Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/106

36

Men of our city, Argive elders here,

I shame not in your presence to avow

My wifely temper; bashful Fear in time

From mortals dieth: not by others taught,

But from myself, the wretched life I'll tell

'Twas mine to lead while this man was at Troy.

First, for a woman severed from her mate,

To sit forlorn at home is grievous woe,

Hearing malignant murmurs manifold.

One courier comes, another in his train

Worse tidings brings to echo through the house;

And as for wounds, had my dear lord received

As many as report kept pouring in,

A net methinks had not been more transpierced.

Or had he died oft as reported then,

A second triple-bodied Geryon,

A threefold cloak of earth he must have donned,

Enduring death in every form he wore.

Thus harassed by these ever-rife reports,

Full often from my neck have forceful hands

Seized and untied the beam-suspended noose.

And for this cause our son, pledge of our troth,

Of mine and thine, stands not beside me now,

As stand he should, Orestes. Marvel not,