Agamemnon

A WATCHMAN


I PRAY the gods to quit me of my toils,      
To close the watch I keep, this livelong year;       
For as a watch-dog lying, not at rest,       
Propped on one arm, upon the palace-roof           4   
Of Atreus’ race, too long, too well I know      
The starry conclave of the midnight sky,       
Too well, the splendours of the firmament,       
The lords of light, whose kingly aspect shows—            8   
What time they set or climb the sky in turn—      
The year’s divisions, bringing frost or fire.      
    
And now, as ever, am I set to mark      
When shall stream up the glow of signal-flame,           12   
The bale-fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale—      
Troy town is ta’en: such issue holds in hope      
She in whose woman’s breast beats heart of man.      
    
Thus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,           16   
Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited      
By dreams—ah me!—for in the place of sleep      
Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels      
The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.           20   
And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,      
I medicine my soul with melody      
Of trill or song—anon to tears I turn,      
Wailing the woe that broods upon this home,           24   
Not now by honour guided as of old.      
    
But now at last fair fall the welcome hour      
That sets me free, whene’er the thick night glow      
With beacon-fire of hope deferred no more.           28   
All hail!  [A beacon-light is seen reddening the distant sky.      
Fire of the night, that brings my spirit day,      
Shedding on Argos light, and dance, and song.      
Greetings to fortune, hail!           32   
    
Let my loud summons ring within the ears      
Of Agamemnon’s queen, that she anon      
Start from her couch and with a shrill voice cry      
A joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze,           36   
For Ilion’s fall; such fiery message gleams      
From yon high flame; and I, before the rest,      
Will foot the lightsome measure of our joy;      
For I can say, My master’s dice fell fair—           40   
Behold! the triple sice, the lucky flame!      
Now be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,      
The hand of him restored, who rules our home:      
Home—but I say no more: upon my tongue           44   
Treads hard the ox o’ the adage.      
        Had it voice,      
The home itself might soothliest tell its tale;      
I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,           48   
To others, nought remember nor discern.  [Exit. The chorus of old men of Mycenæ enter, each leaning on a staff. During their song Clytemnestra appears in the background, kindling the altars.      
    
CHORUS


Ten livelong years have rolled away,      
Since the twin lords of sceptred sway,      
By Zeus endowed with pride of place,           52   
The doughty chiefs of Atreus’ race,      
  Went forth of yore,      
To plead with Priam, face to face,      
  Before the judgment-seat of War!           56   
    
A thousand ships from Argive land      
Put forth to bear the martial band,      
That with a spirit stern and strong      
Went out to right the kingdom’s wrong—           60   
Pealed, as they went, the battle-song,      
  Wild as the vultures’ cry;      
When o’er the eyrie, soaring high,      
In wild bereavèd agony,           64   
Around, around, in airy rings,      
They wheel with oarage of their wings,      
But not the eyas-brood behold,      
That called them to the nest of old;           68   
But let Apollo from the sky,      
Or Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,      
The exile cry, the wail forlorn,      
Of birds from whom their home is torn—           72   
On those who wrought the rapine fell,      
Heaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.      
    
Even so doth Zeus, the jealous lord      
And guardian of the hearth and board,           76   
Speed Atreus’ sons, in vengeful ire,      
’Gainst Paris—sends them forth on fire,      
Her to buy back, in war and blood,      
Whom one did wed but many woo’d!           80   
And many, many, by his will,      
The last embrace of foes shall feel,      
    
And many a knee in dust be bowed,      
And splintered spears on shields ring loud,           84   
Of Trojan and of Greek, before      
That iron bridal-feast be o’er!      
But as he willed ’tis ordered all,      
And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall—           88   
Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine      
Poured forth too late, the wrath divine      
Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.      
    
And we in gray dishonoured eld,           92   
Feeble of frame, unfit were held      
To join the warrior array      
That then went forth unto the fray:      
And here at home we tarry, fain           96   
Our feeble footsteps to sustain,      
Each on his staff—so strength doth wane,      
And turns to childishness again.      
For while the sap of youth is green,           100   
And, yet unripened, leaps within,      
The young are weakly as the old,      
And each alike unmeet to hold      
The vantage post of war!           104   
And ah! when flower and fruit are o’er,      
  And on life’s tree the leaves are sere,      
  Age wendeth propped its journey drear,      
As forceless as a child, as light           108   
And fleeting as a dream of night      
Lost in the garish day!      
    
But thou, O child of Tyndareus,      
  Queen Clytemnestra, speak! and say           112   
  What messenger of joy today      
Hath won thine ear? what welcome news,      
That thus in sacrificial wise      
E’en to the city’s boundaries           116   
Thou biddest altar-fires arise?      
Each god who doth our city guard,      
And keeps o’er Argos watch and ward      
  From heaven above, from earth below—           120   
The mighty lords who rule the skies,      
The market’s lesser deities,      
  To each and all the altars glow,      
Piled for the sacrifice!           124   
And here and there, anear, afar,      
Streams skyward many a beacon-star,      
Conjur’d and charm’d and kindled well      
By pure oil’s soft and guileless spell,           128   
Hid now no more      
Within the palace’ secret store.      
    
O queen, we pray thee, whatsoe’er,      
  Known unto thee, were well revealed,           132   
That thou wilt trust it to our ear,      
  And bid our anxious heart be healed!      
That waneth now unto despair—      
Now, waxing to a presage fair,           136   
Dawns, from the altar, Hope—to scare      
From our rent hearts the vulture Care.      
    
List! for the power is mine, to chant on high      
  The chiefs’ emprise, the strength that omens gave!           140   
List! on my soul breathes yet a harmony,      
  From realms of ageless powers, and strong to save!      
    
How brother kings, twins lords of one command,      
  Led forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,           144   
Urged on their way, with vengeful spear and brand,      
  By warrior-birds, that watched the parting hour.      
    
Go forth to Troy, the eagles seemed to cry—      
  And the sea-kings obeyed the sky-kings’ word,           148   
When on the right they soared across the sky,      
  And one was black, one bore a white tail barred.      
    
High o’er the palace were they seen to soar,      
  Then lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,           152   
Far from the fields that she should range no more,      
  Big with her unborn brood, a mother-hare.      
    
And one beheld, the soldier-prophet true,      
  And the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,           156   
In the twy-coloured eagles straight he knew,      
  And spake the omen forth, for good and ill.      
    
(Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)      
    
Go forth, he cried, and Priam’s town shall fall.           160   
  Yet long the time shall be; and flock and herd,      
The people’s wealth, that roam before the wall,      
  Shall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word.      
    
But O beware! lest wrath in heaven abide,           164   
  To dim the glowing battle-forge once more,      
And mar the mighty curb of Trojan pride,      
  The steel of vengeance, welded as for war!      
    
For virgin Artemis bears jealous hate           168   
  Against the royal house, the eagle-pair,      
Who rend the unborn brood, insatiate—      
  Yea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare.      
    
(Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)           172   
    
For well she loves—the goddess kind and mild—      
  The tender new-born cubs of lions bold,      
Too weak to range—and well the sucking child      
  Of every beast that roams by wood and wold.           176   
    
So to the Lord of Heaven she prayeth still,      
  “Nay, if it must be, be the omen true!      
Yet do the visioned eagles presage ill;      
  The end be well, but crossed with evil too!”           180   
    
Healer Apollo! be her wrath controll’d,      
  Nor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,      
To war against the Danaans and withhold      
  From the free ocean-waves their eager sails!           184   
    
She craves, alas! to see a second life      
  Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice—      
’Twixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,      
  And hate that knows not fear, and fell device.           188   
    
At home there tarries like a lurking snake,      
  Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,      
A wily watcher, passionate to slake,      
  In blood, resentment for a murdered child.           192   
    
Such was the mighty warning, pealed of yore—      
  Amid good tidings, such the word of fear,      
What time the fateful eagles hovered o’er      
  The kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.           196   
    
(In strains like his, once more,      
Sing woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)      
    
  Zeus—if to The Unknown      
    That name of many names seem good—           200   
  Zeus, upon Thee I call.      
    Thro’ the mind’s every road      
  I passed, but vain are all,      
  Save that which names thee Zeus, the Highest One,           204   
    Were it but mine to cast away the load,      
The weary load, that weighs my spirit down.      
    
  He that was Lord of old,      
In full-blown pride of place and valour bold,           208   
  Hath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale told!      
  And he that next held sway,      
  By stronger grasp o’erthrown      
  Hath pass’d away!           212   
And whoso now shall bid the triumph-chant arise      
  To Zeus, and Zeus alone,      
He shall be found the truly wise.      
’Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way           216   
  Of knowledge: He hath ruled,      
Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.      
    
  In visions of the night, like dropping rain,      
  Descend the many memories of pain           220   
Before the spirit’s sight: through tears and dole      
  Comes wisdom o’er the unwilling soul—      
  A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,      
That holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!           224   
    
    And then the elder chief, at whose command      
    The fleet of Greece was manned,      
    Cast on the seer no word of hate,      
    But veered before the sudden breath of Fate—           228   
    
    Ah, weary while! for, ere they put forth sail,      
    Did every store, each minish’d vessel, fail,      
      While all the Achæan host      
      At Aulis anchored lay,           232   
    Looking across to Chalcis and the coast      
    Where refluent waters welter, rock, and sway;      
      And rife with ill delay      
    From northern Strymon blew the thwarting blast—           236   
      Mother of famine fell,      
      That holds men wand’ring still      
    Far from the haven where they fain would be!—      
      And pitiless did waste           240   
    Each ship and cable, rotting on the sea,      
    And, doubling with delay each weary hour,      
Withered with hope deferred th’ Achæans’ warlike flower.      
    
    But when, for bitter storm, a deadlier relief,           244   
    And heavier with ill to either chief,      
Pleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,      
    The two Atridæ smote their sceptres on the plain,      
    And, striving hard, could not their tears restrain!           248   
    And then the elder monarch spake aloud—      
      Ill lot were mine, to disobey!      
      And ill, to smite my child, my household’s love and pride!      
      To stain with virgin blood a father’s hands, and slay           252   
      My daughter, by the altar’s side!      
      ’Twixt woe and woe I dwell—      
    I dare not like a recreant fly,      
And leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally;           256   
    For rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,      
    The virgin’s blood, shed forth to lull the adverse wind—      
      God send the deed be well!      
    
      Thus on this neck he took           260   
      Fate’s hard compelling yoke;      
Then, in the counter-gale of will abhorr’d, accursed,      
    To recklessness his shifting spirit veered—      
    Alas! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst,           264   
With evil craft men’s souls to sin hath ever stirred!      
    
    And so he steeled his heart—ah, well-a-day—      
      Aiding a war for one false woman’s sake,      
          His child to slay,           268   
    And with her spilt blood make      
An offering, to speed the ships upon their way!      
    
    Lusting for war, the bloody arbiters      
Closed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed           272   
      The girl-voice plead,      
    Pity me, Father! nor her prayers,      
      Nor tender, virgin years.      
    
    So, when the chant of sacrifice was done,           276   
    Her father bade the youthful priestly train      
Raise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone,      
    From where amid her robes she lay      
      Sunk all in swoon away—           280   
Bade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,      
    Her fair lips’ speech refrain,      
Lest she should speak a curse on Atreus’ home and seed,      
    
    So trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,           284   
  With one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye      
    Those that should smite she smote—      
  Fair, silent, as a pictur’d form, but fain      
  To plead, Is all forgot?           288   
How oft those halls of old,      
Wherein my sire high feast did hold,      
  Rang to the virginal soft strain,      
    When I, a stainless child,           292   
  Sang from pure lips and undefiled,      
    Sang of my sire, and all      
His honoured life, and how on him should fall      
    Heaven’s highest gift and gain!           296   
  And then—but I beheld not, nor can tell,      
    What further fate befel:      
  But this is sure, that Calchas’ boding strain      
    Can ne’er be void or vain.           300   
  This wage from Justice’ hand do sufferers earn,      
    The future to discern;      
  And yet—farewell, O secret of tomorrow!      
    Foreknowledge is fore-sorrow.           304   
  Clear with the clear beams of the morrow’s sun,      
    The future presseth on.      
  Now, let the house’s tale, how dark soe’er,      
    Find yet an issue fair!—           308   
  So prays the loyal, solitary band      
    That guards the Apian land.  [They turn to Clytemnestra, who leaves the altars and comes forward.      
    
  O queen, I come in reverence of thy sway—      
  For, while the ruler’s kingly seat is void,           312   
  The loyal heart before his consort bends.      
  Now—be it sure and certain news of good,      
  Or the fair tidings of a flatt’ring hope,      
  That bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,           316   
  I, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


As saith the adage, From the womb of Night      
Spring forth, with promise fair, the young child Light.      
Ay—fairer even than all hope my news—           320   
By Grecian hands is Priam’s city ta’en!      
    
CHORUS


What say’st thou? doubtful heart makes treach’rous ear.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Hear then again, and plainly—Troy is ours!      
    
CHORUS


Thrills thro’ my heart such joy as wakens tears.           324   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Ay, thro’ those tears thine eye looks loyalty.      
    
CHORUS


But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure?      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Go to; I have—unless the god has lied.      
    
CHORUS


Hath some night-vision won thee to belief?           328   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Out on all presage of slumb’rous soul!      
    
CHORUS


But wert thou cheered by Rumour’s wingless word?      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Peace—thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.      
    
CHORUS


Say then how long ago the city fell?           332   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Even in this night that now brings forth the dawn.      
    
CHORUS


Yet who so swift could speed the message here?      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


From Ida’s top Hephæstus, lord of fire,      
Sent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,           336   
Beacon to beacon sped the courier-flame.      
From Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,      
Of Lemnos; thence unto the steep sublime      
Of Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.           340   
Thence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,      
The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,      
Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,      
In golden glory, like some strange new sun,           344   
Onward, and reached Macistus’ watching heights.      
There, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,      
The watcher sped the tidings on in turn,      
Until the guard upon Messapius’ peak           348   
Saw the far flame gleam on Euripus’ tide,      
And from the high-piled heap of withered furze      
Lit the new sign and bade the message on.      
Then the strong light, far flown and yet undimmed,           352   
Shot thro’ the sky above Asopus’ plain,      
Bright as the moon, and on Cithæron’s crag      
Aroused another watch of flying fire.      
And there the sentinels no whit disowned,           356   
But sent redoubled on, the hest of flame—      
Swift shot the light, above Gorgopis’ bay,      
To Ægiplanctus’ mount, and bade the peak      
Fail not the onward ordinance of fire.           360   
And like a long beard streaming in the wind,      
Full-fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,      
And onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,      
Beneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,           364   
And thence leapt light unto Arachne’s peak,      
The mountain watch that looks upon our town.      
Thence to th’ Atrides’ roof—in lineage fair,      
A bright posterity of Ida’s fire.           368   
So sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,      
Flame after flame, along the course ordained,      
And lo! the last to speed upon its way      
Sights the end first, and glows unto the goal.           372   
And Troy is ta’en, and by this sign my lord      
Tells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.      
    
CHORUS


To heaven, O queen, will I upraise new song:      
But, wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear           376   
From first to last the marvel of the tale.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Think you—this very morn—the Greeks in Troy,      
And loud therein the voice of utter wail!      
Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,           380   
And look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.      
So in the twofold issue of the strife      
Mingle the victor’s shout, the captives’ moan.      
For all the conquered whom the sword has spared           384   
Cling weeping—some unto a brother Slain,      
Some childlike to a nursing father’s form,      
And wail the loved and lost, the while their neck      
Bows down already ’neath the captive’s chain.           388   
And lo! the victors, now the fight is done,      
Goaded by restless hunger, far and wide      
Range all disordered thro’ the town, to snatch      
Such vitual and such rest as chance may give           392   
Within the captive halls that once were Troy—      
Joyful to rid them of the frost and dew,      
Wherein they couched upon the plain of old—      
Joyful to sleep the gracious night all through,           396   
Unsummoned of the watching sentinel.      
Yet let them reverence well the city’s gods,      
The lords of Troy, tho’ fallen, and her shrines;      
So shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.           400   
Yea, let no craving for forbidden gain      
Bid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.      
For we need yet, before the race be won,      
Homewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.           404   
For should the host wax wanton ere it come,      
Then, tho’ the sudden blow of fate be spared,      
Yet in the sight of gods shall rise once more      
The great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.           408   
Now, hearing from this woman’s mouth of mine,      
The tale and eke its warning, pray with me,      
Luck sway the scale, with no uncertain poise,      
For my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys.           412   
    
CHORUS


A gracious word thy woman’s lips have told,      
Worthy a wise man’s utterance, O my queen;      
Now with clear trust in thy convincing tale      
I set me to salute the gods with song,           416   
Who bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain.  [Exit Clytemnestra.      
    
Zeus, Lord of heaven! and welcome night      
Of victory, that hast our might      
  With all the glories crowned!           420   
On towers of Ilion, free no more,      
Hast flung the mighty mesh of war,      
  And closely girt them round,      
Till neither warrior may ’scape,           424   
Nor stripling lightly overleap      
The trammels as they close, and close,      
Till with the grip of doom our foes      
  In slavery’s coil are bound!           428   
    
Zeus, Lord of hospitality,      
In grateful awe I bend to thee—      
  ’Tis thou hast struck the blow!      
  At Alexander, long ago,           432   
  We marked thee bend thy vengeful bow,      
But long and warily withhold      
The eager shaft, which uncontrolled      
And loosed too soon or launched too high,           436   
Had wandered bloodless through the sky.      
    
Zeus, the high God!—whate’er be dim in doubt,      
  This can our thought track out—      
The blow that fells the sinner is of God,           440   
  And as he wills, the rod      
Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,      
  The gods list not to hold      
A reckoning with him whose feet oppress           444   
  The grace of holiness—      
An impious word! for whensoe’er the sire      
  Breathed forth rebellious fire—      
What time his household overflowed the measure           448   
  Of bliss and health and treasure—      
His children’s children read the reckoning plain,      
  At last, in tears and pain.      
On me let weal that brings no woe be sent,           452   
  And therewithal, content!      
Who spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power      
  Shall be to him a tower,      
To guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot,           456   
  Where all things are forgot.      
Lust drives him on—lust, desperate and wild,      
  Fate’s sin-contriving child—      
And cure is none; beyond concealment clear,           460   
  Kindles sin’s baleful glare.      
As an ill coin beneath the wearing touch      
  Betrays by stain and smutch      
Its metal false—such is the sinful wight.           464   
  Before, on pinions light,      
Fair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,      
  While home and kin make moan      
Beneath the grinding burden of his crime;           468   
  Till, in the end of time,      
Cast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer      
  To powers that will not hear.      
    
  And such did Paris come           472   
  Unto Atrides’ home,      
And thence, with sin and shame his welcome to repay,      
  Ravished the wife away—      
And she, unto her country and her kin           476   
Leaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships,      
And bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,      
  And overbold in sin,      
Went fleetly thro’ the gates, at midnight hour.           480   
  Oft from the prophets’ lips      
Moaned out the warning and the wail—Ah woe!      
Woe for the home, the home! and for the chieftains, woe!      
  Woe for the bride-bed, warm           484   
Yet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form      
  Of her who loved her lord, a while ago!      
    And woe! for him who stands      
Shamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands           488   
  That find her not, and sees, yet will not see,      
      That she is far away!      
And his sad fancy, yearning o’er the sea,      
    Shall summon and recall           492   
Her wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.      
    And sad with many memories,      
The fair cold beauty of each sculptured face—      
  And all to hatefulness is turned their grace,           496   
Seen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes!      
  And when the night is deep,      
Come visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain      
 

 Of hopings vain—           500   
Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight      
  Has seen its old delight,      
When thro’ the grasps of love that bid it stay      
  It vanishes away           504   
On silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.      
    
  Such are the sights, the sorrows fell,      
About our hearth—and worse, whereof I may not tell.      
  But, all the wide town o’er,           508   
Each home that sent its master far away      
  From Hellas’ shore,      
Feels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss, today.      
  For, truth to say,           512   
The touch of bitter death is manifold!      
Familiar was each face, and dear as life,      
  That went unto the war,      
But thither, whence a warrior went of old,           516   
  Doth nought return—      
Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn!      
  For Ares, lord of strife,      
Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold,           520   
War’s money-changer, giving dust for gold,      
  Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,      
Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,      
Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul;           524   
  Yea, fills the light urn full      
  With what survived the flame—      
Death’s dusty measure of a hero’s frame!      
    
