Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear—
By the great vengeance for my murdered child,
By Atè, by the Fury unto whom
This man lies sacrificed by hand of mine,
I do not look to tread the hall of Fear,
While in this hearth and home of mine there burns
The light of love—Aegisthus—as of old
Loyal, a stalwart shield of confidence—
As true to me as this slain man was false,
Wronging his wife with paramours at Troy,
Fresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there!
Behold him dead—behold his captive prize,
Seeress and harlot—comfort of his bed,
True prophetess, true paramour—I wot
The sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,
Full oft, of every rower, than was she.
See, ill they did, and ill requites them now.
His death ye know: she as a dying swan
Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,
Close to his side, and to my couch has left
A sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.
CHORUS
Ah woe and well-a-day! I would that Fate—
Not bearing agony too great,
Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain—
Would bid mine eyelids keep
The morningless and unawakening sleep!
For life is weary, now my lord is slain,
The gracious among kings!
Hard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,
And for a woman’s sake, on Ilian land—
Now is his life hewn down, and by a woman’s hand.
O Helen, O infatuate soul,
Who bad’st the tides of battle roll,
O’erwhelming thousands, life on life,
’Neath Ilion’s wall!
And now lies dead the lord of all.
The blossom of thy storied sin
Bears blood’s inexpiable stain,
O thou that erst, these halls within,
Wert unto all a rock of strife,
A husband’s bane!
CLYTEMNESTRA
Peace! pray not thou for death as though
Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,
Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban
The name of Helen, nor recall
How she, one bane of many a man,
Sent down to death the Danaan lords,
To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,
And wrought the woe that shattered all.
CHORUS
Fiend of the race! that swoopest fell
Upon the double stock of Tantalus,
Lording it o’er me by a woman’s will,
Stern, manful, and imperious—
A bitter sway to me!
Thy very form I see,
Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,
Exulting o’er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain!
CLYTEMNESTRA
Right was that word—thou namest well
The brooding race-fiend, triply fell!
From him it is that murder’s thirst,
Blood-lapping, inwardly is nursed—
Ere time the ancient scar can sain,
New blood comes welling forth again.
CHORUS
Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,
That fiend of whom thy voice has cried,
Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,
An all-devouring doom!
Ah woe, ah Zeus! from Zeus all things befall—
Zeus the high cause and finisher of all!—
Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed
All things, by him fulfilled!
Yet ah my king, my king no more!
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee?
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,
And lo! I see thee lie,
And thro’ a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die!
A death of shame—ah woe on woe!
A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!
CLYTEMNESTRA
My guilt thou harpest, o’er and o’er!
I bid thee reckon me no more
As Agamemnon’s spouse.
The old Avenger, stern of mood
For Atreus and his feast of blood,
Hath struck the lord of Atreus’ house,
And in the semblance of his wife
The king hath slain.—
Yea, for the murdered children’s life,
A chieftain’s in requital ta’en.
CHORUS
Thou guiltless of this murder, thou!
Who dares such thought avow?
Yet it may be, wroth for the parent’s deed,
The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.
Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on
Thro’ streams of blood by kindred shed,
Exacting the accompt for children dead,
For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.
Yet ah my king, my king no more!
What words to say, what tears to pour
Can tell my love for thee?
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,
And lo! I see thee lie,
And thro’ a coward, impious wound
Pant forth thy life and die!
A death of shame—ah woe on woe!
A treach’rous hand, a cleaving blow!
CLYTEMNESTRA
I deem not that the death he died
Had overmuch of shame:
For this was he who did provide
Foul wrong unto his house and name:
His daughter, blossom of my womb,
He gave unto a deadly doom,
Iphigenia, child of tears!
And as he wrought, even so he fares.
Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell;
For by the sword his sin he wrought,
And by the sword himself is brought
Among the dead to dwell.
CHORUS
Ah whither shall I fly?
For all in ruin sinks the kingly hall;
Nor swift device nor shift of thought have I,
To ’scape its fall.
A little while the gentler rain-drops fail;
I stand distraught—a ghastly interval,
Till on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail
Of blood and doom. Even now fate whets the steel
On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,
The steel that smites, in Justice’ hold,
Another death to deal.
O Earth! that I had lain at rest
And lapped for ever in thy breast,
Ere I had seen my chieftain fall
Within the laver’s silver wall,
Low-lying on dishonoured bier!
And who shall give him sepulchre,
And who the wail of sorrow pour?
Woman, ’tis thine no more!
A graceless gift unto his shade
Such tribute, by his murd’ress paid!
Strive not thus wrongly to atone
The impious deed thy hand hath done.
Ah who above the god-like chief
Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?
Who speak above his lowly grave
The last sad praises of the brave?
CLYTEMNESTRA
Peace! for such task is none of thine.
By me he fell, by me he died,
And now his burial rites be mine!
Yet from these halls no mourners’ train
Shall celebrate his obsequies;
Only by Acheron’s rolling tide
His child shall spring unto his side,
And in a daughter’s loving wise
Shall clasp and kiss him once again!
