Give me the urn, whose gold
The Death-god's draught shall hold:—
Thee, whom earth's arms enfold,
Atreides' scion,170
These things I give thee now;
Dear dead, accept them thou.
Bright tresses from my brow
Shall never lie on
Thy grave, nor tears. Our land—
Thine—mine—to me is banned.
Far off the altars stand
Men saw me die on.
Chorus.
Lo, I will peal on high
To echo thine, O queen,180
My dirge, the Asian hymn, and that weird cry,
The wild barbaric keen,
The litany of death,
Song-tribute that we bring
To perished ones, where moaneth Hades' breath,
Where no glad pæans ring.
Iphigeneia.
Woe for the kingly sway
From Atreus' house that falls!
Passed is their sceptre's glory, passed away—
Woe for my fathers' halls!
Where are the heaven-blest kings190
Throned erstwhile in their might
O'er Argos? Trouble out of trouble springs
In ceaseless arrowy flight.