Alas! one cries, and yet alas again!           528   
Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear,      
  And hath not left his peer!      
Ah woe! another moans—my spouse is slain,      
  The death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,           532   
Slain for a woman’s sin, a false wife’s shame!      
  Such muttered words of bitter mood      
Rise against those who went forth to reclaim;      
  Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th’ Atrides’ name.           536   
    
    And others, far beneath the Ilian wall,      
  Sleep their last sleep—the goodly chiefs and tall,      
  Couched in the foeman’s land, whereon they gave      
Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.           540   
    
  Therefore for each and all the city’s breast      
  Is heavy with a wrath supprest,      
As deep and deadly as a curse more loud      
  Flung by the common crowd;           544   
And, brooding deeply, doth my soul await      
  Tidings of coming fate,      
Buried as yet in darkness’ womb.      
For not forgetful is the high gods’ doom           548   
  Against the sons of carnage: all too long      
Seems the unjust to prosper and be strong,      
  Till the dark Furies come,      
And smite with stern reversal all his home,           552   
  Down into dim obstruction—he is gone,      
And help and hope, among the lost, is none!      
    
O’er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,      
  Impends a woe condign;           556   
The vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame,      
  Sped from the hand divine.      
This bliss be mine, ungrudged of God, to feel—      
  To tread no city to the dust,           560   
  Nor see my own life thrust      
Down to a slave’s estate beneath another’s heel!      
    
Behold, throughout the city wide      
Have the swift feet of Rumour hied,           564   
  Roused by the joyful flame:      
But is the news they scatter, sooth?      
Or haply do they give for truth      
  Some cheat which heaven doth frame?           568   
A child were he and all unwise,      
  Who let his heart with joy be stirred,      
To see the beacon-fires arise,      
  And then, beneath some thwarting word,           572   
  Sicken anon with hope deferred.      
  The edge of woman’s insight still      
  Good news from true divideth ill;      
Light rumours leap within the bound           576   
That fences female credence round,      
But, lightly born, as lightly dies      
The tale that springs of her surmise.      
    
Soon shall we know whereof the bale-fires tell,           580   
The beacons, kindled with transmitted flame;      
Whether, as well I deem, their tale is true,      
Or whether like some dream delusive came      
The welcome blaze but to befool our soul.           584   
For lo! I see a herald from the shore      
Draw hither, shadowed with the olive-wreath—      
And thirsty dust, twin-brother of the clay,      
Speaks plain of travel far and truthful news—           588   
No dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,      
Fitfully kindled from the mountain pyre;      
But plainlier shall his voice say, All is well,      
Or—but away, forebodings adverse, now,           592   
And on fair promise fair fulfilment come!      
And whoso for the state prays otherwise,      
Himself reap harvest of his ill desire!      
    
Enter HERALD


O land of Argos, fatherland of mine!           596   
To thee at last, beneath the tenth year’s sun,      
My feet return; the bark of my emprise,      
Tho’ one by one hope’s anchors broke away,      
Held by the last, and now rides safely here.           600   
Long, long my soul despaired to win, in death,      
Its longed-for rest within our Argive land:      
And now all hail, O earth, and hail to thee,      
New-risen sun! and hail our country’s God,           604   
High-ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,      
Whose arrows smote us once—smite thou no more!      
Was not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,      
O king Apollo, by Scamander’s side?           608   
Turn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now!      
And hail, all gods who rule the street and mart,      
And Hermes hail! my patron and my pride,      
Herald of heaven, and lord of heralds here!           612   
And Heroes, ye who sped us on our way—      
To one and all I cry, Receive again      
With grace such Argives as the spear has spared.      
    
Ah, home of royalty, beloved halls,           616   
And solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn!      
Benign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet      
The king returning after many days.      
For as from night flash out the beams of day,           620   
So out of darkness dawns a light, a king,      
On you, on Argos—Agamemnon comes.      
Then hail and greet him well! such meed befits      
Him whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy           624   
With the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong—      
And smote the plain, smote down to nothingness      
Each altar, every shrine; and far and wide      
Dies from the whole land’s face its offspring fair.           628   
Such mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy—      
Our lord and monarch, Atreus’ elder son,      
And comes at last with blissful honour home;      
Highest of all who walk on earth today—           632   
Not Paris nor the city’s self that paid      
Sin’s price with him, can boast, Whate’er befal,      
The guerdon we have won outweighs it all.      
But at Fate’s judgment-seat the robber stands           636   
Condemned of rapine, and his prey is torn      
Forth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped      
A bloody harvest of his home and land      
Gone down to death, and for his guilt and lust           640   
His father’s race pays double in the dust.      
    
CHORUS


Hail, herald of the Greeks, new-come from war.      
    
HERALD


All hail! not death itself can fight me now.      
    
CHORUS


Was thine heart wrung with longing for thy land?           644   
    
HERALD


So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.      
    
CHORUS


On you too then this sweet distress did fall—      
    
HERALD


How say’st thou? make me master of thy word.      
    
CHORUS


You longed for us who pined for you again.           648   
    
HERALD


Craved the land us who craved it, love for love?      
    
CHORUS


Yea, till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.      
    
HERALD


Whence they despair, that mars the army’s joy?      
    
CHORUS


Sole cure of wrong is silence, saith the saw.           652   
    
HERALD


Thy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men?      
    
CHORUS


Death had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.      
    
HERALD


’Tis true; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,      
These many years, some chances issued fair,           656   
And some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.      
But who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,      
Thro’ time’s whole tenor an unbroken weal?      
I could a tale unfold of toiling oars,           660   
Ill rest, scant landings on a shore rock-strewn,      
All pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.      
And worse and hatefuller our woes on land;      
For where we couched, close by the foeman’s wall,           664   
The river-plain was ever dank with dews,      
Dropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,      
A curse that clung unto our sodden garb,      
And hair as horrent as a wild beast’s fell.           668   
Why tell the woes of winter, when the birds      
Lay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida’s snow?      
Or summer’s scorch, what time the stirless wave      
Sank to its sleep beneath the noonday sun?           672   
Why mourn old woes? their pain has passed away;      
And passed away, from those who fell, all care,      
For evermore, to rise and live again.      
Why sum the count of death, and render thanks           676   
For life by moaning over fate malign?      
Farewell, a long farewell to all our woes!      
To us, the remnant of the host of Greece,      
Comes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe;           680   
Thus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,      
Like him far-fleeted over sea and land.      
The Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy,      
And in the temples of the gods of Greece           684   
Hung up these spoils, a shining sign to Time.      
Let those who learn this legend bless aright      
The city and its chieftains, and repay      
The meed of gratitude of Zeus who willed           688   
And wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.      
    
CHORUS


Thy words o’erbear my doubt: for news of good,      
The ear of age hath ever youth enow:      
But those within the Clytemnestra’s self           692   
Would fain hear all; glad thou their ears and mine.      
    
Re-enter CLYTEMNESTRA


Last night, when first the fiery courier came,      
In sign that Troy is ta’en and razed to earth,      
So wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,           696   
That I was chidden—Hath the beacon watch      
Made sure unto thy soul the sack to Troy?      
A very woman thou, whose heart leaps light      
At wandering rumours!—and with words like these           700   
They showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.      
Yet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,      
And, in the strain they held for feminine,      
Went heralds thro’ the city, to and fro,           704   
With voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy;      
And in each fane they lit and quenched with wine      
The spicy perfumes fading in the flame.      
All is fulfilled: I spare your longer tale—           708   
The king himself anon shall tell me all.      
Remains to think what honour best may greet      
My lord, the majesty of Argos, home.      
What day beams fairer on a woman’s eyes           712   
Than this whereon she flings the portal wide,      
To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war?      
This to my husband, that he tarry not,      
But turn the city’s longing into joy!           716   
Yea, let him come, and coming may he find      
A wife no other than he left her, true      
And faithful as a watch-dog to his home,      
His foemen’s foe, in all her duties leal,           720   
Trusty to keep for ten long years unmarred      
The store whereon he set his master-seal.      
Be steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see      
Ill joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me!           724   
    
HERALD


’Tis fairly said: thus speaks a noble dame,      
Nor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast.  [Exit Clytemnestra.      
    
CHORUS


So has she spoken—be it yours to learn      
By clear interpreters her specious word.           728   
Turn to me, herald—tell me if anon      
The second well-loved lord of Argos comes?      
Hath Menelaus safely sped with you?      
    
HERALD


Alas—brief boon unto my friends it were,           732   
To flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair!      
    
CHORUS


Speak joy if truth be joy, but truth, at worst—      
Too plainly, truth and joy are her divorced.      
    
HERALD


The hero and his bark were rapt away           736   
Far from the Grecian fleet? ’tis truth I say.      
    
CHORUS


Whether in all men’s sight from Ilion borne,      
Or from the fleet by stress of weather torn?      
    
HERALD


Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,           740   
And one short word hath told long woes aright.      
    
CHORUS


But say what now of him each comrade saith?      
What their forebodings, of his life of death?      
    
HERALD


Ask me no more: the truth is known to none,           744   
Save the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun.      
    
CHORUS


Say by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven?      
How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?      
    
HERALD


Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow’s tale           748   
The day of blissful news. The gods demand      
Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude.      
If one as herald came with rueful face      
To say, The curse has fallen, and the host           752   
Gone down to death; and one wide wound has reached      
The city’s heart, and out of many homes      
Many are cast and consecrate to death,      
Beneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,           756   
The bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom—      
If such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,      
’Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.      
But—coming as he comes who bringeth news           760   
Of safe return from toil, and issues fair,      
To men rejoicing in a weal restored—      
Dare I to dash good words with ill, and say      
How the gods’ anger smote the Greeks in storm?           764   
For fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,      
Now swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,      
Wasting the Argives worn with toil and war.      
Night and great horror of the rising wave           768   
Came o’er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace      
Clashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow      
Thro’s scudding drifts of spray and raving storm      
Vanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.           772   
And when at length the sue rose bright, we saw      
Th’ Ægæan sea-field flecked with flowers of death,      
Corpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.      
For us indeed, some god, as well I deem,           776   
No human power, laid hand upon our helm,      
Snatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,      
And brought our bark thro’ all, unharmed in hull:      
And saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,           780   
So that no surge should gulf us deep in brine,      
Nor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.      
    
So ’scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,      
But, under day’s white light, mistrustful all           784   
Of fortune’s smile, we sat and brooded deep,      
Shepherds forlorn of thoughts that wandered wild,      
O’er this new woe; for smitten was our host,      
And lost as ashes scattered from the pyre.           788   
Of whom if any draw his life-breath yet,      
Be well assured, he deems of us as dead,      
As we of him no other fate forebode.      
But heaven save all! If Menelaus live,           792   
He will not tarry, but will surely come:      
Therefore if anywhere the high sun’s ray      
Descries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,      
Who wills not yet to wipe his race away,           796   
Hope still there is that homeward he may wend.      
Enough—thou hast the truth unto the end.      
    
CHORUS


Say from whose lips the presage fell?      
Who read the future all too well,           800   
  And named her, in her natal hour,      
  Helen, the bride with war for dower?      
’Twas one of the Invisible,      
  Guiding his tongue with prescient power.           804   
On fleet, and host, and citadel,      
  War, sprung from her, and death did lour,      
When from the bride-bed’s fine-spun veil      
She to the Zephyr spread her sail.           808   
    
Strong blew the breeze—the surge closed o’er      
The cloven track of keel and oar,      
  But while she fled, there drove along,      
  Fast in her wake, a mighty throng—           812   
Athirst for blood, athirst for war,      
  Forward in fell pursuit they sprung,      
Then leapt on Simois’ bank ashore,      
  The leafy coppices among—           816   
No rangers, they, of wood and field,      
But huntsmen of the sword and shield.      
    
Heaven’s jealousy, that works its will,      
Sped thus on Troy its destined ill,           820   
  Well named, at once, the Bride and Bane;      
  And loud rang out the bridal strain;      
But they to whom that song befel      
  Did turn anon to tears again;           824   
Zeus tarries, but avenges still      
  The husband’s wrong, the household’s stain!      
He, the hearth’s lord, brooks not to see      
Its outraged hospitality.           828   
    
Even now, and in far other tone,      
Troy chants her dirge of mighty moan,      
  Woe upon Paris, woe and hate!      
  Who wooed his country’s doom for mate—           832   
This is the burthen of the groan,      
  Wherewith she wails disconsolate      
The blood so many of her own      
  Have poured in vain, to fend her fate;           836   
Troy! thou hast fed and freed to roam      
A lion-cub within thy home!      
    
A suckling creature, newly ta’en      
From mother’s teat, still fully fain           840   
  Of nursing care; and oft caressed,      
  Within the arms, upon the breast,      
Even as an infant, has it lain;      
  Or fawns and licks, by hunger pressed,           844   
The hand that will assuage its pain;      
  In life’s young dawn, a well-loved guest,      
A fondling for the children’s play,      
A joy unto the old and gray.           848   
    
But waxing time and growth betrays      
The blood-thirst of the lion-race,      
  And, for the house’s fostering care,      
  Unbidden all, it revels there,           852   
And bloody recompense repays—      
  Rent flesh of kine its talons tare:      
A mighty beast, that slays and slays,      
  And mars with blood the household fair,           856   
A God-sent pest invincible,      
A minister of fate and hell.      
    
  Even so to Ilion’s city came by stealth      
    A spirit as of windless seas and skies,           860   
  A gentle phantom-form of joy and wealth,      
    With love’s soft arrows speeding from it eyes—      
Love’s rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in subtle wise.      
    
  Ah, well-a-day! the bitter bridal-bed,           864   
    When the fair mischief lay by Paris’ side!      
  What curse on palace and on people sped      
    With her, the Fury sent on Priam’s pride,      
By angered Zeus! what tears of many a widowed bride!           868   
    
  Long, long ago to mortals this was told,      
    How sweet security and blissful state      
  Have curses for their children—so men hold—      
    And for the man of all—too prosperous fate           872   
Springs from a bitter seed some woe insatiate.      
    
  Alone, alone, I deem far otherwise;      
    Not bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,      
  From which that after-growth of ill doth rise!           876   
    Woe springs from wrong, the plant is like the seed—      
While Right, in honour’s house, doth its own likeness breed.      
    
  Some past impiety, some gray old crime,      
    Breeds the young curse, that wantons in our ill,           880   
  Early or late, when haps th’ appointed time—      
    And out of light brings power of darkness still,      
A master-fiend, a foe, unseen, invincible;      
  A pride accursed, that broods upon the race           884   
    And home in which dark Ate holds her sway—      
  Sin’s child and Woe’s, that wears its parent’s face;      
    While Right in smoky cribs shines clear as day,      
And decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous way.           888   
    
  From gilded halls that hands polluted raise,      
    Right turns away with proud averted eyes,      
  And of the wealth men stamp amiss with praise,      
    Heedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,           892   
And to Fate’s goal guides all, in its appointed wise.      
    
    Hail to thee, chief of Atreus’ race,      
    Returning proud from Troy subdued!      
    How shall I greet thy conquering face?           896   
    How nor a fulsome praise obtrude,      
    Nor stint the meed of gratitude?      
    For mortal men who fall to ill      
    Take little heed of open truth,           900   
    But seek unto its semblance still:      
    The show of weeping and of ruth      
    To the forlorn will all men pay,      
    But, of the grief their eyes display,           904   
    Nought to the heart doth pierce its way.      
    And, with the joyous, they beguile      
    Their lips unto a feigned smile,      
    And force a joy, unfelt the while;           908   
    But he who as a shepherd wise      
      Doth know his flock, can ne’er misread      
    Truth in the falsehood of his eyes,      
    Who veils beneath a kindly guise           912   
      A lukewarm love in deed.      
    And thou, our leader—when of yore      
    Thou badest Greece go forth to war      
    For Helen’s sake—I dare avow           916   
    That then I held thee not as now;      
    That to my vision thou didst seem      
    Dyed in the hues of disesteem.      
    I held thee for a pilot ill,           920   
    And reckless, of thy proper will,      
    Endowing others doomed to die      
    With vain and forced audacity!      
    Now from my heart, ungrudgingly,           924   
    To those that wrought, this word be said—      
    Well fall the labour ye have sped—      
    Let time and search, O king, declare      
    What men within thy city’s bound           928   
    Were loyal to the kingdom’s care,      
      And who were faithless found.  [Enter Agamemnon in a chariot, accompanied by Cassandra. He speaks without descending.      
    
AGAMEMNON


First, as is meet, a king’s All-hail be said      
To Argos, and the gods that guard the land—           932   
Gods who with me availed to speed us home,      
With me availed to wring from Priam’s town      
The due of justice. In the court of heaven      
The gods in conclave sat and judged the cause,           936   
Not from a pleader’s tongue, and at the close,      
Unanimous into the urn of doom      
This sentence gave, On Ilion and her men,      
Death: and where hope drew nigh to pardon’s urn           940   
No hand there was to cast a vote therein.      
And still the smoke of fallen Ilion      
Rises in sight of all men, and the flame      
Of Atè’s hecatomb is living yet,           944   
And where the towers in dusty ashes sink,      
Rise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed.      
For this must all men pay unto the gods      
The meed of mindful hearts and gratitude:           948   
For by our hands the meshes of revenge      
Closed on the prey, and for one woman’s sake      
Troy trodden by the Argive monster lies—      
The foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall,           952   
What time with autumn sank the Pleiades.      
Yea, o’er the fencing wall a lion sprang      
Ravening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.      
    
Such prelude spoken to the gods in full,           956   
To you I turn, and to the hidden thing      
Whereof ye spake but now: and in that thought      
I am as you, and what ye say, say I.      
For few are they who have such inborn grace,           960   
As to look up with love, and envy not,      
When stands another on the height of weal.      
Deep on his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,      
Her poison lurking doth enhance his load;           964   
For now beneath his proper woes he chafes,      
And sighs withal to see another’s weal.      
I speak not idly, but from knowledge sure—      
There be who vaunt an utter loyalty,           968   
That is but as the ghost of friendship dead,      
A shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.      
One only—he who went reluctant forth      
Across the seas with me—Odysseus—he           972   
Was loyal unto me with strength and will,      
A trusty trace-horse bound unto my car.      
Thus—be he yet beneath the light of day,      
Or dead, as well I fear—I speak his praise.           976   
    
Lastly, whate’er be due to men or gods,      
With joint debate, in public council held,      
We will decide, and warily contrive      
That all which now is well may so abide:           980   
For that which haply needs the healer’s art,      
That will we medicine, discerning well      
If cautery or knife befit the time.      
    
Now, to my palace and the shrines of home,           984   
I will pass in, and greet you first and fair,      
Ye gods, who bade me forth, and home again—      
And long may Victory tarry in my train!  [Enter Clytemnestra, followed by maidens bearing purple robes.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Old men of Argos, lieges of our realm,           988   
Shame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see      
The love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear      
Dies at the last from hearts of humankind.      
From mine own soul and from no alien lips,           992   
I know and will reveal the life I bore,      
Reluctant, through the lingering livelong years,      
The while my lord beleaguered Ilion’s wall.      
    
