The spoils and gold
Of Ilion I have sent out of my hall
To many shrines. These bondwomen are all
I keep in mine own house…. Deemst thou the cost
Too rich to pay me for the child I lost —
Fair though they be?
ELECTRA.
Nay, Mother, here am I
Bond likewise, yea, and homeless, to hold high
Thy royal arm!
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Child, the war slaves are here;
Thou needst not toil.
ELECTRA.
What was it but the spear
Of war, drove me forth too? Mine enemies
Have sacked my father’s house, and, even as these,
Captives and fatherless, made me their prey.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
It was thy father cast his child away,
A child he might have loved!… Shall I speak out?
(Controlling herself) Nay; when a woman once is caught about
With evil fame, there riseth in her tongue
A bitter spirit — wrong, I know! Yet, wrong
Or right, I charge ye look on the deeds done;
And if ye needs must hate, when all is known,
Hate on! What profits loathing ere ye know?
My father gave me to be his. ’Tis so.
But was it his to kill me, or to kill
The babes I bore? Yet, lo, he tricked my will
With fables of Achilles’ love: he bore
To Aulis and the dark ship-clutching shore,
He held above the altar-flame, and smote,
Cool as one reaping, through the strainèd throat,
My white Iphigenia…. Had it been
To save some falling city, leaguered in
With foemen; to prop up our castle towers,
And rescue other children that were ours,
Giving one life for many, by God’s laws
I had forgiven all! Not so. Because
Helen was wanton, and her master knew
No curb for her: for that, for that, he slew
My daughter! — Even then, with all my wrong,
No wild beast yet was in me. Nay, for long,
I never would have killed him. But he came,
At last, bringing that damsel, with the flame
Of God about her, mad and knowing all:
And set her in my room; and in one wall
Would hold two queens! — O wild are woman’s eyes
And hot her heart. I say not otherwise.
But, being thus wild, if then her master stray
To love far off, and cast his own away,
Shall not her will break prison too, and wend
Somewhere to win some other for a friend?
And then on us the world’s curse waxes strong
In righteousness! The lords of all the wrong
Must hear no curse! — I slew him. I trod then
The only road: which led me to the men
He hated. Of the friends of Argos whom
Durst I have sought, to aid me to the doom
I craved? — Speak if thou wouldst, and fear not me,
If yet thou deemst him slain unrighteously.
LEADER.
Thy words be just, yet shame their justice brings;
A woman true of heart should bear all things
From him she loves. And she who feels it not,
I cannot reason of her, nor speak aught.
ELECTRA.
Remember, mother, thy last word of grace,
Bidding me speak, and fear not, to thy face.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
So said I truly, child, and so say still.
ELECTRA.
Wilt softly hear, and after work me ill?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Not so, not so. I will but pleasure thee.
ELECTRA.
I answer then. And, mother, this shall be
My prayer of opening, where hangs the whole:
Would God that He had made thee clean of soul!
Helen and thou — O, face and form were fair,
Meet for men’s praise; but sisters twain ye were,
Both things of naught, a stain on Castor’s star,
And Helen slew her honour, borne afar
In wilful ravishment: but thou didst slay
The highest man of the world. And now wilt say
’Twas wrought in justice for thy child laid low
At Aulis?… Ah, who knows thee as I know?
Thou, thou, who long ere aught of ill was done
Thy child, when Agamemnon scarce was gone,
Sate at the looking-glass, and tress by tress
Didst comb the twined gold in loneliness.
When any wife, her lord being far away.
Toils to be fair, O blot her out that day
As false within! What would she with a cheek
So bright in strange men’s eyes, unless she seek
Some treason? None but I, thy child, could so
Watch thee in Hellas: none but I could know
Thy face of gladness when our enemies
Were strong, and the swift cloud upon thine eyes
If Troy seemed falling, all thy soul keen-set
Praying that he might come no more!… And yet
Was thine, not feebler, not in anything
Below Aegisthus; one whom Hellas chose
For chief beyond all kings. Aye, and God knows,
How sweet a name in Greece, after the sin
Thy sister wrought, lay in thy ways to win.
Ill deeds make fair ones shine, and turn thereto
Men’s eyes. — Enough: but say he wronged thee; slew
By craft thy child: — what wrong had I done, what
The babe Orestes? Why didst render not
Back unto us, the children of the dead,
Our father’s portion? Must thou heap thy bed
With gold of murdered men, to buy to thee
Thy strange man’s arms? Justice! Why is not he
Who cast Orestes out, cast out again?
Not slain for me whom doubly he hath slain,
In living death, more bitter than of old
My sister’s? Nay, when all the tale is told
Of blood for blood, what murder shall we make,
I and Orestes, for our father’s sake?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Aye, child; I know thy heart, from long ago.
