Page:Agamemnon (Murray 1920).djvu/83

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vv. 1418–1439.
AGAMEMNON
65

Great God, as magic for the winds of Thrace!
Why was not he man-hunted from his place,
To purge the blood that stained him? . . . When the deed
Is mine, oh, then thou art a judge indeed!
But threat thy fill. I am ready, and I stand
Content; if thy hand beateth down my hand,
Thou rulest. If aught else be God's decree,
Thy lesson shall be learned, though late it be.


Chorus.

Thy thought, it is very proud;
Thy breath is the scorner's breath;
Is not the madness loud
In thy heart, being drunk with death?
Yea, and above thy brow
A star of the wet blood burneth!
Oh, doom shall have yet her day,
The last friend cast away,
When He doth answer lie
And a stab for a stab returneth!


Clytemnestra.

And heark what Oath-gods gather to my side!
By my dead child's Revenge, now satisfied,
By Mortal Blindness, by all Powers of Hell
Which Hate, to whom in sacrifice he fell,
My Hope shall walk not in the house of Fear,
While on my hearth one fire yet burneth clear,
One lover, one Aigisthos, as of old!
What should I fear, when fallen here I hold
This foe, this scorner of his wife, this toy

And fool of each Chryseïs under Troy;