Would God that suddenly
With no great agony,
No long sick-watch to keep,
My hour would come to me,
My hour, and presently
Bring the eternal, the
Unwaking Sleep,
Now that my Shepherd, he
Whose love watched over me,
Lies in the deep!
ANOTHER.
For woman’s sake he endured and battled well,
And by a woman’s hand he fell.
OTHERS.
What hast thou done, O Helen blind of brain,
O face that slew the souls on Ilion’s plain,
One face, one face, and many a thousand slain?
The hate of old that on this castle lay,
Builded in lust, a husband’s evil day,
Hath bloomed for thee a perfect flower again
And unforgotten, an old and burning stain
Never to pass away.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Nay, pray not for the hour of death, being tried
Too sore beneath these blows
Neither on Helen turn thy wrath aside,
The Slayer of Men, the face which hath destroyed
Its thousand Danaan souls, and wrought a wide
Wound that no leech can close.
CHORUS.
—Daemon, whose heel is set
On the House and the twofold kin
Of the high Tantalidae,
A power, heavy as fate,
Thou wieldest through woman’s sin,
Piercing the heart of me!
—Like a raven swoln with hate
He hath set on the dead his claw,
He croaketh a song to sate
His fury, and calls it Law!
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ah, call upon Him! Yea, call—
And thy thought hath found its path—
The Daemon who haunts this hall,
The thrice-engorged Wrath;
From him is the ache of the flesh
For blood born and increased;
Ere the old sore hath ceased
It oozeth afresh.
CHORUS.
—Indeed He is very great,
And heavy his anger, He,
The Daemon who guides the fate
Of the old Tantalidae:
Alas, alas, an evil tale ye tell
Of desolate angers and insatiable!
—Ah me,
And yet ’tis all as Zeus hath willed,
Doer of all and Cause of all;
By His Word every chance doth fall,
No end without Him is fulfilled;
What of these things
But cometh by high Heaven’s counsellings?
[_A band of Mourners has gathered within the House_.]
MOURNERS.
Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!
How shall I weep, what word shall I say?
Caught in the web of this spider thing,
In foul death gasping thy life away!
Woe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying,
The doom of craft and the lonely dying,
The iron two-edged and the hands that slay!
CLYTEMNESTRA.
And criest thou still this deed hath been
My work? Nay, gaze, and have no thought
That this is Agamemnon’s Queen.
’Tis He, ’tis He, hath round him wrought
This phantom of the dead man’s wife;
He, the old Wrath, the Driver of Men astray,
Pursuer of Atreus for the feast defiled;
To assoil an ancient debt he hath paid this life;
A warrior and a crowned King this day
Atones for a slain child.
CHORUS.
—That thou art innocent herein,
What tongue dare boast? It cannot be,
Yet from the deeps of ancient sin
The Avenger may have wrought with thee.
—On the red Slayer crasheth, groping wild
For blood, more blood, to build his peace again,
And wash like water the old frozen stain
Of the torn child.
MOURNERS.
Ah, sorrow, sorrow! My King, my King!
How shall I weep, what word shall I say?
Caught in the web of this spider thing,
In foul death gasping thy life away.
Woe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying,
The doom of craft and the lonely dying,
The iron two-edged and the hands that slay!
CLYTEMNESTRA.
And what of the doom of craft that first
He planted, making the House accurst?
What of the blossom, from this root riven,
Iphigenîa, the unforgiven?
Even as the wrong was, so is the pain:
He shall not laugh in the House of the slain,
When the count is scored;
He hath but spoilèd and paid again
The due of the sword.
CHORUS.
I am lost; my mind dull-eyed
Knows not nor feels
Whither to fly nor hide
While the House reels.
The noise of rain that falls
On the roof affrighteth me,
Washing away the walls;
Rain that falls bloodily.
Doth ever the sound abate?
Lo, the next Hour of Fate
Whetting her vengeance due
On new whet-stones, for new
Workings of hate.
