CHORUS. 
    An erring seer am I, I 1
    Of sense and wisdom lorn,
    If this prophetic Power of right,
    O’ertaking the offender, come not nigh
          Ere many an hour be born. 
          Yon vision of the night,
    That lately breathed into my listening ear,
    Hath freed me, O my daughter, from all fear. 
    Sweet was that bodement.  He doth not forget,
    The Achaean lord that gave thee being, nor yet
    The bronzen-griding axe, edged like a spear,
    Hungry and keen, though dark with stains of time,
    That in the hour of hideous crime
    Quelled him with cruel butchery: 
    That, too, remembers, and shall testify.

    From ambush deep and dread I 2
    With power of many a hand
    And many hastening feet shall spring
    The Fury of the adamantine tread,
          Visiting Argive land
          Swift recompense to bring
    For eager dalliance of a blood-stained pair
    Unhallowed, foul, forbidden.  No omen fair,—­
    Their impious course hath fixed this in my soul,—­
    Nought but black portents full of blame shall roll
    Before their eyes that wrought or aided there. 
    Small force of divination would there seem
    In prophecy or solemn dream,
    Should not this vision of the night
    Reach harbour in reality aright.

    O chariot-course of Pelops, full of toil[4]!  II
          How wearisome and sore
    Hath been thine issue to our native soil!—­
    Since, from the golden oar
    Hurled to the deep afar,
          Myrtilus sank and slept,
    Cruelly plucked from that fell chariot-floor,
    This house unceasingly hath kept
    Crime and misfortune mounting evermore.

Enter CLYTEMNESTRA.

CLYTEMNESTRA.  Again you are let loose and range at will. 
Ay, for Aegisthus is not here, who barred
Your rashness from defaming your own kin
Beyond the gates.  But now he’s gone from home,
You heed not me:  though you have noised abroad
That I am bold in crime, and domineer
Outrageously, oppressing thee and thine. 
I am no oppressor, but I speak thee ill,
For thou art ever speaking ill of me—­
Still holding forth thy father’s death, that I
Have done it.  So I did:  I know it well: 
That I deny not; for not I alone
But Justice slew him; and if you had sense,
To side with Justice ought to be your part. 
For who but he of all the Greeks, your sire,
For whom you whine and cry, who else but he
Took heart to sacrifice unto the Gods
Thy sister?—­having less of pain, I trow,
In getting her, than I, that bore her, knew! 
Come, let me question thee!  On whose behalf
Slew he my child?  Was ’t for the Argive host? 
What right had they to traffic in my flesh?—­