{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8604/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8604","id":"gutenberg_8604","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8604","summary":null,"tags":["Agamemnon, King of Mycenae (Mythological character) -- Drama","Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Classical Antiquity","Harvard Classics","Orestes, King of Argos (Mythological character) -- Drama"],"text":"THE HOUSE OF ATREUS \n\n\n by Aeschylus \n\n\nBEING\n\n\nTHE AGAMEMNON, THE LIBATION-BEARERS AND THE FURIES\n\n\nTRANSLATED BY E.D.A. MORSHEAD\n\n\nContents\n\n\n INTRODUCTORY NOTE\n AGAMEMNON\n THE LIBATION-BEARERS\n THE FURIES\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE\n\n\nOf the life of Aeschylus, the first of the three great masters of Greek\ntragedy, only a very meager outline has come down to us. He was born at\nEleusis, near Athens, B. C. 525, the son of Euphorion. Before he was\ntwenty-five he began to compete for the tragic prize, but did not win a\nvictory for twelve years. He spent two periods of years in Sicily,\nwhere he died in 456, killed, it is said, by a tortoise which an eagle\ndropped on his head. Though a professional writer, he did his share of\nfighting for his country, and is reported to have taken part in the\nbattles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.\n\nOf the seventy or eighty plays which he is said to have written, only\nseven survive: \u201cThe Persians,\u201d dealing with the defeat of Xerxes at\nSalamis; \u201cThe Seven against Thebes,\u201d part of a tetralogy on the legend\nof Thebes; \u201cThe Suppliants,\u201d on the daughters of Dana\u00fcs; \u201cPrometheus\nBound,\u201d part of a trilogy, of which the first part was probably\n\u201cPrometheus, the Fire-bringer,\u201d and the last, \u201cPrometheus Unbound\u201d; and\nthe \u201cOresteia,\u201d the only example of a complete Greek tragic trilogy\nwhich has come down to us, consisting of \u201cAgamemnon\u201d, \u201cChoephorae\u201d (The\nLibation-Bearers), and the \u201cEumenides\u201d (Furies).\n\nThe importance of Aeschylus in the development of the drama is immense.\nBefore him tragedy had consisted of the chorus and one actor; and by\nintroducing a second actor, expanding the dramatic dialogue thus made\npossible, and reducing the lyrical parts, he practically created Greek\ntragedy as we understand it. Like other writers of his time, he acted\nin his own plays, and trained the chorus in their dances and songs; and\nhe did much to give impressiveness to the performances by his\ndevelopment of the accessories of scene and costume on the stage. Of\nthe four plays here reproduced, \u201cPrometheus Bound\u201d holds an exceptional\nplace in the literature of the world. (As conceived by Aeschylus,\nPrometheus is the champion of man against the oppression of Zeus; and\nthe argument of the drama has a certain correspondence to the problem\nof the Book of Job.) The Oresteian trilogy on \u201cThe House of Atreus\u201d is\none of the supreme productions of all literature. It deals with the two\ngreat themes of the retribution of crime and the inheritance of evil;\nand here again a parallel may be found between the assertions of the\njustice of God by Aeschylus and by the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel. Both\ncontend against the popular idea that the fathers have eaten sour\ngrapes and the children\u2019s teeth are set on edge; both maintain that the\nsoul that sinneth, it shall die. The nobility of thought and the\nmajesty of style with which these ideas are set forth give this triple\ndrama its place at the head of the literary masterpieces of the antique\nworld.\n\n\nAGAMEMNON\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nA WATCHMAN\nA HERALD\nCHORUS\nAGAMEMNON\nAEGISTHUS\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nCASSANDRA\n\n_The Scene is the Palace of Atreus at Mycenae. In front of the Palace\nstand statues of the gods, and altars prepared for sacrifices._\n\n\n\n\n_A Watchman_\n\nI pray the gods to quit me of my toils,\nTo close the watch I keep, this livelong year;\nFor as a watch-dog lying, not at rest,\nPropped on one arm, upon the palace-roof\nOf Atreus\u2019 race, too long, too well I know\nThe starry conclave of the midnight sky,\nToo well, the splendours of the firmament,\nThe lords of light, whose kingly aspect shows\u2014\nWhat time they set or climb the sky in turn\u2014\nThe year\u2019s divisions, bringing frost or fire.\n\nAnd now, as ever, am I set to mark\nWhen shall stream up the glow of signal-flame,\nThe bale-fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale\u2014\n_Troy town is ta\u2019en:_ such issue holds in hope\nShe in whose woman\u2019s breast beats heart of man.\n\nThus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,\nBathed with the dews of night, unvisited\nBy dreams\u2014ah me!\u2014for in the place of sleep\nStands Fear as my familiar, and repels\nThe soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.\nAnd if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,\nI medicine my soul with melody\nOf trill or song\u2014anon to tears I turn,\nWailing the woe that broods upon this home,\nNot now by honour guided as of old.\n\nBut now at last fair fall the welcome hour\nThat sets me free, whene\u2019er the thick night glow\nWith beacon-fire of hope deferred no more.\nAll hail!\n\n [_A beacon-light is seen reddening the distant sky._]\n\nFire of the night, that brings my spirit day,\nShedding on Argos light, and dance, and song,\nGreetings to fortune, hail!\n\nLet my loud summons ring within the ears\nOf Agamemnon\u2019s queen, that she anon\nStart from her couch and with a shrill voice cry\nA joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze,\nFor Ilion\u2019s fall; such fiery message gleams\nFrom yon high flame; and I, before the rest,\nWill foot the lightsome measure of our joy;\nFor I can say, _My master\u2019s dice fell fair\u2014\nBehold! the triple sice, the lucky flame!_\nNow be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,\nThe hand of him restored, who rules our home:\nHome\u2014but I say no more: upon my tongue\nTreads hard the ox o\u2019 the adage.\n                                  Had it voice,\nThe home itself might soothliest tell its tale;\nI, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,\nTo others, nought remember nor discern.\n\n[_Exit. The chorus of old men of Mycenae enter, each leaning on a\nstaff. During their song Clytemnestra appears in the background,\nkindling the altars. _\n\nCHORUS\nTen livelong years have rolled away,\nSince the twin lords of sceptred sway,\nBy Zeus endowed with pride of place,\nThe doughty chiefs of Atreus\u2019 race,\n  Went forth of yore,\nTo plead with Priam, face to face,\n  Before the judgment-seat of War!\n\nA thousand ships from Argive land\nPut forth to bear the martial band,\nThat with a spirit stern and strong\nWent out to right the kingdom\u2019s wrong\u2014\nPealed, as they went, the battle-song,\n  Wild as the vultures\u2019 cry;\nWhen o\u2019er the eyrie, soaring high,\nIn wild bereav\u00e8d agony,\nAround, around, in airy rings,\nThey wheel with oarage of their wings,\nBut not the eyas-brood behold,\nThat called them to the nest of old;\nBut let Apollo from the sky,\nOr Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,\nThe exile cry, the wail forlorn,\nOf birds from whom their home is torn\u2014\nOn those who wrought the rapine fell,\nHeaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.\n\nEven so doth Zeus, the jealous lord\nAnd guardian of the hearth and board,\nSpeed Atreus\u2019 sons, in vengeful ire,\n\u2019Gainst Paris\u2014sends them forth on fire,\nHer to buy back, in war and blood,\nWhom one did wed but many woo\u2019d!\nAnd many, many, by his will,\nThe last embrace of foes shall feel,\nAnd many a knee in dust be bowed,\nAnd splintered spears on shields ring loud,\n  Of Trojan and of Greek, before\n  That iron bridal-feast be o\u2019er!\n  But as he willed \u2019tis ordered all,\n  And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall\u2014\n  Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine\n  Poured forth too late, the wrath divine\n  Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.\n\n  And we in gray dishonoured eld,\n  Feeble of frame, unfit were held\n  To join the warrior array\n  That then went forth unto the fray:\n  And here at home we tarry, fain\n  Our feeble footsteps to sustain,\n  Each on his staff\u2014so strength doth wane,\n  And turns to childishness again.\n  For while the sap of youth is green,\n  And, yet unripened, leaps within,\n  The young are weakly as the old,\n  And each alike unmeet to hold\n  The vantage post of war!\n  And ah! when flower and fruit are o\u2019er,\n    And on life\u2019s tree the leaves are sere,\n    Age wendeth propped its journey drear,\n  As forceless as a child, as light\n  And fleeting as a dream of night\n  Lost in the garish day!\n\n  But thou, O child of Tyndareus,\n    Queen Clytemnestra, speak! and say\n    What messenger of joy to-day\n  Hath won thine ear? what welcome news,\n  That thus in sacrificial wise\n  E\u2019en to the city\u2019s boundaries\n  Thou biddest altar-fires arise?\n  Each god who doth our city guard,\n  And keeps o\u2019er Argos watch and ward\n    From heaven above, from earth below\u2014\n  The mighty lords who rule the skies,\n  The market\u2019s lesser deities,\n    To each and all the altars glow,\n  Piled for the sacrifice!\n  And here and there, anear, afar,\n  Streams skyward many a beacon-star,\n  Conjur\u2019d and charm\u2019d and kindled well\n  By pure oil\u2019s soft and guileless spell,\n  Hid now no more\n  Within the palace\u2019 secret store.\n\n  O queen, we pray thee, whatsoe\u2019er,\n    Known unto thee, were well revealed,\n  That thou wilt trust it to our ear,\n    And bid our anxious heart be healed!\n  That waneth now unto despair\u2014\n  Now, waxing to a presage fair,\n  Dawns, from the altar, Hope\u2014to scare\n  From our rent hearts the vulture Care.\n\nList! for the power is mine, to chant on high\n  The chiefs\u2019 emprise, the strength that omens gave!\nList! on my soul breathes yet a harmony,\n  From realms of ageless powers, and strong to save!\n\nHow brother kings, twin lords of one command,\n  Led forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,\nUrged on their way, with vengeful spear and brand,\n  By warrior-birds, that watched the parting hour.\n\n_Go forth to Troy_, the eagles seemed to cry\u2014\n  And the sea-kings obeyed the sky-kings\u2019 word,\nWhen on the right they soared across the sky,\n  And one was black, one bore a white tail barred.\n\nHigh o\u2019er the palace were they seen to soar,\n  Then lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,\nFar from the fields that she should range no more,\n  Big with her unborn brood, a mother-hare.\n\nAnd one beheld, the soldier-prophet true,\n  And the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,\nIn the twy-coloured eagles straight he knew,\n  And spake the omen forth, for good and ill.\n\n(Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)\n\n_Go forth,_ he cried, _and Priam\u2019s town shall fall.\n   Yet long the time shall be; and flock and herd,\nThe people\u2019s wealth, that roam before the wall.\n   Shall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word._\n\n_But O beware! lest wrath in Heaven abide,\n   To dim the glowing battle-forge once more,\nAnd mar the mighty curb of Trojan pride,\n   The steel of vengeance, welded as for war!_\n\n_For virgin Artemis bears jealous hate\n   Against the royal house, the eagle-pair,\nWho rend the unborn brood, insatiate\u2014\n   Yea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare._\n\n(Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)\n\n_For well she loves\u2014the goddess kind and mild\u2014\n   The tender new-born cubs of lions bold,\nToo weak to range\u2014and well the sucking child\n   Of every beast that roams by wood and wold._\n\n_So to the Lord of Heaven she prayeth still,\n   \u201cNay. if it must be, be the omen true!\nYet do the visioned eagles presage ill;\n   The end be well, but crossed with evil too!\u201d_\n\n_Healer Apollo! be her wrath controll\u2019d,\n   Nor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,\nTo war against the Danaans and withhold\n   From the free ocean-waves their eager sails!_\n\n_She craves, alas! to see a second life\n   Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice\u2014\n\u2019Twixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,\n   And hate that knows not fear, and fell device._\n\n_At home there tarries like a lurking snake,\n   Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,\n   A wily watcher, passionate to slake,\n  In blood, resentment for a murdered child._\n\nSuch was the mighty warning, pealed of yore\u2014\n  Amid good tidings, such the word of fear,\nWhat time the fateful eagles hovered o\u2019er\n  The kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.\n\n(In strains like his, once more,\nSing woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)\n\n  Zeus\u2014if to The Unknown\n    That name of many names seem good\u2014\n  Zeus, upon Thee I call.\n    Thro\u2019 the mind\u2019s every road\n  I passed, but vain are all,\n  Save that which names thee Zeus, the Highest One,\n    Were it but mine to cast away the load,\nThe weary load, that weighs my spirit down.\n\n  He that was Lord of old,\nIn full-blown pride of place and valour bold,\n  Hath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale told!\n  And he that next held sway,\n  By stronger grasp o\u2019erthrown\n  Hath pass\u2019d away!\nAnd whoso now shall bid the triumph-chant arise\n  To Zeus, and Zeus alone,\nHe shall be found the truly wise.\n\u2019Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way\n  Of knowledge: He hath ruled,\nMen shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.\n\n  In visions of the night, like dropping rain,\n  Descend the many memories of pain\nBefore the spirit\u2019s sight: through tears and dole\n  Comes wisdom o\u2019er the unwilling soul\u2014\n  A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,\nThat holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!\n\n  And then the elder chief, at whose command\n  The fleet of Greece was manned,\n  Cast on the seer no word of hate,\n  But veered before the sudden breath of Fate\u2014\n\n  Ah, weary while! for, ere they put forth sail,\n  Did every store, each minish\u2019d vessel, fail,\n    While all the Achaean host\n    At Aulis anchored lay,\n  Looking across to Chalics and the coast\n  Where refluent waters welter, rock, and sway;\n    And rife with ill delay\n  From northern Strymon blew the thwarting blast\u2014\n    Mother of famine fell,\n    That holds men wand\u2019ring still\n  Far from the haven where they fain would be!\u2014\n    And pitiless did waste\n    Each ship and cable, rotting on the sea,\n    And, doubling with delay each weary hour,\nWithered with hope deferred th\u2019 Achaeans\u2019 warlike flower.\n\n  But when, for bitter storm, a deadlier relief,\n  And heavier with ill to either chief,\nPleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,\n  The two Atridae smote their sceptres on the plain,\n  And, striving hard, could not their tears restrain!\n  And then the elder monarch spake aloud\u2014\n    _Ill lot were mine, to disobey!\n    And ill, to smite my child, my household\u2019s love and pride!\n    To stain with virgin blood a father\u2019s hands, and slay\n    My daughter, by the altar\u2019s side!\n    \u2019Twixt woe and woe I dwell\u2014\n  I dare not like a recreant fly,\nAnd leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally;\n  For rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,\n  The virgin\u2019s blood, shed forth to lull the adverse wind\u2014\n     God send the deed be well!_\n\n      Thus on his neck he took\n      Fate\u2019s hard compelling yoke;\nThen, in the counter-gale of will abhorr\u2019d, accursed,\n    To recklessness his shifting spirit veered\u2014\n    Alas! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst,\nWith evil craft men\u2019s souls to sin hath ever stirred!\n\n    And so he steeled his heart\u2014ah, well-a-day\u2014\n      Aiding a war for one false woman\u2019s sake,\n          His child to slay,\n    And with her spilt blood make\nAn offering, to speed the ships upon their way!\n\n    Lusting for war, the bloody arbiters\nClosed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed\n      The girl-voice plead,\n  _Pity me, Father!_ nor her prayers,\n      Nor tender, virgin years.\n\n     So, when the chant of sacrifice was done,\n     Her father bade the youthful priestly train\nRaise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone,\n     From where amid her robes she lay\n        Sunk all in swoon away\u2014\nBade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,\n      Her fair lips\u2019 speech refrain,\nLest she should speak a curse on Atreus\u2019 home and seed,\n\n      So, trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,\n    With one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye\n       Those that should smite she smote\u2014\n    Fair, silent, as a pictur\u2019d form, but fain\n    To plead, _Is all forgot?\nHow oft those halls of old,\nWherein my sire high feast did hold,_\n  _Rang to the virginal soft strain,\n    When I, a stainless child,\n  Sang from pure lips and undefiled,\n    Sang of my sire, and all\nHis honoured life, and how on him should fall\n    Heaven\u2019s highest gift and gain!_\n  And then\u2014but I beheld not, nor can tell,\n    What further fate befel:\n  But this is sure, that Calchas\u2019 boding strain\n    Can ne\u2019er be void or vain.\n  This wage from Justice\u2019 hand do sufferers earn,\n    The future to discern:\n  And yet\u2014farewell, O secret of To-morrow!\n    Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow.\n  Clear with the clear beams of the morrow\u2019s sun,\n    The future presseth on.\n  Now, let the house\u2019s tale, how dark soe\u2019er,\n    Find yet an issue fair!\u2014\n  So prays the loyal, solitary band\n    That guards the Apian land.\n\n[_They turn to Clytemnestra, who leaves the altars and comes forward._\n\nO queen, I come in reverence of thy sway\u2014\nFor, while the ruler\u2019s kingly seat is void,\nThe loyal heart before his consort bends.\nNow\u2014be it sure and certain news of good,\nOr the fair tidings of a flatt\u2019ring hope,\nThat bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,\nI, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nAs saith the adage, _From the womb of Night\nSpring forth, with promise fair, the young child Light._\nAy\u2014fairer even than all hope my news\u2014\nBy Grecian hands is Priam\u2019s city ta\u2019en!\n\nCHORUS\nWhat say\u2019st thou? doubtful heart makes treach\u2019rous ear.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nHear then again, and plainly\u2014Troy is ours!\n\nCHORUS\nThrills thro\u2019 my heart such joy as wakens tears.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nAy, thro\u2019 those tears thine eye looks loyalty.\n\nCHORUS\nBut hast thou proof, to make assurance sure?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nGo to; I have\u2014unless the god has lied.\n\nCHORUS\nHath some night-vision won thee to belief?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nOut on all presage of a slumb\u2019rous soul!\n\nCHORUS\nBut wert thou cheered by Rumour\u2019s wingless word?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nPeace\u2014thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.\n\nCHORUS\nSay then, how long ago the city fell?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nEven in this night that now brings forth the dawn.\n\nCHORUS\nYet who so swift could speed the message here?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nFrom Ida\u2019s top Hephaestus, lord of fire,\nSent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,\nBeacon to beacon sped the courier-flame.\nFrom Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,\nOf Lemnos; thence unto the steep sublime\nOf Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.\nThence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,\nThe moving light, rejoicing in its strength,\nSped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,\nIn golden glory, like some strange new sun,\nOnward, and reached Macistus\u2019 watching heights.\nThere, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,\nThe watcher sped the tidings on in turn,\nUntil the guard upon Messapius\u2019 peak\nSaw the far flame gleam on Euripus\u2019 tide,\nAnd from the high-piled heap of withered furze\nLit the new sign and bade the message on.\nThen the strong light, far flown and yet undimmed,\nShot thro\u2019 the sky above Asopus\u2019 plain,\nBright as the moon, and on Cithaeron\u2019s crag\nAroused another watch of flying fire.\nAnd there the sentinels no whit disowned,\nBut sent redoubled on, the hest of flame\u2014\nSwift shot the light, above Gorgopis\u2019 bay,\nTo Aegiplanctus\u2019 mount, and bade the peak\nFail not the onward ordinance of fire.\nAnd like a long beard streaming in the wind,\nFull-fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,\nAnd onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,\nBeneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,\nAnd thence leapt light unto Arachne\u2019s peak,\nThe mountain watch that looks upon our town.\nThence to th\u2019 Atrides\u2019 roof\u2014in lineage fair,\nA bright posterity of Ida\u2019s fire.\nSo sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,\nFlame after flame, along the course ordained,\nAnd lo! the last to speed upon its way\nSights the end first, and glows unto the goal.\nAnd Troy is ta\u2019en, and by this sign my lord\nTells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.\n\nCHORUS\nTo heaven, O queen, will I upraise new song:\nBut, wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear\nFrom first to last the marvel of the tale.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nThink you\u2014this very morn\u2014the Greeks in Troy,\nAnd loud therein the voice of utter wail!\nWithin one cup pour vinegar and oil,\nAnd look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.\nSo in the twofold issue of the strife\nMingle the victor\u2019s shout, the captives\u2019 moan.\nFor all the conquered whom the sword has spared\nCling weeping\u2014some unto a brother slain,\nSome childlike to a nursing father\u2019s form,\nAnd wail the loved and lost, the while their neck\nBows down already \u2019neath the captive\u2019s chain.\nAnd lo! the victors, now the fight is done,\nGoaded by restless hunger, far and wide\nRange all disordered thro\u2019 the town, to snatch\nSuch victual and such rest as chance may give\nWithin the captive halls that once were Troy\u2014\nJoyful to rid them of the frost and dew,\nWherein they couched upon the plain of old\u2014\nJoyful to sleep the gracious night all through,\nUnsummoned of the watching sentinel.\nYet let them reverence well the city\u2019s gods,\nThe lords of Troy, tho\u2019 fallen, and her shrines;\nSo shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.\nYea, let no craving for forbidden gain\nBid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.\nFor we need yet, before the race be won,\nHomewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.\nFor should the host wax wanton ere it come,\nThen, tho\u2019 the sudden blow of fate be spared,\nYet in the sight of gods shall rise once more\n\nThe great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.\nNow, hearing from this woman\u2019s mouth of mine,\nThe tale and eke its warning, pray with me,\n_Luck sway the scale, with no uncertain poise.\nFor my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys._\n\nCHORUS\nA gracious word thy woman\u2019s lips have told,\nWorthy a wise man\u2019s utterance, O my queen;\nNow with clear trust in thy convincing tale\nI set me to salute the gods with song,\nWho bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain.\n\n[_Exit Clytemnestra._\n\nZeus, Lord of heaven! and welcome night\nOf victory, that hast our might\n  With all the glories crowned!\nOn towers of Ilion, free no more,\nHast flung the mighty mesh of war,\n  And closely girt them round,\nTill neither warrior may \u2019scape,\nNor stripling lightly overleap\nThe trammels as they close, and close,\nTill with the grip of doom our foes\n  In slavery\u2019s coil are bound!\n\nZeus, Lord of hospitality,\nIn grateful awe I bend to thee\u2014\n  \u2019Tis thou hast struck the blow!\n  At Alexander, long ago,\n  We marked thee bend thy vengeful bow,\nBut long and warily withhold\nThe eager shaft, which, uncontrolled\nAnd loosed too soon or launched too high,\nHad wandered bloodless through the sky.\n\nZeus, the high God!\u2014whate\u2019er be dim in doubt,\n  This can our thought track out\u2014\nThe blow that fells the sinner is of God,\n  And as he wills, the rod\n\nOf vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,\n  _The gods list not to hold\nA reckoning with him whose feet oppress\n  The grace of holiness\u2014_\nAn impious word! for whensoe\u2019er the sire\n  Breathed forth rebellious fire\u2014\nWhat time his household overflowed the measure\n  Of bliss and health and treasure\u2014\nHis children\u2019s children read the reckoning plain,\n  At last, in tears and pain.\nOn me let weal that brings no woe be sent,\n  And therewithal, content!\nWho spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power\n  Shall be to him a tower,\nTo guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot,\n  Where all things are forgot.\nLust drives him on\u2014lust, desperate and wild,\n  Fate\u2019s sin-contriving child\u2014\nAnd cure is none; beyond concealment clear,\n  Kindles sin\u2019s baleful glare.\nAs an ill coin beneath the wearing touch\n  Betrays by stain and smutch\nIts metal false\u2014such is the sinful wight.\n  Before, on pinions light,\nFair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,\n  While home and kin make moan\nBeneath the grinding burden of his crime;\n  Till, in the end of time,\nCast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer\n  To powers that will not hear.\n\n  And such did Paris come\n  Unto Atrides\u2019 home,\nAnd thence, with sin and shame his welcome to repay,\n  Ravished the wife away\u2014\nAnd she, unto her country and her kin\nLeaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships,\nAnd bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,\n  And overbold in sin,\nWent fleetly thro\u2019 the gates, at midnight hour.\n  Oft from the prophets\u2019 lips\nMoaned out the warning and the wail\u2014Ah woe!\nWoe for the home, the home! and for the chieftains, woe\n  Woe for the bride-bed, warm\nYet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form\n  Of her who loved her lord, a while ago!\n    And woe! for him who stands\nShamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands\n  That find her not, and sees, yet will not see,\n    That she is far away!\nAnd his sad fancy, yearning o\u2019er the sea,\n    Shall summon and recall\nHer wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.