—­Ah me,
  And yet ’tis all as Zeus hath willed,
      Doer of all and Cause of all;
  By His Word every chance doth fall,
      No end without Him is fulfilled;
          What of these things
  But cometh by high Heaven’s counsellings?

  [A band of Mourners has gathered within the House.

MOURNERS.

Ah, sorrow, sorrow!  My King, my King! 
  How shall I weep, what word shall I say? 
Caught in the web of this spider thing,
  In foul death gasping thy life away! 
Woe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying,
The doom of craft and the lonely dying,
  The iron two-edged and the hands that slay!

CLYTEMNESTRA.

     And criest thou still this deed hath been
     My work?  Nay, gaze, and have no thought
     That this is Agamemnon’s Queen. 
     ’Tis He, ’tis He, hath round him wrought
     This phantom of the dead man’s wife;
He, the old Wrath, the Driver of Men astray,
       Pursuer of Atreus for the feast defiled;
     To assoil an ancient debt he hath paid this life;
A warrior and a crowned King this day
        Atones for a slain child.

CHORUS.

—­That thou art innocent herein,
    What tongue dare boast?  It cannot be,
  Yet from the deeps of ancient sin
    The Avenger may have wrought with thee.

—­On the red Slayer crasheth, groping wild
    For blood, more blood, to build his peace again,
    And wash like water the old frozen stain
          Of the torn child.

MOURNERS.

Ah, sorrow, sorrow!  My King, my King! 
  How shall I weep, what word shall I say? 
Caught in the web of this spider thing,
  In foul death gasping thy life away. 
Woe’s me, woe’s me, for this slavish lying,
The doom of craft and the lonely dying,
  The iron two-edged and the hands that slay!

CLYTEMNESTRA.

And what of the doom of craft that first
He planted, making the House accurst? 
What of the blossom, from this root riven,
Iphigenia, the unforgiven? 
Even as the wrong was, so is the pain: 
He shall not laugh in the House of the slain,
    When the count is scored;
He hath but spoiled and paid again
    The due of the sword.

CHORUS.

I am lost; my mind dull-eyed
    Knows not nor feels
Whither to fly nor hide
    While the House reels. 
The noise of rain that falls
    On the roof affrighteth me,
Washing away the walls;
    Rain that falls bloodily.

Doth ever the sound abate? 
Lo, the next Hour of Fate
Whetting her vengeance due
On new whet-stones, for new
    Workings of hate.

MOURNERS.

Would thou hadst covered me, Earth, O Earth,
  Or e’er I had looked on my lord thus low,
In the palled marble of silvern girth! 
  What hands may shroud him, what tears may flow?