University of Virginia Library

[Agamemnon's Palace: a Warder on the Battlements.]
Warder.
[Once more, once more, and once again once more]
I crave the Gods' compassion, and release
From this inexorable watch, that now
For one whole year, close as a couching dog,
On Agamemnon's housetop I have kept,
Contemplating the muster of the stars,
And those transplendent Dynasties of Heav'n
That, as alternately they rise and fall,
Draw Warmth and Winter over mortal man.
Thus, and thus long, I say, at the behest
Of the man-minded Woman who here rules,
Here have I watch'd till yonder mountain-top
Shall kindle with a signal-light from Troy.
And watch'd in vain, couch'd on the barren stone,
Night after night, night after night, alone,
Ev'n by a wandering dream unvisited,
To which the terror of my post denies
The customary passage of closed eyes.
From which, when haply nodding, I would scare
Forbidden sleep, or charm long night away
With some old ballad of the good old times,
The foolish song falls presently to tears,
Remembering the glories of this House,
Where all is not as all was wont to be,—
No, nor as should—Alas, these royal walls,
Had they but tongue (as ears and eyes, men say)
Would tell strange stories!—but, for fear they should,
Mine shall be mute as they are. Only this—
And this no treason surely—might I but,
But once more might I, see my lord again
Safe home! But once more look upon his face!
But once more take his hand in mine!—
Hilloa!
The words scarce from my lips.—Have the Gods heard?
Or am I dreaming wide awake? as wide
Awake I am—The Light! The Light! The Light
Long look'd for, long despair'd of, on the Height!
Oh more to me than all the stars of night!
More than the Morning-star!—more than the Sun
Who breaks my nightly watch, this rising one
Which tells me that my year-long night is done!
When, shaking off the collar of my watch,
I first to Clytemnestra shall report
Such news as, if indeed a lucky cast
For her and Argos, sure a Main to me!
But grant the Gods, to all! A master-cast,
More than compensating all losses past;
And lighting up our altars with a fire
Of Victory that never shall expire!

[Exit Warder. Daylight gradually dawns, and enter slowly Chorus.
Chorus.

Clytemnestra.
Oh, never yet did Night—
Night of all Good the Mother, as men say,
Conceive a fairer issue than To-day!
Prepare your ears, Old man, for tidings such
As youthful hope would scarce anticipate.

Chorus.
I have prepared them for such news as such
Preamble argues.

Clytemnestra.
What if you be told—
Oh mighty sum in one small figure cast!—
That ten-year-toil'd-for Troy is ours at last?

Chorus.
‘If told!’—Once more!—the word escaped our ears,
With many a baffled rumour heretofore
Slipp'd down the wind of wasted Expectation.

Clytemnestra.
Once more then; and with unconditional
Assurance having hit the mark indeed
That Rumour aim'd at—Troy, with all the towers
Our burning vengeance leaves aloft, is ours.
Now speak I plainly?

Chorus.
Oh! to make the tears,
That waited to bear witness in the eye,
Start, to convict our incredulity!

Clytemnestra.
Oh, blest conviction that enriches you
That lose the cause with all the victory!

Chorus.
Ev'n so. But how yourself convinced before?

Clytemnestra.
By no less sure a witness than the God.

Chorus.
What, in a dream?

Clytemnestra.
I am not one to trust
The vacillating witnesses of Sleep.

Chorus.
Ay—but as surely undeluded by
The waking Will, that what we strongly would
Imaginates?

Clytemnestra.
Ay, like a doating girl.

Chorus.
Oh, Clytemnestra, pardon mere Old Age
That, after so long starving upon Hope,
But slowly brooks his own Accomplishment.
The Ten-year war is done then! Troy is taken!
The Gods have told you, and the Gods tell true—
But—how? and when?

Clytemnestra.
Ev'n with the very birth
Of the good Night which mothers this best Day.

Chorus.
To-day! To-night! but of Night's work in Troy
Who should inform the scarce awaken'd ear
Of Morn in Argos?

Clytemnestra.
Hephaistos, the lame God,
And spriteliest of mortal messengers;
Who, springing from the bed of burning Troy,
Hither, by fore-devised Intelligence
Agreed upon between my Lord and me,
Posted from dedicated Height to Height
The reach of land and sea that lies between.
And, first to catch him and begin the game,
Did Ida fire her forest-pine, and, waving,
Handed him on to that Hermæan steep
Of Lemnos; Lemnos to the summit of
Zeus-consecrated Athos lifted; whence,
As by the giant taken, so despatch'd,
The Torch of Conquest, traversing the wide
Ægæan with a sunbeam-stretching stride,
Struck up the drowsy watchers on Makistos;
Who, flashing back the challenge, flash'd it on
To those who watch'd on the Messapian height.
With whose quick-kindling heather heap'd and fired
The meteor-bearded messenger refresh'd,
Clearing Asopus at a bound, struck fire
From old Kithæron; and, so little tired
As waxing even wanton with the sport,
Over the sleeping water of Gorgopis
Sprung to the Rock of Corinth; thence to the cliffs
Which stare down the Saronic Gulf, that now
Began to shiver in the creeping Dawn;
Whence, for a moment on the neighbouring top
Of Arachnæum lighting, one last bound
Brought him to Agamemnon's battlements.
By such gigantic strides in such a Race
Where First and Last alike are Conquerors,
Posted the travelling Fire, whose Father-light
Ida conceived of burning Troy To-night.

