University of Virginia Library

SCENE VII.

Clytemnestra, Egysthus, Electra, Orestes, and Pylades.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ha! Agamemnon, come again to chide!—

EGYSTHUS.
Who? What art thou?

ELECTRA.
O mother, 'tis Orestes.

EGYSTHUS.
Orestes! and alive!

CLYTEMNESTRA.
'Twas then no vision!

EGYSTHUS.
Guards! guards!

ELECTRA.
Fly, mother, fly.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Am I awake!
What means this clang, like Jove's own thunder peal?

EGYSTHUS.
Has he sown here the Theban's dragon teeth,
That these grim soldiers in full panoply,
Start up around us like an apparition?

ORESTES.
Pylades seize him!

EGYSTHUS.
First secure thyself.—

ORESTES.
Audacious dog! and darest thou strike at me?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Spare him, Orestes, O in mercy spare—

ORESTES.
Ill-fated sure art thou to use the word!
Mercy to him by whose accursed stroke,
My royal father in his glory fell!
Mercy to him by whose detested wiles,
My mother was unmother'd to myself!
Mercy to him who with incestuous pray'r,
Did the chaste hearing of thy child amaze!
No: cruelty by every fury mixt.—
Die monster, die!—Now murderess prepare—

ELECTRA.
Pylades! O Pylades! yet arrest—

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Orestes! son! what would'st thou do to me?—

PYLADES.
O stay, O stay, the parricidal blow.—
If the dread Gods for their offended justice
Demand atonement, they have power to take,
Without the horror of thy agency.
'Tis not for thee, so knit by the great ties
Of blood and nature, thus, for her offence,
To bear the warrant, or to strike the doom.

ORESTES.
Pylades! when I first proposed to thee,
This work of justice that we now perform,
Thou did'st, by all the deities of Light,
And each particular energy of Hell,
Nam'd one by one, swear to proceed with me,
To the extremest verge of my intent,
As willing, ready, and commandable
As this my own right hand. Such was thy oath.

PYLADES.
It was, Orestes; but my fancy never
Conceiv'd the aim of thy revenge was this.

ORESTES.
Does the right hand remonstrate with the will?
Does it make wherefores at its work? Were I
To bid thee, in this wretched woman's bosom,
Strike deep the irremediable dagger;
Art thou not bound to do't?

PYLADES.
Oh! my Orestes,
Put not upon me such a dreadful task.

ORESTES.
Thou wast too valiant in thy vow, Pylades!
Turn my Electra, turn thy head aside:
Thou hast not courage to behold the blow.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Strike! strike, at one, nor torture with delay,

ELECTRA.
O look, Orestes, where Egysthus lies,
Stiff'ning in death and clotted with his gore.
No more to him can our ill-fated mother
Relapse in fondness; spare her then to mourn
The woeful issue of her fatal passion;—
In piety for her contrition, spare.

ORESTES.
Thou hast assail'd me with a painful weapon.

PYLADES.
Yield! yield, Orestes, to this thaw of nature.

ORESTES.
Mother!

CLYTEMNESTRA.
O Gods!

ORESTES.
They wait the sacrifice.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Oh! fatal scion, of a fated stock,
Whose fruit has still been misery and crime;
Is't not enough that I am crimson deep,
With the brave blood of my heroic lord,
But that my own must curse my offspring too!
Hold! impious youth; in thy stern purpose, stay;
Think what a claim a parent may put in:
'Tis true that Agamemnon was thy sire;
But am not I thy mother, and may urge
As just a plea as the lamented dead.

ORESTES.
If thou hast on me that imperious claim,
Which tender mother's o'er their children hold,
Then set it forth as I recount to thee,
The duties that were thine. The bleating babe,
By mystic Nature, naked and defenceless,
Is to the mother's charities commended,
As much as by the conscious tie of birth.
What gentle office hast thou done for me?
Hast thou e'er follow'd, with thy hands outstretch'd,
In anxious joy upon my tott'ring childhood;
Watch'd the first glimpses of my opening mind;
And by a wide and all-surrounding love,
In soft refraction bent the rays on good?
Close as the general interposing air,
Is the true mother's anxious vigilance,
Around her child: but where was thine to me?
As to the bird the shell, thou wast my mother:
All cherish, watch, and gentle care were wanting;
And as a vile excrescence well remov'd,
I was cut off, and destined to destruction.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Thou speaking conscience, cease! upbraid no more.
If thou wilt spare me, Oh! in pity, cease.
Upon her knees, thy weeping mother see;
She craves for life, to spend that life in woe.

ORESTES.
Where was thy pity for my noble sire?
Where were thy tears when he before thee lay,
Slain victim to thy odious deity,
The rank Tisiphoné?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Alas! Orestes.—
Yawn thou firm earth, and give me room to hide
From this tremendous and avenging fiend.

ELECTRA.
Oh! to the temple, to the temple fly.

PYLADES.
Orestes, stay; thy kindling rage restrain.

ORESTES.
Away! weak girl. Dar'st thou Pylades too?—
Th'eclipse is full!—Who follows me shall die.