University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

SCENE I.

ORESTES.
I am as one that swims a river's tide—
Swept by the stream, my efforts all in vain.
O that I never had been born! or that
The fate-controuling Deities had held
My mother from her crimes. Had she but shed
One glimpse of kindness on my helpless childhood;
One smile, such as the nursing menial smiles,
In simple-hearted fondness on the babe;
I might have felt some soft-restraining tie.
But Fate, which has with dreadful parricide,
Incarnadin'd my destiny, appears
By the great plea of her deficiencies,
To blanch the horror of it from my mind;—
So large and universal has the want
Of all maternal been in her to me.

SCENE II.

Orestes, Electra and Pylades.
ORESTES.
How now Pylades? And Electra here!
Is this a time for wooing blandishments?
I thought my friend had been of purer mould,
Than in the turn and crisis of my life,
To yield to such soft weakness.

ELECTRA.
—Oh Orestes!—

ORESTES.
And thou too damsel, dar'st thou entertain
The smiling flatt'ry of a lover's suit,
While Heav'ns great ministers are all astir,
And on their thrones, th'eternal Gods themselves
Stand up expectant of a dreadful scene,—
Th'avenging of thy sire? His restless shade
Walks round us here, and frowns to see thee thus.

PYLADES.
Forbear Orestes; this unjust reproach—
Electra seeks but to escape the foul
And insolent Egysthus.

ORESTES.
Say'st thou so?

ELECTRA.
Oft has he glanc'd from his presumptuous eyes
A fervent, strange familiarity,
That thrill'd in horror through my trembling frame.

PYLADES.
To-day embolden'd by the rumour'd fiction
Of our defeat and fall in Lacedemon,
He dar'd to give his hideous passion words.

ORESTES.
Lie quiet yet awhile, impatient Sword!
Thou see'st, Pylades, 'tis as I have said;
My destiny is clear. What monstrous shames
Are rife among us: but, the end is come.
Behold in Heav'n th'appointed sign display'd.
The sun is smitten with the promis'd darkness;
And when the gloom is rounded and compleat,
Then shall be done that dread predestin'd deed,
Which, ever sounding to the utmost time,
Will wake the echoes of posterity!

ELECTRA.
O ye deep-working and mysterious Powers!
That 'tend on nature, in this great probation,
Sustain my weakness.

PYLADES.
By what prescience,
Hast thou, Orestes, known the coming on
Of this portentous sign; thus to unite
The issue of our purpose and the omen?
Though we have grown from boyhood up together,
Shar'd the same sports, the same instruction drawn,
Slept in one chamber, at one table far'd,
And been in all things free and confident,
As if one mind our sev'ral natures sway'd,
'Till the first scheme of this thy high intent;
Thou dost my thoughts with wonder so amaze,
That while I should thee better know than others,
There is no other still so strange to me.

ORESTES.
Do you remember ought that chanc'd to us
Upon the day of that recorded night,
On which you swore to link your fate to mine,
In the great enterprize that brings us here?

PYLADES.
Were we not hunting the nemean boar,
With certain nobles of my father's court?

ORESTES.
Ay, and had pitch'd our tents upon the hill,
Fronting the sea-indented Salamis.

PYLADES.
I have the spot all painted in my mind.
'Twas scarce a bow-shot from the little temple,
Which an old mariner of Negara,
In gratitude for some escape at sea,
Had rais'd to Neptune and the God of day,
Serving their rites himself. And now I think,
You came not with us to the woods that day,
But went to see the hoary mariner.

ORESTES.
Him often since I have re-visited.

PYLADES.
When I return'd, I found you sad and moody,
And then it was you spoke of this design.

ORESTES.
That antient mariner had in his day,
Seen many wonders of the sea and land,
And learnt mirac'lous science. He had pass'd
Beyond th'Aurora of our western world,
To where the orient kings on opal walk:
And with the bold Phœnecians he had sail'd,
To where the long-foreseeing Druids teach
The untamed Britons, that within the oak,
The guardian spirit of their isle resides.
Deep was he vers'd in starry processes,
And could predict by hieroglyphic skill,
The fortunes and the accidents of men.
Seeing me thoughtful and diseased at heart
To be this offcast from the ties of nature,
He ey'd me kindly, often question'd me
With curious inquisition, and essay'd
To find if ever in my youthful breast,
Insidious Love had its sedition sown.
When he had found me honest, free and chaste,
He took his tablets, and by mystic signs,
And antique emblems keenly scrutinized,
Told me that fate had form'd me to avenge
My father's death, and Heav'ns justice deal
Against my guilty mother:—bidding me,
Momentous aspects of the air and sky,
Nightly to note; nor to advance myself,
Till thrice three hundred days were past and gone.
Then if my resolution lasted firm,
To be at Argos on this day prepar'd;
When glorious Phœbus in the bright of noon,
Would veil his light, in signal of approval.
And lo! the God assumes the gloom predicted!

