My suppliant. Him who pitieth suffering men
Zeus pitieth, and his ways are sweet on earth.
[Exit Apollo. Presently enter the Ghost of Clytemnestra. She watches the sleeping Furies.
Ghost.
Ye sleep. O God, and what are sleepers worth?
'Tis you, have left me among all the dead
Dishonoured. Always, for that blood I shed,
Rebuke and hissing cease not, and I go
Wandering in shame. Oh hear! . . . For that old blow
I struck still I am hated, but for his
Who smote me, being of my blood, there is
No wrath in all the darkness: there is none
Cares for a mother murdered by her son.
Open thine heart to see this gash!—
(She shows the wound in her throat.)
In sleep
The heart hath many eyes and can see deep:
'Tis daylight makes man's fate invisible.
Oft of my bounty ye have lapt your fill;
Oft the sad peace of wineless cups to earth
I have poured, and midmurk feastings on your hearth
Burned, when no other god draws near to eat.
And all these things ye have cast beneath your feet,
And he is fled, fled lightly like a fawn
Out of your nets! With mocking he is gone
And twisting of the lips. . . . I charge you, hark!
This is my life, my death. Oh, shake the dark
From off you, Children of the Deep. 'Tis I,
Your dream, I, Clytemnestra, stand and cry.
[Moaning among the Furies.
5
