ORESTES
A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,
And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden
I went toward Argos, parting hitherward
With travelling foot, there did encounter me
One whom I knew not and who knew not me,
But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,
And, as we talked together, told his name--
Strophius of Phocis; then he said, "Good sir,
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,
Forget not this my message, heed it well,
Tell to his own, _Orestes is no more_.
A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,
And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden
I went toward Argos, parting hitherward
With travelling foot, there did encounter me
One whom I knew not and who knew not me,
But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,
And, as we talked together, told his name--
Strophius of Phocis; then he said, "Good sir,
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,
Forget not this my message, heed it well,
Tell to his own, _Orestes is no more_.
Aeschylus
the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass--
Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.
CHORUS
Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.
ELECTRA
I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.
CHORUS
Shorn from what man or what deep-girded maid?
ELECTRA
That may he guess who will; the sign is plain.
CHORUS
Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.
ELECTRA
None is there here but I, to clip such gift.
CHORUS
For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.
ELECTRA
And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like--
CHORUS
Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.
ELECTRA
Like unto those my father's children wear.
CHORUS
Then is this lock Orestes' secret gift?
ELECTRA
Most like it is unto the curls he wore,
CHORUS
Yet how dared he to come unto his home?
ELECTRA
He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.
CHORUS
It is a sorrow grievous as his death,
That he should live yet never dare return.
ELECTRA
Yea, and my heart o'erflows with gall of grief,
And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart;
Like to the first drops after drought, my tears
Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,
As on this lock I gaze; I cannot deem
That any Argive save Orestes' self
Was ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,
Hath she, the murd'ress, shorn and laid this lock
To mourn him whom she slew--my mother she,
Bearing no mother's heart, but to her race
A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven!
Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,
That this adornment cometh of the hand
Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,
I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair!
Ah well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice
To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,
Bidding me sway no more 'twixt fear and hope,
Clearly commanding, _Cast me hence away,
Clipped was I from some head thou lovest not;
Or, I am kin to thee, and here, as thou,
I come to weep and deck our father's grave. _
Aid me, ye gods! for well indeed ye know
How in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,
Like to the seaman's bark, we whirl and stray.
But, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,
From seed how small, the new tree of our home! --
Lo ye, a second sign--these footsteps, look,--
Like to my own, a corresponsive print;
And look, another footmark,--this his own,
And that the foot of one who walked with him.
Mark, how the heel and tendons' print combine,
Measured exact, with mine coincident!
Alas! for doubt and anguish rack my mind.
ORESTES (_approaching suddenly_)
Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled,
_Fair fall the rest of what I ask of heaven_.
ELECTRA
Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?
ORESTES
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart's desire.
ELECTRA
On whom of mortals know'st thou that I call?
ORESTES
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.
ELECTRA
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?
ORESTES
I, I am he; seek not one more akin.
ELECTRA
Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?
ORESTES
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.
ELECTRA
Ah thou hast mind to mock me in my woe!
ORESTES
'Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.
ELECTRA
Speak I with thee then as Orestes' self?
ORESTES
My very face thou see'st and know'st me not,
And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock
Shorn for my father's grave, and when thy quest
Was eager on the footprints I had made,
Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,
Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me!
Lay now this ringlet whence 'twas shorn, and judge,
And look upon this robe, thine own hands' work,
The shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon--
Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,
For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.
ELECTRA
O thou that art unto our father's home
Love, grief and hope, for thee the tears ran down,
For thee, the son, the saviour that should be;
Trust thou thine arm and win thy father's halls!
O aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,
Whom upon thee the heart's constraint bids call
As on my father, and the claim of love
From me unto my mother turns to thee,
For she is very hate; to thee too turns
What of my heart went out to her who died
A ruthless death upon the altar-stone;
And for myself I love thee--thee that wast
A brother leal, sole stay of love to me.
Now by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus
Saviour almighty, stand to aid the twain!
ORESTES
Zeus, Zeus! look down on our estate and us,
The orphaned brood of him, our eagle-sire,
Whom to his death a fearful serpent brought
Enwinding him in coils; and we, bereft
And foodless, sink with famine, all too weak
To bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,
Such quarry as he slew. Lo! I and she,
Electra, stand before thee, fatherless,
And each alike cast out and homeless made.
ELECTRA
And if thou leave to death the brood of him
Whose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence
Was thine, all thine,--whence, in the after years,
Shall any hand like his adorn thy shrine
With sacrifice of flesh? the eaglets slain,
Thou wouldst not have a messenger to bear
Thine omens, once so clear, to mortal men;
So, if this kingly stock be withered all,
None on high festivals will fend thy shrine
Stoop thou to raise us! strong the race shall show,
Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.
CHORUS
O children, saviours of your father's home,
Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear
And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,
Unto our masters--whom God grant to me
In pitchy reek of fun'ral flame to see!
ORESTES
Nay, mighty is Apollo's oracle
And shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass
Thro' all this peril; clear the voice rang out
With many warnings, sternly threatening
To my hot heart the wintry chill of pain,
Unless upon the slayers of my sire
I pressed for vengeance: this the god's command--
That I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,
Should with a craft like theirs the slayers slay:
Else with my very life I should atone
This deed undone, in many a ghastly wise
For he proclaimed unto the ears of men
That offerings, poured to angry power of death,
Exude again, unless their will be done,
As grim disease on those that poured them forth--
As leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh
And with fell fangs corroding what of old
Wore natural form; and on the brow arise
White poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.
He spake moreover of assailing fiends
Empowered to quit on me my father's blood,
Wreaking their wrath on me, what time in night
Beneath shut lids the spirit's eye sees clear.
The dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell
By spirits of the murdered dead who call
Unto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,
The night-tide's visitant, and madness' curse
Should drive and rack me; and my tortured frame
Should be chased forth from man's community
As with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.
For me and such as me no lustral bowl
Should stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God
For me, and wrath unseen of my dead sire
Should drive me from the shrine; no man should dare
To take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me:
Slow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,
And pitiless horror wind me for the grave,
This spake the god--this dare I disobey?
Yea, though I dared, the deed must yet be done;
For to that end diverse desires combine,--
The god's behest, deep grief for him who died,
And last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled--
All these weigh on me, urge that Argive men,
Minions of valour, who with soul of fire
Did make of fenced Troy a ruinous heap,
Be not left slaves to two and each a woman!
For he, the man, wears woman's heart; if not
Soon shall he know, confronted by a man.
[_Orestes, Electra, and the Chorus gather round the tomb of
Agamemnon for the invocation which follows_.
CHORUS
Mighty Fates, on you we call!
Bid the will of Zeus ordain
Power to those, to whom again
Justice turns with hand and aid!
Grievous was the prayer one made--
Grievous let the answer fall!
Where the mighty doom is set,
Justice claims aloud her debt
Who in blood hath dipped the steel,
Deep in blood her meed shall feel!
List an immemorial word--
_Whosoe'er shall take the sword
Shall perish by the sword. _
ORESTES
Father, unblest in death, O father mine!
What breath of word or deed
Can I waft on thee from this far confine
Unto thy lowly bed,--
Waft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,
Hope's counter-gleam of fire?
Yet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying
Unto each parted sire.
CHORUS
O child, the spirit of the dead,
Altho' upon his flesh have fed
The grim teeth of the flame,
Is quelled not; after many days
The sting of wrath his soul shall raise,
A vengeance to reclaim!
To the dead rings loud our cry--
Plain the living's treachery--
Swelling, shrilling, urged on high,
The vengeful dirge, for parents
Shall strive and shall attain.
ELECTRA
Hear me too, even me, O father, hear!
Not by one child alone these groans, these tears are shed
Upon thy sepulchre.
Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,
Stands, a suppliant, homeless made:
Ah, and all is full of ill,
Comfort is there none to say!
Strive and wrestle as we may,
Still stands doom invincible.
CHORUS
Nay, if so he will, the god
Still our tears to joy can turn
He can bid a triumph-ode
Drown the dirge beside this urn;
He to kingly halls can greet
The child restored, the homeward-guided feet.
ORESTES
Ah my father! hadst thou lain
Under Ilion's wall,
By some Lycian spearman slain,
Thou hadst left in this thine hall
Honour; thou hadst wrought for us
Fame and life most glorious.
Over-seas if thou had'st died,
Heavily had stood thy tomb,
Heaped on high; but, quenched in pride,
Grief were light unto thy home.
CHORUS
Loved and honoured hadst thou lain
By the dead that nobly fell,
In the under-world again,
Where are throned the kings of hell,
Full of sway adorable
Thou hadst stood at their right hand--
Thou that wert, in mortal land,
By Fate's ordinance and law,
King of kings who bear the crown
And the staff, to which in awe
Mortal men bow down.
