Orestes.
Fear not the greybeard's hand: yea, nowise fear
Achilles' son: his insolence-cup is full;
Such toils of doom by this hand woven for him 995
With murder-meshes round him steadfast-staked
Are drawn: thereof I speak not ere the time;
But, when I strike, the Delphian rock shall know.
This mother-murderer[1]—if the oaths be kept
Of spear-confederates in the Delphian land— 1000
Shall prove none else shall wed thee, mine of right.
To his sorrow shall he ask redress of Phœbus
For a sire's blood! Nor shall repentance now
Avail him, who would make the God amends.
But by his wrath, and slanders sown of me, 1005
Die shall he foully, and shall know mine hate:
For the God turns the fortune of his foes
To overthrow, nor suffereth their high thoughts.
Chorus.
(Str. 1)
O Phœbus, who gavest to Ilium a glory
Of diadem-towers on her heights,—and O Master 1010
Of Sea-depths, whose grey-gleaming steeds o'er the hoary
Surf-ridges speed,—to the War-god, the Waster
With spears, for what cause for a spoil did ye cast her,
Whom your own hands had fashioned, dishonoured to lie
In wretchedness, wretchedness—her that was Troy?
(Ant. 1)
And by Simoïs ye yoked to the chariots fleet horses
Unnumbered, in races of blood which contended,
- ↑ i.e. The speaker; a reference to the taunt in l. 978.
