1968: Robert Kennedy Recites from Agamemnon

His planewas in the air
withtentative word
Itlanded in Indianapolis
where hefound out for certain

Hewas making a campaign stop
TheIndiana primary was a few weeks ahead

He droveto the rally
about a1000 supporters
who hadn'tyet heard the news

RFK thendelivered a spontaneous encomium
in praiseof Marlin Luther King
toa stunned audience

whichincluded these lines:

"Myfavorite poet was Aeschylus
Hewrote

'In oursleep
pain
whichcannot forget
falls
drop bydrop upon the heart
until
inour own despair
against our will

comeswisdom
throughthe awful grace of God'"

He'dfirst read those words
afew months after Dallas
whenJacqueline Kennedy had shown him Edith Hamilton's
TheGreek Way

Heread it carefully also Hamilton's Three Greek Plays.

DidKing's death alert Robert Kennedy to the danger
outthere in the gun-batty darkness?
ordid it malce him more quietly fatalistic
inthe walled words of Greece

Idecided to take a look at the ancient text
whichcomes in the midst of a 223-line chant
nearthe beginning of the play

Achorus of elderly men near the palace
fillsin the audience
on theTrojan wars
& thekarmic knots & cutse-based calamities
that weresoon to befall Agamemnon
and theTrojan princess Cassandra
whoseboat was about to dock
atthe end of the long bay near Argos on the Peloponnesus.

Thechorus approaches Klytemnestra
tolearn about the news,
given by asignal-fire
thatTroy had fallen.

Inthe original Greek
thelines that Kennedy spoke
aremainly delivered in cretics
andiambics
plusone example of the meter known as
thedochmaic, used for times of high emotion
&a spondee!

WhatARE these vowels and consonants?
TheGreek is very very difficult

Ahh,Robert Kennedy!
whata thorny cluster of lines
the bardhas made
his Argiveelders chant!

Inhis translation of Agamemnon
RobertLowell
elidestogether some 23 lines
(includingthose the grief-numbed Kennedy spoke)
intothree:

Gloryto Zeus, whatever he is:
hecut off the testicles of his own father,
andtaught us dominion comes from pain!

AndTed Hughes in his translation
doeslines 176-183 as follows:
(asbest I can determine)

The truth
Has to bemelted out of our stubborn lives
Bysuffering.
Nothingspeaks the truth,
Nothingtells us how things really are,
Nothingforces us to know
What we donot want to know
Exceptpain.
And thisis how the gods declare their love.
Truthcomes with pain.

Notnearly as true to gnarly Aeschylus
asRFK.

Thepoet who visits
theorginal chorus
runsinto the wall-like obstinance of genius

Youhave to pound it
verbby verb, and image by image
intoyour pain-hardened brainland

Buteven after a long and pounding study
howcan a bard translate these lines
withtheir cretics, iambs and dochmaics
inthe starkness of current strife & war?

(& didthe medieval copyists
get allthe verbs and endings exact?)

Idecided to translate a larger section of the chorus
beginninga few lines before the
onesKennedy chanted that stunned afternoon

totry to understand:

Oh Zeus!whoever he is!
(ifthis to him is a pleasing
name to becalled)

This ishow I name him
andI am unable to come up with any other
when Iponder it fully
exceptZeus, and so it's meet to
hurl thisfollyful idea

out of mymind.

Whoeveronce was great
teemingwith war-hunger
shall notbe said to have ever been alive,
while hethat later grew
as aconqueror of land
has comeand gone

Butsomeone who sound-mindedly shouts
victorychants to Zeus,
he shallbuild a wisdom of the All—

for Zeus,by leading mortals to
thinkthings over
sets themon a useful road:

knowledgecomes from suffering
inmagisterial mightiness!

It dripdrip drips in sleep
in frontof the heart

— therelentless memory-pain —
so thateven against our will
awisdom of soul comes upon us!

thanks tothe violent grace
of ourdivinities
in theirsacred throne-place of rule

—lines160-183

Becareful, o Robert Kennedy
Pleasedo not venture forth
withthe scars of Aeschylus
makingyou heedless of the fatal anger

Ed Sanders