The Orestia

Aeschylus

  • Agamemnon
  • The Choephori (The Libation-Bearers)
  • Eumenides

    This page copyright © 1999 Blackmask Online.

    AGAMEMNON
    CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

          A WATCHMAN
          CHORUS OF ARGIVE ELDERS
          CLYTEMNESTRA, wife of AGAMEMNON
          A HERALD
          AGAMEMNON, King of Argos
          CASSANDRA, daughter of Priam, and slave of AGAMEMNON
          AEGISTHUS, son of Thyestes, cousin of AGAMEMNON
          Servants, Attendants, Soldiers
          (SCENE:-Before the palace of AGAMEMNON in Argos. In front of the
                palace there are statues of the gods, and altars prepared for
                sacrifice. It is night. On the roof of the palace can be
                discerned a WATCHMAN.)

    WATCHMAN
            I pray the gods to quit me of my toils,
            To close the watch I keep, this livelong year;
            For as a watch-dog lying, not at rest,
            Propped on one arm, upon the palace-roof
            Of Atreus' race, too long, too well I know
            The starry conclave of the midnight sky,
            Too well, the splendours of the firmament,
            The lords of light, whose kingly aspect shows-
            What time they set or climb the sky in turn-
            The year's divisions, bringing frost or fire.

            And now, as ever, am I set to mark
            When shall stream up the glow of signal-flame,
            The bale-fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale-
            Troy town is ta'en: such issue holds in hope
            She in whose woman's breast beats heart of man.

            Thus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,
            Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited
            By dreams-ah me!-for in the place of sleep
            Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels
            The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.

            And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,
            I medicine my soul with melody
            Of trill or song-anon to tears I turn,
            Wailing the woe that broods upon this home,
            Not now by honour guided as of old-

            But now at last fair fall the welcome hour
            That sets me free, whene'er the thick night glow
            With beacon-fire of hope deferred no more.
            All hail!
            (A beacon-light is seen reddening the distant sky.)
            Fire of the night, that brings my spirit day,
            Shedding on Argos light, and dance, and song,
            Greetings to fortune, hail!

            Let my loud summons ring within the ears
            Of Agamemnon's queen, that she anon
            Start from her couch and with a shrill voice cry
            A joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze,
            For Ilion's fall; such fiery message gleams
            From yon high flame; and I, before the rest,
            Will foot the lightsome measure of our joy;
            For I can say, My master's dice fell fair-
            Behold! the triple sice, the lucky flame!
            Now be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,
            The hand of him restored, who rules our home:
            Home-but I say no more: upon my tongue
            Treads hard the ox o' the adage.

                                                                      Had it voice,
            The home itself might soothliest tell its tale;
            I, of set will, speak words the wise may learn,
            To others, nought remember nor discern.
            (He withdraws. The CHORUS OF ARGIVE ELDERS enters, each
                leaning on a staff. During their song CLYTEMNESTRA
                appears in the background, kindling the altars.)
    CHORUS (singing)
               Ten livelong years have rolled away,
               Since the twin lords of sceptred sway,
               By Zeus endowed with pride of place,
               The doughty chiefs of Atreus' race,
                Went forth of yore,
               To plead with Priam, face to face,
                Before the judgment-seat of War!

               A thousand ships from Argive land
               Put forth to bear the martial band,
               That with a spirit stern and strong
               Went out to right the kingdom's wrong-
               Pealed, as they went, the battle-song,
                Wild as the vultures' cry;
               When o'er the eyrie, soaring high,
               In wild bereaved agony,
               Around, around, in airy rings,
               They wheel with oarage of their wings,
               But not the eyas-brood behold,
               That called them to the nest of old;
               But let Apollo from the sky,
               Or Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,
               The exile cry, the wail forlorn,
               Of birds from whom their home is torn-
               On those who wrought the rapine fell,

               Heaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.
               Even so doth Zeus, the jealous lord
               And guardian of the hearth and board,
               Speed Atreus' sons, in vengeful ire,
               'Gainst Paris-sends them forth on fire,
               Her to buy back, in war and blood,
               Whom one did wed but many woo'd!
               And many, many, by his will,
               The last embrace of foes shall feel,
               And many a knee in dust be bowed,
               And splintered spears on shields ring loud,
               Of Trojan and of Greek, before
               That iron bridal-feast be o'er!
               But as he willed 'tis ordered all,
               And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall-
               Unsoothed by tears or spilth of wine
               Poured forth too late, the wrath divine
               Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine.

               And we in grey dishonoured eld,
               Feeble of frame, unfit were held
               To join the warrior array
               That then went forth unto the fray:
               And here at home we tarry, fain
               Our feeble footsteps to sustain,
               Each on his staff-so strength doth wane,
               And turns to childishness again.
               For while the sap of youth is green,
               And, yet unripened, leaps within,
               The young are weakly as the old,
               And each alike unmeet to hold
               The vantage post of war!
               And ah! when flower and fruit are o'er,
                And on life's tree the leaves are sere,
                Age wendeth propped its journey drear,
               As forceless as a child, as light
               And fleeting as a dream of night
               Lost in the garish day!
               But thou, O child of Tyndareus,
                Queen Clytemnestra, speak! and say
                What messenger of joy to-day
               Hath won thine ear? what welcome news,
               That thus in sacrificial wise
               E'en to the city's boundaries
               Thou biddest altar-fires arise?
               Each god who doth our city guard,
               And keeps o'er Argos watch and ward
                From heaven above, from earth below-
               The mighty lords who rule the skies,
               The market's lesser deities,
                To each and all the altars glow,
               Piled for the sacrifice!
               And here and there, anear, afar,
               Streams skyward many a beacon-star,
               Conjur'd and charm'd and kindled well
               By pure oil's soft and guileless spell,
               Hid now no more
               Within the palace' secret store.

               O queen, we pray thee, whatsoe'er,
                Known unto thee, were well revealed,
               That thou wilt trust it to our ear,
                And bid our anxious heart be healed!
               That waneth now unto despair-
               Now, waxing to a presage fair,
               Dawns, from the altar, to scare
               From our rent hearts the vulture Care.

                                     strophe 1

            List! for the power is mine, to chant on high
               The chiefs' emprise, the strength that omens gave!
            List! on my soul breathes yet a harmony,
               From realms of ageless powers, and strong to save!

            How brother kings, twin lords of one command,
               Led forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,
            Urged on their way, with vengeful spear and brand,
               By warrior-birds, that watched the parting hour.

            Go forth to Troy, the eagles seemed to cry-
               And the sea-kings obeyed the sky-kings' word,
            When on the right they soared across the sky,
               And one was black, one bore a white tail barred.

            High o'er the palace were they seen to soar,
               Then lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,
            Far from the fields that she should range no more,
               Big with her unborn brood, a mother-hare.

            (Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!

                              antistrophe 1

            And one beheld, the soldier-prophet true,
               And the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,
            In the twy-coloured eagles straight he knew,
               And spake the omen forth, for good and in.

            Go forth, he cried, and Priam's town shall fall.
               Yet long the time shall be; and flock and herd,
            The people's wealth, that roam before the wall,
               Shall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word,

            But O beware! lest wrath in Heaven abide,
               To dim the glowing battle-forge once more,
            And mar the mighty curb of Trojan pride,
               The steel of vengeance, welded as for war!

            For virgin Artemis bears jealous hate
               Against the royal house, the eagle-pair,
            Who rend the unborn brood, insatiate-
               Yea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare.

            (Ah woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)

                                             epode

            For well she loves-the goddess kind and mild-
               The tender new-born cubs of lions bold,
            Too weak to range-and well the sucking child
               Of every beast that roams by wood and wold.

            So to the Lord of Heaven she prayeth still,
               "Nay, if it must be, be the omen true!
            Yet do the visioned eagles presage ill;
               The end be well, but crossed with evil too!"

            Healer Apollo! be her wrath controll'd
               Nor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,
            To war against the Danaans and withhold
               From the free ocean-waves their eager sails!

            She craves, alas! to see a second life
               Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice-
            'Twixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,
               And hate that knows not fear, and fell device.

            At home there tarries like a lurking snake,
               Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,
            A wily watcher, passionate to slake,
               In blood, resentment for a murdered child.

            Such was the mighty warning, pealed of yore-
               Amid good tidings, such the word of fear,
            What time the fateful eagles hovered o'er
               The kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.

            (In strains like his, once more,
            Sing woe and well-a-day! but be the issue fair!)

                                     strophe 2

               Zeus-if to The Unknown
                That name of many names seem good-
               Zeus, upon Thee I call.
                Thro' the mind's every road
               I passed, but vain are all,
               Save that which names thee Zeus, the Highest One,
                Were it but mine to cast away the load,
            The weary load, that weighs my spirit down.

                              antistrophe 2

               He that was Lord of old,
            In full-blown pride of place and valour bold,
               Hath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale told:
               And he that next held sway,
               By stronger grasp o'erthrown
               Hath pass'd away!
            And whoso now shall bid the triumph-chant arise
               To Zeus, and Zeus alone,
            He shall be found the truly wise.

                                     strophe 3

            'Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way
               Of knowledge: He hath ruled,
            Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.

               In visions of the night, like dropping rain,
               Descend the many memories of pain
            Before the spirit's sight: through tears and dole
               Comes wisdom o'er the unwilling soul-
               A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,
            That holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!

                              antistrophe 3

            And then the elder chief, at whose command
               The fleet of Greece was manned,
                Cast on the seer no word of hate,
                But veered before the sudden breath of Fate-

               Ah, weary while! for, ere they put forth sail,
               Did every store, each minish'd vessel, fail,
                While all the Achaean host
                At Aulis anchored lay,
               Looking across to Chalcis and the coast
               Where refluent waters welter, rock, and sway;

                                     strophe 4

                And rife with ill delay
               From northern Strymon blew the thwarting blast-
                Mother of famine fell,
                That holds men wand'ring still
               Far from the haven where they fain would be!-
                And pitiless did waste
               Each ship and cable, rotting on the sea,
                       And, doubling with delay each weary hour,
               Withered with hope deferred th' Achaeans' warlike flower.

                But when, for bitter storm, a deadlier relief,
                And heavier with ill to either chief,
            Pleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,
                The two Atreidae smote their sceptres on the plain,
                And, striving hard, could not their tears restrain!

                              antistrophe 4

                And then the elder monarch spake aloud-
                       Ill lot were mine, to disobey!
                And ill, to smite my child, my household's love and pride!
                To stain with virgin blood a father's hands, and slay
                       My daughter, by the altar's side!
                       'Twixt woe and woe I dwell-
                I dare not like a recreant fly,
            And leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally;
                For rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,
                The virgin's blood, shed forth to lull the adverse wind-
                       God send the deed be well!

                                     strophe 5

                       Thus on his neck he took
                       Fate's hard compelling yoke;
            Then, in the counter-gale of will abhorr'd, accursed,
                To recklessness his shifting spirit veered-
                Alas! that Frenzy, first of ills and worst,
            With evil craft men's souls to sin hath ever stirred!

                And so he steeled his heart-ah, well-a-day-
                       Aiding a war for one false woman's sake,
                           His child to slay,
                       And with her spilt blood make
            An offering, to speed the ships upon their way!

                              antistrophe 5

                Lusting for war, the bloody arbiters
            Closed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed
                       The girl-voice plead,
                Pity me, Father! nor her prayers,
                       Nor tender, virgin years.
                So, when the chant of sacrifice was done,
                Her father bade the youthful priestly train
            Raise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone,
                From where amid her robes she lay
                       Sunk all in swoon away-
            Bade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,
                Her fair lips' speech refrain,
            Lest she should speak a curse on Atreus' home and seed,

                                     strophe 6

                So, trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,
               With one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye.
                Those that should smite she smote
               Fair, silent, as a pictur'd form, but fain
               To plead, Is all forgot?
            How oft those halls of old,
            Wherein my sire high feast did hold,
               Rang to the virginal soft strain,
                When I, a stainless child,
               Sang from pure lips and undefiled,
                Sang of my sire, and all
            His honoured life, and how on him should fall
               Heaven's highest gift and gain!

                              antistrophe 6

            And then-but I beheld not, nor can tell,
               What further fate befell:
            But this is sure, that Calchas' boding strain
               Can ne'er be void or vain.
            This wage from justice' hand do sufferers earn,
               The future to discern:
            And yet-farewell, O secret of To-morrow!
               Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow.
            Clear with the clear beams of the morrow's sun,
               The future presseth on.
            Now, let the house's tale, how dark soe'er,
               Find yet an issue fair!-
            So prays the loyal, solitary band
               That guards the Apian land.

            (They turn to CLYTEMNESTRA, who leaves the altars and comes
                forward.)