\n    And sad with many memories,\nThe fair cold beauty of each sculptured face\u2014\n  And all to hatefulness is turned their grace,\nSeen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes!\n  And when the night is deep,\nCome visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain\n  Of hopings vain\u2014\nVoid, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight\n  Has seen its old delight,\nWhen thro\u2019 the grasps of love that bid it stay\n  It vanishes away\nOn silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.\n\n  Such are the sights, the sorrows fell,\nAbout our hearth\u2014and worse, whereof I may not tell.\n  But, all the wide town o\u2019er,\nEach home that sent its master far away\n  From Hellas\u2019 shore,\nFeels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss, to-day.\n  For, truth to say,\nThe touch of bitter death is manifold!\nFamiliar was each face, and dear as life,\n  That went unto the war,\nBut thither, whence a warrior went of old,\n  Doth nought return\u2014\nOnly a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn!\n  For Ares, lord of strife,\nWho doth the swaying scales of battle hold,\nWar\u2019s money-changer, giving dust for gold,\n  Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,\nScant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,\nLight to the hand, but heavy to the soul;\n  Yea, fills the light urn full\n  With what survived the flame\u2014\nDeath\u2019s dusty measure of a hero\u2019s frame!\n\n_Alas!_ one cries, _and yet alas again!\nOur chief is gone, the hero of the spear,\n  And hath not left his peer!\nAh woe!_ another moans\u2014_my spouse is slain,\n  The death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,\nSlain for a woman\u2019s sin, a false wife\u2019s shame!_\n  Such muttered words of bitter mood\nRise against those who went forth to reclaim;\n  Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th\u2019 Atrides\u2019 name.\n\n      And others, far beneath the Ilian wall,\n    Sleep their last sleep\u2014the goodly chiefs and tall,\n  Couched in the foeman\u2019s land, whereon they gave\nTheir breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.\n\n  Therefore for each and all the city\u2019s breast\n  Is heavy with a wrath supprest,\nAs deep and deadly as a curse more loud\n  Flung by the common crowd;\nAnd, brooding deeply, doth my soul await\n  Tidings of coming fate,\nBuried as yet in darkness\u2019 womb.\nFor not forgetful is the high gods\u2019 doom\n  Against the sons of carnage: all too long\nSeems the unjust to prosper and be strong,\n  Till the dark Furies come,\nAnd smite with stern reversal all his home,\n  Down into dim obstruction\u2014he is gone,\nAnd help and hope, among the lost, is none!\n\nO\u2019er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,\n  Impends a woe condign;\nThe vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame,\n  Sped from the hand divine.\nThis bliss be mine, ungrudged of God, to feel\u2014\n  To tread no city to the dust,\n  Nor see my own life thrust\nDown to a slave\u2019s estate beneath another\u2019s heel!\n\nBehold, throughout the city wide\nHave the swift feet of Rumour hied,\n  Roused by the joyful flame:\nBut is the news they scatter, sooth?\nOr haply do they give for truth\n  Some cheat which heaven doth frame?\nA child were he and all unwise,\n  Who let his heart with joy be stirred,\nTo see the beacon-fires arise,\n  And then, beneath some thwarting word,\n  Sicken anon with hope deferred.\n  The edge of woman\u2019s insight still\n  Good news from true divideth ill;\nLight rumours leap within the bound\nThat fences female credence round,\nBut, lightly born, as lightly dies\nThe tale that springs of her surmise.\n\nSoon shall we know whereof the bale-fires tell,\nThe beacons, kindled with transmitted flame;\nWhether, as well I deem, their tale is true.\nOr whether like some dream delusive came\nThe welcome blaze but to befool our soul.\nFor lo! I see a herald from the shore\nDraw hither, shadowed with the olive-wreath\u2014\nAnd thirsty dust, twin-brother of the clay,\nSpeaks plain of travel far and truthful news\u2014\nNo dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,\nFitfully kindled from the mountain pyre;\nBut plainlier shall his voice say, _All is well,_\nOr\u2014but away, forebodings adverse, now,\n\nAnd on fair promise fair fulfilment come!\nAnd whoso for the state prays otherwise,\nHimself reap harvest of his ill desire!\n\n_Enter_ HERALD\nO land of Argos, fatherland of mine!\nTo thee at last, beneath the tenth year\u2019s sun,\nMy feet return; the bark of my emprise,\nTho\u2019 one by one hope\u2019s anchors broke away,\nHeld by the last, and now rides safely here.\nLong, long my soul despaired to win, in death,\nIts longed-for rest within our Argive land:\nAnd now all hail, O earth, and hail to thee,\nNew-risen sun! and hail our country\u2019s God,\nHigh-ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,\nWhose arrows smote us once\u2014smite thou no more!\nWas not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,\nO king Apollo, by Scamander\u2019s side?\nTurn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now!\nAnd hail, all gods who rule the street and mart\nAnd Hermes hail! my patron and my pride,\nHerald of heaven, and lord of heralds here!\nAnd Heroes, ye who sped us on our way\u2014\nTo one and all I cry, _Receive again\nWith grace such Argives as the spear has spared._\n\nAh, home of royalty, beloved halls,\nAnd solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn!\nBenign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet\nThe king returning after many days.\nFor as from night flash out the beams of day,\nSo out of darkness dawns a light, a king,\nOn you, on Argos\u2014Agamemnon comes.\nThen hail and greet him well! such meed befits\nHim whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy\nWith the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong\u2014\nAnd smote the plain, smote down to nothingness\nEach altar, every shrine; and far and wide\nDies from the whole land\u2019s face its offspring fair.\n\nSuch mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy\u2014\nOur lord and monarch, Atreus\u2019 elder son,\nAnd comes at last with blissful honour home;\nHighest of all who walk on earth to-day\u2014\nNot Paris nor the city\u2019s self that paid\nSin\u2019s price with him, can boast, _Whate\u2019er befal,\nThe guerdon we have won outweighs it all._\nBut at Fate\u2019s judgment-seat the robber stands\nCondemned of rapine, and his prey is torn\nForth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped\nA bloody harvest of his home and land\nGone down to death, and for his guilt and lust\nHis father\u2019s race pays double in the dust.\n\nCHORUS\nHail, herald of the Greeks, new-come from war.\n\nHERALD\nAll hail! not death itself can fright me now.\n\nCHORUS\nWas thine heart wrung with longing for thy land?\n\nHERALD\nSo that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.\n\nCHORUS\nOn you too then this sweet distress did fall\u2014\n\nHERALD\nHow say\u2019st thou? make me master of thy word.\n\nCHORUS\nYou longed for us who pined for you again.\n\nHERALD\nCraved the land us who craved it, love for love?\n\nCHORUS\nYea till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.\n\nHERALD\nWhence thy despair, that mars the army\u2019s joy?\n\nCHORUS\n_Sole cure of wrong is silence,_ saith the saw.\n\nHERALD\nThy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men?\n\nCHORUS\nDeath had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.\n\nHERALD\n\u2019Tis true; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,\nThese many years, some chances issued fair,\nAnd some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.\nBut who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,\nThro\u2019 time\u2019s whole tenor an unbroken weal?\nI could a tale unfold of toiling oars,\nIll rest, scant landings on a shore rock-strewn,\nAll pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.\nAnd worse and hatefuller our woes on land;\nFor where we couched, close by the foeman\u2019s wall,\nThe river-plain was ever dank with dews,\nDropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,\nA curse that clung unto our sodden garb,\nAnd hair as horrent as a wild beast\u2019s fell.\nWhy tell the woes of winter, when the birds\nLay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida\u2019s snow?\nOr summer\u2019s scorch, what time the stirless wave\nSank to its sleep beneath the noon-day sun?\nWhy mourn old woes? their pain has passed away;\nAnd passed away, from those who fell, all care,\nFor evermore, to rise and live again.\n\nWhy sum the count of death, and render thanks\nFor life by moaning over fate malign?\nFarewell, a long farewell to all our woes!\nTo us, the remnant of the host of Greece,\nComes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe;\nThus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,\nLike him far-fleeted over sea and land.\n_The Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy,\nAnd in the temples of the gods of Greece\nHung up these spoils, a shining sign to Time._\nLet those who learn this legend bless aright\nThe city and its chieftains, and repay\nThe meed of gratitude to Zeus who willed\nAnd wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.\n\nCHORUS\nThy words o\u2019erbear my doubt: for news of good,\nThe ear of age hath ever youth enow:\nBut those within and Clytemnestra\u2019s self\nWould fain hear all; glad thou their ears and mine.\n\n_Re-enter_ CLYTEMNESTRA\nLast night, when first the fiery courier came,\nIn sign that Troy is ta\u2019en and razed to earth,\nSo wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,\nThat I was chidden\u2014_Hath the beacon watch\nMade sure unto thy soul the sack of Troy?\nA very woman thou, whose heart leaps light\nAt wandering rumours!_\u2014and with words like these\nThey showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.\nYet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,\nAnd, in the strain they held for feminine,\nWent heralds thro\u2019 the city, to and fro,\nWith voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy;\nAnd in each fane they lit and quenched with wine\nThe spicy perfumes fading in the flame.\nAll is fulfilled: I spare your longer tale\u2014\nThe king himself anon shall tell me all.\n\nRemains to think what honour best may greet\nMy lord, the majesty of Argos, home.\nWhat day beams fairer on a woman\u2019s eyes\nThan this, whereon she flings the portal wide,\nTo hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war?\nThis to my husband, that he tarry not,\nBut turn the city\u2019s longing into joy!\nYea, let him come, and coming may he find\nA wife no other than he left her, true\nAnd faithful as a watch-dog to his home,\nHis foemen\u2019s foe, in all her duties leal,\nTrusty to keep for ten long years unmarred\nThe store whereon he set his master-seal.\nBe steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see\nIll joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me!\n\nHERALD\n\u2019Tis fairly said: thus speaks a noble dame,\nNor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast.\n\n[_Exit Clytemnestra._\n\nCHORUS\nSo has she spoken\u2014be it yours to learn\nBy clear interpreters her specious word.\nTurn to me, herald\u2014tell me if anon\nThe second well-loved lord of Argos comes?\nHath Menelaus safely sped with you?\n\nHERALD\nAlas\u2014brief boon unto my friends it were,\nTo flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair!\n\nCHORUS\nSpeak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst\u2014\nToo plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.\n\nHERALD\nThe hero and his bark were rapt away\nFar from the Grecian fleet? \u2019tis truth I say.\n\nCHORUS\nWhether in all men\u2019s sight from Ilion borne,\nOr from the fleet by stress of weather torn?\n\nHERALD\nFull on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,\nAnd one short word hath told long woes aright.\n\nCHORUS\nBut say, what now of him each comrade saith?\nWhat their forebodings, of his life or death?\n\nHERALD\nAsk me no more: the truth is known to none,\nSave the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun,\n\nCHORUS\nSay, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven?\nHow rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?\n\nHERALD\nNay, ill it were to mar with sorrow\u2019s tale\nThe day of blissful news. The gods demand\nThanksgiving sundered from solicitude.\nIf one as herald came with rueful face\nTo say, _The curse has fallen, and the host\nGone down to death; and one wide wound has reached\nThe city\u2019s heart, and out of many homes\nMany are cast and consecrate to death,\nBeneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,\nThe bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom_\u2014\nIf such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,\n\u2019Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.\nBut\u2014coming as he comes who bringeth news\nOf safe return from toil, and issues fair,\nTo men rejoicing in a weal restored\u2014\nDare I to dash good words with ill, and say\nHow the gods\u2019 anger smote the Greeks in storm?\nFor fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,\nNow swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,\nWasting the Argives worn with toil and war.\nNight and great horror of the rising wave\nCame o\u2019er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace\nClashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow\nThro\u2019 scudding drifts of spray and raving storm\nVanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.\nAnd when at length the sun rose bright, we saw\nTh\u2019 Aegaean sea-field flecked with flowers of death,\nCorpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.\nFor us indeed, some god, as well I deem,\nNo human power, laid hand upon our helm,\nSnatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,\nAnd brought our bark thro\u2019 all, unharmed in hull:\nAnd saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,\nSo that no surge should gulf us deep in brine,\nNor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.\n\nSo \u2019scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,\nBut, under day\u2019s white light, mistrustful all\nOf fortune\u2019s smile, we sat and brooded deep,\nShepherds forlorn of thoughts that wandered wild,\nO\u2019er this new woe; for smitten was our host,\nAnd lost as ashes scattered from the pyre.\nOf whom if any draw his life-breath yet,\nBe well assured, he deems of us as dead,\nAs we of him no other fate forebode.\nBut heaven save all! If Menelaus live,\nHe will not tarry, but will surely come:\nTherefore if anywhere the high sun\u2019s ray\nDescries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,\nWho wills not yet to wipe his race away,\nHope still there is that homeward he may wend.\nEnough\u2014thou hast the truth unto the end.\n\nCHORUS\n  Say, from whose lips the presage fell?\n  Who read the future all too well,\n    And named her, in her natal hour,\n    Helen, the bride with war for dower?\n  \u2019Twas one of the Invisible,\n    Guiding his tongue with prescient power.\n  On fleet, and host, and citadel,\n    War, sprung from her, and death did lour,\n  When from the bride-bed\u2019s fine-spun veil\n  She to the Zephyr spread her sail.\n\n  Strong blew the breeze\u2014the surge closed o\u2019er\n  The cloven track of keel and oar,\n    But while she fled, there drove along,\n    Fast in her wake, a mighty throng\u2014\n  Athirst for blood, athirst for war,\n    Forward in fell pursuit they sprung,\n  Then leapt on Simois\u2019 bank ashore,\n    The leafy coppices among\u2014\n  No rangers, they, of wood and field,\n  But huntsmen of the sword and shield.\n\n  Heaven\u2019s jealousy, that works its will,\n  Sped thus on Troy its destined ill,\n    Well named, at once, the Bride and Bane;\n    And loud rang out the bridal strain;\n  But they to whom that song befel\n    Did turn anon to tears again;\n  Zeus tarries, but avenges still\n    The husband\u2019s wrong, the household\u2019s stain!\n  He, the hearth\u2019s lord, brooks not to see\n  Its outraged hospitality.\n\n  Even now, and in far other tone,\n  Troy chants her dirge of mighty moan,\n    _Woe upon Paris, woe and hate!\n    Who wooed his country\u2019s doom for mate_\u2014\nThis is the burthen of the groan,\n  Wherewith she wails disconsolate\nThe blood, so many of her own\n  Have poured in vain, to fend her fate;\nTroy! thou hast fed and freed to roam\nA lion-cub within thy home!\n\nA suckling creature, newly ta\u2019en\nFrom mother\u2019s teat, still fully fain\n  Of nursing care; and oft caressed,\n  Within the arms, upon the breast,\nEven as an infant, has it lain;\n  Or fawns and licks, by hunger pressed,\nThe hand that will assuage its pain;\n  In life\u2019s young dawn, a well-loved guest,\nA fondling for the children\u2019s play,\nA joy unto the old and gray.\n\nBut waxing time and growth betrays\nThe blood-thirst of the lion-race,\n  And, for the house\u2019s fostering care,\n  Unbidden all, it revels there,\nAnd bloody recompense repays\u2014\n  Rent flesh of tine, its talons tare:\nA mighty beast, that slays and slays,\n  And mars with blood the household fair,\nA God-sent pest invincible,\nA minister of fate and hell.\n\n  Even so to Ilion\u2019s city came by stealth\n    A spirit as of windless seas and skies,\n  A gentle phantom-form of joy and wealth,\n    With love\u2019s soft arrows speeding from its eyes\u2014\nLove\u2019s rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in subtle wise.\n\nAh, well-a-day! the bitter bridal-bed,\n  When the fair mischief lay by Paris\u2019 side!\nWhat curse on palace and on people sped\n    With her, the Fury sent on Priam\u2019s pride,\nBy angered Zeus! what tears of many a widowed bride!\n\n  Long, long ago to mortals this was told,\n    How sweet security and blissful state\n  Have curses for their children\u2014so men hold\u2014\n    And for the man of all-too prosperous fate\nSprings from a bitter seed some woe insatiate.\n\n  Alone, alone, I deem far otherwise;\n    Not bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,\n  From which that after-growth of ill doth rise!\n    Woe springs from wrong, the plant is like the seed\u2014\nWhile Right, in honour\u2019s house, doth its own likeness breed.\n\n  Some past impiety, some gray old crime,\n    Breeds the young curse, that wantons in our ill,\n  Early or late, when haps th\u2019 appointed time\u2014\n    And out of light brings power of darkness still,\nA master-fiend, a foe, unseen, invincible;\n\n  A pride accursed, that broods upon the race\n    And home in which dark At\u00e8 holds her sway\u2014\n  Sin\u2019s child and Woe\u2019s, that wears its parents\u2019 face;\n    While Right in smoky cribs shines clear as day,\nAnd decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous way.\n\n  From gilded halls, that hands polluted raise,\n    Right turns away with proud averted eyes,\n  And of the wealth, men stamp amiss with praise,\n    Heedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,\nAnd to Fate\u2019s goal guides all, in its appointed wise.\n\n    Hail to thee, chief of Atreus\u2019 race,\n    Returning proud from Troy subdued!\nHow shall I greet thy conquering face?\nHow nor a fulsome praise obtrude,\nNor stint the meed of gratitude?\nFor mortal men who fall to ill\nTake little heed of open truth,\nBut seek unto its semblance still:\nThe show of weeping and of ruth\nTo the forlorn will all men pay,\nBut, of the grief their eyes display,\nNought to the heart doth pierce its way.\nAnd, with the joyous, they beguile\nTheir lips unto a feigned smile,\nAnd force a joy, unfelt the while;\nBut he who as a shepherd wise\n  Doth know his flock, can ne\u2019er misread\nTruth in the falsehood of his eyes,\nWho veils beneath a kindly guise\n  A lukewarm love in deed.\nAnd thou, our leader\u2014when of yore\nThou badest Greece go forth to war\nFor Helen\u2019s sake\u2014I dare avow\nThat then I held thee not as now;\nThat to my vision thou didst seem\nDyed in the hues of disesteem.\nI held thee for a pilot ill,\nAnd reckless, of thy proper will,\nEndowing others doomed to die\nWith vain and forced audacity!\nNow from my heart, ungrudgingly,\nTo those that wrought, this word be said\u2014\n_Well fall the labour ye have sped\u2014_\nLet time and search, O king, declare\nWhat men within thy city\u2019s bound\nWere loyal to the kingdom\u2019s care,\n  And who were faithless found.\n\n[_Enter Agamemnon in a chariot, accompanied by Cassandra. He speaks\nwithout descending._\n\nAGAMEMNON\nFirst, as is meet, a king\u2019s All-hail be said\nTo Argos, and the gods that guard the land\u2014\nGods who with me availed to speed us home,\nWith me availed to wring from Priam\u2019s town\nThe due of justice. In the court of heaven\nThe gods in conclave sat and judged the cause,\nNot from a pleader\u2019s tongue, and at the close,\nUnanimous into the urn of doom\nThis sentence gave, _On Ilion and her men,\nDeath:_ and where hope drew nigh to pardon\u2019s urn\nNo hand there was to cast a vote therein.\nAnd still the smoke of fallen Ilion\nRises in sight of all men, and the flame\nOf At\u00e8\u2019s hecatomb is living yet,\nAnd where the towers in dusty ashes sink,\nRise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed.\nFor this must all men pay unto the gods\nThe meed of mindful hearts and gratitude:\nFor by our hands the meshes of revenge\nClosed on the prey, and for one woman\u2019s sake\nTroy trodden by the Argive monster lies\u2014\nThe foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall,\nWhat time with autumn sank the Pleiades.\nYea, o\u2019er the fencing wall a lion sprang\nRavening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.\n\nSuch prelude spoken to the gods in full,\nTo you I turn, and to the hidden thing\nWhereof ye spake but now: and in that thought\nI am as you, and what ye say, say I.\nFor few are they who have such inborn grace,\nAs to look up with love, and envy not,\nWhen stands another on the height of weal.\nDeep in his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,\nHer poison lurking doth enhance his load;\nFor now beneath his proper woes he chafes,\nAnd sighs withal to see another\u2019s weal.\nI speak not idly, but from knowledge sure\u2014\nThere be who vaunt an utter loyalty,\nThat is but as the ghost of friendship dead,\nA shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.\nOne only\u2014he who went reluctant forth\nAcross the seas with me\u2014Odysseus\u2014he\nWas loyal unto me with strength and will,\nA trusty trace-horse bound unto my car.\nThus\u2014be he yet beneath the light of day,\nOr dead, as well I fear\u2014I speak his praise.\n\nLastly, whate\u2019er be due to men or gods,\nWith joint debate, in public council held,\nWe will decide, and warily contrive\nThat all which now is well may so abide:\nFor that which haply needs the healer\u2019s art,\nThat will we medicine, discerning well\nIf cautery or knife befit the time.\n\nNow, to my palace and the shrines of home,\nI will pass in, and greet you first and fair,\nYe gods, who bade me forth, and home again\u2014\nAnd long may Victory tarry in my train!\n\n[_Enter Clytemnestra, followed by maidens bearing purple robes._\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nOld men of Argos, lieges of our realm,\nShame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see\nThe love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear\nDies at the last from hearts of human kind.\nFrom mine own soul and from no alien lips,\nI know and will reveal the life I bore,\nReluctant, through the lingering livelong years,\nThe while my lord beleaguered Ilion\u2019s wall.\n\nFirst, that a wife sat sundered from her lord,\nIn widowed solitude, was utter woe\u2014\nAnd woe, to hear how rumour\u2019s many tongues\n  All boded evil\u2014woe, when he who came\n  And he who followed spake of ill on ill,\n  Keening _Lost, lost, all lost!_ thro\u2019 hall and bower.\n  Had this my husband met so many wounds,\n  As by a thousand channels rumour told,\n  No network e\u2019er was full of holes as he.\n  Had he been slain, as oft as tidings came\n  That he was dead, he well might boast him now\n  A second Geryon of triple frame,\n  With triple robe of earth above him laid\u2014\n  For that below, no matter\u2014triply dead,\n  Dead by one death for every form he bore.\n  And thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,\n  Oft for self-slaughter had I slung the noose,\n  But others wrenched it from my neck away.\n  Hence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,\n  The pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,\n  Stands not beside us now, as he should stand.\n  Nor marvel thou at this: he dwells with one\n  Who guards him loyally; \u2019tis Phocis\u2019 king,\n  Strophius, who warned me erst, _Bethink thee, queen,\n  What woes of doubtful issue well may fall!\n  Thy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,\n  While here a populace uncurbed may cry\n  \u201cDown with the council, down!\u201d bethink thee too,\n  \u2019Tis the world\u2019s way to set a harder heel\n  On fallen power._\n                     For thy child\u2019s absence then\n  Such mine excuse, no wily afterthought.\n  For me, long since the gushing fount of tears\n  Is wept away; no drop is left to shed.\n  Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,\n  Weeping, the bale-fires, piled for thy return,\n  Night after night unkindled. If I slept,\n  Each sound\u2014the tiny humming of a gnat,\n  Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams\n  Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,\n  Thrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.\n\nAll this I bore, and now, released from woe,\nI hail my lord as watch-dog of a fold,\nAs saving stay-rope of a storm-tossed ship,\nAs column stout that holds the roof aloft,\nAs only child unto a sire bereaved,\nAs land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,\nAs sunshine fair when tempest\u2019s wrath is past,\nAs gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.\nSo sweet it is to \u2019scape the press of pain.\nWith such salute I bid my husband hail!\nNor heaven be wroth therewith! for long and hard\nI bore that ire of old.\n                        Sweet lord, step forth,\nStep from thy car, I pray\u2014nay, not on earth\nPlant the proud foot, O king, that trod down Troy!\nWomen! why tarry ye, whose task it is\nTo spread your monarch\u2019s path with tapestry?\nSwift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,\nThat justice lead him to a home, at last,\nHe scarcely looked to see.\n                           For what remains,\nZeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand\nTo work as right and as the gods command.\n\nAGAMEMNON\nDaughter of Leda, watcher o\u2019er my home,\nThy greeting well befits mine absence long,\nFor late and hardly has it reached its end.