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My favorite scene from Tower Beyond Tragedy
| habeas penem | 06/22/25 |
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Date: June 22nd, 2025 10:47 PM Author: habeas penem Cassandra is possessed by the ghost of Agamemnon, who orders the soldiers to kill Clytemnestra, his wife and murderess. They surround her and are about to kill her.
CLYTEMNESTRA Here am I, thieves, thieves, Drunkards here is my breast, a deep white mark for cowards to aim at: kings have lain on it. No spear yet, heroes, heroes? See, I have no blemish: the arms are white, the breasts are deep and white, the whole body is blemishless: You are tired of your brown wives, draw lots for me rabble, thieves there is loot here, shake the dice thieves, a game yet! One of you will take the bronze and one the silver, One the gold, and one me, Me Clytemnestra a spoil worth having: Kings have kissed me, this dead dog was a king, there is another King at the gate: thieves, thieves, would not this shining Breast brighten a sad thief’s hut, roll in his bed’s filth Shiningly? You could teach me to draw water at the fountain, A dirty child on the other hip: where are the dice? Let me throw first, if I throw sixes I choose my masters: closer you rabble, let me smell you. Don’t fear the knife, it has king’s blood on it, I keep it for an ornament, It has shot its sting. THE BODY OF CASSANDRA Fools, fools, strike! Are your hands dead? CLYTEMNESTRA You would see all of me Before you choose whether to kill or dirtily cherish? If what the King’s used needs commending To the eyes of thieves for thieves’ use: give me room, give me room fellows, you’ll see it is faultless. The dress . . . there . . . THE BODY OF CASSANDRA Fools this wide whore played wife When she was going about to murder me the King; you, will you let her trip you With the harlot’s trick? Strike! Make an end! CLYTEMNESTRA I have not my sister’s, Troy’s flame’s beauty, but I have something. This arm, round, firm, skin without hair, polished like marble: the supple-jointed shoulders: Men have praised the smooth neck, too, The strong clear throat over the deep wide breasts . . . THE BODY OF CASSANDRA She is buying an hour: sheep: it may be Aegisthus Is at the Lion-gate. CLYTEMNESTRA If he were here, Aegisthus, I’d not be the peddler of what trifling charms I have for an hour of life yet. You have wolves’ eyes: Yet there is something kindly about the blue ones there—yours, young soldier, young soldier. . . . The last, The under-garment? You won’t buy me yet? This dead dog, The King here, never saw me naked: I had the night for nurse: turn his head sideways, the eyes Are only half shut. If I should touch him, and the blood came, you’d say I had killed him. Nobody, nobody, Killed him: his pride burst. Ah no one has pity! I can serve well, I have always envied your women, the public ones. Who takes me first? Tip that burnt log onto the flagstones, This will be in a king’s bed then. Your eyes are wolves’ eyes: So many, so many, so famishing— I will undo it, handle me not yet, I can undo it . . . Or I will tear it. And when it is off me then I will be delivered to you beasts . . . THE BODY OF CASSANDRA Then strip her and use her to the bone, wear her through, kill her with it. CLYTEMNESTRA When it is torn You’ll say I am lovely: no one has seen before . . . It won’t tear: I’ll slit it with this knife— (Aegisthus, with many spearmen, issues from the great door. Clytemnestra stabs right and left with the knife; the men are too close to strike her with their long spears.) CLYTEMNESTRA It’s time. Cowards, goats, goats. Here! Aegisthus! |