The Tower Beyond Tragedy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHEIJKLDCMDBKB IKNCDMBCOCIKPQRBBBST BUCMCBVCCWBCDXBYZA2B BDBZCDZBNB2CZKEZKICC SKB2B2KECDDKKECDDBB2 B2C2KCKKBB2KCBCCCB2B 2B2D2ZCKB2BBB2CCCB2C ZZBCCCCZE2EIZCZB2CB2 BBZKF2B2CG2BCZCZB2B2 EH2ZBKCBCECCBCI2BBB2 CPI | A |
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister Troy's | B |
burning flower from Sparta the beautiful sea flower | C |
Cut in clear stone crowned with the fragrant golden mane she | D |
the ageless the uncontaminable | E |
This Clytemnestra was her sister low statured fierce lipped not | F |
dark nor blonde greenish gray eyed | G |
Sinewed with strength you saw under the purple folds of the | H |
queen cloak but craftier than queenly | E |
Standing between the gilded wooden porch pillars great steps of | I |
stone above the steep street | J |
Awaiting the King | K |
Most of his men were quartered on the town | L |
he clanking bronze with fifty | D |
And certain captives came to the stair The Queen's men were | C |
a hundred in the street and a hundred | M |
Lining the ramp eighty on the great flags of the porch she | D |
raising her white arms the spear butts | B |
Thundered on the stone and the shields clashed eight shining | K |
clarions | B |
Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of | I |
their metal throats air cleaving | K |
Over the King come home He raised his thick burnt colored | N |
beard and smiled then Clytemnestra | C |
Gathering the robe setting the golden sandaled feet carefully | D |
stone by stone descended | M |
One half the stair But one of the captives marred the comeliness | B |
of that embrace with a cry | C |
Gull shrill blade sharp cutting between the purple cloak and | O |
the bronze plates then Clytemnestra | C |
Who was it The King answered A piece of our goods out of | I |
the snatch of Asia a daughter of the king | K |
So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again Eh | P |
you keep state here my queen | Q |
You've not been the poorer for me In heart in the widowed | R |
chamber dear she pale replied though the slaves | B |
Toiled the spearmen were faithful What's her name the slavegirl's | B |
AGAMEMNON Come up the stair They tell me my kinsman's | B |
Lodged himself on you | S |
CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus He was out of refuge | T |
flits between here and Tiryns | B |
Dear the girl's name | U |
AGAMEMNON Cassandra We've a hundred or so other | C |
captives besides two hundred | M |
Rotted in the hulls they tell odd stories about you and your | C |
guest eh no matter the ships | B |
Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt I smell like an | V |
old shepherd's goatskin you'll have bath water | C |
CLYTEMNESTRA | C |
They're making it hot Come my lord My hands will pour it | W |
They enter the palace | B |
CASSANDRA | C |
In the holy city | D |
In Troy when the stone was standing walls and the ash | X |
Was painted and carved wood and pictured curtains | B |
And those lived that are dead they had caged a den | Y |
Of wolves out of the mountain and I a maiden | Z |
Was led to see them it stank and snarled | A2 |
The smell was the smell here the eyes were the eyes | B |
Of steep Mycenae O God guardian of wanderers | B |
Let me die easily | D |
So cried Cassandra the daughter of King Priam treading the steps | B |
of the palace at Mycenae | Z |
Swaying like a drunken woman drunk with the rolling of the | C |
ship and with tears and with prophecy | D |
The stair may yet be seen among the old stones that are Mycenae | Z |
tall dark Cassandra the prophetess | B |
The beautiful girl with whom a God bargained for love high nurtured | N |
captive shamefully stained | B2 |
With the ship's filth and the sea's rolled her dark head upon her | C |
shoulders like a drunken woman | Z |
And trod the great stones of the stair The captives she among | K |
them were ranked into a file | E |
On the flagged porch between the parapet and the spearmen | Z |
The people below shouted for the King | K |
King Agamemnon returned conqueror after the ten years of | I |
battle and death in Asia | C |
Then cried Cassandra | C |
Good spearmen you did not kill my father not you | S |
Violated my mother with the piercing | K |
That makes no life in the womb not you defiled | B2 |
My tall blond brothers with the masculine lust | B2 |
That strikes its loved one standing | K |
And leaves him what no man again nor a girl | E |
Ever will gaze upon with the eyes of desire | C |
Therefore you'll tell me | D |
