Ch. Hark! she will sing prophetic her own woes.

The mind divine still triumphs 'midst these bonds. Ca. Apollo! oh Apollo! what abode,

What mansion this to which my feet are led?

Ch. Ask'st thou what mansion? 'tis the royal house
Of th' Atride-what I speak is truth.

Ca. A house the gods detest: its very walls
The fearful tale could tell of bloody deeds,
Of slaughtered kindred—of th' assassin's snares,
And the ground moistened with a husband's gore.
Ch. Like a sagacious hound this stranger tracks
The murderous horrors of this guilty house.
Ca. Ye weeping slaughtered infants!* of whose
flesh,

* Ye weeping slaughtered infants. The children of Thyestes, the brother of Atreus, are here alluded to, all of whom, excepting Ægysthus, who escaped, were murdered by Atreus, and parts of their flesh served up at a banquet, of which their father, ignorant of what had happened, partook. It is fabled by the ancient mythologists that the sun, in horror of the atrocious deed, averted his beamy head from the spectacle. The phantoms of these children are seen by Cassandra in her prophetic visions.-Vide Preliminary Dissertation, p. 136.

At table served, your reckless sire partook,
Your's is indeed a thrilling evidence.

Ch. The fame of thy prophetic powers long since
Has reached our ears--but prophecies avaunt.
Ca. Ye gods, what's now impending? what new

woes,

What dreadful project frames that mind? no cure,
No pardon for it-evil beyond redress!

Ch. These prophecies I fathom not, but those
Refer to facts with which all Argos rings.

Ca. And dar'st thou, wretch accursed, while at the bath

Attending on thy lord? how shall my tongue
The deed proclaim-the fatal hour draws nigh;
Redoubling from her hand the death-strokes fall.
Ch. I understand thee not; thy oracles
Are shrouded in enigmas dark as night.
Ca. Ye gods, what now! is it the net of hell?
That snare the consort of his bosom wrought:
Ye furies, of this house insatiate foes,

Howl forth your baleful song of horrid joy.

Ch. What furies urgest thou with hideous shrieks

To rend these walls? thy words are terrible;
The ruddy drop is curdling at my heart,

As when the fatal spear quenches life's ray:

Evil is nigh at hand.

Ca.

Behold! behold!

Oh! free the noble bull from the thick toils
Which with such matchless art about his limbs
The hateful heifer twines: she strikes--he falls!
And in the bath, his destined tomb, expires.
Ch. I cannot boast the power to penetrate
Thy oracles; but from these shadowy hints
I augur woe: has ever aught of good
From the divining power to man accrued?
Its deep ambiguous terms the truth invest
With mysteries which thrill my inmost soul.
Ca. Alas! my sad, my pitiable fate!

My own woes blend with those I thus deplore.
Wherefore me wretched did you hither lead
But to be partner of his bloody doom?

Ch. Thy rapt, inspired mind distracted raves, Wild are thy strains, unfit for utterance;

Thus in soft plaintive thrills the bird of eve,