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 Eschylus. 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.

C. 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 Chrysëis; 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."

Both reap their due reward: his doom is just. She, like the dying swan, in plaintive strain Chaunted her funeral dirge; and now, her death Far from my pillow every care removes. *

SEMI-CHORUS.

With aspect mild, and in his train

Not leading slow disease or pain,

Oh! that kind Death would close these eyes,
Since prostrate thus my monarch lies.
For woman's wrongs he dared the field,

A woman's hand his fate has sealed.

CHORUS.

Helen, infatuate fair! what strife,
What scenes of woe, what waste of life,
Through thee 'neath Ilion's walls ensued
When Greece thy ravisher pursued.

SEMI-CHORUS.

But now with stricken hearts we mourn,

From its fair stem untimely torn,

* In this controverted passage the interpretation of Schutz is kept in view.