PYLADES.
How was't you told me not of this before?

ORESTES.
My heart long doubtful, scarcely to this hour
Was nerv'd for the dread feat. But yon eclipse
Has all the wav'ring hues of hesitation,
By its deep influence fix'd in one black.

ELECTRA.
Ha! fly Orestes—hasten from this spot.
It is the queen that comes.

ORESTES.
—Oh! Gods! my mother!
Retire Pylades; let me look at her.

SCENE III.

Orestes and Electra.
ORESTES.
Oh! that the Heav'ns should in a form so noble,
Have lodg'd a heart so foul. Majestic ruin!
Fain would I bend the filial knee before thee,
But the stern purpose that I come upon
Stifles the new-felt rev'rence as it stirs.
O mother, mother, did my melting soul
Retain one trace, but one of kindness from thee,
I would my terrible intent forego,
And at thy feet contend with destiny.

SCENE IV.

Clytemnestra and Electra. (Orestes apart.)
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Canst thou unmov'd behold the God of day,
Shorn of his glory in the bright of noon?
The dark'ning prodigy still spreads apace.
The town is forth; and from the palace tower
The streets with wan and wond'ring faces seem
As thickly pav'd as with the wonted stones;
The cheek of life resigns the beauteous bloom,
And takes the ghastly ashy of the dead;
The hills frown black; the distant sea foregoes
Its heav'nly azure for a dismal red;
The fields are chang'd, and for their cheerful green
Assume a sullen supernat'ral hue;
And solitary pasturing herds, in bands,
Come to the gates, and seek protecting man.

ELECTRA.
Portents and omens ever have been held
The harbingers of change. Yon black eclipse
Is but the forecast frown of some stern God,
In wrath descending for his rites profaned.
Now may the guilty quake.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Whom dost thou mean?
What guilty? Whom? Dost thou mean me, Electra?

ELECTRA.
The conscious heart beneath such augury
Confesses to itself. You are the queen,
And ought to know; or knowing not should learn,
Why this portentous gloom appaling falls.
The solemn Gods deal in no idle pageants.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
'Twas but the chance of birth that made me queen.
I hold from nature no inheritance,
Above the frailties of the common race;
Food, sleep and pastime are as sweet to me,
As to the meanest slave that fears my frown.
Then why should I, so palpable to all
The ails and accidents of vulgar clay,
Believe that Heav'n takes stricter note of me,
Because my head sustains a glitt'ring toy,
And from my shoulders somewhat fuller hang
These two three spans of madder-tinctured robe,
Made from the cast-off mantle of a ewe!
I am a woman, made with woman's weakness.

ELECTRA.
My father, Agamemnon, wise men say,
Did, by the virtue of his great atchievements,
Exalt the aims and motives of mankind:
You! O my mother! were his honour'd wife.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
But he is dead; what is th'eclipse to him?

ELECTRA.
To him, 'tis true, all changes are alike;
The fears that shake us, and the ills that harm,
Effectless pass o'er his oblivious dust.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Electra! wherefore do you taunt me so?

ELECTRA.
Alas! I only mourn my father dead.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Maiden! how now? Dost thou forget thy mother?

ELECTRA.
Were you not too the mother of Orestes?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Art thou my child, and dar'st upbraid me so?

ELECTRA.
The rude accuser wakes within yourself!
My heart weeps blood; and when I turn my eyes
To yon portentous blotting of the noon,
And think what dire reverse of moral nature
Reigns in our Argos, terror fills my breast.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
My child, my child, you sorely probe my heart;
Nor longer can I, to myself, appease
The terrible conviction of my guilt.
It flames before me, fierce as Phlegethon;
And now me-thinks I see, rising around,
The hideous brood of Acheron and Chaos,
Rearing their fiery snakes to drive me hence.—
Oh! my Electra, fain my blushing soul
Would make confession of its shame to thee;
But never can thy gentle spirit know,
The dreadful contest that is rending mine.
To-day, Egysthus, whose departed love
I long have miss'd, in many cold neglects,
Has scorn'd me openly, e'en while I felt
Unnat'ral joy, that, by Orestes's death,
He might possess an unmolested throne.