    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            O queen, I come in reverence of thy sway-
            For, while the ruler's kingly seat is void,
            The loyal heart before his consort bends.
            Now-be it sure and certain news of good,
            Or the fair tidings of a flatt'ring hope,
            That bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,
            I, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            As saith the adage, From the womb of Night
            Spring forth, with promise fair, the young child Light.
            Ay-fairer even than all hope my news-
            By Grecian hands is Priam's city ta'en!
    LEADER
            What say'st thou? doubtful heart makes treach'rous ear.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Hear then again, and plainly-Troy is ours!
    LEADER
            Thrills thro' heart such joy as wakens tears.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Ay, thro' those tears thine eye looks loyalty.
    LEADER
            But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure?
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Go to; I have-unless the god has lied.
    LEADER
            Hath some night-vision won thee to belief?
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Out on all presage of a slumb'rous soul!
    LEADER
            But wert thou cheered by Rumour's wingless word?
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Peace-thou dost chide me as a credulous girl.
    LEADER
            Say then, how long ago the city fell?
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Even in this night that now brings forth the dawn.
    LEADER
            Yet who so swift could speed the message here?
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            From Ida's top Hephaestus, lord of fire,
            Sent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,
            Beacon to beacon sped the courier-flame.
            From Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,
            Of Lemnos; thence unto the steep sublime
            Of Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.
            Thence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,
            The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,
            Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,
            In golden glory, like some strange new sun,
            Onward, and reached Macistus' watching heights.
            There, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,
            The watcher sped the tidings on in turn,
            Until the guard upon Messapius' peak
            Saw the far flame gleam on Euripus' tide,
            And from the high-piled heap of withered furze
            Lit the new sign and bade the message on.
            Then the strong light, far-flown and yet undimmed,
            Shot thro' the sky above Asopus' plain,
            Bright as the moon, and on Cithaeron's crag
            Aroused another watch of flying fire.
            And there the sentinels no whit disowned,
            But sent redoubled on, the hest of flame
            Swift shot the light, above Gorgopis' bay,
            To Aegiplanctus' mount, and bade the peak
            Fail not the onward ordinance of fire.
            And like a long beard streaming in the wind,
            Full-fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,
            And onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,
            Beneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,
            And thence leapt light unto Arachne's peak,
            The mountain watch that looks upon our town.
            Thence to th' Atreides' roof-in lineage fair,
            A bright posterity of Ida's fire.
            So sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,
            Flame after flame, along the course ordained,
            And lo! the last to speed upon its way
            Sights the end first, and glows unto the goal.
            And Troy is ta'en, and by this sign my lord
            Tells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.
    LEADER
            To heaven, O queen, will I upraise new song:
            But, wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear
            From first to last the marvel of the tale.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Think you-this very morn-the Greeks in Troy,
            And loud therein the voice of utter wail!
            Within one cup pour vinegar and oil,
            And look! unblent, unreconciled, they war.
            So in the twofold issue of the strife
            Mingle the victor's shout, the captives' moan.
            For all the conquered whom the sword has spared
            Cling weeping-some unto a brother slain,
            Some childlike to a nursing father's form,
            And wail the loved and lost, the while their neck
            Bows down already 'neath the captive's chain.
            And lo! the victors, now the fight is done,
            Goaded by restless hunger, far and wide
            Range all disordered thro' the town, to snatch
            Such victual and such rest as chance may give
            Within the captive halls that once were Troy-
            Joyful to rid them of the frost and dew,
            Wherein they couched upon the plain of old-
            Joyful to sleep the gracious night all through,
            Unsummoned of the watching sentinel.
            Yet let them reverence well the city's gods,
            The lords of Troy, tho' fallen, and her shrines;
            So shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.
            Yea, let no craving for forbidden gain
            Bid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.
            For we need yet, before the race be won,
            Homewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.
            For should the host wax wanton ere it come,
            Then, tho'the sudden blow of fate be spared,
            Yet in the sight of gods shall rise once more
            The great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.
            Now, hearing from this woman's mouth of mine,
            The tale and eke its warning, pray with me,
            Luck sway the scale, with no uncertain poise,
            For my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys.
    LEADER
            A gracious word thy woman's lips have told,
            Worthy a wise man's utterance, O my queen;
            Now with clear trust in thy convincing tale
            I set me to salute the gods with song,
            Who bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain.
                                                                (CLYTEMNESTRA goes into the palace.)
    CHORUS (singing)
            Zeus, Lord of heaven! and welcome night
            Of victory, that hast our might
               With all the glories crowned!
            On towers of Ilion, free no more,
            Hast flung the mighty mesh of war,
               And closely girt them round,
            Till neither warrior may 'scape,
            Nor stripling lightly overleap
            The trammels as they close, and close,
            Till with the grip of doom our foes
               In slavery's coil are bound!

            Zeus, Lord of hospitality,
            In grateful awe I bend to thee-
               'Tis thou hast struck the blow!
               At Alexander, long ago,
            We marked thee bend thy vengeful bow,
            But long and warily withhold
            The eager shaft, which, uncontrolled
            And loosed too soon or launched too high,
            Had wandered bloodless through the sky.

                                     strophe 1

            Zeus, the high God!-whate'er be dim in doubt,
               This can our thought track out-
            The blow that fells the sinner is of God,
               And as he wills, the rod
            Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,
               The gods list not to hold
            A reckoning with him whose feet oppress
               The grace of holiness-
            An impious word! for whenso'er the sire
               Breathed forth rebellious fire-
            What time his household overflowed the measure
               Of bliss and health and treasure-
            His children's children read the reckoning plain,
               At last, in tears and pain.
            On me let weal that brings no woe be sent,
               And therewithal, content!
            Who spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power
               Shall be to him a tower,
            To guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot,
               Where all things are forgot.

                              antistrophe 1

            Lust drives him on-lust, desperate and wild,
               Fate's sin-contriving child-
            And cure is none; beyond concealment clear,
               Kindles sin's baleful glare.
            As an ill coin beneath the wearing touch
               Betrays by stain and smutch
            Its metal false-such is the sinful wight.
               Before, on pinions light,
            Fair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,
               While home and kin make moan
            Beneath the grinding burden of his crime;
               Till, in the end of time,
            Cast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer
               To powers that will not hear.

               And such did Paris come
               Unto Atreides' home,
            And thence, with sin and shame his welcome to repay,
               Ravished the wife away-

                                     strophe 2

            And she, unto her country and her kin
            Leaving the clash of shields and spears and arming ships,
            And bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,
               And overbold in sin,
            Went fleetly thro' the gates, at midnight hour.
               Oft from the prophets' lips
            Moaned out the warning and the wail-Ah woe!
            Woe for the home, the home! and for the chieftains, woe!
               Woe for the bride-bed, warm
            Yet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form
               Of her who loved her lord, awhile ago
                And woe! for him who stands
            Shamed, silent, unreproachful, stretching hands
               That find her not, and sees, yet will not see,
                       That she is far away!
            And his sad fancy, yearning o'er the sea,
                Shall summon and recall
            Her wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.
                And sad with many memories,
            The fair cold beauty of each sculptured face-
                And all to hatefulness is turned their grace,
            Seen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes!

                              antistrophe 2

               And when the night is deep,
            Come visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain
               Of hopings vain-
            Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight
               Has seen its old delight,
            When thro' the grasps of love that bid it stay
               It vanishes away
            On silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.

               Such are the sights, the sorrows fell,
            About our hearth-and worse, whereof I may not tell.
               But, all the wide town o'er,
            Each home that sent its master far away
               From Hellas' shore,
            Feels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss, to-day.
               For, truth to say,
            The touch of bitter death is manifold!
            Familiar was each face, and dear as life,
               That went unto the war,
            But thither, whence a warrior went of old,
               Doth nought return-
            Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn!

                                     strophe 3

               For Ares, lord of strife,
            Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold,
            War's money-changer, giving dust for gold,
               Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,
            Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,
            Light to the band, but heavy to the soul;
               Yea, fills the light urn full
               With what survived the flame-
            Death's dusty measure of a hero's frame!

            Alas! one cries, and yet alas again!
            Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear,
               And hath not left his peer!
            Ah woe! another moans-my spouse is slain,
               The death of honour, rolled in dust and blood,
            Slain for a woman's sin, a false wife's shame!
               Such muttered words of bitter mood
            Rise against those who went forth to reclaim;
               Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th' Atreides' name.

                And others, far beneath the Ilian wall,
               Sleep their last sleep-the goodly chiefs and tall,
               Couched in the foeman's land, whereon they gave
            Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan grave.

                              antistrophe 3

               Therefore for each and all the city's breast
               Is heavy with a wrath supprest,
            As deeply and deadly as a curse more loud
               Flung by the common crowd:
            And, brooding deeply, doth my soul await
               Tidings of coming fate,
            Buried as yet in darkness' womb.
            For not forgetful is the high gods' doom
               Against the sons of carnage: all too long
            Seems the unjust to prosper and be strong,
               Till the dark Furies come,
            And smite with stern reversal all his home,
               Down into dim obstruction-he is gone,
            And help and hope, among the lost, is none!

            O'er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,
               Impends a woe condign;
            The vengeful bolt upon his eyes doth flame,
               Sped from the hand divine.
            This bliss be mine, ungrudged of God, to feel-
               To tread no city to the dust,
               Nor see my own life thrust
            Down to a glave's estate beneath another's heel!

                                             epode

            Behold, throughout the city wide
            Have the swift feet of Rumour hied,
               Roused by the joyful flame:
            But is the news they scatter, sooth?
            Or haply do they give for truth
               Some cheat which heaven doth frame?
            A child were he and all unwise,
               Who let his heart with joy be stirred.
            To see the beacon-fires arise,
               And then, beneath some thwarting word,
               Sicken anon with hope deferred.
               The edge of woman's insight still
               Good news from true divideth ill;
            Light rumours leap within the bound
            Then fences female credence round,
            But, lightly born, as lightly dies
            The tale that springs of her surmise.

            (Several days are assumed to have elapsed.)

    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            Soon shall we know whereof the bale-fires tell,
            The beacons, kindled with transmitted flame;
            Whether, as well I deem, their tale is true,
            Or whether like some dream delusive came
            The welcome blaze but to befool our soul.
            For lo! I see a herald from the shore
            Draw hither, shadowed with the olive-wreath-
            And thirsty dust, twin-brother of the clay,
            Speaks plain of travel far and truthful news-
            No dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,
            Fitfully kindled from the mountain pyre;
            But plainlier shall his voice say, All is well,
            Or-but away, forebodings adverse, now,
            And on fair promise fair fulfilment come!
            And whoso for the state prays otherwise,
            Himself reap harvest of his ill desire!

            (A HERALD enters. He is an advance messenger from AGAMEMNON'S
                forces, which have just landed.)

    HERALD
            O land of Argos, fatherland of mine!
            To thee at last, beneath the tenth year's sun,
            My feet return; the bark of my emprise,
            Tho' one by one hope's anchors broke away,
            Held by the last, and now rides safely here.
            Long, long my soul despaired to win, in death,
            Its longed-for rest within our Argive land:
            And now all hail, O earth, and hail to thee,
            New-risen sun! and hail our country's God,
            High-ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,
            Whose arrows smote us once-smite thou no morel
            Was not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,
            O king Apollo, by Scamander's side?
            Turn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now
            And hail, all gods who rule the street and mart
            And Hermes hail! my patron and my pride,
            Herald of heaven, and lord of heralds here!
            And Heroes, ye who sped us on our way-
            To one and all I cry, Receive again
            With grace such Argives as the spear has spared.

            Ah, home of royalty, beloved halls,
            And solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn!
            Benign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet
            The king returning after many days.
            For as from night flash out the beams of day,
            So out of darkness dawns a light, a king,
            On you, on Argos-Agamemnon comes.
            Then hail and greet him well I such meed befits
            Him whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy
            With the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong-
            And smote the plain, smote down to nothingness
            Each altar, every shrine; and far and wide
            Dies from the whole land's face its offspring fair.
            Such mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy-
            Our lord and monarch, Atreus' elder son,
            And comes at last with blissful honour home;
            Highest of all who walk on earth to-day-
            Not Paris nor the city's self that paid
            Sin's price with him, can boast, Whate'er befall,
            The guerdon we have won outweighs it all.
            But at Fate's judgment-seat the robber stands
            Condemned of rapine, and his prey is torn
            Forth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped
            A bloody harvest of his home and land
            Gone down to death, and for his guilt and lust
            His father's race pays double in the dust.
    LEADER
            Hail, herald of the Greeks, new-come from war.
    HERALD
            All hail! not death itself can fright me now.
    LEADER
            Was thine heart wrung with longing for thy land?
    HERALD
            So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.
    LEADER
            On you too then this sweet distress did fall-
    HERALD
            How say'st thou? make me master of thy word.
    LEADER
            You longed for us who pined for you again.
    HERALD
            Craved the land us who craved it, love for love?
    LEADER
            Yea, till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.
    HERALD
            Whence thy despair, that mars the army's joy?
    LEADER
            Sole cure of wrong is silence, saith the saw.
    HERALD
            Thy kings afar, couldst thou fear other men?
    LEADER
            Death had been sweet, as thou didst say but now.
    HERALD
            'Tis true; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,
            These many years, some chances issued fair,
            And some, I wot, were chequered with a curse.
            But who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,
            Thro' time's whole tenor an unbroken weal?
            I could a tale unfold of toiling oars,
            Ill rest, scant landings on a shore rock-strewn,
            All pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.
            And worse and hatefuller our woes on land;
            For where we couched, close by the foeman's wall,
            The river-plain was ever dank with dews,
            Dropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,
            A curse that clung unto our sodden garb,
            And hair as horrent as a wild beast's fell.
            Why tell the woes of winter, when the birds
            Lay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida's snow?
            Or summer's scorch, what time the stirless wave
            Sank to its sleep beneath the noon-day sun?
            Why mourn old woes? their pain has passed away;
            And passed away, from those who fell, all care,
            For evermore, to rise and live again.
            Why sum the count of death, and render thanks
            For life by moaning over fate malign?
            Farewell, a long farewell to all our woes!
            To us, the remnant of the host of Greece,
            Comes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe;
            Thus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,
            Like him far-fleeted over sea and land.
            The Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy,
            And in the temples of the gods of Greece
            Hung up these spoils, a shining sign to Time.
            Let those who learn this legend bless aright
            The city and its chieftains, and repay
            The meed of gratitude to Zeus who willed
            And wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.
    LEADER
            Thy words o'erbear my doubt: for news of good,
            The ear of age hath ever youth enow:
            But those within and Clytemnestra's self
            Would fain hear all; glad thou their ears and mine.
                                                            (CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the palace.)
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            That night, when first the fiery courier came,
            In sign that Troy is ta'en and razed to earth,
            So wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,
            That I was chidden-Hath the beacon watch
            Made sure unto thy soul the sack of Troy?
            A very woman thou, whose heart leaps light
            At wandering rumours!-and with words like these
            They showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.
            Yet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,
            And, in the strain they held for feminine,
            Went heralds thro' the city, to and fro,
            With voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy;
            And in each fane they lit and quenched with wine
            The spicy perfumes fading in the flame.
            All is fulfilled: I spare your longer tale-
            The king himself anon shall tell me all.

            Remains to think what honour best may greet
            My lord, the majesty of Argos, home.
            What day beams fairer on a woman's eyes
            Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide,
            To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war?
            This to my husband, that he tarry not,
            But turn the city's longing into joy!
            Yea, let him come, and coming may he find
            A wife no other than he left her, true
            And faithful as a watch-dog to his home,
            His foemen's foe, in all her duties leal,
            Trusty to keep for ten long years unmarred
            The store whereon he set his master-seal.
            Be steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see
            Ill joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me!
    HERALD
            'Tis fairly said: thus speaks a noble dame,
            Nor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast.
            (CLYTEMNESTRA withdraws again into the palace.)
    LEADER
            So has she spoken-be it yours to learn
            By clear interpreters her specious word.
            Turn to me, herald-tell me if anon
            The second well-loved lord of Argos comes?
            Hath Menelaus safely sped with you?
    HERALD
            Alas-brief boon unto my friends it were,
            To flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair!
    LEADER
            Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst-
            Too plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.
    HERALD
            The hero and his bark were rapt away
            Far from the Grecian fleet; 'tis truth I say.
    LEADER
            Whether in all men's sight from Ilion borne,
            Or from the fleet by stress of weather torn?
    HERALD
            Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,
            And one short word hath told long woes aright.
    LEADER
            But say, what now of him each comrade saith?
            What their forebodings, of his life or death?
    HERALD
            Ask me no more: the truth is known to none,
            Save the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun.
    LEADER
            Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven?
            How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?
    HERALD
            Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow's tale
            The day of blissful news. The gods demand
            Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude.
            If one as herald came with rueful face
            To say, The curse has fallen, and the host
            Gone down to death; and one wide wound has reached
            The city's heart, and out of many homes
            Many are cast and consecrate to death,
            Beneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,
            The bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom-
            If such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,
            'Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.
            But-coming as he comes who bringeth news
            Of safe return from toil, and issues fair,
            To men rejoicing in a weal restored-
            Dare I to dash good words with ill, and say
            For fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,
            Now swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,
            Wasting the Argives worn with toil and war.
            Night and great horror of the rising wave
            Came o'er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace
            Clashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow
            Thro' scudding drifts of spray and raving storm
            Vanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.
            And when at length the sun rose bright, we saw
            Th' Aegaean sea-field flecked with flowers of death,
            Corpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.
            For us indeed, some god, as well I deem,
            No human power, laid hand upon our helm,
            Snatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,
            And brought our bark thro'all, unharmed in hull:
            And saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,
            So that no surge should gulf us deep in brine,
            Nor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.

