University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE SECOND.

CLYTEMNESTRA, ÆGYSTHUS, and LYCON.
ÆGYSTHUS.
[Shouting without.
Repeat your acclamations, till the skies
Resound with clam'rous echos! O my Lycon!
How kindles rapture from this blaze of joy!
Fan the aspiring flame—exalt my bliss—
Augment these heart-felt triumphs. Hah! my queen—
Whence that thy eyes avoid encount'ring mine?
By the strong transports struggling here for vent,
Those heaving sighs and stealing tears betray
Disloyal love for Agamemnon's race.

CLYTEMNESRTA.
'Tis my misfortune, if within this breast
Such jarring ties and warring passions meet
As to distraction agonize my soul.
The duties of a wife I own and practise—
But can't divest me of a mother's feelings.

ÆGYSTHUS.
Such feeling's frailty, folly! more—'tis guilt;
It marrs my happiness, by rude intrusion
Upon the hour to festive joy devoted.
Learn, if thou'dst hold thy int'rest in my heart,
The foremost virtue for a wife to practice,
And make my will the leader of thy own.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

ÆGYSTHUS.
'Tis the ungovern'd vanity of woman,
Fond of authority and proud of rule,
Which tasks our tongues to vile dissimulation.
Your wayward humours are your worst deluders,
By which you're counsel'd, and by which deceiv'd.
Prerogative, the gift of Gods to man,
When madly you invade, and grieve to miss,
To error give the gall of disappointment,
Nor blame the husband who asserts his right.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Enjoy such pow'r, and exercise, unenvy'd,
Your lordly, high preheminence. But why
Must rooted passions, all the tender strings
That touch and harmonize the soul be broke?
Why am I grudg'd the privilege to breathe
A mournful sigh for an unhappy son,
Who owes his wrongs, his wretchedness—his death,
To my misdoings? Ev'ry savage brute—
The pard and lioness that scour the desert
Protect and feed their offspring. On the cliff,
The parent-pelican, in want of food,
Relieves her young ones from her spouting veins!
While I, more fell than nature's commoners,
Gave up my helpless unoffending child
To ev'ry want and woe! And now am told,
That ev'n a tear descending on his grave
Is in a mother guilt!—What would'st thou, tyrant?
I cannot harden at thy will to stone.

ÆGYSTHUS.
I would have pleasure seen, and sparkling joy,
Now while the public eye is sharply pointed,
Observant of all looks. Such qualms as these
Intrude untimely, and may keep alive
The dying embers of sedition—serve
To sap allegiance ev'n in loyal hearts.
Then give me smiles:—and if they can't be real,
Exert thy sex's ready art, dissembling,
To vamp thy visage with a feign'd delight.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
I long have labour'd to deceive myself,
As well as cheat the prying eyes of others:
Have steel'd my heart against a daughter's tears,
And link'd obedience with a guilty pride
To glory in the deeds my soul condemn'd.
But such endeavours all have turn'd against me,
And will, while in my bosom there's a judge
Whom no delusions can amuse or blind.
Conscience presents the mirror to my sight
That shews my crimes in such a hideous glare
As pains reflexion! But the curse redoubles
With bowing nature to the hard constraint
Of forcing smiles, and counterfeiting gladness.

ÆGYSTHUS.
Of all the phantoms that infest the mind,
There's none so fatal as a frail remorse.
The soul that's staunch repels its worst assaults,
But fools and women fight to be o'ercome.
Yet timely learn precaution, lest I'm urg'd
To think, for my security and peace,
The course of slaughter once was stopt too soon.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
If loss of life were all I had to fear,
I'd wish that fury to be rous'd again.
But what must follow? There my guilt appalls me!
When at the bar of Minos I appear,
A slaughter'd husband—an abandon'd son,
Will witness 'gainst me to my soul's undoing.
Can fraud or artifice avail me there,
Where all dissimulation must be vain?
No—while for crimes reveal'd, just sentence issues,
The shudd'ring shades will hiss, the furies yell!
And lash me with relentless stripes for ever.

ÆGYSTHUS.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Righteous Gods!
What curses spring from guilt!—But crimes like mine
Demand ev'n this, to manifest your justice.