CLYTEMNESTRA.

Child, the war slaves are here;
Thou needst not toil.

ELECTRA.

What was it but the spear
Of war, drove me forth too?  Mine enemies
Have sacked my father’s house, and, even as these,
Captives and fatherless, made me their prey.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

It was thy father cast his child away,
A child he might have loved!...  Shall I speak out?
(Controlling herself) Nay; when a woman once is caught about
With evil fame, there riseth in her tongue
A bitter spirit—­wrong, I know!  Yet, wrong
Or right, I charge ye look on the deeds done;
And if ye needs must hate, when all is known,
Hate on!  What profits loathing ere ye know? 
  My father gave me to be his.  ’Tis so. 
But was it his to kill me, or to kill
The babes I bore?  Yet, lo, he tricked my will
With fables of Achilles’ love:  he bore
To Aulis and the dark ship-clutching shore,
He held above the altar-flame, and smote,
Cool as one reaping, through the strained throat,
My white Iphigenia....  Had it been
To save some falling city, leaguered in
With foemen; to prop up our castle towers,
And rescue other children that were ours,
Giving one life for many, by God’s laws
I had forgiven all!  Not so.  Because
Helen was wanton, and her master knew
No curb for her:  for that, for that, he slew
My daughter!—­Even then, with all my wrong,
No wild beast yet was in me.  Nay, for long,
I never would have killed him.  But he came,
At last, bringing that damsel, with the flame
Of God about her, mad and knowing all: 
And set her in my room; and in one wall
Would hold two queens!—­O wild are woman’s eyes
And hot her heart.  I say not otherwise. 
But, being thus wild, if then her master stray
To love far off, and cast his own away,
Shall not her will break prison too, and wend
Somewhere to win some other for a friend? 
And then on us the world’s curse waxes strong
In righteousness!  The lords of all the wrong
Must hear no curse!—­I slew him.  I trod then
The only road:  which led me to the men
He hated.  Of the friends of Argos whom
Durst I have sought, to aid me to the doom
I craved?—­Speak if thou wouldst, and fear not me,
If yet thou deemst him slain unrighteously.

LEADER.

Thy words be just, yet shame their justice brings;
A woman true of heart should bear all things
From him she loves.  And she who feels it not,
I cannot reason of her, nor speak aught.

ELECTRA.

Remember, mother, thy last word of grace,
Bidding me speak, and fear not, to thy face.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

So said I truly, child, and so say still.

ELECTRA.

Wilt softly hear, and after work me ill?

CLYTEMNESTRA.

Not so, not so.  I will but pleasure thee.

ELECTRA.