First, that a wife sat sundered from her lord,           996   
In widowed solitude, was utter woe—      
And woe, to hear how rumour’s many tongues      
All boded evil-woe, when he who came

Lines 1000–1499   
    
    
And he who followed spake of ill on ill,           1000   
Keening Lost, lost, all lost! thro’ hall and bower.      
Had this my husband met so many wounds,      
As by a thousand channels rumour told,      
No network e’er was full of holes as he.           1004   
Had he been slain, as oft as tidings came      
That he was dead, he well might boast him now      
A second Geryon of triple frame,      
With triple robe of earth above him laid—           1008   
For that below, no matter—triply dead,      
Dead by one death for every form he bore.      
And thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,      
Oft for self-slaughter had I slung the noose,           1012   
But others wrenched it from my neck away.      
Hence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,      
The pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,      
Stands not beside us now, as he should stand.           1016   
Nor marvel thou at this: he dwells with one      
Who guards him loyally; ’tis Phocis’ king,      
Strophius, who warned me erst, Bethink thee, queen,      
What woes of doubtful issue well may fall!           1020   
Thy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,      
While here a populace uncurbed may cry,      
“Down with the council, down!” bethink thee too,      
’Tis the world’s way to set a harder heel           1024   
On fallen power.      
        For thy child’s absence then      
Such mine excuse, no wily afterthought.      
For me, long since the gushing fount of tears           1028   
Is wept away; no drop is left to shed.      
Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,      
Weeping, the bale-fires, piled for thy return,      
Night after night unkindled. If I slept,           1032   
Each sound—the tiny humming of a gnat,      
Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams      
Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,      
Thrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.           1036   
All this I bore, and now, released from woe,      
A hail my lord as watch-dog of a fold,      
As saving stay-rope of a storm-tossed ship,      
As column stout that holds the roof aloft,           1040   
As only child unto a sire bereaved,      
As land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,      
As sunshine fair when tempest’s wrath is past,      
As gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.           1044   
So sweet it is to ’scape the press of pain.      
With such salute I bid my husband hail!      
Nor heaven be wroth therewith! for long and hard      
I bore that ire of old.           1048   
        Sweet lord, step forth,      
Step from thy car, I pray—nay, not on earth      
Plant the proud foot, O king, that trod down Troy!      
Women! why tarry ye, whose task it is           1052   
To spread your monarch’s path with tapestry?      
Swift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,      
That justice lead him to a home, at last,      
He scarcely looked to see.           1056   
        For what remains,      
Zeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand      
To work as right and as the gods command.      
    
AGAMEMNON


Daughter of Leda, watcher o’er my home,           1060   
Thy greeting well befits mine absence long,      
For late and hardly has it reached its end.      
Know that the praise which honour bids us crave,      
Must come from others’ lips, not from our own:           1064   
See too that not in fashion feminine      
Thou make a warrior’s pathway delicate;      
Not unto me, as to some Eastern lord,      
Bowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.           1068   
Strew not this purple that shall make each step      
An arrogance; such pomp beseems the gods,      
Not me. A mortal man to set his foot      
On these rich dyes? I hold such pride in fear,           1072   
And bid thee honour me as man, not god.      
Fear not—such footcloths and all gauds apart,      
Loud from the trump of Fame my name is blown;      
Best gift of heaven it is, in glory’s hour,           1076   
To think thereon with soberness: and thou—      
Bethink thee of the adage, Call none blest      
Till peaceful death have crowned a life of weal.      
’Tis said: I fain would fare unvexed by fear.           1080   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Nay, but unsay it—thwart not thou my will      
    
AGAMEMNON


Know, I have said, and will not mar my word.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Was it fear made this meekness to the gods?      
    
AGAMEMNON


If cause be cause, ’tis mine for this resolve.           1084   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


What, think’st thou, in thy place had Priam done?      
    
AGAMEMNON


He surely would have walked on broidered robes.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Then fear not thou the voice of human blame.      
    
AGAMEMNON


Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.           1088   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.      
    
AGAMEMNON


War is not woman’s part, nor war of words.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Yet happy victors well may yield therein.      
    
AGAMEMNON


Dost crave for triumph in this petty strife?           1092   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Yield; of thy grace permit me to prevail!      
    
AGAMEMNON


Then, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose      
Swiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot:      
And stepping thus upon the sea’s rich dye,           1096   
I pray, Let none among the gods look down      
With jealous eye on me—reluctant all,      
To trample thus and mar a thing of price,      
Wasting the wealth of garments silver-worth.           1000   
Enough hereof: and, for the stranger maid,      
Lead her within, but gently: God on high      
Looks graciously on him whom triumph’s hour      
Has made not pitiless. None willingly           1104   
Wear the slave’s yoke—and she, the prize and flower      
Of all we won, comes hither in my train,      
Gift of the army to its chief and lord.      
—Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,           1108   
I will pass in on purples to my home.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


A Sea there is—and who shall stay its springs?      
And deep within its breast, a mighty store,      
Precious as silver, of the purple dye,           1112   
Whereby the dipped robe doth its tint renew.      
Enough of such, O king, within thy halls      
There lies, a store that cannot fail; but I—      
I would have gladly vowed unto the gods           1116   
Cost of a thousand garments trodden thus      
(Had once the oracle such gift required),      
Contriving ransom for thy life preserved.      
For while the stock is firm the foliage climbs,           1120   
Spreading a shade, what time the dog-star glows;      
And thou, returning to thine hearth and home,      
Art as a genial warmth in winter hours,      
Or as a coolness, when the lord of heaven           1124   
Mellows the juice within the bitter grape.      
Such boons and more doth bring into a home      
The present footstep of its proper lord.      
Zeus, Zeus, Fulfilment’s lord! my vows fulfil,           1128   
And whatsoe’er it be, work forth thy will!  [Exeunt all but Cassandra and the Chorus.      
    
CHORUS


  Wherefore for ever on the wings of fear      
    Hovers a vision drear      
  Before my boding heart? a strain,           1132   
  Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,      
    Oracular of pain.      
  Not as of old upon my bosom’s throne      
    Sits Confidence, to spurn           1136   
    Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.      
Old, old and gray long since the time has grown,      
    Which saw the linked cables moor      
The fleet, when erst it came to Ilion’s sandy shore;           1140   
    And now mine eyes and not another’s see      
      Their safe return.      
    
    Yet none the less in me      
The inner spirit sings a boding song,           1144   
    Self-prompted, sings the Furies’ strain—      
      And seeks, and seeks in vain,      
      To hope and to be strong!      
    
Ah! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,           1148   
    Are these wild throbbings of my heart and breast—      
      Yea, of some doom they tell—      
        Each pulse, a knell.      
    Lief, lief I were, that all           1152   
To unfulfilment’s hidden realm might fall.      
    Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,      
      Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied—      
    Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,           1156   
    Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,      
      The gales that waft our bark on Fortune’s tide!      
      Swiftly we sail, the sooner all to drive      
      Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.           1160   
    
    Then if the hand of caution warily      
      Sling forth into the sea      
    Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,      
    From the deep death it saves the bark: even so,           1164   
      Doom-laden though it be, once more may rise      
      His household, who is timely wise.      
    
      How oft the famine-stricken field      
Is saved by God’s large gift, the new year’s yield!           1168   
        But blood of man once spilled,      
    Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain,—      
      Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.      
    
        So Zeus hath willed:           1172   
Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled      
    To bring man from the dead: the hand divine      
Did smite himself with death—a warning and a sign.      
    
    Ah me! if Fate, ordained of old,           1176   
Held not the will of gods constrained, controlled,      
      Helpless to us-ward, and apart—      
      Swifter than speech my heart      
Had poured its presage out!           1180   
Now, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,      
    ’Tis hopeless to unfold      
Truth, from fear’s tangled skein; and, yearning to proclaim      
    Its thought, my soul is prophecy and flame.           1184   
    
Re-enter CLYTEMNESTRA


Get thee within, thou too, Cassandra, go!      
For Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants      
To share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,      
Beside the altar of his guardianship,           1188   
Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still?      
Step from the car; Alcmena’s son, ’tis said,      
Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.      
Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befal,           1192   
’Tis a fair chance to serve within a home      
Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,      
To whom wealth’s harvest came beyond his hope,      
Is as a lion to his slaves, in all           1196   
Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.      
Pass in: thou hearest what our ways will be.      
    
CHORUS


Clear unto thee, O maid, is her command,      
But thou—within the toils of Fate thou art—           1200   
If such thy will, I urge thee to obey;      
Yet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


I wot—unless like swallows she doth use      
Some strange barbarian tongue from oversea—           1204   
My words must speak persuasion to her soul.      
    
CHORUS


Obey: there is no gentler way than this.      
Step from the car’s high seat and follow her.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Truce to this bootless waiting here without!           1208   
I will not stay: beside the central shrine      
The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire—      
Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.      
Thou—if thou reckest aught of my command,           1212   
’Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut      
From these my words, let thy barbarian hand      
Fulfil by gesture the default of speech.      
    
CHORUS


No native is she, thus to read thy words           1216   
Unaided: like some wild thing of the wood,      
New-trapped, behold! she shrinks and glares on thee.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


’Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,      
Since she beheld her city sink in fire,           1220   
And hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until      
In foam and blood her wrath be champed away.      
See ye to her; unqueenly ’tis for me,      
Unheeded thus to cast away my words.  [Exit Clytemnestra.           1224   
    
CHORUS


But with me pity sits in anger’s place      
Poor maiden, come thou from the car; no way      
There is but this—take up thy servitude.      
    
CASSANDRA


Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou           1228   
Apollo, Apollo!      
    
CHORUS


Peace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,      
Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.      
    
CASSANDRA


Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou           1232   
Apollo, Apollo!      
    
CHORUS


Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,      
Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.      
    
CASSANDRA


Apollo, Apollo!           1236   
God of all ways, but only Death’s to me,      
Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,      
thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!      
    
CHORUS


She grows presageful of her woes to come,           1240   
Slave tho’ she be, instinct with prophecy.      
    
CASSANDRA


Apollo, Apollo!      
God of all ways, but only Death’s to me,      
O thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named!           1244   
What way hast led me, to what evil home?      
    
CHORUS


Know’st thou it not? The home of Atreus’ race:      
Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.      
    
CASSANDRA


Home cursed of God! Bear witness unto me,           1248   
  Ye visioned woes within—      
The blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin—      
The strangling noose, and, spattered o’er      
With human blood, the reeking floor!           1252   
    
CHORUS


How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,      
Keen-scented unto blood and death she hies!      
    
CASSANDRA


Ah! can the ghostly guidance fail,      
Whereby my prophet-soul is onwards led?           1256   
Look! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,      
Their sodden limbs on which their father fed!      
    
CHORUS


Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,—      
But for those deeds we seek no prophet’s tongue.           1260   
    
CASSANDRA


God! ’tis another crime—      
Worse than the storied woe of olden time,      
Cureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here—      
A shaming death, for those that should be dear!           1264   
  Alas! and far away, in foreign land,      
  He that should help doth stand!      
    
CHORUS


I knew th’ old tales the city rings withal—      
But now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.           1268   
    
CASSANDRA


O wretch, O purpose fell!      
Thou for thy wedded lord      
The cleansing wave hast poured—      
A treacherous welcome!           1272   
                        How the sequel tell?      
Too soon ’twill come, too soon, for now, even now,      
  She smites him, blow on blow!      
    
CHORUS


Riddles beyond my rede—I peer in vain           1276   
Thro’ the dim films that screen the prophecy.      
    
CASSANDRA


  God! a new sight! a net, a snare off hell,      
  Set by her hand—herself a snare more fell!      
    A wedded wife, she slays her lord,           1280   
  Helped by another hand!      
                          Ye powers, whose hate      
  Of Atreus’ home no blood can satiate,      
Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!           1284   
    
CHORUS


Why biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,      
Shriek o’er the house? Thine is no cheering word.      
  Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel      
  My waning life-blood run—           1288   
  The blood that round the wounding steel      
  Ebbs slow, as sinks life’s parting sun—      
Swift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on!      
    
CASSANDRA


    Away, away—keep him away—           1292   
  The monarch of the herd, the pasture’s pride,      
  Far from his mate! In treach’rous wrath,      
  Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe      
    She gores his fenceless side!           1296   
  Hark! in the brimming bath,      
  The heavy plash—the dying cry—      
Hark—in the laver—hark, he falls by treachery!      
    
CHORUS


I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,           1300   
Yet something warns me that they tell of ill.      
    O dark prophetic speech,      
    Ill tidings dost thou teach      
    Ever, to mortals here below!           1304   
    Ever some tale of awe and woe      
    Thro’ all thy windings manifold      
    Do we unriddle and unfold!      
    
CASSANDRA


Ah well-a-day! the cup of agony,           1308   
Whereof I chant, foams with a draught for me.      
Ah lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here—      
Was’t but to die with thee whose doom is near?      
    
CHORUS


  Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,           1312   
  And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,      
  As piteous as the ceaseless tale      
  Wherewith the brown melodious bird      
  Doth ever Itys! Itys! wail,           1316   
Deep-bowered in sorrow, all its little lifetime’s day!      
    
CASSANDRA


Ah for thy fate, O shrill-voiced nightingale!      
Some solace for thy woes did heaven afford,      
Clothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart from wail—           1320   
But for my death is edged the double-biting sword!      
    
CHORUS


What pangs are these, what fruitless pain,      
  Sent on thee from on high?      
Thou chantest terror’s frantic strain,           1324   
Yet in shrill measured melody.      
How thus unerring canst thou sweep along      
The prophet’s path of boding song?      
    
CASSANDRA


  Woe, Paris, woe on thee! thy bridal joy           1328   
  Was death and fire upon thy race and Troy!      
    And woe for thee, Scamander’s flood!      
    Beside thy banks, O river fair,      
    I grew in tender nursing care           1332   
    From childhood unto maidenhood!      
Now not by thine, but by Cocytus’ stream      
And Acheron’s banks shall ring my boding scream.      
    
CHORUS


    Too plain is all, too plain!           1336   
A child might read aright thy fateful strain.      
    Deep in my heart their piercing fang      
    Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard      
    That piteous, low, tender word,           1340   
Yet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.      
    
CASSANDRA


Woe for my city, woe for Ilion’s fall!      
  Father, how oft with sanguine stain      
Streamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slain           1344   
  That heaven might guard our wall!      
  But all was shed in vain.      
Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,      
And I—ah burning heart!—shall soon lie low as well.           1348   
    
CHORUS


    Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!      
      Alas, what power of ill      
    Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell      
    In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?           1352   
Some woe—I know not what—must close thy piteous wail.      
    
CASSANDRA


List! for no more the presage of my soul,      
Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil;      
But as the morning wind blows clear the east,           1356   
More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,      
And as against the low bright line of dawn      
Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,      
So in the clearing skies of prescience           1360   
Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,      
And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.      
Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side—      
I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.           1364   
Within this house a choir abidingly      
Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill;      
Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,      
Man’s blood for wine, and revel in the halls,           1368   
Departing never, Furies of the home.      
They sit within, they chant the primal curse,      
Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,      
The brother’s couch, the love incestuous           1372   
That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.      
Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,      
Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?      
They called me once, The prophetess of lies,           1376   
The wandering hag, the pest of every door—      
Attest ye now, She knows in very sooth      
The house’s curse, the storied infamy.      
    
CHORUS


Yet how should oath—how loyally soe’er           1380   
I swear it—aught avail thee? In good sooth,      
My wonder meets thy claim: I stand amazed      
That thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,      
Dost as a native know and tell aright           1384   
Tales of a city of an alien tongue.      
    
CASSANDRA


That is my power—a boon Apollo gave.      
    
CHORUS


God though he were, yearning for mortal maid?      
    
CASSANDRA


Ay! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.           1388   
    
CHORUS


Such finer sense suits not with slavery.      
    
CASSANDRA


He strove to win me, panting for my love.      
    
CHORUS


Came ye by compact unto bridal joys?      
    
CASSANDRA


Nay—for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.           1392   
    
CHORUS


Wert thou already dowered with prescience?      
    
CASSANDRA


Yea—prophetess to Troy of all her doom.      
    
CHORUS


How left thee then Apollo’s wrath unscathed?      
    
CASSANDRA


I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.           1396   
    
CHORUS


Not so—to us at least thy words seem sooth.      
    
CASSANDRA


Woe for me, woe! Again the agony—      
Dread pain that sees the future all too well      
With ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.           1400   
Behold ye—yonder on the palace roof      
The spectre-children sitting—look, such things      
As dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,      
Horrible shadows, that a kinsman’s hand           1404   
Hath marked with murder, and their arms as full—      
A rueful burden—see, they hold them up,      
The entrails upon which their father fed!      
    
For this, for this, I say there plots revenge           1408   
A coward lion, couching in the lair—      
Guarding the gate against my master’s foot—      
My master-mine—I bear the slave’s yoke now,      
And he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,           1412   
Knows not the fawning treachery of tongue      
Of this thing false and dog-like—how her speech      
Glazes and sleeks her purpose, till she win      
By ill fate’s favour the desired chance,           1416   
Moving like Ate to a secret end.      
O aweless soul! the woman slays her lord—      
Woman? what loathsome monster of the earth      
Were fit comparison? The double snake—           1420   
Or Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman’s bane,      
Girt round about with rocks? some hag of hell,      
Raving a truceless curse upon her kin?      
Hark—even now she cries exultingly           1424   
The vengeful cry that tells of battle turned—      
How fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored!      
Nay, then, believe me not: what skills belief      
Or disbelief? Fate works its will—and thou           1428   
Wilt see and say in ruth, Her tale was true.      
    
CHORUS


Ah—’tis Thyestes’ feast on kindred flesh—      
I guess her meaning and with horror thrill,      
Hearing no shadow’d hint of th’ o’er—true tale,           1432   
But its full hatefulness: yet, for the rest,      
Far from the track I roam, and know no more.      
    
CASSANDRA


’Tis Agamemnon’s doom thou shalt behold.      
    
CHORUS


Peace, hapless woman, to thy boding words!           1436   
    
CASSANDRA


Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.      
    
CHORUS


Ay—were such doom at hand—which God forbid!      
    
CASSANDRA


Thou prayest idly—these move swift to slay.      
    
CHORUS


What man prepares a deed of such despite?           1440   
    
CASSANDRA


Fool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.      
    
CHORUS


Deviser and device are dark to me.      
    
CASSANDRA


Dark! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.      
    
CHORUS


Ay—but in thine, as in Apollo’s strains,           1444   
Familiar is the tongue, but dark the thought.      
    
CASSANDRA


Ah ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now—      
Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!      
    
Lo, how the woman-thing, the lioness           1448   
Couched with the wolf—her noble mate afar—      
Will slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch,      
She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord      
With double death—his recompense for me!           1452   
Ay, ’tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,      
That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel!      
Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,      
Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all—           1456   
I stamp you into death, or e’er I die—      
Down, to destruction!      
                      Thus I stand revenged—      
Go, crown some other with a prophet’s woe.           1460   
Look! it is he, it is Apollo’s self      
Rending from me the prophet-robe he gave.      
God! while I wore it yet, thou saw’st me mocked      
There at my home by each malicious mouth—           1464   
To all and each, an undivided scorn.      
The name alike and fate of witch and cheat—      
Woe, poverty, and famine—all I bore;      
And at this last the god hath brought me here           1468   
Into death’s toils, and what his love had made,      
His hate unmakes me now: and I shall stand      
Not now before the altar of my home,      
But me a slaughter-house and block of blood           1472   
Shall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.      
Yet shall the gods have heed of me who die,      
For by their will shall one requite my doom.      
He, to avenge his father’s blood outpoured,           1476   
Shall smite and slay with matricidal hand.      
Ay, he shall come—tho’ far away he roam,      
A banished wanderer in a stranger’s land—      
To crown his kindred’s edifice of ille           1480   
Called home to vengeance by his father’s fall:      
Thus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.      
And now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,      
Since first mine Ilion has found its fate           1484   
And I beheld, and those who won the wall      
Pass to such issue as the gods ordain?      
I too will pass and like them dare to die!  [Turns and looks upon the palace door.      
Portal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail!           1488   
Grant me one boon—a swift and mortal stroke,      
That all unwrong by pain, with ebbing blood      
Shed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.      
    
CHORUS


Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,           1492   
Long was thy prophecy: but if aright      
Thou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,      
Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom,      
As fronts the knife some victim, heaven-controlled?           1496   
    
CASSANDRA


Friends, there is no avoidance in delay.      
    
CHORUS


Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.      
    
CASSANDRA


The day is come—flight were small gain to me!      
 

CHORUS


O brave endurance of a soul resolved!           1500   
    
CASSANDRA


That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.      
    
CHORUS


All fame is happy, even famous death.      
    
CASSANDRA


Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye!  [She moves to enter the house, then starts back.      
    
CHORUS


What fear is this that scares thee from the house?           1504   
    
CASSANDRA


Pah!      
    
CHORUS


What is this cry? some dark despair of soul?      
    
CASSANDRA


Pah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.      
    
CHORUS


How? ’tis the smell of household offerings.           1508   
    
CASSANDRA


’Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.      
    
CHORUS


Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?      
    
CASSANDRA


Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud      
The monarch’s fate and mine—enough of life.           1512   
Ah friends!      
Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,      
That not as birds that shun the bush and scream      
I moan in idle terror. This attest           1516   
When for my death’s revenge another dies,      
A woman for a woman, and a man      
Falls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.      
Grant me this boon—the last before I die.           1520   
    
CHORUS


Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.      
    
CASSANDRA


Once more one utterance, but not of wail,      
Though for my death—and then I speak no more.      
Sun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,           1524   
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls      
To slay their kindred’s slayers, quit withal      
The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.      
    
Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,           1528   
A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,      
One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away—      
And this I deem less piteous, of the twain.  [Exit into the palace.      
    
CHORUS


Too true it is! our mortal state           1532   
With bliss is never satiate,      
And none, before the palace high      
And stately of prosperity,      
Cries to us with a voice of fear,           1536   
Away! ’tis ill to enter here!      
    
Lo! this our lord hath trodden down,      
By grace of heaven, old Priam’s town,      
    And praised as god he stands once more           1540   
    On Argos’ shore!      
Yet now—if blood shed long ago      
Cries out that other blood shall flow—      
His life-blood, his, to pay again           1544   
The stern requital of the slain—      
Peace to that braggart’s vaunting vain,      
    Who, having heard the chieftain’s tale,      
    Yet boasts of bliss untouched by bale!  [A loud cry from within.           1548   
    
VOICE OF AGAMEMNON


O I am sped—a deep, a mortal blow.      
    
CHORUS


Listen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony?      
    
VOICE OF AGAMEMNON


O! O! again, another, another blow!      
    
CHORUS


The bloody act is over—I have heard the monarch’s cry—           1552   
Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die.      
    
ONE OF THE CHORUS


’Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,      
“Ho! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!”      
    
ANOTHER


Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,           1556   
And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.      
    
ANOTHER


Such will is mine, and what thou say’st I say:      
Swiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.      
    
ANOTHER


Ay, for ’tis plain, this prelude of their song           1560   
Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong.      
    
ANOTHER


Behold, we tarry—but thy name, Delay,      
They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.      
    
ANOTHER


I know not what ’twere well to counsel now—           1564   
Who wills to act, ’tis his to counsel how.      
    
ANOTHER


Thy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain,      
I have no words to bring his life again.      
    
ANOTHER


What? e’en for life’s sake, bow us to obey           1568   
These house-defilers and their tyrant sway?      
    
ANOTHER


Unmanly doom! ’twere better far to die—      
Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.      
    
ANOTHER


Think well—must cry or sign of woe or pain           1572   
Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain?      
    
ANOTHER


Such talk befits us when the deed we see—      
Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.      
    
LEADER OF THE CHORUS


I read one will from many a diverse word,           1576   
To know aright, how stands it with our lord!  [The scene opens, disclosing Clytemnestra, who comes forward. The body of Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver; the corpse of Cassandra is laid beside him.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oft      
The glozing word that led me to my will—      
Hear how I shrink not to unsay it all!           1580   
How else should one who willeth to requite      
Evil for evil to an enemy      
Disguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,      
Not to be overleaped, a net of doom?           1584   
This is the sum and issue of old strife,      
Of me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.      
All is avowed, and as I smote I stand      
With foot set firm upon a finished thing!           1588   
I turn not to denial: thus I wrought      
So that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.      
Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,      
I trapped him with inextricable toils,           1592   
The ill abundance of a baffling robe;      
Then smote him, once, again—and at each wound      
He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed      
Each limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,           1596   
Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,      
Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.      
And thus he fell, and as he passed away,      
Spirit with body chafed; each dying breath           1600   
Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,      
And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood      
Fell upon me; and I was fain to feel      
That dew—not sweeter is the rain of heaven           1604   
To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.      
    
Elders of Argos—since the thing stands so,      
I bid you to rejoice, if such your will:      
Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,           1608   
And well I ween, if seemly it could be,      
’Twere not ill done to pour libations here,      
Justly—ay, more than justly—on his corpse      
Who filled his home with curses as with wine,           1612   
And thus returned to drain the cup he filled.      
    
CHORUS


I marvel at thy tongue’s audacity,      
To vaunt thus loudly o’er a husband slain.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will,           1616   
And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout,      
Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you,      
Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,      
Even as ye list,—I reck not of your words.           1620   
Lo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,      
My husband once—and him this hand of mine,      
A right contriver, fashioned for his death.      
Behold the deed!           1624   
    
CHORUS


  Woman, what deadly birth,      
What venomed essence of the earth      
Or dark distilment of the wave,      
  To thee such passion gave,           1628   
Nerving thine hand      
To set upon thy brow this burning crown,      
  The curses of thy land?      
Our king by thee cut off, hewn down!           1632   
  Go forth—they cry—accursèd and forlorn,      
    To hate and scorn!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


O ye just men, who speak my sentence now,      
The city’s hate, the ban of all my realm!           1636   
Ye had no voice of old to launch such doom      
On him, my husband, when he held as light      
My daughter’s life as that of sheep or goat,      
One victim from the thronging fleecy fold!           1640   
Yea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,      
The well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,      
To lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.      
That deed of his, I say, that stain and shame,           1644   
Had rightly been atoned by banishment;      
But ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judge      
This deed of mine that doth affront your ears.      
Storm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,           1648   
That I am ready, if your hand prevail      
As mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway:      
If God say nay, it shall be yours to learn      
By chastisement a late humility.           1652   
    
CHORUS


  Bold is thy craft, and proud      
Thy confidence, thy vaunting loud;      
Thy soul, that chose a murd’ress’ fate,      
  Is all with blood elate—           1656   
    Maddened to know      
The blood not yet avenged, the damnèd spot      
  Crimson upon thy brow.      
But Fate prepares for thee thy lot—           1660   
Smitten as thou didst smite, without a friend,      
    To meet thine end!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear—      
By the great vengeance for my murdered child,           1664   
By Atè, by the Fury unto whom      
This man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,      
I do not look to tread the hall of Fear,      
While in this hearth and home of mine there burns           1668   
The light of love—Ægisthus—as of old      
Loyal, a stalwart shield of confidence—      
As true to me as this slain man was false,      
Wronging his wife with paramours at Troy,           1672   
Fresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there!      
Behold him dead—behold his captive prize,      
Seeres and harlot—comfort of his bed,      
True prophetess, true paramour—I wot           1676   
The sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,      
Full oft, of every rower, than was she      
See, ill they did, and ill requites them now.      
His death ye know: she as a dying swan           1680   
Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,      
Close to his side, and to my couch has left      
A sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.      
    
CHORUS


    Ah woe and well-a-day! I would that Fate—           1684   
      Not bearing agony too great,      
    Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain—      
      Would bid mine eyelids keep      
The morningless and unawakening sleep!           1688   
    For life is weary, now my lord is slain,      
      The gracious among kings!      
Hard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,      
    And for a woman’s sake, on Ilian land—           1692   
Now is his life hewn down, and by a woman’s hand!      
    O Helen, O infatuate soul,      
    Who bad’st the tides of battle roll,      
    O’erwhelming thousands, life on life,           1696   
    ’Neath Ilion’s wall!      
And now lies dead the lord of all.      
  The blossom of thy storied sin      
  Bears blood’s inexpiable stain,           1700   
  O thou that erst, these halls within,      
  Wert unto all a rock of strife,      
    A husband’s bane!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Peace! pray not thou for death as though           1704   
Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,      
Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban      
The name of Helen, nor recall      
How she, one bane of many a man,           1708   
Sent down to death the Danaan lords,      
To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,      
And wrought the woe that shattered all.      
    
CHORUS


Fiend of the race! that swoopest fell           1712   
  Upon the double stock of Tantalus,      
Lording it o’er me by a woman’s will,      
  Stern, manful, and imperious—      
    A bitter sway to me!           1716   
    Thy very form I see,      
  Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,      
Exulting o’er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Right was the word—thou namest well           1720   
The brooding race-fiend, triply fell!      
From him it is that murder’s thirst,      
Blood-lapping, inwardly is nursed—      
Ere time the ancient scar can sain,           1724   
New blood comes welling forth again.      
    
CHORUS


Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,      
  That fiend of whom thy voice has cried,      
Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,           1728   
  An all-devouring doom!      
    
As woe, as Zeus! from Zeus all things befall—      
  Zeus the high cause and finisher of all!—      
Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed           1732   
  All things, by him fulfilled!      
    
Yet ah my king, my king no more!      
What words to say, what tears to pour      
  Can tell my love for thee?           1736   
The spider-web of treachery      
She wove and wound, thy life around,      
  And lo! I see thee lie,      
And thro’ a coward, impious wound           1740   
  Pant forth thy life and die!      
A death of shame—ah woe on woe!      
A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


My guilt thou harpest, o’er and o’er!           1744   
I bid thee reckon me no more      
  As Agamemnon’s spouse.      
The old Avenger, stern of mood      
For Atreus and his feast of blood,           1748   
    Hath struck the lord of Atreus’ house,      
And in the semblance of his wife      
    The king hath slain.—      
Yea, for the murdered children’s life,           1752   
  A chieftain’s in requital ta’en.      
    
CHORUS


Thou guiltless of this murder, thou!      
  Who dares such thought avow?      
  Yet it may be, wroth for the parent’s deed,           1756   
  The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.      
    Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on      
    Thro’ streams of blood by kindred shed,      
Exacting the accompt for children dead,           1760   
For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.      
    
      Yet ah my king, my king no more!      
      What words to say, what tears to pour      
        Can tell my love for thee?           1764   
      The spider-web of treachery      
      She wove and wound, thy life around,]      
        And lo! I see thee lie,      
      And thro’ a coward, impious wound           1768   
        Pant forth thy life and die!      
      A death of shame—ah woe on woe!      
      A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


      I deem not that the death he died           1772   
        Had overmuch of shame:      
      For this was he who did provide      
        Foul wrong unto his house and name:      
      His daughter, blossom of my womb,           1776   
      He gave unto a deadly doom,      
      Iphigenia, child of tears!      
      And as he wrought, even so he fares.      
      Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell;           1780   
      For by the sword his sin he wrought,      
      And by the sword himself is brought      
        Among the dead to dwell.      
    
CHORUS


      Ah whither shall I fly?           1784   
For all in ruin sinks the kingly hall;      
Nor swift device nor shift of thought have I,      
    To ’scape its fall.      
A little while the gentler raindrops fail;           1788   
I stand distraught—a ghastly interval,      
Till on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail      
Of blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel      
On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,           1792   
  The steel that smites, in Justice’ hold,      
  Another death to deal.      
O Earth! that I had lain at rest      
And lapped for ever in thy breast,           1796   
Ere I had seen my chieftain fall      
Within the laver’s silver wall,      
Low-lying on dishonoured bier!      
And who shall give him sepulchre,           1800   
And who the wail of sorrow pour?      
Woman, ’tis thine no more!      
A graceless gift unto his shade      
Such tribute, by his murd’ress paid!           1804   
Strive not thus wrongly to atone      
The impious deed thy hand hath done.      
Ah who above the godlike chief?      
Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?           1808   
Who speak above his lowly grave      
The last sad praises of the brave?      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Peace! for such task is none of thine.      
  By me he fell, by me he died,           1812   
And now his burial rites be mine!      
Yet from these halls no mourners’ train      
  Shall celebrate his obsequies;      
Only by Acheron’s rolling tide           1816   
His child shall spring unto his side,      
  And in a daughter’s loving wise      
Shall clasp and kiss him once again!      
    
CHORUS


Lo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg’d by sorrow—           1820   
    And who the end can know?      
The slayer of today shall die tomorrow—      
    The wage of wrong is woe.      
While Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,           1824   
    His law is fixed and stern;      
On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured—      
    The tides of doom return.      
The children of the curse abide within           1828   
    These halls of high estate—      
And none can wrench from off the home of sin      
    The clinging grasp of fate.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Now walks thy word aright, to tell           1832   
This ancient truth of oracle;      
But I with vows of sooth will pray      
To him, the power that holdeth sway      
  O’er all the race of Pleisthenes—           1836   
Tho’ dark the deed and deep the guilt,      
With this last blood my hands have spilt,      
  I pray thee let thine anger cease!      
I pray thee pass from us away           1840   
  To some new race in other lands,      
There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay      
  The lives of men by kindred hands.      
    
For me’tis all sufficient meed,           1844   
Tho’ little wealth or power were won,      
So I can say, ’Tis past and done.      
The bloody lust and murderous,      
The inborn frenzy of our house,           1848   
  Is ended, by my deed!  [Enter Ægisthus.      
    
ÆGISTHUS


Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail!      
I dare at length aver that gods above      
Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.           1852   
I, I who stand and thus exult to see      
This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,      
Slain in requital of his father’s craft.      
Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man’s sire,           1856   
The lord and monarch of this land of old,      
Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,      
Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,      
And drave him from his home to banishment.           1860   
Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole      
And clung a suppliant to the heart divine,      
And for himself won this immunity—      
Not with his own blood to defile the land           1864   
That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire      
Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned—      
With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold      
In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,           1868   
And bade my father to his board, and set      
Before him flesh that was his children once.      
First, sitting at the upper board alone,      
He hid the fingers and the feet, but gave           1872   
The rest—and readily Thyestes took      
What to his ignorance no semblance wore      
Of human flesh, and ate: behold what curse      
That eating brought upon our race and name!           1876   
For when he knew what all-unhallowed thing      
He thus had wrought, with horror’s bitter cry      
Back-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,      
On Pelops’ house a deadly curse he spake—           1880   
As darkly as I spurn this damnèd food,      
So perish all the race of Pleisthenes!      
Thus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,      
And I—who else?—this murder wove and planned;           1884   
For me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,      
Of the three children youngest, Atreus sent      
To banishment by my sad father’s side:      
But Justice brought me home once more, grown now           1888   
To manhood’s years; and stranger tho’ I was,      
My right hand reached unto the chieftain’s life,      
Plotting and planning all that malice bade.      
And death itself were honour now to me,           1892   
Beholding him in Justice’ ambush ta’en.      
    
CHORUS


Ægisthus, for this insolence of thine      
That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.      
Of thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain           1896   
The chieftain, by thine own unaided plot      
Devised the piteous death: I rede thee well,      
Think not thy head shall ’scape, when right prevails,      
The people’s ban, the stones of death and doom.           1900   
    
ÆGISTHUS


This word from thee, this word from one who rows      
Low at the oars beneath, what time we rule,      
We of the upper tier? Thou’lt know anon,      
’Tis bitter to be taught again in age,           1904   
By one so young, submission at the word.      
But iron of the chain and hunger’s throes      
Can minister unto an o’erswoln pride      
Marvellous well, ay, even in the old.           1908   
Hast eyes, and seest not this? Peace—kick not thus      
Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain!      
    
CHORUS


Thou womanish man, waiting till war did cease,      
Home-watcher and defiler of the couch,           1912   
And arch-deviser of the chieftain’s doom!      
    
ÆGISTHUS


Bold words again! but they shall end in tears.      
The very converse, thine, of Orpheus’ tongue:      
He roused and led in ecstasy of joy           1916   
All things that heard his voice melodious;      
But thou as with the futile cry of curs      
Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace!      
Or strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.           1920   
    
CHORUS


Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down—      
Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,      
But not with thine own hand to smite the blow!      
    
ÆGISTHUS


That fraudful force was woman’s very part,           1924   
Not mine, whom deep suspicion from of old      
Would have debarred. Now by his treasure’s aid      
My purpose holds to rule the citizens.      
But whoso will not bear my guiding hand,           1928   
Him for his corn-fed mettle I will drive      
Not as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,      
But to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.      
Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,           1932   
Shall look on him and shall behold him tame.      
    
CHORUS


Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight      
To deal in murder, while a woman’s hand,      
Staining and shaming Argos and its gods,           1936   
Availed to slay him? Ho, if anywhere      
The light of life smite on Orestes’ eyes,      
Let him, returning by some guardian fate,      
Hew down with force her paramour and her!           1940   
    
ÆGISTHUS


How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly understand.      
    
CHORUS


Up to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand.      
Swift, your right hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for strife—      
    
ÆGISTHUS


Lo! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or life.           1944   
    
CHORUS


’Twas thy word and we accept it: onward to the chance of war!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Nay, enough, enough, my champion! we will smite and slay no more.      
Already have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt:      
Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.           1948   
Peace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed,      
Lest ill valour meet our vengeance—’twas a necessary deed.      
But enough of toils and troubles—be the end, if ever, now,      
Ere thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.           1952   
’Tis a woman’s word of warning, and let who will list thereto.      
    
ÆGISTHUS


But that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms of the tongue,      
And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,      
And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler’s word—           1956   
    
CHORUS


Ruler? but ’tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard lord!      
    
ÆGISTHUS


I will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway.      
    
CHORUS


Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way.      
    
ÆGISTHUS


Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return.           1960   
    
CHORUS


Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while ’tis thy turn.      
    
ÆGISTHUS


Thou shalt pay, be well assurèd, heavy quittance for thy pride.      
    
CHORUS


Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock, his mate beside!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Heed not thou too highly of them—let the cur-pack growl and yell:           1964   
I and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well.  [Exeunt.

The Libation-Bearers

ORESTES


LORD of the shades and patron of the realm      
That erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,      
Hermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,      
Me who from banishment returning stand           4   
On this my country; lo, my foot is set      
On this grave-mound, and herald-like, as thou,      
Once and again, I bid my father hear.      
And these twin locks, from mine head shorn, I bring,           8   
And one to Inachus the river-god,      
My young life’s nurturer, I dedicate,      
And one in sign of mourning unfulfilled      
I lay, though late, on this my father’s grave.           12   
For O my father, not beside thy corse      
Stood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand      
Stretched out to bear thee forth to burial.      
    
What sight is yonder? what this woman-throng           16   
Hitherward coming, by their sable garb      
Made manifest as mourners? What hath chanced?      
Doth some new sorrow hap within the home!      
Or rightly may I deem that they draw near           20   
Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire      
Of dead men angered, to my father’s grave?      
Nay, such they are indeed; for I descry      
Electra, mine own sister, pacing hither,           24   
In moody grief conspicuous. Grant, O Zeus,      
Grant me my father’s murder to avenge—      
Be thou my willing champion!      
                              Pylades,           28   
Pass we aside, till rightly I discern      
Wherefore these women throng in suppliance.  [Exeunt Pylades and Orestes; enter the Chorus, bearing vessels for libation; Electra follows them; they pace slowly towards the tomb of Agamemnon.      
    
CHORUS


Forth from the royal halls by high command      
  I bear libations for the dead.           32   
Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,      
  And all my cheek is rent and red,      
Fresh-furrowed by my nails, and all my soul      
This many a day doth feed on cries of dole.           36   
  And trailing tatters of my vest,      
In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,      
  Hang rent around my breast,      
Even as I, by blows of Fate most stern           40   
      Saddened and torn.      
    
  Oracular thro’ visions, ghastly clear,      
Bearing a blast of wrath from realms below,      
And stiffening each rising hair with dread,           44   
    Came out of dreamland Fear,      
    And, loud and awful, bade      
The shriek ring out at midnight’s witching hour,      
    And brooded, stern with woe,           48   
Above the inner house, the woman’s bower.      
And seers inspired did read the dream on oath,      
    Chanting aloud In realms below      
        The dead are wroth;           52   
Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.      
    
Therefore to bear this gift of graceless worth—      
    O Earth, my nursing mother!—      
The woman god-accurs’d doth send me forth           56   
    Lest one crime bring another.      
Ill is the very word to speak, for none      
          Can ransom or atone      
For blood once shed and darkening the plain.           60   
    O hearth of woe and bane,      
    O state that low doth lie!      
Sunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood      
  Above the home of murdered majesty.           64   
    
Rumour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,      
Pervading ears and soul of lesser men,      
    Is silent now and dead.      
    Yet rules a viler dread;           68   
  For bliss and power, however won,      
As gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.      
    
  Justice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,      
    Some that are yet in light;           72   
    Others in interspace of day and night,      
      Till Fate arouse them, stay;      
And some are lapped in night, where all things are undone.      
    
    On the life-giving lap of Earth           76   
      Blood hath flowed forth,      
And now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain—      
  Unmelting, uneffaced the stain.      
And Atè tarries long, but at the last           80   
        The sinner’s heart is cast      
Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain.      
    
