If this night-vision speed not, landward, on the tide.

O chariot-race weary

Of Pelops of old,

How fateful, how dreary,

Thou hast proved, to this land!

For since Myrtilus slumbered,

From the chariot, all gold,

Torn, silenced for ever,

Flung far from the strand,

From thenceforth never

The weary disgrace

Of troubles unnumbered

Hath passed from the race.

Enter CLYTÆMNESTRA, attended.

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

You gad abroad, then, masterless again,

Ægisthus absent; who did hinder you

From bringing scandal on your family

By brawling at the doors! Now he is gone,

You pay no heed to me; though many a time,

In many people’s ears, you have proclaimed —

I, without shame or warrant, violate

Your rights and honours! I meanwhile commit

No violence; I but repay with scorn

The scorn you heap on me. Your father, though —

This and no other —is your pretext still,

How by my hand he died! By mine; I know it;

There’s no denial of the deed in me.

But Justice slew him; I was not alone;

And had you sense, you ought to take her side;

Since he, this father whom you still bewail,

Alone of all the Argives had the heart

To offer to the Gods your sister’s life —

Whose pains in her begetting equalled not

My travail-pangs, who bare her! Be it so;

Now tell me for what cause, and for whose sake,

He offered her? For the Argives, will you say?

They had no right to kill a child of mine!

If for his brother Menelaus’ sake

He slew my daughter, was not he to pay

Forfeit for that? Were there not children twain

Born to that father, who, had right been done,

Ought rather to have died, whose sire and dam

Themselves had caused that voyage? Had the Grave

Some fancy for my offspring, for its feast,

Rather than hers? Or had all natural love

Expired in that pernicious father’s heart

For children born of me, but not for children

Of Menelaus? Was it not the act

Of a perverse insensate sire? I think it,

Though you deny; and so would that dead girl

Say, could she speak. For what my hands have done

I do not feel remorse; but if to you

I seem of evil mind, censure your folk,

When you yourself are just!

ELECTRA.

You cannot say

Now, that I crossed you and you answered me!

Yet if you gave me scope, I would speak fairly

For him that’s dead, and for my sister too.

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

I give it you! If you addressed me thus

Always, it would not chafe me so to hear.

ELECTRA.

Then listen! You avow my father’s death;

What could more ill become your mouth than this,

Whether he were unjustly slain or no?

But let me tell you that you slew him not

For Justice, but perverted by the lure

Of a base wretch, who is your consort now.

What! Question of the Huntress Artemis

On whose account she held the various winds