Part 6

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._

KILISSA My mistress bids me, with what speed I may, Call in Aegisthus to the stranger guests, That he may come, and standing face to face, A man with men, may thus more clearly learn This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves She hid beneath the glance of fictive grief Laughter for what is wrought—to her desire Too well; but ill, ill, ill besets the house, Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear. And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart Hearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day! The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes, Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus’ house Befel, was grievous to mine inmost heart, But never yet did I endure such pain. All else I bore with set soul patiently; But now—alack, alack!—Orestes dear, The day and night-long travail of my soul! Whom from his mother’s womb, a new-born child, I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft Toilsome and profitless my service was, When his shrill outcry called me from my couch! For the young child, before the sense is born, Hath but a dumb thing’s life, must needs be nursed As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing Hath nought of speech, whate’er discomfort come— Hunger or thirst or lower weakling need,— For the babe’s stomach works its own relief. Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised, ’Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes—poor I Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white; Two works in one, two handicrafts I took, When in mine arms the father laid the boy. And now he’s dead—alack and well-a-day! Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power Pollutes this house—fair tidings these to him!

CHORUS Say then, with what array she bids him come?

KILISSA What say’st thou! Speak more clearly for mine ear.

CHORUS Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone?

KlLISSA She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.

CHORUS Nay, tell not that unto our loathèd lord, But speed to him, put on the mien of joy, Say, _Come along, fear nought, the news is good:_ A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale.

KILISSA Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy?

CHORUS What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair?

KILISSA And how? the home’s hope with Orestes dies.

CHORUS Not yet—a seer, though feeble, this might see.

KILISSA What say’st thou? Know’st thou aught, this tale belying?

CHORUS Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,— What the gods will, themselves can well provide.

KILISSA Well, I will go, herein obeying thee; And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.

[_Exit._

CHORUS Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell, Hear thou, O hear my prayer! Grant to my rightful lords to prosper well Even as their zeal is fair! For right, for right goes up aloud my cry— Zeus, aid him, stand anigh!

Into his father’s hall he goes To smite his father’s foes. Bid him prevail! by thee on throne of triumph set, Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.

Bethink thee, the young steed, the orphan foal Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car Of doom is harnessed fast. Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal, Speed thou his pace,—O that no chance may mar The homeward course, the last!

And ye who dwell within the inner chamber Where shines the storèd joy of gold— Gods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember; Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old, With sudden rightful blow; Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed With progeny of blood,— Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low!

O thou who dwell’st in Delphi’s mighty cave, Grant us to see this home once more restored Unto its rightful lord! Let it look forth, from veils of death, with joyous eye Unto the dawning light of liberty; And Hermes, Maia’s child, lend hand to save, Willing the right, and guide Our state with Fortune’s breeze adown the favouring tide. Whate’er in darkness hidden lies, He utters at his will; He at his will throws darkness on our eye By night and eke by day inscrutable.

Then, then shall wealth atone The ills that here were done. Then, then will we unbind, Fling free on wafting wind Of joy, the woman’s voice that waileth now In piercing accents for a chief laid low; And this our song shall be— _Hail to the commonwealth restored! Hail to the freedom won to me! All hail! for doom hath passed from him, my well-loved lord!_

And thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree, Up to the deed that for thy sire is done! And if she wail unto thee, _Spare, O son_— Cry, _Aid, O father_—and achieve the deed, The horror of man’s tongue, the gods’ great need! Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had, The bitter woe work forth, Appease the summons of the dead, The wrath of friends on earth; Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom, And do to utter death him that pollutes thy home.

[_Enter Aegisthus_.

AEGISTHUS Hither and not unsummoned have I come; For a new rumour, borne by stranger men Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears, Of hap unwished-for, even Orestes’ death. This were new sorrow, a blood-bolter’d load Laid on the house that doth already bow Beneath a former wound that festers deep. Dare I opine these words have truth and life? Or are they tales, of woman’s terror born, That fly in the void air, and die disproved? Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to my soul?

CHORUS What we have heard, we heard; go thou within Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale. Strengthless are tidings, thro’ another heard; Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.

AEGISTHUS I too will meet and test the messenger, Whether himself stood witness of the death, Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt: None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.

[_Exit._

CHORUS Zeus, Zeus! what word to me is given? What cry or prayer, invoking heaven, Shall first by me be utterèd? What speech of craft? nor all revealing, Nor all too warily concealing— Ending my speech, shall aid the deed? For lo! in readiness is laid The dark emprise, the rending blade; Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve The dateless doom of Atreus’ name, Or—kindling torch and joyful flame In sign of new-won liberty— Once more Orestes shall retrieve His father’s wealth, and, throned on high, Shall hold the city’s fealty. So mighty is the grasp whereby, Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw, Unseconded, a double foe Ho for the victory!

[_A loud cry within._

VOICE OF AEGISTHUS Help, help, alas!

CHORUS Ho there, ho! how is’t within? Is’t done? is’t over? Stand we here aloof While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem Of this dark deed; with death is strife fulfilled.

[_Enter a slave_