ELECTRA
Nay O father, I were fain
Other fate had fallen on thee.
Ill it were if thou hadst lain
One among the common slain,
Fallen by Scamander's side--
Those who slew thee there should be!
Then, untouched by slavery,
We had heard as from afar
Deaths of those who should have died
'Mid the chance of war.
CHORUS
O child, forbear! things all too high thou sayest.
Easy, but vain, thy cry!
A boon above all gold is that thou prayest,
An unreached destiny,
As of the blessed land that far aloof
Beyond the north wind lies;
Yet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof;
A double scourge of sighs
Awakes the dead; th' avengers rise, though late;
Blood stains the guilty pride
Of the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate
Stands on the children's side.
ELECTRA
That hath sped thro' mine ear, like a shaft from a bow!
Zeus, Zeus! it is thou who dost send from below
A doom on the desperate doer--ere long
On a mother a father shall visit his wrong.
CHORUS
Be it mine to upraise thro' the reek of the pyre
The chant of delight, while the funeral fire
Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain
And a woman laid low!
For who bids me conceal it! out-rending control,
Blows ever stern blast of hate thro' my soul,
And before me a vision of wrath and of bane
Flits and waves to and fro.
ORESTES
Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.
Smite with a rending blow
Upon their heads, and bid the land be well:
Set right where wrong hath stood; and thou give ear,
O Earth, unto my prayer--
Yea, hear O mother Earth, and monarchy of hell!
CHORUS
Nay, the law is sternly set--
Blood-drops shed upon the ground
Plead for other bloodshed yet;
Loud the call of death doth sound,
Calling guilt of olden time,
A Fury, crowning crime with crime.
ELECTRA
Where, where are ye, avenging powers,
Puissant Furies of the slain?
Behold the relics of the race
Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place!
O Zeus, what home henceforth is ours,
What refuge to attain?
CHORUS
Lo, at your wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred;
Now am I lorn with sadness,
Darkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow's word
Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise,--
She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes
To the new dawn of gladness.
ORESTES
Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,
Wrought by our mother's deed?
Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong
Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed;
Her children's soul is wolfish, born from hers,
And softens not by prayers.
CHORUS
I dealt upon my breast the blow
That Asian mourning women know;
Wails from my breast the fun'ral cry,
The Cissian weeping melody;
Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,
My clenched hands wander, here and there,
From head to breast; distraught with blows
Throb dizzily my brows.
ELECTRA
Aweless in hate, O mother, sternly brave!
As in a foeman's grave
Thou laid'st in earth a king, but to the bier
No citizen drew near,--
Thy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,
Thou bad'st no wail arise!
ORESTES
Alas the shameful burial thou dost speak!
Yet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak--
That do the gods command!
That shall achieve mine hand!
Grant me to thrust her life away, and I
Will dare to die!
CHORUS
List thou the deed! Hewn down and foully torn,
He to the tomb was borne;
Yea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,
With like dishonour to the grave was brought,
And by her hand she strove, with strong desire,
Thy life to crush, O child, by murder of thy sire:
Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain
Wherewith that sire was slain!
ELECTRA
Yea, such was the doom of my sire; well-a-day,
I was thrust from his side,--
As a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,
And in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears
As in darkness I lay.
O father, if this word can pass to thine ears,
To thy soul let it reach and abide!
CHORUS
Let it pass, let it pierce, through the sense of thine ear,
To thy soul, where in silence it waiteth the hour!
The past is accomplished; but rouse thee to hear
What the future prepareth; awake and appear,
Our champion, in wrath and in power!
ORESTES
O father, to thy loved ones come in aid.
ELECTRA
With tears I call on thee.
CHORUS
Listen and rise to light!
Be thou with us, be thou against the foe!
Swiftly this cry arises--even so
Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed!
ORESTES
Let their might meet with mine, and their right with my right.
ELECTRA
O ye Gods, it is yours to decree.
CHORUS
Ye call unto the dead; I quake to hear.
Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.
ELECTRA
Alas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,
Of Ate's bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound!
Alas, the deep insufferable doom,
The stanchless wound!
ORESTES
It shall be stanched, the task is ours,--
Not by a stranger's, but by kindred hand,
Shall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.
Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth's nether powers!
CHORUS
Lords of a dark eternity,
To you has come the children's cry,
Send up from hell, fulfil your aid
To them who prayed.
ORESTES
O father, murdered in unkingly wise,
Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.
ELECTRA
To me too, grant this boon--dark death to deal
Unto Aegisthus, and to 'scape my doom.
ORESTES
So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay
Be set for thee; else, not for thee shall rise
The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,
But thou shall lie dishonoured: hear thou me!
ELECTRA
I too, from my full heritage restored,
Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass
Forth as a bride from these paternal halls,
And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.
ORESTES
Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight!
ELECTRA
Give fair-faced fortune, O Persephone!
ORESTES
Bethink thee, father, in the laver slain--
ELECTRA
Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!
ORESTES
Bonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.
ELECTRA
Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.
ORESTES
By this our bitter speech arise, O sire!
ELECTRA
Raise thou thine head at love's last, dearest call!
ORESTES
Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen's cause;
Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou
Willest in triumph to forget thy fall.
ELECTRA
Hear me, O father, once again hear me.
Lo! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood--
A man-child and a maid; hold them in ruth,
Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops' line.
For while they live, thou livest from the dead;
Children are memory's voices, and preserve
The dead from wholly dying: as a net
Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,
Which save the flex-mesh, in the depth submerged.
Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,
And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.
CHORUS
In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length--
The tomb's requital for its dirge denied:
Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,
Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.
ORESTES
The doom is set; and yet I fain would ask--
Not swerving from the course of my resolve,--
Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why
She softens all too late her cureless deed?
An idle boon it was, to send them here
Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.
I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween
Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.
Be blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives
Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured
To atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.
Yet would I know her thought; speak, if thou knowest.
CHORUS
I know it, son; for at her side I stood.
'Twas the night-wandering terror of a dream
That flung her shivering from her couch, and bade her--
Her, the accursed of God--these offerings send.
ORESTES
Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?
CHORUS
Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.
ORESTES
What then the sum and issue of the tale?
CHORUS
Even as a swaddled child, she lull'd the thing.
ORESTES
What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?
CHORUS
Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.
ORESTES
How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?
CHORUS
Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.
ORESTES
Not vain this dream--it bodes a man's revenge.
CHORUS
Then out of sleep she started with a cry,
And thro' the palace for their mistress' aid
Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night
Flared into light; then, even as mourners use,
She sends these offerings, in hope to win
A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.
ORESTES
Earth and my father's grave, to you I call--
Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro' me.
I read it in each part coincident,
With what shall be; for mark, that serpent sprang
From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands
By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast.
And sucking forth the same sweet mother's-milk
Infused a clot of blood; and in alarm
She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.
The rede is clear: the thing of dread she nursed,
The death of blood she dies; and I, 'tis I,
In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.
Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.
CHORUS
So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,
Siding some act, some, by not acting, aid.
ORESTES
Brief my command: I bid my sister pass
In silence to the house, and all I bid
This my design with wariness conceal,
That they who did by craft a chieftain slay
May by like craft and in like noose be ta'en
Dying the death which Loxias foretold--
Apollo, king and prophet undisproved.
I with this warrior Pylades will come
In likeness of a stranger, full equipt
As travellers come, and at the palace gates
Will stand, as stranger yet in friendship's bond
Unto this house allied; and each of us
Will speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,
Feigning such speech as Phocian voices use.
And what if none of those that tend the gates
Shall welcome us with gladness, since the house
With ills divine is haunted? if this hap,
We at the gate will bide, till, passing by,
Some townsman make conjecture and proclaim,
_How? is Aegisthus here, and knowingly
Keeps suppliants aloof, by bolt and bar? _
Then shall I win my way; and if I cross
The threshold of the gate, the palace' guard,
And find him throned where once my father sat--
Or if he come anon, and face to face
Confronting, drop his eyes from mine--I swear
He shall not utter, _Who art thou and whence? _
Ere my steel leap, and compassed round with death
Low he shall lie: and thus, full-fed with doom,
The Fury of the house shall drain once more
A deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.
But thou, O sister, look that all within
Be well prepared to give these things event.
And ye--I say 'twere well to bear a tongue
Full of fair silence and of fitting speech
As each beseems the time; and last, do thou,
Hermes the warder-god, keep watch and ward,
And guide to victory my striving sword.
[_Exit with Pylades. _
CHORUS
Many and marvellous the things of fear
Earth's breast doth bear;
And the sea's lap with many monsters teems,
And windy levin-bolts and meteor gleams
Breed many deadly things--
Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,
And in their tread is death;
And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath
Man's tongue can tell.
