_Aegisthus entering from the Right Side-Door_ (_of Neighborhood_)
speaks of this summons; it may after all be women's fears 'that leap up
high and die away to nought.' The _Chorus_ say there is nothing like
asking. _Aeg._ will do so: they cannot cheat a man with his eyes open.
_Exit through Central Door_. {839}
_Chorus, in short lyric burst_, mark critical moment that decides
success or failure. {853}
Then _cries from within, and Porter rushes from Central Door to Door of
Women's Quarters_ (_Left Inferior_), loudly summoning Clytaemnestra,
and when she appears informs her 'the dead are slaying the living.'
She sees in a moment the truth, and is looking hurriedly for aid, _when
enter, from Central Door, Orestes, joined at once by Pylades and
Attendants, from Right Inferior_.
_Orest._ 'Tis thee I seek: he there has had enough. {878}
_Clytaem._ Ah me! my loved Aegisthus! Art thou dead?
_Orest._ Lov'st the man? Then in the self-same tomb
Shalt thou now lie, nor in his death desert him.
_Clytaem._ [baring her bosom]
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.
[_To Clytaemnestra._] 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.
_Clytaem._ I reared thee, and would fain grow old with thee.
_Orest._ What! Thou live with me, who did'st slay my father?
_Clytaem._ Fate, O my son, must share the blame of that.
_Orest._ This fatal doom, then, it is Fate that sends.
_Clytaem._ Dost thou not fear a parent's curse, my son?
_Orest._ Thou, though my mother, did'st to ill chance cast me.
_Clytaem._ No outcast thou so sent to house allied.
_Orest._ I was sold doubly, though of free sire born.
_Clytaem._ Where is the price, then, that I got for thee?
_Orest._ I shrink for shame from pressing that charge home.
_Clytaem._ Nay, tell thy father's wantonness as well.
_Orest._ Blame not the man that toils when thou'rt at ease.
_Clytaem._ 'Tis hard, my son, for wives to miss their husband.
_Orest._ The husband's toil keeps her that sits at home.
_Clytaem._ Thou seem'st, my son, about to slay thy mother.
_Orest._ It is not I that slay thee, but thyself.
_Clytaem._ Take heed, beware a mother's vengeful hounds.
_Orest._ How, slighting this, shall I escape my father's?
_Clytaem._ I seem in life to wail as to a tomb.
_Orest._ My father's fate ordains this doom for thee.
_Clytaem._ 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. {916}
_Exeunt Orestes and Pylades, forcing Clytaemnestra through the Central
Door, their attendants remaining to guard the door. Chorus, after a
word of pity for even this 'twain mischance,' break into_