University of Virginia Library

SCENE XIII.

Arsinoe, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Egysthus.
ARSINOE.
Treason! murder! treason, my royal lord!

AGAMEMNON.
How now! release me.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Strike, Egysthus, strike!

EGYSTHUS.
He has enough.

ARSINOE.
Alas! alas, too late!

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Stand back, ye daring and presumptuous crew,
Release Egysthus, and revere your master.

AGAMEMNON.
Tell me, Arsinoe, tell me what is this—

ARSINOE.
Bloody adulteress—

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Guards bear her hence.
I am the queen, and as you tend my will,
So shall ye have promotion and my favour.

AGAMEMNON.
O hell-born tygress, thus to welcome me!
The savage fierce are faithful to their mates,
But thou, perfidious, mak'st thy prey of thine.
'Tis done, 'tis done with me, I cannot rise.

EGYSTHUS.
I would have spar'd you, but to save myself.

AGAMEMNON.
Hence! traitor, slave, and know I am thy king.
O thou chaste widow, that so mourn'd thy lord!

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ay, play the man, the lord of the creation,
And scorn the failing woman for her sin.
'Tis but the sovereign element of males,
That nature honour'd with the sense of joy,
And privilege to range. Our serving sex,
Made for the use of free imperial man,
Must shut themselves in frozen chastity,
Like simple bulbs that winter in the soil,
'Till the ingerming season come again.
O it was meet that I your plant, at home,
Should spread my leaves and lift a flow'ry head,
To heav'nly sun-shine and the nightly dew!
Wives are not made of love's material. No:
We are but vessels, casting-moulds for men.—
While you lay glowing with your captive dames,
Or sacking towns to furnish wanton beds,
Thought you that nature slumber'd in my veins?
But such, forsooth, was my voluptuous lapse,
That only death or shameful degradation,
Could expiate the sin.—Learn ere you die,
That menial woman claims her half of love,
And wives deserted can assert the claim.