Classic Poem

  Ægis. Not without summons came I, but by word
Of courier fetched, and learn that travellers bring
Their tale of tidings new, in no wise welcome.
As for Orestes' death, with it to charge
The house would be a burden dropping fear
To one by that old bloodshed sorely stung.
How shall I count these things? As clear and true?
Or are they vague reports of woman's fears,
That leap up high and die away to nought?
What can'st thou say that will my mind inform?
  Chor. We heard, 'tis true; but go thou in and ask
Of these same strangers. Nought is found in words
Of messengers like asking, man from man.
  Ægis. I wish to see and probe the messenger,
If he himself were present at the death,
Or tells it hearing of a vague report:
They shall not cheat a mind with eyes wide open.
  Chor. Zeus! Zeus! what words shall I
Now speak, whence start in prayer,
Invoking help of Gods?
How with all wish for good
Shall I speak fitting words?
For now the sharp sword-points,
Red with the blood of man,
Will either work for aye
The utter overthrow
Of Agamemnon's house,
Or, kindling fire and torch
For freedom thus achieved,
Will he the sceptre wield
Of duly-ordered sway,
His father's pride and state:
Such is the contest he,
Orestes, godlike one,
Now wages all alone,
The one sole combatant,
In place of him who fell,
Against those twain. May victory be his!
  Ægisth. Ah! ah! Woe's me!
  Chor. Hark! hark! How goes it now?
What issue has been wrought within the house?
Let us hold back while they the deed are doing,
That we may seem as guiltless of these ills:
For surely now the fight has reached its end.

  Serv. Alas! alas! my master perishes!
Alas! alas! a third time yet I call.
Ægisthos is no more; but open now
With all your speed, and loosen ye the bolts
That bar the women's gates. A man's full strength
Is needed; not indeed that that would help
A man already slain.

Ho there! I say:
I speak to the deaf; to those that sleep I utter
In vain my useless cries. And where is she?
Where's Clytæmnestra? What doth she do now?
Her neck upon the razor's edge doth seem
To fall, down-stricken by a vengeance just.

  Clytæm. What means all this? What cry is this thou mak'st?
  Serv. I say the dead are killing one who lives.
  Clytæm. Ah, me! I see the drift of thy dark speech;
By guile we perish, as of old we slew:
Let some one hand at once axe strong to slay;
Let's see if we are conquered or can conquer,
For to that point of evil am I come.

  Orest. 'Tis thou I seek: he there has had enough.
  Clytæm. Ah me! my loved Ægisthos! Art thou dead?
  Orest. Lov'st thou the man? Then in the self-same tomb
Shalt thou now lie, nor in his death desert him.
  Clytæm. Hold, boy! Respect this breast of mine, my son,
Whence thou full oft, asleep, with toothless gums,
Hast sucked the milk that sweetly fed thy life.
  Orest. What shall I do, my Pylades? Shall I
Through this respect forbear to slay my mother?
  Pyl. Where, then, are Loxias' other oracles,
The Pythian counsels, and the fast-sworn vows?
Have all men hostile rather than the Gods.
  Orest. My judgment goes with thine; thou speakest well:
Follow: I mean to slay thee where he lies,
For while he lived thou held'st him far above
My father. Sleep thou with him in thy death,
Since thou lov'st him, and whom thou should'st love hatest.
  Clytæm. I reared thee, and would fain grow old with thee.
  Orest. What! Thou live with me, who did'st slay my father?
  Clytæm. Fate, O my son, must share the blame of that.
  Orest. This fatal doom, then, it is Fate that sends.
  Clytæm. Dost thou not fear a parent's curse, my son?
  Orest. Thou, though my mother, did'st to ill chance cast me.
  Clytæm. No outcast thou, so sent to house allied.
  Orest. I was sold doubly, though of free sire born.
  Clytæm. Where is the price, then, that I got for thee?
  Orest. I shrink for shame from pressing that charge home.
  Clytæm. Nay, tell thy father's wantonness as well.
  Orest. Blame not the man who toils when thou'rt at ease.
  Clytæm. 'Tis hard, my son, for wives to miss their husband.
  Orest. The husband's toil keeps her that sits at home.
  Clytæm. Thou seem'st, my son, about to slay thy mother.
  Orest. It is not I that slay thee, but thyself.
  Clytæm. Take heed, beware a mother's vengeful hounds.
  Orest. How, slighting this, shall I escape my father's?
  Clytæm. I seem in life to wail as to a tomb.
  Orest. My father's fate ordains this doom for thee.
  Clytæm. Ah me! the snake is here I bare and nursed.
  Orest. An o'er-true prophet was that dread dream-born;
Thou slewest one thou never should'st have slain,
Now suffer fate should never have been thine.

  Chor. E'en of these two I wail the twin mischance;
But since long line of murder culminates
In poor Orestes, this we yet accept,
That he, our one light, fall not utterly.

Strophe I

Late came due vengeance on the sons of Priam,
Just forfeit of sore woe;—
Late came there too to Agamemnon's house,
Twin lions, two-fold Death.
The exile who obeyed the Pythian hest
Hath gained his full desire,
Sped on his way by counsel from the Gods.

Strophe II

Shout ye, loud shout for the escape from ills
Our master's house has seen,
And from the wasting of his ancient wealth
By that defilèd pair;
Ill fate intolerable.

A NTISTROPHE I

And so on one who loves the war of guile
Revenge came subtle-souled;
And in the strife of hands the child of Zeus
In very deed gave help,
(We mortals call her Vengeance, hitting well
The meetest name for her,)
Breathing destroying wrath against her foes.

