The tables.  And he straightway, knowing naught,
Took of those bodies, eating that which wrought
No health for all his race.  And when he knew
The unnatural deed, back from the board he threw,
Spewing that murderous gorge, and spurning brake
The table, to make strong the curse he spake: 
“Thus perish all of Pleisthenes begot!”
    For that lies this man here; and all the plot
Is mine, most righteously.  For me, the third,
When butchering my two brethren, Atreus spared
And cast me with my broken sire that day,
A little thing in swaddling clothes, away
To exile; where I grew, and at the last
Justice hath brought me home!  Yea though outcast
In a far land, mine arm hath reached this king;
My brain, my hate, wrought all the counselling;
And all is well.  I have seen mine enemy
Dead in the snare, and care not if I die!

LEADER.

Aigisthos, to insult over the dead
I like not.  All the counsel, thou hast said,
Was thine alone; and thine the will that spilled
This piteous blood.  As justice is fulfilled,
Thou shalt not ’scape—­so my heart presageth—–­The
day of cursing and the hurled death.

AIGISTHOS.

How, thou poor oarsman of the nether row,
When the main deck is master?  Sayst thou so?... 
To such old heads the lesson may prove hard,
I fear me, when Obedience is the word. 
But hunger, and bonds, and cold, help men to find
Their wits.—­They are wondrous healers of the mind! 
Hast eyes and seest not this?—­Against a spike
Kick not, for fear it pain thee if thou strike.

LEADER
(turning from him to CLYTEMNESTRA).

Woman!  A soldier fresh from war!  To keep
Watch o’er his house and shame him in his sleep... 
To plot this craft against a lord of spears...

[CLYTEMNESTRA, as though in a dream, pays no heed. AIGISTHOS interupts.

AIGISTHOS.

These be the words, old man, that lead to tears! 
Thou hast an opposite to Orpheus’ tongue,
Who chained all things with his enchanting song,
For thy mad noise will put the chains on thee. 
Enough!  Once mastered thou shalt tamer be.

LEADER.

Thou master?  Is old Argos so accurst? 
Thou plotter afar off, who never durst
Raise thine own hand to affront and strike him down...

AIGISTHOS.

To entice him was the wife’s work.  I was known
By all men here, his old confessed blood-foe. 
Howbeit, with his possessions I will know
How to be King.  And who obeys not me
Shall be yoked hard, no easy trace-horse he,
Corn-flushed.  Hunger, and hunger’s prison mate,
The clammy murk, shall see his rage abate.

LEADER.

Thou craven soul!  Why not in open strife
Slay him?  Why lay the blood-sin on his wife,
Staining the Gods of Argos, making ill
The soil thereof?...But young Orestes still
Liveth.  Oh, Fate will guide him home again,
Avenging, conquering, home to kill these twain!