The scene now represents the front of the Palace of the Atridae, with one door leading to the main palace, another to the Women’s House. Dusk is approaching. Enter Orestes and Pylades, disguised as merchants from Phôkis, with Attendants.
Orestes
Ho, Warder! Hear! One knocketh at your gate! …
Ho, Warder, yet again! I knock and wait. …
A third time, ye within! I call ye forth;
Or counts your lord the stranger nothing worth?
A Porter
Within, opening the main door.
Enough! I hear. What stranger and wherefrom?
Orestes
Go, rouse your masters. ’Tis to them I come,
Bearing great news. And haste, for even now
Night’s darkling chariot presseth to the brow
Of heaven, and wayfarers like us must find
Quick anchorage in some resthouse for our kind.
Let one come forth who bears authority;
A woman, if God will; but if it be
A man, ’twere seemlier. With a woman, speech
Trembles and words are blinded. Man can teach
Man all his purpose and make clear his thought. Enter Clytemnestra from the House.
Clytemnestra
Strangers, your pleasure? If ye have need of aught
All that beseems this House is yours to-day,
Warm bathing and the couch that soothes away
Toil, and the tendering of righteous eyes.
Else, if ye come on some grave enterprise,
That is man’s work; and I will find the man.
Orestes
I come from Phôkis, of the Daulian clan,
And, travelling hither, bearing mine own load
Of merchandise, toward Argos, as the road
Branched, there was one who met me, both of us
Strangers to one another: Strophius,
A Phocian prince, men called him. On we strode
Together, till he asked me of my road
And prayed me thus: “Stranger, since other care
Takes thee to Argos, prithee find me there
The kin of one Orestes. … Plainly said
Is best remembered: tell them he is dead.
Forget not. And howe’er their choice may run,
To bear his ashes home, or leave their son
In a strange grave, in death an exile still,
Discover, and bring back to me their will.
Tell them his ashes lie with me, inurned
In a great jar of bronze, and richly mourned.”
So much I tell you straight, being all I heard.
Howbeit, I know not if I speak my word
To the right hearers, princes of this old
Castle. Methinks his father should be told.
Clytemnestra
Ah me,
So cometh the last wreck in spite of all!
Curse of this House, thou foe that fear’st no fall,
How dost thou spy my hidden things and mar
Their peace with keen-eyed arrows from afar,
Till all who might have loved me, all, are gone!
And now Orestes; whom I had thought upon
So wisely, walking in free ways, his gait
Unsnarèd in this poison-marsh of hate!
The one last hope, the healing and the prayer
Of this old House, ’twas writ on empty air!
Orestes
For me, in a great House and favoured thus
By fortune, ’tis by tidings prosperous
I fain were known and welcomed. Pleasantest
Of all ties is the tie of host and guest.
But my heart told me ’twere a faithless thing
To fail a comrade in accomplishing
His charge, when I had pledged both word and hand.
Clytemnestra
Not for our sorrow shall thy portion stand
The lowlier, nor thyself be less our friend.
Another would have told us; and the end
Is all one. But ’tis time that strangers who
Have spent long hours in travel should have due
Refreshment. Ho, there! Lead him to our broad
Guest-chambers, and these comrades of his road
Who follow. See they find all comfort there
To assuage their way-worn bodies. And have care
That in their tendance naught be found amiss.
Ourselves shall with our Lord consult of this
Distress, and, having yet good friends, who know
My heart, take counsel how to affront the blow. Clytemnestra goes back into the Women’s House; Attendants lead Orestes and his followers through the main door.
Leader
Ye handmaidens, arise, be bold:
See if our moving lips have power
To aid Orestes in his hour;
For sure ye loved this House of old.
Chorus
Thou holy Earth, thou holy shore
Beyond the grave, where rests his head
The Lord of Ships, the King, the Dead,
Now list, now aid, or never more!
The hour is full. The Guileful Word
Descends to wrestle for the right,
And Hermês guards the hour of night
For him that smiteth with the sword. The Nurse enters from the Women’s House, weeping.
Leader
The stranger works some mischief, it would seem!
Yonder I see Orestes’ Nurse, a-stream
With tears.—How now, Kilissa, whither bound,
And Grief the unbidden partner of thy round?
Nurse
The mistress bids me call Aigisthos here
Quickly, to see these two, and learn more clear,
As man from man, the truth of what they tell.