Chorus.
Woman, your words man-metal ring, and strike
Ev'n from the tuneless fibre of Old Age
Such martial unison as from the lips
Shall break into full Pæan by and by.

Clytemnestra.
Ay, think—think—think, old man, and in your soul,
As if 'twere mirror'd in your outward eye,
Imagine what wild work a-doing there—
In Troy—to-night—to-day—this moment—how
Harmoniously, as in one vessel meet
Esil and Oil, meet Triumph and Despair,
Sluiced by the sword along the reeking street,
On which the Gods look down from burning air.
Slain, slaying—dying, dead—about the dead
Fighting to die themselves—maidens and wives
Lock'd by the locks, with their barbarian young,
And torn away to slavery and shame
By hands all reeking with their Champion's blood.
Until, with execution weary, we
Fling down our slaughter-satiated swords,
To gorge ourselves on the unfinish'd feasts
Of poor old Priam and his sons; and then,
Roll'd on rich couches never spread for us,
Ev'n now our sleep-besotted foreheads turn
Up to the very Sun that rises here.
Such is the lawful game of those who win
Upon so just a quarrel—so long fought:
Provided always that, with jealous care,
Retaliation wreaking upon those
Who our insulted Gods upon them drew,
We push not Riot to their Altar-foot;
Remembering, on whichever mortal side
Engaged, the Gods are Gods in heav'n and earth,
And not to be insulted unavenged.
This let us take to heart, and keep in sight;
Lest, having run victoriously thus far,
And turn'd the very pillar of our race,
Before we reach the long'd-for goal of Home
Nemesis overtake, or trip us up;
Some ere safe shipp'd: or, launch'd upon the foam,
Ere touch'd the threshold of their native shore;
Yea, or that reach'd, the threshold of the door
Of their own home; from whatsoever corner
The jealous Power is ever on the watch
To compass arrogant Prosperity.
These are a woman's words; for men to take,
Or disregarded drop them, as they will;
Enough for me, if having won the stake,
I pray the Gods with us to keep it still.

[Exit Clytemnestra.
Chorus.

Herald.
Oh, Fatherland of Argos, back to whom
After ten years do I indeed return
Under the dawn of this auspicious day!
Of all the parted anchors of lost Hope
That this, depended least on, yet should hold;
Amid so many men to me so dear
About me dying, yet myself exempt
Return to live what yet of life remains
Among my own; among my own at last
To share the blest communion of the Dead!
Oh, welcome, welcome, welcome once again
My own dear Country and the light she draws
From the benignant Heav'ns; and all the Gods
Who guard her; Zeus Protector first of all;
And Phœbus, by this all-restoring dawn
Who heals the wounds his arrows dealt so fast
Beside Scamander; and not last nor least
Among the Powers engaged upon our side,
Hermes, the Herald's Patron, and his Pride;
Who, having brought me safely through the war,
Now brings me back to tell the victory
Into my own belovèd country's ear;
Who, all the more by us, the more away,
Beloved, will greet with Welcome no less dear
This remnant of the unremorseful spear.
And, oh, you Temples, Palaces, and throned
Colossi, that affront the rising sun,
If ever yet, your marble foreheads now
Bathe in the splendour of returning Day
To welcome back your so long absent Lord;
Who by Zeus' self directed to the spot
Of Vengeance, and the special instrument
Of Retribution put into his hands,
Has undermined, uprooted, and destroy'd,
Till scarce one stone upon another stands,
The famous Citadel, that, deeply cast
For crime, has all the forfeit paid at last.

Chorus.
Oh hail and welcome, Herald of good news!
Welcome and hail! and doubt not thy return
As dear to us as thee.

Herald.
To me so dear,
After so long despair'd of, that, for fear
Life's after-draught the present should belie,
One might implore the Gods ev'n now to die!

Chorus.
Oh, your soul hunger'd after home!

Herald.
So sore,
That sudden satisfaction of once more
Return weeps out its surfeit at my eyes.

Chorus.
And ours, you see, contagiously, no less
The same long grief, and sudden joy, confess.

Herald.
What! Argos for her missing children yearn'd
As they for her, then?

Chorus.
Ay; perhaps and more,
Already pining with an inward sore.

Herald.
How so?

Chorus.
Nay, Silence, that has best endured
The pain, may best dismiss the memory.

Herald.
Ev'n so. For who, unless the God himself,
Expects to live his life without a flaw?
Why, once begin to open that account,
Might not we tell for ten good years to come
Of all we suffer'd in the ten gone by?
Not the mere course and casualty of war,
Alarum, March, Battle, and such hard knocks
As foe with foe expects to give and take;
But all the complement of miseries
That go to swell a long campaign's account.
Cramm'd close aboard the ships, hard bed, hard board:
Or worse perhaps while foraging ashore
In winter time; when, if not from the walls,
Pelted from Heav'n by Day, to couch by Night
Between the falling dews and rising damps
That elf'd the locks, and set the body fast
With cramp and ague; or, to mend the matter,
Good mother Ida from her winter top
Flinging us down a coverlet of snow.
Or worst perhaps in Summer, toiling in
The bloody harvest-field of torrid sand,
When not an air stirr'd the fierce Asian noon,
And ev'n the sea sleep-sicken'd in his bed.
But why lament the Past, as past it is?
If idle for the Dead who feel no more,
Idler for us to whom this blissful Dawn
Shines doubly bright against the stormy Past;
Who, after such predicament and toil,
Boast, once more standing on our mother soil,
That Zeus, who sent us to revenge the crime
Upon the guilty people, now recalls
To hang their trophies on our temple walls
For monumental heir-looms to all time.