\nKnow, that the praise which honour bids us crave,\nMust come from others\u2019 lips, not from our own:\nSee too that not in fashion feminine\nThou make a warrior\u2019s pathway delicate;\nNot unto me, as to some Eastern lord,\nBowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.\nStrew not this purple that shall make each step\nAn arrogance; such pomp beseems the gods,\nNot me. A mortal man to set his foot\nOn these rich dyes? I hold such pride in fear,\nAnd bid thee honour me as man, not god.\n\n  Fear not\u2014such footcloths and all gauds apart,\n  Loud from the trump of Fame my name is blown;\n  Best gift of heaven it is, in glory\u2019s hour,\n  To think thereon with soberness: and thou\u2014\n  Bethink thee of the adage, _Call none blest\n  Till peaceful death have crowned a life of weal._\n  \u2019Tis said: I fain would fare unvexed by fear.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n  Nay, but unsay it\u2014thwart not thou my will!\n\nAGAMEMNON\n  Know, I have said, and will not mar my word.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n  Was it fear made this meekness to the gods?\n\nAGAMEMNON\n  If cause be cause, \u2019tis mine for this resolve.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n  What, think\u2019st thou, in thy place had Priam done?\n\nAGAMEMNON\n  He surely would have walked on broidered robes.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n  Then fear not thou the voice of human blame.\n\nAGAMEMNON\n  Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n  Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.\n\nAGAMEMNON\n  War is not woman\u2019s part, nor war of words.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nYet happy victors well may yield therein.\n\nAGAMEMNON\nDost crave for triumph in this petty strife?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nYield; of thy grace permit me to prevail!\n\nAGAMEMNON\nThen, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose\nSwiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot:\nAnd stepping thus upon the sea\u2019s rich dye,\nI pray, _Let none among the gods look down\nWith jealous eye on me_\u2014reluctant all,\nTo trample thus and mar a thing of price,\nWasting the wealth of garments silver-worth.\nEnough hereof: and, for the stranger maid,\nLead her within, but gently: God on high\nLooks graciously on him whom triumph\u2019s hour\nHas made not pitiless. None willingly\nWear the slave\u2019s yoke\u2014and she, the prize and flower\nOf all we won, comes hither in my train,\nGift of the army to its chief and lord.\n\u2014Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,\nI will pass in on purples to my home.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nA Sea there is\u2014and who shall stay its springs?\nAnd deep within its breast, a mighty store,\nPrecious as silver, of the purple dye,\nWhereby the dipped robe doth its tint renew.\nEnough of such, O king, within thy halls\nThere lies, a store that cannot fail; but I\u2014\nI would have gladly vowed unto the gods\nCost of a thousand garments trodden thus,\n(Had once the oracle such gift required)\nContriving ransom for thy life preserved.\n  For while the stock is firm the foliage climbs,\n  Spreading a shade what time the dog-star glows;\n  And thou, returning to thine hearth and home,\n  Art as a genial warmth in winter hours,\n  Or as a coolness, when the lord of heaven\n  Mellows the juice within the bitter grape.\n  Such boons and more doth bring into a home\n  The present footstep of its proper lord.\n  Zeus, Zeus, Fulfilment\u2019s lord! my vows fulfil,\n  And whatsoe\u2019er it be, work forth thy will!\n\n[_Exeunt all but Cassandra and the Chorus._\n\nCHORUS\n  Wherefore for ever on the wings of fear\n    Hovers a vision drear\n  Before my boding heart? a strain,\n  Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,\n    Oracular of pain.\n  Not as of old upon my bosom\u2019s throne\n    Sits Confidence, to spurn\n    Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.\n  Old, old and gray long since the time has grown,\n    Which saw the link\u00e8d cables moor\n  The fleet, when erst it came to Ilion\u2019s sandy shore;\n    And now mine eyes and not another\u2019s see\n      Their safe return.\n\n    Yet none the less in me\n  The inner spirit sings a boding song,\n    Self-prompted, sings the Furies\u2019 strain\u2014\n      And seeks, and seeks in vain,\n      To hope and to be strong!\n\n  Ah! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,\n    Are these wild throbbings of my heart and breast\u2014\n      Yea, of some doom they tell\u2014\n        Each pulse, a knell.\n    Lief, lief I were, that all\n  To unfulfilment\u2019s hidden realm might fall.\n\n    Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,\n      Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied\u2014\n    Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,\n    Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,\n      The gales that waft our bark on Fortune\u2019s tide!\n      Swiftly we sail, the sooner all to drive\n      Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.\n\n    Then if the hand of caution warily\n      Sling forth into the sea\n    Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,\n    From the deep death it saves the bark: even so,\n      Doom-laden though it be, once more may rise\n      His household, who is timely wise.\n\n      How oft the famine-stricken field\nIs saved by God\u2019s large gift, the new year\u2019s yield!\n        But blood of man once spilled,\n    Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain,\u2014\n      Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.\n\n        So Zeus hath willed:\nElse had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled\n    To bring man from the dead: the hand divine\nDid smite himself with death\u2014a warning and a sign.\n\n    Ah me! if Fate, ordained of old,\nHeld not the will of gods constrained, controlled,\n      Helpless to us-ward, and apart\u2014\n      Swifter than speech my heart\nHad poured its presage out!\nNow, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,\n    \u2019Tis hopeless to unfold\nTruth, from fear\u2019s tangled skein; and, yearning to proclaim\n    Its thought, my soul is prophecy and flame.\n\n_Re-enter_ CLYTEMNESTRA\nGet thee within thou too, Cassandra, go!\nFor Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants\nTo share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,\nBeside the altar of his guardianship,\nSlave among many slaves. What, haughty still?\nStep from the car; Alcmena\u2019s son, \u2019tis said,\nWas sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.\nAy, hard it is, but, if such fate befall,\n\u2019Tis a fair chance to serve within a home\nOf ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,\nTo whom wealth\u2019s harvest came beyond his hope,\nIs as a lion to his slaves, in all\nExceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.\nPass in: thou hearest what our ways will be.\n\nCHORUS\nClear unto thee, O maid, is her command,\nBut thou\u2014within the toils of Fate thou art\u2014\nIf such thy will, I urge thee to obey;\nYet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nI wot\u2014unless like swallows she doth use\nSome strange barbarian tongue from oversea\u2014\nMy words must speak persuasion to her soul.\n\nCHORUS\nObey: there is no gentler way than this.\nStep from the car\u2019s high seat and follow her.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nTruce to this bootless waiting here without!\nI will not stay: beside the central shrine\nThe victims stand, prepared for knife and fire\u2014\nOfferings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.\nThou\u2014if thou reckest aught of my command,\n\u2019Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut\nFrom these my words, let thy barbarian hand\nFulfil by gesture the default of speech.\n\nCHORUS\nNo native is she, thus to read thy words\nUnaided: like some wild thing of the wood,\nNew-trapped, behold! she shrinks and glares on thee.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n\u2019Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,\nSince she beheld her city sink in fire,\nAnd hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until\nIn foam and blood her wrath be champed away.\nSee ye to her; unqueenly \u2019tis for me,\nUnheeded thus to cast away my words.\n\n[_Exit Clytemnestra._\n\nCHORUS\nBut with me pity sits in anger\u2019s place.\nPoor maiden, come thou from the car; no way\nThere is but this\u2014take up thy servitude.\n\nCASSANDRA\nWoe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou\nApollo, Apollo!\n\nCHORUS\nPeace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,\nWho will not brook the suppliance of woe.\n\nCASSANDRA\nWoe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou\nApollo, Apollo!\n\nCHORUS\nHark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,\nWho stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.\n\nCASSANDRA\nApollo, Apollo!\nGod of all ways, but only Death\u2019s to me,\nOnce and again, O thou, Destroyer named,\nThou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!\n\nCHORUS\nShe grows presageful of her woes to come,\nSlave tho\u2019 she be, instinct with prophecy.\n\nCASSANDRA\nApollo, Apollo!\nGod of all ways, but only Death\u2019s to me,\nO thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named!\nWhat way hast led me, to what evil home?\n\nCHORUS\nKnow\u2019st thou it not? The home of Atreus\u2019 race:\nTake these my words for sooth and ask no more.\n\nCASSANDRA\nHome cursed of God! Bear witness unto me,\n  Ye visioned woes within\u2014\nThe blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin\u2014\nThe strangling noose, and, spattered o\u2019er\nWith human blood, the reeking floor!\n\nCHORUS\nHow like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,\nKeen-scented unto blood and death she hies!\n\nCASSANDRA\nAh! can the ghostly guidance fail,\nWhereby my prophet-soul is onwards led?\nLook! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,\nTheir sodden limbs on which their father fed!\n\nCHORUS\nLong since we knew of thy prophetic fame,\u2014\nBut for those deeds we seek no prophet\u2019s tongue.\n\nCASSANDRA\nGod! \u2019tis another crime\u2014\nWorse than the storied woe of olden time,\nCureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here\u2014\nA shaming death, for those that should be dear!\n  Alas! and far away, in foreign land,\n  He that should help doth stand!\n\nCHORUS\nI knew th\u2019 old tales, the city rings withal\u2014\nBut now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.\n\nCASSANDRA\nO wretch, O purpose fell!\nThou for thy wedded lord\nThe cleansing wave hast poured\u2014\nA treacherous welcome!\n                       How the sequel tell?\nToo soon \u2019twill come, too soon, for now, even now,\nShe smites him, blow on blow!\n\nCHORUS\nRiddles beyond my rede\u2014I peer in vain\nThro\u2019 the dim films that screen the prophecy.\n\nCASSANDRA\nGod! a new sight! a net, a snare of hell,\nSet by her hand\u2014herself a snare more fell!\n  A wedded wife, she slays her lord,\nHelped by another hand!\n                       Ye powers, whose hate\n  Of Atreus\u2019 home no blood can satiate,\nRaise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred!\n\nCHORUS\nWhy biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,\nShriek o\u2019er the house? Thine is no cheering word.\n  Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel\n  My waning life-blood run\u2014\n  The blood that round the wounding steel\n  Ebbs slow, as sinks life\u2019s parting sun\u2014\nSwift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on!\n\nCASSANDRA\n  Away, away\u2014keep him away\u2014\n  The monarch of the herd, the pasture\u2019s pride,\n  Far from his mate! In treach\u2019rous wrath,\n  Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe\n    She gores his fenceless side!\n  Hark! in the brimming bath,\n  The heavy plash\u2014the dying cry\u2014\nHark\u2014in the laver\u2014hark, he falls by treachery!\n\nCHORUS\n  I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,\n  Yet something warns me that they tell of ill.\n    O dark prophetic speech,\n    Ill tidings dost thou teach\n    Ever, to mortals here below!\n    Ever some tale of awe and woe\n    Thro\u2019 all thy windings manifold\n    Do we unriddle and unfold!\n\nCASSANDRA\n  Ah well-a-day! the cup of agony,\n  Whereof I chant, foams with a draught for me.\n  Ah lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here\u2014\n  Was\u2019t but to die with thee whose doom is near?\n\nCHORUS\n  Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,\n  And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,\n  As piteous as the ceaseless tale\n  Wherewith the brown melodious bird\n  Doth ever Itys! Itys! wail,\nDeep-bowered in sorrow, all its little life-time\u2019s day!\n\nCASSANDRA\n  Ah for thy fate, O shrill-voiced nightingale!\n  Some solace for thy woes did Heaven afford,\n  Clothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart from wail\u2014\n  But for my death is edged the double-biting sword!\n\nCHORUS\n  What pangs are these, what fruitless pain,\n    Sent on thee from on high?\n  Thou chantest terror\u2019s frantic strain,\n  Yet in shrill measured melody.\n  How thus unerring canst thou sweep along\n  The prophet\u2019s path of boding song?\n\nCASSANDRA\n  Woe, Paris, woe on thee! thy bridal joy\n  Was death and fire upon thy race and Troy!\n    And woe for thee, Scamander\u2019s flood!\n    Beside thy banks, O river fair,\n    I grew in tender nursing care\n    From childhood unto maidenhood!\n  Now not by thine, but by Cocytus\u2019 stream\n  And Acheron\u2019s banks shall ring my boding scream.\n\nCHORUS\n  Too plain is all, too plain!\nA child might read aright thy fateful strain.\n  Deep in my heart their piercing fang\n  Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard\n  That piteous, low, tender word,\nYet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.\n\nCASSANDRA\n  Woe for my city, woe for Ilion\u2019s fall!\n    Father, how oft with sanguine stain\n  Streamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle, slain\n    That heaven might guard our wall!\n    But all was shed in vain.\n  Low lie the shattered towers whereas they fell,\n  And I\u2014ah burning heart!\u2014shall soon lie low as well.\n\nCHORUS\n  Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow still!\n    Alas, what power of ill\n  Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell\n  In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale?\nSome woe\u2014I know not what\u2014must close thy piteous wail.\n\nCASSANDRA\n  List! for no more the presage of my soul,\n  Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil;\n  But as the morning wind blows clear the east,\n  More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,\n  And as against the low bright line of dawn\n  Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,\n  So in the clearing skies of prescience\n  Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,\n  And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.\n  Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side\u2014\n  I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.\n  Within this house a choir abidingly\n  Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill;\n  Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,\n  Man\u2019s blood for wine, and revel in the halls,\n  Departing never, Furies of the home.\n  They sit within, they chant the primal curse,\n  Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,\n  The brother\u2019s couch, the love incestuous\n  That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.\n  Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,\n  Or doth its arrow cleave the mark indeed?\n  They called me once, _The prophetess of lies,\n  The wandering hag, the pest of every door\u2014_\n  Attest ye now, _She knows in very sooth\n  The house\u2019s curse, the storied infamy._\n\nCHORUS\nYet how should oath\u2014how loyally soe\u2019er\nI swear it\u2014aught avail thee? In good sooth,\nMy wonder meets thy claim: I stand amazed\nThat thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,\nDost as a native know and tell aright\nTales of a city of an alien tongue.\n\nCASSANDRA\nThat is my power\u2014a boon Apollo gave.\n\nCHORUS\nGod though he were, yearning for mortal maid?\n\nCASSANDRA\nAy! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.\n\nCHORUS\nSuch finer sense suits not with slavery.\n\nCASSANDRA\nHe strove to win me, panting for my love.\n\nCHORUS\nCame ye by compact unto bridal joys?\n\nCASSANDRA\nNay\u2014for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.\n\nCHORUS\nWert thou already dowered with prescience?\n\nCASSANDRA\nYea\u2014prophetess to Troy of all her doom.\n\nCHORUS\nHow left thee then Apollo\u2019s wrath unscathed?\n\nCASSANDRA\nI, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.\n\nCHORUS\nNot so\u2014to us at least thy words seem sooth.\n\nCASSANDRA\nWoe for me, woe! Again the agony\u2014\nDread pain that sees the future all too well\nWith ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.\nBehold ye\u2014yonder on the palace roof\nThe spectre-children sitting\u2014look, such things\nAs dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,\nHorrible shadows, that a kinsman\u2019s hand\nHath marked with murder, and their arms are full\u2014\nA rueful burden\u2014see, they hold them up,\nThe entrails upon which their father fed!\n\nFor this, for this, I say there plots revenge\nA coward lion, couching in the lair\u2014\nGuarding the gate against my master\u2019s foot\u2014\nMy master\u2014mine\u2014I bear the slave\u2019s yoke now,\nAnd he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,\nKnows not the fawning treachery of tongue\nOf this thing false and dog-like\u2014how her speech\nGlozes and sleeks her purpose, till she win\nBy ill fate\u2019s favour the desired chance,\nMoving like At\u00e8 to a secret end.\nO aweless soul! the woman slays her lord\u2014\nWoman? what loathsome monster of the earth\nWere fit comparison? The double snake\u2014\nOr Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman\u2019s bane,\nGirt round about with rocks? some hag of hell,\nRaving a truceless curse upon her kin?\nHark\u2014even now she cries exultingly\nThe vengeful cry that tells of battle turned\u2014\nHow fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored!\nNay then, believe me not: what skills belief\nOr disbelief? Fate works its will\u2014and thou\nWilt see and say in ruth, _Her tale was true._\n\nCHORUS\nAh\u2014\u2019tis Thyestes\u2019 feast on kindred flesh\u2014\nI guess her meaning and with horror thrill,\nHearing no shadow\u2019d hint of th\u2019 o\u2019er-true tale,\nBut its full hatefulness: yet, for the rest,\nFar from the track I roam, and know no more.\n\nCASSANDRA\n\u2019Tis Agamemnon\u2019s doom thou shalt behold.\n\nCHORUS\nPeace, hapless woman, to thy boding words!\n\nCASSANDRA\nFar from my speech stands he who sains and saves.\n\nCHORUS\nAy\u2014were such doom at hand\u2014which God forbid!\n\nCASSANDRA\nThou prayest idly\u2014these move swift to slay.\n\nCHORUS\nWhat man prepares a deed of such despite?\n\nCASSANDRA\nFool! thus to read amiss mine oracles.\n\nCHORUS\nDeviser and device are dark to me.\n\nCASSANDRA\nDark! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue.\n\nCHORUS\nAy\u2014but in thine, as in Apollo\u2019s strains,\nFamiliar is the tongue, but dark the thought.\n\nCASSANDRA\nAh ah the fire! it waxes, nears me now\u2014\nWoe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn!\n\nLo, how the woman-thing, the lioness\nCouched with the wolf\u2014her noble mate afar\u2014\nWill slay me, slave forlorn! Yea, like some witch,\nShe drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord\nWith double death\u2014his recompense for me!\nAy, \u2019tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,\nThat she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel!\nYe wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,\nYe showed me prophetess yet scorned of all\u2014\nI stamp you into death, or e\u2019er I die\u2014\nDown, to destruction!\n                      Thus I stand revenged\u2014\nGo, crown some other with a prophet\u2019s woe.\nLook! it is he, it is Apollo\u2019s self\nRending from me the prophet-robe he gave.\nGod! while I wore it yet, thou saw\u2019st me mocked\nThere at my home by each malicious mouth\u2014\nTo all and each, an undivided scorn.\nThe name alike and fate of witch and cheat\u2014\nWoe, poverty, and famine\u2014all I bore;\nAnd at this last the god hath brought me here\nInto death\u2019s toils, and what his love had made,\nHis hate unmakes me now: and I shall stand\nNot now before the altar of my home,\nBut me a slaughter-house and block of blood\nShall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.\nYet shall the gods have heed of me who die,\nFor by their will shall one requite my doom.\nHe, to avenge his father\u2019s blood outpoured,\nShall smite and slay with matricidal hand.\nAy, he shall come\u2014tho\u2019 far away he roam,\nA banished wanderer in a stranger\u2019s land\u2014\nTo crown his kindred\u2019s edifice of ill,\nCalled home to vengeance by his father\u2019s fall:\nThus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.\n\nAnd now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,\nSince first mine Ilion has found its fate\nAnd I beheld, and those who won the wall\nPass to such issue as the gods ordain?\nI too will pass and like them dare to die!\n\n[_Turns and looks upon the palace door._\n\nPortal of Hades, thus I bid thee hail!\nGrant me one boon\u2014a swift and mortal stroke,\nThat all unwrung by pain, with ebbing blood\nShed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.\n\nCHORUS\nMaid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,\nLong was thy prophecy: but if aright\nThou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,\nDost thou approach the altar of thy doom,\nAs fronts the knife some victim, heaven-controlled?\n\nCASSANDRA\nFriends, there is no avoidance in delay.\n\nCHORUS\nYet who delays the longest, his the gain.\n\nCASSANDRA\nThe day is come\u2014flight were small gain to me!\n\nCHORUS\nO brave endurance of a soul resolved!\n\nCASSANDRA\nThat were ill praise, for those of happier doom.\n\nCHORUS\nAll fame is happy, even famous death.\n\nCASSANDRA\nAh sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye!\n\n[_She moves to enter the house, then starts back._\n\nCHORUS\nWhat fear is this that scares thee from the house?\n\nCASSANDRA\nPah!\n\nCHORUS\nWhat is this cry? some dark despair of soul?\n\nCASSANDRA\nPah! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.\n\nCHORUS\nHow? \u2019tis the smell of household offerings.\n\nCASSANDRA\n\u2019Tis rank as charnel-scent from open graves.\n\nCHORUS\nThou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard?\n\nCASSANDRA\nNay, let me pass within to cry aloud\nThe monarch\u2019s fate and mine\u2014enough of life.\nAh friends!\nBear to me witness, since I fall in death,\nThat not as birds that shun the bush and scream\nI moan in idle terror. This attest\nWhen for my death\u2019s revenge another dies,\nA woman for a woman, and a man\nFalls, for a man ill-wedded to his curse.\nGrant me this boon\u2014the last before I die.\n\nCHORUS\nBrave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen.\n\nCASSANDRA\nOnce more one utterance, but not of wail,\nThough for my death\u2014and then I speak no more.\n\nSun! thou whose beam I shall not see again,\nTo thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls\nTo slay their kindred\u2019s slayers, quit withal\nThe death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey.\n\nAh state of mortal man! in time of weal,\nA line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,\nOne wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away\u2014\nAnd this I deem less piteous, of the twain.\n\n[_Exit into the palace._\n\nCHORUS\nToo true it is! our mortal state\nWith bliss is never satiate,\nAnd none, before the palace high\nAnd stately of prosperity,\nCries to us with a voice of fear,\n_Away! \u2019tis ill to enter here!_\n\nLo! this our lord hath trodden down,\nBy grace of heaven, old Priam\u2019s town,\n  And praised as god he stands once more\n  On Argos\u2019 shore!\nYet now\u2014if blood shed long ago\nCries out that other blood shall flow\u2014\nHis life-blood, his, to pay again\nThe stern requital of the slain\u2014\nPeace to that braggart\u2019s vaunting vain,\nWho, having heard the chieftain\u2019s tale,\nYet boasts of bliss untouched by bale!\n\n[_A loud cry from within._\n\nVOICE OF AGAMEMNON\nO I am sped\u2014a deep, a mortal blow.\n\nCHORUS\nListen, listen! who is screaming as in mortal agony?\n\nVOICE OF AGAMEMNON\nO! O! again, another, another blow!\n\nCHORUS\nThe bloody act is over\u2014I have heard the monarch\u2019s cry\u2014\nLet us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be doomed to die.\n\nONE OF THE CHORUS\n\u2019Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,\n\u201cHo! loyal Argives! to the palace, all!\u201d\n\nANOTHER\nBetter, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,\nAnd drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.\n\nANOTHER\nSuch will is mine, and what thou say\u2019st I say:\nSwiftly to act! the time brooks no delay.\n\nANOTHER\nAy, for \u2019tis plain, this prelude of their song\nForetells its close in tyranny and wrong.\n\nANOTHER\nBehold, we tarry\u2014but thy name, Delay,\nThey spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.\n\nANOTHER\nI know not what \u2019twere well to counsel now\u2014\nWho wills to act, \u2019tis his to counsel how.\n\nANOTHER\nThy doubt is mine: for when a man is slain,\nI have no words to bring his life again.\n\nANOTHER\nWhat? e\u2019en for life\u2019s sake, bow us to obey\nThese house-defilers and their tyrant sway?\n\nANOTHER\nUnmanly doom! \u2019twere better far to die\u2014\nDeath is a gentler lord than tyranny.\n\nANOTHER\nThink well\u2014must cry or sign of woe or pain\nFix our conclusion that the chief is slain?\n\nANOTHER\nSuch talk befits us when the deed we see\u2014\nConjecture dwells afar from certainty.\n\nLEADER OF THE CHORUS\nI read one will from many a diverse word,\nTo know aright, how stands it with our lord!\n\n[_The scene opens, disclosing Clytemnestra, who comes forward. The body\nof Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver;\nthe corpse of Cassandra is laid beside him._\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nHo, ye who heard me speak so long and oft\nThe glozing word that led me to my will\u2014\nHear how I shrink not to unsay it all!\nHow else should one who willeth to requite\nEvil for evil to an enemy\nDisguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,\nNot to be overleaped, a net of doom?\nThis is the sum and issue of old strife,\nOf me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.\nAll is avowed, and as I smote I stand\nWith foot set firm upon a finished thing!