you like and Scylla, dweller on the Tuscan cliff.  For I have touched your heart in the vital spot.   Sophocles, Antigone (ed. Sir Richard Jebb) Creon My fellow citizens! First, the gods, after tossing the fate of our city on wild waves, have once more righted it. Second, I have ordered you through my messengers to come here apart from all the rest, because I knew, first of all, how constant was your reverence for the power of the throne of Laius; how, again, you were reverent, when Oedipus was guiding our city; and lastly, how, when he was dead, you still maintained loyal thoughts towards his children. Since, then, these latter have fallen in one day by a twofold doom--each striking, each struck, both with the stain of a brother's murder--I now possess all the power and the throne according to my kinship with the dead.  Now, it is impossible to know fully any man's character, will, or judgment, until he has been proved by the test of rule and law-giving. For if anyone who directs the entire city does not cling to the best and wisest plans, but because of some fear keeps his lips locked, then, in my judgment, he is and has long been the most cowardly traitor. And if any man thinks a friend more important than his fatherland, that man, I say, is of no account. Zeus, god who sees all things always, be my witness--I would not be silent if I saw ruin, instead of safety, marching upon the citizens. Nor would I ever make a man who is hostile to my country a friend to myself, because I know this, that our country is the ship that bears us safe, and that only when we sail her on a straight course can we make true friends. Such are the rules by which I strengthen this city. Akin to these is the edict which I have now published to the citizenry concerning the sons of Oedipus: Eteocles, who fell fighting in behalf of our city and who excelled all in battle, they shall entomb and heap up every sacred offering that descends to the noblest of the dead below. But as for his brother, Polyneices, I mean, who on his return from exile wanted to burn to the ground the city of his fathers and his race's gods, and wanted to feed on kindred blood and lead the remnant into slavery--it has been proclaimed to the city that no one shall give him funeral honors or lamentation, but all must leave him unburied and a sight of shame, with his body there for birds and dogs to eat. This is my will, and never will I allow the traitor to stand in honor before the just. But whoever has good will to Thebes, he shall be honored by me in death as in life.   Sophocles, Antigone (ed. Sir Richard Jebb) Guard It happened like this. When we had come to the place with those fierce threats of yours still in our ears, we swept away all the dust that covered the corpse and bared the damp body well. We then sat down on the brow of the hill to windward, fleeing the smell from him, lest it strike us. Each man was wide awake and kept his neighbor alert with torrents of threats, if any one should be careless of this task.  So time passed, until the disk of the sun stood bright in mid-sky and the heat began to burn. And then suddenly a whirlwind lifted from the earth a storm of dust, a trouble in the sky, and it filled the plain, marring all the foliage of its woods.  Soon the wide air was choked with it. We closed our eyes, and endured the plague from the gods. When, after a long while, this storm had passed, the girl was seen, and she wailed aloud with the sharp cry of a grieving bird, as when inside her empty nest she sees the bed stripped of its nestlings. So she, too, when she saw the corpse bare, broke into a cry of lamentation and cursed with harsh curses those who had done it. Immediately she took thirsty dust in her hands, and from a pitcher of beaten bronze held high she crowned the dead with thrice-poured libations. We rushed forward when we saw it, and at once closed upon our quarry, who was not at all dismayed. We then charged her with her past and present doings, but she made no denial of anything--at once to my joy and to my pain. For to have escaped from trouble one's self gives the greatest joy, but it stings to lead friends to evil. Naturally, though, all such things are of less account to me than my own safety   Euripides, Electra Orestes Orestes, in disguise, has come out of exile to find his sister married to a poor farmer, who respects her noble birth by mantaining the charade of marriage.  He contemplates the nature of man and how best to judge the character of a man. Alas, we look for good on earth and cannot recognize it when met, since all our human heritage runs mongrel.  At times I have seen descendants of the noblest family grow worthless though the cowards had courageous sons; inside the souls of wealthy men bleak famine lives while minds of stature struggle trapped in starving bodies. How then can man distinguish man, what test can he use? the test of wealth? that measure means poverty of mind; of poverty?  the pauper owns one thing, the sickness of his condition, a compelling teacher of evil; by nerve in war? yet who, when a spear is cast across his face, will stand to witness his companion's courage? We can only toss our judgements random on the wind. This fellow here is no great man among the Argives, not dignified by family in the eyes of the world--he is a face in the crowd, and yet we choose him champion. Can you not come to understand, you empty-minded, opinion-stuffed people, a man is judged by grace among his fellows, manners are nobility's touchstone? Such men of manners can control our cities best, and homes, but the well-born sportsman, long on muscle, short on brains, is only good for a statue in the park, not even sterner in the shocks of war than weaker
men, for courage is the gift of character. Now let us take whatever rest this house can give; Agamemnon's child deserves it, the one here and the one absent for whom I stand.  We have no choice but go indoors, servants, inside the house, since our poor host seems eager to entertain us, more than a rich man might. I do praise and admire his most kind reception but would have been more pleased if your brother on the crest of fortune could have brought me to a more fortunate house. Perhaps he may still come; Apollo's oracles are strong, though human prophecy is best ignored.   Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers Clissa The woman who is our mistress told me to make haste and summon Aegisthus for the strangers, "so that he can come and hear, as man to man, in more detail this news that they have brought."  She put a sad face on before the servants, to hide the smile inside her eyes over this work that has been done so happily for her--though on this house the curse is now complete from the plain story that the stranger men have brought. But as for that Aegisthus, oh, he will be pleased enough to hear the story.  Poor unhappy me, all my long-standing mixture of misfortunes, hard burden enough, here in this house of Atreus, when it befell me made the heart ache in my breast. But never yet did I have to bear a hurt like this. I took the other troubles bravely as they came: but now, darling Orestes!  