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vv. 1584–1611. Reigning, and by Thyestes in his throne

Challenged—he was his brother and mine own

Father—from home and city cast him out;

And he, after long exile, turned about

And threw him suppliant on the hearth, and won

Promise of so much mercy, that his own

Life-blood should reek not in his father's hall.

Then did that godless brother, Atreus, call,

To greet my sire—More eagerness, O God,

Was there than love!—a feast of brotherhood.

And, feigning joyous banquet, laid as meat

Before him his dead children. The white feet

And finger-fringèd hands apart he set,

Veiled from all seeing, and made separate

The tables. And he straightway, knowing naught,

Took of those bodies, eating that which wrought

No health for all his race. And when he knew

The unnatural deed, back from the board he threw,

Spewing that murderous gorge, and spurning brake

The table, to make strong the curse he spake:

"Thus perish all of Pleisthenês begot!"

For that lies this man here; and all the plot

Is mine, most righteously. For me, the third,

When butchering my two brethren, Atreus spared

And cast me with my broken sire that day,

A little thing in swaddling clothes, away

To exile; where I grew, and at the last

Justice hath brought me home! Yea though outcast

In a far land, mine arm hath reached this king;

My brain, my hate, wrought all the counselling;

And all is well. I have seen mine enemy

Dead in the snare, and care not if I die!