ELECTRA.
And he, to-day, made horrible my hearing,
With hideous proffer of detested love.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Egysthus! love! did'st thou say, love to thee?
Art thou Electra, not the child I bore?—
O monster! monster! But all falls astray,
And noon turn'd night, is the least fearful change.
Strike! Heav'n, strike! and let me know no more.
Wilt thou submit thee to his curs'd embrace?
I'll tear thee from him like a hungry tyger;
Rive thee to joints; and on thy father's tomb,
Burn thy unhallow'd and incestuous bones,
To pacify the pale repining shade.
Oh! Agamemnon, thou art well reveng'd.

ELECTRA.
Orestes nears and waves me to retire.

ORESTES.
Hail Clytemnestra! royal murd'ress hail!

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Do I not dream; or what dread sounds are these?
Comes Agamemnon from the tomb to chide?

ORESTES.
Orestes' mother, hail! or by thy honour'd title,
Egysthus' dame! must I entice thy ear?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Again, O Gods! he comes.

ORESTES.
Wilt thou not speak?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
What would'st thou, restless and reproachful ghost?
I am prepar'd.—The spell of sin is o'er,
And Conscience wak'ning, wildly rings my doom.

ORESTES.
Where is thy son?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Has he not joined thee yet?

ORESTES.
He comes! The mighty Gods themselves have plac'd
Their gleaming vengeance in his fated grasp.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Oh! can my mis'ry yet such bitter want,
That I must fall by his unfilial arm?

ORESTES.
Did'st thou not first, these dire inversions prove?
Thou did'st, Unnatural! to-day, rejoice
In the reported death of this same son,
From whom thou dar'st to claim a mother's rights.
Behold how wide the reprobation works!
The glorious sun is fading to a blot
In the mid Heav'n of noon, as if he shunn'd
The pestilence which thy example lewd,
Has rais'd in Argos. Know'st thou not, to-day,
That thy Egysthus; thy fam'd spouse! Egysthus,
Has breath'd the loathsome fervor of his love
To thy own daughter? Yet thy doting eyes
Look on him fondly.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Cease, perturbed shade.
To-day, forever from my tortur'd bosom,
I cast him forth; and penitence and woe,
For all the wretched remnant of my life,
Shall feed upon me, till my wasted frame
Has done atonement for its guilty passion.

ORESTES.
Infirm and fleeting that contrition is,
Which shame of mortified denial breeds.
Springs thine from hatred of thy own desires?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Thy scrutinizing inquisition, shows
A fearful glass to my convicted soul.—
I dare not look on my deformity.
Upbraid no more, but with thy deadly hand,
Seize and convey me to thy shadowy home.

ORESTES.
Then yield thyself.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
O Gods!

ELECTRA.
She faints; help! help!

SCENE V.

Clytemnestra, Electra, and Egysthus.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Oh! my Electra; and is it away?

EGYSTHUS.
What Clytemnestra?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ha! com'st thou here too?
Avaunt! abhorr'd: there's torment in thy touch.
Hence! lest the awful and vindictive ghost,
Transform itself into wide-wrapping flame,
And mix our ashes in one sudden doom.

EGYSTHUS.
What can she mean, Electra?

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Is it so?
And dar'st thou woo her in my very sight?
Blaze forth again to vision, dreadful form,
And save thy innocent and blameless child,
From the enchanting venom of his tongue.—
Deem not thy virtue firmer than thy mother's;
For I was bound by holy charm of vows,
To one whose name should have been charm enough,
Against the conjurations of the sense.
Sure, I was drawn, by worse than sorcery,
To plot my husband's death, and drench my sleeves
Deep in the flowing ruby of his blood.
E'en now thy father, all magnificent,
Before me stood, as when he sail'd for Troy:
His armour sounding as he mov'd along
Tow'ring refulgent. In his searching eyes,
Me-thought a sad and wat'ry pity hung,
That kindly mercified their angry fires.

EGYSTHUS.
'Twas but a phantom of thy fever'd fancy:
The self same substance as the nightly dreams
That chace thy needful sleep.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Beware, Egysthus; yet repress the smile
That grows to mock'ry on thy jutting lip.
Such visitations are not idly made;
And see the sun on his meridian throne,
Spreads a black signal to the world of men.