But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,
The aweless soul, within man's breast inhabiting?
Who tell, how, passion-fraught and love-distraught
The woman's eager, craving thought
Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell?
Yea, how the loveless love that doth possess
The woman, even as the lioness,
Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,
The link of wedded life?
Let him be the witness, whose thought is not borne on light wings
thro' the air,
But abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought by Althea's
despair;
For she marr'd the life-grace of her son, with ill counsel rekindled
the flame
That was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what time from his mother
he came,
With the cry of a new-born child; and the brand from the burning she
won,
For the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in death, with her
son.
Yea, and man's hate tells of another, even Scylla of murderous guile,
Who slew for an enemy's sake her father, won o'er by the wile
And the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high-wrought gold;
For she clipped from her father's head the lock that should never
wax old,
As he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not her craft and
her crime--
But Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her, in fulness of
time.
And since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my singing record
The bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these halls outpoured,
The crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain fall,
A warrior stern in his wrath; the fear of his enemies all,--
A song of dishonour, untimely! and cold is the hearth that was warm
And ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman's unwomanly arm.
But the summit and crown of all crimes is that which in Lemnos befell;
A woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting to tell;
And he that in after time doth speak of his deadliest thought,
Doth say, _It is like to the deed that of old time in Lemnos was
wrought_;
And loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they and their seed,
For the gods brought hate upon them; none loveth the impious deed.
It is well of these tales to tell; for the sword in the grasp of Right
With a cleaving, a piercing blow to the innermost heart doth smite,
And the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down nor forgot,
When the sinner out-steppeth the law and heedeth the high God not;
But Justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth the sword
That shall smite in her chosen time; by her is the child restored;
And, darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world-cursed, will repay
The price of the blood of the slain that was shed in the bygone day.
[_Enter Orestes and Pylades, in guise of travellers_.
ORESTES (_knocking at the palace gate_)
What ho! slave, ho! I smite the palace gate
In vain, it seems; what ho, attend within,--
Once more, attend; come forth and ope the halls
If yet Aegisthus holds them hospitable.
SLAVE (_from within_)
Anon, anon!
[_Opens the door. _
Speak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom?
ORESTES
Go, tell to them who rule the palace-halls,
Since 'tis to them I come with tidings new--
(Delay not--Night's dark car is speeding on,
And time is now for wayfarers to cast
Anchor in haven, wheresoe'er a house
Doth welcome strangers)--that there now come forth
Some one who holds authority within--
The queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it;
For when man standeth face to face with man,
No stammering modesty confounds their speech,
But each to each doth tell his meaning clear.
[_Enter Clytemnestra_,
CLYTEMNESTRA
Speak on, O strangers; have ye need of aught?
Here is whate'er beseems a house like this--
Warm bath and bed, tired Nature's soft restorer,
And courteous eyes to greet you; and if aught
Of graver import needeth act as well,
That, as man's charge, I to a man will tell.
ORESTES
A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,
And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden
I went toward Argos, parting hitherward
With travelling foot, there did encounter me
One whom I knew not and who knew not me,
But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,
And, as we talked together, told his name--
Strophius of Phocis; then he said, "Good sir,
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,
Forget not this my message, heed it well,
Tell to his own, _Orestes is no more_.
And--whatsoe'er his kinsfolk shall resolve,
Whether to bear his dust unto his home,
Or lay him here, in death as erst in life
Exiled for aye, a child of banishment--
Bring me their hest, upon thy backward road;
For now in brazen compass of an urn
His ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid. "
So much I heard, and so much tell to thee,
Not knowing if I speak unto his kin
Who rule his home; but well, I deem, it were,
Such news should earliest reach a parent's ear.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Ah woe is me! thy word our ruin tells;
From roof-tree unto base are we despoiled. --
O thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,
Thou Fury of this home, how oft and oft
Thou dost descry what far aloof is laid,
Yea, from afar dost bend th' unerring bow
And rendest from my wretchedness its friends;
As now Orestes--who, a brief while since,
Safe from the mire of death stood warily,--
Was the home's hope to cure th' exulting wrong;
Now thou ordainest, _Let the ill abide_.
ORESTES
To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,
Lief had I come with better news to bear
Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship;
For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond
Of guest and host? and wrong abhorred it were,
As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith
To one, and greetings from the other had,
Bore not aright the tidings 'twixt the twain.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Whate'er thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,
Meet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.
Hadst them thyself not come, such tale to tell
Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.
But lo! the hour is here when travelling guests
Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,
Should win their rightful due. Take him within
[_To the slave. _
To the man-chamber's hospitable rest--
Him and these fellow-farers at his side
Give them such guest-right as beseems our halls;
I bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it
And I unto the prince who rules our home
Will tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,
With them will counsel how this hap to bear
[_Exit Clytemnestra. _
CHORUS
So be it done--
Sister-servants, when draws nigh
Time for us aloud to cry
_Orestes and his victory? _
O holy earth and holy tomb
Over the grave-pit heaped on high,
Where low doth Agamemnon lie,
The king of ships, the army's lord!
Now is the hour--give ear and come,
For now doth Craft her aid afford,
And Hermes, guard of shades in hell,
Stands o'er their strife, to sentinel
The dooming of the sword.
I wot the stranger worketh woe within--
For lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,
Orestes' nurse. What ho, Kilissa--thou
Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks
Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.
[_Enter Kilissa, a nurse. _
KILISSA
My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,
Call in Aegisthus to the stranger guests,
That he may come, and standing face to face,
A man with men, may thus more clearly learn
This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves
She hid beneath the glance of fictive grief
Laughter for what is wrought--to her desire
Too well; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,
Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear.
And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart
Hearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day!
The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,
Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus' house
Befel, was grievous to mine inmost heart,
But never yet did I endure such pain.
All else I bore with set soul patiently;
But now--alack, alack! --Orestes dear,
The day and night-long travail of my soul!
Whom from his mother's womb, a new-born child,
I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft
Toilsome and profitless my service was,
When his shrill outcry called me from my couch!
For the young child, before the sense is born,
Hath but a dumb thing's life, must needs be nursed
As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing
Hath nought of speech, whate'er discomfort come--
Hunger or thirst or lower weakling need,--
For the babe's stomach works its own relief.
Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised,
'Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes--poor I
Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white;
Two works in one, two handicrafts I took,
When in mine arms the father laid the boy.
And now he's dead--alack and well-a-day!
Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power
Pollutes this house--fair tidings these to him!
CHORUS
Say then, with what array she bids him come?
KILISSA
What say'st thou! Speak more clearly for mine ear.
CHORUS
Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?
KlLISSA
She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.
CHORUS
Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,
But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,
Say, _Come along, fear nought, the news is good:_
A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.
KILISSA
Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?
CHORUS
What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?
KILISSA
And how? the home's hope with Orestes dies.
CHORUS
Not yet-a seer, though feeble, this might see.
KILISSA
What say'st thou? Know'st thou aught, this tale belying?
CHORUS
Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,--
What the gods will, themselves can well provide.
KILISSA
Well, I will go, herein obeying thee;
And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.
[_Exit. _
CHORUS
Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,
Hear thou, O hear my prayer!
Grant to my rightful lords to prosper well
Even as their zeal is fair!
For right, for right goes up aloud my cry--
Zeus, aid him, stand anigh!
Into his father's hall he goes
To smite his father's foes.
Bid him prevail! by thee on throne of triumph set,
Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.
Bethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal
Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car
Of doom is harnessed fast.
Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,
Speed thou his pace,--O that no chance may mar
The homeward course, the last!
And ye who dwell within the inner chamber
Where shines the stored joy of gold--
Gods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember;
Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old,
With sudden rightful blow;
Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed
With progeny of blood,--
Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low!
O thou who dwell'st in Delphi's mighty cave,
Grant us to see this home once more restored
Unto its rightful lord!
Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye
Unto the dawning light of liberty;
And Hermes, Maia's child, lend hand to save,
Willing the right, and guide
Our state with Fortune's breeze adown the favouring
tide.
Whate'er in darkness hidden lies,
He utters at his will;
He at his will throws darkness on our eye
By night and eke by day inscrutable.
Then, then shall wealth atone
The ills that here were done.
Then, then will we unbind,
Fling free on wafting wind
Of joy, the woman's voice that waileth now
In piercing accents for a chief laid low;
And this our song shall be--
_Hail to the commonwealth restored!
Hail to the freedom won to me!
All hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well--
loved lord! _
And thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree,
Up to the deed that for thy sire is done!
And if she wail unto thee, _Spare, O son_--
Cry, _Aid, O father_--and achieve the deed,
The horror of man's tongue, the gods' great need!
Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,
The bitter woe work forth,
Appease the summons of the dead,
The wrath of friends on earth;
Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom,
And do to utter death him that pollutes thy home.
[_Enter Aegisthus_.
AEGISTHUS
Hither and not unsummoned have I come;
For a new rumour, borne by stranger men
Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears,
Of hap unwished-for, even Orestes' death.
This were new sorrow, a blood-bolter'd load
Laid on the house that doth already bow
Beneath a former wound that festers deep.
Dare I opine these words have truth and life?
Or are they tales, of woman's terror born,
That fly in the void air, and die disproved?
Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul?
CHORUS
What we have heard, we heard; go thou within
Thvself to ask the strangers of their tale.
Strengthless are tidings, thro' another heard;
Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.
AEGISTHUS
I too will meet and test the messenger,
Whether himself stood witness of the death,
Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt:
None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.
[_Exit. _
CHORUS
Zeus, Zeus! what word to me is given?
What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,
Shall first by me be uttered?
What speech of craft? nor all revealing,
Nor all too warily concealing?
Ending my speech, shall aid the deed?
For lo! in readiness is laid
The dark emprise, the rending blade;
Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve
The dateless doom of Atreus' name,
Or? kindling torch and joyful flame
In sign of new-won liberty?
Once more Orestes shall retrieve
His father's wealth, and, throned on high,
Shall hold the city's fealty.
So mighty is the grasp whereby,
Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw,
Unseconded, a double foe
Ho for the victory!
[_A loud cry within. _
VOICE OF AEGISTHUS
Help, help, alas!
CHORUS
Ho there, ho! how is't within?
Is't done? is't over? Stand we here aloof
While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem
Of this dark deed; with death is strife fulfilled.
[_Enter a slave_
SLAVE
O woe, O woe, my lord is done to death!
Woe, woe, and woe again, AEgisthus gone!
Hasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts
Of the queen's chamber. O for some young strength
To match the need! but aid availeth nought
To him laid low for ever. Help, help, help!
Sure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain
To slumber ineffectual. What ho!
The queen! how fareth Clytemnestra's self?
Her neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,
And soon shall sink, hewn thro' as justice wills.
[_Enter Clytemnestra. _
CLYTEMNESTRA
What ails thee, raising this ado for us?
SLAVE
I say the dead are come to slay the living.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Alack, I read thy riddles all too clear?
We slew by craft and by like craft shall die.
Swift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old;
I'll know anon or death or victory?
So stands the curse, so I confront it here.
[_Enter Orestes, his sword dropping with blood,_
ORESTES
Thee too I seek: for him what's done will serve.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Woe, woe! Aegisthus, spouse and champion, slain!
ORESTES
What lov'st the man? then in his grave lie down,
Be his in death, desert him nevermore!
CLYTEMNESTSA
Stay, child, and fear to strike. O son, this breast
Pillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,
Thy toothless mouth drew mother's milk from me.
ORESTES
Can I my mother spare? speak, Pylades,
PYLADES
Where then would fall the hest Apollo gave
At Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn?
Choose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.
ORESTES
Thou dost prevail; I hold thy counsel good.
[_To Clytemnestra_.
Follow; I will slay thee at his side.
With him whom in his life thou lovedst more
Than Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed
For hate where love, and love where hate was due!
CLYTEMNESTRA
I nursed thee young; must I forego mine eld?
ORESTES
Thou slew'st my father; shalt thou dwell with me?
CLYTEMNESTRA
Fate bore a share in these things, O my child!
ORESTES
Fate also doth provide this doom for thee.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Beware, O my child, a parent's dying curse.
ORESTES
A parent who did cast me out to ill!
CLYTEMNESTRA
Not cast thee out, but to a friendly home.
ORESTES
Born free, I was by twofold bargain sold.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Where then the price that I received for thee?
ORESTES
The price of shame; I taunt thee not more plainly.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Nay, but recount thy father's lewdness too.
ORESTES
Home-keeping, chide not him who toils without.
CLYTEMNESTRA
'Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.
ORESTES
The absent husband toils for them at home.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Thou growest fain to slay thy mother, child
ORESTES
Nay, 'tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Beware thy mother's vengeful hounds from hell.
ORESTES
How shall I 'scape my father's, sparing thee?
CLYTEMNESTRA
Living, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.
ORESTES
My father's fate ordains this doom for thee.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Ah, me! this snake it was I bore and nursed.
ORESTES
Ay, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.
Shameful thy deed was--die the death of shame!
[_Exit, driving Clytemnestra before him. _
CHORUS
Lo, even for these I mourn, a double death:
Yet since Orestes, driven on by doom,
Thus crowns the height of murders manifold,
I say, 'tis well--that not in night and death
Should sink the eye and light of this our home.
There came on Priam's race and name
A vengeance; though it tarried long,
With heavy doom it came.
Came, too, on Agamemnon's hall
A lion-pair, twin swordsmen strong.
And last, the heritage doth fall
To him, to whom from Pythian cave
The god his deepest counsel gave.
Cry out, rejoice! our kingly hall
Hath 'scaped from ruin--ne'er again
Its ancient wealth be wasted all
By two usurpers, sin-defiled--
An evil path of woe and bane!
On him who dealt the dastard blow
Comes Craft, Revenge's scheming child.
And hand in hand with him doth go,
Eager for fight,
The child of Zeus, whom men below
Call Justice, naming her aright.
And on her foes her breath
Is as the blast of death;
For her the god who dwells in deep recess
Beneath Parnassus' brow,
Summons with loud acclaim
To rise, though late and lame,
And come with craft that worketh righteousness.
For even o'er Powers divine this law is strong--
_Thou shalt not serve the wrong_.
To that which ruleth heaven beseems it that we bow.
Lo, freedom's light hath come!
Lo, now is rent away
The grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.
Up to the light, ye halls! this many a day
Too low on earth ye lay.
And Time, the great Accomplisher,
Shall cross the threshold, whensoe'er
He choose with purging hand to cleanse
The palace, driving all pollution thence.
And fair the cast of Fortune's die
Before our state's new lords shall lie,
Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom
Lo, freedom's light hath come!
[_The scene opens, disclosing Orestes standing over the corpses of
Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; in one hand he holds his sword, in the
other the robe in which Agamemnon was entangled and slain_.
ORESTES
There lies our country's twofold tyranny,
My father's slayers, spoilers of my home.
Erst were they royal, sitting on the throne,
And loving are they yet,--their common fate
Tells the tale truly, shows their trothplight firm.
They swore to work mine ill-starred father's death,
They swore to die together; 'tis fulfilled.
O ye who stand, this great doom's witnesses,
Behold this too, the dark device which bound
My sire unhappy to his death,--behold
The mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet!
Stand round, unfold it--'tis the trammel-net
That wrapped a chieftain; holds it that he see,
The father--not my sire, but he whose eye
Is judge of all things, the all-seeing Sun!
Let him behold my mother's damned deed,
Then let him stand, when need shall be to me,
Witness that justly I have sought and slain
My mother; blameless was Aegisthus' doom--
He died the death law bids adulterers die.
But she who plotted this accursed thing
To slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath
Her girdle once the burden of her babes,
Beloved erewhile, now turned to hateful foes--
What deem ye of her? or what venomed thing,
Sea-snake or adder, had more power than she
To poison with a touch the flesh unscarred?
So great her daring, such her impious will.
How name her, if I may not speak a curse?
A lion-springe! a laver's swathing cloth,
Wrapping a dead man, twining round his feet--
A net, a trammel, an entangling robe?
Such were the weapon of some strangling thief,
The terror of the road, a cut-purse hound--
With such device full many might he kill,
Full oft exult in heat of villainy.
Ne'er have my house so cursed an indweller--
Heaven send me, rather, childless to be slain!
CHORUS
Woe for each desperate deed!
Woe for the queen, with shame of life bereft!
And ah, for him who still is left,
Madness, dark blossom of a bloody seed!
ORESTES
Did she the deed or not? this robe gives proof,
Imbrued with blood that bathed Aegisthus' sword;
Look, how the spurted stain combines with time
To blur the many dyes that once adorned
Its pattern manifold! I now stand here,
Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing--
Hear, O thou woven web that slew my sire!
I grieve for deed and death and all my home--
Victor, pollution's damned stain for prize.
CHORUS
Alas, that none of mortal men
Can pass his life untouched by pain!
Behold, one woe is here--
Another loometh near.
ORESTES
Hark ye and learn--for what the end shall be
For me I know not: breaking from the curb
My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,
Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught
Far from the course, and madness in my breast
Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave--
Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes!
I say that rightfully I slew my mother,
A thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire
And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me
Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer
Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,
The guilt of murder done should pass from me;
But if I spared, the fate that should be mine
I dare not blazon forth--the bow of speech
Can reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.
