Spell-bound in Aulis! Rather, I will tell;

For ’tis not given you to learn of her.

My father once, as I have heard the tale,

While sporting in a sacred wood of hers,

Roused as he went a dappled antlered roe,

And with some careless vaunt of slaughtering it

Shoots at and hits it; wherefore Leto’s maid,

Wrathful at this, kept back the Achaian host,

Till he should render up for sacrifice,

In payment for the beast, his daughter dear —

And therefore was she offered; since escape

There was none other for the armament,

Either toward Ilium, or backward home.

Whence much enforced, and much resisting it,

Not for the sake of Menelaus, he

Unwillingly gave her to the knife at last.

But what an if (for I will take your story)

He did it through benevolence for him?

Was it thereafter just that he should perish,

And at your hand? Under what law? Beware

You do not, while you set this law to others,

Lay up repentance for yourself, and pain.

If we begin to exchange life for life,

You should die next, if you received your due.

But look you do not proffer for excuse

That which is not; for tell me, if you will,

Why you are now doing things most execrable,

Consorting with the branded murderer

By whose connivance erst you slew my sire,

And bearing children, to the extrusion of

Your honest first-born, born in honesty?

How should I pardon this? Or will you claim

In this, too, to be trying to avenge

Your daughter? It sounds vilely, if you do;

For ’twere unseemly in a daughter’s quarrel

To couple with an enemy! Ay truly,

If’s an offence even to admonish you,

Who let your tongue run freely, when you say

That I speak evil of my mother! I

A slave-mistress account you, over us,

As much as mother; for a servile life

Is that I lead, compassed with many griefs,

Wrought by yourself and by your paramour.

And poor Orestes is an exile, too,

Hardly delivered from your violence,

And living on in wretchedness — the same

You have so oft charged me with nurturing

To take revenge on you; and so I would —

Never doubt that — if I were strong enough.

Now, for that treason, publish me to all

Shameless — perverse — abusive — what you will;

And if I be an adept in the same,

I do bare justice to your blood in me!

I LADY.

I see her breathing fury! Right or wrong,

Now, ’tis all one, for any thought she gives it!

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

What sort of thought, then, must I give to her,

Who in this fashion dares insult her mother,

And at her years? Do you suppose she means

To exceed all measure in her shamelessness?

ELECTRA.

Now understand, I do feel shame at this,

Although to you I may not seem to feel it.

I do perceive that I am doing things

Unseasonable, and unbefitting me.