Oh, to us slaves she makes it pitiable
And grievous, and keeps hid behind her eyes
The leaping laughter. Aye, ’tis a rich prize
For her, and for the House stark misery,
This news the travellers tell so trippingly.
And, Oh, Aigisthos, he, you may be sure,
Will laugh to hear it! … Ah, I am a poor
Old woman! Such a tangle as they were,
The troubles in this House, and hard to bear,
Long years back, and all aching in my breast!
But none that hurt like this! Through all the rest …
Well, I was sore, but lived them down and smiled.
But little Orestes, my heart’s care, the child
I took straight from his mother; and save me
He had no other nurse! And, Oh, but he
Could scream and order me to tramp the dark!
Aye, times enough, and trouble enough, and stark
Wasted at that! A small thing at the breast,
That has no sense, you tend it like a beast,
By guesswork. For he never speaks, not he,
A babe in swaddling clothes, if thirst maybe
Or hunger comes, or any natural need.
The little belly takes its way. Indeed,
’Twas oft a prophet he wanted, not a nurse;
And often enough my prophecies, of course,
Came late, and then ’twas clothes to wash and dry,
And fuller’s work as much as nurse’s. Aye,
I followed both trades, from the day when first
His father gave me Orestes to be nursed. …
And now he is dead; and strangers come and tell
The news to me. And this poor miserable
Old woman must go tell the plunderer
Who shames this house! Oh, glad he will be to hear!
Leader
How doth she bid him come? In what array?
Nurse
I take thee not. … What is it ye would say?
Leader
Comes he with spears to guard him or alone?
Nurse
She bids him bring the spearmen of the throne.
Leader
Speak not that bidding to our loathèd Lord!
“Alone, quick, fearing nothing” is the word.
So speak, and in thy heart let joy prevail!
The teller straighteneth many a crookèd tale.
Nurse
What ails thee? Are these tidings to thy mind?
Leader
The wind is cold, but Zeus may change the wind.
Nurse
How, when Orestes, our one hope, is dead?
Leader
Not yet! So much the dullest seer can read.
Nurse
What mean’st thou? There is something ye have heard!
Leader
Go, tell thy tale. Obey thy mistress’ word!
God, where He guardeth, guardeth faithfully.
Nurse
I go.—May all be well, God helping me! The Nurse goes out.
Chorus
—Lo, I pray God, this day:
Father of Olympus, hear!
Grant thy fortunes healingly
Fall for them who crave to see
In this House of lust and fear,
Purity, purity.
—I have sinned not, I have spoken
In the name of Law unbroken;
Zeus, as thou art just, we pray thee
Be his guard!
All
There is One within the Gate
Of his foemen, where they wait;
Oh, prefer him, Zeus, before them
And exalt and make him great:
Two- and threefold shall he pay thee
Love’s reward.
—Seest thou one lost, alone,
Child of him who loved thee well?
As a young steed he doth go,
Maddened, in the yoke of woe:
Oh, set measure on the swell,
Forth and fro, forth and fro,
Of the beating hoofs that bear him
Through this bitter course. Oh, spare him!
By his innocence we pray thee
Be his guard!
All
There is One within the Gate
Of his foemen, where they wait;
Oh, prefer him, Zeus, before them
And exalt and make him great:
Two- and threefold shall he pay thee
Love’s reward.
—Gods of the treasure-house within,
One-hearted, where the bronzen door
On darkness gloateth and on gold:
With present cleansing wash the old
Blight of this house: and aged Sin
Amid the gloom shall breed no more!
All
And, O light of the Great Cavern, let it be
That this Man’s house look up again, and see,
Till the dead veil of scorn
And long darkness shall be torn,
And the kind faces shine and old Argolis be free!
—And, Oh, let Hermês, Maia-born,
Be near, who moveth in his kind,
As the wind blows, to help at need:
The word he speaketh none may read:
Before his eyes the Day is torn
With darkness and the Night is blind.
All
And, O Light of the Great Cavern, let it be
That this Man’s house look up again, and see,
Till the dead veil of scorn
And long darkness shall be torn,
And the kind faces shine and old Argolis be free!
—Then, then the prison shall unclose:
A wind of Freedom stream above:
A flood which faileth not, a voice
Telling of women that rejoice,
One harp in many souls, one spell
Enchanted. Ho, the ship goes well!
