Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/267

THE DEATH OF AGAMEMNON 2.

[Agamemnon, 1343-1377.]

Enter, from the Palace.

KLYTAIMNESTRA. Now, all this formal outcry having vent,

I shall not blush to speak the opposite.

How should one, plotting evil things for foes,

Encompass seeming friends with such a bane

Of toils? it were a height too great to leap?

Not without full prevision came, though late,

To me this crisis of an ancient feud.

And here, the deed being done, I stand—even where

I smote him! nor deny that thus I did it,

So that he could not flee nor ward off doom.

A seamless net, as round a fish, I cast

About him, yea, a deadly wealth of robe;

Then smote him twice; and with a double cry

He loosed his limbs; and to him fallen I gave

Yet a third thrust, a grace to Hades, lord

Of the underworld and guardian of the dead.

So, falling, out he gasps his soul, and out

He spurts a sudden jet of blood, that smites

Me with a sable rain of gory dew,—

Me, then no less exulting than the field

In the sky's gift, while bursts the pregnant ear!

Things being thus, old men of Argos, joy,

If joy ye can;—I glory in the deed!

And if 't were seemly ever yet to pour

Libation to the dead, 't were most so now;

Most meet that one, who poured for his own home

A cup of ills, returning, thus should drain it!

CHORUS. Shame on thy tongue! how bold of mouth thou art

That vauntest such a speech above thy husband!

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