And now behold me, how with branch and crown
I pass, a suppliant made meet to go
Unto Earth's midmost shrine, the holy ground
Of Loxias, and that renowned light
Of ever-burning fire, to 'scape the doom
Of kindred murder: to no other shrine
(So Loxias bade) may I for refuge turn.
Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.
CHORUS
Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.
ELECTRA
I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.
CHORUS
Shorn from what man or what deep-girded maid?
ELECTRA
That may he guess who will; the sign is plain.
CHORUS
Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.
ELECTRA
None is there here but I, to clip such gift.
CHORUS
For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.
ELECTRA
And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like--
CHORUS
Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.
ELECTRA
Like unto those my father's children wear.
CHORUS
Then is this lock Orestes' secret gift?
ELECTRA
Most like it is unto the curls he wore,
CHORUS
Yet how dared he to come unto his home?
ELECTRA
He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.
CHORUS
It is a sorrow grievous as his death,
That he should live yet never dare return.
ELECTRA
Yea, and my heart o'erflows with gall of grief,
And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart;
Like to the first drops after drought, my tears
Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,
As on this lock I gaze; I cannot deem
That any Argive save Orestes' self
Was ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,
Hath she, the murd'ress, shorn and laid this lock
To mourn him whom she slew--my mother she,
Bearing no mother's heart, but to her race
A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven!
Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,
That this adornment cometh of the hand
Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,
I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair!
Ah well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice
To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,
Bidding me sway no more 'twixt fear and hope,
Clearly commanding, _Cast me hence away,
Clipped was I from some head thou lovest not;
Or, I am kin to thee, and here, as thou,
I come to weep and deck our father's grave. _
Aid me, ye gods! for well indeed ye know
How in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,
Like to the seaman's bark, we whirl and stray.
But, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,
From seed how small, the new tree of our home! --
Lo ye, a second sign--these footsteps, look,--
Like to my own, a corresponsive print;
And look, another footmark,--this his own,
And that the foot of one who walked with him.
Mark, how the heel and tendons' print combine,
Measured exact, with mine coincident!
Alas! for doubt and anguish rack my mind.
ORESTES (_approaching suddenly_)
Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled,
_Fair fall the rest of what I ask of heaven_.
ELECTRA
Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?
ORESTES
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart's desire.
ELECTRA
On whom of mortals know'st thou that I call?
ORESTES
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.
ELECTRA
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?
ORESTES
I, I am he; seek not one more akin.
ELECTRA
Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?
ORESTES
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.
ELECTRA
Ah thou hast mind to mock me in my woe!
ORESTES
'Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.
ELECTRA
Speak I with thee then as Orestes' self?
ORESTES
My very face thou see'st and know'st me not,
And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock
Shorn for my father's grave, and when thy quest
Was eager on the footprints I had made,
Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,
Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me!
Lay now this ringlet whence 'twas shorn, and judge,
And look upon this robe, thine own hands' work,
The shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon--
Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,
For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.
ELECTRA
O thou that art unto our father's home
Love, grief and hope, for thee the tears ran down,
For thee, the son, the saviour that should be;
Trust thou thine arm and win thy father's halls!
O aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,
Whom upon thee the heart's constraint bids call
As on my father, and the claim of love
From me unto my mother turns to thee,
For she is very hate; to thee too turns
What of my heart went out to her who died
A ruthless death upon the altar-stone;
And for myself I love thee--thee that wast
A brother leal, sole stay of love to me.
Now by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus
Saviour almighty, stand to aid the twain!
ORESTES
Zeus, Zeus! look down on our estate and us,
The orphaned brood of him, our eagle-sire,
Whom to his death a fearful serpent brought
Enwinding him in coils; and we, bereft
And foodless, sink with famine, all too weak
To bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,
Such quarry as he slew. Lo! I and she,
Electra, stand before thee, fatherless,
And each alike cast out and homeless made.
ELECTRA
And if thou leave to death the brood of him
Whose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence
Was thine, all thine,--whence, in the after years,
Shall any hand like his adorn thy shrine
With sacrifice of flesh? the eaglets slain,
Thou wouldst not have a messenger to bear
Thine omens, once so clear, to mortal men;
So, if this kingly stock be withered all,
None on high festivals will fend thy shrine
Stoop thou to raise us! strong the race shall show,
Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.
CHORUS
O children, saviours of your father's home,
Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear
And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,
Unto our masters--whom God grant to me
In pitchy reek of fun'ral flame to see!
ORESTES
Nay, mighty is Apollo's oracle
And shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass
Thro' all this peril; clear the voice rang out
With many warnings, sternly threatening
To my hot heart the wintry chill of pain,
Unless upon the slayers of my sire
I pressed for vengeance: this the god's command--
That I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,
Should with a craft like theirs the slayers slay:
Else with my very life I should atone
This deed undone, in many a ghastly wise
For he proclaimed unto the ears of men
That offerings, poured to angry power of death,
Exude again, unless their will be done,
As grim disease on those that poured them forth--
As leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh
And with fell fangs corroding what of old
Wore natural form; and on the brow arise
White poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.
He spake moreover of assailing fiends
Empowered to quit on me my father's blood,
Wreaking their wrath on me, what time in night
Beneath shut lids the spirit's eye sees clear.
The dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell
By spirits of the murdered dead who call
Unto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,
The night-tide's visitant, and madness' curse
Should drive and rack me; and my tortured frame
Should be chased forth from man's community
As with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.
For me and such as me no lustral bowl
Should stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God
For me, and wrath unseen of my dead sire
Should drive me from the shrine; no man should dare
To take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me:
Slow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,
And pitiless horror wind me for the grave,
This spake the god--this dare I disobey?
Yea, though I dared, the deed must yet be done;
For to that end diverse desires combine,--
The god's behest, deep grief for him who died,
And last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled--
All these weigh on me, urge that Argive men,
Minions of valour, who with soul of fire
Did make of fenced Troy a ruinous heap,
Be not left slaves to two and each a woman!
For he, the man, wears woman's heart; if not
Soon shall he know, confronted by a man.
[_Orestes, Electra, and the Chorus gather round the tomb of
Agamemnon for the invocation which follows_.
CHORUS
Mighty Fates, on you we call!
Bid the will of Zeus ordain
Power to those, to whom again
Justice turns with hand and aid!
Grievous was the prayer one made--
Grievous let the answer fall!
Where the mighty doom is set,
Justice claims aloud her debt
Who in blood hath dipped the steel,
Deep in blood her meed shall feel!
List an immemorial word--
_Whosoe'er shall take the sword
Shall perish by the sword. _
ORESTES
Father, unblest in death, O father mine!
What breath of word or deed
Can I waft on thee from this far confine
Unto thy lowly bed,--
Waft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,
Hope's counter-gleam of fire?
Yet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying
Unto each parted sire.
CHORUS
O child, the spirit of the dead,
Altho' upon his flesh have fed
The grim teeth of the flame,
Is quelled not; after many days
The sting of wrath his soul shall raise,
A vengeance to reclaim!
To the dead rings loud our cry--
Plain the living's treachery--
Swelling, shrilling, urged on high,
The vengeful dirge, for parents
Shall strive and shall attain.
ELECTRA
Hear me too, even me, O father, hear!
Not by one child alone these groans, these tears are shed
Upon thy sepulchre.
Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,
Stands, a suppliant, homeless made:
Ah, and all is full of ill,
Comfort is there none to say!
Strive and wrestle as we may,
Still stands doom invincible.
CHORUS
Nay, if so he will, the god
Still our tears to joy can turn
He can bid a triumph-ode
Drown the dirge beside this urn;
He to kingly halls can greet
The child restored, the homeward-guided feet.
ORESTES
Ah my father! hadst thou lain
Under Ilion's wall,
By some Lycian spearman slain,
Thou hadst left in this thine hall
Honour; thou hadst wrought for us
Fame and life most glorious.
Over-seas if thou had'st died,
Heavily had stood thy tomb,
Heaped on high; but, quenched in pride,
Grief were light unto thy home.
CHORUS
Loved and honoured hadst thou lain
By the dead that nobly fell,
In the under-world again,
Where are throned the kings of hell,
Full of sway adorable
Thou hadst stood at their right hand--
Thou that wert, in mortal land,
By Fate's ordinance and law,
King of kings who bear the crown
And the staff, to which in awe
Mortal men bow down.
ELECTRA
Nay O father, I were fain
Other fate had fallen on thee.
Ill it were if thou hadst lain
One among the common slain,
Fallen by Scamander's side--
Those who slew thee there should be!
Then, untouched by slavery,
We had heard as from afar
Deaths of those who should have died
'Mid the chance of war.
CHORUS
O child, forbear! things all too high thou sayest.
