Page:Electra of Euripides (Murray 1913).djvu/20

4 Of man and womanhood, when forth to Troy

He shook his sail and left them—lo, the boy

Orestes, ere Aegisthus' hand could fall,

Was stolen from Argos—borne by one old thrall,

Who served his father's boyhood, over seas

Far off, and laid upon King Strophios' knees

In Phocis, for the old king's sake. But here

The maid Electra waited, year by year,

Alone, till the warm days of womanhood

Drew nigh and suitors came of gentle blood

In Hellas. Then Aegisthus was in fear

Lest she be wed in some great house, and bear

A son to avenge her father. Close he wrought

Her prison in his house, and gave her not

To any wooer. Then, since even this

Was full of peril, and the secret kiss

Of some bold prince might find her yet, and rend

Her prison walls, Aegisthus at the end

Would slay her. Then her mother, she so wild

Aforetime, pled with him and saved her child.

Her heart had still an answer for her lord

Murdered, but if the child's blood spoke, what word

Could meet the hate thereof? After that day

Aegisthus thus decreed: whoso should slay

The old king's wandering son, should win rich meed

Of gold; and for Electra, she must wed

With me, not base of blood—in that I stand

True Mycenaean—but in gold and land

Most poor, which maketh highest birth as naught.

So from a powerless husband shall be wrought

A powerless peril. Had some man of might

Possessed her, he had called perchance to light