Whether it's an old custom in the Greek country | D |
The cow goring the bull break the inner door back | K |
And see in what red water how cloaked your King | K |
Bathes and my brothers are avenged a little | E |
One said Captive be quiet And she What have I to be quiet for | C |
you will not believe me | D |
Such wings my heart spreads when the red runs out of any | D |
Greek I must let the bird fly O soldiers | B |
He that mishandled me dies The first one of your two brute | B2 |
Aj axes that threw me backward | B2 |
On the temple flagstones a hard bride bed I enduring him | C2 |
heard the roofs of my city breaking | K |
The roar of flames and spearmen what came to Ajax Out of a | C |
cloud the loud winged falcon lightning | K |
Came on him shipwrecked clapped its wings about him clung | K |
to him the violent flesh burned and the bones | B |
Broke from each other in that passion and now this one returned | B2 |
safe the Queen is his lightning | K |
While she yet spoke a slave with haggard eyes darted from the | C |
door there were hushed cries and motions | B |
In the inner dark of the great hall Then the Queen Clytemnestra | C |
issued smiling She drew | C |
Her cloak up for the brooch on the left shoulder was broken the | C |
fillet of her hair had come unbound | B2 |
Yet now she was queenly at length and standing at the stair head | B2 |
spoke Men of Mycenae I have made | B2 |
Sacrifice for the joy this day has brought to us the King come | D2 |
home the enemy fallen fallen | Z |
In the ashes of Asia I have made sacrifice I made the prayer | C |
with my own lips and struck the bullock | K |
With my own hand The people murmured together She's not | B2 |
a priestess the Queen is not a priestess | B |
What has she done there what wild sayings | B |
Make wing in the Queen's throat | B2 |
CLYTEMNESTRA I have something to tell you | C |
Too much joy is a message bearer of misery | C |
A little is good but come too much and it devours us Therefore | C |
we give of a great harvest | B2 |
Sheaves to the smiling Gods and therefore out of a full cup we | C |
pour the quarter No man | Z |
Dare take all that God sends him whom God favors or destruction | Z |
Rides into the house in the last basket I have been twelve years | B |
your shepherdess I the Queen have ruled you | C |
And I am accountable for you | C |
CASSANDRA | C |
Why should a man kill his own mother | C |
The cub of the lion being grown | Z |
Will fight with the lion but neither lion nor wolf | E2 |
Nor the unclean jackal | E |
Bares tooth against the womb that he dropped out of | I |
Yet I have seen | Z |
CLYTEMNESTRA | C |
Strike that captive woman with your hand spearman and then | Z |
if the spirit | B2 |
Of the she wolf in her will not quiet with the butt of the spear | C |
CASSANDRA the blade in the child's hand | B2 |
Enter the breast that the child sucked that woman's | B |
The left breast that the robe has dropped from for the brooch is | B |
broken | Z |
That very hillock of whiteness and she crying she kneeling | K |
The spearman 'who is nearest CASSANDRA covers her mouth | F2 |
twith his hand | B2 |
CLYTEMNESTRA | C |
My sister's beauty entered Troy with too much gladness They | G2 |
forgot to make sacrifice | B |
Therefore destruction entered therefore the daughters of Troy | C |
cry out in strange dispersals and this one | Z |
Grief has turned mad I will not have that horror march under | C |
the Lion gate of Mycenae | Z |
That split the citadel of Priam Therefore I say I have made | B2 |
sacrifice I have subtracted | B2 |
A fraction from immoderate joy For consider my people | E |
How unaccountably God has favored the city and brought home | H2 |
the army King Agamemnon | Z |
My dear my husband my lord and yours | B |
Is yet not such a man as the Gods love but insolent fierce overbearing | K |
whose folly | C |
Brought many times many great evils | B |
On all the heads and fighting hopes of the Greek force Why | C |
even before the fleet made sail | E |
While yet it gathered on Boeotian Aulis this man offended He | C |
slew one of the deer | C |
Of the sacred herd of Artemis out of pure impudence hunter's | B |
pride that froths in a young boy | C |
Laying nock to string of his first bow this man grown a grave | I2 |
king leader of the Greeks | B |
The angry Goddess | B |
Blew therefore from the horn of the Trojan shore storm without | B2 |
end no slackening no turn no slumber | C |
Of the ea | P |
Robinson Jeffers
(1)
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