Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/135

Rh Woe! woe! ill-omened praise of Fate,

Baneful and still unsatisfied!

Alas! 'Tis Zeus, in will, in deed,

Sole cause, sole fashioner; for say

What comes to mortals undecreed

By Zeus, what here, that owneth not his sway?

Woe! woe!

King! King! how thee shall I bewail?

How voice my heartfelt grief? Thou liest there

Entangled in the spider's guileful snare;

In impious death thy life thou dost exhale.

Ah me! ah me! to death betrayed,

Sped by the two-edged blade,

On servile couch now ignominious laid.

Dost boast as mine this deed?

Then wrongly thou dost read,

To count me Agamemnon's wife;—not so;

Appearing in the mien

Of this dead monarch's queen,

The ancient fiend of Atreus dealt the blow;—

Requiting his grim feast,

For the slain babes, as priest,

The full-grown victim now he layeth low.