Chorus.
Oh, but Old age, however slow to learn,
Not slow to learn, nor after you repeat,
Lesson so welcome, Herald of the Fleet!
But here is Clytemnestra; be you first
To bless her ears, as mine, with news so sweet.

Clytemnestra.
I sang my Song of Triumph ere he came,
Alone I sang it while the City slept,
And these wise Senators, with winking eyes,
Look'd grave, and weigh'd mistrustfully my word,
As the light coinage of a woman's brain.
And so they went their way. But not the less
From those false fires I lit my altar up,
And, woman-wise, held on my song, until
The City taking up the note from me,
Scarce knowing why, about that altar flock'd,
Where, like the Priest of Victory, I stood,
Torch-handed, drenching in triumphant wine
The flame that from the smouldering incense rose.
Now what more needs? This Herald of the Day
Adds but another witness to the Night;
And I will hear no more from other lips,
Till from my husband Agamemnon all,
Whom with all honour I prepare to meet.
Oh, to a loyal woman what so sweet
As once more wide the gate of welcome fling
To the loved Husband whom the Gods once more
After long travail home triumphant bring;
Where he shall find her, as he left before,
Fix'd like a trusty watchdog at the door,
Tractable him-ward, but inveterate
Against the doubtful stranger at the gate;
And not a seal within the house but still
Inviolate, under a woman's trust
Incapable of taint as gold of rust.

[Exit Clytemnestra.
Herald.
A boast not misbeseeming a true woman.

Chorus.
For then no boast at all. But she says well;
And Time interprets all. Enough for us
To praise the Gods for Agamemnon's safe,
And more than safe return. And Menelaus,
The other half of Argos—What of him?

Herald.
Those that I most would gladden with good news,
And on a day like this—with fair but false
I dare not.

Chorus.
What, must fair then needs be false?

Herald.
Old man, the Gods grant somewhat, and withhold
As seems them good: a time there is for Praise,
A time for Supplication: nor is it well
To twit the celebration of their largess,
Reminding them of somewhat they withhold.

Chorus.
Yet till we know how much withheld or granted,
We know not how the balance to adjust
Of Supplication or of Praise.

Herald.
Alas,
The Herald who returns with downcast eyes,
And leafless brow prophetic of Reverse,
Let him at once—at once let him, I say,
Lay the whole burden of Ill-tidings down
In the mid-market place. But why should one
Returning with the garland on his brow
Be stopp'd to name the single missing leaf
Of which the Gods have stinted us?

Chorus.
Alas,
The putting of a fearful question by
Is but to ill conjecture worse reply!
You bring not back then—do not leave behind—
What Menelaus was?

Herald.
The Gods forbid!
Safe shipp'd with all the host.

Chorus.
Well but—how then?
Surely no tempest—

Herald.
Ay! by that one word
Hitting the centre of a boundless sorrow!

Chorus.
Well, but if peradventure from the fleet
Parted—not lost?

Herald.
None but the eye of Day,
Now woke, knows all the havoc of the Night.
For Night it was; all safe aboard—sail set,
And oars all beating home; when suddenly,
As if those old antagonists had sworn
New strife between themselves for our destruction,
The sea, that tamely let us mount his back,
Began to roar and plunge under a lash
Of tempest from the thundering heavens so fierce
As, falling on our fluttering navy, some
Scatter'd, or whirl'd away like flakes of foam:
Or, huddling wave on wave, so ship on ship
Like fighting eagles on each other fell,
And beak, and wing, and claws, entangled, tore
To pieces one another, or dragg'd down.
So when at last the tardy-rising Sun
Survey'd, and show'd, the havoc Night had done,
We, whom some God—or Fortune's self, I think—
Seizing the helm, had steer'd as man could not,
Beheld the waste Ægæan wilderness
Strown with the shatter'd forest of the fleet,
Trunk, branch, and foliage; and yet worse, I ween,
The flower of Argos floating dead between.
Then we, scarce trusting in our own escape,
And saving such as yet had life to save,
Along the heaving wilderness of wave
Went ruminating, who of those we miss'd
Might yet survive, who lost: the saved, no doubt,
As sadly speculating after us.
Of whom, if Menelaus—and the Sun
(A prayer which all the Gods in Heav'n fulfil!)
Behold him on the water breathing still;
Doubt not that Zeus, under whose special showers
And suns the royal growth of Atreus towers,
Will not let perish stem, and branch, and fruit,
By loss of one corroborating root.

Chorus.