            So 'scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,
            But, under day's white light, mistrustful all
            Of fortune's smile, we sat and brooded deep,
            Shepherds forlorn of thoughts that wandered wild
            O'er this new woe; for smitten was our host,
            And lost as ashes scattered from the pyre.
            Of whom if any draw his life-breath yet,
            Be well assured, he deems of us as dead,
            As we of him no other fate forebode.
            But heaven save all! If Menelaus live,
            He will not tarry, but will surely come:
            Therefore if anywhere the high sun's ray
            Descries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,
            Who wills not yet to wipe his race away,
            Hope still there is that homeward he may wend.
            Enough-thou hast the truth unto the end.
                                                                                            (The HERALD departs.)

    CHORUS (singing)
                                     strophe 1

            Say, from whose lips the presage fell?
            Who read the future all too well,
               And named her, in her natal hour,
               Helen, the bride with war for dower
            'Twas one of the Invisible,
               Guiding his tongue with prescient power.
            On fleet, and host, and citadel,
               War, sprung from her, and death did lour,
            When from the bride-bed's fine-spun veil
            She to the Zephyr spread her sail.
            Strong blew the breeze-the surge closed oer
            The cloven track of keel and oar,
               But while she fled, there drove along,
               Fast in her wake, a mighty throng-
            Athirst for blood, athirst for war,
               Forward in fell pursuit they sprung,
            Then leapt on Simois' bank ashore,
               The leafy coppices among-
            No rangers, they, of wood and field,
            But huntsmen of the sword and shield.

                              antistrophe 1

            Heaven's jealousy, that works its will,
            Sped thus on Troy its destined ill,
               Well named, at once, the Bride and Bane;
               And loud rang out the bridal strain;
            But they to whom that song befell
               Did turn anon to tears again;
            Zeus tarries, but avenges still
               The husband's wrong, the household's stain!
            He, the hearth's lord, brooks not to see
            Its outraged hospitality.

            Even now, and in far other tone,
            Troy chants her dirge of mighty moan,
               Woe upon Paris, woe and hate!
               Who wooed his country's doom for mate-
            This is the burthen of the groan,
               Wherewith she wails disconsolate
            The blood, so many of her own
               Have poured in vain, to fend her fate;
            Troy! thou hast fed and freed to roam
               A lion-cub within thy home!

                                     strophe 2

               A suckling creature, newly ta'en
               From mother's teat, still fully fain
               Of nursing care; and oft caressed,
               Within the arms, upon the breast,
            Even as an infant, has it lain;
               Or fawns and licks, by hunger pressed,
            The hand that will assuage its pain;
               In life's young dawn, a well-loved guest,
            A fondling for the children's play,
            A joy unto the old and grey.

                              antistrophe 2

            But waxing time and growth betrays
            The blood-thirst of the lion-race,
               And, for the house's fostering care,
               Unbidden all, it revels there,
            And bloody recompense repays-
               Rent flesh of kine, its talons tare:
            A mighty beast, that slays, and slays,
               And mars with blood the household fair,
            A God-sent pest invincible,
            A minister of fate and hell.

                                     strophe 3

            Even so to Ilion's city came by stealth
                A spirit as of windless seas and skies,
               A gentle phantom-form of joy and wealth,
                With love's soft arrows speeding from its eyes-
            Love's rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in subtle wise.

               Ah, well-a-day! the bitter bridal-bed,
                When the fair mischief lay by Paris' side!
               What curse on palace and on people sped
                With her, the Fury sent on Priam's pride,
            By angered Zeus! what tears of many a widowed bride!

                              antistrophe 3

               Long, long ago to mortals this was told,
                How sweet security and blissful state
               Have curses for their children-so men hold-
                And for the man of all-too prosperous fate
            Springs from a bitter seed some woe insatiate.

               Alone, alone, I deem far otherwise;
                Not bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,
               From which that after-growth of ill doth rise!
                Woe springs from wrong, the plant is like the seed-
            While Right, in honour's house, doth its own likeness breed.

                                     strophe 4

               Some past impiety, some grey old crime,
                Breeds the young curse, that wantons in our ill,
               Early or late, when haps th'appointed time-
                And out of light brings power of darkness still,
            A master-fiend, a foe, unseen, invincible;

               A pride accursed, that broods upon the race
                And home in which dark Ate holds her sway-
               Sin's child and Woe's, that wears its parents' face;

                              antistrophe 4

                While Right in smoky cribs shines clear as day,
               And decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous way.

               From gilded halls, that hands polluted raise,
                Right turns away with proud averted eyes,
               And of the wealth, men stamp amiss with praise,
                Heedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,
            And to Fate's goal guides all, in its appointed wise.

            (AGAMEMNON enters, riding in a chariot and accompanied by
                a great procession. CASSANDRA follows in another chariot.
                The CHORUS sings its welcome.)

                Hail to thee, chief of Atreus' race,
                Returning proud from Troy subdued!
                How shall I greet thy conquering face?
                How nor a fulsome praise obtrude,
                Nor stint the meed of gratitude?
                For mortal men who fall to ill
                Take little heed of open truth,
                But seek unto its semblance still:
                The show of weeping and of ruth
                To the forlorn will all men pay,
                But, of the grief their eyes display,
                Nought to the heart doth pierce its way.
                And, with the joyous, they beguile
                Their lips unto a feigned smile,
                And force a joy, unfelt the while;
                But he who as a shepherd wise
                    Doth know his flock, can ne'er misread
                Truth in the falsehood of his eyes,
                Who veils beneath a kindly guise
                    A lukewarm love in deed.
                And thou, our leader-when of yore
                Thou badest Greece go forth to war
                For Helen's sake-I dare avow
                That then I held thee not as now;
                That to my vision thou didst seem
                Dyed in the hues of disesteem.
                I held thee for a pilot ill,
                And reckless, of thy proper will,
                Endowing others doomed to die
                With vain and forced audacity!
                Now from my heart, ungrudgingly,
                To those that wrought, this word be said-
                Well fall the labour ye have sped-
                Let time and search, O king, declare
                What men within thy city's bound
                Were loyal to the kingdom's care,
                And who were faithless found.

    AGAMEMNON (still standing in the chariot)
            First, as is meet, a king's All-hail be said
            To Argos, and the gods that guard the land-
            Gods who with me availed to speed us home,
            With me availed to wring from Priam's town
            The due of justice. In the court of heaven
            The gods in conclave sat and judged the cause,
            Not from a pleader's tongue, and at the close,
            Unanimous into the urn of doom
            This sentence gave, On Ilion and her men,
            Death: and where hope drew nigh to pardon's urn
            No hand there was to cast a vote therein.
            And still the smoke of fallen Ilion
            Rises in sight of all men, and the flame
            Of Ate's hecatomb is living yet,
            And where the towers in dusty ashes sink,
            Rise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed
            For this must all men pay unto the gods
            The meed of mindful hearts and gratitude:
            For by our hands the meshes of revenge
            Closed on the prey, and for one woman's sake
            Troy trodden by the Argive monster lies-
            The foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall,
            What time with autumn sank the Pleiades.
            Yea, o'er the fencing wall a lion sprang
            Ravening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.

            Such prelude spoken to the gods in full,
            To you I turn, and to the hidden thing
            Whereof ye spake but now: and in that thought
            I am as you, and what ye say, say I.
            For few are they who have such inborn grace,
            As to look up with love, and envy not,
            When stands another on the height of weal.
            Deep in his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,
            Her poison lurking doth enhance his load;
            For now beneath his proper woes he chafes,
            And sighs withal to see another's weal.

            I speak not idly, but from knowledge sure-
            There be who vaunt an utter loyalty,
            That is but as the ghost of friendship dead,
            A shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.
            One only-he who went reluctant forth
            Across the seas with me-Odysseus-he
            Was loyal unto me with strength and will,
            A trusty trace-horse bound unto my car.
            Thus-be he yet beneath the light of day,
            Or dead, as well I fear-I speak his praise.
            Lastly, whate'er be due to men or gods,

            With joint debate, in public council held,
            We will decide, and warily contrive
            That all which now is well may so abide:
            For that which haply needs the healer's art,
            That will we medicine, discerning well
            If cautery or knife befit the time.

            Now, to my palace and the shrines of home,
            I will pass in, and greet you first and fair,
            Ye gods, who bade me forth, and home again-
            And long may Victory tarry in my train!

            (CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the palace, followed by maidens
                bearing crimson robes.)
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Old men of Argos, lieges of our realm,
            Shame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see
            The love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear
            Dies at the last from hearts of human kind.
            From mine own soul and from no alien lips,
            I know and will reveal the life I bore.
            Reluctant, through the lingering livelong years,
            The while my lord beleaguered Ilion's wall.

            First, that a wife sat sundered from her lord,
            In widowed solitude, was utter woe
            And woe, to hear how rumour's many tongues
            All boded evil-woe, when he who came
            And he who followed spake of ill on ill,
            Keening Lost, lost, all lost! thro' hall and bower.
            Had this my husband met so many wounds,
            As by a thousand channels rumour told,
            No network e'er was full of holes as he.
            Had he been slain, as oft as tidings came
            That he was dead, he well might boast him now
            A second Geryon of triple frame,
            With triple robe of earth above him laid-
            For that below, no matter-triply dead,
            Dead by one death for every form he bore.
            And thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,
            Oft for self-slaughter had I slung the noose,
            But others wrenched it from my neck away.
            Hence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,
            The pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,
            Stands not beside us now, as he should stand.
            Nor marvel thou at this: he dwells with one
            Who guards him loyally; 'tis Phocis' king,
            Strophius, who warned me erst, Bethink thee, queen,
            What woes of doubtful issue well may fall
            Thy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,
            While here a populace uncurbed may cry,
            "Down witk the council, down!" bethink thee too,
            'Tis the world's way to set a harder heel
            On fallen power.

                                      For thy child's absence then
            Such mine excuse, no wily afterthought.
            For me, long since the gushing fount of tears
            Is wept away; no drop is left to shed.
            Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,
            Weeping, the bale-fires, piled for thy return,
            Night after night unkindled. If I slept,
            Each sound-the tiny humming of a gnat,
            Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams
            Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,
            Thrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.

            All this I bore, and now, released from woe,
            I hail my lord as watch-dog of a fold,
            As saving stay-rope of a storm-tossed ship,
            As column stout that holds the roof aloft,
            As only child unto a sire bereaved,
            As land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,
            As sunshine fair when tempest's wrath is past,
            As gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.
            So sweet it is to 'scape the press of pain.
            With such salute I bid my husband hail
            Nor heaven be wroth therewith! for long and hard
            I bore that ire of old.

                                                 Sweet lord, step forth,
            Step from thy car, I pray-nay, not on earth
            Plant the proud foot, O king, that trod down Troy!
            Women! why tarry ye, whose task it is
            To spread your monarch's path with tapestry?
            Swift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,
            That justice lead him to a home, at last,
            He scarcely looked to see.
            (The attendant women spread the tapestry.)
                                                        For what remains,
            Zeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand
            To work as right and as the gods command.
    AGAMEMNON (still in the chariot)
            Daughter of Leda, watcher o'er my home,
            Thy greeting well befits mine absence long,
            For late and hardly has it reached its end.
            Know, that the praise which honour bids us crave,
            Must come from others' lips, not from our own:
            See too that not in fashion feminine
            Thou make a warrior's pathway delicate;
            Not unto me, as to some Eastern lord,
            Bowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.
            Strew not this purple that shall make each step
            An arrogance; such pomp beseems the gods,
            Not me. A mortal man to set his foot
            On these rich dyes? I hold such pride in fear,
            And bid thee honour me as man, not god.
            Fear not-such footcloths and all gauds apart,
            Loud from the trump of Fame my name is blown;
            Best gift of heaven it is, in glory's hour,
            To think thereon with soberness: and thou-
            Bethink thee of the adage, Call none blest
            Till peaceful death have crowned a life of weal.
            'Tis said: I fain would fare unvexed by fear.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Nay, but unsay it-thwart not thou my will!
    AGAMEMNON
            Know, I have said, and will not mar my word.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Was it fear made this meekness to the gods?
    AGAMEMNON
            If cause be cause, 'tis mine for this resolve.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            What, think'st thou, in thy place had Priam done?
    AGAMEMNON
            He surely would have walked on broidered robes.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Then fear not thou the voice of human blame.
    AGAMEMNON
            Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.
    AGAMEMNON
            War is not woman's part, nor war of words.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Yet happy victors well may yield therein.
    AGAMEMNON
            Dost crave for triumph in this petty strife?
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Yield; of thy grace permit me to prevail!
    AGAMEMNON
            Then, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose
            Swiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot;
            And stepping thus upon the sea's rich dye,
            I pray, Let none among the gods look down
            With jealous eye on me-reluctant all,
            To trample thus and mar a thing of price,
            Wasting the wealth of garments silver-worth.
            Enough hereof: and, for the stranger maid,
            Lead her within, but gently: God on high
            Looks graciously on him whom triumph's hour
            Has made not pitiless. None willingly
            Wear the slave's yoke-and she, the prize and flower
            Of all we won, comes hither in my train,
            Gift of the army to its chief and lord.
            -Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,
            I will pass in on purples to my home.

            (He descends from the chariot, and moves towards the palace.)

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

    CHORUS (singing)
                                     strophe 1

                Wherefore for ever on the wings of fear
                       Hovers a vision drear
                Before my boding heart? a strain,
                Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear,
                       Oracular of pain.
                Not as of old upon my bosom's throne
                       Sits Confidence, to spurn
                       Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.
            Old, old and grey long since the time has grown,
                       Which saw the linked cables moor
               The fleet, when erst it came to Ilion's sandy shore;

                              antistrophe 1

                       And now mine eyes and not another's see
                          Their safe return.

                       Yet none the less in me
               The inner spirit sings a boding song,
                       Self-prompted, sings the Furies' strain-
                          And seeks, and seeks in vain,
                          To hope and to be strong!