Easy, but vain, thy cry!
A boon above all gold is that thou prayest,
An unreached destiny,
As of the blessed land that far aloof
Beyond the north wind lies;
Yet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof;
A double scourge of sighs
Awakes the dead; th' avengers rise, though late;
Blood stains the guilty pride
Of the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate
Stands on the children's side.
ELECTRA
That hath sped thro' mine ear, like a shaft from a bow!
Zeus, Zeus! it is thou who dost send from below
A doom on the desperate doer--ere long
On a mother a father shall visit his wrong.
CHORUS
Be it mine to upraise thro' the reek of the pyre
The chant of delight, while the funeral fire
Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain
And a woman laid low!
For who bids me conceal it! out-rending control,
Blows ever stern blast of hate thro' my soul,
And before me a vision of wrath and of bane
Flits and waves to and fro.
ORESTES
Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.
Smite with a rending blow
Upon their heads, and bid the land be well:
Set right where wrong hath stood; and thou give ear,
O Earth, unto my prayer--
Yea, hear O mother Earth, and monarchy of hell!
CHORUS
Nay, the law is sternly set--
Blood-drops shed upon the ground
Plead for other bloodshed yet;
Loud the call of death doth sound,
Calling guilt of olden time,
A Fury, crowning crime with crime.
ELECTRA
Where, where are ye, avenging powers,
Puissant Furies of the slain?
Behold the relics of the race
Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place!
O Zeus, what home henceforth is ours,
What refuge to attain?
CHORUS
Lo, at your wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred;
Now am I lorn with sadness,
Darkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow's word
Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise,--
She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes
To the new dawn of gladness.
ORESTES
Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,
Wrought by our mother's deed?
Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong
Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed;
Her children's soul is wolfish, born from hers,
And softens not by prayers.
CHORUS
I dealt upon my breast the blow
That Asian mourning women know;
Wails from my breast the fun'ral cry,
The Cissian weeping melody;
Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,
My clenched hands wander, here and there,
From head to breast; distraught with blows
Throb dizzily my brows.
ELECTRA
Aweless in hate, O mother, sternly brave!
As in a foeman's grave
Thou laid'st in earth a king, but to the bier
No citizen drew near,--
Thy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,
Thou bad'st no wail arise!
ORESTES
Alas the shameful burial thou dost speak!
Yet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak--
That do the gods command!
That shall achieve mine hand!
Grant me to thrust her life away, and I
Will dare to die!
CHORUS
List thou the deed! Hewn down and foully torn,
He to the tomb was borne;
Yea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,
With like dishonour to the grave was brought,
And by her hand she strove, with strong desire,
Thy life to crush, O child, by murder of thy sire:
Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain
Wherewith that sire was slain!
ELECTRA
Yea, such was the doom of my sire; well-a-day,
I was thrust from his side,--
As a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,
And in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears
As in darkness I lay.
O father, if this word can pass to thine ears,
To thy soul let it reach and abide!
CHORUS
Let it pass, let it pierce, through the sense of thine ear,
To thy soul, where in silence it waiteth the hour!
The past is accomplished; but rouse thee to hear
What the future prepareth; awake and appear,
Our champion, in wrath and in power!
ORESTES
O father, to thy loved ones come in aid.
ELECTRA
With tears I call on thee.
CHORUS
Listen and rise to light!
Be thou with us, be thou against the foe!
Swiftly this cry arises--even so
Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed!
ORESTES
Let their might meet with mine, and their right with my right.
ELECTRA
O ye Gods, it is yours to decree.
CHORUS
Ye call unto the dead; I quake to hear.
Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.
ELECTRA
Alas, the inborn curse that haunts our home,
Of Ate's bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound!
Alas, the deep insufferable doom,
The stanchless wound!
ORESTES
It shall be stanched, the task is ours,--
Not by a stranger's, but by kindred hand,
Shall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.
Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth's nether powers!
CHORUS
Lords of a dark eternity,
To you has come the children's cry,
Send up from hell, fulfil your aid
To them who prayed.
ORESTES
O father, murdered in unkingly wise,
Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway.
ELECTRA
To me too, grant this boon--dark death to deal
Unto Aegisthus, and to 'scape my doom.
ORESTES
So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay
Be set for thee; else, not for thee shall rise
The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,
But thou shall lie dishonoured: hear thou me!
ELECTRA
I too, from my full heritage restored,
Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass
Forth as a bride from these paternal halls,
And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.
ORESTES
Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight!
ELECTRA
Give fair-faced fortune, O Persephone!
ORESTES
Bethink thee, father, in the laver slain--
ELECTRA
Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!
ORESTES
Bonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.
ELECTRA
Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.
ORESTES
By this our bitter speech arise, O sire!
ELECTRA
Raise thou thine head at love's last, dearest call!
ORESTES
Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen's cause;
Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou
Willest in triumph to forget thy fall.
ELECTRA
Hear me, O father, once again hear me.
Lo! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood--
A man-child and a maid; hold them in ruth,
Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops' line.
For while they live, thou livest from the dead;
Children are memory's voices, and preserve
The dead from wholly dying: as a net
Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,
Which save the flex-mesh, in the depth submerged.
Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,
And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.
CHORUS
In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length--
The tomb's requital for its dirge denied:
Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,
Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.
ORESTES
The doom is set; and yet I fain would ask--
Not swerving from the course of my resolve,--
Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why
She softens all too late her cureless deed?
An idle boon it was, to send them here
Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.
I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween
Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.
Be blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives
Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured
To atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.
Yet would I know her thought; speak, if thou knowest.
CHORUS
I know it, son; for at her side I stood.
'Twas the night-wandering terror of a dream
That flung her shivering from her couch, and bade her--
Her, the accursed of God--these offerings send.
ORESTES
Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?
CHORUS
Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.
ORESTES
What then the sum and issue of the tale?
CHORUS
Even as a swaddled child, she lull'd the thing.
ORESTES
What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?
CHORUS
Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.
ORESTES
How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?
CHORUS
Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.
ORESTES
Not vain this dream--it bodes a man's revenge.
CHORUS
Then out of sleep she started with a cry,
And thro' the palace for their mistress' aid
Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night
Flared into light; then, even as mourners use,
She sends these offerings, in hope to win
A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.
ORESTES
Earth and my father's grave, to you I call--
Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro' me.
I read it in each part coincident,
With what shall be; for mark, that serpent sprang
From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands
By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast.
And sucking forth the same sweet mother's-milk
Infused a clot of blood; and in alarm
She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.
The rede is clear: the thing of dread she nursed,
The death of blood she dies; and I, 'tis I,
In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.
Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.
CHORUS
So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,
Siding some act, some, by not acting, aid.
ORESTES
Brief my command: I bid my sister pass
In silence to the house, and all I bid
This my design with wariness conceal,
That they who did by craft a chieftain slay
May by like craft and in like noose be ta'en
Dying the death which Loxias foretold--
Apollo, king and prophet undisproved.
I with this warrior Pylades will come
In likeness of a stranger, full equipt
As travellers come, and at the palace gates
Will stand, as stranger yet in friendship's bond
Unto this house allied; and each of us
Will speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,
Feigning such speech as Phocian voices use.
And what if none of those that tend the gates
Shall welcome us with gladness, since the house
With ills divine is haunted? if this hap,
We at the gate will bide, till, passing by,
Some townsman make conjecture and proclaim,
_How? is Aegisthus here, and knowingly
Keeps suppliants aloof, by bolt and bar? _
Then shall I win my way; and if I cross
The threshold of the gate, the palace' guard,
And find him throned where once my father sat--
Or if he come anon, and face to face
Confronting, drop his eyes from mine--I swear
He shall not utter, _Who art thou and whence? _
Ere my steel leap, and compassed round with death
Low he shall lie: and thus, full-fed with doom,
The Fury of the house shall drain once more
A deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.
But thou, O sister, look that all within
Be well prepared to give these things event.
And ye--I say 'twere well to bear a tongue
Full of fair silence and of fitting speech
As each beseems the time; and last, do thou,
Hermes the warder-god, keep watch and ward,
And guide to victory my striving sword.
[_Exit with Pylades. _
CHORUS
Many and marvellous the things of fear
Earth's breast doth bear;
And the sea's lap with many monsters teems,
And windy levin-bolts and meteor gleams
Breed many deadly things--
Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,
And in their tread is death;
And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath
Man's tongue can tell.
But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,
The aweless soul, within man's breast inhabiting?
Who tell, how, passion-fraught and love-distraught
The woman's eager, craving thought
Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell?
Yea, how the loveless love that doth possess
The woman, even as the lioness,
Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,
The link of wedded life?