\nI turn not to denial: thus I wrought\nSo that he could nor flee nor ward his doom,\nEven as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,\nI trapped him with inextricable toils,\nThe ill abundance of a baffling robe;\nThen smote him, once, again\u2014and at each wound\nHe cried aloud, then as in death relaxed\nEach limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,\nOnce more I smote him, with the last third blow,\nSacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.\nAnd thus he fell, and as he passed away,\nSpirit with body chafed; each dying breath\nFlung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,\nAnd the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood\nFell upon me; and I was fain to feel\nThat dew\u2014not sweeter is the rain of heaven\nTo cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain,\n\nElders of Argos\u2014since the thing stands so,\nI bid you to rejoice, if such your will:\nRejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the deed,\nAnd well I ween, if seemly it could be,\n\u2019Twere not ill done to pour libations here,\nJustly\u2014ay, more than justly\u2014on his corpse\nWho filled his home with curses as with wine,\nAnd thus returned to drain the cup he filled.\n\nCHORUS\nI marvel at thy tongue\u2019s audacity,\nTo vaunt thus loudly o\u2019er a husband slain.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nYe hold me as a woman, weak of will,\nAnd strive to sway me: but my heart is stout,\nNor fears to speak its uttermost to you,\nAlbeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,\nEven as ye list,\u2014I reck not of your words.\nLo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,\nMy husband once\u2014and him this hand of mine,\nA right contriver, fashioned for his death.\nBehold the deed!\n\nCHORUS\n  Woman, what deadly birth,\nWhat venomed essence of the earth\nOr dark distilment of the wave,\n  To thee such passion gave,\nNerving thine hand\nTo set upon thy brow this burning crown,\n  The curses of thy land?\n_Our king by thee cut off, hewn down!\n  Go forth_\u2014they cry\u2014_accurs\u00e8d and forlorn,\n    To hate and scorn!_\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nO ye just men, who speak my sentence now,\nThe city\u2019s hate, the ban of all my realm!\nYe had no voice of old to launch such doom\nOn him, my husband, when he held as light\nMy daughter\u2019s life as that of sheep or goat,\nOne victim from the thronging fleecy fold!\nYea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,\nThe well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,\nTo lull and lay the gales that blew from Thrace.\nThat deed of his, I say, that stain and shame,\nHad rightly been atoned by banishment;\nBut ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judge\nThis deed of mine that doth affront your ears.\nStorm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,\nThat I am ready, if your hand prevail\nAs mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway:\nIf God say nay, it shall be yours to learn\nBy chastisement a late humility.\n\nCHORUS\nBold is thy craft, and proud\nThy confidence, thy vaunting loud;\nThy soul, that chose a murd\u2019ress\u2019 fate,\nIs all with blood elate\u2014\nMaddened to know\nThe blood not yet avenged, the damn\u00e8d spot\nCrimson upon thy brow.\nBut Fate prepares for thee thy lot\u2014\nSmitten as thou didst smite, without a friend,\nTo meet thine end!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nHear then the sanction of the oath I swear\u2014\nBy the great vengeance for my murdered child,\nBy At\u00e8, by the Fury unto whom\nThis man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,\nI do not look to tread the hall of Fear,\nWhile in this hearth and home of mine there burns\nThe light of love\u2014Aegisthus\u2014as of old\nLoyal, a stalwart shield of confidence\u2014\nAs true to me as this slain man was false,\nWronging his wife with paramours at Troy,\nFresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there!\nBehold him dead\u2014behold his captive prize,\nSeeress and harlot\u2014comfort of his bed,\nTrue prophetess, true paramour\u2014I wot\nThe sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,\nFull oft, of every rower, than was she.\nSee, ill they did, and ill requites them now.\nHis death ye know: she as a dying swan\nSang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,\nClose to his side, and to my couch has left\nA sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.\n\nCHORUS\nAh woe and well-a-day! I would that Fate\u2014\nNot bearing agony too great,\nNor stretching me too long on couch of pain\u2014\nWould bid mine eyelids keep\nThe morningless and unawakening sleep!\nFor life is weary, now my lord is slain,\nThe gracious among kings!\nHard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,\nAnd for a woman\u2019s sake, on Ilian land\u2014\nNow is his life hewn down, and by a woman\u2019s hand.\n    O Helen, O infatuate soul,\n    Who bad\u2019st the tides of battle roll,\n    O\u2019erwhelming thousands, life on life,\n    \u2019Neath Ilion\u2019s wall!\nAnd now lies dead the lord of all.\n  The blossom of thy storied sin\n  Bears blood\u2019s inexpiable stain,\n  O thou that erst, these halls within,\n  Wert unto all a rock of strife,\n    A husband\u2019s bane!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nPeace! pray not thou for death as though\nThine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,\nNor turn thy wrath aside to ban\nThe name of Helen, nor recall\nHow she, one bane of many a man,\nSent down to death the Danaan lords,\nTo sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,\nAnd wrought the woe that shattered all.\n\nCHORUS\nFiend of the race! that swoopest fell\n  Upon the double stock of Tantalus,\nLording it o\u2019er me by a woman\u2019s will,\n  Stern, manful, and imperious\u2014\n    A bitter sway to me!\n    Thy very form I see,\n  Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,\nExulting o\u2019er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nRight was that word\u2014thou namest well\nThe brooding race-fiend, triply fell!\nFrom him it is that murder\u2019s thirst,\nBlood-lapping, inwardly is nursed\u2014\nEre time the ancient scar can sain,\nNew blood comes welling forth again.\n\nCHORUS\nGrim is his wrath and heavy on our home,\n  That fiend of whom thy voice has cried,\nAlas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,\n  An all-devouring doom!\n\nAh woe, ah Zeus! from Zeus all things befall\u2014\n  Zeus the high cause and finisher of all!\u2014\nLord of our mortal state, by him are willed\n  All things, by him fulfilled!\n\nYet ah my king, my king no more!\nWhat words to say, what tears to pour\n  Can tell my love for thee?\nThe spider-web of treachery\nShe wove and wound, thy life around,\n  And lo! I see thee lie,\nAnd thro\u2019 a coward, impious wound\n  Pant forth thy life and die!\nA death of shame\u2014ah woe on woe!\nA treach\u2019rous hand, a cleaving blow!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nMy guilt thou harpest, o\u2019er and o\u2019er!\nI bid thee reckon me no more\n  As Agamemnon\u2019s spouse.\nThe old Avenger, stern of mood\nFor Atreus and his feast of blood,\n  Hath struck the lord of Atreus\u2019 house,\nAnd in the semblance of his wife\n  The king hath slain.\u2014\nYea, for the murdered children\u2019s life,\n  A chieftain\u2019s in requital ta\u2019en.\n\nCHORUS\nThou guiltless of this murder, thou!\n  Who dares such thought avow?\n  Yet it may be, wroth for the parent\u2019s deed,\n  The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.\n    Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on\n    Thro\u2019 streams of blood by kindred shed,\n    Exacting the accompt for children dead,\nFor clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.\n\n      Yet ah my king, my king no more!\n      What words to say, what tears to pour\n        Can tell my love for thee?\n      The spider-web of treachery\n      She wove and wound, thy life around,\n        And lo! I see thee lie,\n      And thro\u2019 a coward, impious wound\n        Pant forth thy life and die!\n      A death of shame\u2014ah woe on woe!\n      A treach\u2019rous hand, a cleaving blow!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n     I deem not that the death he died\n       Had overmuch of shame:\n     For this was he who did provide\n       Foul wrong unto his house and name:\n     His daughter, blossom of my womb,\n     He gave unto a deadly doom,\n     Iphigenia, child of tears!\n     And as he wrought, even so he fares.\n     Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell;\n     For by the sword his sin he wrought,\n     And by the sword himself is brought\n       Among the dead to dwell.\n\nCHORUS\n    Ah whither shall I fly?\nFor all in ruin sinks the kingly hall;\nNor swift device nor shift of thought have I,\n    To \u2019scape its fall.\nA little while the gentler rain-drops fail;\nI stand distraught\u2014a ghastly interval,\n  Till on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail\n  Of blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel\n  On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,\n    The steel that smites, in Justice\u2019 hold,\n    Another death to deal.\n  O Earth! that I had lain at rest\n  And lapped for ever in thy breast,\n  Ere I had seen my chieftain fall\n  Within the laver\u2019s silver wall,\n  Low-lying on dishonoured bier!\n  And who shall give him sepulchre,\n  And who the wail of sorrow pour?\n  Woman, \u2019tis thine no more!\n  A graceless gift unto his shade\n  Such tribute, by his murd\u2019ress paid!\n  Strive not thus wrongly to atone\n  The impious deed thy hand hath done.\n  Ah who above the god-like chief\n  Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?\n  Who speak above his lowly grave\n  The last sad praises of the brave?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n    Peace! for such task is none of thine.\n      By me he fell, by me he died,\n    And now his burial rites be mine!\n    Yet from these halls no mourners\u2019 train\n      Shall celebrate his obsequies;\n    Only by Acheron\u2019s rolling tide\n    His child shall spring unto his side,\n      And in a daughter\u2019s loving wise\n    Shall clasp and kiss him once again!\n\nCHORUS\nLo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg\u2019d by sorrow\u2014\n    And who the end can know?\nThe slayer of to-day shall die to-morrow\u2014\n    The wage of wrong is woe.\nWhile Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,\n    His law is fixed and stern;\nOn him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured\u2014\n    The tides of doom return.\nThe children of the curse abide within\n    These halls of high estate\u2014\nAnd none can wrench from off the home of sin\n    The clinging grasp of fate.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n    Now walks thy word aright, to tell\n    This ancient truth of oracle;\n    But I with vows of sooth will pray\n    To him, the power that holdeth sway\n      O\u2019er all the race of Pleisthenes\u2014\n    _Tho\u2019 dark the deed and deep the guilt,\n    With this last blood, my hands have spilt,\n      I pray thee let thine anger cease!\n    I pray thee pass from us away\n      To some new race in other lands,\n    There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay\n      The lives of men by kindred hands._\n\n    For me \u2019tis all sufficient meed,\n    Tho\u2019 little wealth or power were won,\n    So I can say, _\u2019Tis past and done.\n    The bloody lust and murderous,\n    The inborn frenzy of our house,\n      Is ended, by my deed!_\n\n[_Enter Aegisthus._\n\nAEGISTHUS\nDawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail!\nI dare at length aver that gods above\nHave care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.\nI, I who stand and thus exult to see\nThis man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,\nSlain in requital of his father\u2019s craft.\nTake ye the truth, that Atreus, this man\u2019s sire,\nThe lord and monarch of this land of old,\nHeld with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,\nBrother with brother, for the prize of sway,\nAnd drave him from his home to banishment.\nThereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole\nAnd clung a suppliant to the hearth divine,\nAnd for himself won this immunity\u2014\nNot with his own blood to defile the land\nThat gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire\nOf him who here lies dead, this welcome planned\u2014\nWith zeal that was not love he feigned to hold\nIn loyal joy a day of festal cheer,\nAnd bade my father to his board, and set\nBefore him flesh that was his children once.\nFirst, sitting at the upper board alone,\nHe hid the fingers and the feet, but gave\nThe rest\u2014and readily Thyestes took\nWhat to his ignorance no semblance wore\nOf human flesh, and ate: behold what curse\nThat eating brought upon our race and name!\nFor when he knew what all unhallowed thing\nHe thus had wrought, with horror\u2019s bitter cry\nBack-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,\nOn Pelops\u2019 house a deadly curse he spake\u2014\n_As darkly as I spurn this damn\u00e8d food,\nSo perish all the race of Pleisthenes!_\nThus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,\nAnd I\u2014who else?\u2014this murder wove and planned;\nFor me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,\nOf the three children youngest, Atreus sent\nTo banishment by my sad father\u2019s side:\nBut Justice brought me home once more, grown now\nTo manhood\u2019s years; and stranger tho\u2019 I was,\nMy right hand reached unto the chieftain\u2019s life,\nPlotting and planning all that malice bade.\nAnd death itself were honour now to me,\nBeholding him in Justice\u2019 ambush ta\u2019en.\n\nCHORUS\nAegisthus, for this insolence of thine\nThat vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.\nOf thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain\nThe chieftain, by thine own unaided plot\nDevised the piteous death: I rede thee well,\nThink not thy head shall \u2019scape, when right prevails,\nThe people\u2019s ban, the stones of death and doom.\n\nAEGISTHUS\nThis word from thee, this word from one who rows\nLow at the oars beneath, what time we rule,\nWe of the upper tier? Thou\u2019lt know anon,\n\u2019Tis bitter to be taught again in age,\nBy one so young, submission at the word.\nBut iron of the chain and hunger\u2019s throes\nCan minister unto an o\u2019erswoln pride\nMarvellous well, ay, even in the old.\nHast eyes, and seest not this? Peace\u2014kick not thus\nAgainst the pricks, unto thy proper pain!\n\nCHORUS\nThou womanish man, waiting till war did cease,\nHome-watcher and defiler of the couch,\nAnd arch-deviser of the chieftain\u2019s doom!\n\nAEGISTHUS\nBold words again! but they shall end in tears.\nThe very converse, thine, of Orpheus\u2019 tongue:\nHe roused and led in ecstasy of joy\nAll things that heard his voice melodious;\nBut thou as with the futile cry of curs\nWilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace!\nOr strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.\n\nCHORUS\nAy, thou art one to hold an Argive down\u2014\nThou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,\nBut not with thine own hand to smite the blow!\n\nAEGISTHUS\nThat fraudful force was woman\u2019s very part,\nNot mine, whom deep suspicion from of old\nWould have debarred. Now by his treasure\u2019s aid\nMy purpose holds to rule the citizens.\nBut whoso will not bear my guiding hand,\nHim for his corn-fed mettle I will drive\nNot as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,\nBut to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.\nFamine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,\nShall look on him and shall behold him tame.\n\nCHORUS\nThou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight\nTo deal in murder, while a woman\u2019s hand,\nStaining and shaming Argos and its gods,\nAvailed to slay him? Ho, if anywhere\nThe light of life smite on Orestes\u2019 eyes,\nLet him, returning by some guardian fate,\nHew down with force her paramour and her!\n\nAEGISTHUS\nHow thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly understand.\n\nCHORUS\nUp to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand. Swift, your\nright hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for strife\u2014\n\nAEGISTHUS\nLo! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or life.\n\nCHORUS\n\u2019Twas thy word and we accept it: onward to the chance of war!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nNay, enough, enough, my champion! we will smite and slay no more.\nAlready have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt:\nEnough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.\nPeace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed,\nLest ill valour meet our vengeance\u2014\u2019twas a necessary deed.\nBut enough of toils and troubles\u2014be the end, if ever, now,\nEre thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.\n\u2019Tis a woman\u2019s word of warning, and let who will list thereto.\n\nAEGISTHUS\nBut that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms of the tongue,\nAnd in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,\n\n  And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler\u2019s word\u2014\n\nCHORUS\n  Ruler? but \u2019tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard lord!\n\nAEGISTHUS\nI will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway.\n\nCHORUS\nNot if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way.\n\nAEGISTHUS\nAh, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return.\n\nCHORUS\nFare and batten on pollution of the right, while \u2019tis thy turn.\n\nAEGISTHUS\nThou shalt pay, be well assur\u00e8d, heavy quittance for thy pride\n\nCHORUS\nCrow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock, his mate beside!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nHeed not thou too highly of them\u2014let the cur-pack growl and yell:\nI and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well.\n\n[_Exeunt_.\n\n\nTHE LIBATION-BEARERS\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nORESTES\nCHORUS OF CAPTIVE WOMEN\nELECTRA\nA NURSE\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nAEGISTHUS\nAN ATTENDANT\nPYLADES\n\n_The Scene is the Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae; afterwards, the Palace\nof Atreus, hard by the Tomb._\n\n_Orestes_\n\nL ord of the shades and patron of the realm\nThat erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,\nHermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,\nMe who from banishment returning stand\nOn this my country; lo, my foot is set\nOn this grave-mound, and herald-like, as thou,\nOnce and again, I bid my father hear.\nAnd these twin locks, from mine head shorn, I bring,\nAnd one to Inachus the river-god,\nMy young life\u2019s nurturer, I dedicate,\nAnd one in sign of mourning unfulfilled\nI lay, though late, on this my father\u2019s grave.\nFor O my father, not beside thy corse\nStood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand\nStretched out to bear thee forth to burial.\n\nWhat sight is yonder? what this woman-throng\nHitherward coming, by their sable garb\nMade manifest as mourners? What hath chanced?\nDoth some new sorrow hap within the home?\nOr rightly may I deem that they draw near\nBearing libations, such as soothe the ire\nOf dead men angered, to my father\u2019s grave?\nNay, such they are indeed; for I descry\nElectra mine own sister pacing hither,\nIn moody grief conspicuous. Grant, O Zeus,\nGrant me my father\u2019s murder to avenge\u2014\nBe thou my willing champion!\n                              Pylades,\nPass we aside, till rightly I discern\nWherefore these women throng in suppliance.\n\n[_Exeunt Pylades and Orestes; enter the Chorus bearing vessels for\nlibation; Electra follows them; they pace slowly towards the tomb of\nAgamemnon_.\n\nCHORUS\nForth from the royal halls by high command\n  I bear libations for the dead.\nRings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,\n  And all my cheek is rent and red,\nFresh-furrowed by my nails, and all my soul\nThis many a day doth feed on cries of dole.\n  And trailing tatters of my vest,\nIn looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,\n  Hang rent around my breast,\nEven as I, by blows of Fate most stern\n  Saddened and torn.\n\n  Oracular thro\u2019 visions, ghastly clear,\nBearing a blast of wrath from realms below,\nAnd stiffening each rising hair with dread,\n  Came out of dream-land Fear,\n  And, loud and awful, bade\nThe shriek ring out at midnight\u2019s witching hour,\n  And brooded, stern with woe,\nAbove the inner house, the woman\u2019s bower.\nAnd seers inspired did read the dream on oath,\n  Chanting aloud _In realms below\n    The dead are wroth;\nAgainst their slayers yet their ire doth glow_.\n\nTherefore to bear this gift of graceless worth\u2014\n  O Earth, my nursing mother!\u2014\nThe woman god-accurs\u2019d doth send me forth\n  Lest one crime bring another.\nIll is the very word to speak, for none\n       Can ransom or atone\nFor blood once shed and darkening the plain.\n    O hearth of woe and bane,\n    O state that low doth lie!\nSunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood\n  Above the home of murdered majesty.\n\nRumour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,\nPervading ears and soul of lesser men,\n    Is silent now and dead.\n    Yet rules a viler dread;\n  For bliss and power, however won,\nAs gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.\n\nJustice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,\n  Some that are yet in light;\n  Others in interspace of day and night,\n    Till Fate arouse them, stay;\nAnd some are lapped in night, where all things are undone.\n\nOn the life-giving lap of Earth\n   Blood hath flowed forth;\nAnd now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain\u2014\n  Unmelting, uneffaced the stain.\nAnd At\u00e8 tarries long, but at the last\n        The sinner\u2019s heart is cast\nInto pervading, waxing pangs of pain.\n\n  Lo, when man\u2019s force doth ope\nThe virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hope\n  For what is lost,\u2014even so, I deem,\nThough in one channel ran Earth\u2019s every stream,\n  Laving the hand defiled from murder\u2019s stain,\n      It were vain.\n\nAnd upon me\u2014ah me!\u2014the gods have laid\n  The woe that wrapped round Troy,\nWhat time they led down from home and kin\n      Unto a slave\u2019s employ\u2014\n    The doom to bow the head\n    And watch our master\u2019s will\n      Work deeds of good and ill\u2014\nTo see the headlong sway of force and sin,\n  And hold restrained the spirit\u2019s bitter hate,\n  Wailing the monarch\u2019s fruitless fate,\nHiding my face within my robe, and fain\nOf tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.\n\nELECTRA\nHand maidens, orderers of the palace-halls,\nSince at my side ye come, a suppliant train,\nCompanions of this offering, counsel me\nAs best befits the time: for I, who pour\nUpon the grave these streams funereal,\nWith what fair word can I invoke my sire?\nShall I aver, _Behold, I bear these gifts\nFrom well-beloved wife unto her well-beloved lord_,\nWhen \u2019tis from her, my mother, that they come?\nI dare not say it: of all words I fail\nWherewith to consecrate unto my sire\nThese sacrificial honours on his grave.\nOr shall I speak this word, as mortals use\u2014\n_Give back, to those who send these coronals\nFull recompense\u2014of ills for acts malign?\nOr shall I pour this draught for Earth to drink_,\nSans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,\nAnd homeward pass with unreverted eyes,\nCasting the bowl away, as one who flings\nThe household cleansings to the common road?\nBe art and part, O friends, in this my doubt,\nEven as ye are in that one common hate\nWhereby we live attended: fear ye not\nThe wrath of any man, nor hide your word\nWithin your breast: the day of death and doom\nAwaits alike the freeman and the slave.\nSpeak, then, if aught thou know\u2019st to aid us more.\n\nCHORUS\nThou biddest; I will speak my soul\u2019s thought out,\nRevering as a shrine thy father\u2019s grave.\n\nELECTRA\nSay then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest.\n\nCHORUS\nSpeak solemn words to them that love, and pour.\n\nELECTRA\nAnd of his kin whom dare I name as kind?\n\nCHORUS\nThyself; and next, whoe\u2019er Aegisthus scorns.\n\nELECTRA\nThen \u2019tis myself and thou, my prayer must name.\n\nCHORUS\nWhoe\u2019er they be, \u2019tis thine to know and name them.\n\nELECTRA\nIs there no other we may claim as ours?\n\nCHORUS\nThink of Orestes, though far-off he be.\n\nELECTRA\nRight well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.\n\nCHORUS\nMindfully, next, on those who shed the blood\u2014\n\nELECTRA\nPray on them what? expound, instruct my doubt.\n\nCHORUS\nThis; _Upon them some god or mortal come_\u2014\u2014\n\nELECTRA\nAs judge or as avenger? speak thy thought.\n\nCHORUS\nPray in set terms, _Who shall the slayer slay_.\n\nELECTRA\nBeseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven?\n\nCHORUS\nHow not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe?\n\nELECTRA\nO mighty Hermes, warder of the shades,\nHerald of upper and of under world,\nProclaim and usher down my prayer\u2019s appeal\nUnto the gods below, that they with eyes\nWatchful behold these halls, my sire\u2019s of old\u2014\nAnd unto Earth, the mother of all things,\nAnd foster-nurse, and womb that takes their seed.\n\nLo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,\nCall on my father, who yet holds in ruth\nMe and mine own Orestes, _Father, speak\u2014\nHow shall thy children rule thine halls again?\nHomeless we are and sold; and she who sold\nIs she who bore us; and the price she took\nIs he who joined with her to work thy death_,\n_Aegisthus, her new lord. Behold me here\nBrought down to slave\u2019s estate, and far away\nWanders Orestes, banished from the wealth\nThat once was thine, the profit of thy care,\nWhereon these revel in a shameful joy.\nFather, my prayer is said; \u2019tis thine to hear\u2014\nGrant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,\nAnd unto me grant these\u2014a purer soul\nThan is my mother\u2019s, a more stainless hand._\n\nThese be my prayers for us; for thee, O sire,\nI cry that one may come to smite thy foes,\nAnd that the slayers may in turn be slain.\nCursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,\nPraying mine own, a counter-curse on them.\nAnd thou, send up to us the righteous boon\nFor which we pray: thine aids be heaven and earth,\nAnd justice guide the right to victory,\n\n[_To the Chorus._\n\nThus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,\nAnd follow ye the wont, and as with flowers\nCrown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge,\nYour lips ring out above the dead man\u2019s grave.\n\n[_She pours the libations_.\n\nCHORUS\n      Woe, woe, woe!\nLet the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground\n      Where our lord lies low:\nFall and cleanse away the cursed libation\u2019s stain,\n      Shed on this grave-mound,\nFenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane\n      From the dead are found.