Ho there! I say: I speak to the deaf; to those that sleep I utter In vain my useless cries. And where is she? Where's Clytæmnestra? What doth she do now? Her neck upon the razor's edge doth seem To fall, down-stricken by a vengeance just. 870 _Enter_ CLYTÆMNESTRA _from the side door_ _Clytæm._ What means all this? What cry is this thou mak'st? _Serv._ I say the dead are killing one who lives. _Clytæm._ Ah, me! I see the drift of thy dark speech; By guile we perish, as of old we slew: Let some one hand at once axe strong to slay; Let's see if we are conquered or can conquer, For to that point of evil am I come. _Enter_ ORESTES _and_ PYLADES _from the other door_ _Orest._ 'Tis thou I seek: he there has had enough. _Clytæm._ Ah me! my loved Ægisthos! Art thou dead? _Orest._ Lov'st thou the man? Then in the self-same tomb 880 Shalt thou now lie, nor in his death desert him. _Clytæm._ [_baring her bosom_] Hold, boy! Respect this breast of mine, my son,[451] Whence thou full oft, asleep, with toothless gums, Hast sucked the milk that sweetly fed thy life. _Orest._ What shall I do, my Pylades? Shall I Through this respect forbear to slay my mother? _Pyl._[452] Where, then, are Loxias' other oracles, The Pythian counsels, and the fast-sworn vows? Have all men hostile rather than the Gods. _Orest._ My judgment goes with thine; thou speakest well: [_To_ CLYTÆMNESTRA] Follow: I mean to slay thee where he lies,890 For while he lived thou held'st him far above My father. Sleep thou with him in thy death, Since thou lov'st him, and whom thou should'st love hatest. _Clytæm._ I reared thee, and would fain grow old with thee. _Orest._ What! Thou live with me, who did'st slay my father? _Clytæm._ Fate, O my son, must share the blame of that. _Orest._ This fatal doom, then, it is Fate that sends. _Clytæm._ Dost thou not fear a parent's curse, my son? _Orest._ Thou, though my mother, did'st to ill chance cast me. _Clytæm._ No outcast thou, so sent to house allied. 900 _Orest._ I was sold doubly, though of free sire born. _Clytæm._ Where is the price, then, that I got for thee? _Orest._ I shrink for shame from pressing that charge home. _Clytæm._ Nay, tell thy father's wantonness as well. _Orest._ Blame not the man who toils when thou'rt at ease.[453] _Clytæm._ 'Tis hard, my son, for wives to miss their husband. _Orest._ The husband's toil keeps her that sits at home.[453] _Clytæm._ Thou seem'st, my son, about to slay thy mother. _Orest._ It is not I that slay thee, but thyself. _Clytæm._ Take heed, beware a mother's vengeful hounds.[454] 910 _Orest._ How, slighting this, shall I escape my father's? _Clytæm._ I seem in life to wail as to a tomb.[455] _Orest._ My father's fate ordains this doom for thee. _Clytæm._ Ah me! the snake is here I bare and nursed.[456]