MOURNERS.
Would thou hadst covered me, Earth, O Earth,
Or e’er I had looked on my lord thus low,
In the pallèd marble of silvern girth!
What hands may shroud him, what tears may flow?
Not thine, O Woman who dared to slay him,
Thou durst not weep to him now, nor pray him,
Nor pay to his soul the deep unworth
Of gift or prayer to forget thy blow.
—Oh, who with heart sincere
Shall bring praise or grief
To lay on the sepulchre
Of the great chief?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
His burial is not thine to array.
By me he fell, by me he died,
I watch him to the grave, not cried
By mourners of his housefolk; nay,
His own child for a day like this
Waits, as is seemly, and shall run
By the white waves of Acheron
To fold him in her arms and kiss!
CHORUS.
Lo, she who was erst reviled
Revileth; and who shall say?
Spoil taken from them that spoiled,
Life-blood from them that slay!
Surely while God ensueth
His laws, while Time doth run
’Tis written: On him that doeth
It shall be done.
This is God’s law and grace,
Who then shall hunt the race
Of curses from out this hall?
The House is sealed withal
To dreadfulness.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Aye, thou hast found the Law, and stept
In Truth’s way.—Yet even now I call
The Living Wrath which haunts this hall
To truce and compact. I accept
All the affliction he doth heap
Upon me, and I charge him go
Far off with his self-murdering woe
To strange men’s houses. I will keep
Some little dower, and leave behind
All else, contented utterly.
I have swept the madness from the sky
Wherein these brethren slew their kind.
[_As she ceases, exhausted and with the fire gone out of her,_
AIGISTHOS, _with Attendants_, _bursts triumphantly in._]
AIGISTHOS.
O shining day, O dawn of righteousness
Fulfilled! Now, now indeed will I confess
That divine watchers o’er man’s death and birth
Look down on all the anguish of the earth,
Now that I see him lying, as I love
To see him, in this net the Furies wove,
To atone the old craft of his father’s hand.
For Atreus, this man’s father, in this land
Reigning, and by Thyestes in his throne
Challenged—he was his brother and mine own
Father From home and city cast him out;
And he, after long exile, turned about
And threw him suppliant on the hearth, and won
Promise of so much mercy, that his own
Life-blood should reek not in his father’s hall.
Then did that godless brother, Atreus, call,
To greet my sire—More eagerness, O God,
Was there than love!—a feast of brotherhood.
And, feigning joyous banquet, laid as meat
Before him his dead children. The white feet
And finger-fringèd hands apart he set,
Veiled from all seeing, and made separate
The tables. And he straightway, knowing naught,
Took of those bodies, eating that which wrought
No health for all his race. And when he knew
The unnatural deed, back from the board he threw,
Spewing that murderous gorge, and spurning brake
The table, to make strong the curse he spake:
“Thus perish all of Pleisthenês begot!”
For that lies this man here; and all the plot
Is mine, most righteously. For me, the third,
When butchering my two brethren, Atreus spared
And cast me with my broken sire that day,
A little thing in swaddling clothes, away
To exile; where I grew, and at the last
Justice hath brought me home! Yea though outcast
In a far land, mine arm hath reached this king;
My brain, my hate, wrought all the counselling;
And all is well. I have seen mine enemy
Dead in the snare, and care not if I die!
LEADER.
Aigisthos, to insult over the dead
I like not. All the counsel, thou hast said,
Was thine alone; and thine the will that spilled
This piteous blood. As justice is fulfilled,
Thou shalt not ’scape—so my heart presageth—-The
day of cursing and the hurlèd death.
AIGISTHOS.
How, thou poor oarsman of the nether row,
When the main deck is master? Sayst thou so?…
To such old heads the lesson may prove hard,
I fear me, when Obedience is the word.
But hunger, and bonds, and cold, help men to find
Their wits.—They are wondrous healers of the mind!