               Ah! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,
                       Are these wild throbbings of my heart and breast-
                          Yea, of some doom they tell-
                           Each pulse, a knell.
                       Lief, lief I were, that all
               To unfulfilment's hidden realm might fall.

                                     strophe 2

                Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,
                       Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied-
                Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,
                Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they blow,
                       The gales that waft our bark on Fortune's tide!
                       Swiftly we sail, the sooner an to drive
                       Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.
                Then if the hand of caution warily
                       Sling forth into the sea
                Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,
                From the deep death it saves the bark: even so,
                       Doom-laden though it be, once more may rise
                       His household, who is timely wise.

                       How oft the famine-stricken field
            Is saved by God's large gift, the new year's yield!

                              antistrophe 2

                          But blood of man once spilled,
                    Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain,-
                       Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.
                          So Zeus hath willed:

            Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled
                To bring man from the dead: the hand divine
            Did smite himself with death-a warning and a sign-

                Ah me! if Fate, ordained of old,
            Held not the will of gods constrained, controlled,
                Helpless to us-ward, and apart-
                Swifter than speech my heart
            Had poured its presage out!
            Now, fretting, chafing in the dark of doubt,
                'Tis hopeless to unfold
            Truth, from fear's tangled skein; and, yearning to proclaim
                Its thought, my soul is prophecy and flame.

            (CLYTEMNESTRA comes out of the palace and addresses CASSANDRA,
                who has remained motionless in her chariot.)

    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Get thee within thou too, Cassandra, go!
            For Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants
            To share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,
            Beside the altar of his guardianship,
            Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still?
            Step from the car; Alcmena's son, 'tis said,
            Was sold perforce and bore the yoke of old.
            Ay, hard it is, but, if such fate befall,
            'Tis a fair chance to serve within a home
            Of ancient wealth and power. An upstart lord,
            To whom wealth's harvest came beyond his hope,
            Is as a lion to his slaves, in all
            Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.
            Pass in: thou hearest what our ways will be.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            Clear unto thee, O maid, is her command,
            But thou-within the toils of Fate thou art-
            If such thy will, I urge thee to obey;
            Yet I misdoubt thou dost nor hear nor heed.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            I wot-unless like swallows she doth use
            Some strange barbarian tongue from oversea-
            My words must speak persuasion to her soul.
    LEADER
            Obey: there is no gentler way than this.
            Step from the car's high seat and follow her.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            Truce to this bootless waiting here without!
            I will not stay: beside the central shrine
            The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire-
            Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.
            Thou-if thou reckest aught of my command,
            'Twere well done soon: but if thy sense be shut
            From these my words, let thy barbarian hand
            Fulfil by gesture the default of speech.
    LEADER
            No native is she, thus to read thy words
            Unaided: like some wild thing of the wood,
            New-trapped, behold! she shrinks and glares on thee.
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            'Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,
            Since she beheld her city sink in fire,
            And hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until
            In foam and blood her wrath be champed away.
            See ye to her; unqueenly 'tis for me,
            Unheeded thus to cast away my words.
                                                                      (CLYTEMNESTRA enters the palace.)
    LEADER
            But with me pity sits in anger's place.
            Poor maiden, come thou from the car; no way
            There is but this-take up thy servitude.
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
            Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou
            Apollo, Apollo!
    LEADER
            Peace! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,
            Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
            Woe, woe, alas! Earth, Mother Earth! and thou
            Apollo, Apollo!
    LEADER
            Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,
            Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
            Apollo, Apollo!
            God of all ways, but only Death's to me,
            Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,
            Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!
    LEADER
            She grows presageful of her woes to come,
            Slave tho' she be, instinct with prophecy.
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
            Apollo, Apollo!
            God of all ways, but only Death's to me,
            O thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named!
            What way hast led me, to what evil home?
    LEADER
            Know'st thou it not? The home of Atreus' race:
            Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
            Home cursed of God! Bear witness unto me,
            Ye visioned woes within-
            The blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin-
            The strangling noose, and, spattered o'er
            With human blood, the reeking floor!
    LEADER
            How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,
            Keen-scented unto blood and death she hies!
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
            Ah! can the ghostly guidance fail,
            Whereby my prophet-soul is onwards led?
            Look! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,
            Their sodden limbs on which their father fed!
    LEADER
            Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,-
            But for those deeds we seek no prophet's tongue-
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
            God! 'tis another crime-
            Worse than the storied woe of olden time,
            Cureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here-
            A shaming death, for those that should be dear
               Alas! and far away, in foreign land,
               He that should help doth stand!
    LEADER
               I knew th' old tales, the city rings withal-
               But now thy speech is dark, beyond my ken.
    CASSANDRA (chanting)
               O wretch, O purpose fell!






    THE CHOEPHORI (The Libation-Bearers)

            CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

            ORESTES, son of AGAMEMNON and CLYTEMNESTRA
            CHORUS OF SLAVE WOMEN
            ELECTRA, sister of ORESTES
            A NURSE
            CLYTEMNESTRA
            AEGISTHUS
            AN ATTENDANT
            PYLADES, friend of ORESTES

            (SCENE:-By the tomb of Agamemnon near the palace in Argos.
            ORESTES and PYLADES enter, dressed as travellers. ORESTES carries
            two locks of hair in his hand.)


    ORESTES
            Lord of the shades and patron of the realm
            That erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,
            Hermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,
            Me who from banishment returning stand
            On this my country; lo, my foot is set
            On this grave-mound, and herald-like, as thou,
            Once and again, I bid my father hear.
            And these twin locks, from mine head shorn, I bring,
            And one to Inachus the river-god,
            My young life's nurturer, I dedicate,
            And one in sign of mourning unfulfilled
            I lay, though late, on this my father's grave.
            For O my father, not beside thy corse
            Stood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand
            Stretched out to bear thee forth to burial.

            What sight is yonder? what this woman-throng
            Hitherward coming, by their sable garb
            Made manifest as mourners? What hath chanced?
            Doth some new sorrow hap within the home?
            Or rightly may I deem that they draw near
            Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire
            Of dead men angered, to my father's grave?
            Nay, such they are indeed; for I descry
            Electra mine own sister pacing hither,
            In moody grief conspicuous. Grant, O Zeus,
            Grant me my father's murder to avenge-
            Be thou my willing champion!
                                                            Pylades,
            Pass we aside, till rightly I discern
            Wherefore these women throng in suppliance.
            (PYLADES and ORESTES withdraw; the CHORUS enters bearing
            vessels for libation; ELECTRA follows them; they pace slowly
            towards the tomb of Agamemnon.)

    CHORUS (singing)
                                     strophe 1

            Forth from the royal halls by high command
               I bear libations for the dead.
            Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,
               And all my cheek is rent and red,
            Fresh-furrowed by my nails, and all my soul
            This many a day doth feed on cries of dole.
               And trailing tatters of my vest,
            In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,
               Hang rent around my breast,
            Even as I, by blows of Fate most stern
                       Saddened and torn.

                              antistrophe 1

               Oracular thro' visions, ghastly clear,
            Bearing a blast of wrath from realms below,
            And stiffening each rising hair with dread,
                Came out of dream-land Fear,
                And, loud and awful, bade
            The shriek ring out at midnight's witching hour,
                And brooded, stern with woe,
            Above the inner house, the woman's bower
            And seers inspired did read the dream on oath,
                Chanting aloud In realms below
                       The dead are wroth;
            Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.

                                     strophe 2

            Therefore to bear this gift of graceless worth-
                O Earth, my nursing mother!-
            The woman god-accurs'd doth send me forth
                Lest one crime bring another.
            Ill is the very word to speak, for none
                Can ransom or atone
            For blood once shed and darkening the plain.
                O hearth of woe and bane,
                O state that low doth lie!
            Sunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood
               Above the home of murdered majesty.

                              antistrophe 2

            Rumour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,
            Pervading ears and soul of lesser men,
                Is silent now and dead.
                Yet rules a viler dread;
               For bliss and power, however won,
            As gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.

            Justice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,
               Some that are yet in light;
               Others in interspace of day and night,
                Till Fate arouse them, stay;
            And some are lapped in night, where all things are undone

                                     strophe 3

                On the life-giving lap of Earth
                       Blood hath flowed forth;
            And now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain-
               Unmelting, uneffaced the stain.
            And Ate tarries long, but at the last
                       The sinner's heart is cast
            Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain.

                              antistrophe 3

                Lo, when man's force doth ope
            The virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hope
               For what is lost,-even so, I deem,
            Though in one channel ran Earth's every stream,
               Laving the hand defiled from murder's stain,
                          It were in vain.

                                             epode

            And upon me-ah me!-the gods have laid
               The woe that wrapped round Troy,
            What time they led me down from home and kin
                       Unto a slave's employ-
                The doom to bow the head
                And watch our master's will
                       Work deeds of good and ill-
               To see the headlong sway of force and sin,
               And hold restrained the spirit's bitter hate,
               Wailing the monarch's fruitless fate,
            Hiding my face within my robe, and fain
            Of tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.
    ELECTRA
            Handmaidens, orderers of the palace-halls,
            Since at my side ye come, a suppliant train,
            Companions of this offering, counsel me
            As best befits the time: for I, who pour
            Upon the grave these streams funereal,
            With what fair word can I invoke my sire?
            Shall I aver, Behold, I bear these gifts
            From well-loved wife unto her well-loved lord,
            When 'tis from her, my mother, that they come?
            I dare not say it: of all words I fail
            Wherewith to consecrate unto my sire
            These sacrificial honours on his grave.
            Or shall I speak this word, as mortals use-
            Give back, to those who send these coronals,
            Full recompense-of ills for acts malign?
            Or shall I pour this draught for Earth to drink,
            Sans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,
            And homeward pass with unreverted eyes,
            Casting the bowl away, as one who flings
            The household cleansings to the common road?
            Be art and part, O friends, in this my doubt,
            Even as ye are in that one common hate
            Whereby we live attended: fear ye not
            The wrath of any man, nor hide your word
            Within your breast: the day of death and doom
            Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.
            Speak, then, if aught thou know'st to aid us more.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            Thou biddest; I will speak my soul's thought out,
            Revering as a shrine thy father's grave.
    ELECTRA
            Say then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest.
    LEADER
            Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.
    ELECTRA
            And of his kin whom dare I name as kind?
    LEADER
            Thyself; and next, whoe'er Aegisthus scorns.
    ELECTRA
            Then 'tis myself and thou, my prayer must name.
    LEADER
            Whoe'er they be, 'tis thine to know and name them.
    ELECTRA
            Is there no other we may claim as ours?
    LEADER
            Think of Orestes, though far-off he be.
    ELECTRA
            Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.
    LEADER
            Mindfully, next, on those who shed the blood-
    ELECTRA
            Pray on them what? expound, instruct my doubt.
    LEADER
            This: Upon them some god or mortal come-
    ELECTRA
            As judge or as avenger? speak thy thought.
    LEADER
            Pray in set terms, Who shall the slayer slay.
    ELECTRA
            Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven?
    LEADER
            How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe?
    ELECTRA (praying at the tomb)
            O mighty Hermes, warder of the shades,
            Herald of upper and of under world,
            Proclaim and usher down my prayer's appeal
            Unto the gods below, that they with eyes
            Watchful behold these halls. my sire's of old-
            And unto Earth, the mother of all things,
            And loster-nurse, and womb that takes their seed.

            Lo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,
            Call on my father, who yet holds in ruth
            Me and mine own Orestes, Father, speak-
            How shall thy children rule thine halls again?
            Homeless we are and sold; and she who sold
            Is she who bore us; and the price she took
            Is he who joined with her to work thy death,
            Aegisthus, her new lord. Behold me here
            Brought down to slave's estate, and far away
            Wanders Orestes, banished from the wealth
            That once was thine, the profit of thy care,
            Whereon these revel in a shameful joy.
            Father, my prayer is said; 'tis thine to hear-
            Grant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,
            And unto me grant these-a purer soul
            Than is my mother's, a more stainless hand.

            These be my prayers for us; for thee, O sire,
            I cry that one may come to smite thy fops,
            And that the slayers may in turn be slain.
            Cursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,
            Praying mine own, a counter-curse on them.
            And thou, send up to us the righteous boon
            For which we pray; thine aids be heaven and earth,
            And justice guide the right to victory.
                                    (To the CHORUS)
            Thus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,
            And follow ye the wont, and as with flowers
            Crown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge
            Your lips ring out above the dead man's grave.
                                                                                  (She pours the libations.)
    CHORUS (chanting)
                                  Woe, woe, woe!
            Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground
                       Where our lord lies low:
            Fall and cleanse away the cursed libation's stair.,
                       Shed on this grave-mound,
            Fenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane
                       From the dead are found.
                       Lord of Argos, hearken!
                       Though around thee darken
               Mist of death and hell, arise and hear
            Hearken and awaken to our cry of woe!
                Who with might of spear
                       Shall our home deliver?
               Who like Ares bend until it quiver,
                Bend the northern bow?
            Who with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust with glaive,
                Thrust and slay and save?
    ELECTRA
            Lo! the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass-
                                                                   (She notices the locks Of ORESTES.)
            Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.
    ELECTRA
            I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.
    LEADER
            Shorn from wnat man or what deep-girded maid?
    ELECTRA
            That may he, guess who will; the sign is plain.
    LEADER
            Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.
    ELECTRA
            None is there here but I, to clip such gift.
    LEADER
            For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.
    ELECTRA
            And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like-
    LEADER
            Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.
    ELECTRA
            Like unto those my father's children wear.
    LEADER
            Then is this lock Orestes' secret gift?
    ELECTRA
            Most like it is unto the curls he wore.
    LEADER
            Yet how dared he to come unto his home?
    ELECTRA
            He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.
    LEADER
            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, looks-
            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 and PYLADES enter suddenly.)
    ORESTES
            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 woel
    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 cal
            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 grow,
            Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.
    LEADER
            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 seel
    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 powers 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. The following lines are chanted responsively.)
    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 slain,
                       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 hadst 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 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 the stern blast of hate thro' my soul,
                And before me a vision of wrath and of bane
                       Flits and waves to and fro.
    ORESTES
            Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.
                       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 borne 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 nears-
                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
                           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.
                                                                                  (The chant is concluded.)
    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 shalt 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 flax-mesh, in the depth submerged.
            Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,
            And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.
    LEADER OF THE 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.
    LEADER
            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?
    LEADER
            Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.
    ORESTES
            What then the sum and issue of the tale?
    LEADER
            Even as a swaddled child, she lull'd the thing.
    ORESTES
            What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?
    LEADER
            Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.
    ORESTES
            How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?
    LEADER
            Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.
    ORESTES
            Not vain this dream-it bodes a man's revenge.
    LEADER
            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.
    LEADER
            So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,
            Bidding some act, some, by not acting, aid.
    ORESTES
            Brief my command: I bid my sister pass
            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 talen,
            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 baunted? 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.
            (ORESTES, PYLADES, and ELECTRA depart.)