Let him be the witness, whose thought is not borne on light wings
thro' the air,
But abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought by Althea's
despair;
For she marr'd the life-grace of her son, with ill counsel rekindled
the flame
That was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what time from his mother
he came,
With the cry of a new-born child; and the brand from the burning she
won,
For the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in death, with her
son.
Yea, and man's hate tells of another, even Scylla of murderous guile,
Who slew for an enemy's sake her father, won o'er by the wile
And the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high-wrought gold;
For she clipped from her father's head the lock that should never
wax old,
As he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not her craft and
her crime--
But Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her, in fulness of
time.
And since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my singing record
The bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these halls outpoured,
The crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain fall,
A warrior stern in his wrath; the fear of his enemies all,--
A song of dishonour, untimely! and cold is the hearth that was warm
And ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman's unwomanly arm.
But the summit and crown of all crimes is that which in Lemnos befell;
A woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting to tell;
And he that in after time doth speak of his deadliest thought,
Doth say, _It is like to the deed that of old time in Lemnos was
wrought_;
And loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they and their seed,
For the gods brought hate upon them; none loveth the impious deed.
It is well of these tales to tell; for the sword in the grasp of Right
With a cleaving, a piercing blow to the innermost heart doth smite,
And the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down nor forgot,
When the sinner out-steppeth the law and heedeth the high God not;
But Justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth the sword
That shall smite in her chosen time; by her is the child restored;
And, darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world-cursed, will repay
The price of the blood of the slain that was shed in the bygone day.
[_Enter Orestes and Pylades, in guise of travellers_.
ORESTES (_knocking at the palace gate_)
What ho! slave, ho! I smite the palace gate
In vain, it seems; what ho, attend within,--
Once more, attend; come forth and ope the halls
If yet Aegisthus holds them hospitable.
SLAVE (_from within_)
Anon, anon!
[_Opens the door. _
Speak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom?
ORESTES
Go, tell to them who rule the palace-halls,
Since 'tis to them I come with tidings new--
(Delay not--Night's dark car is speeding on,
And time is now for wayfarers to cast
Anchor in haven, wheresoe'er a house
Doth welcome strangers)--that there now come forth
Some one who holds authority within--
The queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it;
For when man standeth face to face with man,
No stammering modesty confounds their speech,
But each to each doth tell his meaning clear.
[_Enter Clytemnestra_,
CLYTEMNESTRA
Speak on, O strangers; have ye need of aught?
Here is whate'er beseems a house like this--
Warm bath and bed, tired Nature's soft restorer,
And courteous eyes to greet you; and if aught
Of graver import needeth act as well,
That, as man's charge, I to a man will tell.
ORESTES
A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,
And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden
I went toward Argos, parting hitherward
With travelling foot, there did encounter me
One whom I knew not and who knew not me,
But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,
And, as we talked together, told his name--
Strophius of Phocis; then he said, "Good sir,
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,
Forget not this my message, heed it well,
Tell to his own, _Orestes is no more_.
And--whatsoe'er his kinsfolk shall resolve,
Whether to bear his dust unto his home,
Or lay him here, in death as erst in life
Exiled for aye, a child of banishment--
Bring me their hest, upon thy backward road;
For now in brazen compass of an urn
His ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid. "
So much I heard, and so much tell to thee,
Not knowing if I speak unto his kin
Who rule his home; but well, I deem, it were,
Such news should earliest reach a parent's ear.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Ah woe is me! thy word our ruin tells;
From roof-tree unto base are we despoiled. --
O thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,
Thou Fury of this home, how oft and oft
Thou dost descry what far aloof is laid,
Yea, from afar dost bend th' unerring bow
And rendest from my wretchedness its friends;
As now Orestes--who, a brief while since,
Safe from the mire of death stood warily,--
Was the home's hope to cure th' exulting wrong;
Now thou ordainest, _Let the ill abide_.
ORESTES
To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,
Lief had I come with better news to bear
Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship;
For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond
Of guest and host? and wrong abhorred it were,
As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith
To one, and greetings from the other had,
Bore not aright the tidings 'twixt the twain.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Whate'er thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,
Meet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.
Hadst them thyself not come, such tale to tell
Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.
But lo! the hour is here when travelling guests
Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,
Should win their rightful due. Take him within
[_To the slave. _
To the man-chamber's hospitable rest--
Him and these fellow-farers at his side
Give them such guest-right as beseems our halls;
I bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it
And I unto the prince who rules our home
Will tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,
With them will counsel how this hap to bear
[_Exit Clytemnestra. _
CHORUS
So be it done--
Sister-servants, when draws nigh
Time for us aloud to cry
_Orestes and his victory? _
O holy earth and holy tomb
Over the grave-pit heaped on high,
Where low doth Agamemnon lie,
The king of ships, the army's lord!
Now is the hour--give ear and come,
For now doth Craft her aid afford,
And Hermes, guard of shades in hell,
Stands o'er their strife, to sentinel
The dooming of the sword.
I wot the stranger worketh woe within--
For lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,
Orestes' nurse. What ho, Kilissa--thou
Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks
Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.
[_Enter Kilissa, a nurse. _
KILISSA
My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,
Call in Aegisthus to the stranger guests,
That he may come, and standing face to face,
A man with men, may thus more clearly learn
This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves
She hid beneath the glance of fictive grief
Laughter for what is wrought--to her desire
Too well; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,
Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear.
And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart
Hearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day!
The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,
Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus' house
Befel, was grievous to mine inmost heart,
But never yet did I endure such pain.
All else I bore with set soul patiently;
But now--alack, alack! --Orestes dear,
The day and night-long travail of my soul!
Whom from his mother's womb, a new-born child,
I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft
Toilsome and profitless my service was,
When his shrill outcry called me from my couch!
For the young child, before the sense is born,
Hath but a dumb thing's life, must needs be nursed
As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing
Hath nought of speech, whate'er discomfort come--
Hunger or thirst or lower weakling need,--
For the babe's stomach works its own relief.
Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised,
'Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes--poor I
Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white;
Two works in one, two handicrafts I took,
When in mine arms the father laid the boy.
And now he's dead--alack and well-a-day!
Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power
Pollutes this house--fair tidings these to him!
CHORUS
Say then, with what array she bids him come?
KILISSA
What say'st thou! Speak more clearly for mine ear.
CHORUS
Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?
KlLISSA
She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.
CHORUS
Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,
But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,
Say, _Come along, fear nought, the news is good:_
A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.
KILISSA
Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?
CHORUS
What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?
KILISSA
And how? the home's hope with Orestes dies.
CHORUS
Not yet-a seer, though feeble, this might see.
KILISSA
What say'st thou? Know'st thou aught, this tale belying?
CHORUS
Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,--
What the gods will, themselves can well provide.
KILISSA
Well, I will go, herein obeying thee;
And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.
[_Exit. _
CHORUS
Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,
Hear thou, O hear my prayer!
Grant to my rightful lords to prosper well
Even as their zeal is fair!
For right, for right goes up aloud my cry--
Zeus, aid him, stand anigh!
Into his father's hall he goes
To smite his father's foes.
Bid him prevail! by thee on throne of triumph set,
Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.
Bethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal
Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car
Of doom is harnessed fast.
Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,
Speed thou his pace,--O that no chance may mar
The homeward course, the last!
And ye who dwell within the inner chamber
Where shines the stored joy of gold--
Gods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember;
Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old,
With sudden rightful blow;
Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed
With progeny of blood,--
Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low!
O thou who dwell'st in Delphi's mighty cave,
Grant us to see this home once more restored
Unto its rightful lord!
Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye
Unto the dawning light of liberty;
And Hermes, Maia's child, lend hand to save,
Willing the right, and guide
Our state with Fortune's breeze adown the favouring
tide.
Whate'er in darkness hidden lies,
He utters at his will;
He at his will throws darkness on our eye
By night and eke by day inscrutable.
Then, then shall wealth atone
The ills that here were done.
Then, then will we unbind,
Fling free on wafting wind
Of joy, the woman's voice that waileth now
In piercing accents for a chief laid low;
And this our song shall be--
_Hail to the commonwealth restored!
Hail to the freedom won to me!
All hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well--
loved lord! _
And thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree,
Up to the deed that for thy sire is done!
And if she wail unto thee, _Spare, O son_--
Cry, _Aid, O father_--and achieve the deed,
The horror of man's tongue, the gods' great need!
Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,
The bitter woe work forth,
Appease the summons of the dead,
The wrath of friends on earth;
Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom,
And do to utter death him that pollutes thy home.
[_Enter Aegisthus_.
AEGISTHUS
Hither and not unsummoned have I come;
For a new rumour, borne by stranger men
Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears,
Of hap unwished-for, even Orestes' death.
