Rehearsing The Eumenides
in our cursing schoolboy
threnodies
and groans,
the liberal education
wrought a constant consternation
in its clones.
But who might occupy the stage,
so ungendered as a page,
was not for us to muse about and fuss,
elated to be freighted
and by learning consecrated
with the wherewithal to cuss.
Aeschylus was daunting
and the mem'ry of him's haunting
even now,
Orestes, sometimes naughty,
somewhat risibly was haughty
when impersonated spotty at his brow.
Clytemnestra, with her ruler,
was just not our fav'rite schooler,
may I say,
An instinct rose to fool her
Rather than confront and duel her,
To show how we were smitten by the play.
Clytemnestra, with her ruler,
was just not our fav'rite schooler,
may I say,
An instinct rose to fool her
Rather than confront and duel her,
To show how we were smitten by the play.
Having put Thorny to bed,
Saturday evening, I gave
myself a few moments to
admire how the wonderful
American storyteller,
William Maxwell, laid a
foundation for a break-
fast served to brothers.
He recalled the furniture
as volatile overnight, be-
fore relapsing to its mark
at dawn. He admitted it.
The sea of tears
That washes Troy
Is bottomless.
Let it wash Argos -
Salt, cold water
Purge the blood
Of Agamemnon.
Our cries are bottomless. Out of our eyes
Our tears are bottomless.
Pour them for Agamemnon.
Bring his avenger -
Bring the resolving blade
To cut the heavy
Coagulated
Rope of guilt
That chokes this house,
The strangling cramp
Of the two bodies
Knotted in their crime.
Hack them apart.
William Maxwell
Early Novels and Stories
Bright Center of Heaven
1934
The Library of America, 2008©
Aeschylus
Choephori
(The Libation Bearers)
Ted Hughes, translation
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999©
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