To him, my kinsman, ere to heaven he passed:[1]
The while mid Phrygian spoils upon a throne
Sitteth my mother: at her footstool stand 315
Bondmaids of Asia, captives of my sire,
Their robes Idæan with the brooches clasped
Of gold:—and yet my sire's blood 'neath the roofs,
A dark clot, festers! He that murdered him
Mounteth his very car, rides forth in state; 320
The sceptre that he marshalled Greeks withal
Flaunting he graspeth in his blood-stained hand.
And Agamemnon's tomb is set at nought:
Drink-offerings never yet nor myrtle-spray
Had it, a grave all bare of ornament. 325
Yea, with wine drunken, doth my mother's spouse—
The glorious, as men say—leap on the grave,
And pelt with stones my father's monument;
And against us he dares to speak this taunt:
"Where is thy son Orestes?—bravely nigh 330
To shield thy tomb!" So is the absent mocked.
But, stranger, I beseech thee, tell him this:
Many are summoning him,—their mouthpiece I,—
These hands, this tongue, this stricken heart of mine,
My shorn head, his own father therewithal. 335
Shame, that the sire destroyed all Phrygia's race,
And the son singly cannot slay one man,
Young though he be, and of a nobler sire!
Chorus.
But lo, yon man—thy spouse it is I name—
Hath ceased from toil, and homeward hasteneth. 340
- ↑ Or, reading ὃς ἐμνήστευεν, "who, before he passed
To heaven, wooed me, as of kin to him."
