Strophe 3
Dire was the voice that greeted first
Thy sire’s return, and dire the cry
That from the banquet-chamber burst,
A wail of agony;
What time the brazen axe’s blow
Struck him and laid him low,
’Twas lust begat and craft conceived the deed,
A monstrous offspring of a monstrous seed,
Whether a god or mortal wrought the woe.
Dawn, the darkest of all morrows,
Night, the crown of all my sorrows,
When that foul feast for the dead
By those traitors twain was spread,
Who slew my sire—me too
In slaying him they slew.
May the great Olympian King
Send on them like suffering;
Bitter be of sin the fruit;
May they perish branch and root!
Antistrophe 3
O curb thy tongue! hast thou no thought
How thine own misery thou hast wrought,
And mak’st a burden of thy life
By ever heaping strife on strife
In sullen mood? Ill fares the right
When feebleness contends with might.
Bitter constraint compelled me, and I know
My heart with wrath did overflow;
But never while life lasts will I control,
Thus wronged, the indignant passion of my soul.
Ye mean me well, but solace is there none
For woes like mine, so all who know must own.
Forbear, kind comforters, forbear; be sure
A case so desperate admits no cure.
What respite to my sorrows, what relief?
No tears, no moans, can satisfy such grief.
O heap not misery on misery,
As a fond mother I would plead with thee.
No, for this villainy grows and knows no bound.
Where can a race be found
So vile as they, to disregard the dead?
By praise of such men I were ill bestead.
O may I ne’er, if fate should on me smile,
In careless ease sad memories beguile,
Clipping the pinions of my mournful song,
The dirges due that to my sire belong.
For if to dust and nothingness the dead
Are doomed, nor blood for blood be shed,
Farewell to sanctities of law,
Farewell to reverence and awe.
I came in thy behalf no less than mine,
Daughter, but if my words displease thee, well,
Have it thy way; we follow thee no less.
It shames me, friends, that ye should thus set down
To frowardness my too persistent grief.
But since I yield to hard necessity,
Bear with me. How indeed could any woman
Of noble blood who sees her father’s home
Plague-stricken, as I see it night and day,
And each day stricken worse, not do as I?
For me a mother’s love has turned to hate;
In my own home on sufferance I live
With my sire’s murderers, on whose will it rests
To give or to withhold my daily bread.
Think what a life is mine, to see each day
Aegisthus seated on my father’s throne,
Wearing the royal robes my father wore,
Pouring libations on the hearth, whereat
He slew him, and, to crown his insolence,
The assassin lays him in my father’s bed
Beside my mother—mother shall I call
His paramour? So lost to shame is she
That the adulteress fears no vengeance. No,
As if exulting in her infamy,
She watches month to month to know the day
Whereon by treachery she slew my sire,
And keeps that day with dance and sacrifice,
Each month, of sheep to tutelary gods.
Beholding this I weep and waste within,
And to myself bewail the unhallowed feast
Named of my sire, with silent tears, for e’en
The luxury of wailing is denied me.
This woman (saintly is her speech) upbraids
And rates me thus: “Ungodly, hateful girl,
Hast thou alone to bear a father’s loss,
Art thou the only mourner? Out upon thee!
Perdition seize thee! and in hell may’st thou
Find no deliverance from thy present grief!”
So rails she, save at times when rumours run
Orestes is at hand, then wild with rage
She thunders in my ears “This is thy doing;
Was it not thou who from my hands didst steal
Orestes and convey him safe away?
Mark my words, thou shalt rue it!” So she screams,
And her abettor’s there to egg her on,
Her glorious consort who repeats her gibes,
That rogue in grain, that dastardly poltroon,
Who fights his battles with a woman’s aid.
Meanwhile I wait until Orestes comes
To end my woes, and waiting pine away.
By ever dallying he has quite destroyed
The hopes I had and those I might have had.
In such a case what room is there, my friends,
For patience, what for piety? In sooth
Those in ill plight are driven to evil ways.
Stay, tell me, is Aegisthus nigh at hand,
While thus thou speakest, or is he from home?
From home, of course! Think you, were he within,
I should thus venture forth? He is now afield.
More freely then may I converse with thee,
If this is so.
It is; ask what thou wilt.
’Tis of thy brother I would question thee.
Comes he, or tarries yet? I fain would know.
He says “I come,” but does not what he says.
A man thinks twice with some great work in hand.
I thought not twice when I delivered him.
Take heart, he is loyal and will not fail his friends,
I trust him, else I had not lived so long.
No more for this time; at the doors I see
Chrysothemis, thy sister, of one sire
Born and one mother; in her hands she bears
Gifts for the tomb that use and wont ordain.
Sister, why com’st thou once more to declaim
In public at the outer gate? Has time
Not schooled thee to desist from idle rage?
I too, my sister, chafe no less than thou
At our sad fortunes, and had I the power,
Would make it plain how I regard our masters.
But in the storm ’tis best to reef the sail,
Nor utter threats we cannot execute.
I would thou wert likeminded; yet I know
Justice is on thy side, and I am wrong.
Yet if I am to keep my liberty,
I needs must bow before the powers that be.
O shame that thou, the child of such a sire,
Should’st him forget and take thy mother’s part;
For all these admonitions are not thine,
A lesson thou repeatest, learnt of her.
Make thine election then, to be unwise,
Or show thy wisdom by forgetting friends.
Thou saidst, “If but the power were granted me,
I would make plain the hate I feel for them;”
And yet when I am straining
