Page:Agamemnon (Murray 1920).djvu/93

vv. 1633–1650.

Thou master? Is old Argos so accurst?

Thou plotter afar off, who never durst

Raise thine own hand to affront and strike him down

To entice him was the wife's work. I was known

By all men here, his old confessed blood-foe.

Howbeit, with his possessions I will know

How to be King. And who obeys not me

Shall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he,

Corn-flushed. Hunger, and hunger's prison mate,

The clammy murk, shall see his rage abate.

Thou craven soul! Why not in open strife

Slay him? Why lay the blood-sin on his wife,

Staining the Gods of Argos, making ill

The soil thereof? But young Orestes still

Liveth. Oh, Fate will guide him home again,

Avenging, conquering, home to kill these twain!

'Fore God, if 'tis your pleasure thus to speak and do, ye soon shall hear!

Ho there, my trusty pikes, advance! There cometh business for the spear.