This were new sorrow, a blood-bolter'd load
Laid on the house that doth already bow
Beneath a former wound that festers deep.
Dare I opine these words have truth and life?
Or are they tales, of woman's terror born,
That fly in the void air, and die disproved?
Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul?
CHORUS
What we have heard, we heard; go thou within
Thvself to ask the strangers of their tale.
Strengthless are tidings, thro' another heard;
Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.
AEGISTHUS
I too will meet and test the messenger,
Whether himself stood witness of the death,
Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt:
None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.
[_Exit. _
CHORUS
Zeus, Zeus! what word to me is given?
What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,
Shall first by me be uttered?
What speech of craft? nor all revealing,
Nor all too warily concealing?
Ending my speech, shall aid the deed?
For lo! in readiness is laid
The dark emprise, the rending blade;
Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve
The dateless doom of Atreus' name,
Or? kindling torch and joyful flame
In sign of new-won liberty?
Once more Orestes shall retrieve
His father's wealth, and, throned on high,
Shall hold the city's fealty.
So mighty is the grasp whereby,
Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw,
Unseconded, a double foe
Ho for the victory!
[_A loud cry within. _
VOICE OF AEGISTHUS
Help, help, alas!
CHORUS
Ho there, ho! how is't within?
Is't done? is't over? Stand we here aloof
While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem
Of this dark deed; with death is strife fulfilled.
[_Enter a slave_
SLAVE
O woe, O woe, my lord is done to death!
Woe, woe, and woe again, AEgisthus gone!
Hasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts
Of the queen's chamber. O for some young strength
To match the need! but aid availeth nought
To him laid low for ever. Help, help, help!
Sure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain
To slumber ineffectual. What ho!
The queen! how fareth Clytemnestra's self?
Her neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,
And soon shall sink, hewn thro' as justice wills.
[_Enter Clytemnestra. _
CLYTEMNESTRA
What ails thee, raising this ado for us?
SLAVE
I say the dead are come to slay the living.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Alack, I read thy riddles all too clear?
We slew by craft and by like craft shall die.
Swift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old;
I'll know anon or death or victory?
So stands the curse, so I confront it here.
[_Enter Orestes, his sword dropping with blood,_
ORESTES
Thee too I seek: for him what's done will serve.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Woe, woe! Aegisthus, spouse and champion, slain!
ORESTES
What lov'st the man? then in his grave lie down,
Be his in death, desert him nevermore!
CLYTEMNESTSA
Stay, child, and fear to strike. O son, this breast
Pillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,
Thy toothless mouth drew mother's milk from me.
ORESTES
Can I my mother spare? speak, Pylades,
PYLADES
Where then would fall the hest Apollo gave
At Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn?
Choose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.
ORESTES
Thou dost prevail; I hold thy counsel good.
[_To Clytemnestra_.
Follow; I will slay thee at his side.
With him whom in his life thou lovedst more
Than Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed
For hate where love, and love where hate was due!
CLYTEMNESTRA
I nursed thee young; must I forego mine eld?
ORESTES
Thou slew'st my father; shalt thou dwell with me?
CLYTEMNESTRA
Fate bore a share in these things, O my child!
ORESTES
Fate also doth provide this doom for thee.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Beware, O my child, a parent's dying curse.
ORESTES
A parent who did cast me out to ill!
CLYTEMNESTRA
Not cast thee out, but to a friendly home.
ORESTES
Born free, I was by twofold bargain sold.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Where then the price that I received for thee?
ORESTES
The price of shame; I taunt thee not more plainly.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Nay, but recount thy father's lewdness too.
ORESTES
Home-keeping, chide not him who toils without.
CLYTEMNESTRA
'Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.
ORESTES
The absent husband toils for them at home.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Thou growest fain to slay thy mother, child
ORESTES
Nay, 'tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Beware thy mother's vengeful hounds from hell.
ORESTES
How shall I 'scape my father's, sparing thee?
CLYTEMNESTRA
Living, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.
ORESTES
My father's fate ordains this doom for thee.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Ah, me! this snake it was I bore and nursed.
ORESTES
Ay, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.
Shameful thy deed was--die the death of shame!
[_Exit, driving Clytemnestra before him. _
CHORUS
Lo, even for these I mourn, a double death:
Yet since Orestes, driven on by doom,
Thus crowns the height of murders manifold,
I say, 'tis well--that not in night and death
Should sink the eye and light of this our home.
There came on Priam's race and name
A vengeance; though it tarried long,
With heavy doom it came.
Came, too, on Agamemnon's hall
A lion-pair, twin swordsmen strong.
And last, the heritage doth fall
To him, to whom from Pythian cave
The god his deepest counsel gave.
Cry out, rejoice! our kingly hall
Hath 'scaped from ruin--ne'er again
Its ancient wealth be wasted all
By two usurpers, sin-defiled--
An evil path of woe and bane!
On him who dealt the dastard blow
Comes Craft, Revenge's scheming child.
And hand in hand with him doth go,
Eager for fight,
The child of Zeus, whom men below
Call Justice, naming her aright.
And on her foes her breath
Is as the blast of death;
For her the god who dwells in deep recess
Beneath Parnassus' brow,
Summons with loud acclaim
To rise, though late and lame,
And come with craft that worketh righteousness.
For even o'er Powers divine this law is strong--
_Thou shalt not serve the wrong_.
To that which ruleth heaven beseems it that we bow.
Lo, freedom's light hath come!
Lo, now is rent away
The grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.
Up to the light, ye halls! this many a day
Too low on earth ye lay.
And Time, the great Accomplisher,
Shall cross the threshold, whensoe'er
He choose with purging hand to cleanse
The palace, driving all pollution thence.
And fair the cast of Fortune's die
Before our state's new lords shall lie,
Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom
Lo, freedom's light hath come!
[_The scene opens, disclosing Orestes standing over the corpses of
Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; in one hand he holds his sword, in the
other the robe in which Agamemnon was entangled and slain_.
ORESTES
There lies our country's twofold tyranny,
My father's slayers, spoilers of my home.
Erst were they royal, sitting on the throne,
And loving are they yet,--their common fate
Tells the tale truly, shows their trothplight firm.
They swore to work mine ill-starred father's death,
They swore to die together; 'tis fulfilled.
O ye who stand, this great doom's witnesses,
Behold this too, the dark device which bound
My sire unhappy to his death,--behold
The mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet!
Stand round, unfold it--'tis the trammel-net
That wrapped a chieftain; holds it that he see,
The father--not my sire, but he whose eye
Is judge of all things, the all-seeing Sun!
Let him behold my mother's damned deed,
Then let him stand, when need shall be to me,
Witness that justly I have sought and slain
My mother; blameless was Aegisthus' doom--
He died the death law bids adulterers die.
But she who plotted this accursed thing
To slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath
Her girdle once the burden of her babes,
Beloved erewhile, now turned to hateful foes--
What deem ye of her? or what venomed thing,
Sea-snake or adder, had more power than she
To poison with a touch the flesh unscarred?
So great her daring, such her impious will.
How name her, if I may not speak a curse?
A lion-springe! a laver's swathing cloth,
Wrapping a dead man, twining round his feet--
A net, a trammel, an entangling robe?
Such were the weapon of some strangling thief,
The terror of the road, a cut-purse hound--
With such device full many might he kill,
Full oft exult in heat of villainy.
Ne'er have my house so cursed an indweller--
Heaven send me, rather, childless to be slain!
CHORUS
Woe for each desperate deed!
Woe for the queen, with shame of life bereft!
And ah, for him who still is left,
Madness, dark blossom of a bloody seed!
ORESTES
Did she the deed or not? this robe gives proof,
Imbrued with blood that bathed Aegisthus' sword;
Look, how the spurted stain combines with time
To blur the many dyes that once adorned
Its pattern manifold! I now stand here,
Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing--
Hear, O thou woven web that slew my sire!
I grieve for deed and death and all my home--
Victor, pollution's damned stain for prize.
CHORUS
Alas, that none of mortal men
Can pass his life untouched by pain!
Behold, one woe is here--
Another loometh near.
ORESTES
Hark ye and learn--for what the end shall be
For me I know not: breaking from the curb
My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,
Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught
Far from the course, and madness in my breast
Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave--
Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes!
I say that rightfully I slew my mother,
A thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire
And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me
Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer
Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,
The guilt of murder done should pass from me;
But if I spared, the fate that should be mine
I dare not blazon forth--the bow of speech
Can reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.
And now behold me, how with branch and crown
I pass, a suppliant made meet to go
Unto Earth's midmost shrine, the holy ground
Of Loxias, and that renowned light
Of ever-burning fire, to 'scape the doom
Of kindred murder: to no other shrine
(So Loxias bade) may I for refuge turn.