CHORUS
Lo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg’d by sorrow—
And who the end can know?
The slayer of to-day shall die to-morrow—
The wage of wrong is woe.
While Time shall be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,
His law is fixed and stern;
On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured—
The tides of doom return.
The children of the curse abide within
These halls of high estate—
And none can wrench from off the home of sin
The clinging grasp of fate.
CLYTEMNESTRA
Now walks thy word aright, to tell
This ancient truth of oracle;
But I with vows of sooth will pray
To him, the power that holdeth sway
O’er all the race of Pleisthenes—
_Tho’ dark the deed and deep the guilt,
With this last blood, my hands have spilt,
I pray thee let thine anger cease!
I pray thee pass from us away
To some new race in other lands,
There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay
The lives of men by kindred hands._
For me ’tis all sufficient meed,
Tho’ little wealth or power were won,
So I can say, _’Tis past and done.
The bloody lust and murderous,
The inborn frenzy of our house,
Is ended, by my deed!_
[_Enter Aegisthus._
AEGISTHUS
Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail!
I dare at length aver that gods above
Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.
I, I who stand and thus exult to see
This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,
Slain in requital of his father’s craft.
Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man’s sire,
The lord and monarch of this land of old,
Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,
Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,
And drave him from his home to banishment.
Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole
And clung a suppliant to the hearth divine,
And for himself won this immunity—
Not with his own blood to defile the land
That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire
Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned—
With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold
In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,
And bade my father to his board, and set
Before him flesh that was his children once.
First, sitting at the upper board alone,
He hid the fingers and the feet, but gave
The rest—and readily Thyestes took
What to his ignorance no semblance wore
Of human flesh, and ate: behold what curse
That eating brought upon our race and name!
For when he knew what all unhallowed thing
He thus had wrought, with horror’s bitter cry
Back-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,
On Pelops’ house a deadly curse he spake—
_As darkly as I spurn this damnèd food,
So perish all the race of Pleisthenes!_
Thus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,
And I—who else?—this murder wove and planned;
For me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,
Of the three children youngest, Atreus sent
To banishment by my sad father’s side:
But Justice brought me home once more, grown now
To manhood’s years; and stranger tho’ I was,
My right hand reached unto the chieftain’s life,
Plotting and planning all that malice bade.
And death itself were honour now to me,
Beholding him in Justice’ ambush ta’en.
CHORUS
Aegisthus, for this insolence of thine
That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.
Of thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain
The chieftain, by thine own unaided plot
Devised the piteous death: I rede thee well,
Think not thy head shall ’scape, when right prevails,
The people’s ban, the stones of death and doom.
AEGISTHUS
This word from thee, this word from one who rows
Low at the oars beneath, what time we rule,
We of the upper tier? Thou’lt know anon,
’Tis bitter to be taught again in age,
By one so young, submission at the word.
But iron of the chain and hunger’s throes
Can minister unto an o’erswoln pride
Marvellous well, ay, even in the old.
Hast eyes, and seest not this? Peace—kick not thus
Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain!
CHORUS
Thou womanish man, waiting till war did cease,
Home-watcher and defiler of the couch,
And arch-deviser of the chieftain’s doom!
AEGISTHUS
Bold words again! but they shall end in tears.
The very converse, thine, of Orpheus’ tongue:
He roused and led in ecstasy of joy
All things that heard his voice melodious;
But thou as with the futile cry of curs
Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace!
Or strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.
CHORUS
Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down—
Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,
But not with thine own hand to smite the blow!
AEGISTHUS
That fraudful force was woman’s very part,
Not mine, whom deep suspicion from of old
Would have debarred. Now by his treasure’s aid
My purpose holds to rule the citizens.
But whoso will not bear my guiding hand,
Him for his corn-fed mettle I will drive
Not as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,
But to the shafts with heaviest harness bound.
Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,
Shall look on him and shall behold him tame.
CHORUS
Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight
To deal in murder, while a woman’s hand,
Staining and shaming Argos and its gods,
Availed to slay him? Ho, if anywhere
The light of life smite on Orestes’ eyes,
Let him, returning by some guardian fate,
Hew down with force her paramour and her!
AEGISTHUS
How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly understand.
CHORUS
Up to action, O my comrades! for the fight is hard at hand. Swift, your
right hands to the sword hilt! bare the weapon as for strife—
AEGISTHUS
Lo! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death or life.
CHORUS
’Twas thy word and we accept it: onward to the chance of war!
CLYTEMNESTRA
Nay, enough, enough, my champion! we will smite and slay no more.
Already have we reaped enough the harvest-field of guilt:
Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.
Peace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed,
Lest ill valour meet our vengeance—’twas a necessary deed.
But enough of toils and troubles—be the end, if ever, now,
Ere thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.
’Tis a woman’s word of warning, and let who will list thereto.
AEGISTHUS
But that these should loose and lavish reckless blossoms of the tongue,
And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of wrong,
And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler’s word—
CHORUS
Ruler? but ’tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard lord!