Strophe III

She, she it is whom Loxias summons now,
Who dwelleth in Parnassia's cavern vast,
Calling on her who still
Is guileful without guile,
Halting of foot and tarrying over-long:
The will of Gods is strangely overruled;
It may not help the vile;
'Tis meet to adore the Power that rules in Heaven:
At last we see the light.

A NTISTROPHE II

Now is the bit that curbed the slaves ta'en off:
Arise, arise, O house:
Too long, too long, all prostrate on the ground
Ye have been used to lie.

A NTISTROPHE III

Quickly all-working Time will bring a change
Across the threshold of the palace old,
When from the altar-hearth
It shall drive all the guilt,
With cleansing rites that chase away our woes;
And Fortune's throws shall fall with gladsome cast,
Once more benign to see,
For new-come strangers settled in the house:
At last we see the light.

  Orest. See ye this country's tyrant rulers twain,
My father's murderers, wasters of his house;
Stately were they, seen sitting on their thrones,
Friends too e'en now, to argue from their fate,
Whose oaths are kept to every pledge they gave.
Firmly they swore that they would slay my father,
And die together. Well those oaths are kept:
And ye who hear these ills, behold ye now
Their foul device, as bonds for my poor father,
Handcuffs, and fetters both his feet to bind.
Come, stretch it out, and standing all around,
Show ye the snare that wrapt him o'er, that He
May see, our Father,—not of mine I speak,
But the great Sun that looks on all we do,—
My mother's deeds, defilèd and impure,
That He may be a witness in my cause,
That I did justly bring this doom to pass
Upon my mother. . . . Of Ægisthos' fate
No word I speak. He bears the penalty,
As runs the law, of an adulterer's guilt;
But she who planned this crime against a man
By whom she knew the weight of children borne
Beneath her girdle, once a burden loved,
But now, as it is proved, a grievous ill,
What seems she to you? Had she viper been,
Or fell myræna, she with touch alone,
Rather than bite, had made a festering sore
With that bold daring of unrighteous mood.
What shall I call it, using mildest speech?
A wild beast's trap?—a pall that wraps a bier,
And hides a dead man's feet?—A net, I trow,
A snare, a robe entangling, one might call it.
Such might be owned by one to plunder trained,
Practised in duping travellers, and the life
That robs men of their money; with this trap
Destroying many, many deeds of ill
His fevered brain might hatch. May such as she
Ne'er share my dwelling! May the hand of God
Far rather smite me that I childless die!
  Chor. Ah me! ah me! these deeds most miserable!
By hateful murder thou wast done to death.
Woe, woe is me!
And evil buds and blooms for him that's left.
  Orest. Was the deed hers or no? Lo! this same robe
Bears witness how she dyed Ægisthos' sword,
And the blood-stain helps Time's destroying work,
Marring full many a tint of pattern fair:
Now name I it, now as eye-witness wail;
And calling on this robe that slew my father,
Moan for all done and suffered, wail my race,
Bearing the foul stains of this victory.
  Chor. No mortal man shall live a life unharmed,
Stout-hearted and rejoicing evermore.
Woe, woe is me!
One trouble vexes now, another comes.
  Orest. Nay, know ye—for I know not how 'twill end;
Like chariot-driver with his steeds I'm dragged
Out of my course; for passion's moods uncurbed
Bear me their victim headlong. At my heart
Stands terror ready or to sing or dance
In burst of frenzy. While my reason stays,
I tell my friends here that I slew my mother,
Not without right, my father's murderess,
Accursed, and hated of the Gods. And I
As chiefest spell that made me dare this deed
Count Loxias, Pythian prophet, warning me
That doing this I should be free from blame,
But slighting … I pass o'er the penalty …
For none, aim as he will, such woes will hit.
And now ye see me, in what guise equipped,
With this my bough and chaplet I will gain
Earth's central shrine, the home where Loxias dwells,
And the bright fire that is as deathless known,
Seeking to 'scape this guilt of kindred blood;
And on no other hearth, so Loxias bade,
May I seek shelter. And I charge you all,
Ye Argives, bear ye witness in due time
How these dark deeds of wretched ill were wrought:
But I, a wanderer, exiled from my land,
Shall live, and leaving these my prayers in death, …
  Chor. Nay, thou hast prospered: burden not thy lips
With evil speech, nor speak ill-boding words,
When thou hast freed the Argive commonwealth,
By good chance lopping those two serpents' heads.
  Orest. Ah! ah! ye handmaids: see, like Gorgons these,
Dark-robed, and all their tresses hang entwined
With many serpents. I can bear no more.
  Chor. What phantoms vex thee, best beloved of sons
By thy dear sire? Hold, fear not, victory's thine.
  Orest. These are no phantom terrors that I see:
Full clear they are my mother's vengeful hounds.
  Chor. The blood fresh-shed is yet upon thy hands,
And thence it is these troubles haunt thy soul.
  Orest. O King Apollo! See, they swarm, they swarm,
And from their eyes is dropping loathsome blood.
  Chor. One way of cleansing is there; Loxias' form
Clasp thou, and he will free thee from these ills.
  Orest. These forms ye see not, but I see them there:
They drive me on, and I can bear no more.
  Chor. Well, may'st thou prosper; may the gracious God
Watch o'er and guard thee with a chance well timed!

Here, then, upon this palace of our kings
A third storm blows again;
The blast that haunts the race has run its course.
First came the wretched meal of children's flesh;
Next what befell our king:
Slain in the bath was he who ruled our host,
Of all the Achæans lord;
And now a third has come, we know not whence
To save … or shall I say,
To work a doom of death?
Where will it end? Where will it cease at last,
The mighty Atè dread,
Lulled into slumber deep?