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 call
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 show,
Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.
CHORUS
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 see!
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 power 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 fencèd 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
for the invocation which follows_.
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 had’st 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 blessèd 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 doer—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 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 home 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 near,—
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 I
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 Atè’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.
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 shall 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 flex-mesh, in the depth submerged.
Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,
And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.
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.
CHORUS
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?
CHORUS
Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.
ORESTES
What then the sum and issue of the tale?
CHORUS
Even as a swaddled child, she lull’d the thing.
ORESTES
What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?
CHORUS
Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.
ORESTES
How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?
CHORUS
Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.
ORESTES
Not vain this dream—it bodes a man’s revenge.
CHORUS
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.
CHORUS
So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,
Siding 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 ta’en
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 haunted? 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.
[_Exit with Pylades._
CHORUS
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.
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 possess
The woman, even as the lioness,
Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,
The link of wedded life?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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;
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.
[_Enter Orestes and Pylades, in guise of 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.
[_Enter Clytemnestra_.
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 them 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. Take him within
[_To the slave._
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
[_Exit Clytemnestra._
CHORUS
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.
I wot the stranger worketh woe within—
For lo! I see come forth, suffused with tears,
Orestes’ nurse. What ho, Kilissa—thou
Beyond the doors? Where goest thou? Methinks
Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.
[_Enter Kilissa, a nurse._