University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

SCENE I.

Pylades and Orestes.
PYLADES.
By time it should be nigh the noon of day,
But night portentous has usurp'd the sky.
All birds are bower'd save witching Hecat's bird,
The bat that, in its murky flutter, shrieks
A shrill amen to the ill owlet's bode.
The sun has dwindled to an edge of light,
And seems the glitt'ring remnant of a ring.
Heav'n's lamps as in the midnight are lit up:
But in the preternatural reverse,
That seizes all; their constellated fires
Present the aspect of th'autumnal sky.

ORESTES.
How now, Pylades! art thou stricken too?

PYLADES.
In truth, Orestes something much like fear,
Chilly and pale upon my fancy creeping,
Daunts from my heart its wonted confidence.

ORESTES.
Bear up man, and take courage from the sign;
It suits our awful enterprize, and shows
The Gods auspicious. What we aim to do,
Is such a deed that, with less sanctioning,
We might have deem'd it of another stamp.
But all these pageants of the ominous sky,
Prove that the Heav'ns have interest in our purpose.

SCENE II.

Orestes, Electra and Pylades.
ORESTES.
My sister! how is this? What would'st thou here?
This is no place now for thee to abide.
The troops are posted.—To thy room again;—
Our business ill thy gentle nature suits.

ELECTRA.
O my Orestes! let me stay with thee.
Alone I dare not trust my busy thoughts.
Unutterable fears, suggestions dire,
And cogitations of unhallow'd scope,
In spite of reason glide into my mind.
All seems unnat'ral, e'en the Gods are serv'd
With rites and worship reprobate and grim.
The glorious Phœbus, like dark Hecaté,
Is hail'd in orgies ghastly and obscure:
The fearful crowds with torches glaring flame,
Rush to his temple; howling and sad cries
Are heard for tuneful hymns; and clotted gore
Of felon victims, manacled with iron,
Dragg'd from the dungeons and in fury torn,
Besmear the silver altars of the God.

PYLADES.
Gentle Electra droop not so dismay'd.

ORESTES.
You know not yet the soul-inspiring cheer
Of these celestial assurances.
By such dread prodigies in heav'n and earth
Mysterious providence controuls mankind.
Let no one say such things are negative.

ELECTRA.
Thy mind, dear brother, teems with dark conceits.
I understand thee not, or wish I may not.

ORESTES.
Go to thy chamber, and abide our call.
Pylades lead her.—I will to the men,
Lest they too catch the horror of the time.

SCENE III.

Electra and Pylades.
ELECTRA.
I will not go, Pylades; rather here
Let me be witness to the worst I think,
Than haunted by the demon of my fears.
O that I could but freely speak to him!
But when I would he seems to look on me,
With such endurance as a mother views,
The aimless pastime of her ideot child.

PYLADES.
What would you say to him? would you restrain
The mighty justice that has brought him here?

ELECTRA.
I think Orestes has a mind most noble?—

PYLADES.
Truly so, and virtuous passing man.

ELECTRA.
'Tis but the height of his stupendous worth,
That breeds in me this terrible alarm.

PYLADES.
He to the acts of his decided purpose,
Moves with the equanimity of Jove.
Sweet! what is this? Why spring these sudden tears?

ELECTRA.
When the heart's full the eyes will overflow.—
Alas! that I should yield to such conceits.

PYLADES.
To what, Electra?

ELECTRA.
Ever to suspect
The sanctity of his superior nature.
Why should his heav'nly magnanimity
Beget in me this fear.

PYLADES.
Fear! how? What fear?

ELECTRA.
O why, Pylades, does his moody thought
Seem less against the doom'd Egysthus bent,
Than on the guilt of his unhappy mother;
And this magnificence of sign and omen?

PYLADES.
He views Egysthus as the murd'rous knife:
But Clytemnestra was the urging hand.

ELECTRA.
O that he were not so juridical!—
You are his friend, his bosom friend, Pylades;
The full confided partner of his thoughts—

PYLADES.
Ha! wherefore trembling grasp you thus my arm.

ELECTRA.
Answer me truly.

PYLADES.
—What would you, Electra?

ELECTRA.
Oh sure, Oh sure, we have had crimes enough.

PYLADES.
Alas!—

ELECTRA.
Then it is so!—O gentle Death!
Shut up my sense from this catastrophe.