\n        Lord of Argos, hearken!\nThough around thee darken\n  Mist of death and hell, arise and hear!\nHearken and awaken to our cry of woe!\n      Who with might of spear\n        Shall our home deliver?\n      Who like Ares bend until it quiver,\n      Bend the northern bow?\nWho with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust with glaive,\n      Thrust and slay and save?\n\nELECTRA\n    Lo! the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass\u2014\n    Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.\n\nCHORUS\n    Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.\n\nELECTRA\n    I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.\n\nCHORUS\n    Shorn from what man or what deep-girded maid?\n\nELECTRA\n    That may he guess who will; the sign is plain.\n\nCHORUS\n    Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.\n\nELECTRA\n    None is there here but I, to clip such gift.\n\nCHORUS\n    For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.\n\nELECTRA\n    And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like\u2014\n\nCHORUS\n    Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.\n\nELECTRA\nLike unto those my father\u2019s children wear.\n\nCHORUS\nThen is this lock Orestes\u2019 secret gift?\n\nELECTRA\nMost like it is unto the curls he wore,\n\nCHORUS\nYet how dared he to come unto his home?\n\nELECTRA\nHe hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.\n\nCHORUS\nIt is a sorrow grievous as his death,\nThat he should live yet never dare return.\n\nELECTRA\nYea, and my heart o\u2019erflows with gall of grief,\nAnd I am pierced as with a cleaving dart;\nLike to the first drops after drought, my tears\nFall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,\nAs on this lock I gaze; I cannot deem\nThat any Argive save Orestes\u2019 self\nWas ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,\nHath she, the murd\u2019ress, shorn and laid this lock\nTo mourn him whom she slew\u2014my mother she,\nBearing no mother\u2019s heart, but to her race\nA loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven!\nYet to affirm, as utterly made sure,\nThat this adornment cometh of the hand\nOf mine Orestes, brother of my soul,\nI may not venture, yet hope flatters fair!\nAh well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice\nTo glad mine ears, as might a messenger,\nBidding me sway no more \u2019twixt fear and hope,\nClearly commanding, _Cast me hence away,\nClipped was I from some head thou lovest not;_\nOr, _I am kin to thee, and here, as thou,\nI come to weep and deck our father\u2019s grave._\nAid me, ye gods! for well indeed ye know\nHow in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,\nLike to the seaman\u2019s bark, we whirl and stray.\nBut, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,\nFrom seed how small, the new tree of our home!\u2014\nLo ye, a second sign\u2014these footsteps, look,\u2014\nLike to my own, a corresponsive print;\nAnd look, another footmark,\u2014this his own,\nAnd that the foot of one who walked with him.\nMark, how the heel and tendons\u2019 print combine,\nMeasured exact, with mine coincident!\nAlas! for doubt and anguish rack my mind.\n\nORESTES (_approaching suddenly_)\nPray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled, _Fair fall the rest of\nwhat I ask of heaven_.\n\nELECTRA\nWherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?\n\nORESTES\nThis, that thine eyes behold thy heart\u2019s desire.\n\nELECTRA\nOn whom of mortals know\u2019st thou that I call?\n\nORESTES\nI know thy yearning for Orestes deep.\n\nELECTRA\nSay then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?\n\nORESTES\nI, I am he; seek not one more akin.\n\nELECTRA\nSome fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?\n\nORESTES\nAgainst myself I weave it, if I weave.\n\nELECTRA\nAh, thou hast mind to mock me in my woe!\n\nORESTES\n\u2019Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.\n\nELECTRA\nSpeak I with thee then as Orestes\u2019 self?\n\nORESTES\nMy very face thou see\u2019st and know\u2019st me not,\nAnd yet but now, when thou didst see the lock\nShorn for my father\u2019s grave, and when thy quest\nWas eager on the footprints I had made,\nEven I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,\nFluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me!\nLay now this ringlet whence \u2019twas shorn, and judge,\nAnd look upon this robe, thine own hands\u2019 work,\nThe shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon\u2014\nRefrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,\nFor well I wot, our kin are less than kind.\n\nELECTRA\nO thou that art unto our father\u2019s home\nLove, grief and hope, for thee the tears ran down,\nFor thee, the son, the saviour that should be;\nTrust thou thine arm and win thy father\u2019s halls!\nO aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,\nWhom upon thee the heart\u2019s constraint bids call\nAs on my father, and the claim of love\nFrom me unto my mother turns to thee,\nFor she is very hate; to thee too turns\nWhat of my heart went out to her who died\nA ruthless death upon the altar-stone;\nAnd for myself I love thee\u2014thee that wast\nA brother leal, sole stay of love to me.\nNow by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus\nSaviour almighty, stand to aid the twain!\n\nORESTES\nZeus, Zeus! look down on our estate and us,\nThe orphaned brood of him, our eagle-sire,\nWhom to his death a fearful serpent brought\nEnwinding him in coils; and we, bereft\nAnd foodless, sink with famine, all too weak\nTo bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,\nSuch quarry as he slew. Lo! I and she,\nElectra, stand before thee, fatherless,\nAnd each alike cast out and homeless made.\n\nELECTRA\nAnd if thou leave to death the brood of him\nWhose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence\nWas thine, all thine,\u2014whence, in the after years,\nShall any hand like his adorn thy shrine\nWith sacrifice of flesh? the eaglets slain,\nThou wouldst not have a messenger to bear\nThine omens, once so clear, to mortal men;\nSo, if this kingly stock be withered all,\nNone on high festivals will fend thy shrine\nStoop thou to raise us! strong the race shall show,\nThough puny now it seem, and fallen low.\n\nCHORUS\nO children, saviours of your father\u2019s home,\nBeware ye of your words, lest one should hear\nAnd bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,\nUnto our masters\u2014whom God grant to me\nIn pitchy reek of fun\u2019ral flame to see!\n\nORESTES\nNay, mighty is Apollo\u2019s oracle\nAnd shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass\nThro\u2019 all this peril; clear the voice rang out\nWith many warnings, sternly threatening\nTo my hot heart the wintry chill of pain,\nUnless upon the slayers of my sire\nI pressed for vengeance: this the god\u2019s command\u2014\nThat I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,\nShould with a craft like theirs the slayers slay:\nElse with my very life I should atone\nThis deed undone, in many a ghastly wise\nFor he proclaimed unto the ears of men\nThat offerings, poured to angry power of death,\nExude again, unless their will be done,\nAs grim disease on those that poured them forth\u2014\nAs leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh\nAnd with fell fangs corroding what of old\nWore natural form; and on the brow arise\nWhite poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.\nHe spake moreover of assailing fiends\nEmpowered to quit on me my father\u2019s blood,\nWreaking their wrath on me, what time in night\nBeneath shut lids the spirit\u2019s eye sees clear.\nThe dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell\nBy spirits of the murdered dead who call\nUnto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,\nThe night-tide\u2019s visitant, and madness\u2019 curse\nShould drive and rack me; and my tortured frame\nShould be chased forth from man\u2019s community\nAs with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.\nFor me and such as me no lustral bowl\nShould stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God\nFor me, and wrath unseen of my dead sire\nShould drive me from the shrine; no man should dare\nTo take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me:\nSlow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,\nAnd pitiless horror wind me for the grave,\nThis spake the god\u2014this dare I disobey?\nYea, though I dared, the deed must yet be done;\nFor to that end diverse desires combine,\u2014\nThe god\u2019s behest, deep grief for him who died,\nAnd last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled\u2014\nAll these weigh on me, urge that Argive men,\nMinions of valour, who with soul of fire\nDid make of fenc\u00e8d Troy a ruinous heap,\nBe not left slaves to two and each a woman!\nFor he, the man, wears woman\u2019s heart; if not\nSoon shall he know, confronted by a man.\n\n[_Orestes, Electra, and the Chorus gather round the tomb of Agamemnon\nfor the invocation which follows_.\n\nCHORUS\n    Mighty Fates, on you we call!\n    Bid the will of Zeus ordain\n    Power to those, to whom again\n    Justice turns with hand and aid!\n    Grievous was the prayer one made\u2014\n    Grievous let the answer fall!\n    Where the mighty doom is set,\n    Justice claims aloud her debt\n    Who in blood hath dipped the steel,\n    Deep in blood her meed shall feel!\n    List an immemorial word\u2014\n      _Whosoe\u2019er shall take the sword\n      Shall perish by the sword._\n\nORESTES\nFather, unblest in death, O father mine!\n    What breath of word or deed\nCan I waft on thee from this far confine\n    Unto thy lowly bed,\u2014\nWaft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,\n    Hope\u2019s counter-gleam of fire?\nYet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying\n    Unto each parted sire.\n\nCHORUS\nO child, the spirit of the dead,\nAltho\u2019 upon his flesh have fed\n  The grim teeth of the flame,\nIs quelled not; after many days\nThe sting of wrath his soul shall raise,\n  A vengeance to reclaim!\nTo the dead rings loud our cry\u2014\nPlain the living\u2019s treachery\u2014\nSwelling, shrilling, urged on high,\n  The vengeful dirge, for parents slain,\n  Shall strive and shall attain.\n\nELECTRA\n  Hear me too, even me, O father, hear!\nNot by one child alone these groans, these tears are shed\n    Upon thy sepulchre.\n  Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,\n  Stands, a suppliant, homeless made:\n    Ah, and all is full of ill,\n  Comfort is there none to say!\n  Strive and wrestle as we may,\n    Still stands doom invincible.\n\nCHORUS\n  Nay, if so he will, the god\n    Still our tears to joy can turn\n  He can bid a triumph-ode\n    Drown the dirge beside this urn;\n  He to kingly halls can greet\nThe child restored, the homeward-guided feet.\n\nORESTES\nAh my father! hadst thou lain\n  Under Ilion\u2019s wall,\nBy some Lycian spearman slain,\n  Thou hadst left in this thine hall\nHonour; thou hadst wrought for us\nFame and life most glorious.\n  Over-seas if thou had\u2019st died,\nHeavily had stood thy tomb,\n  Heaped on high; but, quenched in pride,\nGrief were light unto thy home.\n\nCHORUS\nLoved and honoured hadst thou lain\n  By the dead that nobly fell,\nIn the under-world again,\n  Where are throned the kings of hell,\n  Full of sway adorable\nThou hadst stood at their right hand\u2014\nThou that wert, in mortal land,\n  By Fate\u2019s ordinance and law,\nKing of kings who bear the crown\n  And the staff, to which in awe\nMortal men bow down.\n\nELECTRA\n  Nay O father, I were fain\nOther fate had fallen on thee.\n  Ill it were if thou hadst lain\n  One among the common slain,\n  Fallen by Scamander\u2019s side\u2014\nThose who slew thee there should be!\nThen, untouched by slavery,\n  We had heard as from afar\nDeaths of those who should have died\n  \u2019Mid the chance of war.\n\nCHORUS\nO child, forbear! things all too high thou sayest.\n    Easy, but vain, thy cry!\nA boon above all gold is that thou prayest,\n    An unreached destiny,\nAs of the bless\u00e8d land that far aloof\n    Beyond the north wind lies;\nYet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof;\n    A double scourge of sighs\nAwakes the dead; th\u2019 avengers rise, though late;\n    Blood stains the guilty pride\nOf the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate\n    Stands on the children\u2019s side.\n\nELECTRA\nThat hath sped thro\u2019 mine ear, like a shaft from a bow!\nZeus, Zeus! it is thou who dost send from below\nA doom on the desperate doer\u2014ere long\nOn a mother a father shall visit his wrong.\n\nCHORUS\nBe it mine to upraise thro\u2019 the reek of the pyre\nThe chant of delight, while the funeral fire\n  Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain\n    And a woman laid low!\nFor who bids me conceal it! out-rending control,\nBlows ever stern blast of hate thro\u2019 my soul,\n  And before me a vision of wrath and of bane\n    Flits and waves to and fro.\n\nORESTES\nZeus, thou alone to us art parent now.\n    Smite with a rending blow\n  Upon their heads, and bid the land be well:\nSet right where wrong hath stood; and thou give ear,\n    O Earth, unto my prayer\u2014\nYea, hear O mother Earth, and monarchy of hell!\n\nCHORUS\nNay, the law is sternly set\u2014\n  Blood-drops shed upon the ground\nPlead for other bloodshed yet;\n  Loud the call of death doth sound,\nCalling guilt of olden time,\nA Fury, crowning crime with crime.\n\nELECTRA\n  Where, where are ye, avenging powers,\n      Puissant Furies of the slain?\n    Behold the relics of the race\n    Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place!\n  O Zeus, what home henceforth is ours,\n      What refuge to attain?\n\nCHORUS\nLo, at your wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred;\n      Now am I lorn with sadness,\nDarkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow\u2019s word.\n  Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise,\u2014\n  She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes\n      To the new dawn of gladness.\n\nORESTES\n  Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,\n    Wrought by our mother\u2019s deed?\n  Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong\n    Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed;\n  Her children\u2019s soul is wolfish, born from hers,\n    And softens not by prayers.\n\nCHORUS\n        I dealt upon my breast the blow\n        That Asian mourning women know;\n        Wails from my breast the fun\u2019ral cry,\n        The Cissian weeping melody;\n    Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,\n    My clenched hands wander, here and there,\n      From head to breast; distraught with blows\n            Throb dizzily my brows.\n\nELECTRA\n    Aweless in hate, O mother, sternly brave!\n        As in a foeman\u2019s grave\n    Thou laid\u2019st in earth a king, but to the bier\n        No citizen drew near,\u2014\nThy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,\n    Thou bad\u2019st no wail arise!\n\nORESTES\nAlas the shameful burial thou dost speak!\nYet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak\u2014\n    That do the gods command!\n    That shall achieve mine hand!\nGrant me to thrust her life away, and I\n        Will dare to die!\n\nCHORUS\nList thou the deed! Hewn down and foully torn,\n      He to the tomb was borne;\nYea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,\nWith like dishonour to the grave was brought,\nAnd by her hand she strove, with strong desire,\nThy life to crush, O child, by murder of thy sire:\n  Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain\n      Wherewith that sire was slain!\n\nELECTRA\nYea, such was the doom of my sire; well-a-day,\n    I was thrust from his side,\u2014\nAs a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,\nAnd in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears,\n      As in darkness I lay.\nO father, if this word can pass to thine ears,\n    To thy soul let it reach and abide!\n\nCHORUS\nLet it pass, let it pierce, through the sense of thine ear,\n  To thy soul, where in silence it waiteth the hour!\nThe past is accomplished; but rouse thee to hear\nWhat the future prepareth; awake and appear,\n    Our champion, in wrath and in power!\n\nORESTES\n    O father, to thy loved ones come in aid.\n\nELECTRA\n      With tears I call on thee.\n\nCHORUS\n      Listen and rise to light!\nBe thou with us, be thou against the foe!\nSwiftly this cry arises\u2014even so\n  Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed!\n\nORESTES\nLet their might meet with mine, and their right with my right.\n\nELECTRA\n      O ye Gods, it is yours to decree.\n\nCHORUS\nYe call unto the dead; I quake to hear.\nFate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.\n\nELECTRA\nAlas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,\n  Of At\u00e8\u2019s bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound!\nAlas, the deep insufferable doom,\n  The stanchless wound!\n\nORESTES\nIt shall be stanched, the task is ours,\u2014\n  Not by a stranger\u2019s, but by kindred hand,\nShall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.\n  Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth\u2019s nether powers!\n\nCHORUS\n    Lords of a dark eternity,\n    To you has come the children\u2019s cry,\n    Send up from hell, fulfil your aid\n      To them who prayed.\n\nORESTES\nO father, murdered in unkingly wise,\nFulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.\n\nELECTRA\nTo me too, grant this boon\u2014dark death to deal\nUnto Aegisthus, and to \u2019scape my doom.\n\nORESTES\nSo shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay\nBe set for thee; else, not for thee shall rise\nThe scented reek of altars fed with flesh,\nBut thou shall lie dishonoured: hear thou me!\n\nELECTRA\nI too, from my full heritage restored,\nWill pour the lustral streams, what time I pass\nForth as a bride from these paternal halls,\nAnd honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.\n\nORESTES\nEarth, send my sire to fend me in the fight!\n\nELECTRA\nGive fair-faced fortune, O Persephone!\n\nORESTES\nBethink thee, father, in the laver slain\u2014\n\nELECTRA\nBethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!\n\nORESTES\nBonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.\n\nELECTRA\nYea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.\n\nORESTES\nBy this our bitter speech arise, O sire!\n\nELECTRA\nRaise thou thine head at love\u2019s last, dearest call!\n\nORESTES\nYea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen\u2019s cause;\nGrip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou\nWillest in triumph to forget thy fall.\n\nELECTRA\nHear me, O father, once again hear me.\nLo! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood\u2014\nA man-child and a maid; hold them in ruth,\nNor wipe them out, the last of Pelops\u2019 line.\nFor while they live, thou livest from the dead;\nChildren are memory\u2019s voices, and preserve\nThe dead from wholly dying: as a net\nIs ever by the buoyant corks upheld,\nWhich save the flex-mesh, in the depth submerged.\nListen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,\nAnd as thou heedest it thyself art saved.\n\nCHORUS\nIn sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length\u2014\nThe tomb\u2019s requital for its dirge denied:\nNow, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,\nTake fortune by the hand and work thy will.\n\nORESTES\nThe doom is set; and yet I fain would ask\u2014\nNot swerving from the course of my resolve,\u2014\nWherefore she sent these offerings, and why\nShe softens all too late her cureless deed?\nAn idle boon it was, to send them here\nUnto the dead who recks not of such gifts.\nI cannot guess her thought, but well I ween\nSuch gifts are skilless to atone such crime.\nBe blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives\nWho seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured\nTo atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.\nYet would I know her thought; speak, if thou knowest.\n\nCHORUS\nI know it, son; for at her side I stood.\n\u2019Twas the night-wandering terror of a dream\nThat flung her shivering from her couch, and bade her\u2014\nHer, the accursed of God\u2014these offerings send.\n\nORESTES\nHeard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?\n\nCHORUS\nYea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.\n\nORESTES\nWhat then the sum and issue of the tale?\n\nCHORUS\nEven as a swaddled child, she lull\u2019d the thing.\n\nORESTES\nWhat suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?\n\nCHORUS\nYet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.\n\nORESTES\nHow? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?\n\nCHORUS\nYea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.\n\nORESTES\nNot vain this dream\u2014it bodes a man\u2019s revenge.\n\nCHORUS\nThen out of sleep she started with a cry,\nAnd thro\u2019 the palace for their mistress\u2019 aid\nFull many lamps, that erst lay blind with night,\nFlared into light; then, even as mourners use,\nShe sends these offerings, in hope to win\nA cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.\n\nORESTES\nEarth and my father\u2019s grave, to you I call\u2014\nGive this her dream fulfilment, and thro\u2019 me.\nI read it in each part coincident,\nWith what shall be; for mark, that serpent sprang\nFrom the same womb as I, in swaddling bands\nBy the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast,\nAnd sucking forth the same sweet mother\u2019s-milk\nInfused a clot of blood; and in alarm\nShe cried upon her wound the cry of pain.\nThe rede is clear: the thing of dread she nursed,\nThe death of blood she dies; and I, \u2019tis I,\nIn semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.\nThou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.\n\nCHORUS\nSo do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,\nSiding some act, some, by not acting, aid.\n\nORESTES\nBrief my command: I bid my sister pass\nIn silence to the house, and all I bid\nThis my design with wariness conceal,\nThat they who did by craft a chieftain slay\nMay by like craft and in like noose be ta\u2019en\nDying the death which Loxias foretold\u2014\nApollo, king and prophet undisproved.\nI with this warrior Pylades will come\nIn likeness of a stranger, full equipt\nAs travellers come, and at the palace gates\nWill stand, as stranger yet in friendship\u2019s bond\nUnto this house allied; and each of us\nWill speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,\nFeigning such speech as Phocian voices use.\nAnd what if none of those that tend the gates\nShall welcome us with gladness, since the house\nWith ills divine is haunted? if this hap,\nWe at the gate will bide, till, passing by,\nSome townsman make conjecture and proclaim,\n_How? is Aegisthus here, and knowingly\nKeeps suppliants aloof, by bolt and bar?_\nThen shall I win my way; and if I cross\nThe threshold of the gate, the palace\u2019 guard,\nAnd find him throned where once my father sat\u2014\nOr if he come anon, and face to face\nConfronting, drop his eyes from mine\u2014I swear\nHe shall not utter, _Who art thou and whence?_\nEre my steel leap, and compassed round with death\nLow he shall lie: and thus, full-fed with doom,\nThe Fury of the house shall drain once more\nA deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.\nBut thou, O sister, look that all within\nBe well prepared to give these things event.\nAnd ye\u2014I say \u2019twere well to bear a tongue\nFull of fair silence and of fitting speech\nAs each beseems the time; and last, do thou,\nHermes the warder-god, keep watch and ward,\nAnd guide to victory my striving sword.\n\n[_Exit with Pylades._\n\nCHORUS\n  Many and marvellous the things of fear\n    Earth\u2019s breast doth bear;\n  And the sea\u2019s lap with many monsters teems,\n  And windy levin-bolts and meteor gleams\n    Breed many deadly things\u2014\nUnknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,\n    And in their tread is death;\n  And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath\n    Man\u2019s tongue can tell.\n    But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,\n    The aweless soul, within man\u2019s breast inhabiting?\n    Who tell, how, passion-fraught and love-distraught\n    The woman\u2019s eager, craving thought\n    Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell?\n    Yea, how the loveless love that doth possess\n    The woman, even as the lioness,\n    Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,\n        The link of wedded life?\n\nLet him be the witness, whose thought is not borne on light wings thro\u2019\nthe air,\nBut abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought by Althea\u2019s despair;\nFor she marr\u2019d the life-grace of her son, with ill counsel rekindled\nthe flame\nThat was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what time from his mother\nhe came,\nWith the cry of a new-born child; and the brand from the burning she\nwon,\nFor the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in death, with her\nson.\n\nYea, and man\u2019s hate tells of another, even Scylla of murderous guile,\nWho slew for an enemy\u2019s sake her father, won o\u2019er by the wile\nAnd the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high-wrought gold;\nFor she clipped from her father\u2019s head the lock that should never wax\nold,\nAs he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not her craft and her\ncrime\u2014\nBut Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her, in fulness of time.\n\nAnd since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my singing record\nThe bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these halls outpoured,\nThe crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain fall,\nA warrior stern in his wrath; the fear of his enemies all,\u2014\nA song of dishonour, untimely! and cold is the hearth that was warm\nAnd ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman\u2019s unwomanly arm.\n\nBut the summit and crown of all crimes is that which in Lemnos befell;\nA woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting to tell;\nAnd he that in after time doth speak of his deadliest thought,\nDoth say, _It is like to the deed that of old time in Lemnos was\nwrought_;\nAnd loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they and their seed,\nFor the gods brought hate upon them; none loveth the impious deed.\n\nIt is well of these tales to tell; for the sword in the grasp of Right\nWith a cleaving, a piercing blow to the innermost heart doth smite,\nAnd the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down nor forgot,\nWhen the sinner out-steppeth the law and heedeth the high God not;\nBut Justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth the sword\nThat shall smite in her chosen time; by her is the child restored;\nAnd, darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world-cursed, will repay\nThe price of the blood of the slain that was shed in the bygone day.\n\n[_Enter Orestes and Pylades, in guise of travellers_.