Ch. I'm all perplexed with doubt what part to

take;

They who propose the act should find the means. Ch. That sentiment is just; high-sounding words Can ne'er re-animate the breathless clay.

Ch. Shall we, through love of life, ignobly bow
Before the vile polluters of this house?

Ch. It must not be: to die were better far-
Death is a milder scourge than tyranny.*

Ch. Can we with reason from these groans infer
That death already seals our monarch's eyes?
Such confidence more lucid proof demands:
Wide is the space 'twixt knowledge and conjecture.
Ch. Just is this caution: let us then take means
To ascertain the great Atrides' fate.

* Death is a milder scourge, &c. The irresolution and wavering of old age is expressively depictured in the dialogue of the old men who compose the chorus, yet it is pervaded by the high spirit of freeborn Greeks. Butler, however, has justly observed, that their delay to enter within was a necessary consequence of that rule of Grecian tragedy which forbids the chorus to quit the orchestra throughout the performance.-Vide Preliminary Dissertation, p. 60.

R

SCENE VIII.

CLYTEMNESTRA, and the persons composing the CHORUS.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

My former words were for the occasion framed;
But other words I now will boldly speak.

Who that with artful policy has spread

The net of evil for a hated foe,

Will fail to guard against his leaping o'er

The thick-laid toils? this deed was long revolved,
"Twas planned of old-and such consummate skill
(I scruple not to boast) devised the scheme,
That by no art could he avert or fly

His doom; the snare's interminable folds
With fatal splendour so enwrapped his limbs,
That, like a shoal of fish by nets involved,

To seek escape was vain. I stabbed him twice,
And twice he groaned, and then his strength gave

way.

Just as he fell I added a third blow.

To Hades guardian of the infernal shades,

An offering due, forth rushed his haughty soul :
With bloody dew the wound suffused my vest,
Grateful to me as to the thirsty earth

Soft genial rain that opes the budding flowers.
Ancients of Argos, you have heard the truth:
Think what you will, I glory in the deed.
And were it for libations now a time,

My hand ere now had poured them o'er the dead.
Most just it is that he who mixed the cup
For such perfidious deeds should drain it dry.*
Ch. We stand aghast at thy audacious words,
And at these insults heaped on such a man.
Cl. You treat me as a woman without soul,
But I confront your clamours dauntlessly,
And equally contemn your praise or blame.

* This is one, among others already noticed, of the bold orientalisms which pervade the poetry of Æschylus. Ezekiel uses a similar figure, c. xxiii. 34.

This is my husband-Agamemnon: yes,

By my right hand he died—most just the deed.
Ch. Woman, what poison, what pernicious herb,
Earth-born, or nourished in the briny waves,
Thy frame infects with this demoniac rage?
Thine is the people's curse; thou hast cut off,
Transfixed thy lord; exile thy doom shall be,
And on thy steps the public hate attend.

Cl. To me the doom assigned is banishment,
The city's hatred, and the public curse;

But on this man no weight of censure falls,
Who, pitiless and stern, like one that marks
Some victim in the herd for sacrifice,

Yielded his child, loved offspring of my anguish,
To charm the fury of the winds of Thrace.
Exile he justly merited--but me

You strictly scrutinize and harshly judge.
Menace for menace I hurl back: subdue
And then rule o'er me; but if heaven perchance
The contrary decree, you'll late grow wise.
Ch. Deep in design, in act implacable,
Thou bravest all; thy mind infuriate teems

With murderous images; thy eyes flash forth

A baleful, bloody glare: shunned by thy friends, This deed atrocious thou shalt expiate.*

Cl. Attend unto the tenor of

my oath.

By this last act of vengeance justly due

To my loved daughter's shade-by the dread names
Of Atè and Erynnys, through whose aid
This man I sacrificed-ne'er will I tread
The path of fear long as Ægysthus shares
My social hearth, and still to me is true.
He is the potent buckler of my soul.
There my oppressor lies, the paramour
At Troy of fair Chryseis; cold in death
Beside him is stretched out the captive fair,
The prophetess, the partner of his bed,
Whom the safe vessel wafted to these shores.

*This deed atrocious thou shalt expiate. Butler has adduced a sentiment from Measure for Measure remarkably parallel to the phraseology of the original. The Greek is τυμμα τυμμα τισαι.

"An Angelo for Claudio, death for death."