Page:Electra of Euripides (Murray 1913).djvu/26

10 My checks bleed silently,

And these bruised temples keep

Their pain, remembering thee

And thy bloody sleep.

Be rent, O hair of mine head!

As a swan crying alone

Where the river windeth cold,

For a loved, for a silent one,

Whom the toils of the fowler hold,

I cry. Father, to thee,

O slain in misery!

The water, the wan water,

Lapped him, and his head

Drooped in the bed of slaughter

Low, as one wearièd;

Woe for the edgèd axe,

And woe for the heart of hate,

Houndlike about thy tracks,

O conqueror desolate,

From Troy over land and sea,

Till a wife stood waiting thee;

Not with crowns did she stand,

Nor flowers of peace in her hand;

With Aegisthus' dagger drawn

For her hire she strove,

Through shame and through blood alone;

And won her a traitor's love.

[As she ceases there enter from right and left the, consisting of women of Argos, young and old, in festal dress.