For me, for me, this glory grows,
And Evil flies from those I love.
All
Oh, in courage and in power,
When the deed comes and the hour,
As she crieth to thee “Son”
Let thy “Father” quell her breath!
But a stroke and it is done,
The unblamèd deed of death.
—The heart of Perseus, darkly strong,
Be lifted in thy breast to-day:
For them thou lovest in the grave,
For them on Earth, be blind, be brave:
Uphold the cloak before thine eyes
And see not while thy Gorgon dies;
But him who sowed the seed of wrong,
Go, look him in the face and slay!
All
Oh, in courage and in power,
When the deed comes and the hour,
As she crieth to thee “Son,”
Let thy “Father” quell her breath!
But a stroke and it is done,
The unblamèd deed of death. Enter from the country Aigisthos.
Aigisthos
A message called me; else I scarce had thought
To have come so quick. ’Tis a strange rumour, brought,
They tell me, by some Phocian wayfarers
In passing: strange, nor grateful to our ears.
Orestes dead! A galling load it were
And dripping blood for this poor House to bear,
Still scored and festerous with its ancient wound.
How shall I deem it? Living truth and sound?
Or tales of women, born to terrify,
That wildly leap, and up in mid-air die?
What know ye further? I would have this clear.
Leader
We heard the tale; but go within and hear
With thine own ears. A rumoured word hath weak
Force, when the man himself is there to speak.
Aigisthos
Hear him I will, and question him beside.
Was this man with Orestes when he died,
Or speaks he too from rumour? If he lies …
He cannot cheat a mind that is all eyes. He enters the House.
Chorus
Zeus, Zeus, how shall I speak, and how
Begin to pray thee and beseech?
How shall I ever mate with speech
This longing, and obtain my vow?
The edges of the blades that slay
Creep forth to battle: shall it be
Death, death for all eternity,
On Agamemnon’s House this day;
Or sudden a new light of morn,
A beacon fire for freedom won,
The old sweet rule from sire to son,
And golden Argolis reborn?
Against two conquerors all alone,
His last death-grapple, deep in blood,
Orestes joineth. … O great God,
Give victory! Death-cry of Aigisthos within. Ha! The deed is done!
Leader
How? What is wrought? Stand further from the door
Till all is over. Move apart before
Men mark, and deem us sharers in the strife.
For after this ’tis war, for death or life. The Women stand back almost unseen. A Household Slave rushes out from the main Door, and beats at the door of the Women’s House.
Slave
Ho!
Treason! Our master! Treason! Haste amain!
Treason within. Aigisthos lieth slain.
Unbar, unbar, with all the speed ye may
The women’s gates! Oh, tear the bolts away! …
God, but it needs a man, a lusty one,
To help us, when all time for help is gone!
What ho!
I babble to deaf men, and labouring cry,
To ears sleep-charmèd, words that fail and die.
Where art thou, Clytemnestra? What dost thou? …
’Fore God, ’tis like to be her own neck now,
In time’s revenge, that shivers to its fate. Enter Clytemnestra.
Clytemnestra
What wouldst thou? Why this clamour at our gate?
Slave
The dead are risen, and he that liveth slain.
Clytemnestra
Woe’s me! The riddle of thy speech is plain.
By treason we shall die, even as we slew. …
Ho, there, mine axe of battle! Let us try
Who conquereth and who falleth, he or I! …
To that meseemeth we are come, we two. Enter from the House Orestes with drawn sword.
Orestes
’Tis thou I seek. With him my work is done.
Clytemnestra
Suddenly failing.
Woe’s me!
Aigisthos, my beloved, my gallant one!
Orestes
Thou lovest him! Go then and lay thine head
Beside him. Thou shalt not betray the dead. Makes as if to stab her.
Clytemnestra
Hold, O my son! My child, dost thou not fear
To strike this breast? Hast thou not slumbered here,
Thy gums draining the milk that I did give?
Orestes
Lowering his sword.
Pylades!
What can I? Dare I let my mother live?
Pylades
Where is God’s voice from out the golden cloud
At Pytho? Where the plighted troth we vowed?
Count all the world thy foe, save God on high.
Orestes
I will obey. Thou counsellest righteously.—
Follow! Upon his breast thou shalt expire
Whom, living, thou didst hold above my sire.