\n\nORESTES (_knocking at the palace gate_)\nWhat ho! slave, ho! I smite the palace gate\nIn vain, it seems; what ho, attend within,\u2014\nOnce more, attend; come forth and ope the halls,\nIf yet Aegisthus holds them hospitable.\n\nSLAVE (_from within_)\nAnon, anon!\n[_Opens the door._\n\nSpeak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom?\n\nORESTES\nGo, tell to them who rule the palace-halls,\nSince \u2019tis to them I come with tidings new\u2014\n(Delay not\u2014Night\u2019s dark car is speeding on,\nAnd time is now for wayfarers to cast\nAnchor in haven, wheresoe\u2019er a house\nDoth welcome strangers)\u2014that there now come forth\nSome one who holds authority within\u2014\nThe queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it;\nFor when man standeth face to face with man,\nNo stammering modesty confounds their speech,\nBut each to each doth tell his meaning clear.\n\n[_Enter Clytemnestra_.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nSpeak on, O strangers; have ye need of aught?\nHere is whate\u2019er beseems a house like this\u2014\nWarm bath and bed, tired Nature\u2019s soft restorer,\nAnd courteous eyes to greet you; and if aught\nOf graver import needeth act as well,\nThat, as man\u2019s charge, I to a man will tell.\n\nORESTES\nA Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,\nAnd as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden\nI went toward Argos, parting hitherward\nWith travelling foot, there did encounter me\nOne whom I knew not and who knew not me,\nBut asked my purposed way nor hid his own,\nAnd, as we talked together, told his name\u2014\nStrophius of Phocis; then he said, \u201cGood sir,\nSince in all case thou art to Argos bound,\nForget not this my message, heed it well,\nTell to his own, _Orestes is no more_.\nAnd\u2014whatsoe\u2019er his kinsfolk shall resolve,\nWhether to bear his dust unto his home,\nOr lay him here, in death as erst in life\nExiled for aye, a child of banishment\u2014\nBring me their hest, upon thy backward road;\nFor now in brazen compass of an urn\nHis ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid.\u201d\nSo much I heard, and so much tell to thee,\nNot knowing if I speak unto his kin\nWho rule his home; but well, I deem, it were,\nSuch news should earliest reach a parent\u2019s ear.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nAh woe is me! thy word our ruin tells;\nFrom roof-tree unto base are we despoiled.\u2014\nO thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,\nThou Fury of this home, how oft and oft\nThou dost descry what far aloof is laid,\nYea, from afar dost bend th\u2019 unerring bow\nAnd rendest from my wretchedness its friends;\nAs now Orestes\u2014who, a brief while since,\nSafe from the mire of death stood warily,\u2014\nWas the home\u2019s hope to cure th\u2019 exulting wrong;\nNow thou ordainest, _Let the ill abide_.\n\nORESTES\nTo host and hostess thus with fortune blest,\nLief had I come with better news to bear\nUnto your greeting and acquaintanceship;\nFor what goodwill lies deeper than the bond\nOf guest and host? and wrong abhorred it were,\nAs well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith\nTo one, and greetings from the other had,\nBore not aright the tidings \u2019twixt the twain.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nWhate\u2019er thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,\nMeet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.\nHadst them thyself not come, such tale to tell,\nAnother, sure, had borne it to our ears.\nBut lo! the hour is here when travelling guests,\nFresh from the daylong labour of the road,\nShould win their rightful due. Take him within\n\n[_To the slave._\n\nTo the man-chamber\u2019s hospitable rest\u2014\nHim and these fellow-farers at his side;\nGive them such guest-right as beseems our halls;\nI bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it.\nAnd I unto the prince who rules our home\nWill tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,\nWith them will counsel how this hap to bear\n\n[_Exit Clytemnestra._\n\nCHORUS\n  So be it done\u2014\nSister-servants, when draws nigh\nTime for us aloud to cry\n_Orestes and his victory?_\n\n  O holy earth and holy tomb\nOver the grave-pit heaped on high,\nWhere low doth Agamemnon lie,\n  The king of ships, the army\u2019s lord!\nNow is the hour\u2014give ear and come,\n  For now doth Craft her aid afford,\nAnd Hermes, guard of shades in hell,\nStands o\u2019er their strife, to sentinel\n  The dooming of the sword.\nI wot the stranger worketh woe within\u2014\nFor lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,\nOrestes\u2019 nurse. What ho, Kilissa\u2014thou\nBeyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks\nSome grief unbidden walketh at thy side.\n\n[_Enter Kilissa, a nurse._\n\nKILISSA\nMy mistress bids me, with what speed I may,\nCall in Aegisthus to the stranger guests,\nThat he may come, and standing face to face,\nA man with men, may thus more clearly learn\nThis rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves\nShe hid beneath the glance of fictive grief\nLaughter for what is wrought\u2014to her desire\nToo well; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,\nBrought by the tale these guests have told so clear.\nAnd he, God wot, will gladden all his heart\nHearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day!\nThe bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,\nHard to be borne, that here in Atreus\u2019 house\nBefel, was grievous to mine inmost heart,\nBut never yet did I endure such pain.\nAll else I bore with set soul patiently;\nBut now\u2014alack, alack!\u2014Orestes dear,\nThe day and night-long travail of my soul!\nWhom from his mother\u2019s womb, a new-born child,\nI clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft\nToilsome and profitless my service was,\nWhen his shrill outcry called me from my couch!\nFor the young child, before the sense is born,\nHath but a dumb thing\u2019s life, must needs be nursed\nAs its own nature bids. The swaddled thing\nHath nought of speech, whate\u2019er discomfort come\u2014\nHunger or thirst or lower weakling need,\u2014\nFor the babe\u2019s stomach works its own relief.\nWhich knowing well before, yet oft surprised,\n\u2019Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes\u2014poor I\nWas nurse to tend and fuller to make white;\nTwo works in one, two handicrafts I took,\nWhen in mine arms the father laid the boy.\nAnd now he\u2019s dead\u2014alack and well-a-day!\nYet must I go to him whose wrongful power\nPollutes this house\u2014fair tidings these to him!\n\nCHORUS\n  Say then, with what array she bids him come?\n\nKILISSA\n  What say\u2019st thou! Speak more clearly for mine ear.\n\nCHORUS\n  Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?\n\nKlLISSA\n  She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.\n\nCHORUS\n  Nay, tell not that unto our loath\u00e8d lord,\n  But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,\n  Say, _Come along, fear nought, the news is good:_\n  A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.\n\nKILISSA\n  Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?\n\nCHORUS\n  What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?\n\nKILISSA\n  And how? the home\u2019s hope with Orestes dies.\n\nCHORUS\n  Not yet\u2014a seer, though feeble, this might see.\n\nKILISSA\n  What say\u2019st thou? Know\u2019st thou aught, this tale belying?\n\nCHORUS\n  Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,\u2014\n  What the gods will, themselves can well provide.\n\nKILISSA\n  Well, I will go, herein obeying thee;\n  And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.\n\n[_Exit._\n\nCHORUS\nZeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,\n  Hear thou, O hear my prayer!\nGrant to my rightful lords to prosper well\n  Even as their zeal is fair!\nFor right, for right goes up aloud my cry\u2014\n  Zeus, aid him, stand anigh!\n\n  Into his father\u2019s hall he goes\n  To smite his father\u2019s foes.\nBid him prevail! by thee on throne of triumph set,\nTwice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.\n\nBethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal\n  Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car\n  Of doom is harnessed fast.\nGuide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,\nSpeed thou his pace,\u2014O that no chance may mar\n  The homeward course, the last!\n\nAnd ye who dwell within the inner chamber\n  Where shines the stor\u00e8d joy of gold\u2014\nGods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember;\nUp and avenge the blood shed forth of old,\n      With sudden rightful blow;\n  Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed\n      With progeny of blood,\u2014\n  Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low!\n\n  O thou who dwell\u2019st in Delphi\u2019s mighty cave,\n  Grant us to see this home once more restored\n     Unto its rightful lord!\n  Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye\n    Unto the dawning light of liberty;\n  And Hermes, Maia\u2019s child, lend hand to save,\n     Willing the right, and guide\n  Our state with Fortune\u2019s breeze adown the favouring tide.\n    Whate\u2019er in darkness hidden lies,\n   He utters at his will;\nHe at his will throws darkness on our eye\n  By night and eke by day inscrutable.\n\n  Then, then shall wealth atone\n  The ills that here were done.\n    Then, then will we unbind,\n    Fling free on wafting wind\nOf joy, the woman\u2019s voice that waileth now\nIn piercing accents for a chief laid low;\n    And this our song shall be\u2014\n  _Hail to the commonwealth restored!\n    Hail to the freedom won to me!\nAll hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well-loved lord!_\n\nAnd thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree,\nUp to the deed that for thy sire is done!\nAnd if she wail unto thee, _Spare, O son_\u2014\nCry, _Aid, O father_\u2014and achieve the deed,\nThe horror of man\u2019s tongue, the gods\u2019 great need!\nHold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,\nThe bitter woe work forth,\nAppease the summons of the dead,\nThe wrath of friends on earth;\nYea, set within a sign of blood and doom,\nAnd do to utter death him that pollutes thy home.\n\n[_Enter Aegisthus_.\n\nAEGISTHUS\nHither and not unsummoned have I come;\nFor a new rumour, borne by stranger men\nArriving hither, hath attained mine ears,\nOf hap unwished-for, even Orestes\u2019 death.\nThis were new sorrow, a blood-bolter\u2019d load\nLaid on the house that doth already bow\nBeneath a former wound that festers deep.\nDare I opine these words have truth and life?\nOr are they tales, of woman\u2019s terror born,\nThat fly in the void air, and die disproved?\nCanst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul?\n\nCHORUS\n  What we have heard, we heard; go thou within\n  Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale.\n  Strengthless are tidings, thro\u2019 another heard;\n  Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.\n\nAEGISTHUS\n  I too will meet and test the messenger,\n  Whether himself stood witness of the death,\n  Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt:\n  None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.\n\n[_Exit._\n\nCHORUS\n  Zeus, Zeus! what word to me is given?\n  What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,\n  Shall first by me be utter\u00e8d?\n  What speech of craft? nor all revealing,\n  Nor all too warily concealing\u2014\n  Ending my speech, shall aid the deed?\n  For lo! in readiness is laid\n  The dark emprise, the rending blade;\n  Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve\n  The dateless doom of Atreus\u2019 name,\n  Or\u2014kindling torch and joyful flame\n  In sign of new-won liberty\u2014\n  Once more Orestes shall retrieve\n  His father\u2019s wealth, and, throned on high,\n  Shall hold the city\u2019s fealty.\n  So mighty is the grasp whereby,\n  Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw,\n  Unseconded, a double foe\n  Ho for the victory!\n\n[_A loud cry within._\n\nVOICE OF AEGISTHUS\n  Help, help, alas!\n\nCHORUS\nHo there, ho! how is\u2019t within?\nIs\u2019t done? is\u2019t over? Stand we here aloof\nWhile it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem\nOf this dark deed; with death is strife fulfilled.\n\n[_Enter a slave_\n\nSLAVE\nO woe, O woe, my lord is done to death!\nWoe, woe, and woe again, AEgisthus gone!\nHasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts\nOf the queen\u2019s chamber. O for some young strength\nTo match the need! but aid availeth nought\nTo him laid low for ever. Help, help, help!\nSure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain\nTo slumber ineffectual. What ho!\nThe queen! how fareth Clytemnestra\u2019s self?\nHer neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,\nAnd soon shall sink, hewn thro\u2019 as justice wills.\n\n[_Enter Clytemnestra._\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nWhat ails thee, raising this ado for us?\n\nSLAVE\nI say the dead are come to slay the living.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nAlack, I read thy riddles all too clear\u2014\nWe slew by craft and by like craft shall die.\nSwift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old;\nI\u2019ll know anon or death or victory\u2014\nSo stands the curse, so I confront it here.\n\n[_Enter Orestes, his sword dropping with blood._\n\nORESTES\nThee too I seek: for him what\u2019s done will serve.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nWoe, woe! Aegisthus, spouse and champion, slain!\n\nORESTES\nWhat lov\u2019st the man? then in his grave lie down,\nBe his in death, desert him nevermore!\n\nCLYTEMNESTSA\nStay, child, and fear to strike. O son, this breast\nPillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,\nThy toothless mouth drew mother\u2019s milk from me.\n\nORESTES\nCan I my mother spare? speak, Pylades,\n\nPYLADES\nWhere then would fall the hest Apollo gave\nAt Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn?\nChoose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.\n\nORESTES\nThou dost prevail; I hold thy counsel good.\n\n[_To Clytemnestra_.\n\nFollow; I will slay thee at his side.\nWith him whom in his life thou lovedst more\nThan Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed\nFor hate where love, and love where hate was due!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nI nursed thee young; must I forego mine eld?\n\nORESTES\nThou slew\u2019st my father; shalt thou dwell with me?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nFate bore a share in these things, O my child!\n\nORESTES\nFate also doth provide this doom for thee.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nBeware, O my child, a parent\u2019s dying curse.\n\nORESTES\nA parent who did cast me out to ill!\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nNot cast thee out, but to a friendly home.\n\nORESTES\nBorn free, I was by twofold bargain sold.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nWhere then the price that I received for thee?\n\nORESTES\nThe price of shame; I taunt thee not more plainly.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nNay, but recount thy father\u2019s lewdness too.\n\nORESTES\nHome-keeping, chide not him who toils without.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\n\u2019Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.\n\nORESTES\nThe absent husband toils for them at home.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nThou growest fain to slay thy mother, child\n\nORESTES\nNay, \u2019tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nBeware thy mother\u2019s vengeful hounds from hell.\n\nORESTES\nHow shall I \u2019scape my father\u2019s, sparing thee?\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nLiving, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.\n\nORESTES\nMy father\u2019s fate ordains this doom for thee.\n\nCLYTEMNESTRA\nAh, me! this snake it was I bore and nursed.\n\nORESTES\nAy, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.\nShameful thy deed was\u2014die the death of shame!\n\n[_Exit, driving Clytemnestra before him._\n\nCHORUS\nLo, even for these I mourn, a double death:\nYet since Orestes, driven on by doom,\nThus crowns the height of murders manifold,\nI say, \u2019tis well\u2014that not in night and death\nShould sink the eye and light of this our home.\n\nThere came on Priam\u2019s race and name\n  A vengeance; though it tarried long,\n    With heavy doom it came.\nCame, too, on Agamemnon\u2019s hall\n    A lion-pair, twin swordsmen strong.\nAnd last, the heritage doth fall\n  To him, to whom from Pythian cave\n  The god his deepest counsel gave.\nCry out, rejoice! our kingly hall\n  Hath \u2019scaped from ruin\u2014ne\u2019er again\nIts ancient wealth be wasted all\n      By two usurpers, sin-defiled\u2014\n    An evil path of woe and bane!\nOn him who dealt the dastard blow\n    Comes Craft, Revenge\u2019s scheming child.\nAnd hand in hand with him doth go,\n        Eager for fight,\nThe child of Zeus, whom men below\n  Call Justice, naming her aright.\n      And on her foes her breath\n      Is as the blast of death;\nFor her the god who dwells in deep recess\n      Beneath Parnassus\u2019 brow,\n    Summons with loud acclaim\n    To rise, though late and lame,\nAnd come with craft that worketh righteousness.\n\nFor even o\u2019er Powers divine this law is strong\u2014\n    _Thou shalt not serve the wrong_.\nTo that which ruleth heaven beseems it that we bow.\n    Lo, freedom\u2019s light hath come!\n      Lo, now is rent away\nThe grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.\n  Up to the light, ye halls! this many a day\n      Too low on earth ye lay.\n  And Time, the great Accomplisher,\n  Shall cross the threshold, whensoe\u2019er\n  He choose with purging hand to cleanse\n  The palace, driving all pollution thence.\n  And fair the cast of Fortune\u2019s die\n  Before our state\u2019s new lords shall lie,\n  Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom\n      Lo, freedom\u2019s light hath come!\n\n[_The scene opens, disclosing Orestes standing over the corpses of\nAegisthus and Clytemnestra; in one hand he holds his sword, in the\nother the robe in which Agamemnon was entangled and slain_.\n\nORESTES\nThere lies our country\u2019s twofold tyranny,\nMy father\u2019s slayers, spoilers of my home.\nErst were they royal, sitting on the throne,\nAnd loving are they yet,\u2014their common fate\nTells the tale truly, shows their trothplight firm.\nThey swore to work mine ill-starred father\u2019s death,\nThey swore to die together; \u2019tis fulfilled.\nO ye who stand, this great doom\u2019s witnesses,\nBehold this too, the dark device which bound\nMy sire unhappy to his death,\u2014behold\nThe mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet!\nStand round, unfold it\u2014\u2019tis the trammel-net\nThat wrapped a chieftain; holds it that he see,\nThe father\u2014not my sire, but he whose eye\nIs judge of all things, the all-seeing Sun!\nLet him behold my mother\u2019s damn\u00e8d deed,\nThen let him stand, when need shall be to me,\nWitness that justly I have sought and slain\nMy mother; blameless was Aegisthus\u2019 doom\u2014\nHe died the death law bids adulterers die.\nBut she who plotted this accurs\u00e8d thing\nTo slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath\nHer girdle once the burden of her babes,\nBeloved erewhile, now turned to hateful foes\u2014\nWhat deem ye of her? or what venomed thing,\nSea-snake or adder, had more power than she\nTo poison with a touch the flesh unscarred?\nSo great her daring, such her impious will.\nHow name her, if I may not speak a curse?\nA lion-springe! a laver\u2019s swathing cloth,\nWrapping a dead man, twining round his feet\u2014\nA net, a trammel, an entangling robe?\nSuch were the weapon of some strangling thief,\nThe terror of the road, a cut-purse hound\u2014\nWith such device full many might he kill,\nFull oft exult in heat of villainy.\nNe\u2019er have my house so cursed an indweller\u2014\nHeaven send me, rather, childless to be slain!\n\nCHORUS\nWoe for each desperate deed!\nWoe for the queen, with shame of life bereft!\nAnd ah, for him who still is left,\nMadness, dark blossom of a bloody seed!\n\nORESTES\nDid she the deed or not? this robe gives proof,\nImbrued with blood that bathed Aegisthus\u2019 sword:\nLook, how the spurted stain combines with time\nTo blur the many dyes that once adorned\nIts pattern manifold! I now stand here,\nMade glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing\u2014\nHear, O thou woven web that slew my sire!\nI grieve for deed and death and all my home\u2014\nVictor, pollution\u2019s damn\u00e8d stain for prize.\n\nCHORUS\nAlas, that none of mortal men\nCan pass his life untouched by pain!\nBehold, one woe is here\u2014\nAnother loometh near.\n\nORESTES\nHark ye and learn\u2014for what the end shall be\nFor me I know not: breaking from the curb\nMy spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,\nBorne as a charioteer by steeds distraught\nFar from the course, and madness in my breast\nBurneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave\u2014\nHark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes!\nI say that rightfully I slew my mother,\nA thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire\nAnd chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me\nUnto this deed I name the Pythian seer\nApollo, who foretold that if I slew,\nThe guilt of murder done should pass from me;\nBut if I spared, the fate that should be mine\nI dare not blazon forth\u2014the bow of speech\nCan reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.\nAnd now behold me, how with branch and crown\nI pass, a suppliant made meet to go\nUnto Earth\u2019s midmost shrine, the holy ground\nOf Loxias, and that renown\u00e8d light\nOf ever-burning fire, to \u2019scape the doom\nOf kindred murder: to no other shrine\n(So Loxias bade) may I for refuge turn.\nBear witness, Argives, in the after time,\nHow came on me this dread fatality.\nLiving, I pass a banished wanderer hence,\nTo leave in death the memory of this cry.\n\nCHORUS\nNay, but the deed is well; link not thy lips\nTo speech ill-starred, nor vent ill-boding words\u2014\nWho hast to Argos her full freedom given,\nLopping two serpents\u2019 heads with timely blow.\n\nORESTES\nLook, look, alas!\nHandmaidens, see\u2014what Gorgon shapes throng up;\nDusky their robes and all their hair enwound\u2014\nSnakes coiled with snakes\u2014off, off, I must away!\n\nCHORUS\nMost loyal of all sons unto thy sire,\nWhat visions thus distract thee? Hold, abide;\nGreat was thy victory, and shalt thou fear?\n\nORESTES\nThese are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,\nBut clear to sight my mother\u2019s hell-hounds come!\n\nCHORUS\nNay, the fresh bloodshed still imbrues thine hands,\nAnd thence distraction sinks into thy soul.\n\nORESTES\nO king Apollo\u2014see, they swarm and throng\u2014\nBlack blood of hatred dripping from their eyes!\n\nCHORUS\nOne remedy thou hast; go, touch the shrine\nOf Loxias, and rid thee of these woes.\n\nORESTES\nYe can behold them not, but I behold them.\nUp and away! I dare abide no more.\n\n[_Exit_\n\nCHORUS\nFarewell then as thou mayst,\u2014the god thy friend\nGuard thee and aid with chances favouring.\n\nBehold, the storm of woe divine\nThat the raves and beats on Atreus\u2019 line\n  Its great third blast hath blown.\nFirst was Thyestes\u2019 loathly woe\u2014\nThe rueful feast of long ago,\n  On children\u2019s flesh, unknown.\nAnd next the kingly chief\u2019s despite,\nWhen he who led the Greeks to fight\n  Was in the bath hewn down.\nAnd now the offspring of the race\nStands in the third, the saviour\u2019s place,\n  To save\u2014or to consume?\nO whither, ere it be fulfilled,\nEre its fierce blast be hushed and stilled,\n  Shall blow the wind of doom?\n\n[_Exeunt_.\n\n\nTHE FURIES\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nTHE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS\nAPOLLO\nORESTES\nTHE GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA\nCHORUS OF FURIES\nATHENA\nATTENDANTS OF ATHENA\nTWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS\n\n_The Scene of the Drama is the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi: afterwards\nthe Temple of Athena, on the Acropolis of Athens, and the adjoining\nAreopagus._\n\n_The Temple at Delphi_\n\n_The Pythian Priestess_\n\nF irst, in this prayer, of all the gods I name\nThe prophet-mother Earth; and Themis next,\nSecond who sat\u2014for so with truth is said\u2014\nOn this her mother\u2019s shrine oracular.\nThen by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,\nThere sat thereon another child of Earth\u2014\nTitanian Phoebe. She, in after time,\nGave o\u2019er the throne, as birthgift to a god,\nPhoebus, who in his own bears Phoebe\u2019s name.\nHe from the lake and ridge of Delos\u2019 isle\nSteered to the port of Pallas\u2019 Attic shores,\nThe home of ships; and thence he passed and came\nUnto this land and to Parnassus\u2019 shrine.\nAnd at his side, with awe revering him,\nThere went the children of Hephaestus\u2019 seed,\nThe hewers of the sacred way, who tame\nThe stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.\nAnd all this folk, and Delphos, chieftain-king\nOf this their land, with honour gave him home;\nAnd in his breast Zeus set a prophet\u2019s soul,\nAnd gave to him this throne, whereon he sits,\nFourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,\nGives voice to that which Zeus his sire decrees.\n\nSuch gods I name in my preluding prayer,\nAnd after them, I call with honour due\nOn Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs\nWho dwell around the rock Corycian,\nWhere in the hollow cave, the wild birds\u2019 haunt,\nWander the feet of lesser gods; and there,\nRight well I know it, Bromian Bacchus dwells,\nSince he in godship led his Maenad host,\nDevising death for Pentheus, whom they rent\nPiecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,\nI call on Pleistus\u2019 springs, Poseidon\u2019s might,\nAnd Zeus most high, the great Accomplisher.\nThen as a seeress to the sacred chair\nI pass and sit; and may the powers divine\nMake this mine entrance fruitful in response\nBeyond each former advent, triply blest.\nAnd if there stand without, from Hellas bound,\nMen seeking oracles, let each pass in\nIn order of the lot, as use allows;\nFor the god guides whate\u2019er my tongue proclaims.\n\n[_She goes into the interior of the temple; after a short interval, she\nreturns in great fear_.\n\nThings fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,\nHave sped me forth again from Loxias\u2019 shrine,\nWith strength unstrung, moving erect no more,\nBut aiding with my hands my failing feet,\nUnnerved by fear. A beldame\u2019s force is naught\u2014\nIs as a child\u2019s, when age and fear combine.