The Electra of Euripides | Page 4

what hath betid
Of late
in Argos.--Ha, the radiant lid
Of Dawn's eye lifteth! Come, friend;
leave we now
This trodden path. Some worker of the plough,
Or

serving damsel at her early task
Will presently come by, whom we
may ask
If here my sister dwells. But soft! Even now
I see some
bondmaid there, her death-shorn brow
Bending beneath its freight of
well-water.
Lie close until she pass; then question her.
A slave
might help us well, or speak some sign
Of import to this work of
mine and thine.
[_The two men retire into ambush._ ELECTRA _enters, returning from
the well._
ELECTRA.
Onward, O labouring tread,
As on move the years;
Onward amid
thy tears,
O happier dead!
Let me remember. I am she, [_Strophe_ 1. Agamemnon's child, and the
mother of me
Clytemnestra, the evil Queen,
Helen's sister. And folk,
I ween,
That pass in the streets call yet my name
Electra.... God
protect my shame!
For toil, toil is a weary thing,
And life is heavy
about my head;
And thou far off, O Father and King,
In the lost
lands of the dead.
A bloody twain made these things be;
One was
thy bitterest enemy,
And one the wife that lay by thee.
Brother, brother, on some far shore [_Antistrophe_ 1. Hast thou a city,
is there a door
That knows thy footfall, Wandering One?
Who left
me, left me, when all our pain
Was bitter about us, a father slain,

And a girl that wept in her room alone.
Thou couldst break me this
bondage sore,
Only thou, who art far away,
Loose our father, and
wake once more....
Zeus, Zeus, dost hear me pray?...
The sleeping
blood and the shame and the doom!
O feet that rest not, over the foam

Of distant seas, come home, come home!
What boots this cruse that I carry? [_Strophe_ 2. O, set free my brow!

For the gathered tears that tarry
Through the day and the dark till
now,
Now in the dawn are free,
Father, and flow beneath

The

floor of the world, to be
As a song in she house of Death:
From the
rising up of the day
They guide my heart alway,
The silent tears
unshed,
And my body mourns for the dead;
My cheeks bleed
silently,
And these bruised temples keep
Their pain, remembering
thee
And thy bloody sleep.
Be rent, O hair of mine head!
As a swan crying alone
Where the river windeth cold,
For a loved,
for a silent one,
Whom the toils of the fowler hold,
I cry, Father, to
thee,
O slain in misery!
The water, the wan water, [_Antistrophe_ 2. Lapped him, and his head

Drooped in the bed of slaughter
Low, as one wearièd;
Woe for
the edgèd axe,
And woe for the heart of hate,
Houndlike about thy
tracks,
O conqueror desolate,
From Troy over land and sea,
Till a
wife stood waiting thee;
Not with crowns did she stand,
Nor
flowers of peace in her hand;
With Aegisthus' dagger drawn
For her
hire she strove,
Through shame and through blood alone;
And won
her a traitor's love.
[_As she ceases there enter from right and left the_ CHORUS,
_consisting of women of Argos, young and old, in festal dress_.
CHORUS.
_Some Women._
Child of the mighty dead, [_Strophe_. Electra, lo, my way
To thee in
the dawn hath sped,
And the cot on the mountain grey,
For the
Watcher hath cried this day:
He of the ancient folk,
The walker of
waste and hill,
Who drinketh the milk of the flock;
And he told of
Hera's will;
For the morrow's morrow now

They cry her festival,

And before her throne shall bow
Our damsels all.
ELECTRA.

Not unto joy, nor sweet
Music, nor shining of gold,
The wings of
my spirit beat.
Let the brides of Argos hold
Their dance in the night,
as of old;
I lead no dance; I mark
No beat as the dancers sway;

With tears I dwell in the dark,
And my thought is of tears alway,
To
the going down of the day.
Look on my wasted hair
And raiment....
This that I bear,
Is it meet for the King my sire,
And her whom the
King begot?
For Troy, that was burned with fire
And forgetteth not?
CHORUS.
_Other Women._
Hera is great!--Ah, come, [_Antistrophe_. Be kind; and my hand shall
bring
Fair raiment, work of the loom,
And many a golden thing,

For joyous robe-wearing.
Deemest thou this thy woe
Shall rise unto
God as prayer,
Or bend thine haters low?
Doth God for thy pain
have care?
Not tears for the dead nor sighs,
But worship and joy
divine
Shall win thee peace in thy skies,
O daughter mine!
ELECTRA.
No care cometh to God
For the voice of the helpless; none
For the
crying of ancient blood.
Alas for him that is gone,
And for thee, O
wandering one:
That now, methinks, in a land
Of the stranger must
toil for hire,
And stand where the poor men stand,
A-cold by
another's fire,
O son of the mighty sire:
While I in a beggar's cot

On the wrecked hills, changing not,
Starve in my soul for food;
But
our mother lieth wed
In another's arms, and blood
Is about her bed.
LEADER.
On all of Greece she wrought great jeopardy,
Thy mother's sister,

Helen,--and on thee.
[ORESTES _and_ PYLADES _move out from their concealment_;
ORESTES _comes forward_: PYLADES _beckons to two_ ARMED
SERVANTS _and stays