    Lo, when man’s force doth ope      
The virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hope           84   
  For what is lost,—even so, I deem,      
Though in one channel ran Earth’s every stream,      
  Laving the hand defiled from murder’s stain,      
        It were vain.           88   
    
And upon me—ah me!—the gods have laid      
  The woe that wrapped round Troy,      
What time they led me down from home and kin      
      Unto a slave’s employ—           92   
    The doom to bow the head      
    And watch our master’s will      
      Work deeds of good and ill—      
To see the headlong sway of force and sin,           96   
  And hold restrained the spirit’s bitter hate,      
  Wailing the monarch’s fruitless fate,      
Hiding my face within my robe, and fain      
Of tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.           100   
    
ELECTRA


Handmaidens, orderers of the palace-halls,      
Since at my side ye come, a suppliant train,      
Companions of this offering, counsel me      
As best befits the time: for I, who pour           104   
Upon the grave these streams funereal,      
With what fair word can I invoke my sire?      
Shall I aver, Behold, I bear these gifts      
From well-loved wife unto her well-loved lord,           108   
When ’tis from her, my mother, that they come?      
I dare not say it: of all words I fail      
Wherewith to consecrate unto my sire      
These sacrificial honours on his grave.           112   
Or shall I speak this word, as mortals use—      
Give back, to those who send these coronals,      
Full recompense—of ills for acts malign?      
Or shall I pour this draught for Earth to drink,           116   
Sans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,      
And homeward pass with unreverted eyes,      
Casting the bowl away, as one who flings      
The household cleansings to the common road?           120   
Be art and part, O friends, in this my doubt,      
Even as ye are in that one common hate      
Whereby we live attended: fear ye not      
The wrath of any man, nor hide your word           124   
Within your breast: the day of death and doom      
Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.      
Speak, then, if aught thou know’st to aid us more.      
    
CHORUS


Thou biddest; I will speak my soul’s thought out,           128   
Revering as a shrine thy father’s grave.      
    
ELECTRA


Say then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest.      
    
CHORUS


Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.      
    
ELECTRA


And of his kin whom dare I name as kind?           132   
    
CHORUS


Thyself; and next, whoe’er Ægisthus scorns.      
    
ELECTRA


Then ’tis myself and thou my prayer must name.      
    
CHORUS


Whoe’er they be, ’tis thine to know and name them.      
    
ELECTRA


Is there no other we may claim as ours?           136   
    
CHORUS


Think of Orestes, though far-off he be.      
    
ELECTRA


Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.      
    
CHORUS


Mindfully, next, on those who shed the blood—      
    
ELECTRA


Pray on them what? expound, instruct my doubt.           140   
    
CHORUS


This: Upon them some god or mortal come—      
    
ELECTRA


As judge or as avenger? speak thy thought.      
    
CHORUS


Pray in set terms, Who shall the slayer slay.      
    
ELECTRA


Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven?           144   
    
CHORUS


How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe?      
    
ELECTRA


O mighty Hermes, warder of the shades,      
Herald of the upper and of under world,      
Proclaim and usher down my prayer’s appeal           148   
Unto the god below, that they with eyes      
Watchful behold these halls, my sire’s of old—      
And unto Earth, the mother of all things,      
And foster-nurse, and womb that takes their seed.           152   
    
Lo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,      
Call on my father, who yet holds in ruth      
Me and mine own Orestes, Father, speak—      
How shall thy children rule thine halls again?           156   
Homeless we are and sold; and she who sold      
Is she who bore us; and the price she took      
Is he who joined with her to work thy death,      
Ægisthus, her new lord. Behold me here           160   
Brought down to slave’s estate, and far away      
Wanders Orestes, banished from the wealth      
That once was thine, the profit of thy care,      
Whereon these revel in a shameful joy.           164   
Father, my prayer is said; ’tis thine to hear—      
Grant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,      
And unto me grant these—a purer soul      
Than is my mother’s, a more stainless hand.           168   
    
These be my prayers for us: for thee, O sire,      
I cry that one may come to smite thy foes,      
And that the slayers may in turn be slain.      
Cursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,           172   
Praying mine own, a counter-curse on them.      
And thou, send up to us the righteous boon      
For which we pray; thine aids be heaven and earth,      
And justice guide the right to victory.  [To the Chorus.           176   
Thus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,      
And follow ye the wont, and as with flowers      
Crown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge      
Your lips ring out above the dead man’s grave.  [She pours the libations.           180   
    
CHORUS


          Woe, woe, woe!      
Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground      
      Where our lord lies low:      
Fall and cleanse away the cursed libation’s stain,           184   
      Shed on this grave-mound,      
Fenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane      
      From the dead are found.      
        Lord of Argos, hearken!           188   
        Though around thee darken      
  Mist of death and hell, arise and hear!      
Hearken and awaken to our cry of woe!      
      Who with might of spear           192   
        Shall our home deliver?      
    Who like Ares bend until it quiver,      
            Bend the northern bow?      
Who with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust will glaive,           196   
              Thrust and slay and save?      
    
ELECTRA


Lo! the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass—      
Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.      
    
CHORUS


Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.           200   
    
ELECTRA


I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.      
    
CHORUS


Shorn from what man or what deep-girded maid?      
    
ELECTRA


That may he guess who will; the sign is plain.      
    
CHORUS


Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.           204   
    
ELECTRA


None is there here but I, to clip such gift.      
    
CHORUS


For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.      
    
ELECTRA


And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like—      
    
CHORUS


Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.           208   
    
ELECTRA


Like unto those my father’s children wear.      
    
CHORUS


Then is this lock Orestes’ secret gift?      
    
ELECTRA


Most like it is unto the curls he wore.      
    
CHORUS


Yet how dared he to come unto his home?           212   
    
ELECTRA


He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.      
    
CHORUS


It is a sorrow grievous at his death,      
That he should live, yet never dare return.      
    
ELECTRA


Yea, and my heart o’erflows with gall of grief,           216   
And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart;      
Like to the first drops after drought, my tears      
Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,      
As on this lock I gaze; I cannot deem           220   
That any Argive save Orestes’ self      
Was ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,      
Hath she, the murd’ress, shorn and laid this lock      
To mourn him whom she slew—my mother she,           224   
Bearing no mother’s heart, but to her race      
A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven!      
Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,      
That this adornment cometh of the hand           228   
Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,      
I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair!      
Ah well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice      
To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,           232   
Bidding me sway no more ’twixt fear and hope,      
Clearly commanding, Cast me hence away,      
Clipped was I from some head thou lovest not;      
Or, I am kin to thee, and here, as thou,           236   
I come to weep and deck our father’s grave.      
Aid me, ye gods! for well indeed ye know      
How in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,      
Like to the seaman’s bark, we whirl and stray.           240   
But, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,      
From seed how small, the new tree of our home!—      
Lo ye, a second sign—these footsteps, look,—      
Like to my own, a corresponsive print;           244   
And look, another footmark,—this his own,      
And that the foot of one who walked with him.      
Mark, how the heel and tendons’ print combine,      
Measured exact, with mine coincident!           248   
Alas! for doubt and anguish rack my mind.      
    
ORESTES (approaching suddenly)


Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled,      
Fair fall the rest of what I ask of heaven.      
    
ELECTRA


Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?           252   
    
ORESTES


This, that thine eyes behold thy heart’s desire.      
    
ELECTRA


On whom of mortals know’st thou that I call?      
    
ORESTES


I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.      
    
ELECTRA


Say then wherein event hath crowned my prayer?           256   
    
ORESTES


I, I am he; seek not one more akin.      
    
ELECTRA


Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?      
    
ORESTES


Against myself I weave it, if I weave.      
    
ELECTRA


Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woe!           260   
    
ORESTES


’Tis at mine own I mock them, mocking thine.      
    
ELECTRA


Speak I with thee then as Orestes’ self?      
    
ORESTES


My very face thou see’st and know’st me not,      
And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock           264   
Shorn for my father’s grave, and when thy quest      
Was eager on the footprints I had made,      
Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,      
Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me!           268   
Lay now this ringlet whence ’twas shown, and judge,      
And look upon this robe, thine own hands’ work,      
The shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon—      
Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,           272   
For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.      
    
ELECTRA


O thou that art unto our father’s home      
Love, grief, and hope, for thee the tears ran down,      
For thee, the son, the saviour that should be;           276   
Trust thou thine arm and win thy father’s halls!      
O aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,      
Whom upon thee the heart’s constraint bids call      
As on my father, and the claim of love           280   
From me unto my mother turns to thee,      
For she is very hate; to thee too turns      
What of my heart went out to her who died      
A ruthless death upon the altar-stone;           284   
And for myself I love thee—thee that wast      
A brother leal, sole stay of love to me.      
Now by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus      
Saviour almighty, stand to aid the twain!           288   
    
ORESTES


Zeus, Zeus! look down on our estate and us,      
The orphaned brood of him, our eagle-sire,      
Whom to his death a fearful serpent brought,      
Enwinding him in coils; and we, bereft           292   
And foodless, sink with famine, all too weak      
To bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,      
Such quarry as he slew. Lo! I and she,      
Electra, stand before thee, fatherless,           296   
And each alike cast out and homeless made.      
    
ELECTRA


And if thou leave to death the brood of him      
Whose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence      
Was thine, all thine,—whence, in the after years,           300   
Shall any hand like his adorn thy shrine      
With sacrifice of flesh? the eaglets slain,      
Thou wouldst not have a messenger to bear      
Thine omens, once so clear, to mortal men;           304   
So, if this kingly stock be withered all,      
None on high festivals will fend thy shrine.      
Stoop thou to raise us! strong the race shall show,      
Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.           308   
    
CHORUS


O children, saviours of your father’s home,      
Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear      
And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,      
Unto our masters—whom God grant to me           312   
In pitchy reek of fun’ral flame to see!      
    
ORESTES


Nay, mighty is Apollo’s oracle      
And shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass      
Thro’ all this peril; clear the voice rang out           316   
With many warnings, sternly threatening      
To my hot heart the wintry chill of pain,      
Unless upon the slayers of my sire      
I pressed for vengeance: this the god’s command—           320   
That I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,      
Should with a craft like theirs the slayers slay:      
Else with my very life I should atone      
This deed undone, in many a ghastly wise.           324   
For he proclaimed unto the ears of men      
That offerings, poured to angry power of death,      
Exude again, unless their will be done,      
As grim disease on those that poured them forth—           328   
As leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh      
And with fell fangs corroding what of old      
Wore natural form; and on the brow arise      
White poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.           332   
He spake, moreover, of assailing fiends      
Empowered to quit on me my father’s blood,      
Wreaking their wrath on me, what time in night      
Beneath shut lids the spirit’s eye sees clear.           336   
The dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell      
By spirits of the murdered dead who call      
Unto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,      
The nighttide’s visitant, and madness’ curse           340   
Should drive and rack me; and my tortured frame      
Should be chased forth from man’s community      
As with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.      
For me and such as me no lustral bowl           344   
Should stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God      
For me, and wrath unseen of my dead sire      
Should drive me from the shrine; no man should dare      
To take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me:           348   
Slow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,      
And pitiless horror wind me for the grave.      
This spake the god—this dare I disobey?      
Yea, though I dared, the deed must yet be done;           352   
For to that end diverse desires combine,—      
The god’s behest, deep grief for him who died,      
And last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled—      
All these weigh on me, urge that Argive men,           356   
Minions of valour, who with soul of fire      
Did make of fenced Troy a ruinous heap,      
Be not left slaves to two and each a woman!      
For he, the man, wears woman’s heart; if not,           360   
Soon shall he know, confronted by a man.  [Orestes, Electra, and the Chorus gather round the tomb of Agamemnon for the invocation which follows.      
    
CHORUS


Mighty Fates, on you we call!      
Bid the will of Zeus ordain      
Power to those to whom again           364   
Justice turns with hand and aid!      
Grievous was the prayer one made—      
Grievous let the answer fall!      
Where the mighty doom is set,           368   
Justice claims aloud her debt.      
Who in blood hath dipped the steel,      
Deep in blood her meed shall feel!      
List an immemorial word—           372   
  Whosoe’er shall take the sword      
  Shall perish by the sword.      
    
ORESTES


Father, unblest in death, O father mine!      
        What breath of word or deed           376   
Can I waft on thee from this far confine      
        Unto thy lowly bed,—      
Waft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,      
        Hope’s counter-gleam of fire?           380   
Yet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying      
        Unto each parted sire.      
    
CHORUS


O child, the spirit of the dead,      
Altho’ upon his flesh have fed           384   
  The grim teeth of the flame,      
Is quelled not; after many days      
The sting of wrath his soul shall raise,      
  A vengeance to reclaim!           388   
To the dead rings loud our cry—      
Plain the living’s treachery—      
Swelling, shrilling, urged on high,      
  The vengeful dirge, for parents slain,           392   
  Shall strive and shall attain.      
    
ELECTRA


    Hear me too, even me, O father, hear!      
Not by one child alone these groans, these tears are shed      
        Upon thy sepulchre.           396   
    Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,      
    Stands, a suppliant, homeless made:      
        Ah, and all is full of ill,      
    Comfort is there none to say!           400   
 

 Strive and wrestle as we may,      
        Still stands doom invincible,      
    
CHORUS


    Nay, if so he will, the god      
      Still our tears to joy can turn.           404   
    He can bid a triumph-ode      
      Drown the dirge beside this urn;      
    He to kingly halls can greet      
The child restored, the homeward-guided feet.           408   
    
ORESTES


Ah my father! hadst thou lain      
    Under Ilion’s wall,      
By some Lycian spearman slain,      
  Thou hadst left in this thine hall           412   
Honour; thou hadst wrought for us      
Fame and life most glorious.      
  Over-seas if thou hadst died,      
Heavily had stood thy tomb,           416   
  Heaped on high; but, quenched in pride,      
Grief were light unto thy home.      
    
CHORUS


Loved and honoured hadst thou lain      
  By the dead that nobly fell,           420   
In the underworld again,      
  Where are throned the kings of hell,      
  Full of sway adorable      
Thou hadst stood at their right hand—           424   
Thou that wert, in mortal land,      
  By Fate’s ordinance and law,      
King of kings who bear the crown      
  And the staff, to which in awe           428   
Mortal men bow down.      
    
ELECTRA


  Nay, O father, I were fain      
Other fate had fallen on thee.      
  Ill it were if thou hadst lain           432   
  One among the common slain,      
  Fallen by Scamander’s side—      
Those who slew thee there should be!      
Then, untouched by slavery,           436   
    We had heard as from afar      
  Deaths of those who should have died      
    ’Mid the chance of war.      
    
CHORUS


O child, forbear! things all too high thou sayest.           440   
      Easy, but vain, thy cry!      
A boon above all gold is that thou prayest,      
      An unreached destiny,      
As of the blessèd land that far aloof           444   
      Beyond the north wind lies;      
Yet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof;      
      A double scourge of sighs      
Awakes the dead; th’ avengers rise, though late;           448   
      Blood stains the guilty pride      
Of the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate      
      Stands on the children’s side.      
    
ELECTRA


That hath sped thro’ mine ear, like a shaft from a bow!           452   
Zeus, Zeus! it is thou who dost send from below      
A doom on the desperate doer—ere long      
On a mother a father shall visit his wrong.      
    
CHORUS


    Be it mine to upraise thro’ the reek of the pyre           456   
    The chant of delight, while the funeral fire      
      Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain      
        And a woman laid low!      
For who bids me conceal it! outrending control,           460   
Blows ever the stern blast of hate thro’ my soul,      
    And before me a vision of wrath and of bane      
        Flits and waves to and fro.      
    
ORESTES


Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.           464   
      Smite with a rending blow      
  Upon their heads, and bid the land be well:      
Set right where wrong hath stood; and thou give ear,      
      O Earth, unto my prayer—           468   
  Yea, hear, O mother Earth, and monarchy of hell!      
    
CHORUS


Nay, the law is sternly set—      
  Blood drops shed upon the ground      
Plead for other bloodshed yet;           472   
  Loud the call of death doth sound,      
Calling guilt of olden time,      
A Fury, crowning crime with crime.      
    
ELECTRA


Where, where are ye, avenging powers,           476   
    Puissant Furies of the slain?      
  Behold the relics of the race      
  Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place!      
O Zeus, what home henceforth is ours,           480   
    What refuge to attain?      
    
CHORUS


Lo, at your wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred;      
          Now am I lorn with sadness,      
Darkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow’s word.           484   
  Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise,—      
  She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes      
        To the new dawn of gladness.      
    
ORESTES


Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,           488   
  Wrought by our mother’s deed?      
Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong      
  Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed;      
Her children’s soul is wolfish, born from hers,           492   
  And softens not by prayers.      
    
CHORUS


    I dealt upon my breast the blow      
    That Asian mourning women know;      
    Wails from my breast the fun’ral cry,           496   
    The Cissian weeping melody;      
Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,      
My clenched hands wander, here and there,      
  From head to breast; distraught with blows           500   
        Throb dizzily my brows.      
    
ELECTRA


Aweless in hate, O mother, sternly brave!      
    As in a foeman’s grave      
Thou laid’st in earth a king, but to the bier           504   
      No citizen drew near,—      
Thy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,      
      Thou bad’st no wail arise!      
    
ORESTES


Alas, the shameful burial thou dost speak!           508   
Yet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak—      
    That do the gods command!      
    That shall achieve mine hand!      
Grant me to thrust her life away, and I           512   
        Will dare to die!      
    
CHORUS


List thou the deed! Hewn down and foully torn,      
        He to the tomb was borne;      
Yea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,           516   
With like dishonour to the grave was brought,      
And by her hand she strove, with strong desire,      
Thy life to crush, O child, by murder of thy sire:      
  Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain           520   
        Wherewith that sire was slain!      
    
ELECTRA


Yea, such was the doom of my sire; well-a-day,      
      I was thrust from his side,—      
As a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,           524   
And in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears,      
        As in darkness I lay.      
O father, if this word can pass to thine ears,      
      To thy soul let it reach and abide!           528   
    
CHORUS


Let it pass, let it pierce, thro’ the sense of thine ear,      
  To thy soul, where in silence it waiteth the hour!      
The past is accomplished; but rouse thee to hear      
What the future prepareth; wake and appear,           532   
      Our champion, in wrath and in power!      
    
ORESTES


O father, to thy loved ones come in aid.      
    
ELECTRA


With tears I call on thee.      
    
CHORUS


        Listen and rise to light!           536   
Be thou with us, be thou against the foe!      
Swiftly this cry arises—even so      
  Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed!      
    
ORESTES


Let their might meet with mine, and their right with my right.           540   
    
ELECTRA


O ye gods, it is yours to decree.      
    
CHORUS


Ye call unto the dead; I quake to hear.      
Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.      
    
ELECTRA


Alas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,           544   
  Of Atè’s bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound!      
Alas, deep insufferable doom,      
    The stanchless wound!      
    
ORESTES


It shall be stanched, the task is ours,—           548   
  Not by a stranger’s, but by kindred hand,      
Shall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.      
  Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth’s nether powers!      
    
CHORUS


Lords of a dark eternity,           552   
To you has come the children’s cry,      
Send up from hell, fulfil your aid      
    To them who prayed.      
    
ORESTES


O father, murdered in unkingly wise,           556   
Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.      
    
ELECTRA


To me, too, grant this boon—dark death to deal      
Unto Ægisthus, and to ’scape my doom.      
    
ORESTES


So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay           560   
Be set for thee; else, not for thee shall rise      
The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,      
But thou shalt lie dishonoured: hear thou me!      
    
ELECTRA


I too, from my full heritage restored,           564   
Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass      
Forth as a bride from these paternal halls,      
And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.      
    
ORESTES


Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight!           568   
    
ELECTRA


Give fair-faced fortune, O Persephone!      
    
ORESTES


Bethink thee, father, in the laver slain—      
    
ELECTRA


Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!      
    
ORESTES


Bonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.           572   
    
ELECTRA


Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.      
    
ORESTES


By this our bitter speech arise, O sire!      
    
ELECTRA


Raise thou thine head at love’s last, dearest call!      
    
ORESTES


Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen’s cause;           576   
Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou      
Willest in triumph to forget thy fall.      
    
ELECTRA


Hear me, O father, once again hear me.      
Lo! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood—           580   
A man-child and a maid; hold them in ruth,      
Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops’ line.      
For while they live, thou livest from the dead;      
Children are memory’s voices, and preserve           584   
The dead from wholly dying: as a net      
Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,      
Which save the flex-mesh, in the depth submerged.      
Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,           588   
And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.      
    
CHORUS


In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length—      
The tomb’s requital for its dirge denied:      
Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,           592   
Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.      
    
ORESTES


The doom is set; and yet I fain would ask—      
Not swerving from the course of my resolve,—      
Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why           596   
She softens all too late her cureless deed?      
An idle boon it was, to send them here      
Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.      
I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween           600   
Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.      
Be blood once spilled, and idle strife he strives      
Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured      
To atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.           604   
Yet would I know her thought; speak, if thou knowest.      
    