Thou hast alway loved him best. ’Tis oft-time so:
One is her father’s daughter, and one hot
To bear her mother’s part. I blame thee not….
Yet think not I am happy, child; nor flown
With pride now, in the deeds my hand hath done….
[Seeing ELECTRA unsympathetic, she checks herself.
But thou art all untended, comfortless
Of body and wild of raiment; and thy stress
Of travail scarce yet ended!… Woe is me!
’Tis all as I have willed it. Bitterly
I wrought against him, to the last blind deep
Of bitterness…. Woe’s me!
ELECTRA.
Fair days to weep,
When help is not! Or stay: though he lie cold
Long since, there lives another of thy fold
Far off; there might be pity for thy son?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
I dare not!… Yes, I fear him. ’Tis mine own
Life, and not his, comes first. And rumour saith
His heart yet burneth for his father’s death.
ELECTRA.
Why dost thou keep thine husband ever hot
Against me?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
’Tis his mood. And thou art not
So gentle, child!
ELECTRA.
My spirit is too sore!
Howbeit, from this day I will no more
Hate him.
CLYTEMNESTRA (with a flash of hope).
O daughter! — Then, indeed, shall he,
I promise, never more be harsh to thee!
ELECTRA.
He lieth in my house, as ‘twere his own.
’Tis that hath made him proud.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Nay, art thou flown
To strife again so quick, child?
ELECTRA.
Well; I say
No more; long have I feared him, and alway
Shall fear him, even as now!
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Nay, daughter, peace!
It bringeth little profit, speech like this…
Why didst thou call me hither?
ELECTRA.
It reached thee,
My word that a man-child is born to me?
Do thou make offering for me — for the rite
I know not — as is meet on the tenth night.
I cannot; I have borne no child till now.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
Who tended thee? ’Tis she should make the vow.
ELECTRA.
None tended me. Alone I bare my child.
CLYTEMNESTRA
What, is thy cot so friendless? And this wild
So far from aid?
ELECTRA.
Who seeks for friendship sake
A beggar’s house?
CLYTEMNESTRA.
I will go in, and make
Due worship for thy child, the Peace-bringer.
To all thy need I would be minister.
Then to my lord, where by the meadow side
He prays the woodland nymphs.
Ye handmaids, guide
My chariot to the stall, and when ye guess
The rite draws near its end, in readiness
Be here again. Then to my lord!… I owe
My lord this gladness, too.
[The Attendants depart; CLYTEMNESTRA, left alone, proceeds to enter the house.
ELECTRA.
Welcome below
My narrow roof! But have a care withal,
A grime of smoke lies deep upon the wall.
Soil not thy robe!…
Not far now shall it be,
The sacrifice God asks of me and thee.
The bread of Death is broken, and the knife
Lifted again that drank the Wild Bull’s life:
And on his breast…. Ha, Mother, hast slept well
Aforetime? Thou shalt lie with him in Hell.
That grace I give to cheer thee on thy road;
Give thou to me — peace from my father’s blood!
[She follows her mother into the house.
CHORUS.
Lo, the returns of wrong.
The wind as a changèd thing
Whispereth overhead
Of one that of old lay dead
In the water lapping long:
My King, O my King!
A cry in the rafters then
Rang, and the marble dome:
“Mercy of God, not thou,
“Woman! To slay me now,
“After the harvests ten
“Now, at the last, come home!”
O Fate shall turn as the tide,
Turn, with a doom of tears
For the flying heart too fond;
A doom for the broken bond.
She hailed him there in his pride,
Home from the perilous years,
In the heart of his wallèd lands,
In the Giants’ cloud-capt ring;
Herself, none other, laid
The hone to the axe’s blade;
She lifted it in her hands,
The woman, and slew her king.
Woe upon spouse and spouse,
Whatso of evil sway
Held her in that distress!
Even as a lioness
Breaketh the woodland boughs
Starving, she wrought her way.
VOICE OF CLYTEMNESTRA.
O Children, Children; in the name of God,
Slay not your mother!
A WOMAN.
Did ye hear a cry
Under the rafters?
ANOTHER.
I weep too, yea, I;
Down on the mother’s heart the child hath trod!
[A death-cry from within.
ANOTHER.
God bringeth Justice in his own slow tide.
Aye, cruel is thy doom; but thy deeds done
Evil, thou piteous woman, and on one
Whose sleep was by thy side!
[The door bursts open, and ORESTES and ELECTRA come forth in disorder. Attendants bring out the bodies of CLYTEMNESTRA and AEGISTHUS.
LEADER.
Lo, yonder, in their mother’s new-spilt gore
Red-garmented and ghastly, from the door
They reel…. O horrible! Was it agony
Like this, she boded in her last wild cry?