Enter Agamemnon in his chariot, Cassandra following in another.
Agamemnon.
First, as first due, my Country I salute,
And all her tutelary Gods; all those
Who, having sent me forth, now bring me back,
After full retribution wrought on those
Who retribution owed us, and the Gods
In full consistory determined; each,
With scarce a swerving eye to Mercy's side,
Dropping his vote into the urn of blood,
Caught and consuming in whose fiery wrath,
The stately City, from her panting ashes
Into the nostril of revolted Heav'n
Gusts of expiring opulence puffs up.
For which, I say, the Gods alone be thank'd;
By whose contrivance round about the wall
We drew the belt of Ares, and laid bare
The flank of Ilium to the Lion-horse,
Who sprung by night over the city wall,
And foal'd his iron progeny within,
About the setting of the Pleiades.
Thus much by way of prelude to the Gods.
For you, oh white-hair'd senators of Argos,
Your measured Welcome I receive for just;
Aware on what a tickle base of fortune
The monument of human Glory stands;
And, for humane congratulation, knowing
How, smile as may the mask, the man behind
Frets at the fortune that degrades his own.
This, having heard of from the wise, myself,
From long experience in the ways of men,
Can vouch for—what a shadow of a shade
Is human loyalty; and, as a proof,
Of all the Host that fill'd the Grecian ship,
And pour'd at large along the field of Troy,
One only Chief—and he, too, like yourself,
At first with little stomach for the cause—
The wise Odysseus—once in harness, he
With all his might pull'd in the yoke with me,
Through envy, obloquy, and opposition:
And in Odysseus' honour, live or dead—
For yet we know not which—shall this be said.
Of which enough. For other things of moment
To which you point, or human or divine,
We shall forthwith consider and adjudge
In seasonable council; what is well,
Or in our absence well deserving, well
Establish and requite; what not, redress
With salutary caution; or, if need,
With the sharp edge of Justice; and to health
Restore, and right, our ailing Commonwealth.
Now, first of all, by my own altar-hearth
To thank the Gods for my return, and pray
That Victory, which thus far by my side
Has flown with us, with us may still abide.

Enter Clytemnestra from the Palace.
Clytemnestra.
Oh Men of Argos, count it not a shame
If a fond wife, and one whom riper years
From Youth's becoming bashfulness excuse,
Dares own her love before the face of men;
Nor leaving it for others to enhance,
Simply declares the wretched widowhood
Which these ten years she has endured, since first
Her husband Agamemnon went to Troy.
'Tis no light matter, let me tell you, Sirs,
A woman left in charge of house and home—
And when that house and home a Kingdom—and
She left alone to rule it—and ten years!
Beside dissent and discontent at home,
Storm'd from abroad with contrary reports,
Now fair, now foul; but still as time wore on
Growing more desperate; as dangerous
Unto the widow'd kingdom as herself.
Why, had my husband there but half the wounds
Fame stabb'd him with, he were before me now,
Not the whole man we see him, but a body
Gash'd into network; ay, or had he died
But half as often as Report gave out,
He would have needed thrice the cloak of earth
To cover him, that triple Geryon
Lies buried under in the world below.
Thus, back and forward baffled, and at last
So desperate—that, if I be here alive
To tell the tale, no thanks to me for that,
Whose hands had twisted round my neck the noose
Which others loosen'd—my Orestes too
In whose expanding manhood day by day
My Husband I perused—and, by the way,
Whom wonder not, my Lord, not seeing here;
My simple mother-love, and jealousy
Of civic treason—ever as you know,
Most apt to kindle when the lord away—
Having bestow'd him, out of danger's reach,
With Strophius of Phocis, wholly yours
Bound by the generous usages of war,
That make the once-won foe so fast a friend.
Thus, widow'd of my son as of his sire,
No wonder if I wept—not drops, but showers,
The ten years' night through which I watch'd in vain
The star that was to bring him back to me;
Or, if I slept, a sleep so thin as scared
Even at the slight incursion of the gnat;
And yet more thick with visionary terrors
Than thrice the waking while had occupied.
Well, I have borne all this: all this have borne,
Without a grudge against the wanderer,
Whose now return makes more than rich amends
For all ungrateful absence—Agamemnon,
My Lord and Husband; Lord of Argos; Troy's
Confounder: Mainstay of the realm of Greece;
And Master-column of the house of Atreus—
Oh wonder not if I accumulate
All honour and endearment on his head!
If to his country, how much more to me,
Welcome, as land to sailors long at sea,
Or water in the desert; whose return
Is fire to the forsaken winter-hearth;
Whose presence, like the rooted Household Tree
That, winter-dead so long, anew puts forth
To shield us from the Dogstar, what time Zeus
Wrings the tart vintage into blissful juice.
Down from the chariot thou standest in,
Crown'd with the flaming towers of Troy, descend,
And to this palace, rich indeed with thee,
But beggar-poor without, return! And ye,
My women, carpet all the way before,
From the triumphal carriage to the door,
With all the gold and purple in the chest
Stored these ten years; and to what purpose stored,
Unless to strew the footsteps of their Lord
Returning to his unexpected rest!

Agamemnon.
Daughter of Leda, Mistress of my house,
Beware lest loving Welcome of your Lord,
Measuring itself by his protracted absence,
Exceed the bound of rightful compliment,
And better left to other lips than yours.
Address me not, address me not, I say
With dust-adoring adulation, meeter
For some barbarian Despot from his slave;
Nor with invidious Purple strew my way,
Fit only for the footstep of a God
Lighting from Heav'n to earth. Let whoso will
Trample their glories underfoot, not I.
Woman, I charge you, honour me no more
Than as the man I am; if honour-worth,
Needing no other trapping but the fame
Of the good deed I clothe myself withal;
And knowing that, of all their gifts to man,
No greater gift than Self-sobriety
The Gods vouchsafe him in the race of life:
Which, after thus far running, if I reach
The goal in peace, it shall be well for me.

Clytemnestra.
Why, how think you old Priam would have walk'd
Had he return'd to Troy your conqueror,
As you to Hellas his?

Agamemnon.
What then? Perhaps
Voluptuary Asiatic-like,
On gold and purple.

Clytemnestra.
Well, and grudging this,
When all that out before your footstep flows
Ebbs back into the treasury again;
Think how much more, had Fate the tables turn'd,
Irrevocably from those coffers gone,
For those barbarian feet to walk upon,
To buy your ransom back!

Agamemnon.
Enough, enough!
I know my reason.