    CHORUS (singing)
                                     strophe 1

               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.

                              antistrophe 1

            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 posses
            The woman, even as the lioness,
            Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,
            The link of wedded life?

                                     strophe 2

            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.

                              antistrophe 2

            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.

                                     strophe 3

            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.

                              antistrophe 3
            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.

                                     strophe 4

            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;

                              antistrophe 4

            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.
            (The scene now is before the palace. ORESTES and PYLADES enter,
                still dressed as 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.
                                                           (CLYTEMNESTRA comes out of the palace.)
    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 thou thyself not come, such tale to tell,
            Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.
            But lo! the hour is here when travelling guests,
                Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,
            Should win their rightful due. (To the slave)
                                    Take him within
            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.
            (CLYTEMNESTRA goes back into the palace. ORESTES and
                PYLADES are conducted to the guest quarters.)
    CHORUS (singing)
                           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.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            I wot the stranger worketh woe within-
            For lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,
            Orestes' nurse. (The NURSE enters from the palace.)
            What ho, Kilissa-thou
            Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks
            Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.
    NURSE
            My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,
            Call in Aegisthus to the stranger guests,
            That he may come, and stinding face to face,
            A man with men, way thus more clearly learn
            This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves
            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
            Befell, 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
            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!
    LEADER
            Say then, with what array she bids him come?
    NURSE
            What say'st thou! Speak. more clearly for mine ear.
    LEADER
            Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?
    NURSE
            She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.
            Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,
            But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,
            Say, Come alone, fear nought, the news is good:
            A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.
    NURSE
            Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?
    LEADER
            What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?
    NURSE
            And how? the home's hope with Orestes dies.
    LEADER
            Not yet-a seer, though feeble, this might see.
    NURSE
            What say'st thou? Know'st thou aught, this tale belying?
    LEADER
            Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,-
            What the gods will, themselves can well provide.
    NURSE
            Well, I will go, herein obeying thee;
            And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.
            (She goes out.)

    CHORUS (singing)
                                     strophe 1

               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!

                                     refrain 1

                       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.

                              antistrophe 1

            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!

                                     strophe 2

            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!

                                     refrain 2

               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;

                              antistrophe 2

               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 eyes,
                       By night and eke by day inscrutable.

                                     strophe 3

                           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;

                                     refrain 3

                           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!

                              antistrophe 3

            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 polilites thy home.
                                                                                  (AEGISTHUS enters alone.)
    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?
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            What we have heard, we heard; go thou within
            Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale.
            Strengthless are tidings, thro' another heard;
            Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.
    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.
                                                                                  (He goes into the palace.)
    CHORUS (singing)
                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 is heard within.)
    VOICE OF AEGISTHUS
            Help, help, alas!
    CHORUS
            Ho there, ho I 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.
                                                            (An ATTENDANT enters from the palace.)
    ATTENDANT
            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 sing, hewn thro' as justice wills.
                                                                                         (CLYTEMNESTRA enters.)
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            What ails thee, raising this ado for us?
    ATTENDANT
            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.
            (ORESTES rushes from the palace; his sword dripping with
                blood. PYLADES is with him.)
    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!
    CLYTEMNESTRA
            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 to slay thee at his side.
            With him whom in his life thou loved'st 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 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!
                (He drives her into the house before him.)
    LEADER OF THE 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.

    CHORUS (singing)
                                     strophe 1

               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.

                                     refrain 1
               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!

                              antistrophe 1

               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;

                                     strophe 2

            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.

                                     refrain 2

            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 I this many a day
                          Too low on earth ye lay.

                              antistrophe 2

               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 central doors of the palace open, 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; hold it that he see,
            The father-not my sire, but he whose eye
            Is judge of all things, the all-seeing Sun!
            Let him behold my mother's 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 (chanting)
            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(chanting)
                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.
            Bear witness, Argives, in the after time,
            How came on me this dread fatality.
            Living, I pass a banished wanderer hence,
            To leave in death the memory of this cry.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            Nay, but the deed is well; link not thy lips
            To speech ill-starred, nor vent ill-boding words-
            Who hast to Argos her full freedom given,
            Lopping two serpents' heads with timely blow.
    ORESTES
            Look, look, alas!
            Handmaidens, see-what Gorgon shapes throng up
            Dusky their robes and all their hair enwound-
            Snakes coiled with snakes-off, off,-I must away!
    LEADER
            Most loyal of all sons unto thy sire,
            What visions thus distract thee? Hold, abide;
            Great was thy victory, and shalt thou fear?
    ORESTES
            These are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,
            But clear to sight another's hell-hounds come!
    LEADER
            Nay, the fresh bloodshed still imbrues thine hands,
            And thence distraction sinks into thy soul.
    ORESTES
            O king Apollo-see, they swarm and throng-
            Black blood of hatred dripping from their eyes!
    LEADER
            One remedy thou hast; go, touch the shrine
            Of Loxias, and rid thee of these woes.
    ORESTES
            Ye can behold them not, but I behold them.
            Up and away! I dare abide no more.
                                                                       (He rushes out.)
    LEADER
            Farewell then as thou mayst,-the god thy friend
            Guard thee and aid with chances favouring.
    CHORUS(chanting)
               Behold, the storm of woe divine
               That raves and beats on Atreus' line
                Its great third blast hath blown.
               First was Thyestes' loathly woe
               The rueful feast of long ago,
                On children's flesh, unknown.
               And next the kingly chief's despite,
               When he who led the Greeks to fight
                Was in the bath hewn down.
               And now the offspring of the race
               Stands in the third, the saviour's place,
                To save-or to consume?
               O whither, ere it be fulfilled,
               Ere its fierce blast be hushed and stilled,
                Shall blow the wind of doom?


                                     




    EUMENDIDES
    CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

            THE PYTHIAN PRIESTES
            APOLLO
            ORESTES
            THE GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA
            CHORUS OF FURIES
            ATHENA
            ATTENDANTS OF ATHENA
            TWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS
            (SCENE:-Before the temple of APOLLO at Delphi. The PYTHIAN
            PRIESTESS enters and approaches the doors of the temple.)

    THE PYTHIAN PRIESTES
            First, in this prayer, of all the gods I name
            The prophet-mother Earth; and Themis next,
            Second who sat-for so with truth is said-
            On this her mother's shrine oracular.
            Then by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,
            There sat thereon another child of Earth-
            Titanian Phoebe. She, in after time,
            Gave o'er the throne, as birthgift to a god,
            Phoebus, who in his own bears Phoebe's name.
            He from the lake and ridge of Delos' isle
            Steered to the port of Pallas' Attic shores,
            The home of ships; and thence he passed and came
            Unto this land and to Pamassus' shrine.
            And at his side, with awe revering him,
            There went the children of Hephaestus' seed,
            The hewers of the sacred way, who tame
            The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.
               And all this folk, and Delphos, chieftain-king
            Of this their land, with honour gave him home;
            And in his breast Zeus set a prophet's soul,
            And gave to him this throne, whereon he sits,
            Fourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,
            Gives voice to that which Zeus his sire decrees.

            Such gods I name in my preluding prayer,
            And after them, I call with honour due
            On Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs
            Who dwell around the rock Corycian,
            Where in the hollow cave, the wild birds' haunt,
            Wander the feet of lesser gods; and there,
            Right well I know it, Bromian Bacchus dwells,
            Since he in godship led his Maenad host,
            Devising death for Pentheus, whom they rent
            Piecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,
            I call on Pleistus' springs, Poseidon's might,
            And Zeus most high, the great Accomplisher.
            Then as a seeress to the sacred chair
            I pass and sit; and may the powers divine
            Make this mine entrance fruitful in response
            Beyond each former advent, triply blest.
            And if there stand without, from Hellas bound,
            Men seeking oracles, let each pass in
            In order of the lot, as use allows;
            For the god guides whate'er my tongue proclaims.

            (She goes into the interior of the temple; after a short
                interval, she returns in great fear.)

            Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,
            Have sped me forth again from Loxias' shrine,
            With strength unstrung, moving erect no more,
            But aiding with my hands my failing feet,
            Unnerved by fear. A beldame's force is naught-
            Is as a child's, when age and fear combine.
            For as I pace towards the inmost fane
            Bay-filleted by many a suppliant's hand,
            Lo, at the central altar I descry
            One crouching as for refuge-yea, a man
            Abhorred of heaven; and from his hands, wherein
            A sword new-drawn he holds, blood reeked and fell:
            A wand he bears, the olive's topmost bough,
            Twined as of purpose with a deep close tuft
            Of whitest wool. This, that I plainly saw,
            Plainly I tell. But lo, in front of him,
            Crouched on the altar-steps, a grisly band
            Of women slumbers-not like women they,
            But Gorgons rather; nay, that word is weak,
            Nor may I match the Gorgons' shape with theirs!
            Such have I seen in painted semblance erst-
            Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus' board,-
            But these are wingless, black, and all their shape
            The eye's abomination to behold.
            Fell is the breath-let none draw nigh to it-
            Exude the damned drops of poisonous ire:
            And such their garb as none should dare to bring
            To statues of the gods or homes of men.
            I wot not of the tribe wherefrom can come
            So fell a legion, nor in what land Earth
            Could rear, unharmed, such creatures, nor avow
            That she had travailed and had brought forth death.
            But, for the rest, be all these things a carp
            Unto the mighty Loxias, the lord
            Of this our shrine: healer and prophet he,
            Discerner he of portents, and the cleanser
            Of other homes-behold, his own to cleanse!

            (She goes out. The central doors open, disclosing the interior of
                the temple. ORESTES clings to the central altar; the FURIES
                lie slumbering at a little distance; APOLLO and HERMES appear
                from the innermost shrine.)

    APOLLO (to ORESTES)
            Lo, I desert thee never: to the end,
            Hard at thy side as now, or sundered far,
            I am thy guard, and to thine enemies
            Implacably oppose me: look on them,
            These greedy fiends, beneath my craft subdued I
            See, they are fallen on sleep, these beldames old,
            Unto whose grim and wizened maidenhood
            Nor god nor man nor beast can e'er draw near.
            Yea, evil were they born, for evil's doom,
            Evil the dark abyss of Tartarus
            Wherein they dwell, and they themselves the hate
            Of men on earth, and of Olympian gods.
            But thou, flee far and with unfaltering speed;
            For they shall hunt thee through the mainland wide
            Where'er throughout the tract of travelled earth
            Thy foot may roam, and o'er and o'er the seas
            And island homes of men. Faint not nor fail,
            Too soon and timidly within thy breast
            Shepherding thoughts forlorn of this thy toil;
            But unto Pallas' city go, and there
            Crouch at her shrine, and in thine arms enfold
            Her ancient image: there we well shall find
            Meet judges for this cause and suasive pleas,
            Skilled to contrive for thee deliverance
            For by my hest thou didst thy mother slay.
    ORESTES
            O king Apollo, since right well thou know'st
            What justice bids, have heed, fulfil the same,-
            Thy strength is all-sufficient to achieve.
    APOLLO
            Have thou too heed, nor let thy fear prevail
            Above thy will. And do thou guard him, Hermes,
            Whose blood is brother unto mine, whose sire
            The same high God. Men call thee guide and guard,
            Guide therefore thou and guard my suppliant;
            For Zeus himself reveres the outlaw's right,
            Boon of fair escort, upon man conferred.

            (APOLLO, HERMES, and ORESTES go out. The GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA
                rises.)

    GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA
            Sleep on! awake! what skills your sleep to me-
            Me, among all the dead by you dishonoured-
            Me from whom never, in the world of death,
            Dieth this course, 'Tis she who smote and slew,
            And shamed and scorned I roam? Awake, and hear
            My plaint of dead men's hate intolerable.
            Me, sternly slain by them that should have loved,
            Me doth no god arouse him to avenge,
            Hewn down in blood by matricidal hands.
            Mark ye these wounds from which the heart's blood ran,
            And by whose hand, bethink ye! for the sense
            When shut in sleep hath then the spirit-sight,
            But in the day the inward eye is blind.
            List, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue
            The wineless draught by me outpoured to soothe
            Your vengeful ire! how oft on kindled shrine
            I laid the feast of darkness, at the hour
            Abhorred of every god but you alone!
            Lo, all my service trampled down and scorned!
            And he bath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds;
            Yea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,
            Hath wried his face in scorn, and flieth far.
            Awake and hear-for mine own soul I cry-
            Awake, ye powers of hell! the wandering ghost
            That once was Clytemnestra calls-Arise!

                                                                           (The FURIES mutter grimly, as in a dream.)

            Mutter and murmur! He hath flown afar-
            My kin have gods to guard them, I have none!
                                                                           (The FURIES mutter as before.)
            O drowsed in sleep too deep to heed my pain!
            Orestes flies, who me, his mother, slew.
                                                                          (The FURIES give a confused cry.)
            Yelping, and drowsed again? Up and be doing
            That which alone is yours, the deed of hell!
                                                                           (The FURIES give another cry.)
            Lo, sleep and toil, the sworn confederates,
            Have quelled your dragon-anger, once so fell!

    THE FURIES (muttering more fiercely and loudly)
            Seize, seize, seize, seize-mark, yonder!

    GHOST
            In dreams ye chase a prey, and like some hound,
            That even in sleep doth ply woodland toil,
            Ye bell and bay. What do ye, sleeping here?
            Be not o'ercome with toil, nor, sleep-subdued,
            Be heedless of my wrong. Up! thrill your heart
            With the just chidings of my tongue,-Such words
            Are as a spur to purpose firmly held.
            Blow forth on him the breath of wrath and blood,
            Scorch him with reek of fire that burns in you,
            Waste him with new pursuit-swift, hound him down!
                                                                                                 (The GHOST sinks.)
    FIRST FURY (awaking)
            Up! rouse another as I rouse thee; up!
                Sleep'st thou? Rise up, and spurning sleep away,
                See we if false to us this prelude rang.

    CHORUS OF FURIES (singing)
                                     strophe 1

                Alack, alack, O sisters, we have toiled,
                       O much and vainly have we toiled and borne!
                Vainly! and all we wrought the gods have foiled,
                       And turned us to scorn!
            He hath slipped from the net, whom we chased: he hath 'scaped us
               who should be our prey-
            O'ermastered by slumber we sank, and our quarry hath stolen away!

                              antistrophe 1

            Thou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed us and
               wronged;
            Thou, a youth, hast down-trodden the right that to godship more
               ancient belonged;
            Thou hast cherished thy suppliant man; the slayer, the God-
               forsaken,
            The bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp thou hast
               taken;
            A god, thou hast stolen from us the avengers a matricide son-
            And who shall consider thy deed and say, It is rightfully done?

