University of Virginia Library

SCENE VIII.

Clytemnestra and Arsinoe.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Oh! my Arsinoe, what shall be done?
If flight could save, it is not in our power,
Nor will one suffer; all the three must die.
You were the confident, the minister;
Nor I alone, no: nor Egysthus only,
Will pacify the dreadful Agamemnon.
You, even you, that cherish'd him a babe;
And, by that claim, may think, perchance, to'scape,
Must bleed, unpitied, to appease his vengeance.

ARSINOE.
I was constrain'd; against my heart, I serv'd.
Thick fell my tears, and painful were my sighs,
On that dire night, when to your chamber, first,
I brought the overbold, o'er-weening groom.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
And think you then, by sacrificing us,
To save yourself?

ARSINOE.
Had you been wary wise,
Frugal in gifts, and ruled in your desires;
We had not come to this extremtiy!
But, all the nobles of the land beheld,
Your mighty love, descending in the gold.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Yet, no one spoke, to me, as if they knew.

ARSINOE.
No! wherefore should they? You had other gifts.
What was the guilt to them, if you bestow'd
The boons that their obsequiousness implor'd?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Why should the danger then, be greater now?

ARSINOE.
Why should it?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ay.

ARSINOE.
Because, with you, no more
Rest the rich motives of the courtiers faith.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Yet, who, Arsinoe, but you alone,
Can tell, that more between me and Egysthus
Has ever pass'd, than may unslander'd pass,
Between a mistress and a worthy servant.
You shake your head. Well, grant I have been lavish:
It shows that avarice is not my foible.

ARSINOE.
Such boundless favour as you show'd to him,
And rapid transmutation from a slave,
To wealth that over-tower'd our proudest antients,
Are flagrant evidence that it was passion.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
What shall be done? ere many minutes fly,
The triumph will arrive.—What shall we do?

ARSINOE.
Save, if you can, yourself; as I will try.