There lives no seed of man calamitous,
Nor hath lived, like this seed of Tantalus.
ORESTES.
O Dark of the Earth, O God,
Thou to whom all is plain;
Look on my sin, my blood,
This horror of dead things twain;
Gathered as one they lie
Slain; and the slayer was I,
I, to pay for my pain!
ELECTRA.
Let tear rain upon tear,
Brother: but mine is the blame.
A fire stood over her,
And out of the fire I came,
I, in my misery….
And I was the child at her knee.
‘Mother’ I named her name.
CHORUS.
Alas for Fate, for the Fate of thee,
O Mother, Mother of Misery:
And Misery, lo, hath turned again,
To slay thee, Misery and more,
Even in the fruit thy body bore.
Yet hast thou Justice, Justice plain,
For a sire’s blood spilt of yore!
ORESTES.
Apollo, alas for the hymn
Thou sangest, as hope in mine ear!
The Song was of Justice dim,
But the Deed is anguish clear;
And the Gift, long nights of fear,
Of blood and of wandering,
Where cometh no Greek thing,
Nor sight, nor sound on the air.
Yea, and beyond, beyond,
Roaming — what rest is there?
Who shall break bread with me?
Who, that is clean, shall see
And hate not the blood-red hand,
His mother’s murderer?
ELECTRA.
And I? What clime shall hold
My evil, or roof it above?
I cried for dancing of old,
I cried in my heart for love:
What dancing waiteth me now?
What love that shall kiss my brow
Nor blench at the brand thereof?
CHORUS.
Back, back, in the wind and rain
Thy driven spirit wheeleth again.
Now is thine heart made clean within
That was dark of old and murder-fraught.
But, lo, thy brother; what hast thou wrought….
Yea, though I love thee…. what woe, what sin,
On him, who willed it not!
ORESTES.
Saw’st thou her raiment there,
Sister, there in the blood?
She drew it back as she stood,
She opened her bosom bare,
She bent her knees to the earth,
The knees that bent in my birth….
And I … Oh, her hair, her hair….
[He breaks into inarticulate weeping
CHORUS.
Oh, thou didst walk in agony,
Hearing thy mother’s cry, the cry
Of wordless wailing, well know I.
ELECTRA.
She stretched her hand to my cheek,
And th
ere brake from her lips a moan;
‘Mercy, my child, my own!’
Her hand clung to my cheek;
Clung, and my arm was weak;
And the sword fell and was gone.
CHORUS.
Unhappy woman, could thine eye
Look on the blood, and see her lie,
Thy mother, where she turned to die?
ORESTES.
I lifted over mine eyes
My mantle: blinded I smote,
As one smiteth a sacrifice;
And the sword found her throat.
ELECTRA.
I gave thee the sign and the word;
I touched with mine hand thy sword.
LEADER.
Dire is the grief ye have wrought.
ORESTES.
Sister, touch her again:
Oh, veil the body of her;
Shed on her raiment fair,
And close that death-red stain.
— Mother! And didst thou bear,
Bear in thy bitter pain,
To life, thy murderer?
[The two kneel over the body of CLYTEMNESTRA, and cover her with raiment.
ELECTRA.
On her that I loved of yore,
Robe upon robe I cast:
On her that I hated sore.
CHORUS.
O House that hath hated sore,
Behold thy peace at the last!
* * * * *
LEADER.
Ha, see: above the roof-tree high
There shineth … Is some spirit there
Of earth or heaven? That thin air
Was never trod by things that die!
What bodes it now that forth they fare,
To men revealèd visibly?
[There appears in the air a vision of CASTOR and POLYDEUCES. The mortals kneel or veil their faces.
CASTOR.
Thou Agamemnon’s Son, give ear! ’Tis we.
Castor and Polydeuces, call to thee,
God’s Horsemen and thy mother’s brethren twain.
An Argive ship, spent with the toiling main,
We bore but now to peace, and, here withal
Being come, have seen thy mother’s bloody fall,
Our sister’s. Righteous is her doom this day,
But not thy deed. And Phoebus, Phoebus … Nay;
He is my lord; therefore I hold my peace.
Yet though in light he dwell, no light was this
He showed to thee, but darkness! Which do thou
Endure, as man must, chafing not. And now
Fare forth where Zeus and Fate have laid thy life.
The maid Electra thou shalt give for wife
To Pylades; then turn thy head and flee
From Argos’ land. ’Tis never more for thee
To tread this earth where thy dead mother lies.
And, lo, in the air her Spirits, bloodhound eyes,
Most horrible yet Godlike, hard at heel
Following shall scourge thee as a burning wheel,
Speed-maddened. Seek thou straight Athena’s land,
And round her awful image clasp thine hand,
Praying: and she will fence them back, though hot