                                     strophe 2

                           The sound of chiding scorn
                           Came from the land of dream;
            Deep to mine inmost heart I felt it thrill and burn,
                Thrust as a strong-grasped goad, to urge
                       Onward the chariot's team.
                Thrilled, chilled with bitter inward pain
            I stand as one beneath the doomsman's scourge.

                              antistrophe 2

            Shame on the younger gods who tread down right,
               Sitting on thrones of might!
            Woe on the altar of earth's central fane!
                       Clotted on step and shrine,
            Behold, the guilt of blood, the ghastly stain!

                                     strophe 3

               Woe upon thee, Apollo! uncontrolled,
                Unbidden, hast thou, prophet-god, imbrued
                The pure prophetic shrine with wrongful blood!
               For thou too heinous a respect didst hold
            Of man, too little heed of powers divine!
                And us the Fates, the ancients of the earth,
                          Didst deem as nothing worth.

                              antistrophe 3

            Scornful to me thou art, yet shalt not fend
                My wrath from him; though unto hell he flee,
                                  There too are we!
                And he the blood-defiled, should feel and rue,
            Though I were not, fiend-wrath that shall not end,
               Descending on his head who foully slew.
                                                            (APOLLO enters from the inner shrine.)
    APOLLO
            Out! I command you. Out from this my home-
            Haste, tarry not! Out from the mystic shrine,
            Lest thy lot be to take into thy breast
            The winged bright dart that from my golden string
            Speeds hissing as a snake,-lest, pierced and thrilled
            With agony, thou shouldst spew forth again
            Black frothy heart's-blood, drawn from mortal men,
            Belching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds.
            These be no halls where such as you can prowl-
            Go where men lay on men the doom of blood,
            Heads lopped from necks, eyes from their spheres plucked out,
            Hacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed out,
            Feet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath
            The smiting stone, low moans and piteous
            Of men impaled-Hark, hear ye for what feast
            Ye hanker ever, and the loathing gods
            Do spit upon your craving? Lo, your shape
            Is all too fitted to your greed; the cave
            Where lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home
            More meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines,
            Nor bring pollution by your touch on all
            That nears yuu. Hence! and roam unshepherded-
            No god there is to tend such herd as you.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            O king Apollo, in our turn hear us.
            Thou hast not only part in these ill things,
            But art chief cause and doer of the same.
    APOLLO
            How? stretch thy speech to tell this, and have done.
    LEADER
            Thine oracle bade this man slay his mother.
    APOLLO
            I bade him quit his sire's death,-wherefore not?
    LEADER
            Then didst thou aid and guard red-handed crime.
    APOLLO
            Yea, and I bade him to this temple flee.
    LEADER
            And yet forsooth dost chide us following him!,
    APOLLO
            Ay-not for you it is, to near this fane.
    LEADER
            Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.
    APOLLO
            What office? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.
    LEADER
            From home to home we chase the matricide.
    APOLLO
            What? to avenge a wife who slays her lord?
    LEADER
            That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.
    APOLLO
            How darkly ye dishonour and annul
            The troth to which the high accomplishers,
            Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus
            Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,
            The queen of rapture unto mortal men.
            Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained
            For man and woman staddeth Right as guard,
            Enhancing sanctity of trothplight sworn;
            Therefore, if thou art placable to those
            Who have their consort slain, nor will'st to turn
            On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou
            In hounding to his doom the man who slew
            His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath
            Against one deed, but all too placable
            Unto the other, minishing the crime.
            But in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.
    LEADER
            Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.
    APOLLO
            Follow then, make thee, double toil in vain
    LEADER
            Think not by speech mine office to curtail.
    APOLLO
            None hast thou, that I would accept of thee!
    LEADER
            Yea, high thine honour by the throne of Zeus:
            But I, drawn on by scent of mother's blood,
            Seek vengeance on this man and hound him down.
                                                        (The CHORUS goes in pursuit of ORESTES.)
    APOLLO
            But I will stand beside him; 'tis for me
            To guard my suppliant: gods and men alike
            Do dread the curse of such an one betrayed,
            And in me Fear and Will say Leave him not.
            (He goes into the temple.)

            (The scene changes to Athens. In the foreground is the Temple
                of ATHENA on the Acropolis; her statue stands in the
                centre; ORESTES is seen clinging to it.)

    ORESTES
            Look on me, queen Athena; lo, I come
            By Loxias' behest; thou of thy grace
            Receive me, driven of avenging powers-
            Not now a red-hand slayer unannealed,
            But with guilt fading, half-effaced, outworn
            On many homes and paths of mortal men.
            For to the limit of each land, each sea,
            I roamed, obedient to Apollo's best,
            And come at last, O Goddess, to thy fane,
            And clinging to thine image, bide my doom.

            (The CHORUS OF FURIES enters, questing like hounds.)

    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            Ho! clear is here the trace of him we seek:
            Follow the track of blood, the silent sign!
            Like to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,
            We snuff along the scent of dripping gore,
            And inwardly we pant, for many a day
            Toiling in chase that shall fordo the man;
            For o'er and o'er the wide land have I ranged,
            And o'er the wide sea, flying without wings,
            Swift as a sail I pressed upon his track,
            Who now hard by is crouching, well I wot,
            For scent of mortal blood allures me here.
    CHORUS (chanting)
                Follow, seek him-round and round
                Scent and snuff and scan the ground,
                Lest unharmed he slip away,
                He who did his mother slay!
            Hist-he is there! See him his arms entwine
            Around the image of the maid divine-
                Thus aided, for the deed he wrought
                Unto the judgment wills he to be brought.

            It may not be! a mother's blood, poured forth
                Upon the stained earth,
            None gathers up: it lies-bear witness, Hell!-
                For aye indelible
            And thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own
                That shedding to atone!
            Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,
                Red, clotted, gout by gout,-
            A draught abhorred of men and gods; but
                Will drain it, suck thee dry;
            Yea, I will waste thee living, nerve and vein;
                Yea, for thy mother slain,
            Will drag thee downward, there where thou shalt dree
                The weird of agony!
            And thou and whosoe'er of men hath sinned-
                Hath wronged or God, or friend,
            Or parent,-learn ye how to all and each
                The arm of doom can reach!
            Sternly requiteth, in the world beneath,
                The judgment-seat of Death;
            Yea, Death, beholding every man's endeavour,
                Recordeth it for ever.
    ORESTES
            I, schooled in many miseries, have learnt
            How many refuges of cleansing shrines
            And when imposeth silence. Lo, I stand
            Fixed now to speak, for he whose word is wise
            Commands the same. Look, how the stain of blood
            Is dull upon mine hand and wastes away,
            And laved and lost therewith is the deep curse
            Of matricide; for while the guilt was new,
            'Twas banished from me at Apollo's hearth,
            Atoned and purified by death of swine.
            Long were my word if I should sum the tale,
            How oft since then among my fellow-men
            I stood and brought no curse. Time cleanses all-
            Time, the coeval of all things that are.
               Now from pure lips, in words of omen fair,
            I call Athena, lady of this land,
            To come, my champion: so, in aftertime,
            She shall not fail of love and service leal,
            Not won by war, from me and from my land
            And all the folk of Argos, vowed to her.
               Now, be she far away in Libyan land
            Where flows from Triton's lake her natal wave,-
            Stand she with planted feet, or in some hour
            Of rest conceal them, champion of her friends
            Where'er she be,-Or whether o'er the plain
            Phlegraean she look forth, as warrior bold-
            I cry to her to come, where'er she be,
            (And she, as goddess, from afar can hear)
            And aid and free me, set among my foes.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            Thee not Apollo nor Athena's strength
            Can save from perishing, a castaway
            Amid the Lost, where no delight shall meet
            Thy soul-a bloodless prey of nether powers,
            A shadow among shadows. Answerest thou
            Nothing? dost cast away my words with scorn,
            Thou, prey prepared and dedicate to me?
            Not as a victim slain upon the shrine,
            But living shalt thou see thy flesh my food.
            Hear now the binding chant that makes thee mine.
    CHORUS (chanting)
               Weave the weird dance,-behold the hour
                To utter forth the chant of hell,
                Our sway among mankind to tell,
               The guidance of our power.
               Of justice are we ministers,
                And whosoe'er of men may stand
                Lifting a pure unsullied hand,
            That man no doom of ours incurs,
                And walks thro' all his mortal path
                Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath.
                But if, as yonder man, he hath
                Blood on the hands he strives to hide,
                We stand avengers at his side,
            Decreeing, Thou hast wronged the dead:
                We are doom's witnesses to thee.
            The price of blood, his hands have shed,
            We wring from him; in life, in death,
                Hard at his side are we!

                                     strophe 1

            Night, Mother Night, who brought me forth, a torment
                          To living men and dead,
            Hear me, O hear! by Leto's stripling son
                          I am dishonoured:
            He hath ta'en from me him who cowers in refuge,
                          To me made consecrates-
            A rightful victim, him who slew his mother,
                          Given o'er to me and fate.

                                     refrain 1

                          Hear the hymn of hell,
                           O'er the victim sounding,-
                          Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,
                           Sense and will confounding!
                          Round the soul entwining
                           Without lute or lyre-
                          Soul in madness pining,
                           Wasting as with fire!

                              antistrophe 1

            Fate, all-pervading Fate, this service spun, commanding
                          That I should bide therein:
            Whosoe'er of mortals, made perverse and lawless,
                          Is stained with blood of kin,
            By his side are we, and hunt him ever onward,
                          Till to the Silent Land,
            The realm of death, he cometh; neither yonder
                          In freedom shall he stand.

                                     refrain 1

                          Hear the hymn of hell,
                           O'er the victim sounding,-
                          Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,
                           Sense and will confounding!
                          Round the soul entwining
                           Without lute or lyre-
                          Soul in madness pining,
                           Wasting as with fire!

                                     strophe 2

            When from womb of Night we sprang, on us this labour
                          Was laid and shall abide.
            Gods immortal are ye, yet beware ye touch not
                          That which is our pride!
            None may come beside us gathered round the blood-feast-
                          For us no garments white
            Gleam on a festal day; for us a darker fate is,
                          Another darker rite.

                                     refrain 2

            That is mine hour when falls an ancient line
                          When in the household's heart
            The God of blood doth slay by kindred hands,-
                          Then do we bear our part:
            On him who slays we sweep with chasing cry:
                          Though he be triply strong,
            We wear and waste him; blood atones for blood,
                          Yew pain for ancient wrong.

                              antistrophe 2

            I hold this task-'tis mine, and not another's.
                          The very gods on high,
            Though they can silence and annul the prayers
                          Of those who on us cry,
            They may not strive with us who stand apart,
                          A race by Zeus abhorred,
            Blood-boltered, held unworthy of the council
                          And converse of Heaven's lord.

                                     strophe 3

            Therefore the more I leap upon my prey;
                          Upon their head I bound;
            My foot is hard; as one that trips a runner
                          I cast them to the ground;
            Yea, to the depth of doom intolerable;
                          And they who erst were great,
            And upon earth held high their pride and glory,
                          Are brought to low estate.
            In underworld they waste and are diminished,
                          The while around them fleet
            Dark wavings of my robes, and, subtly woven,
                          The paces of my feet.

                              antistrophe 3

            Who falls infatuate, he sees not neither knows he
                          That we are at his side;
            So closely round about him, darkly flitting,
                          The cloud of guilt doth glide.
            Heavily 'tis uttered, how around his hearthstone
                          The mirk of hell doth rise.

                                     strophe 4

            Stern and fixed the law is; we have hands t' achieve it,
                          Cunning to devise.
            Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance.
                          Not by tear or prayer
            Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness,
                          Far from gods, we fare,
            Lit unto our task with torch of sunless regions,
                          And o'er a deadly way-
            Deadly to the living as to those who see not
                          Life and light of day-
            Hunt we and press onward.

                              antistrophe 4

                                                            Who of mortals hearing
                          Doth not quake for awe,
            Hearing all that Fate thro' hand of God hath given us
                          For ordinance and law?
            Yea, this right to us, in dark abysm and backward
                          Of ages it befell:
            None shall wrong mine office, tho' in nether regions
                          And sunless dark I dwell.
                                    (ATHENA enters.)
    ATHENA
            Far off I heard the clamour of your cry,
            As by Scamander's side I set my foot
            Asserting right upon the land given o'er
            To me by those who o'er Achaea's host
            Held sway and leadership: no scanty part
            Of all they won by spear and sword, to me
            They gave it, land and all that grew thereon,
            As chosen heirloom for my Theseus' clan.
            Thence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot,-
            Hummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold
            Of this mine aegis, by my feet propelled,
            As, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car.
            And now, beholding here Earth's nether brood,
            I fear it nought, yet are mine eyes amazed
            With wonder. Who are ye? of all I ask,
            And of this stranger to my statue clinging.
            But ye-your shape is like no human form,
            Like to no goddess whom the gods behold,
            Like to no shape which mortal women wear.
            Yet to stand by and chide a monstrous form
            Is all unjust-from such words Right revolts.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            O child of Zeus, one word shall tell thee all.
            We are the children of eternal Night,
            And Furies in the underworld are called.
    ATHENA
            I know your lineage now and eke your name.
    LEADER
            Yea, and eftsoons indeed my rights shalt know.
    ATHENA
            Fain would I learn them; speak them clearly forth,
    LEADER
            We chase from home the murderers of men.
    ATHENA
            And where at last can he that slew make pause?
    LEADER
            Where this is law-All joy abandon here.
    ATHENA
            Say, do ye bay this man to such a flight?
    LEADER
            Yea, for of choice he did his mother slay.
    ATHENA
            Urged by no fear of other wrath and doom?
    LEADER
            What spur can rightly goad to matricide?
    ATHENA
            Two stand to plead-one only have I heard.
    LEADER
            He wiR not swear nor challenge us to oath.
    ATHENA
            The form of justice, not its deed, thou willest.
    LEADER
            Prove thou that word; thou art not scant of skill.
    ATHENA
            I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.
    LEADER
            Then test the cause, judge and award the right.
    ATHENA
            Will ye to me then this decision trust?
    LEADER
            Yea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.
    ATHENA (to ORESTES)
            O man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn.
            Speak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes;
            Then, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame-
            If, as I deem, in confidence of right
            Thou sittest hard beside my holy place,
            Clasping this statue, as Ixion sat,
            A sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse,-
            To all this answer me in words made plain.
    ORESTES
            O queen Athena, first from thy last words
            Will I a great solicitude remove.
            Not one blood-guilty am I; no foul stain
            Clings to thine image from my clinging hand;
            Whereof one potent proof I have to tell.
            Lo, the law stands-The slayer shall not plead,
            Till by the hand of him who cleanses blood
            A suckling creature's blood besprinkle him.
            Long since have I this expiation done,-
            In many a home, slain beasts and running streams
            Have cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.
            Next, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn:
            An Argive am I, and right well thou know'st
            My sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed
            The fleet and them that went therein to war-
            That chief with whom thy hand combined to crush
            To an uncitied heap what once was Troy;
            That Agamemnon, when he homeward came,
            Was brought unto no honourable death,
            Slain by the dark-souled wife who brought me forth
            To him,-enwound and slain in wily nets,
            Blazoned with blood that in the laver ran.
            And I, returning from an exiled youth,
            Slew her, my mother-lo, it stands avowed!
            With blood for blood avenging my loved sire;
            And in this deed doth Loxias bear part,
            Decreeing agonies, to goad my will,
            Unless by me the guilty found their doom.
            Do thou decide if right or wrong were done-
            Thy dooming, whatsoe'er it be, contents me.
    ATHENA
            Too mighty is this matter, whosoe'er
            Of mortals claims to judge hereof aright.
            Yea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids
            To judge the issues of blood-guilt, and wrath
            That follows swift behind. This too gives pause,
            That thou as one with all due rites performed
            Dost come, unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.
            Whate'er thou art, in this my city's name,
            As uncondemned, I take thee to my side.-
            Yet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,
            O'erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith
            Their anger's poison shall infect the land-
            A dropping plague-spot of eternal ill.
            Thus stand we with a woe on either hand:
            Stay they, or go at my commandment forth,
            Perplexity or pain must needs befall.
            Yet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,
            I choose unto me judges that shall be
            An ordinance for ever, set to rule
            The dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.
            But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,
            Words strong for justice, fortified by oath;
            And I, whoe'er are truest in my town,
            Them will I choose and bring, and straitly charge,
            Look on this cause, discriminating well,
            And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong.
                                                                                             (ATHENA withdraws.)
    CHORUS (singing)