Clytemnestra.
What! the jealous God?
Or, peradventure, yet more envious Man?

Agamemnon.
And that of no small moment.

Clytemnestra.
No; the one
Sure proof of having won what others would.

Agamemnon.
No matter—Strife but ill becomes a woman.

Clytemnestra.
And frank submission to her simple wish
How well becomes the Soldier in his strength!

Agamemnon.
And I must then submit?

Clytemnestra.
Ay, Agamemnon,
Deny me not this first Desire on this
First Morning of your long-desired Return.

Agamemnon.
But not till I have put these sandals off,
That, slave-like, too officiously would pander
Between the purple and my dainty feet.
For fear, for fear indeed, some Jealous eye
From heav'n above, or earth below, should strike
The Man who walks the earth Immortal-like.
So much for that. For this same royal maid,
Cassandra, daughter of King Priamus,
Whom, as the flower of all the spoil of Troy,
The host of Hellas dedicates to me;
Entreat her gently; knowing well that none
But submit hardly to a foreign yoke;
And those of Royal blood most hardly brook.
That if I sin thus trampling underfoot
A woof in which the Heav'ns themselves are dyed,
The jealous God may less resent his crime,
Who mingles human mercy with his pride.

Clytemnestra.
The Sea there is, and shall the sea be dried?
Fount inexhaustibler of purple grain
Than all the wardrobes of the world could drain;
And Earth there is, whose dusky closets hide
The precious metal wherewith not in vain
The Gods themselves this Royal house provide;
For what occasion worthier, or more meet,
Than now to carpet the victorious feet
Of Him who, thus far having done their will,
Shall now their last About-to-be fulfil?

[Agamemnon descends from his chariot, and goes with Clytemnestra into the house, Cassandra remaining.]
Chorus.

Clytemnestra
(re-entering).
Yet for a moment let me look on her—
This, then, is Priam's daughter—
Cassandra, and a Prophetess, whom Zeus
Has giv'n into my hands to minister
Among my slaves. Didst thou prophesy that?
Well—some more famous have so fall'n before—
Ev'n Herakles, the son of Zeus, they say
Was sold, and bow'd his shoulder to the yoke.

Chorus.
And, if needs must a captive, better far
Of some old house that affluent Time himself
Has taught the measure of prosperity,
That drunk with sudden superfluity.

Clytemnestra.
Ev'n so. You hear? Therefore at once descend
From that triumphal chariot—And yet
She keeps her station still, her laurel on,
Disdaining to make answer.

Chorus.
Nay, perhaps,
Like some stray swallow blown across the seas,
Interpreting no twitter but her own.

Clytemnestra.
But, if barbarian, still interpreting
The universal language of the hand.

Chorus.
Which yet again she does not seem to see,
Staring before her with wide-open eyes
As in a trance.

Clytemnestra.
Ay, ay, a prophetess—
Phœbus Apollo's minion once—Whose now?
A time will come for her. See you to it:
A greater business now is on my hands:
For lo! the fire of Sacrifice is lit,
And the grand victim by the altar stands.

[Exit Clytemnestra.
Chorus
(continuing).
Still a mutter'd and half-blind
Superstition haunts mankind,
That, by some divine decree
Yet by mortal undivined,
Mortal Fortune must not over-
Leap the bound he cannot see;
For that even wisest labour
Lofty-building, builds to fall,
Evermore a jealous neighbour
Undermining floor and wall.
So that on the smoothest water
Sailing, in a cloudless sky,
The wary merchant overboard
Flings something of his precious hoard
To pacify the jealous eye,
That will not suffer man to swell
Over human measure. Well,
As the Gods have order'd we
Must take—I know not—let it be.
But, by rule of retribution,
Hidden, too, from human eyes,
Fortune in her revolution,
If she fall, shall fall to rise:
And the hand of Zeus dispenses
Even measure in the main:
One short harvest recompenses
With a glut of golden grain;
So but men in patience wait
Fortune's counter-revolution
Axled on eternal Fate;
And the Sisters three that twine,
Cut not short the vital line;
For indeed the purple seed
Of life once shed—

Cassandra.
Phœbus Apollo!

Chorus.
Hark!
The lips at last unlocking.

Cassandra.
Phœbus! Phœbus!

Chorus.
Well, what of Phœbus, maiden? though a name
'Tis but disparagement to call upon
In misery.

Cassandra.
Apollo! Apollo! Again!
Oh, the burning arrow through the brain!
Phœbus Apollo! Apollo!

Chorus.
Seemingly
Possess'd indeed—whether by—

Cassandra.
Phœbus! Phœbus!
Thorough trampled ashes, blood, and fiery rain,
Over water seething, and behind the breathing
Warhorse in the darkness—till you rose again—
Took the helm—took the rein—

Chorus.
As one that half asleep at dawn recalls
A night of Horror!

Cassandra.
Hither, whither, Phœbus? And with whom,
Leading me, lighting me—

Chorus.
I can answer that—

Cassandra.
Down to what slaughter-house?
Foh! the smell of carnage through the door
Scares me from it—drags me tow'rd it—
Phœbus! Apollo! Apollo!

Chorus.
One of the dismal prophet-pack, it seems,
That hunt the trail of blood. But here at fault—
This is no den of slaughter, but the house
Of Agamemnon.

Cassandra.
Down upon the towers
Phantoms of two mangled Children hover—and a famish'd man,
At an empty table glaring, seizes and devours!