CHORUS


I know it, son; for at her side I stood.      
’Twas the night-wandering terror of a dream      
That flung her shivering from her couch, and bade her—           608   
Her, the accursed of God—these offerings send.      
    
ORESTES


Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?      
    
CHORUS


Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.      
    
ORESTES


What then the sum and issue of the tale?           612   
    
CHORUS


Even as a swaddled child, she lull’d the thing.      
    
ORESTES


What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?      
    
CHORUS


Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.      
    
ORESTES


How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?           616   
    
CHORUS


Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.      
    
ORESTES


Not vain this dream—it bodes a man’s revenge.      
    
CHORUS


Then out of sleep she started with a cry,      
And thro’ the palace for their mistress’ aid           620   
Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night,      
Flared into light; then, even as mourners use,      
She sends these offerings, in hope to win      
A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.           624   
    
ORESTES


Earth and my father’s grave, to you I call—      
Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro’ me.      
I read it in each part coincident      
With what shall be; for mark, that serpent sprang           628   
From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands      
By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast,      
And sucking forth the same sweet mother’s-milk      
Infused a clot of blood; and in alarm           632   
She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.      
The rede is clear: the thing of dread she nursed,      
The death of blood she dies; and I, ’tis I,      
In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.           636   
Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.      
    
CHORUS


So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,      
Bidding some act, some, by not acting, aid.      
    
ORESTES


Brief my command: I bid my sister pass           640   
In silence to the house, and all I bid      
This my design with wariness conceal,      
That they who did by craft a chieftain slay      
May by like craft and in like noose be ta’en,           644   
Dying the death which Loxias foretold—      
Apollo, king and prophet undisproved.      
I with this warrior Pylades will come      
In likeness of a stranger, full equipt           648   
As travellers come, and at the palace gates      
Will stand, as stranger, yet in friendship’s bond      
Unto this house allied; and each of us      
Will speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,           652   
Feigning such speech as Phocian voices use.      
And what if none of those that tend the gates      
Shall welcome us with gladness, since the house      
With ills divine is haunted? if this hap,           656   
We at the gate will bide, till, passing by,      
Some townsman make conjecture and proclaim,      
How? is Ægisthus here, and knowingly      
Keeps suppliants aloof, by bolt and bar?           660   
Then shall I win my way; and if I cross      
The threshold of the gate, the palace’ guard,      
And find him throned where once my father sat—      
Or if he come anon, and face to face           664   
Confronting, drop his eyes from mine—I swear      
He shall not utter, Who art thou and whence?      
Ere my steel leap, and compassed round with death      
Low he shall lie: and thus, full-fed with doom,           668   
The Fury of the house shall drain once more      
A deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.      
But thou, O sister, look that all within      
Be well prepared to give these things event.           672   
And ye—I say ’twere well to bear a tongue      
Full of fair silence and of fitting speech      
As each beseems the time; and last, do thou,      
Hermes the warder-god, keep watch and ward,           676   
And guide to victory my striving sword.  [Exit with Pylades.      
    
CHORUS


  Many and marvellous the things of fear      
        Earth’s breast doth bear;      
  And the sea’s lap with many monsters teems,           680   
  And windy levin-bolts and meteor-gleams      
        Breed many deadly things—      
Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,      
        And in their tread is death;           684   
  And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath      
        Man’s tongue can tell.      
  But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,      
  The aweless soul, within man’s breast inhabiting?           688   
  Who tell, how, passion-fraught and love-distraught,      
  The woman’s eager, craving thought      
  Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell?      
  Yea, how the loveless love that doth possess           692   
  The woman, even as the lioness,      
  Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,      
        The link of wedded life?      
    
Let him be the witness, whose thought is not borne on light wings thro’ the air,           696   
But abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought by Althea’s despair;      
For she marr’d the life-grace of her son, with ill counsel rekindled the flame      
That was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what time from his mother he came,      
With the cry of a new-born child; and the brand from the burning she won,           700   
For the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in death, with her son.      
    
Yea, and man’s hate tells of another, even Scylla of murderous guile,      
Who slew for an enemy’s sake her father, won o’er by the wile      
And the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high-wrought gold;           704   
For she clipped from her father’s head the lock that should never wax old,      
As he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not her craft and her crime—      
But Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her, in fulness of time.      
    
And since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my singing record           708   
The bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these halls outpoured      
The crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain fall,      
A warrior stern in his wrath, the fear of his enemies all,—      
A song of dishonour, untimely! and cold is the hearth that was warm,           712   
And ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman’s unwomanly arm.      
    
But the summit and crown of all crimes is that which in Lemnos befel;      
A woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting to tell;      
And he that in aftertime doth speak of his deadliest thought,           716   
Doth say, It is like to the deed that of old time in Lemnos was wrought;      
And loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they and their seed,      
For the gods brought hate upon them; none loveth the impious deed.      
    
It is well of these tales to tell; for the sword in the grasp of Right           720   
With a cleaving, a piercing blow to the innermost heart doth smite,      
And the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down nor forgot,      
When the sinner outsteppeth the law and heedeth the high God not;      
But Justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth the sword           724   
That shall smite in her chosen time; by her is the child restored;      
And, darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world-cursed, will repay      
The price of the blood of the slain that was shed in the bygone day.  [Enter Orestes and Pylades, in guise of travellers.      
    
ORESTES (knocking at the palace gate)


What ho! slave, ho! I smite the palace gate           728   
In vain, it seems; what ho, attend within,—      
Once more, attend; come forth and ope the halls,      
If yet Ægisthus holds them hospitable.      
    
SLAVE (from within)


Anon, anon!
[Opens the door.
        732   
Speak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom?      
    
ORESTES


Go, tell to them who rule the palace halls,      
Since ’tis to them I come with tidings new—      
(Delay not—Night’s dark car is speeding on,           736   
And time is now for wayfarers to cast      
Anchor in haven, wheresoe’er a house      
Doth welcome strangers)—that there now come forth      
Some one who holds authority within—           740   
The queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it;      
For when man standeth face to face with man,      
No stammering modesty confounds their speech,      
But each to each doth tell his meaning clear.  [Enter Clytemnestra.           744   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Speak on, O strangers; have ye need of aught?      
Here is whate’er beseems a house like this—      
Warm bath and bed, tired Nature’s soft restorer,      
And courteous eyes to greet you; and if aught           748   
Of graver import needeth act as well,      
That, as man’s charge, I to a man will tell.      
    
ORESTES


A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,      
And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden           752   
I went toward Argos, parting hitherward      
With travelling foot, there did encounter me      
One whom I knew not and who knew not me,      
But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,           756   
And, as we talked together, told his name—      
Strophius of Phocis; then he said, “Good sir,      
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,      
Forget not this my message, heed it well,           760   
Tell to his own, Orestes is no more.      
And—whatsoe’er his kinsfolk shall resolve,      
Whether to bear his dust unto his home,      
Or lay him here, in death as erst in life           764   
Exiled for aye, a child of banishment—      
Bring me their hest, upon thy backward road;      
For now in brazen compass of an urn      
His ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid.”           768   
So much I heard, and so much tell to thee,      
Not knowing if I speak unto his kin      
Who rule his home; but well, I deem, it were,      
Such news should earliest reach a parent’s ear.           772   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Ah woe is me! thy word our ruin tells;      
From roof-tree unto base are we despoiled.—      
O thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,      
Thou Fury of this home, how oft and oft           776   
Thou dost descry what far aloof is laid,      
Yea, from afar dost bend th’ unerring bow      
And rendest from my wretchedness its friends;      
As now Orestes—who, a brief while since,           780   
Safe from the mire of death stood warily,—      
Was the home’s hope to cure th’ exulting wrong;      
Now thou ordainest, Let the ill abide.      
    
ORESTES


To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,           784   
Lief had I come with better news to bear      
Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship;      
For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond      
Of guest and host? and wrong abhorred it were,           788   
As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith      
To one, and greetings from the other had,      
Bore not aright the tidings ’twixt the twain.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Whate’er thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,           792   
Meet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.      
Hadst thou thyself not come, such tale to tell,      
Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.      
But lo! the hour is here when travelling guests,           796   
Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,      
Should win their rightful due. Take him within  [To the slave.      
To the man-chamber’s hospitable rest—

Him and these fellow-farers at his side;           800   
Give them such guest-right as beseems our halls;      
I bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it.      
And I unto the prince who rules our home      
Will tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,           804   
With them will counsel how this hap to bear.[Exit Clytemnestra.      
    
CHORUS


        So be it done—      
    Sister—servants, when draws nigh      
    Time for us aloud to cry,           808   
    Orestes and his victory?      
    
      O holy earth and holy tomb      
    Over the grave—pit heaped on high,      
    Where low doth Agamemnon lie,           812   
      The king of ships, the army’s lord!      
    Now is the hour—give ear and come,      
      For now doth Craft her aid afford,      
    And Hermes, guard of shades in hell,           816   
    Stands o’er their strife, to sentinel      
        The dooming of the sword.      
I wot the stranger worketh woe within—      
For lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,           820   
Orestes’ nurse. What ho, Kilissa—thou      
Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks      
Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.[Enter Kilissa, a nurse.      
    
KILISSA


My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,           824   
Call in Ægisthus to the stranger guests,      
That he may come, and standing face to face,      
A man with men, may thus more clearly learn      
This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves           828   
She hid beneath the glance of fictive grief      
Laughter for what is wrought—to her desire      
Too well; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,      
Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear.           832   
And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart      
Hearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day!      
The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,      
Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus’ house           836   
Befel, was grievous to mine inmost heart,      
But never yet did I endure such pain.      
All else I bore with set soul patiently;      
But now—alack, alack!—Orestes dear,           840   
The day—and night-long travail of my soul!      
Whom from his mother’s womb, a new-born child,      
I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft      
Toilsome and profitless my service was,           844   
When his shrill outcry called me from my couch!      
For the young child, before the sense is born,      
Hath but a dumb thing’s life, must needs be nursed      
As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing           848   
Hath nought of speech, whate’er discomfort come—      
Hunger or thirst or lower weakling need,—      
For the babe’s stomach works its own relief.      
Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised,           852   
’Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes—poor I      
Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white;      
Two works in one, two handicrafts I took,      
When in mine arms the father laid the boy.           856   
And now he’s dead—alack and well—a—day!      
Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power      
Pollutes this house—fair tidings these to him!      
    
CHORUS


Say then with what array she bids him come?           860   
    
KILISSA


What say’st thou! Speak more clearly for mine ear.      
    
CHORUS


Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?      
    
KILISSA


She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.      
    
CHORUS


Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,           864   
But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,      
Say, Come along, fear nought, the news is good:      
A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.      
    
KILISSA


Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?           868   
    
CHORUS


What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?      
    
KILISSA


And how? the home’s hope with Orestes dies.      
    
CHORUS


Not yet—a seer, though feeble, this might see.      
    
KILISSA


What say’st thou? Know’st thou aught this tale belying?           872   
    
CHORUS


Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,—      
What the gods will, themselves can well provide.      
    
KILISSA


Well, I will go, herein obeying thee;      
And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.  [Exit.           876   
    
CHORUS


    Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,      
        Hear thou, O hear my prayer!      
    Grant to my rightful lords to prosper well      
        Even as their zeal is fair!           880   
    For right, for right goes up aloud my cry—      
        Zeus, aid him, stand anigh!      
    
        Into his father’s hall he goes      
        To smite his father’s foes.           884   
Bid him prevail! by thee on throne of triumph set,      
Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall acquit the debt.      
    
Bethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal      
  Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car           888   
  Of doom is harnessed fast.      
Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,      
Speed thou his pace,—O that no chance may mar      
  The homeward course, the last!           892   
    
And ye who dwell within the inner chamber      
  Where shines the stored joy of gold—      
Gods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember;      
Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old,           896   
            With sudden rightful blow;      
      Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed      
            With progeny of blood,—      
    Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low!           900   
    
    O thou who dwell’st in Delphi’s mighty cave,      
    Grant us to see this home once more restored      
            Unto its rightful lord!      
Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye           904   
        Unto the dawning light of liberty;      
    And Hermes, Maia’s child, lend hand to save,      
            Willing the right, and guide      
Our state with Fortune’s breeze adown the favouring tide.           908   
          Whate’er in darkness hidden lies,      
          He utters at his will;      
    He at his will throws darkness on our eye,      
      By night and eke by day inscrutable.           912   
    
          Then, then shall wealth atone      
          The ills that here were done.      
          Then, then will we unbind,      
          Fling free on wafting wind           916   
      Of joy, the woman’s voice that waileth now      
      In piercing accents for a chief laid low;      
          And this our songs shall be—      
        Hail to the commonwealth restored!           920   
          Hail to the freedom won to me!      
All hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well—loved lord!      
    
And thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree,      
    Up to the deed that for thy sire is done!           924   
    And if she wail unto thee, Spare, O son—      
Cry, Aid, O father—and achieve the deed,      
The horror of man’s tongue, the gods’ great need!      
  Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,           928   
          The bitter woe work forth,      
    Appease the summons of the dead,      
          The wrath of friends on earth;      
    Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom,           932   
And do to utter death him that pollutes thy home.  [Enter Ægisthus.      
    
ÆGISTHUS


Hither and not unsummoned have I come;      
For a new rumour, borne by stranger men      
Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears.           936   
Of hap unwished-for, even Orestes’ death.      
This were new sorrow, a blood-bolter’s load      
Laid on the house that doth already bow      
Beneath a former wound that festers deep.           940   
Dare I opine these words have truth and life?      
Or are they tales, of woman’s terror born,      
That fly in the void air, and die disproved?      
Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul?           944   
    
CHORUS


What we have heard, we heard; go thou within      
Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale.      
Strengthless are tidings, thro’ another heard;      
Question is his to whom the tale is brought.           948   
    
ÆGISTHUS


I too will meet and test the messenger,      
Whether himself stood witness of the death      
Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt:      
None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.  [Exit.           952   
    
CHORUS


Zeus, Zeus! what word to me is given?      
What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,      
    Shall first by me be uttered?      
What speech of craft—nor all revealing,           956   
Nor all too warily concealing—      
    Ending my speech, shall aid the deed?      
For lo! in readiness is laid      
The dark emprise, the rending blade;           960   
    Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve      
The dateless doom of Atreus’ name,      
Or—kindling torch and joyful flame      
  In sign of new-won liberty—           964   
    Once more Orestes shall retrieve      
  His father’s wealth, and throned on high,      
  Shall hold the city’s fealty.      
  So mighty is the grasp whereby,           968   
Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw      
Unseconded, a double foe.      
      Ho for the victory!  [A loud cry within.      
    
VOICE OF ÆGISTHUS


Help, help, alas!           972   
    
CHORUS


Ho there, ho! how is’t within?      
Is’t done? is’t over? Stand we here aloof      
While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem      
Of this dark deed; with death is strife fulfilled.[Enter a slave.           976   
    
SLAVE


O woe, O woe, my lord is done to death!      
Woe, woe, and again, Ægisthus gone!      
Hasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts      
Of the queen’s chamber. O for some young strength           980   
To match the need! but aid availeth nought      
To him laid low for ever. Help, help, help!      
Sure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain      
To slumber ineffectual. What ho!           984   
The queen! how fareth Clytemnestra’s self?      
Her neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,      
And soon shall sink, hewn thro’ as justice wills.  [Enter Clytemnestra.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


What ails thee, raising this ado for us?           988   
    
SLAVE


I say the dead are come to slay the living.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Alack, I read thy riddles all to clear—      
We slew by craft and by like craft shall die.      
Swift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old;           992   
I’ll know anon or death or victory—      
So stands the curse, so I confront it here.  [Enter Orestes, his sword dropping with blood.      
    
ORESTES


Thee too I seek: for him what’s done will serve.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Woe, woe! Ægisthus, spouse and champion, slain!           996   
    
ORESTES


What, lov’st the man? then in his grave lie down,      
Be his in death, desert him nevermore!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Stay, child, and fear to strike, O son, this breast      
Pillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,           1000   
Thy toothless mouth drew mother’s milk from me.      
    
ORESTES


Can I my mother spare? speak, Pylades.      
    
PYLADES


Where then would fall the hest Apollo gave      
At Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn?           1004   
Choose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.      
    
ORESTES


Thou dost prevail; I hold thy counsel good.  [To Clytemnestra.      
Follow; I will to slay thee at his side.      
With him whom in his life thou lovedst more           1008   
Than Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed      
For hate where love, and love where hate was due!      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


I nursed thee young; must I forego mine eld?      
    
ORESTES


Thou slew’st my father; shalt thou dwell with me?           1012   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Fate bore a share in these things, O my child!      
    
ORESTES


Fate also doth provide this doom for thee.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Beware, O child, a parent’s dying curse.      
    
ORESTES


A parent who did cast me out to ill!           1016   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Not cast thee out, but to a friendly home.      
    
ORESTES


Born free, I was by twofold bargain sold.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Where then the price that I received for thee?      
    
ORESTES


The price of shame; I taunt thee not more plainly.           1020   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Nay, but recount thy father’s lewdness too.      
    
ORESTES


keeping, chide not him who toils without.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


’Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.      
    
ORESTES


The absent husband toils for them at home.           1024   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Thou growest fain to slay thy mother, child.      
    
ORESTES


Nay, ’tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Beware thy mother’s vengeful hounds from hell.      
    
ORESTES


How shall I ’scape my father’s, sparing thee?           1028   
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Living, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.      
    
ORESTES


My father’s fate ordains this doom for thee.      
    
CLYTEMNESTRA


Ah, me! this snake it was I bore and nursed.      
    
ORESTES


Ay, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.           1032   
Shameful thy deed was—die the death of shame!  [Exit, driving Clytemnestra before him.      
    
CHORUS


Lo, even for these I mourn, a double death:      
Yet since Orestes, driven on by doom,      
Thus crowns the height of murders manifold,           1036   
I say, ’tis well that not in night and death      
Should sink the eye and light of this our home.      
    
    There came on Priam’s race and name      
      A vengeance; though it tarried long,           1040   
        With heavy doom it came.      
    Came, too, on Agamemnon’s hall      
        A lion-pair, twin swordsmen strong.      
    And last, the heritage doth fall           1044   
      To him to whom from Pythian cave      
      The god his deepest counsel gave.      
    Cry out, rejoice! our kingly hall      
        Hath ’scaped from ruin—ne’er again           1048   
    Its ancient wealth be wasted all      
          By two usurpers, is sin-defiled—      
        An evil path of woe and bane!      
    On him who dealt the dastard blow           1052   
        Comes Craft, Revenge’s scheming child.      
    And hand in hand with him doth go,      
              Eager for fight,      
    The child of Zeus, whom men below           1056   
      Call Justice, naming her aright.      
            And on her foes her breath      
            Is as the blast of death;      
    For her the god who dwells in deep recess           1060   
            Beneath Parnassus’ brow,      
          Summons with loud acclaim      
          To rise, though late and lame,      
    And come with craft that worketh righteousness.           1064   
    
    For even o’er powers divine this law is strong—      
          Thou shalt not serve the wrong.      
    To that which ruleth heaven beseems it that we bow.      
          Lo, freedom’s light hath come!           1068   
            Lo, now is rent away      
    The grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.      
      Up to the light, ye halls! this many a day      
            Too low on earth ye lay.           1072   
      And Time, the great Accomplisher,      
      Shall cross the threshold, whensoe’er      
      He choose with purging hand to cleanse      
      The palace, driving all pollution thence.           1076   
      And fair the cast of Fortune’s die      
      Before our state’s new lords shall lie,      
      Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom.      
          Lo, freedom’s light hath come!  [The scene opens, disclosing Orestes standing over the corpses of Ægisthus and Clytemnestra; in one hand he holds his sword, in the other the robe in which Agamemnon was entangled and slain.           1080   
    
ORESTES


There lies our country’s twofold tyranny,      
My father’s slayers, spoilers of my home.      
Erst were they royal, sitting on the throne,.      
And loving are they yet,—their common fate           1084   
Tells the tale truly, shows their trothplight firm.      
They swore to work mine ill—starred father’s death,      
They swore to die together; ’tis fulfilled.      
  O ye who stand, this great doom’s witnesses,           1088   
Behold this too, the dark device which bound      
My sire unhappy to his death,—behold      
The mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet!      
Stand round, unfold it—’tis the trammel—net           1092   
That wrapped a chieftain; hold it that he see,      
The father—not my sire, but he whose eye      
Is judge of all things, the all—seeing Sun!      
Let him behold my mother’s damnèd deed,           1096   
Then let him stand, when need shall be to me,      
Witness that justly I have sought and slain      
My mother; blameless was Ægisthus’ doom—      
He died the death law bids adulterers die.           1000   
But she who plotted this accursed thing      
To slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath      
Her girdle once the burden of her babes,      
Beloved erewhile, now turned to hateful foes—           1104   
What deem ye of her? or what venomed thing,      
Sea-snake or adder, had more power than she      
To poison with a touch the flesh unscarred?      
So great her daring, such her impious will.           1108   
How name her, if I may not speak a curse?      
A lion-springe! a laver’s swathing cloth,      
Wrapping a dead man, twining round his feet—      
A net, a trammel, an entangling robe?           1112   
Such were the weapon of some strangling thief,      
The terror of the road, a cut-purse hound—      
With such device full many might he kill,      
Full oft exult in heat of villainy.           1116   
Ne’er have my house so cursed an indweller—      
Heaven send me, rather, childless to be slain!      
    
