Thoas. 
Ho, all ye dwellers of my savage town
Set saddle on your steeds, and gallop down
To watch the heads, and gather what is cast
Alive from this Greek wreck.  We shall make fast,
By God’s help, the blasphemers.—­Send a corps
Out in good boats a furlong from the shore;
So we shall either snare them on the seas
Or ride them down by land, and at our ease
Fling them down gulfs of rock, or pale them high
On stakes in the sun, to feed our birds and die.

Women:  you knew this plot.  Each one of you
Shall know, before the work I have to do
Is done, what torment is.—­Enough.  A clear
Task is afoot.  I must not linger here.

[While thoas is moving off, his men shouting and running before and behind him, there comes a sudden blasting light and thunder-roll, and Athena is seen in the air confronting them.]

Athena. 
Ho, whither now, so hot upon the prey,
King Thoas?  It is I that bid thee stay,
Athena, child of Zeus.  Turn back this flood
Of wrathful men, and get thee temperate blood. 
  Apollo’s word and Fate’s ordained path
Have led Orestes here, to escape the wrath
Of Them that Hate.  To Argos he must bring
His sister’s life, and guide that Holy Thing
Which fell from heaven, in mine own land to dwell. 
So shall his pain have rest, and all be well. 
Thou hast heard my speech, O King.  No death from thee
May share Orestes between rocks and sea: 
Poseidon for my love doth make the sore
Waves gentle, and set free his labouring oar.

And thou, O far away—­for, far or near
A goddess speaketh and thy heart must hear—­
Go on thy ways, Orestes, bearing home
The Image and thy sister.  When ye come
To god-built Athens, lo, a land there is
Half hid on Attica’s last boundaries,
A little land, hard by Karystus’ Rock,
But sacred.  It is called by Attic folk
Halae.  Build there a temple, and bestow
Therein thine Image, that the world may know
The tale of Tauris and of thee, cast out
From pole to pole of Greece, a blood-hound rout
Of ill thoughts driving thee.  So through the whole
Of time to Artemis the Tauropole
Shall men make hymns at Halae.  And withal
Give them this law.  At each high festival,
A sword, in record of thy death undone,
Shall touch a man’s throat, and the red blood run—­
One drop, for old religion’s sake.  In this
Shall live that old red rite of Artemis. 
And them, Iphigenia, by the stair
Of Brauron in the rocks, the Key shalt bear
Of Artemis.  There shalt thou live and die,
And there have burial.  And a gift shall lie
Above thy shrine, fair raiment undefiled
Left upon earth by mothers dead with child.

Ye last, O exiled women, true of heart
And faithful found, ye shall in peace depart,
Each to her home:  behold Athena’s will.

Orestes, long ago on Ares’ Hill
I saved thee, when the votes of Death and Life
Lay equal:  and henceforth, when men at strife
So stand, mid equal votes of Life and Death,
My law shall hold that Mercy conquereth. 
Begone.  Lead forth thy sister from this shore
In peace; and thou, Thoas, be wroth no more.