Agamemnon
Agamemnon monologue from Agamemnon
- Play
- Aeschylus
- Men
- Playing age 20s–40s
- About 1:15
- Dramatic
Agamemnon’s monologue from the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus. A dramatic piece for men with a playing age of 20s–40s, running about 1:15.
The full speech. Read it out loud twice before you start working it.
Agamemnon’s monologue
And what and I supposed to tell them?
It’s too late for turning back. Too late.
You Gods,
How cleartell this heartache?
How begin to break the binds
Of these threads in which I’m now entwined?
Some Gods plays with me and my plans,
His cunning far outwits my petty wiles.
The rabble live with lighter load,
Unencumbered, they can cry
When the fates fuck them around.
Not so us people of position,
We must appearances preserve.
We are the slaves of our supporters.
Trapped helpless in their gaze.
What can I do?
I am ashamed to show my grief,
Yet it is shameful not to shed a tear,
Such misfortune now enmesh me.
You Gods, were things not bad enough
Without Klytaimnestra coming too?
With what words will I greet my wife?
With what face can I look at her?
A mother must tend to her daughter, I suppose,
On her daughter’s wedding day.
Though this father grieves at how
He must give his child away.
My child,
My ill-starred child,
Who will now honeymoon with Hades
On her knees she’ll beg me;
Father, do not marry me to martyrdom, Papa-
Public domain text.
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About Agamemnon
- Agamemnon is the first play of Aeschylus's Oresteia, the only complete Greek tragic trilogy to survive.
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