Nought revering power and blaze
Of riches falsely-stamped with praise.
But all things she doth bend

Unto their doomed end.

Hail! my liege Sovran! thou of Troy The sacker! and of Atreus' Son! How may I greet thee? How employ Fit worship, having nought o'errun, Nor yet bent short the turning-point of grace? Yet many of mortals dare transgress

Dice's laws, and honour more

The seeming to be good than being.
While each is ready still to pour
His moaning o'er his brother in distress,
Though upon his spirit's core,

Not a fang of grief is preying.

And joys they blend with equal specious skill,
All smileless fronts to smiles constraining.
While whosoe'er is good to tell
His sheep apart that prince's eyes,
It cannot be that sympathies

Should 'scape, which seem from spirit drawn
Of friendship true, to smile and fawn,
With wat❜ry fondness, false and feigning.
But thou with me, when must'ring then
Thy martial host in Helen's aid,
(For hide it will I not), with pen
Sorely disgracious wert portrayed,
Not as unto purpose good,
The rudder of thy bosom plying,
Forcing reluctant hardihood,
Upon gallant comrades dying.
But now from no false surfaced heart,
With not a disaffected thought,
Prudent, I own, and kind thou art,

When to an issue fair their travail they have

brought.

But thou shalt know in time, by searching throughly,

Both who aright and who unduly,
Of all thy city's sons hath sate,
As faithful watch-dog o'er thy state.

[Agamemnon enters in a Triumphal Car, accompanied by Cassandra, sitting at his side.]

Agam. First Argos and my country's deities Meet is it to address, them of return Joint authors to me; and of just requitals, Which I exacted upon Priam's town.

Yea, for the gods not hearing from the tongue The pleadings of our suit, threw in their votes. Their hero-slaughtering votes for Troy's des

Into a gory vase, without the scale

Once wav'ring. And before the opposite vase,
By hand unfilled, did expectation stand.
With smoke the captured city even now
Is easy traced. Ate's whirlwinds still
Are living yet; and the slow smould❜ring ash
Vents forth fat fumes of wealth.

exploits,

For these

'Tis meet unto the gods that we do pay
A much-remembered thankfulness, since both
The snares we veng'd of their o'erweening pride,
And for a woman's sake, the Argive dragon
Levell❜d the town in dust he, the young foal
Of the war-charger - shielded host, that sprung
Its leap about the setting of the Pleiads.
It bounded o'er the towers, the rav'ning lion,

And lick'd its gorge-full of imperial blood.
Unto the gods this prefatory strain

I offered at some length. But what thou said'st,
Touching thy heart, I mind me I did hear it.
And the same tale I tell-and me thou hast,
Thy fellow-pleader. For, to few of men,
Is this akin, to reverence as a friend
The blest of fortune, without envious eyes.
Since a malignant venom, on the heart
Close-saddled, doubles the oppressive load
To him that hath imbibed an ail; and both
Is he himself with his own hurts bow'd down,
And as he gazes on the wealth that lies
Without his doors, he groans.

knows,

As one that

Might I describe (for well am I assured)
As a mere glass of outward intercourse
A shadow of a shade men that did seem

To be full friendly to me. One alone,
Ulysses, even he, who took his voyage
Against his will, when harnessed once, was ever
My ready yoke-fellow. Be it that I speak
Of one now dead, or of a chief alive?

But for the rest, what doth concern both state
And heav'n, in full assembly, having fixed
Our public trial-lists, will we consult;
And that which standeth fair, we must advise
How long enduring, it shall fair abide.
And wheresoe'er there lacketh healing arts
Medicinal, either soothe by cautery,
Or amputation, in a mercy-spirit,
Will we essay t'avert the ailment's bane.
But now unto our palace-halls, and homes,
Seat of the central hearth, will I proceed,

And greet me first the gods- who sped me forth,

And back did bring me.

And may victory

Since it thus far did follow firm abide.

Clytem. Men! citizens! this seignory of Argives!

I will not blush, e'en before you, to tell
My mood of fondness for my spouse. In time
Awed-fear doth die away in human breasts.
Not from the tongue of others having learnt it,
My own sore-grievous life will I describe,
So long as this my spouse lay under Troy.
First, that a woman from her husband severed,
Should sit in desolation in her home,
Is ill amazing, listing as she does,

Full many a rumour of capricious malice.
And that one harbinger of woe should come,
And then another announce a second plague,
Sadder than sad, proclaiming it aloud

To all the house. And as for wounds, if this
My spouse did meet as many, as report
Was wont to be conveyed unto his home;
He hath had holes broached in him, so to speak,
More than a net. And if he had but died,
As tales were rife, a triple-bodied Geryon,
The second of the race full many a weed
Of clay, thrice living, on the earth above.
(For that below I name not,) he would boast
To have worn-though dying but a single time,
Beneath each shape. For such malignant bruits,
From the beginning, many a fasten'd noose
Off from my neck did other hands untie,
When I was seized by force. Sooth from this

cause,

Thy boy, too, is not here to stand beside thee, The warrant both of my troth and of thine, As it were meet, Orestes. Yet at this May'st thou not marvel. Since a kind ally

Is nurturing him the Phocian Strophius, Forewarning me of doubly-menaced mischiefs, Both of thy peril under Troy, and if

A mob-tongued lawlessness, should hurtle down
The Council; as it ever runs in the blood
Of mortals on the fallen to trample farther.
Such an excuse as this no wile involves.

For me now of all tears the springs thick gushing,

Stream upon stream, are quench'd; nor in them lies

A single drop. And in my eyes, late-couch'd,
Marrings I bear of beauty, weeping sore
The beacons fixed for thee, neglected still.
And in my dreams I used to startle up,
At slender blasts of night-fly, humming past

me,

With thoughts intent on thee, disasters more
Beholding than the time which with me slept
Could e'er contain. Now having borne all this,
With soul not yet exhausted by its grief-
I'd call my spouse here, watch-dog of the folds;
The vessel's saving mainstay; of a roof

High-domed the column draperied to the foot;
Dear as an only infant to its sire;

And land to sailors, opened past all hope;
A day most fair to gaze on, after storm;
To way-farer athirst a fountain rill.
But sweet it is to 'scape from every load
Laid on us by compulsion. I do shew
His worth by salutations such as these.
And jealousy avaunt! for in great store
Our former ills we brooked. But now, to please

me,

Beloved head, dismount from this thy car,

Not on the ground setting thy foot, O King!