Clytemnestra
\Exit Ohrysothemis.
Scene Y.
Antistro'phe.
Act II.
Scene I.
516
^gisthus absent, who alone could curb
Thy haughty spirit and licentious tongue.
At large, it seems, thou rov'st, and unrestrained,
No deference paid to my authority.
But on thy mother ever pouring forth
Bitter invectives, while the listening crowd
520
Are taught to hold me proud and fierce of soul,
A lawless tyrant slandering thee and thine
I am no slanderer — I abhor the name ;
But oft reviled, of force I must reply,
And send thy foul reproaches back upon thee.
525
I Thou sayst I slew thy father ; that alone
RIs left to plead for all thy insolence.
I I do confess the deed, and glory in it. ,
552
T slew thy father ; yet not I alone,
I had the hand of justice to assist m(
610
And should have had Electra's. Well thou knowst
That cruel father, for whom thus thy tears
Incessant flow, that father slew his child :
He, he alone of all the Grecian host
615
Gave up his daughter — horrid sacrifice —
To the offended gods : he never felt
A mother's pangs, and therefore thought not of them,
Or, if he did, why slay the innocent?
For Greece, thou tellst me ! Greece could never claim
A right to what was mine. Or did she fall
630
For Menelaus? He had children too :
634
Why might not they have died ? Their parent's guilt,
Source of the war, more justly had deserved it.
635
Or thinkst thou death with keener appetite
Could feast on mine, and Helen's not aflbrd
As sweet a banquet? Whv was all the lo_ve,
To me and to my child so justly dUe,
660
With lavish hand bestowed on Menelaus?
Was he not then a base inhuman father \
1397
He was ; and so, could Iphigenia speak,
1405
Thy breathless sister, she too would declare.
Know then, I grieve not ; shame or penitence
I feel not for the deed ; and if to thee
It seems so heinous, weigh each circumstance,
Remember what he did, and lay the blame
1415
On him who well deserved the fate he suffered.
