Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/268

POEMS OF GREECE KLYTAIMNESTRA. Ye try me as a woman loose of soul;

But I with dauntless heart avow to you

Well knowing—and whether ye choose to praise or blame

I care not—this is Agamemnon; yea,

My husband; yea, a corpse, of this right hand,

This craftsman sure, the handiwork! Thus stands it.

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[Agamemnon, 1466–1507.]

CHORUS. Woe! Woe!

King! O how shall I weep for thy dying?

What shall my fond heart say anew?

Thou in the web of the spider art lying,

Breathing out life by a death she shall rue.

SEMI-CHORUS. Alas! alas for this slavish couch! By a sword

Two-edged, by a hand untrue,

Thou art smitten, even to death, my lord!

KLYTAIMNESTRA. Thou sayest this deed was mine alone;

But I bid thee call me not

The wife of Agamemnon's bed;

'Twas the ancient fell Alastor of Atreus' throne,

The lord of a horrid feast, this crime begot,

Taking the shape that seemed the wife of the dead,—

His sure revenge, I wot,

A victim ripe hath claimed for the young that bled.

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