Chorus.
Thyestes and his children! Strange enough
For any maiden from abroad to know,
Or, knowing—

Cassandra.
And look! in the chamber below
The terrible Woman, listening, watching,
Under a mask, preparing the blow
In the fold of her robe—

Chorus.
Nay, but again at fault:
For in the tragic story of this House—
Unless, indeed, the fatal Helen—
No woman—

Cassandra.
No Woman—Tisiphone! Daughter
Of Tartarus—love-grinning Woman above,
Dragon-tail'd under—honey-tongued, Harpy-claw'd,
Into the glittering meshes of slaughter
She wheedles, entices, him into the poisonous
Fold of the serpent—

Chorus.
Peace, mad woman, peace!
Whose stony lips once open vomit out
Such uncouth horrors.

Cassandra.
I tell you the lioness
Slaughters the Lion asleep; and lifting
Her blood-dripping fangs buried deep in his mane,
Glaring about her insatiable, bellowing,
Bounds hither—Phœbus, Apollo, Apollo, Apollo!
Whither have you led me, under night alive with fire,
Through the trampled ashes of the city of my sire,
From my slaughter'd kinsmen, fallen throne, insulted shrine,
Slave-like to be butcher'd, the daughter of a Royal line?

Chorus.
And so returning, like a nightingale
Returning to the passionate note of woe
By which the silence first was broken!

Cassandra.
Oh,
A nightingale, a nightingale, indeed,
That, as she ‘Itys! Itys! Itys!’ so
I ‘Helen! Helen! Helen!’ having sung
Amid my people, now to those who flung
And trampled on the nest, and slew the young,
Keep crying ‘Blood! blood! blood!’ and none will heed!
Now what for me is this prophetic weed,
And what for me is this immortal crown,
Who like a wild swan from Scamander's reed
Chaunting her death-song float Cocytus-down?
There let the fatal Leaves to perish lie!
To perish, or enrich some other brow
With that all-fatal gift of Prophecy
They palpitated under Him who now,
Checking his flaming chariot in mid sky,
With divine irony sees disadorn
The wretch his love has made the people's scorn,
The raving quean, the mountebank, the scold,
Who, wrapt up in the ruin she foretold
With those who would not listen, now descends
To that dark kingdom where his empire ends.

Chorus.
Strange that Apollo should the laurel wreath
Of Prophecy he crown'd your head withal
Himself disgrace. But something have we heard
Of some divine revenge for slighted love.

Cassandra.
Ay—and as if in malice to attest
With one expiring beam of Second-sight
Wherewith his victim he has cursed and blest,
Ere quench'd for ever in descending night;
As from behind a veil no longer peeps
The Bride of Truth, nor from their hidden deeps
Darkle the waves of Prophecy, but run
Clear from the very fountain of the Sun.
Ye call'd—and rightly call'd—me bloodhound; ye
That like old lagging dogs in self-despite
Must follow up the scent with me; with me,
Who having smelt the blood about this house
Already spilt, now bark of more to be.
For, though you hear them not, the infernal Choir
Whose dread antiphony forswears the lyre,
Who now are chaunting of that grim carouse
Of blood with which the children fed their Sire,
Shall never from their dreadful chorus stop
Till all be counter-pledged to the last drop.

Chorus.
Hinting at what indeed has long been done,
And widely spoken, no Apollo needs;
And for what else you aim at—still in dark
And mystic language—

Cassandra.
Nay, then, in the speech,
She that reproved me was so glib to teach—
Before yon Sun a hand's-breadth in the skies
He moves in shall have moved, those age-sick eyes
Shall open wide on Agamemnon slain
Before your very feet. Now, speak I plain?

Chorus.
Blasphemer, hush!

Cassandra.
Ay, hush the mouth you may,
But not the murder.

Chorus.
Murder! But the Gods—

Cassandra.
The Gods!
Who even now are their accomplices.

Chorus.
Woman!—Accomplices—With whom?—

Cassandra.
With Her,
Who brandishing aloft the axe of doom,
That just has laid one victim at her feet,
Looks round her for that other, without whom
The banquet of revenge were incomplete.
Yet ere I fall will I prelude the strain
Of Triumph, that in full I shall repeat
When, looking from the twilight Underland,
I welcome Her as she descends amain,
Gash'd like myself, but by a dearer hand.
For that old murder'd Lion with me slain,
Rolling an awful eyeball through the gloom
He stalks about of Hades up to Day,
Shall rouse the whelp of exile far away,
His only authentic offspring, ere the grim
Wolf crept between his Lioness and him;
Who with one stroke of Retribution, her
Who did the deed, and her adulterer,
Shall drive to hell; and then, himself pursued
By the wing'd Furies of his Mother's blood,
Shall drag about the yoke of Madness, till
Released, when Nemesis has gorged her fill,
By that same God, in whose prophetic ray
Viewing To-morrow mirror'd as To-day,
And that this House of Atreus the same wine
Themselves must drink they brew'd for me and mine;
I close my lips for ever with one prayer,
That the dark Warder of the World below
Would ope the portal at a single blow.

Chorus.

