Modern Italian Poets; Essays and Versions Part 4

_Cly._ O mortal blame! What else is lacking now To my unhappy, miserable life?

Who drove me to it now upbraids my crime!

_El._ O marvelous joy! O only joy that's blessed My heart in these ten years! I see you both At last the prey of anger and remorse; I hear at last what must the endearments be Of love so blood-stained.

The first act closes with a scene between Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, in which he urges her to consent that he shall send to have Orestes murdered, and reminds her of her former crimes when she revolts from this. The scene is very well managed, with that sparing phrase which in Alfieri is quite as apt to be touchingly simple as bare and poor.

In the opening scene of the second act, Orestes has returned in disguise to Argos with Pylades the son of Strophius, to whom he speaks:

We are come at last. Here Agamemnon fell, Murdered, and here Aegisthus reigns. Here rose In memory still, though I a child departed, These natal walls, and the just Heaven in time Leads me back hither.

Twice five years have pa.s.sed This very day since that dread night of blood, When, slain by treachery, my father made The whole wide palace with his dolorous cries Echo again. Oh, well do I remember!

Electra swiftly bore me through this hall Thither where Strophius in his pitying arms Received me--Strophius, less by far thy father Than mine, thereafter--and fled onward with me By yonder postern-gate, all tremulous; And after me there ran upon the air Long a wild clamor and a lamentation That made me weep and shudder and lament, I knew not why, and weeping Strophius ran, Preventing with his hand my outcries shrill, Clasping me close, and sprinkling all my face With bitter tears; and to the lonely coast, Where only now we landed, with his charge He came apace; and eagerly unfurled His sails before the wind.

Pylades strives to restrain the pa.s.sion for revenge in Orestes, which imperils them both. The friend proposes that they shall feign themselves messengers sent by Strophius with tidings of Orestes'

death, and Orestes has reluctantly consented, when Electra re-appears, and they recognize each other. Pylades discloses their plan, and when her brother urges, "The means is vile," she answers, all woman,--

Less vile than is Aegisthus. There is none Better or surer, none, believe me. When You are led to him, let it be mine to think Of all--the place, the manner, time, and arms, To kill him. Still I keep, Orestes, still I keep the steel that in her husband's breast She plunged whom nevermore we might call mother.

_Orestes._ How fares it with that impious woman?

_Electra._ Ah, Thou canst not know how she drags out her life!

Save only Agamemnon's children, all Must pity her--and even we must pity.

Full ever of suspicion and of terror, And held in scorn even by Aegisthus' self, Loving Aegisthus though she know his guilt; Repentant, and yet ready to renew Her crime, perchance, if the unworthy love Which is her shame and her abhorrence, would; Now wife, now mother, never wife nor mother, Bitter remorse gnaws at her heart by day Unceasingly, and horrible shapes by night Scare slumber from her eyes.--So fares it with her.

In the third scene of the following act Clytemnestra meets Orestes and Pylades, who announce themselves as messengers from Phocis to the king; she bids them deliver their tidings to her, and they finally do so, Pylades struggling to prevent Orestes from revealing himself.

There are touchingly simple and natural pa.s.sages in the lament that Clytemnestra breaks into over her son's death, and there is fire, with its true natural extinction in tears, when she upbraids Aegisthus, who now enters:

My only son beloved, I gave thee all.

All that I gave thou did'st account as nothing While aught remained to take. Who ever saw At once so cruel and so false a heart?

The guilty love that thou did'st feign so ill And I believed so well, what hindrance to it, What hindrance, tell me, was the child Orestes?

Yet scarce had Agamemnon died before Thou did'st cry out for his son's blood; and searched Through all the palace in thy fury. Then The blade thou durst not wield against the father, Then thou didst brandis.h.!.+ Ay, bold wast thou then Against a helpless child!...

Unhappy son, what booted it to save thee From thy sire's murderer, since thou hast found Death ere thy time in strange lands far away?

Aegisthus, villainous usurper! Thou, Thou hast slain my son! Aegisthus--Oh forgive!

I was a mother, and am so no more.

Throughout this scene, and in the soliloquy preceding it, Alfieri paints very forcibly the struggle in Clytemnestra between her love for her son and her love for Aegisthus, to whom she clings even while he exults in the tidings that wring her heart. It is all too baldly presented, doubtless, but it is very effective and affecting.

