All that I gave thou did'st account as nothing While aught remained to take. Who ever saw At once so cruel and so false a heart? The guilty love that thou did'st feign so ill And I believed so well, what hindrance to it, What hindrance, tell me, was the child Orestes? Yet scarce had Agamemnon died before Thou did'st cry out for his son's blood; and searched Through all the palace in thy fury. Then The blade thou durst not wield against the father, Then thou didst brandish! Ay, bold wast thou then Against a helpless child!... Unhappy son, what booted it to save thee From thy sire's murderer, since thou hast found Death ere thy time in strange lands far away? Aegisthus, villainous usurper! Thou, Thou hast slain my son! Aegisthus--Oh forgive! I was a mother, and am so no more. Throughout this scene, and in the soliloquy preceding it, Alfieri paints very forcibly the struggle in Clytemnestra between her love for her son and her love for Aegisthus, to whom she clings even while he exults in the tidings that wring her heart. It is all too baldly presented, doubtless, but it is very effective and affecting. Orestes and Pylades are now brought before Aegisthus, and he demands how and where Orestes died, for after his first rejoicing he has come to doubt the fact. Pylades responds in one of those speeches with which Alfieri seems to carve the scene in bas-relief: Every fifth year an ancient use renews In Crete the games and offerings unto Jove. The love of glory and innate ambition Lure to that coast the youth; and by his side Goes Pylades, inseparable from him. In the light car upon the arena wide, The hopes of triumph urge him to contest The proud palm of the flying-footed steeds, And, too intent on winning, there his life He gives for victory. _Aeg._ But how? Say on. _Pyl._ Too fierce, impatient, and incautious, he Now frights his horses on with threatening cries, Now whirls his blood-stained whip, and lashes them, Till past the goal the ill-tamed coursers fly Faster and faster. Reckless of the rein, Deaf to the voice that fain would soothe them now, Their nostrils breathing fire, their loose manes tossed Upon the wind, and in thick clouds involved Of choking dust, round the vast circle's bound, As lightning swift they whirl and whirl again. Fright, horror, mad confusion, death, the car Spreads in its crooked circles everywhere, Until at last, the smoking axle dashed With horrible shock against a marble pillar, Orestes headlong falls-- _Cly._ No more! Ah, peace! His mother hears thee. _Pyl._ It is true. Forgive me. I will not tell how, horribly dragged on, His streaming life-blood soaked the arena's dust-- Pylades ran--in vain--within his arms His friend expired.