So compassed round with toils of woeful ills.
For touching Agamemnon's fate I knew,360
And by what death at his wife's hands he died,
When my prow touched at Malea: from the waves
The shipman's seer, the unerring God, the son
Of Nereus, Glaucus, made it known to me.
For full in view he rose, and cried to me:365
"Thy brother, Menelaus, lieth dead,
Fall'n in the bath, the death-snare[1] of his wife!"—
So filled me and my mariners with tears
Full many. As I touched the Nauplian land,
Even as my wife was hasting hitherward,370
And looked to clasp dead Agamemnon's son
Orestes, and his mother, in loving arms,
As prospering yet, I heard a fisher tell
Of Tyndareus' daughter's murder heaven-accurst.
Now tell to me, ye damsels, where is he,375
Agamemnon's son, who dared that awful deed?
A babe was he in Klytemnestra's arms,
When Troyward bound I went from mine halls forth:
Wherefore I should not know him, if I saw.
Orestes.
I am Orestes! This is he thou seekest.380
Free-willed shall I declare to thee my woes:
Yet suppliant first for prelude clasp thy knees
Linking to thee the leafless prayers of lips.[2]
Save me: thou comest in my sorest need.
