Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/259

TREASURE TOMBS AT MYKENÆ The lord of a horrid feast, this crime begot,

Taking a shape that seemed the wife of the dead,—

His sure revenge, I wot,

A victim ripe hath claimed for the young that bled.

Semi-Chorus.—Who shall bear witness now,—

Who of this murder, now, thee guiltless hold?

How sayest thou? How?

Yet the fell Alastor may have holpen, I trow:

Still is dark Ares driven

Down currents manifold

Of kindred blood, wherever judgment is given,

And he comes to avenge the children slain of old,

And their thick gore cries to Heaven!

Chorus.Woe! Woe!

King! O how shall I weep for thy dying?

What shall my fond heart say anew?

Thou in the web of the spider art lying,

Breathing out life by a death she shall rue!

Semi-Chorus.—Alas! alas for this slavish couch! By a sword

Two-edged, by a hand untrue,

Thou art smitten, even to death, my lord!

Klyt.—Hath he not subtle Atè brought

Himself, to his kingly halls?

'Twas on our own dear offspring,—yea,

On Iphigeneia, wept for still, he wrought

The doom that cried for the doom by which he falls.

O, let him not in Hades boast, I say,

For 'tis the sword that calls,

Even for that foul deed, his soul away!

A volume might still be written upon the strength and beauty of the Agamemnon of Æschylos. But for the purpose of this sketch no supplement is needed to [245]