Hast eyes and seest not this?—Against a spike
Kick not, for fear it pain thee if thou strike.
LEADER (_turning from him to_ CLYTEMNESTRA).
Woman! A soldier fresh from war! To keep
Watch o’er his house and shame him in his sleep…
To plot this craft against a lord of spears…
[CLYTEMNESTRA, _as though in a dream, pays no heed._ AIGISTHOS
_interupts._]
AIGISTHOS.
These be the words, old man, that lead to tears!
Thou hast an opposite to Orpheus’ tongue,
Who chained all things with his enchanting song,
For thy mad noise will put the chains on thee.
Enough! Once mastered thou shalt tamer be.
LEADER.
Thou master? Is old Argos so accurst?
Thou plotter afar off, who never durst
Raise thine own hand to affront and strike him down…
AIGISTHOS.
To entice him was the wife’s work. I was known
By all men here, his old confessed blood-foe.
Howbeit, with his possessions I will know
How to be King. And who obeys not me
Shall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he,
Corn-flushed. Hunger, and hunger’s prison mate,
The clammy murk, shall see his rage abate.
LEADER.
Thou craven soul! Why not in open strife
Slay him? Why lay the blood-sin on his wife,
Staining the Gods of Argos, making ill
The soil thereof?…But young Orestes still
Liveth. Oh, Fate will guide him home again,
Avenging, conquering, home to kill these twain!
AIGISTHOS.
’Fore God, if ’tis your pleasure thus to speak and do, ye soon shall
hear!
Ho there, my trusty pikes, advance! There cometh business for the
spear.
[_A body of Spearmen, from concealment outside, rush in and dominate
the stage._]
LEADER.
Ho there, ye Men of Argos! Up! Stand and be ready, sword from sheath!
AIGISTHOS.
By Heaven, I also, sword in hand, am ready, and refuse not death!
LEADER.
Come, find it! We accept thy word. Thou offerest what we hunger for.
[_Some of the Elders draw swords with the Leader; others have collapsed
with weakness. Men from_ AGAMEMNON’S _retinue have gathered and prepare
for battle, when, before they can come to blows,_ CLYTEMNESTRA _breaks
from her exhausted silence._]
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Nay, peace, O best-belovèd! Peace! And let us work no evil more.
Surely the reaping of the past is a full harvest, and not good,
And wounds enough are everywhere.—Let us not stain ourselves with
blood.
Ye reverend Elders, go your ways, to his own dwelling every one,
Ere things be wrought for which men suffer.—What we did must needs be
done.
And if of all these strifes we now may have no more, oh, I will kneel
And praise God, bruisèd though we be beneath the Daemon’s heavy heel.
This is the word a woman speaks, to hear if any man will deign.
AIGISTHOS.
And who are these to burst in flower of folly thus of tongue and brain,
And utter words of empty sound and perilous, tempting Fortune’s frown,
And leave wise counsel all forgot, and gird at him who wears the crown?
LEADER.
To cringe before a caitiff’s crown, it squareth not with Argive ways.
AIGISTHOS. (_sheathing his sword and turning from them_).
Bah, I will be a hand of wrath to fall on thee in after days.
LEADER.
Not so, if God in after days shall guide Orestes home again!
AIGISTHOS.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams…and know such food is vain.
LEADER.
Go forward and wax fat! Defile the right for this thy little hour!
AIGISTHOS.
I spare thee now. Know well for all this folly thou shalt feel my
power.
LEADER.
Aye, vaunt thy greatness, as a bird beside his mate doth vaunt and
swell.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Vain hounds are baying round thee; oh, forget them! Thou and I shall
dwell
As Kings in this great House. We two at last will order all things
well.
[_The Elders and the remains of_ AGAMEMNON’S _retinue retire sullenly,
leaving the Spearmen in possession._ CLYTEMNESTRA _and_ AIGISTHOS _turn
and enter the Palace._]