Orestes and Pylades are now brought before Aegisthus, and he demands how and where Orestes died, for after his first rejoicing he has come to doubt the fact. Pylades responds in one of those speeches with which Alfieri seems to carve the scene in bas-relief:

Every fifth year an ancient use renews In Crete the games and offerings unto Jove.

The love of glory and innate ambition Lure to that coast the youth; and by his side Goes Pylades, inseparable from him.

In the light car upon the arena wide, The hopes of triumph urge him to contest The proud palm of the flying-footed steeds, And, too intent on winning, there his life He gives for victory.

_Aeg._ But how? Say on.

_Pyl._ Too fierce, impatient, and incautious, he Now frights his horses on with threatening cries, Now whirls his blood-stained whip, and lashes them, Till past the goal the ill-tamed coursers fly Faster and faster. Reckless of the rein, Deaf to the voice that fain would soothe them now, Their nostrils breathing fire, their loose manes tossed Upon the wind, and in thick clouds involved Of choking dust, round the vast circle's bound, As lightning swift they whirl and whirl again.

Fright, horror, mad confusion, death, the car Spreads in its crooked circles everywhere, Until at last, the smoking axle dashed With horrible shock against a marble pillar, Orestes headlong falls--

_Cly._ No more! Ah, peace!

His mother hears thee.

_Pyl._ It is true. Forgive me.

I will not tell how, horribly dragged on, His streaming life-blood soaked the arena's dust-- Pylades ran--in vain--within his arms His friend expired.

_Cly._ O wicked death!

_Pyl._ In Crete All men lamented him, so potent in him Were beauty, grace, and daring.

_Cly._ Nay, who would not Lament him save this wretch alone? Dear son, Must I then never, never see thee more?

O me! too well I see thee crossing now The Stygian stream to clasp thy father's shade: Both turn your frowning eyes askance on me, Burning with dreadful wrath! Yea, it was I, 'T was I that slew you both. Infamous mother And guilty wife!--Now art content, Aegisthus?

Aegisthus still doubts, and pursues the pretended messengers with such insulting question that Orestes, goaded beyond endurance, betrays that their character is a.s.sumed. They are seized and about to be led to prison in chains, when Electra enters and in her anguish at the sight exclaims, "Orestes led to die!" Then ensues a heroic scene, in which each of the friends claims to be Orestes. At last Orestes shows the dagger Electra has given him, and offers it to Clytemnestra, that she may stab Aegisthus with the same weapon with which she killed Agamemnon:

Whom then I would call mother. Take it; thou know'st how To wield it; plunge it in Aegisthus' heart!

Leave me to die; I care not, if I see My father avenged. I ask no other proof Of thy maternal love from thee. Quick, now, Strike! Oh, what is it that I see? Thou tremblest?

Thou growest pale? Thou weepest? From thy hand The dagger falls? Thou lov'st Aegisthus, lov'st him And art Orestes' mother? Madness! Go And never let me look on thee again!

Aegisthus dooms Electra to the same death with Orestes and Pylades, but on the way to prison the guards liberate them all, and the Argives rise against the usurper with the beginning of the fifth act, which I shall give entire, because I think it very characteristic of Alfieri, and necessary to a conception of his vehement, if somewhat arid, genius. I translate as heretofore almost line for line, and word for word, keeping the Italian order as nearly as I can.

SCENE I.

AEGISTHUS _and Soldiers._

_Aeg._ O treachery unforseen! O madness! Freed, Orestes freed? Now we shall see....

_Enter_ CLYTEMNESTRA.

_Cly._ Ah! turn Backward thy steps.

_Aeg._ Ah, wretch, dost thou arm too Against me?

_Cly._ I would save thee. Hearken to me, I am no longer--

_Aeg._ Traitress--

_Cly._ Stay!

_Aeg._ Thou 'st promised Haply to give me to that wretch alive?

_Cly._ To keep thee, save thee from him, I have sworn, Though I should perish for thee! Ah, remain And hide thee here in safety. I will be Thy stay against his fury--

_Aeg._ Against his fury My sword shall be my stay. Go, leave me!

I go--

_Cly._ Whither?