                                     strophe 1

            Now are they all undone, the ancient laws,
                          If here the slayer's cause
            Prevail; new wrong for ancient right shall be
                          If matricide go free.
            Henceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,
                          Too ready to the hand:
            Too oft shall parents in the aftertime
                          Rue and lament this crime,-
            Taught, not in false imagining, to feel
                          Their children's thrusting steel:
            No more the wrath, that erst on murder fell
                          From us, the queens of Hell,
            Shall fall, no more our watching gaze impend-
                          Death shall smite unrestrained.

                              antistrophe 1

               Henceforth shall one unto another cry
               Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die
            Around me! and that other answers him,
               O thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,
                       Behold, with dark increase
               They throng and press upon thee; yea, and dim
                Is all the cure, and every comfort vain!

                                     strophe 2

            Let none henceforth cry out, when falls the blow
                          Of sudden-smiting woe,
            Cry out in sad reiterated strain
            O Justice, aid! aid, O ye thrones of Hell!
               So though a father or a mother wail
            New-smitten by a son, it shall no more avail,
            Since, overthrown by wrong, the fane of justice fell!

                              antistrophe 2

            Know, that a throne there is that may not pass away,
               And one that sitteth on it-even Fear,
            Searching with steadfast eyes man's inner soul:
            Wisdom is child of pain, and born with many a tear;
                          But who henceforth,
            What man of mortal men, what nation upon earth,
               That holdeth nought in awe nor in the light
               Of inner reverence, shall worship Right
                          As in the older day?

                                     strophe 3

            Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,
            Nor that which bows unto a tyrant's sway.
                          Know that the middle way
            Is dearest unto God, and they thereon who wend,
                          They shall achieve the end;
            But they who wander or to left or right
                          Are sinners in his sight.
               Take to thy heart this one, this soothfast word-
                Of wantonness impiety is sire;
               Only from calm control and sanity unstirred
            Cometh true weal, the goal of every man's desire.

                              antistrophe 3

            Yea, whatsoe'er befall, hold thou this word of mine:
                          Bow down at Justice' shrine,
               Turn thou thine eyes away from earthly lure,
            Nor witk a godless foot that altar spurn.
            For as thou dost shall Fate do in return,
                          And the great doom is sure.
            Therefore let each adore a parent's trust,
               And each with loyalty revere the guest
                That in his halls doth rest.

                                     strophe 4

            For whoso uncompelled doth follow what is just,
                          He ne'er shall be unblest;
               Yea, never to the gulf of doom
                That man shall come.

               But he whose will is set against the gods,
                Who treads beyond the law with foot impure,
               Till o'er the wreck of Right confusion broods,-
                Know that for him, though now he sail secure,
            The day of storm shall be; then shall he strive and fail
               Down from the shivered yard to furl the sail,

                              antistrophe 4

            And call on Powers, that heed him nought, to save,
               And vainly wrestle with the whirling wave.
                       Hot was his heart with pride-
                       I shall not fall, he cried.
                       But him with watching scorn
                       The god beholds, forlorn,
                Tangled in toils of Fate beyond escape,
                Hopeless of haven safe beyond the cape-
               Till all his wealth and bliss of bygone day
               Upon the reef of Rightful Doom is hurled,
                          And he is rapt away
               Unwept, for ever, to the dead forgotten world.

            (ATHENA enters, with TWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS. A large
                crowd follows.)

    ATHENA
            O herald, make proclaim, bid all men come.
            Then let the shrill blast of the Tyrrhene trump,
            Fulfilled with mortal breath, thro' the wide air
            Peal a loud summons, bidding all men heed.
            For, till my judges fill this judgment-seat,
            Silence behoves,-that this whole city learn,
            What for all time mine ordinance commands,
            And these men, that the cause be judged aright.
                                    (APOLLO enters.)
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            O king Apollo, rule what is thine own,
            But in this thing what share pertains to thee?
    APOLLO
            First, as a witness come I, for this man
            Is suppliant of mine by sacred right,
            Guest of my holy hearth and cleansed by me
            Of blood-guilt: then, to set me at his side
            And in his cause bear part, as part I bore
            Erst in his deed, whereby his mother fell.
            Let whoso knoweth now announce the cause.
    ATHENA (to the CHORUS)
            'Tis I announce the cause-first speech be yours;
            For rightfully shall they whose plaint is tried
            Tell the tale first and set the matter clear.
    LEADER
            Though we be many, brief shall be our tale.
                              (To ORESTES)
            Answer thou, setting word to match with word;
            And first avow-hast thou thy mother slain?
    ORESTES
            I slew her. I deny no word hereof.
    LEADER
            Three falls decide the wrestle-this is one.
    ORESTES
            Thou vauntest thee-but o'er no final fall.
    LEADER
            Yet must thou tell the manner of thy deed.
    ORESTES
            Drawn sword in hand, I gashed her neck. 'Tis told.
    LEADER
            But by whose word, whose craft, wert thou impelled?
    ORESTES
            By oracles of him who here attests me.
    LEADER
            The prophet-god bade thee thy mother slay?
    ORESTES
            Yea, and thro' him less ill I fared, till now.
    LEADER
            If the vote grip thee, thou shalt change that word.
    ORESTES
            Strong is my hope; my buried sire shall aid.
    LEADER
            Go to now, trust the dead, a matricide!
    ORESTES
            Yea, for in her combined two stains of sin.
    LEADER
            How? speak this clearly to the judges' mind.
    ORESTES
            Slaying her husband, she did slay my sire.
    LEADER
            Therefore thou livest; death assoils her deed.
    ORESTES
            Then while she lived why didst thou hunt her not?
    LEADER
            She was not kin by blood to him she slew.
    ORESTES
            And I, am I by blood my mother's kin?
    LEADER
            O cursed with murder's guilt, how else wert thou
            The burden of her womb? Dost thou forswear
            Thy mother's kinship, closest bond of love?
    ORESTES
            It is thine hour, Apollo-speak the law,
            Averring if this deed were justly done;
            For done it is, and clear and undenied.
            But if to thee this murder's cause seem right
            Or wrongful, speak-that I to these may tell.
    APOLLO
            To you, Athena's mighty council-court,
            Justly for justice will I plead, even I,
            The prophet-god, nor cheat you by one word.
            For never spake I from my prophet-seat
            One word, of man, of woman, or of state,
            Save what the Father of Olympian gods
            Commanded unto me. I rede you then,
            Bethink you of my plea, how strong it stands,
            And follow the decree of Zeus our sire,-
            For oaths prevail not over Zeus' command.
    LEADER
            Go to; thou sayest that from Zeus befell
            The oracle that this Orestes bade
            With vengeance quit the slaying of his sire,
            And hold as nought his mother's right of kin!
    APOLLO
            Yea, for it stands not with a common death,
            That he should die, a chieftain and a king
            Decked with the sceptre which high heaven confers-
            Die, and by female hands, not smitten down
            By a far-shooting bow, held stalwartly
            By some strong Amazon. Another doom
            Was his: O Pallas, hear, and ye who sit
            In judgment, to discern this thing aright!-
            She with a specious voice of welcome true
            Hailed him, returning from the mighty mart
            Where war for life gives fame, triumphant home;
            Then o'er the laver, as he bathed himself,
            She spread from head to foot a covering net,
            And in the endless mesh of cunning robes
            Enwound and trapped her lord, and smote him down.
            Lo, ye have heard what doom this chieftain met,
            The majesty of Greece, the fleet's high lord:
            Such as I tell it, let it gall your ears,
            Who stand as judges to decide this cause.
    LEADER
            Zeus, as thou sayest, holds a father's death
            As first of crimes,-yet he of his own act
            Cast into chains his father, Cronus old:
            How suits that deed with that which now ye tell?
            O ye who judge, I bid ye mark my words!
    APOLLO
            O monsters loathed of all, O scorn of gods,
            He that hath bound may loose: a cure there is.
            Yea, many a plan that can unbind the chain.
            But when the thirsty dust sucks up man's blood
            Once shed in death, he shall arise no more.
            No chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.
            All else there is, he moulds and shifts at will,
            Not scant of strength nor breath, whate'er he do.
    LEADER
            Think yet, for what acquittal thou dost plead:
            He who hath shed a mother's kindred blood,
            Shall he in Argos dwell, where dwelt his sire?
            How shall he stand before the city's shrines,
            How share the clansmen's holy lustral bowl?
    APOLLO
            This too I answer; mark a soothfast word
            Not the true parent is the woman's womb
            That bears the child; she doth but nurse the seed
            New-sown: the male is parent; she for him,
            As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ
            Of life, unless the god its promise blight.
            And proof hereof before you will I set.
            Birth may from fathers, without mothers, be:
            See at your side a witness of the same,
            Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus,
            Never within the darkness of the womb
            Fostered nor fashioned, but a bud more bright
            Than any goddess in her breast might bear.
            And I, O Pallas, howsoe'er I may,
            Henceforth will glorify thy town, thy clan,
            And for this end have sent my suppliant here
            Unto thy shrine; that he from this time forth
            Be loyal unto thee for evermore,
            O goddess-queen, and thou unto thy side
            Mayst win and hold him faithful, and his line,
            And that for aye this pledge and troth remain
            To children's children of AtheniaD seed.
    ATHENA
            Enough is said; I bid the judges now
            With pure intent deliver just award.
    LEADER
            We too have shot our every shaft of speech,
            And now abide to hear the doom of law.
    ATHENA (to APOLLO and ORESTES)
            Say, how ordaining shall I 'scape your blame?
    APOLLO
            I spake, ye heard; enough. O stranger men,
            Heed well your oath as ye decide the cause.
    ATHENA
            O men of Athens, ye who first do judge
            The law of bloodshed, hear me now ordain.
            Here to all time for Aegeus' Attic host
            Shall stand this council-court of judges sworn,
            Here the tribunal, set on Ares' Hill
            Where camped of old the tented Amazons,
            What time in hate of Theseus they assailed
            Athens, and set against her citadel
            A counterwork of new sky-pointing towers,
            And there to Ares held their sacrifice,
            Where now the rock hath name, even Ares' Hill.
            And hence shall Reverence and her kinsman Fear
            Pass to each free man's heart, by day and night
            Enjoining, Thou shalt do no unjust thing,
            So long as law stands as it stood of old
            Unmarred by civic change. Look you, the spring
            Is pure; but foul it once with influx vile
            And muddy clay, and none can drink thereof.
            Therefore, O citizens, I bid ye bow
            In awe to this command, Let no man live,
            Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny;
            Nor banish ye the monarchy of Awe
            Beyond the walls; untouched by fear divine,
            No man doth justice in the world of men.
            Therefore in purity and holy dread
            Stand and revere; so shall ye have and hold
            A saving bulwark of the state and land,
            Such as no man hath ever elsewhere known,
            Nor in far Scythia, nor in Pelops' realm.
            Thus I ordain it now, a council-court
            Pure and unsullied by the lust of gain,
            Sacred and swift to vengeance, wakeful ever
            To champion men who sleep, the country's guard.
            Thus have I spoken, thus to mine own clan
            Commended it for ever. Ye who judge,
            Arise, take each his vote, mete out the right,
            Your oath revering. Lo, my word is said.

            (The twelve judges come forward, one by one, to the urns of
                decision; the first votes; as each of the others follows, the
                LEADER and APOLLO speak alternately.)