AEGISTHUS
I will follow to chastise thee in my coming days of sway.
CHORUS
Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward way.
AEGISTHUS
Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their return.
CHORUS
Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while ’tis thy turn.
AEGISTHUS
Thou shalt pay, be well assurèd, heavy quittance for thy pride
CHORUS
Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock, his mate beside!
CLYTEMNESTRA
Heed not thou too highly of them—let the cur-pack growl and yell:
I and thou will rule the palace and will order all things well.
[_Exeunt_.
THE LIBATION-BEARERS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ORESTES
CHORUS OF CAPTIVE WOMEN
ELECTRA
A NURSE
CLYTEMNESTRA
AEGISTHUS
AN ATTENDANT
PYLADES
_The Scene is the Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae; afterwards, the Palace
of Atreus, hard by the Tomb._
_Orestes_
L ord 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.
[_Exeunt Pylades and Orestes; enter the Chorus bearing vessels for
libation; Electra follows them; they pace slowly towards the tomb of
Agamemnon_.
CHORUS
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.
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_.
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.
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.
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 Atè tarries long, but at the last
The sinner’s heart is cast
Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain.
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 vain.
And upon me—ah me!—the gods have laid
The woe that wrapped round Troy,
What time they led 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
Hand maidens, 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-beloved wife unto her well-beloved 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.
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.
CHORUS
Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.
ELECTRA
And of his kin whom dare I name as kind?
CHORUS
Thyself; and next, whoe’er Aegisthus scorns.
ELECTRA
Then ’tis myself and thou, my prayer must name.
CHORUS
Whoe’er they be, ’tis thine to know and name them.
ELECTRA
Is there no other we may claim as ours?
CHORUS
Think of Orestes, though far-off he be.
ELECTRA
Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.
CHORUS
Mindfully, next, on those who shed the blood—
ELECTRA
Pray on them what? expound, instruct my doubt.
CHORUS
This; _Upon them some god or mortal come_——
ELECTRA
As judge or as avenger? speak thy thought.
CHORUS
Pray in set terms, _Who shall the slayer slay_.
ELECTRA
Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven?
CHORUS
How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe?
ELECTRA
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 foster-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 foes,
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
Woe, woe, woe!
Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground
Where our lord lies low:
Fall and cleanse away the cursed libation’s stain,
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—
Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.
CHORUS
Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.
ELECTRA
I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.
CHORUS
Shorn from what man or what deep-girded maid?
ELECTRA
That may he guess who will; the sign is plain.
CHORUS
Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.
ELECTRA
None is there here but I, to clip such gift.
CHORUS
For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.
ELECTRA
And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like—
CHORUS
Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.
ELECTRA
Like unto those my father’s children wear.
CHORUS
Then is this lock Orestes’ secret gift?
ELECTRA
Most like it is unto the curls he wore,
CHORUS
Yet how dared he to come unto his home?
ELECTRA
He hath but sent it, clipt to mourn his sire.
CHORUS
It is a sorrow grievous as his death,
That he should live yet never dare return.
ELECTRA
Yea, and my heart o’erflows with gall of grief,
And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart;
Like to the first drops after drought, my tears
Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide,
As on this lock I gaze; I cannot deem
That any Argive save Orestes’ self
Was ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,
Hath she, the murd’ress, shorn and laid this lock
To mourn him whom she slew—my mother she,
Bearing no mother’s heart, but to her race
A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven!
Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,
That this adornment cometh of the hand
Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,
I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair!
Ah well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice
To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,
Bidding me sway no more ’twixt fear and hope,
Clearly commanding, _Cast me hence away,
Clipped was I from some head thou lovest not;_
Or, _I am kin to thee, and here, as thou,
I come to weep and deck our father’s grave._
Aid me, ye gods! for well indeed ye know
How in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,
Like to the seaman’s bark, we whirl and stray.
But, if God will our life, how strong shall spring,
From seed how small, the new tree of our home!—
Lo ye, a second sign—these footsteps, look,—
Like to my own, a corresponsive print;
And look, another footmark,—this his own,
And that the foot of one who walked with him.
Mark, how the heel and tendons’ print combine,
Measured exact, with mine coincident!
Alas! for doubt and anguish rack my mind.
ORESTES (_approaching suddenly_)
Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled, _Fair fall the rest of
what I ask of heaven_.
ELECTRA
Wherefore? what win I from the gods by prayer?
ORESTES
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart’s desire.
ELECTRA
On whom of mortals know’st thou that I call?
ORESTES
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.
ELECTRA
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer?
ORESTES
I, I am he; seek not one more akin.
ELECTRA
Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me?
ORESTES
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.
ELECTRA
Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woe!
ORESTES
’Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.
ELECTRA
Speak I with thee then as Orestes’ self?
ORESTES
My very face thou see’st and know’st me not,
And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock
Shorn for my father’s grave, and when thy quest
Was eager on the footprints I had made,
Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,
Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me!
Lay now this ringlet whence ’twas shorn, and judge,
And look upon this robe, thine own hands’ work,
The shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon—
Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,
For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.