“The ghost returns:  ’O chief of human kind
For active courage and a patient mind;
Nor while the sea, nor while the tempest raves
Has Fate oppress’d me on the roaring waves! 
Nor nobly seized me in the dire alarms
Of war and slaughter, and the clash of arms
Stabb’d by a murderous hand Atrides died,
A foul adulterer, and a faithless bride;
E’en in my mirth, and at the friendly feast,
O’er the full bowl, the traitor stabb’d his guest;
Thus by the gory arm of slaughter falls
The stately ox, and bleeds within the stalls. 
But not with me the direful murder ends,
These, these expired! their crime, they were my friends: 
Thick as the boars, which some luxurious lord
Kills for the feast, to crown the nuptial board. 
When war has thunder’d with its loudest storms,
Death thou hast seen in all her ghastly forms: 
In duel met her on the listed ground,
When hand to hand they wound return for wound;
But never have the eyes astonish’d view’d
So vile a deed, so dire a scene of blood. 
E’en in the flow of joy, when now the bowl
Glows in our veins, and opens every soul,
We groan, we faint; with blood the doom is dyed. 
And o’er the pavement floats the dreadful tide—­
Her breast all gore, with lamentable cries,
The bleeding innocent Cassandra dies! 
Then though pale death froze cold in every vein,
My sword I strive to wield, but strive in vain;
Nor did my traitress wife these eyelids close,
Or decently in death my limbs compose. 
O woman, woman, when to ill thy mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend: 
And such was mine! who basely plunged her sword
Through the fond bosom where she reign’d adored! 
Alas!  I hoped the toils of war o’ercome,
To meet soft quiet and repose at home;
Delusive hope!  O wife, thy deeds disgrace
The perjured sex, and blacken all the race;
And should posterity one virtuous find,
Name Clytemnestra, they will curse the kind.’

“Oh injured shade (I cried) what mighty woes
To thy imperial race from woman rose! 
By woman here thou tread’st this mournful strand,
And Greece by woman lies a desert land.’

“’Warn’d by my ills beware, (the shade replies,)
Nor trust the sex that is so rarely wise;
When earnest to explore thy secret breast,
Unfold some trifle, but conceal the rest. 
But in thy consort cease to fear a foe,
For thee she feels sincerity of woe;
When Troy first bled beneath the Grecian arms,
She shone unrivall’d with a blaze of charms;
Thy infant son her fragrant bosom press’d,
Hung at her knee, or wanton’d at her breast;
But now the years a numerous train have ran;
The blooming boy is ripen’d into man;
Thy eyes shall see him burn with noble fire,
The sire shall bless his son, the son his sire;
But my Orestes never met these eyes,
Without one look the murder’d father dies;
Then from a wretched friend this wisdom learn,
E’en to thy queen disguised, unknown, return;
For since of womankind so few are just,
Think all are false, nor e’en the faithful trust.