O suffering heart, not fierce thou wast of old
To shipwrecked men.  Nay, pities manifold
Held thee in fancy homeward, lest thy hand
At last should fall on one of thine own land. 
But now, for visions that have turned to stone
My heart, to know Orestes sees the sun
No more, a cruel woman waits you here,
Whoe’er ye be, and one without a tear. 
  ’Tis true:  I know by mine own evil will: 
One long in pain, if things more suffering still
Fall to his hand, will hate them for his own
Torment ...  And no great wind hath ever blown,
No ship from God hath passed the Clashing Gate,
To bring me Helen, who hath earned my hate,
And Menelaus, till I mocked their prayers
In this new Aulis, that is mine, not theirs: 
Where Greek hands held me lifted, like a beast
For slaughter, and my throat bled.  And the priest
My father! ...  Not one pang have I forgot. 
  Ah me, the blind half-prisoned arms I shot
This way and that, to find his beard, his knees,
Groping and wondering:  “Father, what are these
For bridal rites?  My mother even now
Mid Argive women sings for me, whom thou ... 
What dost thou?  She sings happy songs, and all
Is dance and sound of piping in the hall;
And here ...  Is he a vampyre, is he one
That fattens on the dead, thy Peleus’ son—­
Whose passion shaken like a torch before
My leaping chariot, lured me to this shore
To wed—­”
         Ah me!  And I had hid my face,
Burning, behind my veil.  I would not press
Orestes to my arms ... who now is slain! ... 
I would not kiss my sister’s lips again,
For shame and fulness of the heart to meet
My bridegroom.  All my kisses, all my sweet
Words were stored up and hid:  I should come back
So soon to Argos! 
                  And thou, too:  alack,
Brother, if dead thou art, from what high things
Thy youth is outcast, and the pride of kings
Fallen! 
       And this the goddess deemeth good! 
If ever mortal hand be dark with blood;
Nay, touch a new-made mother or one slain
In war, her ban is on him.  ’Tis a stain
She driveth from her outer walls; and then
Herself doth drink this blood of slaughtered men? 
Could ever Leto, she of the great King
Beloved, be mother to so gross a thing? 
These tales be lies, false as those feastings wild
Of Tantalus and Gods that tore a child. 
This land of murderers to its god hath given
Its own lust; evil dwelleth not in heaven.

[She goes into the temple.]

Chorus.

  Dark of the sea, dark of the sea, [strophe 1.]
    Gates of the warring water,
  One, in the old time, conquered you,
  A winged passion that burst the blue,
  When the West was shut and the Dawn lay free
    To the pain of Inachus’ daughter. 
But who be these, from where the rushes blow