CHORUS


Woe for each desperate deed!      
Woe for the queen, with shame of life bereft!           1120   
And ah, for him who still is left,      
Madness, dark blossom of a bloody seed!      
    
ORESTES


Did she the deed or not? this robe gives proof,      
Imbrued with blood that bathed Ægisthus’ sword:           1124   
Look, how the spurted stain combines with time      
To blur the many dyes that once adorned      
Its pattern manifold! I now stand here,      
Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing—           1128   
Hear, O thou woven web that slew my sire!      
I grieve for deed and death and all my home—      
Victor, pollution’s damnèd stain for prize.      
    
CHORUS


Alas, that none of mortal men           1132   
Can pass his life untouched by pain!      
Behold, one woe is here—      
Another loometh near.      
    
ORESTES


Hark ye and learn—for what the end shall be           1136   
For me I know not: breaking from the curb,      
My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,      
Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught      
Far from the course, and madness in my breast           1140   
Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave—      
Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes!      
I say that rightfully I slew my mother,      
A thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire.           1144   
And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me      
Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer      
Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,      
The guilt of murder done should pass from me;           1148   
But if I spared, the fate that should be mine      
I dare not blazon forth—the bow of speech      
Can reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.      
And now behold me, how with branch and crown           1152   
I pass, a suppliant made meet to go      
Unto Earth’s midmost shrine, the holy ground      
Of Loxias, and that renowned light      
Of ever-burning fire, to ’scape the doom           1156   
Of kindred murder: to no other shrine      
(So Loxias bade) may I for refuge turn.      
Bear witness, Argives, in the aftertime,      
How came on me this dread fatality.           1160   
Living, I pass a banished wanderer hence,      
To leave in death the memory of this cry.      
    
CHORUS


Nay, but the deed is well; link not thy lips      
To speech ill-starred, nor vent ill-boding words—           1164   
Who hast to Argos her full freedom given,      
Lopping two serpents’ heads with timely blow.      
    
ORESTES


Look, look, alas!      
Handmaidens, see—what Gorgon shapes throng up,           1168   
Dusky their robes and all their hair enwound—      
Snakes coiled with snakes—off, off, I must away!      
    
CHORUS


Most loyal of all sons unto thy sire,      
What visions thus distract thee? Hold, abide;           1172   
Great was thy victory, and shalt thou fear?      
    
ORESTES


These are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,      
But clear to sight my mother’s hell-hounds come!      
    
CHORUS


Nay, the fresh bloodshed still imbrues thine hands,           1176   
And thence distraction sinks into thy soul.      
    
ORESTES


O king Apollo—see, they swarm and throng—      
Black blood of hatred dripping from their eyes!      
    
CHORUS


One remedy thou hast; go, touch the shrine           1180   
Of Loxias, and rid thee of these woes.      
    
ORESTES


Ye can behold them not, but I behold them.      
Up and away! I dare abide no more.  [Exit.      
    
CHORUS


Farewell than as thou mayst,—the god thy friend           1184   
Guard thee and aid with chances favouring.      
    
    Behold, the storm of woe divine      
    That raves and beats on Atreus’ line      
      Its great third blast hath blown.           1188   
    First was Thyestes’ loathly woe—      
    The rueful feast of long ago,      
      On children’s flesh, unknown.      
    And next the kingly chief’s despite,           1192   
    When he who led the Greeks to fight      
      Was in the bath hewn down.      
    And now the offspring of the race      
    Stands in the third, the saviour’s place,           1196   
      To save—or to consume?      
    O whither, ere it be fulfilled,      
    Ere its fierce blast be hushed and stilled,      
      Shall blow the wind of doom?  [Exeunt.           1200   
 

The Furies

The Temple at Delphi


THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS


FIRST, in this prayer, of all the gods I name      
The prophet-mother Earth; and Themis next,      
Second who sat—for so with truth is said—      
On this her mother’s shrine oracular.           4   
Then by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,      
There sat thereon another child of Earth—      
Titanian Phœbe. She, in aftertime,      
Gave o’er the throne, as birth-gift to a god,           8   
Phœbus, who in his own bears Phœbe’s name.      
He from the lake and ridge of Delos’ isle      
Steered to the port of Pallas’ Attic shores,      
The home of ships; and thence he passed and came           12   
Unto this land and to Parnassus’ shrine.      
And at his side, with awe revering him,      
There went the children of Hephæstus’ seed,      
The hewers of the sacred way, who tame           16   
The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.      
  And all this folk, and Delphos, chieftain—king      
Of this their land, with honour gave him home;      
And in his breast Zeus set a prophet’s soul,           20   
And gave to him this throne, whereon he sits,      
Fourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,      
Gives voice to that which Zeus, his sire, decrees.      
    
Such gods I name in my preluding prayer,           24   
And after them, I call with honour due      
On Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs      
Who dwell around the rock Corycian,      
Where in the hollow cave, the wild birds’ haunt,           28   
Wander the feet of lesser gods; and there,      
Right well I know it, Bromian Bacchus dwells,      
Since he in godship led his Mænad host,      
Devising death for Pentheus, whom they rent           32   
Piecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,      
I call on Pleistus’ springs, Poseidon’s might,      
And Zeus most high, the great Accomplisher.      
Then as a seeress to the sacred chair           36   
I pass and sit; and may the powers divine      
Make this mine entrance fruitful in response      
Beyond each former advent, triply blest.      
And if there stand without, from Hellas bound,           40   
Men seeking oracles, let each pass in      
In order of the lot, as use allows;      
For the god guides whate’er my tongue proclaims.  [She goes into the interior of the temple; after a short interval, she returns in great fear.      
Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,           44   
Have sped me forth again from Loxias’ shrine,      
With strength unstrung, moving erect no more,      
But aiding with my hands my failing feet,      
Unnerved by fear. A beldame’s force is naught—           48   
Is as a child’s, when age and fear combine.      
For as I pace towards the inmost fane      
Bay-filleted by many a suppliant’s hand,      
Lo, at the central altar I descry           52   
One crouching as for refuge—yea, a man      
Abhorred of heaven; and from his hands, wherein      
A sword new-drawn he holds, blood reeked and fell:      
A wand he bears, the olive’s topmost bough,           56   
Twined as of purpose with a deep close tuft      
Of whitest wool. This, that I plainly saw,      
Plainly I tell. But lo, in front of him,      
Crouched on the altar-steps, a grisly band           60   
Of women slumbers—not like women they,      
But Gorgons rather; nay, that word is weak,      
Nor may I match the Gorgons’ shape with theirs!      
Such have I seen in painted semblance erst—           64   
Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus’ board,—      
But these are wingless, black, and all their shape      
The eye’s abomination to behold.      
Fell is the breath—let none draw nigh to it—           68   
Wherewith they snort in slumber; from their eyes      
Exude the damnèd drops of poisonous ire:      
And such their garb as none should dare to bring      
To statues of the gods or homes of men.           72   
I wot not of the tribe wherefrom can come      
So fell a legion, nor in what land Earth      
Could rear, unharmed, such creatures, nor avow      
That she had travailed and brought forth death.           76   
But, for the rest, be all these things a care      
Unto the mighty Loxias, the lord      
Of this our shrine: healer and prophet he,      
Discerner he of portents, and the cleanser           80   
Of other homes—behold, his own to cleanse!  [Exit.
[The scene opens, disclosing the interior of the temple: Orestes clings to the central altar; the Furies lie slumbering at a little distance; Apollo and Hermes appear from the innermost shrine.      
    
APOLLO


Lo, I desert thee never: to the end,      
Hard at thy side as now, or sundered far,      
I am thy guard, and to thine enemies           84   
Implacably oppose me: look on them,      
These greedy fiends, beneath my craft subdued!      
See, they are fallen on sleep, these beldames old,      
Unto whose grim and wizened maidenhood           88   
Nor god nor man nor beast can e’er draw near.      
Yea, evil were they born, for evil’s doom,      
Evil the dark abyss of Tartarus      
Wherein they dwell, and they themselves the hate           92   
Of men on earth, and of Olympian gods.      
But thou, flee far and with unfaltering speed;      
For they shall hunt thee through the mainland wide      
Where’er throughout the tract of travelled earth           96   
Thy foot may roam, and o’er and o’er the seas      
And island homes of men. Faint not nor fail,      
Too soon and timidly within thy breast      
Shepherding thoughts forlorn of this thy toil;           100   
But unto Pallas’ city go, and there      
Crouch at her shrine, and in thine arms enfold      
Her ancient image: there we well shall find      
Meet judges for this cause and suasive pleas,           104   
Skilled to contrive for thee deliverance      
From all this woe. Be such my pledge to thee,      
For by my hest thou didst thy mother slay.      
    
ORESTES


O king Apollo, since right well thou know’st           108   
What justice bids, have heed, fulfil the same,—      
Thy strength is all-sufficient to achieve.      
    
APOLLO


Have thou too heed, nor let thy fear prevail      
Above thy will. And do thou guard him, Hermes,           112   
Whose blood is brother unto mine, whose sire      
The same high God. Men call thee guide and guard,      
Guide therefore thou and guard my suppliant;      
For Zeus himself reveres the outlaw’s right,           116   
Boon of fair escort, upon man conferred.      
  [Exeunt Apollo, Hermes, and Orestes. The Ghost of Clytemnestra rises.      
    
GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA


Sleep on! awake! what skills your sleep to me—      
Me, among all the dead by you dishonoured—           120   
Me from whom never, in the world of death,      
Dieth this curse, ’Tis she who smote and slew,      
And shamed and scorned I roam? Awake, and hear      
My plaint of dead men’s hate intolerable.           124   
Me, sternly slain by them that should have loved,      
Me doth no god arouse him to avenge,      
Hewn down in blood by matricidal hands.      
Mark ye these wounds from which the heart’s blood ran,           128   
And by whose hand, bethink ye! for the sense      
When shut in sleep hath then the spirit-sight,      
But in the day the inward eye is blind.      
List, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue           132   
The wineless draughty by me outpoured to soothe      
Your vengeful ire! how oft on kindled shrine      
I laid the feast of darkness, at the hour      
Abhorred of every god but you alone!           136   
Lo, all my service trampled down and scorned!      
And he hath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds;      
Yea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,      
Hath wried his face in scorn, and flieth far.           140   
Awake and hear—for mine own soul I cry—      
Awake, ye powers of hell! the wandering ghost      
That once was Clytemnestra calls—Arise!  [The Furies mutter grimly, as in a dream.      
Mutter and murmur! He hath flown afar—           144   
My kin have gods to guard them, I have none!  [The Furies mutter as before.      
O drowsed in sleep too deep to heed my pain!      
Orestes flies, who me, his mother, slew.  [The Furies give a confused cry.      
Yelping, and drowsed again? Up and be doing           148   
That which alone is yours, the deed of hell!  [The Furies give another cry.      
Lo, sleep and toil, the sworn confederates,      
Have quelled your dragon-anger, once so fell!      
    
THE FURIES (muttering more fiercely and loudly)


Seize, seize, seize, seize—mark, yonder!           152   
    
GHOST


In dreams ye chase a prey, and like some hound,      
That even in sleep doth ply his woodland toil,      
Ye bell and bay. What do ye, sleeping here?      
Be not o’ercome with toil, nor, sleep-subdued,           156   
Be heedless of my wrong. Up! thrill your heart      
With the just chidings of my tongue,—such words      
Are as a spur to purpose firmly held.      
Blow forth on him the breath of wrath and blood,           160   
Scorch him with reek of fire that burns in you,      
Waste him with new pursuit—swift, hound him down!  [Ghost sinks.      
    
FIRST FURY (awaking)


Up! rouse another as I rouse thee; up!      
Sleep’st thou? Rise up, and spurning sleep away,           164   
See we if false to us this prelude rang.      
    
CHORUS OF FURIES


Alack, alack, O sisters, we have toiled,      
  O much and vainly have we toiled and borne!      
Vainly! and all we wrought the gods have foiled,           168   
                    And turnèd us to scorn!      
He hath slipped from the net, whom we chased: he hath ’scaped us who should be our prey—      
O’ermastered by slumber we sank, and our quarry hath stolen away!      
Thou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed us and wronged;           172   
Thou, a youth, hast down-trodden the right that to godship more ancient belonged;      
Thou hast cherished thy suppliant man; the slayer, the God-forsaken,      
The bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp thou hast taken;      
A god, thou hast stolen from us, the avengers, a matricide son—           176   
And who shall consider thy deed and say, It is rightfully done?      
            The sound of chiding scorn      
            Came from the land of dream;      
    Deep to mine inmost heart I felt it thrill and burn,           180   
        Thrust as a strong-grasped goad, to urge      
          Onward the chariot’s team.      
        Thrilled, chilled with bitter inward pain      
    I stand as one beneath the doomsman’s scourge.           184   
    Shame on the younger gods who tread down right,      
        Sitting on thrones of might!      
    Woe on the altar of earth’s central fane!      
        Clotted on step and shrine,           188   
Behold, the guilt of blood, the ghastly stain!      
  Woe upon thee, Apollo! uncontrolled,      
    Unbidden, hast thou, prophet-god, imbrued      
    The pure prophetic shrine with wrongful blood!           192   
  For thou too heinous a respect didst hold      
Of man, too little heed of powers divine!      
    And us the Fates, the ancients of the earth,      
        Didst deem as nothing worth.           196   
Scornful to me thou art, yet shalt not fend      
  My wrath from him; though unto hell he flee,      
            There too are we!      
And he, the blood-defiled, should feel and rue,           200   
Though I were not, fiend-wrath that shall not end,      
Descending on his head who foully slew.  [Re—enter Apollo from the inner shrine.      
    
APOLLO


Out! I command you. Out from this my home—      
Haste, tarry not! Out from the mystic shrine,           204   
Lest thy lot be to take into thy breast      
The winged bright dart that from my golden string      
Speeds hissing as a snake,—lest, pierced and thrilled      
With agony, thou shouldst spew forth again           208   
Black frothy heart’s-blood, drawn from mortal men,      
Belching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds.      
These be no halls where such as you can prowl—      
Go where men lay on men the doom of blood,           212   
Heads lopped from necks, eyes from their spheres plucked out,      
Hacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed out,      
Feet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath      
The smiting stone, low moans and piteous           216   
Of men impaled—Hark, hear ye for what feast      
Ye hanker ever, and the loathing gods      
Do spit upon your craving? Lo, your shape      
Is all too fitted to your greed; the cave           220   
Where lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home      
More meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines,      
Nor bring pollution by your touch on all      
That nears you. Hence! and roam unshepherded—           224   
No god there is to tend sn]uch herd as you.      
    
CHORUS


O king Apollo, in our turn hear us.      
Thou hast not only part in these ill things,      
But art chief cause and doer of the same.           228   
    
APOLLO


How? stretch thy speech to tell this, and have done.      
    
CHORUS


Thine oracle bade this man slay his mother.      
    
APOLLO


I bade him quit his sire’s death,—wherefore not?      
    
CHORUS


Then didst thou aid and guard red-handed crime.           232   
    
APOLLO


Yea, and I bade him to this temple flee.      
    
CHORUS


And yet forsooth dost chide us following him!      
    
APOLLO


Ay—not for you it is, to near this fane.      
    
CHORUS


Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.           236   
    
APOLLO


What office? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.      
    
CHORUS


From home to home we chase the matricide.      
    
APOLLO


What? to avenge a wife who slays her lord?      
    
CHORUS


That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.           240   
    
APOLLO


How darkly ye dishonour and annul      
The troth to which the high accomplishers,      
Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus      
Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,           244   
The queen of rapture unto mortal men.      
Know that above the marriage-bed ordained      
For man and woman standeth Right as guard,      
Enhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn;           248   
Therefore, if thou art placable to those      
Who have their consort slain, nor will’st to turn      
On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou      
In hounding to his doom the man who slew           252   
His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath      
Against one deed, but all too placable      
Unto the other, minishing the crime.      
But in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.           256   
    
CHORUS


Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.      
    
APOLLO


Follow then, make thee double toil in vain!      
    
CHORUS


Think not by speech mine office to curtail.      
    
APOLLO


None hast thou, that I would accept of thee!           260   
    
CHORUS


Yea, high thine honour by the throne of Zeus:      
But I, drawn on by scent of mother’s blood,      
Seek vengeance on this man and hound him down.      
    
APOLLO


But I will stand beside him; ’tis for me           264   
To guard my suppliant: gods and men alike      
Do dread the curse of such an one betrayed,      
And in me Fear and Will say, Leave him not.  [Exeunt omnes.      
    
The scene changes to Athens. In the foreground, the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis; her statue stands in the centre; Orestes is seen clinging to it.
        268   
    
ORESTES


Look on me, queen Athena; lo, I come      
By Loxias’ behest; thou of thy grace      
Receive me, driven of avenging powers—      
Not now a red—hand slayer unannealed,           272   
But with guilt fading, half effaced, outworn      
On many homes and paths of mortal men.      
For to the limit of each land, each sea,      
I roamed, obedient to Apollo’s hest,           276   
And come at last, O Goddess, to thy fane,      
And clinging to thine image, bide my doom.  [Enter the Chorus of Furies, questing like hounds.      
    
CHORUS


Ho! clear is here the trace of him we seek:      
Follow the track of blood, the silent sign!           280   
Like to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,      
We snuff along the scent of dripping gore,      
And inwardly we pant, for many a day      
Toiling in chase that shall fordo the man;           284   
For o’er and o’er the wide land have I ranged,      
And o’er the wide sea, flying without wings,      
Swift as a sail I pressed upon his track,      
Who now hard by is crouching, well I wot,           288   
For scent of mortal blood allures me here.      
    Follow, seek him—round and round      
Scent and snuff and scan the ground,      
Lest unharmed he slip away,           292   
    He who did his mother slay!      
Hist—he is there! See him his arms entwine      
Around the image of the maid divine—      
    Thus aided, for the deed he wrought           296   
    Unto the judgment wills he to be brought.      
    
It may not be! a mother’s blood, poured forth      
    Upon the stainèd earth,      
None gathers up: it lies—bear witness, Hell!—           300   
    For aye indelible!      
And thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own      
    That shedding to atone!      
Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,           304   
    Red, clotted, gout by gout,—      
A draught abhorred of men and gods; but I      
    Will drain it, suck thee dry;      
Yea, I will waste thee living, nerve and vein;           308   
    Yea, for thy mother slain,      
Will drag thee downward, there where thou shalt dree      
    The weird of agony!      
And thou and whatsoe’er of men hath sinned—           312   
    Hath wronged or God, or friend,      
Or parent,—learn ye how to all and each      
    The arm of doom can reach!      
Sternly requiteth, in the world beneath,           316   
    The judgment-seat of Death;      
Yea, Death, beholding every man’s endeavour,      
    Recordeth it for ever.      
    
