Page:Electra of Euripides (Murray 1913).djvu/95

Rh Most horrible yet Godlike, hard at heel

Following shall scourge thee as a burning wheel,

Speed-maddened. Seek thou straight Athena's land,

And round her awful image clasp thine hand,

Praying: and she will fence them back, though hot

With flickering serpents, that they touch thee not,

Holding above thy brow her gorgon shield.

There is a hill in Athens, Ares' field,

Where first for that first death by Ares done

On Halirrhothius, Poseidon's son,

Who wronged his daughter, the great Gods of yore

Held judgment: and true judgments evermore

Flow from that Hill, trusted of man and God.

There shalt thou stand arraigned of this blood;

And of those judges half shall lay on thee

Death, and half pardon; so shalt thou go free.

For Phoebus in that hour, who bade thee shed

Thy mother's blood, shall take on his own head

The stain thereof. And ever from that strife

The law shall hold, that when, for death or life

Of one pursued, men's voices equal stand,

Then Mercy conquereth.—But for thee, the band

Of Spirits dread, down, down, in very wrath,

Shall sink beside that Hill, making their path

Through a dim chasm, the which shall aye be trod

By reverent feet, where men may speak with God.

But thou forgotten and far off shalt dwell,

By great Alpheüs' waters, in a dell

Of Arcady, where that gray Wolf-God's wall

Stands holy. And thy dwelling men shall call

Orestes' Town. So much to thee be spoke.

But this dead man, Aegisthus, all the folk