SCENE IV.

Orestes, Pylades, and Electra.
ORESTES.
Still here, Pylades! with Electra here!
How now Infirm! Is this thy vow to me?
And thou, pale girl, why would'st thou wond'ring stand
In the great thoroughfare of Fate and Death?
Hence to thy distaff or to pray'r. Pylades,
Look how the sun is to a twinkle shrunk.
When all is quench'd to our terrestrial vision,
I'll strike upon my shield. Be you prepar'd,
For at the signal's sound, the men, behind
The colonades, will to the storming rush.

ELECTRA.
Orestes, O my brother!—

ORESTES.
How! still here!
Into the temple, child, or to thy chamber.
Here is no place for thee, nor time for words—
Ha! who are these that from the palace come?—
Swift to thy post, Pylades—I to mine.

SCENE V.

ELECTRA.
O ye dread deities, this work is yours!
It is my wretched mother, and Egysthus,
Sent helpless here for their own sacrifice;
With all the train of pliant priests that gave
A guilty acquiescence to their sin.
Alas! alas! with what despairing looks,
She frequent turns, and eyes the blacken'd sun:
Herself too chang'd from all imperial show.

SCENE VI.

Clytemnestra, Egysthus, Electra, Priests and Torch-Bearers.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Electra, O Electra, stand'st thou here
With thy undaunted innocence to shame us!
Look on her now, and if thou can'st, Egysthus,
Beneath these dismal prodigies of Heaven,
Find courage still to love, now woo and win.

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.

SCENE VIII.

Electra and Pylades.
ELECTRA.
Oh! coward priests, will you not after him,
Nor save e'en your own altars from the stain?
Pylades too! canst thou stand shiv'ring here?—
O Gods! O Gods! Orestes! Oh! my brother!
Rise! rise dread spirit of my father, rise!
And scare him from the crime. Egysthus! wake!
Hast thou no ghost to blaze upon his sight?
Oh! ye that rule the influential stars,
Strike down with palsy his uplifted arm!
Pylades! Oh Pylades!—Hark! hark! hark!

PYLADES.
'Tis but the solemn sounding of his tread.

ELECTRA.
Comes he yet back?

PYLADES.
Not yet.

ELECTRA.
What sounds are these?

PYLADES.
A wail and general lamentation spreads
Through all the city.

ELECTRA.
List.—Did you hear that?

ORESTES.
On to the altar; to the altar straight!

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Murderer! matricide, forbear! forbear!

ORESTES.
The priest of Justice for his victim waits.

CLYTEMNESTRA.
Ho! you without; will no one help? Help! help!

ORESTES.
All now were vain.

PYLADES.
O Heav'ns! she falls, she dies.—
'Tis past, Electra; see th'avenger comes,
With ghastly horror, and all grim with gore.

SCENE IX.

Orestes, Electra, Pylades, &c.
ORESTES.
Now it is done: and lo, the sun again
Emerges from the gloom. Softly around
Breaks forth a-joyous universal hail;
Why then, Electra and Pylades dear,
Stand ye so mute, and look on me so strange?
Come, my sweet sister, let me lead thee hence.
We are two orphans, and in all the world,
Were never woeful orphans more forlorn.

ELECTRA.
Horrible sight! thy breast is foul with blood;
Thy mother's blood!—Release me awful man.

ORESTES.
What, my Pylades! where's thy gratulation?
Give me thy hand.

PYLADES.
Oh! what is this?

ORESTES.
My dagger!
Hence! blushing weapon.—Oh! could but the sight,
So soon, a sworn and sacred friendship sever!
Take her, Pylades, she has clung to thee.
'Tis I, 'tis I alone, that am the orphan.
But fare ye well; me no fond link detáins;
I have the world's spacious range before.
Cast out in childhood from my mother's breast,
Fate from the birth, has destin'd me to be
This general denizen; then why should I,
At your amaz'd and chilling looks repine.
Friends! why is this? They shake their heads and sigh;
And, to the temple, gaze, with sad enchantment.
What see they there?—Pylades, save me! save me!
See! see! where o'er my bleeding mother's corse,
The snake-hair'd furies of perdition stand.
They come, they come, in flaming rage upon me!
Ha! Here too! Others! Whither shall I fly?