Clytemnestra.
(Appearing from within, where lies Agamemnon dead.)
Spare your pain.
Look! I who but just now before you all
Boasted of loyal wedlock unashamed,
Now unashamed dare boast the contrary.
Why, how else should one compass the defeat
Of him who underhand contrives one's own,
Unless by such a snare of circumstance
As, once enmesh'd, he never should break through?
The blow now struck was not the random blow
Of sudden passion, but with slow device
Prepared, and levell'd with the hand of time.
I say it who devised it; I who did;
And now stand here to face the consequence.
Ay, in a deadlier web than of that loom
In whose blood-purple he divined a doom,
And fear'd to walk upon, but walk'd at last,
Entangling him inextricably fast,
I smote him, and he bellow'd; and again
I smote, and with a groan his knees gave way;
And, as he fell before me, with a third
And last libation from the deadly mace
I pledged the crowning draught to Hades due,
That subterranean Saviour—of the Dead!
At which he spouted up the Ghost in such
A burst of purple as, bespatter'd with,
No less did I rejoice than the green ear
Rejoices in the largess of the skies
That fleeting Iris follows as it flies.

Chorus.
Oh woman, woman, woman!
By what accursèd root or weed
Of Earth, or Sea, or Hell, inflamed,
Darest stand before us unashamed
And, daring do, dare glory in the deed!

Clytemnestra.
Oh, I that dream'd the fall of Troy, as you
Belike of Troy's destroyer. Dream or not,
Here lies your King—my Husband—Agamemnon,
Slain by this right hand's righteous handicraft.
Like you, or like it not, alike to me;
To me alike whether or not you share
In making due libation over this
Great Sacrifice—if ever due, from him
Who, having charged so deep a bowl of blood,
Himself is forced to drink it to the dregs.

Chorus.
Woman, what blood but that of Troy, which Zeus
Foredoom'd for expiation by his hand
For whom the penalty was pledged? And now,
Over his murder'd body, Thou
Talk of libation!—Thou! Thou! Thou!
But mark! Not thine of sacred wine
Over his head, but ours on thine
Of curse, and groan, and torn-up stone,
To slay or storm thee from the gate,
The City's curse, the People's hate,
Execrate, exterminate—

Clytemnestra.
Ay, ay, to me how lightly you adjudge
Exile or death, and never had a word
Of counter-condemnation for Him there;
Who, when the field throve with the proper flock
For Sacrifice, forsooth let be the beast,
And with his own hand his own innocent
Blood, and the darling passion of my womb—
Her slew—to lull a peevish wind of Thrace.
And him who cursed the city with that crime
You hail with acclamation; but on me,
Who only do the work you should have done,
You turn the axe of condemnation. Well;
Threaten you me, I take the challenge up;
Here stand we face to face; win Thou the game,
And take the stake you aim at; but if I—
Then, by the Godhead that for me decides,
Another lesson you shall learn, though late.

Chorus.
Man-mettled evermore, and now
Manslaughter-madden'd! Shameless brow!
But do you think us deaf and blind
Not to know, and long ago,
What Passion under all the prate
Of holy justice made thee hate
Where Love was due, and love where—

Clytemnestra.
Nay, then, hear!
By this dead Husband, and the reconciled
Avenging Fury of my slaughter'd child,
I swear I will not reign the slave of fear
While he that holds me, as I hold him, dear,
Kindles his fire upon this hearth: my fast
Shield for the time to come, as of the past.
Yonder lies he that in the honey'd arms
Of his Chryseides under Troy walls
Dishonour'd mine: and this last laurell'd wench,
Prophetic messmate of the rower's bench,
Thus far in triumph his, with him along
Shall go, together chaunting one death-song
To Hades—fitting garnish for the feast
Which Fate's avenging hand through mine hath dress'd.

Chorus.
Woe, woe, woe, woe!
That death as sudden as the blow
That laid Thee low would me lay low
Where low thou liest, my sovereign Lord!
Who ten years long to Trojan sword
Devoted, and to storm aboard,
In one ill woman's cause accurst,
Liest slain before thy palace door
By one accursedest and worst!

Clytemnestra.
Call not on Death, old man, that, call'd or no,
Comes quick; nor spend your ebbing breath on me,
Nor Helena: who but as arrows be
Shot by the hidden hand behind the bow.

Chorus.
Alas, alas! The Curse I know
That round the House of Atreus clings,
About the roof, about the walls,
Shrouds it with his sable wings;
And still as each new victim falls,
And gorged with kingly gore,
Down on the bleeding carcase flings,
And croaks for ‘More, more, more!’

Clytemnestra.
Ay, now, indeed, you harp on likelier strings.
Not I, nor Helen, but that terrible
Alastor of old Tantalus in Hell;
Who, one sole actor in the scene begun
By him, and carried down from sire to son,
The mask of Victim and Avenger shifts;
And, for a last catastrophe, that grim
Guest of the abominable banquet lifts
His head from Hell, and in my person cries
For one full-grown sufficient sacrifice,
Requital of the feast prepared for him
Of his own flesh and blood—And there it lies.

Chorus.
Oh, Agamemnon! Oh, my Lord!
Who, after ten years toil'd;
After barbarian lance and sword
Encounter'd, fought, and foil'd:
Returning with the just award
Of Glory, thus inglorious by
Thine own domestic Altar die,
Fast in the spider meshes coil'd
Of Treason most abhorr'd!

Clytemnestra.
And by what retribution more complete,
Than, having in the meshes of deceit
Enticed my child, and slain her like a fawn
Upon the altar; to that altar drawn
Himself, like an unconscious beast, full-fed
With Conquest, and the garland on his head,
Is slain? and now, gone down among the Ghost,
Of taken Troy indeed may make the most,
But not one unrequited murder boast.

Chorus.
Oh Agamemnon, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead!
What hand, what pious hand shall wash the wound
Through which the sacred spirit ebb'd and fled!
With reverend care compose, and to the ground
Commit the mangled form of Majesty,
And pour the due libation o'er the mound!