I wore out my life for him.  I took him from his mother, brought him up. There were times when he screamed at night and woke me from my rest; I had to do many hard tasks, and now useless; a baby is like a beast, it does not think but you have to nurse it, do you not, the way it wants. For the child still in swaddling clothes can not tell us if he is hungry or thirsty, if he needs to make water.  Children's young insides are a law to themselves. I need second sight for this, and many a time I think I missed, and had to wash the baby's clothes. The nurse and the laundrywoman had a combined duty and that was I.  I was skilled in both handicrafts, and so Orestes' father gave him to my charge. And now, unhappy, I am told that he is dead and go to take the story to that man who has defiled our house; he will be glad to hear such news.   Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers Electra Almighty herald of the world above, the world below: Hermes, lord of the dead, help me; announce my prayers to the charmed spirits underground, who watch over my father's house, that they may hear.  Tell Earth herself, who brings all things to birth, who gives them strength, then gathers their big yield into herself at last. I myself pour these lustral waters to the dead, and speak, and call upon my father: Pity me; pity your own Orestes.  How shall we be lords in our house?  We have been sold, and go as wanderers because our mother bought herself, for us, a man, Aegisthus, he who helped her hand to cut you down. Now I am what a slave is, and Orestes lives outcast from his great properties, while they go proud in the high style and luxury of what you worked to win.  By some good fortune let Orestes come back home.  Such is my prayer, my father.  Hear me; hear. And for myself, grant that I be more temperate of heart than my mother; that I act with purer hand. Such are my prayers for us; but for our enemies, father, I pray that your avenger come, that they who killed you shall be killed in turn, as they deserve. Between my prayer for good and prayer for good I set this prayer for evil; and I speak it against Them. For us, bring blessings up into the world.  Let Earth and conquering Justice, and all gods besides, give aid. Such are my prayers; and over them I pour these drink offerings.  Yours the strain now, yours to make them flower with mourning song, and incantation for the dead.   Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers Orestes Behold the twin tyrannies of our land, these two who killed my father and who sacked my house.  For a time they sat upon their thrones and kept their pride of state, and they are lovers still.  So may you judge by what befell them, for as they were pledged their oath abides. They swore together death for my unhappy sire and swore to die together.  Now they keep their oath. Behold again, o audience of these evil things, the engine against my wretched father they devised, the hands' entanglement, the hobbles for his feet. Spread it out.  Stand around me in a circle and display this net that caught a man.  So shall, not my father, but that great father who sees all, the Sun, look on my mother's sacrilegious handiwork and be a witness for me in my day of trial how it was in all right that I achieved this death, my mother's: for Aegisthus' death I take no count: he has his seducer's punishment, no more than law. But she, who plotte this foul death against the man by whom she carried the weight of children underneath her zone, burden once loved, shown hard and hateful now, what does she seem to be?  Some water snake, some viper whose touch is rot even to him who felt no fang strike, by that brutal and wrong daring in her heart. And this thing: what shall I call it and be right, in all eloquence?  Trap for an animal or winding sheet for dead man?  Or bath curtain?  Since it is a net, robe you could call it, to entangle a man's feet. Some highwayman might own a thing like this, to catch the wayfarer and rob him of his money and so make a living.  With a treacherous thing like this he could take many victims and go warm within. May no such wife as she was come to live with me. Sooner, let God destroy me, with no children born.... Did she do it or did she not?  My witness is this great robe.  It was thus she stained Aegisthus' sword. Dip it and dip it again, the smear of blood conspires with time to spoil the beauty of this precious thing. Now I can praise him, now I can stand by to mourn and speak before this web that killed my father; yet I grieve for the thing done, the death, and all our race. I have won; but my victory is soiled, and has no pride.... I would have you know, I see not how this thing will end. I am a charioteer whose course is wrenched outside the track, for I am beaten, my rebellious senses bolt with me headlong and the fear against my heart is ready for the singing and dance of wrath.  But while I hold some grip still on my wits, I say publicly to my friends: I killed my mother not without some right. My father's murder stained her, and the god's disgust. As for the spells that charmed me to such daring, I give you in chief the seer of Pytho, Loxias.  He declared I could do this and not be charged with wrong. Of my evasion's punishment I will not speak: no archery could hit such height of agony. And look upon me now, how I go armored in leafed branch and garland on my way to the centerstone and sanctuary, and Apollo's level place, the shining of the fabulous fire that never dies, to escape this blood that is my own.  Loxias ordained that I should turn me to no other shrine than this. To all men of Argos in time to come I say they shall be witness, how these evil things were done. I go, an outcast wanderer from this land, and leave behind, in life, in death, the name of what I did.  
Plautus, The Menaechmi Peniculus In all my born days--and it's more than thirty years' worth--I've never pulled a boner like this, I'm a trecherous fiend, and this time I guess I've really transgressed.  Imagine my missing a meal! And why?  I got involved in listening to a public speech and while I stood around gawking, all open mouth and ears, Menaechmus made his getaway and got back to his girl, and didn't want me along, I suppose.  May the heavenly gods crack down on whoever it was that thought up public speeches, that invented this out-of-doors way to use up people's good time who haven't any.  Shouldn't the audience consist only of those with time on their hands?  And shouldn't they perhaps be fined if they fail to attend those meetings where someone gets up in public and starts sounding off?  There are people enough with nothing much to do, who eat only one meal a day, never dine out, or have guests in, and it's to them the duty to show up at meetings or official functions should be assigned. If I hadn't stuck around today to listen, I wouldn't have lost out on the dinner Menaechmus invited me to come to--and I do think he meant it, as sure as I can see I'm alive.  I'll show up anyway, on the off-chance there's still something left; the mere hope makes my mouth water.