Distress, and, having yet good friends, who know
My heart, take counsel how to affront the blow. Clytemnestra goes back into the Women’s House; Attendants lead Orestes and his followers through the main door.
Ye handmaidens, arise, be bold:
See if our moving lips have power
To aid Orestes in his hour;
For sure ye loved this House of old.
Thou holy Earth, thou holy shore
Beyond the grave, where rests his head
The Lord of Ships, the King, the Dead,
Now list, now aid, or never more!
The hour is full. The Guileful Word
Descends to wrestle for the right,
And Hermês guards the hour of night
For him that smiteth with the sword. The Nurse enters from the Women’s House, weeping.
The stranger works some mischief, it would seem!
Yonder I see Orestes’ Nurse, a-stream
With tears.—How now, Kilissa, whither bound,
And Grief the unbidden partner of thy round?
The mistress bids me call Aigisthos here31
Quickly, to see these two, and learn more clear,
As man from man, the truth of what they tell.
Oh, to us slaves she makes it pitiable
And grievous, and keeps hid behind her eyes
The leaping laughter. Aye, ’tis a rich prize
For her, and for the House stark misery,
This news the travellers tell so trippingly.
And, Oh, Aigisthos, he, you may be sure,
Will laugh to hear it! … Ah, I am a poor
Old woman! Such a tangle as they were,
The troubles in this House, and hard to bear,
Long years back, and all aching in my breast!
But none that hurt like this! Through all the rest …
Well, I was sore, but lived them down and smiled.
But little Orestes, my heart’s care, the child
I took straight from his mother; and save me
He had no other nurse! And, Oh, but he
Could scream and order me to tramp the dark!
Aye, times enough, and trouble enough, and stark
Wasted at that! A small thing at the breast,
That has no sense, you tend it like a beast,
By guesswork. For he never speaks, not he,
A babe in swaddling clothes, if thirst maybe
Or hunger comes, or any natural need.
The little belly takes its way. Indeed,
’Twas oft a prophet he wanted, not a nurse;
And often enough my prophecies, of course,
Came late, and then ’twas clothes to wash and dry,
And fuller’s work as much as nurse’s. Aye,
I followed both trades, from the day when first
His father gave me Orestes to be nursed. …
And now he is dead; and strangers come and tell
The news to me. And this poor miserable
Old woman must go tell the plunderer
Who shames this house! Oh, glad he will be to hear!
How doth she bid him come? In what array?
I take thee not. … What is it ye would say?
Comes he with spears to guard him or alone?
She bids him bring the spearmen of the throne.
Speak not that bidding to our loathèd Lord!
“Alone, quick, fearing nothing” is the word.
So speak, and in thy heart let joy prevail!
The teller straighteneth many a crookèd tale.
What ails thee? Are these tidings to thy mind?
The wind is cold, but Zeus may change the wind.
How, when Orestes, our one hope, is dead?
Not yet! So much the dullest seer can read.
What mean’st thou? There is something ye have heard!
Go, tell thy tale. Obey thy mistress’ word!
God, where He guardeth, guardeth faithfully.
I go.—May all be well, God helping me! The Nurse goes out.
Strophe 1
—Lo, I pray God, this day:
Father of Olympus, hear!
Grant thy fortunes healingly
Fall for them who crave to see
In this House of lust and fear,
Purity, purity.
—I have sinned not, I have spoken
In the name of Law unbroken;
Zeus, as thou art just, we pray thee
Be his guard!32
There is One within the Gate
Of his foemen, where they wait;
Oh, prefer him, Zeus, before them
And exalt and make him great:
Two- and threefold shall he pay thee
Love’s reward.
Antistrophe 1
—Seest thou one lost, alone,
Child of him who loved thee well?
As a young steed he doth go,
Maddened, in the yoke of woe:
Oh, set measure on the swell,
Forth and fro, forth and fro,
Of the beating hoofs that bear him
Through this bitter course. Oh, spare him!
By his innocence we pray thee
Be his guard!
There is One within the Gate
Of his foemen, where they wait;
Oh, prefer him, Zeus, before them
And exalt and make him great:
Two- and threefold shall he pay thee
Love’s reward.
Strophe 2
—Gods of the treasure-house within,
One-hearted, where the bronzen door
On darkness gloateth and on gold:
With present cleansing wash the old
Blight of this house: and aged Sin
Amid the gloom shall breed no more!
And, O light of the Great Cavern, let it be
That this Man’s house look up again, and see,
Till the dead veil of scorn
And long darkness shall be torn,
And the kind faces shine and old Argolis be free!
Antistrophe 2
—And, Oh, let Hermês, Maia-born,
Be near, who moveth in his kind,
As the wind blows, to help at need:
The word he speaketh none may read:
Before his eyes the Day is torn
With darkness and the Night is blind.
And, O Light of the Great Cavern, let it be
That this Man’s house look up again, and see,
Till the dead veil of scorn
And long darkness shall be torn,
And the kind faces shine and old Argolis be free!
Strophe 3
—Then, then the prison shall unclose:
A wind of Freedom stream above:
A flood which faileth not, a voice
Telling of women that rejoice,
One harp in many souls, one spell
Enchanted. Ho, the ship goes well!
For me, for me, this glory grows,
And Evil flies from those I love.
Oh, in