\nFor as I pace towards the inmost fane\nBay-filleted by many a suppliant\u2019s hand,\nLo, at the central altar I descry\nOne crouching as for refuge\u2014yea, a man\nAbhorredd of heaven; and from his hands, wherein\nA sword new-drawn he holds, blood reeked and fell:\nA wand he bears, the olive\u2019s topmost bough,\nTwined as of purpose with a deep close tuft\nOf whitest wool. This, that I plainly saw,\nPlainly I tell. But lo, in front of him,\nCrouched on the altar-steps, a grisly band\nOf women slumbers\u2014not like women they,\nBut Gorgons rather; nay, that word is weak,\nNor may I match the Gorgons\u2019 shape with theirs!\nSuch have I seen in painted semblance erst\u2014\nWinged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus\u2019 board,\u2014\nBut these are wingless, black, and all their shape\nThe eye\u2019s abomination to behold.\nFell is the breath\u2014let none draw nigh to it\u2014\nWherewith they snort in slumber; from their eyes\nExude the damn\u00e8d drops of poisonous ire:\nAnd such their garb as none should dare to bring\nTo statues of the gods or homes of men.\nI wot not of the tribe wherefrom can come\nSo fell a legion, nor in what land Earth\nCould rear, unharmed, such creatures, nor avow\nThat she had travailed and brought forth death.\nBut, for the rest, be all these things a care\nUnto the mighty Loxias, the lord\nOf this our shrine: healer and prophet he,\nDiscerner he of portents, and the cleanser\nOf other homes\u2014behold, his own to cleanse!\n\n[_Exit_.\n\n[_The scene opens, disclosing the interior of the temple: Orestes\nclings to the central altar; the Furies lie slumbering at a little\ndistance; Apollo and Hermes appear from the innermost shrine_.\n\nAPOLLO\nLo, I desert thee never: to the end,\nHard at thy side as now, or sundered far,\nI am thy guard, and to thine enemies\nImplacably oppose me: look on them,\nThese greedy fiends, beneath my craft subdued!\nSee, they are fallen on sleep, these beldames old,\nUnto whose grim and wizened maidenhood\nNor god nor man nor beast can e\u2019er draw near.\nYea, evil were they born, for evil\u2019s doom,\nEvil the dark abyss of Tartarus\nWherein they dwell, and they themselves the hate\nOf men on earth, and of Olympian gods.\nBut thou, flee far and with unfaltering speed;\nFor they shall hunt thee through the mainland wide\nWhere\u2019er throughout the tract of travelled earth\nThy foot may roam, and o\u2019er and o\u2019er the seas\nAnd island homes of men. Faint not nor fail,\nToo soon and timidly within thy breast\nShepherding thoughts forlorn of this thy toil;\nBut unto Pallas\u2019 city go, and there\nCrouch at her shrine, and in thine arms enfold\nHer ancient image: there we well shall find\nMeet judges for this cause and suasive pleas,\nSkilled to contrive for thee deliverance\nFrom all this woe. Be such my pledge to thee,\nFor by my hest thou didst thy mother slay.\n\nORESTES\nO king Apollo, since right well thou know\u2019st\nWhat justice bids, have heed, fulfil the same,\u2014\nThy strength is all-sufficient to achieve.\n\nAPOLLO\nHave thou too heed, nor let thy fear prevail\nAbove thy will. And do thou guard him, Hermes,\nWhose blood is brother unto mine, whose sire\nThe same high God. Men call thee guide and guard,\nGuide therefore thou and guard my suppliant;\nFor Zeus himself reveres the outlaw\u2019s right,\nBoon of fair escort, upon man conferred.\n\n[_Exeunt Apollo, Hermes, and Orestes. The Ghost of Clytemnestra near_\n\nGHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA\nSleep on! awake! what skills your sleep to me\u2014\nMe, among all the dead by you dishonoured\u2014\nMe from whom never, in the world of death,\nDieth this curse, _\u2019Tis she who smote and slew_,\nAnd shamed and scorned I roam? Awake, and hear\nMy plaint of dead men\u2019s hate intolerable.\nMe, sternly slain by them that should have loved,\nMe doth no god arouse him to avenge,\nHewn down in blood by matricidal hands.\nMark ye these wounds from which the heart\u2019s blood ran,\nAnd by whose hand, bethink ye! for the sense\nWhen shut in sleep hath then the spirit-sight,\nBut in the day the inward eye is blind.\nList, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue\nThe wineless draught by me outpoured to soothe\nYour vengeful ire! how oft on kindled shrine\nI laid the feast of darkness, at the hour\nAbhorred of every god but you alone!\nLo, all my service trampled down and scorned!\nAnd he hath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds;\nYea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,\nHath wried his face in scorn, and flieth far.\nAwake and hear\u2014for mine own soul I cry\u2014\nAwake, ye powers of hell! the wandering ghost\nThat once was Clytemnestra calls\u2014Arise!\n\n [_The Furies mutter grimly, as in a dream_.\n\nMutter and murmur! He hath flown afar\u2014 My kin have gods to guard them,\nI have none!\n\n [_The Furies mutter as before_.\n\nO drowsed in sleep too deep to heed my pain!\nOrestes flies, who me, his mother, slew.\n\n[_The Furies give a confused cry_.\n\nYelping, and drowsed again? Up and be doing\nThat which alone is yours, the deed of hell!\n\n[_The Furies give another cry_.\n\nLo, sleep and toil, the sworn confederates,\nHave quelled your dragon-anger, once so fell!\n\nTHE FURIES (_muttering more fiercely and loudly_)\nSeize, seize, seize, seize\u2014mark, yonder!\n\nGHOST\nIn dreams ye chase a prey, and like some hound,\nThat even in sleep doth ply his woodland toil,\nYe bell and bay. What do ye, sleeping here?\nBe not o\u2019ercome with toil, nor sleep-subdued,\nBe heedless of my wrong. Up! thrill your heart\nWith the just chidings of my tongue,\u2014such words\nAre as a spur to purpose firmly held.\nBlow forth on him the breath of wrath and blood,\nScorch him with reek of fire that burns in you,\nWaste him with new pursuit\u2014swift, hound him down!\n\n[_Ghost sinks._\n\nFIRST FURY (_awaking_)\nUp! rouse another as I rouse thee; up!\nSleep\u2019st thou? Rise up, and spurning sleep away,\nSee we if false to us this prelude rang.\n\nCHORUS OF FURIES\nAlack, alack, O sisters, we have toiled,\n  O much and vainly have we toiled and borne!\nVainly! and all we wrought the gods have foiled,\n                     And turn\u00e8d us to scorn!\nHe hath slipped from the net, whom we chased: he\n     hath \u2019scaped us who should be our prey\u2014\nO\u2019ermastered by slumber we sank, and our quarry hath stolen away!\nThou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed us and wronged;\nThou, a youth, hast down-trodden the right that is godship more ancient\nbelonged;\nThou hast cherished thy suppliant man; the slayer the God-forsaken,\nThe bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp thou hast taken:\nA god, thou hast stolen from us the avengers a matricide son\u2014\nAnd who shall consider thy deed and say, _It is rightfully_ done?\n            The sound of chiding scorn\n            Came from the land of dream;\n  Deep to mine inmost heart I felt it thrill and burn,\n      Thrust as a strong-grasped goad, to urge\n        Onward the chariot\u2019s team.\n      Thrilled, chilled with bitter inward pain\n  I stand as one beneath the doomsman\u2019s scourge.\n  Shame on the younger gods who tread down right,\n      Sitting on thrones of might!\n  Woe on the altar of earth\u2019s central fane!\n      Clotted on step and shrine,\nBehold, the guilt of blood, the ghastly stain!\n  Woe upon thee, Apollo! uncontrolled,\n    Unbidden, hast thou, prophet-god, imbrued\n    The pure prophetic shrine with wrongful blood!\n  For thou too heinous a respect didst hold\nOf man, too little heed of powers divine!\n    And us the Fates, the ancients of the earth,\n        Didst deem as nothing worth.\nScornful to me thou art, yet shalt not fend\n  My wrath from him; though unto hell he flee,\n            There too are we!\nAnd he the blood defiled, should feel and rue,\nThough I were not, fiend-wrath that shall not end,\nDescending on his head who foully slew.\n\n[_Re-enter Apollo from the inner shrine._\n\nAPOLLO\nOut! I command you. Out from this my home\u2014\nHaste, tarry not! Out from the mystic shrine,\nLest thy lot be to take into thy breast\nThe winged bright dart that from my golden string\nSpeeds hissing as a snake,\u2014lest, pierced and thrilled\nWith agony, thou shouldst spew forth again\nBlack frothy heart\u2019s-blood, drawn from mortal men,\nBelching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds.\nThese be no halls where such as you can prowl\u2014\nGo where men lay on men the doom of blood,\nHeads lopped from necks, eyes from their spheres plucked out,\nHacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed out,\nFeet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath\nThe smiting stone, low moans and piteous\nOf men impaled\u2014Hark, hear ye for what feast\nYe hanker ever, and the loathing gods\nDo spit upon your craving? Lo, your shape\nIs all too fitted to your greed; the cave\nWhere lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home\nMore meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines,\nNor bring pollution by your touch on all\nThat nears you. Hence! and roam unshepherded\u2014\nNo god there is to tend such herd as you.\n\nCHORUS\nO king Apollo, in our turn hear us.\nThou hast\u2019not only part in these ill things,\nBut art chief cause and doer of the same.\n\nAPOLLO\nHow? stretch thy speech to tell this, and have done.\n\nCHORUS\nThine oracle bade this man slay his mother.\n\nAPOLLO\nI bade him quit his sire\u2019s death,\u2014wherefore not?\n\nCHORUS\nThen didst thou aid and guard red-handed crime.\n\nAPOLLO\nYea, and I bade him to this temple flee.\n\nCHORUS\nAnd yet forsooth dost chide us following him!\n\nAPOLLO\nAy\u2014not for you it is, to near this fane.\n\nCHORUS\nYet is such office ours, imposed by fate.\n\nAPOLLO\nWhat office? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.\n\nCHORUS\nFrom home to home we chase the matricide.\n\nAPOLLO\nWhat? to avenge a wife who slays her lord?\n\nCHORUS\nThat is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.\n\nAPOLLO\nHow darkly ye dishonour and annul\nThe troth to which the high accomplishers,\nHera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus\nIs Aphrodite to dishonour cast,\nThe queen of rapture unto mortal men.\nKnow, that above the marriage-bed ordained\nFor man and woman standeth Right as guard,\nEnhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn;\nTherefore, if thou art placable to those\nWho have their consort slain, nor will\u2019st to turn\nOn them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou\nIn hounding to his doom the man who slew\nHis mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath\nAgainst one deed, but all too placable\nUnto the other, minishing the crime.\nBut in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.\n\nCHORUS\nDeem not my quest shall ever quit that man.\n\nAPOLLO\nFollow then, make thee double toil in vain!\n\nCHORUS\nThink not by speech mine office to curtail.\n\nAPOLLO\nNone hast thou, that I would accept of thee!\n\nCHORUS\nYea, high thine honour by the throne of Zeus:\nBut I, drawn on by scent of mother\u2019s blood,\nSeek vengeance on this man and hound him down.\n\nAPOLLO\nBut I will stand beside him; \u2019tis for me\nTo guard my suppliant: gods and men alike\nDo dread the curse of such an one betrayed,\nAnd in me Fear and Will say _Leave him not_.\n\n[_Exeunt omnes_\n\n_The scene changes to Athens. In the foreground, the Temple of Athena\non the Acropolis; her statue stands in the centre; Orestes is seen\nclinging to it._\n\nORESTES\nLook on me, queen Athena; lo, I come\nBy Loxias\u2019 behest; thou of thy grace\nReceive me, driven of avenging powers\u2014\nNot now a red-hand slayer unannealed,\nBut with guilt fading, half-effaced, outworn\nOn many homes and paths of mortal men.\nFor to the limit of each land, each sea,\nI roamed, obedient to Apollo\u2019s hest,\nAnd come at last, O Goddess, to thy fane,\nAnd clinging to thine image, bide my doom.\n\n[_Enter the Chorus of Furies, questing like hounds_\n\nCHORUS\nHo! clear is here the trace of him we seek:\nFollow the track of blood, the silent sign!\nLike to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,\nWe snuff along the scent of dripping gore,\nAnd inwardly we pant, for many a day\nToiling in chase that shall fordo the man;\nFor o\u2019er and o\u2019er the wide land have I ranged,\nAnd o\u2019er the wide sea, flying without wings,\nSwift as a sail I pressed upon his track,\nWho now hard by is crouching, well I wot,\nFor scent of mortal blood allures me here.\n    Follow, seek him\u2014round and round\nScent and snuff and scan the ground,\nLest unharmed he slip away,\n    He who did his mother slay!\nHist\u2014he is there! See him his arms entwine\nAround the image of the maid divine\u2014\n    Thus aided, for the deed he wrought\nUnto the judgment wills he to be brought.\n\nIt may not be! a mother\u2019s blood, poured forth\n    Upon the stain\u00e8d earth,\nNone gathers up: it lies\u2014bear witness, Hell!\u2014\n    For aye indelible!\nAnd thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own\n    That shedding to atone!\nYea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,\n    Red, clotted, gout by gout,\u2014\nA draught abhorred of men and gods; but I\n    Will drain it, suck thee dry;\nYea, I will waste thee living, nerve and vein;\n    Yea, for thy mother slain,\nWill drag thee downward, there where thou shalt dree\n    The weird of agony!\nAnd thou and whatsoe\u2019er of men hath sinned\u2014\n    Hath wronged or God, or friend,\nOr parent,\u2014learn ye how to all and each\n    The arm of doom can reach!\nSternly requiteth, in the world beneath,\n    The judgment-seat of Death;\nYea, Death, beholding every man\u2019s endeavour\n    Recordeth it for ever.\n\nORESTES\nI, schooled in many miseries, have learnt\nHow many refuges of cleansing shrines\nThere be; I know when law alloweth speech\nAnd when imposeth silence. Lo, I stand\nFixed now to speak, for he whose word is wise\nCommands the same. Look, how the stain of blood\nIs dull upon mine hand and wastes away,\nAnd laved and lost therewith is the deep curse\nOf matricide; for while the guilt was new,\n\u2019Twas banished from me at Apollo\u2019s hearth,\nAtoned and purified by death of swine.\nLong were my word if I should sum the tale,\nHow oft since then among my fellow-men\nI stood and brought no curse. Time cleanses all\u2014\nTime, the coeval of all things that are.\nNow from pure lips, in words of omen fair,\nI call Athena, lady of this land,\nTo come, my champion: so, in aftertime,\nShe shall not fail of love and service leal,\nNot won by war, from me and from my land,\nAnd all the folk of Argos, vowed to her.\n  Now, be she far away in Libyan land\nWhere flows from Triton\u2019s lake her natal wave,\u2014\nStand she with planted feet, or in some hour\nOf rest conceal them, champion of her friends\nWhere\u2019er she be,\u2014or whether o\u2019er the plain\nPhlegraean she look forth, as warrior bold\u2014\nI cry to her to come, where\u2019er she be,\n(And she, as goddess, from afar can hear,)\nAnd aid and free me, set among my foes.\n\nCHORUS\nThee not Apollo nor Athena\u2019s strength\nCan save from perishing, a castaway\nAmid the Lost, where no delight shall meet\nThy soul\u2014a bloodless prey of nether powers,\nA shadow among shadows. Answerest thou\nNothing? dost cast away my words with scorn,\nThou, prey prepared and dedicate to me?\nNot as a victim slain upon the shrine,\nBut living shalt thou see thy flesh my food.\nHear now the binding chant that makes thee mine.\n\nWeave the weird dance,\u2014behold the hour\n  To utter forth the chant of hell,\n  Our sway among mankind to tell,\nThe guidance of our power.\nOf Justice are we ministers,\n  And whosoe\u2019er of men may stand\n  Lifting a pure unsullied hand,\nThat man no doom of ours incurs,\n  And walks thro\u2019 all his mortal path\n  Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath.\n  But if, as yonder man, he hath\nBlood on the hands he strives to hide,\n  We stand avengers at his side,\nDecreeing, _Thou hast wronged the dead:\n  We are doom\u2019s witnesses to thee_.\nThe price of blood, his hands have shed,\nWe wring from him; in life, in death,\n  Hard at his side are we!\n\nNight, Mother Night, who brought me forth, a torment\n        To living men and dead,\nHear me, O hear! by Leto\u2019s stripling son\n        I am dishonour\u00e8d:\nHe hath ta\u2019en from me him who cowers in refuge,\n        To me made consecrate,\u2014\nA rightful victim, him who slew his mother.\n        Given o\u2019er to me and fate.\n\n        Hear the hymn of hell,\n          O\u2019er the victim sounding,\u2014\n        Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,\n          Sense and will confounding!\n        Round the soul entwining\n          Without lute or lyre\u2014\n        Soul in madness pining,\n          Wasting as with fire!\n\nFate, all-pervading Fate, this service spun, commanding\n        That I should bide therein:\nWhosoe\u2019er of mortals, made perverse and lawless,\n        Is stained with blood of kin,\nBy his side are we, and hunt him ever onward,\n        Till to the Silent Land,\nThe realm of death, he cometh; neither yonder\n        In freedom shall he stand.\n\n        Hear the hymn of hell,\n          O\u2019er the victim sounding,\u2014\n        Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,\n          Sense and will confounding!\n        Round the soul entwining\n          Without lute or lyre\u2014\n        Soul in madness pining,\n          Wasting as with fire!\n\nWhen from womb of Night we sprang, on us this labour\n        Was laid and shall abide.\nGods immortal are ye, yet beware ye touch not\n        That which is our pride!\nNone may come beside us gathered round the blood feast\u2014\n        For us no garments white\nGleam on a festal day; for us a darker fate is,\n        Another darker rite.\nThat is mine hour when falls an ancient line\u2014\n        When in the household\u2019s heart\nThe god of blood doth slay by kindred hands,\u2014\n        Then do we bear our part:\nOn him who slays we sweep with chasing cry:\nThough he be triply strong,\nWe wear and waste him; blood atones for blood,\nNew pain for ancient wrong.\n\nI hold this task\u2014\u2019tis mine, and not another\u2019s.\nThe very gods on high,\nThough they can silence and annul the prayers\nOf those who on us cry,\nThey may not strive with us who stand apart,\nA race by Zeus abhorred,\nBlood-boltered, held unworthy of the council\nAnd converse of Heaven\u2019s lord.\nTherefore the more I leap upon my prey;\nUpon their head I bound;\nMy foot is hard; as one that trips a runner\nI cast them to the ground;\nYea, to the depth of doom intolerable;\nAnd they who erst were great,\nAnd upon earth held high their pride and glory,\nAre brought to low estate.\nIn underworld they waste and are diminished,\nThe while around them fleet\nDark wavings of my robes, and, subtly woven,\nThe paces of my feet.\n\nWho falls infatuate, he sees not, neither knows he\nThat we are at his side;\nSo closely round about him, darkly flitting,\nThe cloud of guilt doth glide.\nHeavily \u2019tis uttered, how around his hearthstone\nThe mirk of hell doth rise.\nStern and fixed the law is; we have hands t\u2019achieve it,\nCunning to devise.\nQueens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance.\nNot by tear or prayer\nShall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness,\nFar from gods, we fare,\nLit unto our task with torch of sunless regions,\nAnd o\u2019er a deadly way\u2014\nDeadly to the living as to those who see not\n    Life and light of day\u2014\nHunt we and press onward. Who of mortals hearing\n    Doth not quake for awe,\nHearing all that Fate thro\u2019 hand of God hath given us\n    For ordinance and law?\nYea, this right to us, in dark abysm and backward\n    Of ages it befel:\nNone shall wrong mine office, tho\u2019 in nether regions\n    And sunless dark I dwell.\n\n [_Enter Athena from above._\n\nATHENA\nFar off I heard the clamour of your cry,\nAs by Scamander\u2019s side I set my foot\nAsserting right upon the land given o\u2019er\nTo me by those who o\u2019er Achaia\u2019s host\nHeld sway and leadership: no scanty part\nOf all they won by spear and sword, to me\nThey gave it, land and all that grew theron,\nAs chosen heirloom for my Theseus\u2019 clan.\nThence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot,\u2014\nHummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold\nOf this mine aegis, by my feet propelled,\nAs, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car.\nAnd now, beholding here Earth\u2019s nether brood,\nI fear it nought, yet are mine eyes amazed\nWith wonder. Who are ye? of all I ask,\nAnd of this stranger to my statue clinging.\nBut ye\u2014your shape is like no human form,\nLike to no goddess whom the gods behold,\nLike to no shape which mortal women wear.\nYet to stand by and chide a monstrous form\nIs all unjust\u2014from such words Right revolts.\n\nCHORUS\nO child of Zeus, one word shall tell thee all.\nWe are the children of eternal Night,\nAnd Furies in the underworld are called.\n\nATHENA\nI know your lineage now and eke your name.\n\nCHORUS\nYea, and eftsoons indeed my rights shalt know.\n\nATHENA\nFain would I learn them; speak them clearly forth.\n\nCHORUS\nWe chase from home the murderers of men.\n\nATHENA\nAnd where at last can he that slew make pause?\n\nCHORUS\nWhere this is law\u2014_All joy abandon here._\n\nATHENA\nSay, do ye bay this man to such a flight?\n\nCHORUS\nYea, for of choice he did his mother slay.\n\nATHENA\nUrged by no fear of other wrath and doom?\n\nCHORUS\nWhat spur can rightly goad to matricide?\n\nATHENA\nTwo stand to plead\u2014one only have I heard.\n\nCHORUS\nHe will not swear nor challenge us to oath.\n\nATHENA\nThe form of justice, not its deed, thou willest.\n\nCHORUS\nProve thou that word; thou art not scant of skill.\n\nATHENA\nI say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.\n\nCHORUS\nThen test the cause, judge and award the right.\n\nATHENA\nWill ye to me then this decision trust?\n\nCHORUS\nYea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.\n\nATHENA (_to Orestes_)\nO man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn.\nSpeak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes;\nThen, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame\u2014\nIf, as I deem, in confidence of right\nThou sittest hard beside my holy place,\nClasping this statue, as Ixion sat,\nA sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse,\u2014\nTo all this answer me in words made plain.\n\nORESTES\nO queen Athena, first from thy last words\nWill I a great solicitude remove.\nNot one blood-guilty am I; no foul stain\nClings to thine image from my clinging hand;\nWhereof one potent proof I have to tell.\nLo, the law stands\u2014_The slayer shall not plead,\nTill by the hand of him who cleanses blood\nA suckling creature\u2019s blood besprinkle him_.\nLong since have I this expiation done,\u2014\nIn many a home, slain beasts and running streams\nHave cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.\nNext, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn:\nAn Argive am I, and right well thou know\u2019st\nMy sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed\nThe fleet and them that went therein to war\u2014\nThat chief with whom thy hand combined to crush\nTo an uncitied heap what once was Troy;\nThat Agamemnon, when he homeward came,\nWas brought unto no honourable death,\nSlain by the dark-souled wife who brought me forth\nTo him,\u2014enwound and slain in wily nets,\nBlazoned with blood that in the laver ran.\nAnd I, returning from an exiled youth,\nSlew her, my mother\u2014lo, it stands avowed!\nWith blood for blood avenging my loved sire;\nAnd in this deed doth Loxias bear part,\nDecreeing agonies, to goad my will,\nUnless by me the guilty found their doom.\nDo thou decide if right or wrong were done\u2014\nThy dooming, whatsoe\u2019er it be, contents me.\n\nATHENA\nToo mighty is this matter, whatsoe\u2019er\nOf mortals claims to judge hereof aright.\nYea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids\nTo judge the issues of blood-guilt, and wrath\nThat follows swift behind. This too gives pause,\nThat thou as one with all due rites performed\nDost come, unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.\nWhate\u2019er thou art, in this my city\u2019s name,\nAs uncondemned, I take thee to my side,\u2014\nYet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,\nI may not banish them: and if they fail,\nO\u2019erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith\nTheir anger\u2019s poison shall infect the land\u2014\nA dropping plague-spot of eternal ill.\nThus stand we with a woe on either hand:\nStay they, or go at my commandment forth,\nPerplexity or pain must needs befall.\nYet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,\nI choose unto me judges that shall be\nAn ordinance for ever, set to rule\nThe dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.\nBut ye, call forth your witness and your proof,\nWords strong for justice, fortified by oath;\nAnd I, whoe\u2019er are truest in my town,\nThem will I chose and bring, and straitly charge,\n_Look on this cause, discriminating well,\nAnd pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong._\n\n[_Exit Athena._\n\nCHORUS\nNow are they all undone, the ancient laws,\n  If here the slayer\u2019s cause\nPrevail; new wrong for ancient right shall be\n  If matricide go free.\nHenceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,\n  Too ready to the hand:\nToo oft shall parents in the aftertime\n  Rue and lament this crime,\u2014\nTaught, not in false imagining, to feel\n  Their children\u2019s thrusting steel:\nNo more the wrath, that erst on murder fell\n  From us, the queens of Hell.\nShall fall, no more our watching gaze impend\u2014\n  Death shall smite unrestrained.\n\nHenceforth shall one unto another cry\n_Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die\nAround me!_ and that other answers him,\n_O thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,\n  Behold, with dark increase\nThey throng and press upon thee; yea, and dim\n  Is all the cure, and every comfort vain!_\n\nLet none henceforth cry out, when falls the blow\n  Of sudden-smiting woe,\n    Cry out in sad reiterated strain\n  _O Justice, aid! aid, O ye thrones of Hell!_\n      So though a father or a mother wail\n    New-smitten by a son, it shall no more avail,\n  Since, overthrown by wrong, the fane of Justice fell!\n\n  Know, that a throne there is that may not pass away,\n    And one that sitteth on it\u2014even Fear,\n  Searching with steadfast eyes man\u2019s inner soul:\n  Wisdom is child of pain, and born with many a tear;\n        But who henceforth,\n  What man of mortal men, what nation upon earth,\n    That holdeth nought in awe nor in the light\n    Of inner reverence, shall worship Right\n        As in the older day?\n\n    Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,\n    Nor that which bows unto a tyrant\u2019s sway.\n        Know that the middle way\n  Is dearest unto God, and they thereon who wend,\n        They shall achieve the end;\n    But they who wander or to left or right\n        Are sinners in his sight.