Mycenae

Those who held the strong city of Mycenae, rich Corinth and Cleonae;

"My own three favorite cities," answered Hera, "are Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae.

He came once to Mycenae, not as an enemy but as a guest, in company with Polyneikes to recruit his forces, for they were levying war against the strong city of Thebes, and prayed our people for a body of picked men to help them.

O victorious maidens of Mycenae, I report to all his friends that Orestes has conquered, and Aegisthus, the murderer of Agamemnon, lies on the ground;

Oh, daughter—for I see you now before the house—I have come, bringing you from my own sheep this newborn nursling of the flock, having drawn it away from its mother, and garlands, and cheeses I have taken from the press, and this old treasure of Dionysus, furnished with fragrance, small, but sweet to pour a cup of it into a weaker drink.

Those are not rescuers from Mycenae whom I see?

What do they call thee, aged sir, those folk in Mycenae?

Eurystheus, king of Mycenae, sends me hither to fetch these back;

Now will I muster the citizens and set them in array, that I may receive Mycenae’s host with serried ranks.

Hellas won those glorious spoils of the barbarian maid, and they are safe in Mycenae.

then crossing the heights of Hebrus that flow with silver, he still toiled on for the tyrant of Mycenae.

To Mycenae will I go;

and if I escape to Argos, they will come and destroy the place, razing it to the ground, Cyclopean walls and all.

And from Mycenae, the Cyclopes’ town, Atreus’ son sent a hundred well-manned galleys, and Adrastos his brother was with him in command, as friend with friend, that Hellas might exact vengeance on the one who had fled her home to wed a foreigner.

O Pelasgia, land of my birth, and Mycenae, my home!

Yes, from Mycenae, which was once prosperous.

o my country, dear Mycenae, I thank you for his life, for his nourishment, because you brought up this light of the house, my brother.

for if we possess the statue of the goddess, I will be released from madness and will put you on my ship of many oars and establish you again in Mycenae.

What is this supposed shame before the eyes of Mycenae that possesses you?

My dear friends of Mycenae, of foremost rank in Argos, the home of the Pelasgians.

Call on the gods at Mycenae, not here.

Relying on the truce, which saves your life, you turn boaster.

This is the man who says he will give the Theban girls as captives of his spear to the women of Mycenae, to Lerna’s trident, and the waters of Amymone, dear to Poseidon, when he has them enslaved.

For seven years after he had killed Agamemnon he ruled in Mycenae, and the people were obedient under him, but in the eighth year Orestes came back from Athens to be his bane, and killed the murderer of his father.

It is for a woman whose peer is not to be found in Pylos, Argos, or Mycenae, nor yet in Ithaca nor on the mainland.

so grievously is he smitten by the men of Delphi and the stranger from Mycenae.

Why bear thy tearful load to the fond mother of the dead, a handful of ashes in the stead of those who erst were men of mark in Mycenae?

Ulysses hastens to the rocks of his Ithaca as Agamemnon to the noble walls of Mycenae.

From it branched upward a flourishing limb, by which the whole land of the Mycenaeans was overshadowed.

and in this place to which we have come, know that you see Mycenae, the rich in gold, and here the house of Pelops’ heirs, so often stained with bloodshed.

They still live, as he, too, lives, sorrowing in his secluded youth, yet happy in that this famous realm of the Mycenaeans shall one day receive him as a noble lord, if with the blessing of Zeus’s escort he, Orestes, returns to this land.

And as to Mycenae having been a small place, or if any town in those times appear now to be inconsiderable, this would be no certain proof to rest upon, for disbelieving that the armament was as large as the poets have said, and as report prevails.

) and when Eurystheus did not return again, they say that at the wish of the Mycenaeans themselves, through their fear of the Heraclidae, and also because he appeared to be powerful, and had courted the commons, Atreus received the kingdom of the Mycenaeans and all that Eurystheus ruled over;