ORESTES


I, schooled in many miseries, have learnt           320   
How many refuges of cleansing shrines      
There be; I know when law alloweth speech      
And when imposeth silence. Lo, I stand      
Fixed now to speak, for he whose word is wise           324   
Commands the same. Look, how the stain of blood      
Is dull upon mine hand and wastes away,      
And laved and lost therewith is the deep curse      
Of matricide; for while the guilt was new,           328   
’Twas banished from me at Apollo’s hearth,      
Atoned and purified by death of swine.      
Long were my word if I should sum the tale,      
How oft since then among my fellow-men           332   
I stood and brought no curse. Time cleanses all—      
Time, the coeval of all things that are.      
Now from pure lips, in words of omen fair,      
I call Athena, lady of this land,           336   
To come, my champion: so, in aftertime,      
She shall not fail of love and service leal,      
Not won by war, from me and from my land      
And all the folk of Argos, vowed to her.           340   
Now, be she far away in Libyan land      
Where flows from Triton’s lake her natal wave,—      
Stand she with planted feet, or in some hour      
Of rest conceal them, champion of her friends           344   
Where’er she be,—or whether o’er the plain      
Phlegræan she look forth, as warrior bold—      
I cry to her to come, where’er she be      
(And she, as goddess, from afar can hear),           348   
And aid and free me, set among my foes.      
    
CHORUS


Thee not Apollo nor Athena’s strength      
Can save from perishing, a castaway      
Amid the Lost, where no delight shall meet           352   
Thy soul—a bloodless prey of nether powers,      
A shadow among shadows. Answerest thou      
Nothing? dost cast away my words with scorn,      
Thou, prey prepared and dedicate to me?           356   
Not as a victim slain upon the shrine,      
But living shalt thou see thy flesh my food.      
Hear now the binding chant that makes thee mine.      
    
    Weave the weird dance,—behold the hour           360   
      To utter forth the chant of hell,      
      Our sway among mankind to tell,      
    The guidance of our power.      
    Of Justice are we ministers,           364   
      And whosoe’er of men may stand      
      Lifting a pure unsullied hand,      
    That man no doom of ours incurs,      
      And walks thro’ all his mortal path           368   
      Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath.      
      But if, as yonder man, he hath      
    Blood on the hands he strives to hide,      
      We stand avengers at his side,           372   
    Decreeing, Thou hast wronged the dead:      
      We are doom’s witnesses to thee.      
    The price of blood his hands have shed,      
    We wring from him; in life, in death,           376   
      Hard at his side are we!      
    
Night, Mother Night, who brought me forth, a torment      
          To living men and dead,      
Hear me, O hear! by Leto’s stripling son           380   
          I am dishonoured:      
He hath ta’en from me him who cowers in refuge,      
          To me made consecrate,—      
A rightful victim, him who slew his mother,           384   
          Given o’er to me and Fate.      
    
          Hear the hymn of hell,      
            O’er the victim sounding,—      
          Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,           388   
            Sense and will confounding!      
          Round the soul entwining      
            Without lute or lyre—      
          Soul in madness pining,           392   
            Wasting as with fire!      
    
Fate, all—pervading Fate, this service spun, commanding      
          That I should bide therein:      
Whosoe’er of mortals, made perverse and lawless,           396   
          Is stained with blood of kin,      
By his side are we, and hunt him ever onward,      
          Till to the Silent Land,      
 

The realm of death, he cometh; neither yonder           400   
          In freedom shall he stand.      
    
          Hear the hymn of hell,      
            O’er the victim sounding,—      
          Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,           404   
            Sense and will confounding!      
          Round the soul entwining      
            Without lute or lyre—      
          Soul in madness pining,           408   
            Wasting as with fire!      
    
When from womb of Night we sprang, on us this labour      
          Was laid and shall abide.      
Gods immortal are ye, yet beware ye touch not           412   
          That which is our pride!      
None may come beside us gathered round the blood feast—      
          For us no garments white      
Gleam on a festal day; for us a darker fate is,           416   
          Another darker rite.      
That is mine hour when falls an ancient line—      
          When in the household’s heart      
The god of blood doth slay by kindred hands,—           420   
          Then do we bear our part:      
On him who slays we sweep with chasing cry:      
          Though he be triply strong,      
We wear and waste him; blood atones for blood,           424   
          New pain for ancient wrong.      
    
I hold this task—’tis mine, and not another’s.      
          The very gods on high,      
Though they can silence and annul the prayers           428   
          Of those who on us cry,      
They may not strive with us who stand apart,      
          A race by Zeus abhorred,      
Blood-boltered, held unworthy of the council           432   
          And converse of heaven’s lord.      
Therefore the more I leap upon my prey;      
          Upon their head I bound;      
My foot is hard; as one that trips a runner           436   
          I cast them to the ground;      
Yea, to the depth of doom intolerable;      
          And they who erst were great,      
And upon earth held high their pride and glory,           440   
          Are brought to low estate,      
In underworld they waste and are diminished,      
          The while around them fleet      
Dark wavings of my robes, and, subtly woven,           444   
          The paces of my feet.      
    
Who falls infatuate, he sees not, neither knows he      
          That we are at his side;      
So closely round about him, darkly flitting,           448   
          The cloud of guilt doth glide.      
Heavily ’tis uttered, how around his hearthstone      
          The mirk of hell doth rise.      
Stern and fixed the law is; we have hands t’ achieve it,           452   
          Cunning to devise.      
Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance.      
          Not by tear or prayer      
Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness,           456   
          Far from gods, we fare,      
Lit unto our task with torch of sunless regions,      
          And o’er a deadly way—      
Deadly to the living as to those who see not           460   
          Life and light of day—      
Hunt we and press onward. Who of mortals hearing      
          Doth not quake for awe,      
Hearing all that Fate thro’ hand of God hath given us           464   
          For ordinance and law?      
Yea, this right to us, in dark abysm and backward      
          Of ages it befel:      
None shall wrong mine office, tho’ in nether regions           468   
          And sunless dark I dwell.  [Enter Athena from above.      
    
ATHENA


Far off I heard the clamour of your cry,      
As by Scamander’s side I set my foot      
Asserting right upon the land given o’er           472   
To me by those who o’er Achaia’s host      
Held sway and leadership: no scanty part      
Of all they won by spear and sword, to me      
They gave it, land and all that grew thereon,           476   
As chosen heirloom for my Theseus’ clan.      
Thence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot,—      
Hummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold      
Of this mine ægis, by my feet propelled,           480   
As, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car.      
And now, beholding here Earth’s nether brood,      
I fear it nought, yet are mine eyes amazed      
With wonder. Who are ye? of all I ask,           484   
And of this stranger to my statue clinging.      
But ye—your shape is like no human form,      
Like to no goddess whom the gods behold,      
Like to no shape which mortal women wear.           488   
Yet to stand by and chide a monstrous form      
Is all unjust—from such words Right revolts.      
    
CHORUS


O child of Zeus, one word shall tell thee all.      
We are the children of eternal Night,           492   
And Furies in the underworld are called.      
    
ATHENA


I know your lineage now and eke your name.      
    
CHORUS


Yea, and eftsoons indeed my rights shalt know.      
    
ATHENA


Fain would I learn them; speak them clearly forth.           496   
    
CHORUS


We chase from home the murderers of men.      
    
ATHENA


And where at last can he that slew make pause?      
    
CHORUS


Where this is law—All joy abandon here.      
    
ATHENA


Say, do ye bay this man to such a flight?           500   
    
CHORUS


Yea, for of choice he did his mother slay.      
    
ATHENA


Urged by no fear of other wrath and doom?      
    
CHORUS


What spur can rightly goad to matricide?      
    
ATHENA


Two stand to plead—one only have I heard.           504   
    
CHORUS


He will not swear nor challenge us to oath.      
    
ATHENA


The form of justice, not its deed, thou willest.      
    
CHORUS


Prove thou that word; thou art not scant of skill.      
    
ATHENA


I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.           508   
    
CHORUS


Then test the cause, judge and award the right.      
    
ATHENA


Will ye to me then this decision trust?      
    
CHORUS


Yea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.      
    
ATHENA (to Orestes)


O man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn.           512   
Speak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes;      
The, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame—      
If, as I deem, in confidence of right      
Thou sittest hard beside my holy place,           516   
Clasping this statue, as Ixion sat,      
A sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse,—      
To all this answer me in words made plain.      
    
ORESTES


O queen Athena, first from thy last words           520   
Will I a great solicitude remove.      
Not one blood-guilty am I no foul stain      
Clings to thine image from my clinging hand;      
Whereof one potent proof I have to tell.           524   
Lo, the law stands—The slayer shall not plead,      
Till by the hand of him who cleanses blood      
A suckling creature’s blood besprinkle him.      
Long since have I this expiation done,—           528   
In many a home, slain beasts and running streams      
Have cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.      
Next, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn:      
An Argive am I, and right well thou know’st           532   
My sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed      
The fleet and them that went therein to war—      
That chief with whom thy hand combined to crush      
To an uncitied heap what once was Troy;           536   
That Agamemnon, when he homeward came,      
Was brought unto no honourable death,      
Slain by the dark-souled wife who brought me forth      
To him,—enwound and slain in wily nets,           540   
Blazoned with blood that in the laver ran.      
And I, returning from an exiled youth,      
Slew her, my mother—lo, it stands avowed!      
With blood for blood avenging my loved sire;           544   
And in this deed doth Loxias bear part,      
Decreeing agonies, to goad my will,      
Unless by me the guilty found their doom.      
Do thou decide if right or wrong were done—           548   
Thy dooming, whatsoe’er it be, contents me.      
    
ATHENA


Too mighty is this matter, whatsoe’er      
Of mortals claims to judge hereof aright.      
Yea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids           552   
To judge the issues of blood-guilt, and wrath      
That follows swift behind. This too gives pause,      
That thou as one with all due rites performed      
Dost come unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.           556   
Whate’er thou art, in this my city’s name,      
As uncondemned, I take thee to my side.—      
Yet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,      
I may not banish them: and if they fail,           560   
O’erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith      
Their anger’s poison shall infect the land—      
A dropping plague-spot of eternal ill.      
Thus stand we with a woe on either hand:           564   
Stay they, or go at my commandment forth,      
Perplexity or pain must needs befal.      
Yet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,      
I choose unto me judges that shall be           568   
An ordinance for ever, set to rule      
The dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.      
But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,      
Words strong for justice, fortified by oath;           572   
And I, whoe’er are truest in my town,      
Them will I choose and bring, and straitly charge,      
Look on this cause, discriminating well,      
And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong.  [Exit Athena.           576   
    
CHORUS


Now are they all undone, the ancient laws,      
    If here the slayer’s cause      
Prevail; new wrong for ancient right shall be      
    If matricide go free.           580   
Henceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,      
    Too ready to the hand:      
Too oft shall parents in the aftertime      
    Rue and lament this crime,—           584   
Taught, not in false imagining, to feel      
    Their children’s thrusting steel:      
No more the wrath that erst on murder fell      
    From us, the queens of hell,           588   
Shall fall, no more our watching gaze impend—      
    Death shall smite unrestrained.      
    
Henceforth shall one unto another cry,      
Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die           592   
Around me! and that other answers him,      
O thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,      
    Behold, with dark increase      
They throng and press upon thee; yea, and dim           596   
    Is all the cure, and every comfort vain!      
    
Let none henceforth cry out, when falls the blow      
    Of sudden—smiting woe,      
  Cry out, in sad reiterated strain,           600   
O Justice, aid! aid, O ye thrones of hell!      
    So though a father or a mother wail      
  New-smitten by a son, it shall no more avail,      
Since, overthrown by wrong, the fane of Justice fell!           604   
    
Know that a throne there is that may not pass away,      
  And one that sitteth on it—even Fear,      
Searching with steadfast eyes man’s inner soul:      
Wisdom is child of pain, and born with many a tear;           608   
        But who henceforth,      
What man of mortal men, what nation upon earth,      
  That holdeth nought in awe nor in the light      
  Of inner reverence, shall worship Right           612   
        As in the older day?      
    
  Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,      
  Nor that which bows unto a tyrant’s sway.      
        Know that the middle way           616   
Is dearest unto God, and they thereon who wend,      
        They shall achieve the end;      
  But they who wander or to left or right      
        Are sinners in his sight.           620   
    Take to thy heart this one, this soothfast word—      
      Of wantonness impiety is sire;      
    Only from calm control and sanity unstirred      
  Cometh true weal, the goal of every man’s desire.           624   
    
  Yea, whatsoe’er befal, hold thou this word of mine:      
          Bow down at Justice’ shrine,      
      Turn thou thine eyes away from earthly lure,      
    Nor with a godless foot that altar spurn.           628   
    For as thou dost shall Fate do in return,      
          And the great doom is sure.      
    Therefore let each adore a parent’s trust,      
      And each with loyalty revere the guest           632   
          That in his halls doth rest.      
  For whoso uncompelled doth follow what is just,      
          He ne’er shall be unblest;      
      Yea, never to the gulf of doom           636   
          That man shall come.      
    
  But he whose will is set against the gods,      
    Who treads beyond the law with foot impure,      
  Till o’er the wreck of Right confusion broods,—           640   
    Know that for him, though now he sail secure,      
The day of storm shall be; then shall he strive and fail      
  Down from the shivered yard to furl the sail,      
And call on powers that heed him nought, to save,           644   
  And vainly wrestle with the whirling wave.      
        Hot was his heart with pride—      
        I shall not fall, he cried.      
        But him with watching scorn           648   
        The god beholds, forlorn,      
    Tangled in toils of Fate beyond escape,      
    Hopeless of haven safe beyond the cape—      
  Till all his wealth and bliss of bygone day           652   
    Upon the reef of Rightful Doom is hurled,      
        And he is rapt away      
  Unwept, for ever, to the dead forgotten world.  [Re-enter Athena, with twelve Athenian citizens.      
    
ATHENA


O herald, make proclaim, bid all men come.           656   
Then let the shrill blast of the Tyrrhene trump,      
Fulfilled with mortal breath, thro’ the wide air      
Peal a loud summons, bidding all men heed.      
For, till my judges fill this judgment-seat,           660   
Silence behoves,—that this whole city learn      
What for all time mine ordinance commands,      
And these men, that the cause be judged aright.  [Apollo approaches.      
    
CHORUS


O king Apollo, rule what is thine own,           664   
But in this thing what share pertains to thee?      
    
APOLLO


First, as a witness come I, for this man      
Is suppliant of mine by sacred right,      
Guest of my holy hearth and cleansed by me           668   
Of blood-guilt: then, to set me at his side      
And in his cause bear part, as part I bore      
Erst in his deed, whereby his mother fell.      
Let whoso knoweth now announce the cause.           672   
    
ATHENA (to the Chorus)


’Tis I announce the cause—first speech be yours;      
For rightfully shall they whose plaint is tried      
Tell the tale first and set the matter clear.           676   
    
CHORUS


Though we be many, brief shall be our tale.      
(To Orestes) Answer thou, setting word to match with word;      
And first avow—hast thou thy mother slain?      
    
ORESTES


I slew her. I deny no word hereof.           680   
    
CHORUS


Three falls decide the wrestle—this is one.      
    
ORESTES


Thou vauntest thee—but o’er no final fall.      
    
CHORUS


Yet must thou tell the manner of thy deed.      
    
ORESTES


Drawn sword in hand, I gashed her neck, ’Tis told.           684   
    
CHORUS


But by those word, whose craft, wert thou impelled?      
    
ORESTES


By oracles of him who here attests me.      
    
CHORUS


The prophet-god bade thee thy mother slay?      
    
ORESTES


Yea, and thro’ him less ill I fared, till now.           688   
    
CHORUS


If the vote grip thee, thou shalt change that word.      
    
ORESTES


Strong is my hope; my buried sire shall aid.      
    
CHORUS


Go to now, trust the dead, a matricide!      
    
ORESTES


Yea, for in her combined two stains of sin.           692   
    
CHORUS


How? speak this clearly to the judges’ mind.      
    
ORESTES


Slaying her husband, she did slay my sire.      
    
CHORUS


Therefore thou livest; death assoils her deed.      
    
ORESTES


Then while she lived why didst thou hunt her not?           696   
    
CHORUS


She was not kin by blood to him she slew.      
    
ORESTES


And I, am I by blood my mother’s kin?      
    
CHORUS


O cursed with murder’s guilt, how else wert thou      
The burden of her womb? Dost thou forswear           700   
Thy mother’s kinship, closest bond of love?      
    
ORESTES


It is thine hour, Apollo—speak the law,      
Averring if this deed were justly done;      
For done it is, and clear and undenied.           704   
But if to thee this murder’s cause seem right      
Or wrongful, speak—that I to these may tell.      
    
APOLLO


To you, Athena’s mighty council-court,      
Justly for justice will I plead, even I,           708   
The prophet-god, nor cheat you by one word.      
For never spare I from my prophet-seat      
One word, of man, of woman, or of state,      
Save what the Father of Olympian gods           712   
Commanded unto me. I rede you then,      
Bethink you of my plea, how strong it stands,      
And follow the decree of Zeus, or sire,—      
For oaths prevail not over Zeus’ command.           716   
    
CHORUS


Go to; thou sayest that from Zeus befal      
The oracle that this Orestes bade      
With vengeance quit the slaying of his sire,      
And hold as nought his mother’s right of kin!           720   
    
APOLLO


Yea, for it stands not with a common death,      
That he should die, a chieftain and a king      
Decked with the sceptre which high heaven confers—      
Die, and by female hands, not smitten down           724   
By a far-shooting bow, held stalwartly      
By some strong Amazon. Another doom      
Was his: O Pallas, hear, and ye who sit      
In judgment, to discern this thing aright!—           728   
She with a specious voice of welcome true      
Hailed him, returning from the mighty mart      
Where war for life gives fame, triumphant home;      
Then o’er the laver, as he bathed himself;           732   
She spread from head to foot a covering net,      
And in the endless mesh of cunning robes      
Enwound and trapped her lord, and smote him down.      
Lo, ye have heard what doom this chieftain met,           736   
The majesty of Greece, the fleets high lord:      
Such as I tell it, let it gall your ears,      
Who stand as judges to decide this cause.      
    
CHORUS


Zeus, as thou sayest, holds a father’s death           740   
As first of crimes,—yet he of his own act      
Cast into chains his father, Cronos old:      
How suits that deed with that which now ye tell?      
O ye who judge, I bid ye mark by words!           744   
    
APOLLO


O monsters loathed of all, O scorn of gods,      
He that hath bound my loose: a cure there is,      
Yea, many a plan that can unbind the chain.      
But when the thirsty dust sucks up man’s blood           748   
Once shed in death, he shall arise no more.      
No chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.      
All else there is, he moulds and shifts at will,      
Not scant of strength nor breath, whate’er he do.           752   
    
CHORUS


Think yet for what acquittal thou dost plead:      
He who hath shed a mother’s kindred blood,      
Shall he in Argos dwell, where dwelt his sire?      
How shall he stand before the city’s shrines,           756   
How share the clansmen’s holy lustral bowl?      
    
APOLLO


This too I answer; mark a soothfast word:      
Not the true parent is the woman’s womb      
That bears the child; she doth but nurse the seed           760   
New-sown: the male is parent; she for him,      
As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ      
Of life, unless the god its promise blight.      
And proof hereof before you will I set.           764   
Birth may from fathers, without mothers, be:      
See at your side a witness of the same,      
Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus,      
Never within the darkness of the womb           768   
Fostered nor fashioned, but a bud more bright      
Than any goddess in her breast might bear.      
And I, O Pallas, howsoe’er I may,      
Henceforth will glorify thy town, thy clan,           772   
And for this end have sent my suppliant here      
Unto thy shrine; that he from this time forth      
Be loyal unto thee for evermore,      
O goddess—queen, and thou unto thy side           776   
Mayst win and hold him faithful, and his line,      
And that for aye this pledge and troth remain      
To children’s children of Athenian seed.      
    
ATHENA


Enough is said; I bid the judges now           780   
With pure intent deliver just award.      
    
CHORUS


We too have shot our every shaft of speech,      
And now abide to hear the doom of law.      
    
ATHENA (to Apollo and Orestes)


        784   
Say, how ordaining shall I ’scape your blame?      
    
APOLLO


I spake, ye heard; enough. O stranger men,      
Heed well your oath as ye decide the cause.      
    
ATHENA


O men of Athens, ye who first to judge           788   
The law of bloodshed, hear me now ordain.      
Here to all time for Ægeus’ Attic host      
Shall stand this council-court of judges sworn,      
Here the tribunal, set on Ares’ Hill           792   
Where camped of old the tented Amazons,      
What time in hate of Theseus they assailed      
Athens, and set against her citadel      
A counterwork of new sky-pointing towers,           796   
And there to Ares held their sacrifice,      
Where now the rock hath name, even Ares’ Hill.      
And hence shall Reverence and her kinsman Fear