 | Clytemnestra |  |
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.
| Clytemnestra | |