Go, lie in his dead arms! … This was the thing
Thou lovedst, loathing thine anointed King.
Clytemnestra
I nursed thee. I would fain grow old with thee.
Orestes
Shall one who slew my father house with me?
Clytemnestra
Child, if I sinned, Fate had her part therein.
Orestes
Then Fate is here, with the reward of sin.
Clytemnestra
Thou reck’st not of a Mother’s Curse, my child?
Orestes
Not hers who cast me out into the wild.
Clytemnestra
Cast out? I sent thee to a war-friend’s Hall.
Orestes
A free man’s heir, ye sold me like a thrall.
Clytemnestra
If thou wast sold, where is the price I got?
Orestes
The price! … For very shame I speak it not.
Clytemnestra
Speak. But tell, too, thy father’s harlotries.
Orestes
Judge not the toiler, thou who sitt’st at ease!
Clytemnestra
A woman starves with no man near, my son.
Orestes
Her man’s toil wins her bread when he is gone.
Clytemnestra
To kill thy mother, Child: is that thy will?
Orestes
I kill thee not: thyself it is doth kill.
Clytemnestra
A mother hath her Watchers: think and quail!
Orestes
How shall I ’scape my Father’s if I fail?
Clytemnestra
To herself.
Living, I cry for mercy to a tomb!
Orestes
Yea, from the grave my father speaks thy doom.
Clytemnestra
Ah God! The serpent that I bare and fed!
Orestes
Surely of truth prophetic is the dread
That walketh among dreams. Most sinfully
Thou slewest: now hath Sin her will of thee. He drives Clytemnestra before him into the Palace. The Chorus come forward again.
Leader
For these twain also in their fall I weep.
Yet, seeing Orestes now through mire so deep
Hath climbed the crest, I can but pray this eye
Of the Great House be not made blind and die.
Chorus
Judgment came in the end
To Troy and the Trojans’ lord,
(O Vengeance, heavy to fall!)
There came upon Atreus’ Hall
Lion and lion friend,
A sword came and a sword.
A walker in Pytho’s way
On the neck of her kings hath trod,
A beggar and outcast, yea,
But led by God.
Came He of the laughing lure,
The guile and the secret blow,
(O Vengeance, subtle to slay!)
But there held his hand that day
The Daughter of Zeus, the pure,
Justice yclept below.
Justice they called her name,
For where is a goodlier?
And her breath is a sword of flame
On the foes of her.
All
Cry, Ho for the perils fled,
For the end of the long dismay!
Cry, Ho for peace and bread;
For the Castle’s lifted head,
For the two defilers dead,
And the winding of Fortune’s way!
Even as Apollo gave
His charge on the Mountain, He
Who holdeth the Earth-heart Cave,
Hast thou wrought innocently
Great evil, hindered long,
Tracking thy mother’s sin …
Is the power of God hemmed in
So strangely to work with wrong?
Howbeit, let praise be given
To that which is throned in Heaven:
The Gods are strong.
And soon shall the Perfect Hour
O’er the castle’s threshold stone
Pass with his foot of power,
When out to the dark is thrown
The sin thereof and the stain
By waters that purify.
Now, now with a laughing eye
God’s fortune lieth plain;
And a cry on the wind is loud:
“The stranger that held us bowed
Is fallen again!”
All
O light of the dawn to be!
The curb is broken in twain,
And the mouth of the House set free.
Up, O thou House, and see!
Too long on the face of thee
The dust hath lain! The doors are thrown open, and Orestes discovered standing over the dead bodies of Aigisthos and Clytemnestra. The Household is grouped about him and Attendants hold the great red robe in which Agamemnon was murdered.
Orestes
He speaks with ever-increasing excitement.
Behold your linkèd conquerors! Behold
My Father’s foes, the spoilers of the fold!
Oh, lordly were these twain, when thronèd high,
And lovely now, as he who sees them lie
Can read, two lovers faithful to their troth!
They vowed to slay my father, or that both
As one should die, and both the vows were true!
And mark, all ye who hear this tale of rue,
This robe, this trap that did my father greet,
Irons of the hand and shackling of the feet!
Outstretch it north and south: cast wide for me
This man-entangler, that our Sire may see—
Not mine, but He who watcheth all deeds done,
Yea, all my mother’s wickedness, the Sun—
And bear me witness, when they seek some day
To judge me, that in justice I did slay
This woman: for of him I take no heed.
