Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/198

128 And Atè put to flight. With form benign,

Fortune, long time an alien, comes to claim

Her home, redeemed from shame.

Clearly the light doth shine!

[The scene opens, and is discovered standing over the bodies. with him and servants display the robe of .]

Behold the tyrants of this land, the twain

My sire who murdered, and this palace reaved.

Majestic once sat they upon their thrones,

United now, as by their fate appears,

And faithful to their pledges, e'en in death.

Death to my wretched sire conjoined they swore,

Conjoined to die;—well have they kept their oath.

But further, ye who hearken to these woes,

Mark this device, my wretched father's snare,

His hands which fettered and his feet which yoked.

Unfold it,—form a ring,—and, standing near,

Display the Hero's death-robe, that the Sire,

Not mine, but He who all these woes surveys,

Helios, my mother's impious deeds may mark;

So in my trial, at some future time,

He by my side may stand, and witness bear

That justly I did prosecute to death

My mother;—for of base Ægisthos' doom

Reeketh me not;—he, as adulterer,

The lawful forfeit of his crime hath paid.

But for the woman who this snare devised

Against the husband, unto whom she bore