Electra.
Remember, mother, thy last word of grace,
Bidding me speak, and fear not, to thy face.
Clytemnestra.
So said I truly, child, and so say still.
Electra.
Wilt softly hear, and after work me ill?
Clytemnestra.
Not so, not so. I will but pleasure thee.
Electra.
I answer then. And, mother, this shall be
My prayer of opening, where hangs the whole:
Would God that He had made thee clean of soul!
Helen and thou—O, face and form were fair,
Meet for men's praise; but sisters twain ye were,
Both things of naught, a stain on Castor's star.
And Helen slew her honour, borne afar
In wilful ravishment: but thou didst slay
The highest man of the world. And now wilt say
'Twas wrought in justice for thy child laid low
At Aulis? . . .Ah, who knows thee as I know?
Thou, thou, who long ere aught of ill was done
Thy child, when Agamemnon scarce was gone,
Sate at the looking-glass, and tress by tress
Didst comb the twinèd gold in loneliness.
When any wife, her lord being far away,
Toils to be fair, O blot her out that day
