Parodos

(During the last words the LEADER of the Chorus has entered. Other women follow her.)

LEADER.I heard a voice and a moan,A voice of the eastern seas:Hath she found not yet her ease?Speak, O aged one.For I stood afar at the gate,And there came from within a cry,And wailing desolate.Ah, no more joy have I,For the griefs this house doth see,And the love it hath wrought in me.

NURSE.There is no house! 'Tis gone. The lordSeeketh a prouder bed: and sheWastes in her chamber, not one wordWill hear of care or charity.

VOICE (within).O Zeus, O Earth, O Light,Will the fire not stab my brain?What profiteth living? Oh,Shall I not lift the slowYoke, and let Life go,As a beast out in the night,To lie, and be rid of pain?

CHORUS. Some Women. A."O Zeus, O Earth, O Light:"The cry of a bride forlornHeard ye, and wailing bornOf lost delight?

B.Why weariest thou this day,Wild heart, for the bed abhorred,The cold bed in the clay?Death cometh though no man pray,Ungarlanded, un-adored.Call him not thou.

C.If another's arms be nowWhere thine have been,On his head be the sin:Rend not thy brow!

D.All that thou sufferest,God seeth: Oh, not so soreWaste nor weep for the breastThat was thine of yore.

VOICE (within).Virgin of Righteousness,Virgin of hallowed Troth,Ye marked me when with an oathI bound him; mark no lessThat oath's end. Give me to seeHim and his bride, who soughtMy grief when I wronged her not,Broken in misery,And all her house. . . . O God,My mother's home, and the dimShore that I left for him,And the voice of my brother's blood. . . .

NURSE.Oh, wild words! Did ye hear her cryTo them that guard man's faith forsworn,Themis and Zeus? . . . This wrath new-bornShall make mad workings ere it die.

CHORUS. Other Women. A.Would she but come to seekOur faces, that love her well,And take to her heart the spellOf words that speak?

B.Alas for the heavy hateAnd anger that burneth ever!Would it but now abate,Ah God, I love her yet.And surely my love's endeavourShall fail not here.

C.Go: from that chamber drearForth to the dayLead her, and say, Oh, sayThat we love her dear.

D.Go, lest her hand be hardOn the innocent: Ah, let be!For her grief moves hitherward,Like an angry sea.

NURSE.That will I: though what words of mineOr love shall move her? Let them lieWith the old lost labours! . . . Yet her eye--Know ye the eyes of the wild kine,

The lion flash that guards their brood?So looks she now if any thrallSpeak comfort, or draw near at allMy mistress in her evil mood.

(The NURSE goes into the house.)

CHORUS. A Woman.Alas, the bold blithe bards of oldThat all for joy their music made,For feasts and dancing manifold,That Life might listen and be glad.

But all the darkness and the wrong,Quick deaths and dim heart-aching things,Would no man ease them with a songOr music of a thousand strings?

Then song had served us in our need.What profit, o'er the banquet's swellThat lingering cry that none may heed?The feast hath filled them: all is well!

Others.I heard a song, but it comes no more.Where the tears ran over:A keen cry but tired, tired:A woman's cry for her heart's desired,For a traitor's kiss and a lost lover.But a prayer, methinks, yet riseth soreTo God, to Faith, God's ancient daughter--The Faith that over sundering seasDrew her to Hellas, and the breezeOf midnight shivered, and the doorClosed of the salt unsounded water.