For these twain also in their fall I weep.
Yet, seeing Orestes now through mire so deep
Hath climbed the crest, I can but pray this eye
Of the Great House be not made blind and die.
Strophe 1
Judgment came in the end
To Troy and the Trojans’ lord,
(O Vengeance, heavy to fall!)
There came upon Atreus’ Hall
Lion and lion friend,
A sword came and a sword.
A walker in Pytho’s way
On the neck of her kings hath trod,
A beggar and outcast, yea,
But led by God.
Antistrophe 1
Came He of the laughing lure,
The guile and the secret blow,
(O Vengeance, subtle to slay!)
But there held his hand that day
The Daughter of Zeus, the pure,
Justice yclept below.
Justice they called her name,
For where is a goodlier?
And her breath is a sword of flame
On the foes of her.
Cry, Ho for the perils fled,
For the end of the long dismay!
Cry, Ho for peace and bread;
For the Castle’s lifted head,
For the two defilers dead,
And the winding of Fortune’s way!
Strophe 2
Even as Apollo gave
His charge on the Mountain, He
Who holdeth the Earth-heart Cave,
Hast thou wrought innocently
Great evil, hindered long,
Tracking thy mother’s sin …
Is the power of God hemmed in
So strangely to work with wrong?
Howbeit, let praise be given
To that which is throned in Heaven:
The Gods are strong.
Antistrophe 2
And soon shall the Perfect Hour
O’er the castle’s threshold stone
Pass with his foot of power,
When out to the dark is thrown
The sin thereof and the stain
By waters that purify.
Now, now with a laughing eye
God’s fortune lieth plain;
And a cry on the wind is loud:
“The stranger that held us bowed
Is fallen again!”
O light of the dawn to be!
The curb is broken in twain,
And the mouth of the House set free.
Up, O thou House, and see!
Too long on the face of thee
The dust hath lain! The doors are thrown open, and Orestes discovered standing over the dead bodies of Aigisthos and Clytemnestra. The Household is grouped about him and Attendants hold the great red robe in which Agamemnon was murdered.
He speaks with ever-increasing excitement.
Behold your linkèd conquerors! Behold40
My Father’s foes, the spoilers of the fold!
Oh, lordly were these twain, when thronèd high,
And lovely now, as he who sees them lie
Can read, two lovers faithful to their troth!
They vowed to slay my father, or that both
As one should die, and both the vows were true!
And mark, all ye who hear this tale of rue,
This robe, this trap that did my father greet,
Irons of the hand and shackling of the feet!
Outstretch it north and south: cast wide for me
This man-entangler, that our Sire may see—
Not mine, but He who watcheth all deeds done,
Yea, all my mother’s wickedness, the Sun—
And bear me witness, when they seek some day
To judge me, that in justice I did slay
This woman: for of him I take no heed.
He hath the adulterer’s doom, by law decreed.
But she who planned this treason ’gainst her own
Husband, whose child had lived beneath her zone—
Oh, child of love, now changed to hate and blood!—
What is she? Asp or lamprey of the mud,
That, fangless, rotteth with her touch, so dire
That heart’s corruption and that lust like fire?
Woman? Not woman, though I speak right fair. His eyes are caught by the great red robe.
A dead man’s winding-sheet? A hunter’s snare?
A trap, a toil, a tangling of the feet. …
I think a thief would get him this, a cheat
That robs the stranger. He would snare them so,
And kill them, kill them, and his heart would glow. …
Not in my flesh, not in my house, O God,
May this thing live! Ere that, Oh, lift thy rod
And smiting blast me, dead without a child! He stops exhausted.
O deeds of anger and of pain!
O woman miserably slain!
Alas! Alas!
And he who lives shall grieve again.
Did she the deed or no? This robe defiled
Doth bear me witness, where its web is gored,
How deep the dye was of Aigisthos’ sword;
And blood hath joined with the old years, to spoil
The many tinctures of the broidered coil.
Oh, now I weep, now praise him where he died,
And calling on this web that pierced his side. …
Pain, pain is all my doing, all my fate,
My race, and my begetting: and I hate
This victory that sears me like a brand. …
No mortal thro’ this life shall go
For ever portionless of woe.
Alas! Alas!
It comes to all, or swift or slow.
Yet wait: for I would have you understand.
The end I know not. But methinks I steer
Unseeing, like some broken charioteer,
By curbless visions borne. And at my heart
A thing of terror knocketh, that will start
Sudden a-song, and she must dance to hear.
But while I am still not mad, I here declare
To all who love me, and confess, that I
Have slain my mother, not unrighteously;
Who with my father’s blood hath stained the sod
Of Argos and drawn down the wrath of God.
And the chief spell that wrought me to the deed
Is Loxias, Lord of Pytho, who decreed
His high commandment: if this thing I dare,
He lays on me no sin: if I forbear …
I cannot speak his judgment: none can know
The deeps thereof, no arrow from the bow
Out-top it. Therefore here ye see me, how
I go prepared, with wreaths and olive bough,
To kneel in supplication on the floor
Of Loxias, touch the fire that evermore
Men call the undying, and the midmost stone
Of Earth, flying this blood which is mine own.
And how these evil things were wrought, I pray
All men of Argos on an after day
Remember, and bear witness faithfully
When Meneläus comes. … And take from me,
Living or dead, a wanderer and outcast
For ever, this one word,
