CHORUS. ANTISTROPHE I. O marvellous in counsel, And mighty-souled thy word, As though with taint blood-dripping Thy frenzied soul is stirred, For thou hast said, and words they be full fierce," Be fore mine eye A clot of blood, of blood bright red, is glaring fitfully, Unhonoured, unavenged, Undimnëd and unchanged 244 It glares:" but thou all-helpless, and all thy friends away, Must yet be left, and cleft for cleft, and blow for blow repay.245 QUEEN CLYTEMNESTRA. And now-in turn from me thyself dost hear This man I sacrificed, no dream at all Have I that Fear should pace this Palace Hall,246 His trusty berth-mate known on shipboard well,2 248 On bench and spar at home.—Their deeds they dared, And for their daring not unfitly fared. How fared? The man-accomplice thus and she [She here points scornfully to the dead body of CASSANDRA, lying near that of the King.] CHORUS. STROPHE I. Alas! would Heaven that swiftly some kind lot Nor rack with pangs, but soothe me as a friend; The life a woman's hand dared take. STROPHE II. O! Helen! witless Helen! STROPHE III. And thou thyself didst make The many-suitored one, the perfect Helen, A Hell-enrooted, an up-towering strife,254 QUEEN CLYTEMNESTRA. STROPHE IV. Nay, on thyself ne'er imprecate The lot of death, bowed down by these things' weight, Nor unto Helen turn aside thy wrath, As to the one man-slayer, Who singly hath the souls undone Of many a brave Greek host, their one Working the woe whose anguish hath CHORUS. ANTISTROPHE I, Demon, who on the roofs of this sad home Dost, sovereign-like, in thy strong masterdom * O Helen, from the day of thy wooing downwards, thou hast been ever a cause of quarrelling and bloodshed. And now by thine elopement from Sparta thou hast given birth to a second and, if possible, more perfectly destructive Helen than even thyself in thine own person; a Fury, that thou hast re-quickened in this house, by reason of the blood of Iphigenia, which would never have been shed, but for thee and thy flight to Troy: and which moreover has been the death of King Agamemnon. + O Demon, who from Helen and Clytemnestra hast drawn the terrible authority which thou exercisest over this House. QUEEN CLYTEMNESTRA. ANTISTROPHE IV. The judgment of thy mouth aright Now hast thou tuned, since thou that Demon-Wight, Whose stature is three cubits,257 dost accost, Fiend of this race of sorrow; By him their fierce and feverish thirst From him their lust they borrow; CHORUS. STROPHE V. The Demon mighty o'er this house, Thou laud'st. Alas! 'tis ill to laud Woe! woe! through Jove, the cause of all,258 It comes,-for what to mortal men Which of these things without the Gods Woe! woe! for thee, my King! my King! For thee from out my loving soul What shall my death-song be? That thrice-accursed spider's web Thou liest within, beneath, Close-meshed, and in this godless death Forth thy dear life dost breathe. Ah! woe is me! Oh! woe is me! -Unmeet for any freeborn man Thereon to lay his head, By traitorous deed borne down he drops: The stroke, the death-stroke of that glaive, QUEEN CLYTEMNESTRA. STROPHE VI. Thou vauntest that the deed is mine: take heed Thou say'st thou know'st not what. I an Atreidan wife am not; One-in the shape indeed And fashion of this dead man's wife, The old grim gaunt Alastor, vengeance rife, Of Atreus, horrid Banqueter, Stood-and impersonating her, Made this man here pay all the price, And o'er the babes a man full grown for them did sacrifice. CHORUS. ANTISTROPHE V. That of this murder thou art quit, Where stands th' Avoucher, where? With thine perchance his helping hand From its first Fathers; while on tides That run with kinsmen's blood259 Black Ares drives apace and rides Right onward o'er the flood, |