He hath the adulterer’s doom, by law decreed.
But she who planned this treason ’gainst her own
Husband, whose child had lived beneath her zone—
Oh, child of love, now changed to hate and blood!—
What is she? Asp or lamprey of the mud,
That, fangless, rotteth with her touch, so dire
That heart’s corruption and that lust like fire?
Woman? Not woman, though I speak right fair. His eyes are caught by the great red robe.
A dead man’s winding-sheet? A hunter’s snare?
A trap, a toil, a tangling of the feet. …
I think a thief would get him this, a cheat
That robs the stranger. He would snare them so,
And kill them, kill them, and his heart would glow. …
Not in my flesh, not in my house, O God,
May this thing live! Ere that, Oh, lift thy rod
And smiting blast me, dead without a child! He stops exhausted.
Chorus
O deeds of anger and of pain!
O woman miserably slain!
Alas! Alas!
And he who lives shall grieve again.
Orestes
Did she the deed or no? This robe defiled
Doth bear me witness, where its web is gored,
How deep the dye was of Aigisthos’ sword;
And blood hath joined with the old years, to spoil
The many tinctures of the broidered coil.
Oh, now I weep, now praise him where he died,
And calling on this web that pierced his side. …
Pain, pain is all my doing, all my fate,
My race, and my begetting: and I hate
This victory that sears me like a brand. …
Chorus
No mortal thro’ this life shall go
For ever portionless of woe.
Alas! Alas!
It comes to all, or swift or slow.
Orestes
Yet wait: for I would have you understand.
The end I know not. But methinks I steer
Unseeing, like some broken charioteer,
By curbless visions borne. And at my heart
A thing of terror knocketh, that will start
Sudden a-song, and she must dance to hear.
But while I am still not mad, I here declare
To all who love me, and confess, that I
Have slain my mother, not unrighteously;
Who with my father’s blood hath stained the sod
Of Argos and drawn down the wrath of God.
And the chief spell that wrought me to the deed
Is Loxias, Lord of Pytho, who decreed
His high commandment: if this thing I dare,
He lays on me no sin: if I forbear …
I cannot speak his judgment: none can know
The deeps thereof, no arrow from the bow
Out-top it. Therefore here ye see me, how
I go prepared, with wreaths and olive bough,
To kneel in supplication on the floor
Of Loxias, touch the fire that evermore
Men call the undying, and the midmost stone
Of Earth, flying this blood which is mine own.
And how these evil things were wrought, I pray
All men of Argos on an after day
Remember, and bear witness faithfully
When Meneläus comes. … And take from me,
Living or dead, a wanderer and outcast
For ever, this one word, my last, my last. …
Leader
Nay, all is well. Leave no ill omen here,
Nor bind upon thy lips the yoke of fear.
All Argos thou hast freed, and with one sweep
Two serpents’ heads hurled reeking to the deep.
Orestes
Overcome with sudden terror.
Ah! Ah!
Ye bondmaids! They are here: like Gorgons, gowned
In darkness; all bewreathed and interwound
With serpents! … I shall never rest again.
Leader
What fantasies, most father-loved of men,
Haunt thee? Be strong, thou conqueror! Have no fear!
Orestes
These are no fantasies. They are here; they are here,
The Hounds of my dead Mother, hot to kill.
Leader
The blood upon thine hand is reeking still:
For that the turmoil in thy heart is loud.
Orestes
O Lord Apollo! More and more they crowd
Close, and their eyes drip blood, most horrible!
Leader
One cleansing hast thou. Loxias can quell
Thy tempest with his touch, and set thee free.
Orestes
You cannot see them. I alone can see.
I am hunted. … I shall never rest again. Exit Orestes.
Chorus
—Farewell. May blessing guide thee among men.
—May God with love watch over thee, and heed
Thy goings and be near thee at thy need.
All
Behold a third great storm made wild
By winds of wrath within the race,
Hath shook this castle from its place.
The ravin of the murdered child
First broke Thyestes in his pride:
Second, a warrior and a King,
Chief of Achaia’s warfaring,
Was smitten in the bath and died.
And Third, this Saviour or this last
Doom from the deep. What end shall fall,
Or peace, or death outsweeping all,
When night comes and the Wrath is past? Exeunt.