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Catherine P. MacCarthy, The Saffron Dress (after Aeschylus) (poem)
One day hunting in the forest the king
restless for war, slaughtered a young deer.
Winds dropped at Aulis and to Troy no fleet
could sail. For the price of fair wind
the goddess named Agamemnon’s daughter,
Iphighenia, just come of age.
He sent for her, on pretext of marriage,
to his strong, mountain palace, the king,
urged the queen to prepare her daughter
with talk of sons and husbands gone to war,
so women with fine needles in the wind
sewed a trousseau of silk, their hands fleet
while men at harbour deserted his fleet,
and that wife in their private language,
voice in orange groves a summer wind,
sang a dream of love so clear, the king
to settle old scores with Priam by war,
baulked at the rapture of his daughter
who ran beside the carriage, daughter
of hilly Mycenae, agile and fleet
as a young deer heedless of war,
under her breath, big name for his age,
‘Achille, Achille,’ hero not king,
her joy lifting to the heavens like wind,
to the port her passion a west wind
that stirred fresh doubt in her heart, daughter
in the wings, no one told her where her king
of hearts among warriors from the fleet
stood by the blazing fire that was the stage,
held by guards clearly decked for war
and when she looked around in fear, war
almost come, a bride to be, for fair wind,
one met her eyes and saw her age
before the sacrifice, his daughter
for Troy above the flames, to bear the fleet
under full sail along with the pride of a king.
Winds shifted at the death of a daughter.
The fleet hoisted sails of a new age.
War came to roost in the house of a king.
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