The House of Atreus Part 19

ELECTRA

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

ORESTES

Bonds not of bra.s.s ensnared thee, father mine.

ELECTRA

Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.

ORESTES

By this our bitter speech arise, O sire!

ELECTRA

Raise thou thine head at love's last, dearest call!

ORESTES

Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen's cause; Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou Willest in triumph to forget thy fall.

ELECTRA

Hear me, O father, once again hear me.

Lo! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood-- A man-child and a maid; hold them in ruth, Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops' line.

For while they live, thou livest from the dead; Children are memory's voices, and preserve The dead from wholly dying: as a net Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld, Which save the flex-mesh, in the depth submerged.

Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee, And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.

CHORUS

In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length-- The tomb's requital for its dirge denied: Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do, Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.

ORESTES

The doom is set; and yet I fain would ask-- Not swerving from the course of my resolve,-- Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why She softens all too late her cureless deed?

An idle boon it was, to send them here Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.

I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.

Be blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured To atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.

Yet would I know her thought; speak, if thou knowest.

CHORUS

I know it, son; for at her side I stood.

'Twas the night-wandering terror of a dream That flung her s.h.i.+vering from her couch, and bade her-- Her, the accursed of G.o.d--these offerings send.

ORESTES

Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?

CHORUS Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.

ORESTES

What then the sum and issue of the tale?

CHORUS

Even as a swaddled child, she lull'd the thing.

ORESTES

What suckling craved the creature, born full-fanged?

CHORUS

Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.

ORESTES

How? did the hateful thing not bite her teat?

CHORUS

Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.

ORESTES

Not vain this dream--it bodes a man's revenge.

CHORUS

Then out of sleep she started with a cry, And thro' the palace for their mistress' aid Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night Flared into light; then, even as mourners use, She sends these offerings, in hope to win A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.

ORESTES

Earth and my father's grave, to you I call-- Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro' me.

I read it in each part coincident, With what shall be; for mark, that serpent sprang From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same breast.

And sucking forth the same sweet mother's-milk Infused a clot of blood; and in alarm She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.

The rede is clear: the thing of dread she nursed, The death of blood she dies; and I, 'tis I, In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.

Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.

CHORUS

So do; yet ere thou doest, speak to us, Siding some act, some, by not acting, aid.

ORESTES