Agamemnon's Return

Aeschylus: Agamemnon
Clytemnestra reveals Agamemnon's body to the Chorus

                                         At last my hour came
Here I stand and here I struck
and here my work is done.
I did it all. I don't deny it, no.
He has no way to flee or fight his destiny -
our never-ending, all-embracing net, I cast it
wide for the royal haul, I coil him round and round
in the wealth, the robes of doom, and then I strike him
once, twice, and at each stroke he cries in agony -
he buckles at the knees and crashes here!
And when he's down I add the third, last blow,
to the Zeus who saves the dead beneath the ground
I send that blow home in homage like a prayer.

So he goes down, and the life is bursting out of him -
great sprays of blood, and the murderous shower
wounds me, dyes me black and I, I revel
like the Earth when the spring rains come down,
the blessed gifts of god, and the new green spear
splits the sheath and rips to birth in glory!