FullReads

CLY.
Brazen thing!
Too true it is that words and deeds of mine
Are evermore informing thy harsh tongue.

EL.
The shame is yours, because the deeds are yours.
My words are but their issue and effect.

CLY.
By sovereign Artemis, whom still I serve,
You’ll rue this boldness when Aegisthus comes.

EL.
See now, your anger bears you off, and ne’er
Will let you listen, though you gave me leave.

CLY.
Must I not even sacrifice in peace
From your harsh clamour, when you’ve had your say?

EL.
I have done. I check thee not. Go, sacrifice!
Accuse not me of hindering piety.

CLY.
(to an attendant).

Then lift for me those fruitful offerings,
While to Apollo, before whom we stand,
I raise my supplication for release
From doubts and fears that shake my bosom now.
And, O defender of our house! attend
My secret utterance. No friendly ear
Is that which hearkens for my voice. My thought
Must not be blazoned with her standing by,
Lest through her envious and wide-babbling tongue
She fill the city full of wild surmise.
List, then, as I shall speak: and grant the dreams
Whose two-fold apparition I to-night
Have seen, if good their bodement, be fulfilled:
If hostile, turn their influence on my foes.
And yield not them their wish that would by guile
Thrust me from this high fortune, but vouchsafe
That ever thus exempt from harms I rule
The Atridae’s home and kingdom, in full life,
Partaking with the friends I live with now
All fair prosperity, and with my children,
Save those who hate and vex me bitterly.
Lykeian Phoebus, favourably hear
My prayer, and grant to all of us our need!
More is there, which, though I be silent here,
A God should understand. No secret thing
Is hidden from the all-seeing sons of Heaven.

[Enter the Old Man.]

OLD M.
Kind dames and damsels, may I clearly know
If these be King Aegisthus’ palace-halls?

CH.
They are, sir; you yourself have guessed aright.

OLD M.
May I guess further that in yonder dame
I see his queen? She looks right royally.

CH.
‘Tis she,–no other,–whom your eyes behold.

OLD M.
Princess, all hail! To thee and to thy spouse
I come with words of gladness from a friend.

CLY.
That auspice I accept. But I would first
Learn from thee who of men hath sent thee forth?

OLD M.
Phanoteus the Phocian, with a charge of weight.

CLY.
Declare it, stranger. Coming from a friend,
Thou bring’st us friendly tidings, I feel sure.

OLD M.
Orestes’ death. Ye have the sum in brief.

EL.
Ah me! undone! This day hath ruined me.

CLY.
What? Let me hear again. Regard her not.

OLD M.
Again I say it, Orestes is no more.

EL.
Undone! undone! Farewell to life and hope!

CLY.
(to ELECTRA).

See thou to thine own case!

(To Old Man)
Now, stranger, tell me
In true discourse the manner of his death.

OLD M.
For that I am here, and I will tell the whole.
He, entering on the great arena famed
As Hellas’ pride, to win a Delphian prize,
On hearing the loud summons of the man
Calling the foot-race, which hath trial first,
Came forward, a bright form, admired by all.
And when his prowess in the course fulfilled
The promise of his form, he issued forth
Dowered with the splendid meed of victory.–
To tell a few out of the many feats
Of such a hero were beyond my power.
Know then, in brief, that of the prizes set
For every customary course proclaimed
By order of the judges, the whole sum
Victoriously he gathered, happy deemed
By all; declared an Argive, and his name
Orestes, son of him who levied once
The mighty armament of Greeks for Troy.
So fared he then: but when a God inclines
To hinder happiness, not even the strong
Are scatheless. So, another day, when came
At sunrise the swift race of charioteers,
He entered there with many a rival car:–
One from Achaia, one from Sparta, two
Libyan commanders of the chariot-yoke;
And he among them fifth, with steeds of price
From Thessaly;–the sixth Aetolia sent
With chestnut mares; the seventh a Magnete man;
The eighth with milk-white colts from Oeta’s vale;
The ninth from god-built Athens; and the tenth
Boeotia gave to make the number full.
Then stood they where the judges of the course
Had posted them by lot, each with his team;
And sprang forth at the brazen trumpet’s blare.
Shouting together to their steeds, they shook
The reins, and all the course was filled with noise
Of rattling chariots, and the dust arose
To heaven. Now all in a confused throng
Spared not the goad, each eager to outgo
The crowded axles and the snorting steeds;
For close about his nimbly circling wheels
And stooping sides fell flakes of panted foam.
Orestes, ever nearest at the turn,
With whirling axle seemed to graze the stone,
And loosing with free rein the right-hand steed
That pulled the side-rope[5], held the near one in.
So for a time all chariots upright moved,
But soon the Oetaean’s hard-mouthed horses broke
From all control, and wheeling as they passed
From the sixth circuit to begin the seventh,
Smote front to front against the Barcan car.
And when that one disaster had befallen,
Each dashed against his neighbour and was thrown,
Till the whole plain was strewn with chariot-wreck.
Then the Athenian, skilled to ply the rein,
Drew on one side, and heaving to, let pass
The rider-crested surge that rolled i’ the midst.
Meanwhile Orestes, trusting to the end,
Was driving hindmost with tight rein; but now,
Seeing him left the sole competitor,
Hurling fierce clamour through his steeds, pursued:
So drave they yoke by yoke–now this, now that
Pulling ahead with car and team. Orestes,
Ill-fated one, each previous course had driven
Safely without a check, but after this,
In letting loose again the left-hand rein[6],
He struck the edge of the stone before he knew,
Shattering the axle’s end, and tumbled prone,
Caught in the reins[7], that dragged him with sharp thongs.
Then as he fell to the earth the horses swerved,
And roamed the field. The people when they saw
Him fallen from out the car, lamented loud
For the fair youth, who had achieved before them
Such glorious feats, and now had found such woe,–
Dashed on the ground, then tossed with legs aloft
Against the sky,–until the charioteers,
Hardly restraining the impetuous team,
Released him, covered so with blood that none,–
No friend who saw–had known his hapless form.
Which then we duly burned upon the pyre.
And straightway men appointed to the task
From all the Phocians bear his mighty frame–
Poor ashes! narrowed in a brazen urn,–
That he may find in his own fatherland
His share of sepulture.–Such our report,
Painful to hear, but unto us, who saw,
The mightiest horror that e’er met mine eye.