Parodos

(The two men retire into ambush. ELECTRA enters, returning from the well.)

ELECTRA.Onward, O labouring tread,As on move the years;Onward amid thy tears,O happier dead!

Let me remember. I am she,Agamemnon's child, and the mother of meClytemnestra, the evil Queen,Helen's sister. And folk, I ween,That pass in the streets call yet my nameElectra.... God protect my shame!For toil, toil is a weary thing,And life is heavy about my head;And thou far off, O Father and King,In the lost lands of the dead.A bloody twain made these things be;One was thy bitterest enemy,And one the wife that lay by thee.

Brother, brother, on some far shoreHast thou a city, is there a doorThat knows thy footfall, Wandering One?Who left me, left me, when all our painWas bitter about us, a father slain,And a girl that wept in her room alone.Thou couldst break me this bondage sore,Only thou, who art far away,Loose our father, and wake once more....Zeus, Zeus, dost hear me pray?...The sleeping blood and the shame and the doom!O feet that rest not, over the foamOf distant seas, come home, come home!

What boots this cruse that I carry?O, set free my brow!For the gathered tears that tarryThrough the day and the dark till now,Now in the dawn are free,Father, and flow beneathThe floor of the world, to beAs a song in she house of Death:From the rising up of the dayThey guide my heart alway,The silent tears unshed,And my body mourns for the dead;My cheeks bleed silently,And these bruised temples keepTheir pain, remembering theeAnd thy bloody sleep.

Be rent, O hair of mine head!

As a swan crying aloneWhere the river windeth cold,For a loved, for a silent one,Whom the toils of the fowler hold,I cry, Father, to thee,O slain in misery!

The water, the wan water,Lapped him, and his headDrooped in the bed of slaughterLow, as one wearièd;Woe for the edgèd axe,And woe for the heart of hate,Houndlike about thy tracks,O conqueror desolate,From Troy over land and sea,Till a wife stood waiting thee;Not with crowns did she stand,Nor flowers of peace in her hand;With Aegisthus' dagger drawnFor her hire she strove,Through shame and through blood alone;And won her a traitor's love.

(As she ceases there enter from right and left the CHORUS, consisting of women of Argos, young and old, in festal dress.)

CHORUS. Some Women.Child of the mighty dead,Electra, lo, my wayTo thee in the dawn hath sped,And the cot on the mountain grey,For the Watcher hath cried this day:He of the ancient folk,The walker of waste and hill,Who drinketh the milk of the flock;And he told of Hera's will;For the morrow's morrow nowThey cry her festival,And before her throne shall bowOur damsels all.

ELECTRA.Not unto joy, nor sweetMusic, nor shining of gold,The wings of my spirit beat.Let the brides of Argos holdTheir dance in the night, as of old;I lead no dance; I markNo beat as the dancers sway;With tears I dwell in the dark,And my thought is of tears alway,To the going down of the day.Look on my wasted hairAnd raiment.... This that I bear,Is it meet for the King my sire,And her whom the King begot?For Troy, that was burned with fireAnd forgetteth not?

CHORUS. Other Women.Hera is great!--Ah, come,Be kind; and my hand shall bringFair raiment, work of the loom,And many a golden thing,For joyous robe-wearing.Deemest thou this thy woeShall rise unto God as prayer,Or bend thine haters low?Doth God for thy pain have care?Not tears for the dead nor sighs,But worship and joy divineShall win thee peace in thy skies,O daughter mine!

ELECTRA.No care cometh to GodFor the voice of the helpless; noneFor the crying of ancient blood.Alas for him that is gone,And for thee, O wandering one:That now, methinks, in a landOf the stranger must toil for hire,And stand where the poor men stand,A-cold by another's fire,O son of the mighty sire:While I in a beggar's cotOn the wrecked hills, changing not,Starve in my soul for food;But our mother lieth wedIn another's arms, and bloodIs about her bed.