    LEADER
            I rede ye well, beware! nor put to shame,
            In aught, this grievous company of hell.
    APOLLO
            I too would warn you, fear mine oracles-
            From Zeus they are,-nor make them void of fruit.
    LEADER
            Presumptuous is thy claim, blood-guilt to judge,
            And false henceforth thine oracles shall be.
    APOLLO
            Failed then the counsels of my sire, when turned
            Ixion, first of slayers, to his side?
    LEADER
            These are but words; but I, if justice fail me,
            Will haunt this land in grim and deadly deed.
    APOLLO
            Scorn of the younger and the elder gods
            Art thou: 'tis I that shall prevail anon.
    LEADER
            Thus didst thou too of old in Pheres' halls,
            O'erreaching Fate to make a mortal deathless.
    APOLLO
            Was it not well, my worshipper to aid,
            Then most of all when hardest was the need?
    LEADER
            I say thou didst annul the lots of life,
            Cheating with wine the deities of eld.
    APOLLO
            I say thou shalt anon, thy pleadings foiled,
            Spit venom vainly on thine enemies.
    LEADER
            Since this young god o'errides mine ancient right,
            I tarry but to claim your law, not knowing
            If wrath of mine shall blast your state or spare.
    ATHENA
            Mine is the right to add the final vote,
            And I award it to Orestes' cause.
            For me no mother bore within her womb,
            And, save for wedlock evermore eschewed,
            I vouch myself the champion of the man,
            Not of the woman, yea, with all my soul,-
            In heart, as birth, a father's child alone.
            Thus will I not too heinously regard
            A woman's death who did her husband slay,
            The guardian of her home; and if the votes
            Equal do fall, Orestes shall prevail.
            Ye of the judges who are named thereto,
            Swiftly shake forth the lots from either urn.
                                                 (Two judges come forward, one to each urn.)
    ORESTES
            O bright Apollo, what shall be the end?
    LEADER
            O Night, dark mother mine, dost mark these things?
    ORESTES
            Now shall my doom be life, or strangling cords.
    LEADER
            And mine, lost honour or a wider sway.
    APOLLO
            O stranger judges, sum aright the count
            Of votes cast forth, and, parting them, take heed
            Ye err not in decision. The default
            Of one vote only bringeth ruin deep,
            One, cast aright. doth stablish house and home.
    ATHENA
            Behold, this man is free from guilt of blood,
            For half the votes condemn him, half set free!
    ORESTES
            O Pallas, light and safety of my home,
            Thou, thou hast given me back to dwell once more
            In that my fatherland, amerced of which
            I wandered; now shall Grecian lips say this,
            The man is Argive once again, and dwells
            Again within kiss father's wealthy hall,
            By Pallas saved, by Loxias, and by Him,
            The great third saviour, Zeus omnipotent-
            Who thus in pity for my father's fate
            Doth pluck me from my doom, beholding these,
            Confederates of my mother. Lo, I pass
            To mine own home, but proffering this vow
            Unto thy land and people: Nevermore,
            Thro' all the manifold years of Time to be,
            Shall any chieftain of mine Argive land
            Bear hitherward his spears for fight arrayed.
            For we, though lapped in earth we then shall lie,
            By thwart adversities will work our will
            On them who shall transgress this oath of mine,
            Paths of despair and journeyings ill-starred
            For them ordaining, till their task they rue.
            But if this oath be rightly kept, to them
            Will we the dead be full of grace, the while
            With loyal league they honour Pallas' town.
            And now farewell, thou and thy city's folk-
            Firm be thine arms' grasp, closing with thy foes,
            And, strong to save, bring victory to thy spear.
                                                                              (ORESTES and APOLLO depart.)
    CHORUS (chanting)
                Woe on you, younger gods! the ancient right
                Ye have o'erridden, rent it from my hands.

                I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!
                               But heavily my wrath
            Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,
                Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe
                As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,
                               Shall leafless blight arise,
            Wasting Earth's offspring,-Justice, hear my call!-
            And thorough all the land in deadly wise
            Shall scatter venom, to exude again
                                  In pestilence on men.
            What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,
            Unto this land what dark despite?
                                  Alack, alack, forlorn
               Are we, a bitter injury have borne!
               Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood
                                  Of mother Night!
    ATHENA
            Nay, bow ye to my words, chafe not nor moan:
            Ye are not worsted nor disgraced; behold,
            With balanced vote the cause had issue fair,
            Nor in the end did aught dishonour thee.
            But thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth,
            And his own prophet-god avouched the same,
            Orestes slew: his slaying is atoned.
            Therefore I pray you, not upon this land
            Shoot forth the dart of vengeance; be appeased,
            Nor blast the land with blight, nor loose thereon
            Drops of eternal venom, direful darts
            Wasting and marring nature's seed of growth.
            For I, the queen of Athens' sacred right,
            Do pledge to you a holy sanctuary
            Deep in the heart of this my land, made just
            By your indwelling presence, while ye sit
            Hard by your sacred shrines that gleam with oil
            Of sacrifice, and by this folk adored.
    CHORUS (chanting)
                Woe on you, younger gods! the ancient right
                Ye have o'erridden, rent it from my hands.

                I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn!
                                  But heavily my wrath
            Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and burn,
                Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe
                As I have suffered; where that dew shall fall,
                                  Shall leafless blight arise,
            Wasting Earth's offspring,-justice, hear my call!-
            And thorough all the land in deadly wise
            Shall scatter venom, to exude again
                          In pestilence on men.
            What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,
            Unto this land what dark despite?
                                  Alack, alack, forlorn
               Are we, a bitter injury have borne!
               Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood
                                  Of mother Night!
    ATHENA
            Dishonoured are ye not; turn not, I pray,
            As goddesses your swelling wrath on men,
            Nor make the friendly earth despiteful to them.
            I too have Zeus for champion-'tis enough-
            I only of all goddesses do know
            To ope the chamber where his thunderbolts
            Lie stored and sealed; but here is no such need.
            Nay, be appeased, nor cast upon the ground
            The malice of thy tongue, to blast the world;
            Calm thou thy bitter wrath's black inward surge,
            For high shall be thine honour, set beside me
            For ever in this land, whose fertile lap
            Shall pour its teeming firstfruits unto you,
            Gifts for fair childbirth and for wedlock's crown:
            Thus honoured, praise my spoken pledge for aye.
    CHORUS (chanting)
            I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,-
            Ancient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth
            Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,
                          Woe, woe for thee, for me!
            From side to side what pains be these that thrill?
            Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!
            Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust
                          And brought me to the dust-
            Woe, woe is me!-with craft invincible.
    ATHENA
            Older art thou than I, and I will bear
            With this thy fury. Know, although thou be
            More wise in ancient wisdom, yet have
            From Zeus no scanted measure of the same,
            Wherefore take heed unto this prophecy-
            If to another land of alien men
            Ye go, too late shall ye feel longing dreep
            For mine. The rolling tides of time bring round
            A day of brighter glory for this town;
            And thou, enshrined in honour by the halls
            Where dwelt Erechtheus, shalt a worship win
            From men and from the train of womankind,
            Greater than any tribe elsewhere shall pay.
            Cast thou not therefore on this soil of mine
            Whetstones that sharpen souls to bloodshedding,
            The burning goads of youthful hearts, made hot
            With frenzy of the spirit, not of wine.
            Nor pluck as 'twere the heart from cocks that strive,
            To set it in the breast of citizens
            Of mine, a war-god's spirit, keen for fight,
            Made stern against their country and their kin.
            The man who grievously doth lust for fame,
            War, full, immitigable, let him wage
            Against the stranger; but of kindred birds
            I hold the challenge hateful. Such the boon
            I proffer thee-within this land of lands,
            Most loved of gods, with me to show and share
            Fair mercy, gratitude and grace as fair.
    CHORUS (chanting)
            I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,-
            Ancient of days and wisdom! I breathe forth
            Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,
                          Woe, woe for thee, for me!
            From side to side what pains be these that thrill?
            Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony!
            Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust
                          And brought me to the dust-
            Woe, woe is me!-with craft invincible.
    ATHENA
            I will not weary of soft words to thee,
            That never mayst thou say, Behold me spurned,
            An elder by a younger deity,
            And from this land rejected and forlorn,
            Unhonoured by the men who dwell therein.
            But, if Persuasion's grace be sacred to thee,
            Soft in the soothing accents of my tongue,
            Tarry, I Dray thee, yet, if go thou wilt.
            Not rightfully wilt thou on this my town
            Sway down the scale that beareth wrath and teen
            Or wasting plague uport this folk. 'Tis thine,
            If so thou wilt, inheritress to be
            Of this my land, its utmost grace to win.
    LEADER OF THE CHORUS
            O queen, what refuge dost thou promise me?
    ATHENA
            Refuge untouched by bale: take thou my boon.
    LEADER
            What, if I take it, shall mine honour be?
    ATHENA
            No house shall prosper without grace of thine.
    LEADER
            Canst thou achieve and grant such power to me?
    ATHENA
            Yea, for my hand shall bless thy worshippers.
    LEADER
            And wilt thou pledge me this for time eterne?
    ATHENA
            Yea: none can bid me pledge beyond my power.
    LEADER
            Lo, I desist from wrath, appeased by thee.
    ATHENA
            Then in the land's heart shalt thou win thee friends.
    LEADER
            What chant dost bid me raise, to greet the land?
    ATHENA
            Such as aspires towards a victory
            Unrued by any: chants from breast of earth,
            From wave, from sky; and let the wild winds' breath
            Pass with soft sunlight o'er the lap of land,-
            Strong wax the fruits of earth, fair teem the kine,
            Unfailing, for my town's prosperity,
            And constant be the growth of mortal seed.
            But more and more root out the impious,
            For as a gardener fosters what he sows,
            So foster I this race, whom righteousness
            Doth fend from sorrow. Such the proffered boon.
            But I, if wars must be, and their loud clash
            And carnage, for my town, will ne'er endure
            That aught but victory shall crown her fame.
    CHORUS (chanting)
               Lo, I accept it; at her very side
                       Doth Pallas bid me dwell:
               I will not wrong the city of her pride,
            Which even Almighty Zeus and Ares hold
                       Heaven's earthly citadel,
            Loved home of Grecian gods, the young, the old,
                       The sanctuary divine,
                       The shield of every shrine!
            For Athens I say forth a gracious prophecy,-
               The glory of the sunlight and the skies
                       Shall bid from earth arise
            Warm wavelets of new life and glad prosperity.
    ATHENA (chanting)
               Behold, with gracious heart well pleased
                       I for my citizens do grant
                       Fulfilment of this covenant:
               And here, their wrath at length appeased,
                       These mighty deities shall stay.
                For theirs it is by right to sway
                The lot that rules our mortal day,
                       And he who hath not inly felt
                Their stern decree, ere long on him,
                Not knowing why and whence, the grim
                       Life-crushing blow is dealt.
                       The father's sin upon the child
                Descends, and sin is silent death,
                And leads him on the downward path,
                       By stealth beguiled,
                Unto the Furies: though his state
            On earth were high, and loud his boast,
               Victim of silent ire and hate
                He dwells among the Lost.
    CHORUS (chanting)
                          To my blessing now give ear.-
                          Scorching blight nor singed air
                          Never blast thine olives fair!
                          Drouth, that wasteth bud and plant,
                          Keep to thine own place. Avaunt,
                          Famine fell, and come not hither
                          Stealthily to waste and wither!
                          Let the land, in season due,
                          Twice her waxing fruits renew;
                          Teem the kine in double measure;
                          Rich in new god-given treasure;
                          Here let men the powers adore
                          For sudden gifts unhoped before!
    ATHENA (chanting)

                          O hearken, warders of the wall
                          That guards mine Athens, what a dower
                          Is unto her ordained and given!
                       For mighty is the Furies' power,
                          And deep-revered in courts of heaven
                       And realms of hell; and clear to all
                          They weave thy doom, mortality!
                       And some in joy and peace shall sing;
                       But unto other some they bring
                          Sad life and tear-dimmed eye.
    CHORUS (chanting)
            And far away I ban thee and remove,
               Untimely death of youths too soon brought low!
            And to each maid, O gods, when time is come for love,
               Grant ye a warrior's heart, a wedded life to know.
            Ye too, O Fates, children of mother Night,
               Whose children too are we, O goddesses
            Of just award, of all by sacred right
               Queens, who in time and in eternity
            Do rule, a present power for righteousness,
               Honoured beyond all Gods, hear ye and grant my cry!
    ATHENA (chanting)

                       And I too, I with joy am fain,
                       Hearing your voice this gift ordain
                       Unto my land. High thanks be thine,
                       Persuasion, who with eyes divine
                       Into my tongue didst look thy strength,
                       To bend and to appease at length
                          Those who would not be comforted.
                       Zeus, king of parley, doth prevail,
                       And ye and I will strive nor fail,
                          That good may stand in evil's stead,
                       And lasting bliss for bale.
    CHORUS (chanting)
                       And nevermore these walls within
                       Shall echo fierce sedition's din,
                          Unslaked with blood and crime;
                       The thirsty dust shall nevermore
                       Suck up the darkly streaming gore
                       Of civic broils, shed out in wrath
                       And vengeance, crying death for death!
                       But man with man and state with state
                       Shall vow The pledge of common hate
                       And common friendship, that for man
                       Hath oft made blessing, out of ban,
                          Be ours unto all time.
    ATHENA (chanting)

                Skill they, or not, the path to find
                Of favouring speech and presage kind?
                Yea, even from these, who, grim and stern,
                       Glared anger upon you of old,
                O citizens, ye now shall earn
                       A recompense right manifold.
                Deck them aright, extol them high,
                Be loyal to their loyalty,
                       And ye shall make your town and land
                       Sure, propped on justice' saving hand,
                          And Fame's eternity.
    CHORUS (chanting)
                Hail ye, all hail! and yet again, all hail,
                       O Athens, happy in a weal secured!
               O ye who sit by Zeus' right hand, nor fail
                Of wisdom set among you and assured,
               Loved of the well-loved Goddess-Maid! the King
            Of gods doth reverence you, beneath her guarding wing.
    ATHENA (chanting)

                       All hail unto each honoured guest!
                       Whom to the chambers of your rest
                       'Tis mine to lead, and to provide
                       The hallowed torch, the guard and guide.
                       Pass down, the while these altars glow
                       With sacred fire, to earth below
                          And your appointed shrine.
                       There dwelling, from the land restrain
                       The force of fate, the breath of bane,
                       But waft on us the gift and gain
                          Of Victory divine!
                       And ye, the men of Cranaos' seed,
                       I bid you now with reverence lead
                       These alien Powers that thus are made
                       Athenian evermore. To you
                       Fair be their will henceforth, to do
                          Whate'er may bless and aid!
    CHORUS (chanting)
                       Hail to you all! hail yet again,
                       All who love Athens, gods and men,
                          Adoring her as Pallas' home!
                       And while ye reverence what ye grant-
                       My sacred shrine and hidden haunt-
                          Blameless and blissful be your doom!
    ATHENA
            Once more I praise the promise of your vows,
            And now I bid the golden torches' glow
            Pass down before you to the hidden depth
            Of earth, by mine own sacred servants borne,
            My loyal guards of statue and of shrine.
            Come forth, O flower of Attic land,
            O glorious band of children and of wives,
            And ye, O train of matrons crowned with eld!
            Deck you with festal robes of scarlet dye
            In honour of this day: O gleaming torch,
            Lead onward, that these gracious powers of earth
            Henceforth be seen to bless the life of men.

            (ATHENA leads the procession downwards into the Cave of the
                FURRES, now Eumenides, under the Areopagus: as they
                go, the escort of women and children chant aloud)

    CHANT
            With loyalty we lead you; proudly go,
            Night's childless children, to your home below!
               (O citizens, awhile from words forbear!)
               To darkness' deep primeval lair,
               Far in Earth's bosom, downward fare,
                Adored with prayer and sacrifice.
                (O citizens, forbear your cries!)
               Pass hitherward, ye powers of Dread,
               With all your former wrath allayed,
                Into the heart of this loved land;
               With joy unto your temple wend,
               The while upon your steps attend
                The flames that feed upon the brand-
            (Now, now ring out your chant, your joy's acclaim!)
               Behind them, as they downward fare,
               Let holy hands libations bear,
                       And torches' sacred flame.
               All-seeing Zeus and Fate come down
               To battle fair for Pallas' town!
            Ring out your chant, ring out your joy's acclaim!