\n      Take to thy heart this one, this soothfast word\u2014\n       Of wantonness impiety is sire;\n      Only from calm control and sanity unstirred\n    Cometh true weal, the goal of every man\u2019s desire.\n\n    Yea, whatsoe\u2019er befall, hold thou this word of mine:\n          _Bow down at Justice\u2019 shrine,\n        Turn thou thine eyes away from earthly lure,\n      Nor with a godless foot that altar spurn._\n      For as thou dost shall Fate do in return,\n          And the great doom is sure.\n      Therefore let each adore a parent\u2019s trust,\n        And each with loyalty revere the guest\n          That in his halls doth rest.\n  For whoso uncompelled doth follow what is just,\n          He ne\u2019er shall be unblest;\n        Yea, never to the gulf of doom\n          That man shall come.\nBut he whose will is set against the gods,\n  Who treads beyond the law with foot impure,\n\nTill o\u2019er the wreck of Right confusion broods\u2014\n  Know that for him, though now he sail secure,\nThe day of storm shall be; then shall he strive and fail,\n  Down from the shivered yard to furl the sail,\nAnd call on Powers, that heed him nought, to save\n  And vainly wrestle with the whirling wave,\n    Hot was his heart with pride\u2014\n    _I shall not fall_, he cried.\n    But him with watching scorn\n    The god beholds, forlorn,\n  Tangled in toils of Fate beyond escape,\n  Hopeless of haven safe beyond the cape\u2014\nTill all his wealth and bliss of bygone day\n  Upon the reef of Rightful Doom is hurled,\n    And he is rapt away\nUnwept, for ever, to the dead forgotten world.\n\n[_Re-enter Athena, with twelve Athenian citizens_.\n\nATHENA\nO herald, make proclaim, bid all men come.\nThen let the shrill blast of the Tyrrhene trump,\nFulfilled with mortal breath, thro\u2019 the wide air\nPeal a loud summons, bidding all men heed.\nFor, till my judges fill this judgment-seat,\nSilence behoves,\u2014that this whole city learn,\nWhat for all time mine ordinance commands,\nAnd these men, that the cause be judged aright.\n\n[_Apollo approaches._\n\nCHORUS\nO king Apollo, rule what is thine own,\nBut in this thing what share pertains to thee?\n\nAPOLLO\nFirst, as a witness come I, for this man\nIs suppliant of mine by sacred right,\nGuest of my holy hearth and cleansed by me\nOf blood-guilt: then, to set me at his side\nAnd in his cause bear part, as part I bore\nErst in his deed, whereby his mother fell.\nLet whoso knoweth now announce the cause.\n\nATHENA (_to the Chorus_)\n\u2019Tis I announce the cause\u2014first speech be yours;\nFor rightfully shall they whose plaint is tried\nTell the tale first and set the matter clear.\n\nCHORUS\nThough we be many, brief shall be our tale.\n(_To Orestes_) Answer thou, setting word to match with word;\nAnd first avow\u2014hast thou thy mother slain?\n\nORESTES\nI slew her. I deny no word hereof.\n\nCHORUS\nThree falls decide the wrestle\u2014this is one.\n\nORESTES\nThou vauntest thee\u2014but o\u2019er no final fall.\n\nCHORUS\nYet must thou tell the manner of thy deed.\n\nORESTES\nDrawn sword in hand, I gashed her neck. \u2019Tis told.\n\nCHORUS\nBut by whose word, whose craft, wert thou impelled?\n\nORESTES\nBy oracles of him who here attests me.\n\nCHORUS\nThe prophet-god bade thee thy mother slay?\n\nORESTES\nYea, and thro\u2019 him less ill I fared, till now.\n\nCHORUS\nIf the vote grip thee, thou shalt change that word.\n\nORESTES\nStrong is my hope; my buried sire shall aid.\n\nCHORUS\nGo to now, trust the dead, a matricide!\n\nORESTES\nYea, for in her combined two stains of sin.\n\nCHORUS\nHow? speak this clearly to the judges\u2019 mind.\n\nORESTES\nSlaying her husband, she did slay my sire.\n\nCHORUS\nTherefore thou livest; death assoils her deed.\n\nORESTES\nThen while she lived why didst thou hunt her not?\n\nCHORUS\nShe was not kin by blood to him she slew.\n\nORESTES\nAnd I, am I by blood my mother\u2019s kin?\n\nCHORUS\nO cursed with murder\u2019s guilt, how else wert thou\nThe burden of her womb? Dost thou forswear\nThy mother\u2019s kinship, closest bond of love?\n\nORESTES\nIt is thine hour, Apollo\u2014speak the law,\nAverring if this deed were justly done;\nFor done it is, and clear and undenied.\nBut if to thee this murder\u2019s cause seem right\nOr wrongful, speak\u2014that I to these may tell.\n\nAPOLLO\nTo you, Athena\u2019s mighty council-court,\nJustly for justice will I plead, even I,\nThe prophet-god, nor cheat you by one word.\nFor never spake I from my prophet-seat\nOne word, of man, of woman, or of state,\nSave what the Father of Olympian gods\nCommanded unto me. I rede you then,\nBethink you of my plea, how strong it stands,\nAnd follow the decree of Zeus our sire,\u2014\nFor oaths prevail not over Zeus\u2019 command.\n\nCHORUS\nGo to; thou sayest that from Zeus befel\nThe oracle that this Orestes bade\nWith vengeance quit the slaying of his sire,\nAnd hold as nought his mother\u2019s right of kin!\n\nAPOLLO\nYea, for it stands not with a common death,\nThat he should die, a chieftain and a king\nDecked with the sceptre which high heaven confers\u2014\nDie, and by female hands, not smitten down\nBy a far-shooting bow, held stalwartly\nBy some strong Amazon. Another doom\nWas his: O Pallas, hear, and ye who sit\nIn judgment, to discern this thing aright!\u2014\nShe with a specious voice of welcome true\nHailed him, returning from the mighty mart\nWhere war for life gives fame, triumphant home;\nThen o\u2019er the laver, as he bathed himself,\nShe spread from head to foot a covering net,\nAnd in the endless mesh of cunning robes\nEnwound and trapped her lord, and smote him down.\nLo, ye have heard what doom this chieftain met,\nThe majesty of Greece, the fleet\u2019s high lord:\nSuch as I tell it, let it gall your ears,\nWho stand as judges to decide this cause.\n\nCHORUS\nZeus, as thou sayest, holds a father\u2019s death\nAs first of crimes,\u2014yet he of his own act\nCast into chains his father, Cronos old:\nHow suits that deed with that which now ye tell?\nO ye who judge, I bid ye mark my words!\n\nAPOLLO\nO monsters loathed of all, O scorn of gods,\nHe that hath bound may loose: a cure there is,\nYea, many a plan that can unbind the chain.\nBut when the thirsty dust sucks up man\u2019s blood\nOnce shed in death, he shall arise no more.\nNo chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.\nAll else there is, he moulds and shifts at will,\nNot scant of strength nor breath, whate\u2019er he do.\n\nCHORUS\nThink yet, for what acquittal thou dost plead:\nHe who hath shed a mother\u2019s kindred blood,\nShall he in Argos dwell, where dwelt his sire?\nHow shall he stand before the city\u2019s shrines,\nHow share the clansmen\u2019s holy lustral bowl?\n\nAPOLLO\nThis too I answer; mark a soothfast word,\nNot the true parent is the woman\u2019s womb\nThat bears the child; she doth but nurse the seed\nNew-sown: the male is parent; she for him,\nAs stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ\nOf life; unless the god its promise blight.\nAnd proof hereof before you will I set.\nBirth may from fathers, without mothers, be:\nSee at your side a witness of the same,\nAthena, daughter of Olympian Zeus,\nNever within the darkness of the womb\nFostered nor fashioned, but a bud more bright\nThan any goddess in her breast might bear.\nAnd I, O Pallas, howsoe\u2019er I may,\nHenceforth will glorify thy town, thy clan,\nAnd for this end have sent my suppliant here\nUnto thy shrine; that he from this time forth\nBe loyal unto thee for evermore,\nO goddess-queen, and thou unto thy side\nMayst win and hold him faithful, and his line,\nAnd that for aye this pledge and troth remain\nTo children\u2019s children of Athenian seed.\n\nATHENA\nEnough is said; I bid the judges now\nWith pure intent deliver just award.\n\nCHORUS\nWe too have shot our every shaft of speech,\nAnd now abide to hear the doom of law.\n\nATHENA (_to Apollo and Orestes_)\nSay, how ordaining shall I \u2019scape your blame?\n\nAPOLLO\nI spake, ye heard; enough. O stranger men,\nHeed well your oath as ye decide the cause.\n\nATHENA\nO men of Athens, ye who first do judge\nThe law of bloodshed, hear me now ordain.\nHere to all time for Aegeus\u2019 Attic host\nShall stand this council-court of judges sworn,\nHere the tribunal, set on Ares\u2019 Hill\nWhere camped of old the tented Amazons,\nWhat time in hate of Theseus they assailed\nAthens, and set against her citadel\nA counterwork of new sky-pointing towers,\nAnd there to Ares held their sacrifice,\nWhere now the rock hath name, even Ares\u2019 Hill.\nAnd hence shall Reverence and her kinsman Fear\nPass to each free man\u2019s heart, by day and night\nEnjoining, _Thou shalt do no unjust thing_,\nSo long as law stands as it stood of old\nUnmarred by civic change. Look you, the spring\nIs pure; but foul it once with influx vile\nAnd muddy clay, and none can drink thereof.\nTherefore, O citizens, I bid ye bow\nIn awe to this command, _Let no man live\nUncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny;_\nNor banish ye the monarchy of Awe\nBeyond the walls; untouched by fear divine,\nNo man doth justice in the world of men.\nTherefore in purity and holy dread\nStand and revere; so shall ye have and hold\nA saving bulwark of the state and land,\nSuch as no man hath ever elsewhere known,\nNor in far Scythia, nor in Pelops\u2019 realm.\nThus I ordain it now, a council-court\nPure and unsullied by the lust of gain,\nSacred and swift to vengeance, wakeful ever\nTo champion men who sleep, the country\u2019s guard.\nThus have I spoken, thus to mine own clan\nCommended it for ever. Ye who judge,\nArise, take each his vote, mete out the right,\nYour oath revering. Lo, my word is said.\n\n[_The twelve judges come forward, one by one, to the urns of decision;\nthe first votes; as each of the others follows, the Chorus and Apollo\nspeak alternately._\n\nCHORUS\nI rede ye well, beware! nor put to shame,\nIn aught, this grievous company of hell.\n\nAPOLLO\nI too would warn you, fear mine oracles\u2014\nFrom Zeus they are,\u2014nor make them void of fruit.\n\nCHORUS\nPresumptuous is thy claim, blood-guilt to judge,\nAnd false henceforth thine oracles shall be.\n\nAPOLLO\nFailed then the counsels of my sire, when turned\nIxion, first of slayers, to his side?\n\nCHORUS\nThese are but words; but I, if justice fail me,\nWill haunt this land in grim and deadly deed.\n\nAPOLLO\nScorn of the younger and the elder gods\nArt thou: \u2019tis I that shall prevail anon.\n\nCHORUS\nThus didst thou too of old in Pheres\u2019 halls,\nO\u2019erreaching Fate to make a mortal deathless.\n\nAPOLLO\nWas it not well, my worshipper to aid,\nThen most of all when hardest was the need?\n\nCHORUS\nI say thou didst annul the lots of life,\nCheating with wine the deities of eld.\n\nAPOLLO\nI say thou shalt anon, thy pleadings foiled,\nSpit venom vainly on thine enemies.\n\nCHORUS\nSince this young god o\u2019errides mine ancient right,\nI tarry but to claim your law, not knowing\nIf wrath of mine shall blast your state or spare\n\nATHENA\nMine is the right to add the final vote,\nAnd I award it to Orestes\u2019 cause.\nFor me no mother bore within her womb,\nAnd, save for wedlock evermore eschewed,\nI vouch myself the champion of the man,\nNot of the woman, yea, with all my soul,\u2014\nIn heart, as birth, a father\u2019s child alone.\nThus will I not too heinously regard\nA woman\u2019s death who did her husband slay,\nThe guardian of her home; and if the votes\nEqual do fall, Orestes shall prevail.\nYe of the judges who are named thereto,\nSwiftly shake forth the lots from either urn.\n\n[_Two judges come forward, one to each urn._\n\nORESTES\nO bright Apollo, what shall be the end?\n\nCHORUS\nO Night, dark mother mine, dost mark these things?\n\nOSESTES\nNow shall my doom be life, or strangling cords.\n\nCHORUS\nAnd mine, lost honour or a wider sway.\n\nAPOLLO\nO stranger judges, sum aright the count\nOf votes cast forth, and, parting them, take heed\nYe err not in decision. The default\nOf one vote only bringeth ruin deep,\nOne, cast aright, doth stablish house and home.\n\nATHENA\nBehold, this man is free from guilt of blood,\nFor half the votes condemn him, half set free!\n\nORESTES\nO Pallas, light and safety of my home,\nThou, thou hast given me back to dwell once more\nIn that my fatherland, amerced of which\nI wandered; now shall Grecian lips say this,\n_The man is Argive once again, and dwells\nAgain within his father\u2019s wealthy hall,\nBy Pallas saved, by Loxias, and by Him,\nThe great third saviour, Zeus omnipotent\u2014_\nWho thus in pity for my father\u2019s fate\nDoth pluck me from my doom, beholding these,\nConfederates of my mother. Lo, I pass\nTo mine own home, but proffering this vow\nUnto thy land and people: _Nevermore,\nThro\u2019 all the manifold years of Time to be,\nShall any chieftain of mine Argive land\nBear hitherward his spears for fight arrayed._\nFor we, though lapped in earth we then shall lie,\nBy thwart adversities will work our will\nOn them who shall transgress this oath of mine,\nPaths of despair and journeyings ill-starred\nFor them ordaining, till their task they rue.\nBut if this oath be rightly kept, to them\nWill we the dead be full of grace, the while\nWith loyal league they honour Pallas\u2019 town.\nAnd now farewell, thou and thy city\u2019s folk\u2014\nFirm be thine arm\u2019s grasp, closing with thy foes,\nAnd, strong to save, bring victory to thy spear.\n\n[_Exit Orestes, with Apollo._\n\nCHORUS\nWoe on you, younger gods! the ancient right\nYe have o\u2019erridden, rent it from my hands.\n\nI am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!\n    But heavily my wrath\nShall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn\n  Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe\n  As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,\n      Shall leafless blight arise,\n  Wasting Earth\u2019s offspring,\u2014Justice, hear my call!\u2014\n  And thorough all the land in deadly wise\n  Shall scatter venom, to exude again\n      In pestilence on men.\n  What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,\n  Unto this land what dark despite?\n      Alack, alack, forlorn\n  Are we, a bitter injury have borne!\n  Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood\n      Of mother Night!\n\nATHENA\nNay, bow ye to my words, chafe not nor moan:\nYe are not worsted nor disgraced; behold,\nWith balanced vote the cause had issue fair,\nNor in the end did aught dishonour thee.\nBut thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth,\nAnd his own prophet-god avouched the same,\n_Orestes slew: his slaying is atoned_.\nTherefore I pray you, not upon this land\nShoot forth the dart of vengeance; be appeased,\nNor blast the land with blight, nor loose thereon\nDrops of eternal venom, direful darts\nWasting and marring nature\u2019s seed of growth.\n\nFor I, the queen of Athens\u2019 sacred right,\nDo pledge to you a holy sanctuary\nDeep in the heart of this my land, made just\nBy your indwelling presence, while ye sit\nHard by your sacred shrines that gleam with oil\nOf sacrifice, and by this folk adored.\n\nCHORUS\nWoe on you, younger gods! the ancient right\nYe have o\u2019erridden, rent it from my hands.\n\nI am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!\n  But heavily my wrath\nShall on his land fling forth the drops that blast and burn.\n  Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe\n  As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,\n    Shall leafless blight arise,\nWasting Earth\u2019s offspring,\u2014Justice, hear my call!\u2014\nAnd thorough all the land in deadly wise\nShall scatter venom, to exude again\n  In pestilence of men.\nWhat cry avails me now, what deed of blood,\nUnto this land what dark despite?\n  Alack, alack, forlorn\nAre we, a bitter injury have borne!\nAlack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood\n  Of mother Night!\n\nATHENA\nDishonoured are ye not; turn not, I pray.\nAs goddesses your swelling wrath on men,\nNor make the friendly earth despiteful to them.\nI too have Zeus for champion\u2014\u2019tis enough\u2014\nI only of all goddesses do know.\nTo ope the chamber where his thunderbolts\nLie stored and sealed; but here is no such need.\nNay, be appeased, nor cast upon the ground\nThe malice of thy tongue, to blast the world;\nCalm thou thy bitter wrath\u2019s black inward surge,\nFor high shall be thine honour, set beside me\nFor ever in this land, whose fertile lap\nShall pour its teeming firstfruits unto you,\nGifts for fair childbirth and for wedlock\u2019s crown:\nThus honoured, praise my spoken pledge for aye.\n\nCHORUS\nI, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,\u2014\nAncient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth\nPoison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,\n    Woe, woe, for thee, for me!\nFrom side to side what pains be these that thrill?\nHearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!\nWhom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust,\n    And brought me to the dust\u2014\nWoe, woe is me!\u2014with craft invincible.\n\nATHENA\nOlder art thou than I, and I will bear\nWith this thy fury. Know, although thou be\nMore wise in ancient wisdom, yet have I\nFrom Zeus no scanted measure of the same,\nWherefore take heed unto this prophecy\u2014\nIf to another land of alien men\nYe go, too late shall ye feel longing deep\nFor mine. The rolling tides of time bring round\nA day of brighter glory for this town;\nAnd thou, enshrined in honour by the halls\nWhere dwelt Erechtheus, shalt a worship win\nFrom men and from the train of womankind,\nGreater than any tribe elsewhere shall pay.\nCast thou not therefore on this soil of mine\nWhetstones that sharpen souls to bloodshedding.\nThe burning goads of youthful hearts, made hot\nWith frenzy of the spirit, not of wine.\nNor pluck as \u2019twere the heart from cocks that strive,\nTo set it in the breasts of citizens\nOf mine, a war-god\u2019s spirit, keen for fight,\nMade stern against their country and their kin.\nThe man who grievously doth lust for fame,\nWar, full, immitigable, let him wage\nAgainst the stranger; but of kindred birds\nI hold the challenge hateful. Such the boon\nI proffer thee\u2014within this land of lands,\nMost loved of gods, with me to show and share\nFair mercy, gratitude and grace as fair.\n\nCHORUS\nI, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,\u2014\nAncient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth\nPoison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,\n       Woe, woe for thee, for me!\nFrom side to side what pains be these that thrill?\nHearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!\nWhom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust,\n       And brought me to the dust\u2014\nWoe, woe is me!\u2014with craft invincible.\n\nATHENA\nI will not weary of soft words to thee,\nThat never mayst thou say, _Behold me spurned,\nAn elder by a younger deity,\nAnd from this land rejected and forlorn,\nUnhonoured by the men who dwell therein_.\nBut, if Persuasion\u2019s grace be sacred to thee,\nSoft in the soothing accents of my tongue,\nTarry, I pray thee; yet, if go thou wilt,\nNot rightfully wilt thou on this my town\nSway down the scale that beareth wrath and teen\nOr wasting plague upon this folk. \u2019Tis thine,\nIf so thou wilt, inheritress to be\nOf this my land, its utmost grace to win.\n\nCHORUS\nO queen, what refuge dost thou promise me?\n\nATHENA\nRefuge untouched by bale: take thou my boon.\n\nCHORUS\nWhat, if I take it, shall mine honour be?\n\nATHENA\nNo house shall prosper without grace of thine.\n\nCHORUS\nCanst thou achieve and grant such power to me?\n\nATHENA\nYea, for my hand shall bless thy worshippers.\n\nCHORUS\nAnd wilt thou pledge me this for time eterne?\n\nATHENA\nYea: none can bid me pledge beyond my power.\n\nCHORUS\nLo, I desist from wrath, appeased by thee.\n\nATHENA\nThen in the land\u2019s heart shalt thou win thee friends.\n\nCHORUS\nWhat chant dost bid me raise, to greet the land?\n\nATHENA\nSuch as aspires towards a victory\nUnrued by any: chants from breast of earth,\nFrom wave, from sky; and let the wild winds\u2019 breath\nPass with soft sunlight o\u2019er the lap of land,\u2014\nStrong wax the fruits of earth, fair teem the kine,\nUnfailing, for my town\u2019s prosperity,\nAnd constant be the growth of mortal seed.\nBut more and more root out the impious,\nFor as a gardener fosters what he sows,\nSo foster I this race, whom righteousness\nDoth fend from sorrow. Such the proffered boon.\nBut I, if wars must be, and their loud clash\nAnd carnage, for my town, will ne\u2019er endure\nThat aught but victory shall crown her fame.\n\nCHORUS\nLo, I accept it; at her very side\n    Doth Pallas bid me dwell:\n  I will not wrong the city of her pride,\nWhich even Almighty Zeus and Ares hold\n    Heaven\u2019s earthly citadel,\nLoved home of Grecian gods, the young, the old,\n    The sanctuary divine,\n    The shield of every shrine!\nFor Athens I say forth a gracious prophecy,\u2014\n  The glory of the sunlight and the skies\n    Shall bid from earth arise\nWarm wavelets of new life and glad prosperity.\n\nATHENA\n    Behold, with gracious heart well pleased\n       I for my citizens do grant\n       Fulfilment of this covenant:\n    And here, their wrath at length appeased,\n       These mighty deities shall stay,\n     For theirs it is by right to sway\nThe lot that rules our mortal day,\n       And he who hath not inly felt\n      Their stern decree, ere long on him,\n      Not knowing why and whence, the grim\n       Life-crushing blow is dealt.\n       The father\u2019s sin upon the child\n      Descends, and sin is silent death,\n      And leads him on the downward path,\n         By stealth beguiled,\n       Unto the Furies: though his state\n      On earth were high, and loud his boast,\n       Victim of silent ire and hate\n         He dwells among the Lost.\n\nCHORUS\nTo my blessing now give ear.\u2014\nScorching blight nor sing\u00e8d air\nNever blast thine olives fair!\nDrouth, that wasteth bud and plant,\nKeep to thine own place. Avaunt,\nFamine fell, and come not hither\nStealthily to waste and wither!\nLet the land, in season due,\nTwice her waxing fruits renew;\nTeem the kine in double measure;\nRich in new god-given treasure;\nHere let men the powers adore\nFor sudden gifts unhoped before!\n\nATHENA\n  O hearken, warders of the wall\n  That guards mine Athens, what a dower\n  Is unto her ordained and given!\nFor mighty is the Furies\u2019 power,\n  And deep-revered in courts of heaven\nAnd realms of hell; and clear to all\n  They weave thy doom, mortality!\nAnd some in joy and peace shall sing;\nBut unto other some they bring\n  Sad life and tear-dimmed eye.\n\nCHORUS\nAnd far away I ban thee and remove,\n  Untimely death of youths too soon brought low!\nAnd to each maid, O gods, when time is come for love,\n  Grant ye a warrior\u2019s heart, a wedded life to know.\nYe too, O Fates, children of mother Night,\n  Whose children too are we, O goddesses\nOf just award, of all by sacred right\n  Queens who in time and in eternity\nDo rule, a present power for righteousness,\n  Honoured beyond all Gods, hear ye and grant my cry!\n\nATHENA\nAnd I too, I with joy am fain,\nHearing your voice this gift ordain\nUnto my land. High thanks be thine,\nPersuasion, who with eyes divine\nInto my tongue didst look thy strength,\n  To bend and to appease at length\nThose who would not be comforted.\n  Zeus, king of parley, doth prevail,\nAnd ye and I will strive nor fail,\n  That good may stand in evil\u2019s stead,\nAnd lasting bliss for bale.\n\nCHORUS\nAnd nevermore these walls within\nShall echo fierce sedition\u2019s din\n  Unslaked with blood and crime;\nThe thirsty dust shall nevermore\nSuck up the darkly streaming gore\nOf civic broils, shed out in wrath\nAnd vengeance, crying death for death!\nBut man with man and state with state\nShall vow _The pledge of common hate\nAnd common friendship, that for man\nHath oft made blessing out of ban,\nBe ours unto all time_.\n\nATHENA\nSkill they, or not, the path to find\nOf favouring speech and presage kind?\nYea, even from these, who, grim and stern,\n  Glared anger upon you of old,\nO citizens, ye now shall earn\n  A recompense right manifold.\nDeck them aright, extol them high,\nBe loyal to their loyalty,\n  And ye shall make your town and land\n  Sure, propped on Justice\u2019 saving hand,\nAnd Fame\u2019s eternity.\n\nCHORUS\n  Hail ye, all hail! and yet again, all hail\n    O Athens, happy in a weal secured!\n  O ye who sit by Zeus\u2019 right hand, nor fail\n    Of wisdom set among you and assured,\n  Loved of the well-loved Goddess-Maid! the King\nOf gods doth reverence you, beneath her guarding wing.\n\nATHENA\nAll hail unto each honoured guest!\nWhom to the chambers of your rest\n\u2019Tis mine to lead, and to provide\nThe hallowed torch, the guard and guide.\nPass down, the while these altars glow\nWith sacred fire, to earth below\n  And your appointed shrine.\nThere dwelling, from the land restrain\nThe force of fate, the breath of bane,\nBut waft on us the gift and gain\n  Of Victory divine!\nAnd ye, the men of Cranaos\u2019 seed,\nI bid you now with reverence lead\nThese alien Powers that thus are made\nAthenian evermore. To you\nFair be their will henceforth, to do\n  Whate\u2019er may bless and aid!\n\nCHORUS\nHail to you all! hail yet again,\nAll who love Athens, Gods and men,\n    Adoring her as Pallas\u2019 home!\nAnd while ye reverence what ye grant\u2014\nMy sacred shrine and hidden haunt\u2014\n  Blameless and blissful be your doom!\n\nATHENA\nOnce more I praise the promise of your vows,\nAnd now I bid the golden torches\u2019 glow\nPass down before you to the hidden depth\nOf earth, by mine own sacred servants borne,\nMv loyal guards of statue and of shrine.\nCome forth, O flower of Theseus\u2019 Attic land,\nO glorious band of children and of wives,\nAnd ye, O train of matrons crowned with eld!\nDeck you with festal robes of scarlet dye\nIn honour of this day: O gleaming torch,\nLead onward, that these gracious powers of earth\nHenceforth be seen to bless the life of men.\n\n[_Athena leads the procession downwards into the Cave of the Furies,\nunder Areopagus: as they go, the escort of women and children chant\naloud._\n\nCHANT\nWith loyalty we lead you; proudly go,\nNight\u2019s childless children, to your home below!\n  (_O citizens, awhile from words forbear!_)\n  To darkness\u2019 deep primeval lair,\n  Far in Earth\u2019s bosom, downward fare,\n  Adored with prayer and sacrifice.\n    (_O citizens, forbear your cries!_)\n  Pass hitherward, ye powers of Dread,\n  With all your former wrath allayed,\n    Into the heart of this loved land;\n  With joy unto your temple wend,\n  The while upon your steps attend\n    The flames that fed upon the brand\u2014\n(_Now, now ring out your chant, your joy\u2019s acclaim!_)\n    Behind them, as they downward fare,\n    Let holy hands libations bear,\n        And torches\u2019 sacred flame.\n    All-seeing Zeus and Fate come down\n    To battle fair for Pallas\u2019 town!\n_Ring out your chant, ring out your joy\u2019s acclaim!_\n\n[_Exeunt omnes._","title":"The House of Atreus; Being the Agamemnon, the Libation bearers, and the Furies","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":34709}