Page:House of Atreus 2nd ed (1889).djvu/110

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Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail!

I dare at length aver that gods above

Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.

I, I who stand and thus exult to see

This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,

Slain in requital of his father's craft.

Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man's sire,

The lord and monarch of this land of old,

Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute,

Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,

And drave him from his home to banishment.

Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole

And clung a suppliant to the hearth divine,

And for himself won this immunity—

Not with his own blood to defile the land

That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire

Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned—

With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold

In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,

And bade my father to his board, and set

Before him flesh that was his children once.

First, sitting at the upper board alone,

He hid the fingers and the feet, but gave

The rest—and readily Thyestes took

What to his ignorance no semblance wore

Of human flesh, and ate: behold what curse

That eating brought upon our race and name!

For when he knew what all unhallowed thing

He thus had wrought, with horror's bitter cry

Back-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,

On Pelops' house a deadly curse he spake—

As darkly as I spurn this damnèd fool,

So perish all the race of Pleisthenes.