University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE FOURTH.

Clytemnestra.
Cly.
Ah, my unhappy son! ... thou innocent son
Of an abandon'd mother! ... Ah, Orestes! ...
Thou art no more! From thy paternal realm
Banish'd by me, thou diest? Sick, deserted,
And by what death who knows? And at thy side,
In thy last agonies, thou hadst no friend? ...
No ritual honours did thy tomb receive ...
A fugitive, unknown, and unassisted,
Oh what a fate for great Atrides' son! ...
No mother, and no sister, with their tears,
Embalm'd thy livid corse! ... Beloved son,
Thy mother's hands perform'd not the last office,
Closed not thy dying eyes.—But how I rave!
Were these hands fit for such a function? Still
Impure, and reeking with thy father's blood,
Thou from thy face, Orestes, and with reason,
Wouldest have thrust them back.
O thou, deserving a less barbarous mother! ...
But I, for having sacrificed thy father,
Say, am I less thy mother? Never, never
Are nature's rights annull'd. ... Yet had not fate
In youth cut short thy life, thou would'st perchance,
(As a vain oracle predicted once)
Have turn'd thy sword against thy mother's breast?
Thy duty this: What other hand so well
Could punish my irreparable fault?
Ah live, Orestes, live; return to Argos;
Fulfil the oracle; in me, no mother,
But a vile woman, who usurp'd the name,
Wilt thou destroy: ah come ... but thou'rt no more.