Clytemnestra.
This hand, that struck the guilty life away,
The guiltless carcase in the dust shall lay
With due solemnities: and if with no
Mock tears, or howling counterfeit of woe,
On this side earth; perhaps the innocent thing,
Whom with paternal love he sent before,
Meeting him by the melancholy shore,
Her arms about him with a kiss shall fling,
And lead him to his shadowy throne below.

Chorus.
Alas! alas! the fatal rent
Which through the house of Atreus went,
Gapes again; a purple rain
Sweats the marble floor, and falls
From the tottering roof and walls,
The Dæmon heaving under; gone
The master-prop they rested on:
And the storm once more awake
Of Nemesis; of Nemesis
Whose fury who shall slake!

Clytemnestra.
Ev'n I; who by this last grand victim hope
The Pyramid of Vengeance so to cope,
That—and methinks I hear him in the deep
Beneath us growling tow'rd his rest—the stern
Alastor to some other roof may turn,
Leaving us here at last in peace to keep
What of life's harvest yet remains to reap.

Chorus.
Thou to talk of reaping Peace
Who sowest Murder! Woman, cease!
And, despite that iron face—
Iron as the bloody mace
Thou bearest—boasting as if Vengeance
Centred in that hand alone;
Know that, Fury pledged to Fury,
Vengeance owes himself the debts
He makes, and while he serves thee, whets
His knife upon another stone,
Against thyself, and him with thee
Colleaguing, as you boast to be,
The tools of Fate. But Fate is Zeus;
Zeus—who for a while permitting
Sin to prosper in his name,
Shall vindicate his own abuse;
And having brought his secret thought
To light, shall break and fling to shame
The baser tools with which he wrought.

Ægisthus: Clytemnestra: Chorus.
All hail, thou daybreak of my just revenge!
In which, as waking from injurious sleep,
Methinks I recognize the Gods enthroned
In the bright conclave of eternal Justice,
Revindicate the wrongs of man to man!
For see this man—so dear to me now dead—
Caught in the very meshes of the snare
By which his father Atreus netted mine.
For that same Atreus surely, was it not?
Who, wrought by false Suspicion to fix'd Hate,
From Argos out his younger brother drove,
My sire—Thyestes—drove him like a wolf,
Keeping his cubs—save one—to better purpose.
For when at last the home-heartbroken man
Crept humbly back again, craving no more
Of his own country than to breathe its air
In liberty, and of her fruits as much
As not to starve withal—the savage King,
With damnable alacrity of hate,
And reconciliation of revenge,
Bade him, all smiles, to supper—such a supper,
Where the prime dainty was—my brother's flesh,
So maim'd and clipt of human likelihood,
That the unsuspecting Father, light of heart,
And quick of appetite, at once fell to,
And ate—ate—what, with savage irony
As soon as eaten, told—the wretched man
Disgorging with a shriek, down to the ground
The table with its curst utensil dash'd,
And, grinding into pieces with his heel,
Cried, loud enough for Heav'n and Hell to hear,
‘Thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes!’
And now behold! the son of that same Atreus
By me the son of that Thyestes slain
Whom the kind brother, sparing from the cook,
Had with his victim pack'd to banishment;
Where Nemesis—(so sinners from some nook,
Whence least they think assailable, assail'd)—
Rear'd me from infancy till fully grown,
To claim in full my father's bloody due.
Ay, I it was—none other—far away
Who spun the thread, which gathering day by day
Mesh after mesh, inch upon inch, at last
Reach'd him, and wound about him, as he lay,
And in the supper of his smoking Troy
Devour'd his own destruction—scarce condign
Return for that his Father forced on mine.

Chorus.
Ægisthus, only things of baser breed
Insult the fallen; fall'n too, as you boast,
By one who plann'd but dared not do the deed.
This is your hour of triumph. But take heed;
The blood of Atreus is not all outrun
With this slain King, but flowing in a son,
Who saved by such an exile as your own
For such a counter-retribution—

Ægisthus.
Oh,
You then, the nether benchers of the realm,
Dare open tongue on those who rule the helm?
Take heed yourselves; for, old and dull of wit,
And harden'd as your mouth against the bit,
Be wise in time; kick not against the spurs;
Remembering Princes are shrewd taskmasters.

Chorus.
Beware thyself, bewaring me;
Remembering that, too sharply stirr'd,
The spurrer need beware the spurr'd;
As thou of me; whose single word
Shall rouse the City—yea, the very
Stones you walk upon, in thunder
Gathering o'er your head, to bury
Thee and thine Adultress under!

Ægisthus.
Raven, that with croaking jaws
Unorphean, undivine,
After you no City draws;
And if any vengeance, mine
Upon your wither'd shoulders—

Chorus.
Thine!
Who daring not to strike the blow
Thy worse than woman-craft design'd,
To worse than woman—

Ægisthus.
Soldiers, ho!

Clytemnestra.
Softly, good Ægisthus, softly; let the sword that has so deep
Drunk of righteous Retribution now within the scabbard sleep!
And if Nemesis be sated with the blood already spilt,
Even so let us, nor carry lawful Justice into Guilt.
Sheathe your sword; dismiss your spears; and you, Old men, your howling cease,
And, ere ill blood come to running, each unto his home in peace,
Recognizing what is done for done indeed, as done it is,
And husbanding your scanty breath to pray that nothing more amiss.
Farewell. Meanwhile, you and I, Ægisthus, shall deliberate,
When the storm is blowing under, how to settle House and State.