Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/216

146 Reproach among the shades forsakes me not;

Dire evil I have borne from those most dear,

And yet for me, by matricidal hands

Ruthlessly slain, no god is moved to wrath.

Behold these direful heart-wounds, whence they came,

For clear in sleep the vision of the mind,

While unforeseen by day the fate of men.

Full many gifts of mine have ye lapped up;

Wineless libations, sober, soothing rites,

And feasts, I offered on the sacred hearth,

At dead of night, the hour no god may share.

All these down-trampled now I must behold.

But gone is he, escaping like a fawn,

And, lightly bounding o'er the hunter's net,

At you he mocked, with many a scornful jeer.

Hear ye, how, pleading for my life, I speak.

Awake, dread demons of the lower world;

For Clytemnestra calls you, I, a dream.

Moan on, but gone the man, flying far off;

For him are patron-gods, though not for me.

By sleep oppressed, thou pitiest not my woe,

His mother's murderer, Orestes, flies.