CLYTEMNESTRA. There is the sea—its caverns who shall drain?— Breeding of many a purple-fish the stain Surpassing silver, ever fresh renewed, For robes of kings. And we, by right indued, Possess our fill thereof. Thy house, O King, Knoweth no stint, nor lack of anything. What trampling of rich raiment, had the cry So sounded in the domes of prophesy, Would I have vowed these years, as price to pay For this dear life in peril far away! Where the root is, the leafage cometh soon To clothe an house, and spread its leafy boon Against the burning star; and, thou being come, Thou, on the midmost hearthstone of thy home, Oh, warmth in winter leapeth to thy sign. And when God’s summer melteth into wine The green grape, on that house shall coolness fall Where the true man, the master, walks his hall. Zeus, Zeus! True Master, let my prayers be true! And, oh, forget not that thou art willed to do! [_She follows_ AGAMEMNON _into the Palace._ _The retinues of both King and Queen go in after them._ CASSANDRA _remains_.] CHORUS. What is this that evermore, [_Strophe 1._ A cold terror at the door Of this bosom presage-haunted, Pale as death hovereth? While a song unhired, unwanted, By some inward prophet chanted, Speaks the secret at its core; And to cast it from my blood Like a dream not understood No sweet-spoken Courage now Sitteth at my heart’s dear prow. Yet I know that manifold Days, like sand, have waxen old Since the day those shoreward-thrown Cables flapped and line on line Standing forth for Ilion The long galleys took the brine [_Antistrophe 1._ And in harbour—mine own eye Hath beheld—again they lie; Yet that lyreless music hidden Whispers still words of ill, ’Tis the Soul of me unbidden, Like some Fury sorrow-ridden, Weeping over things that die. Neither waketh in my sense Ever Hope’s dear confidence; For this flesh that groans within, And these bones that know of Sin, This tossed heart upon the spate Of a whirpool that is Fate, Surely these lie not. Yet deep Beneath hope my prayer doth run, All will die like dreams, and creep To the unthought of and undone. [_Strophe 2._ —Surely of great Weal at the end of all Comes not Content; so near doth Fever crawl, Close neighbour, pressing hard the narrow wall. —Woe to him who fears not fate! ’Tis the ship that forward straight Sweepeth, strikes the reef below; He who fears and lightens weight, Casting forth, in measured throw, From the wealth his hand hath got … His whole ship shall founder not, With abundance overfraught, Nor deep seas above him flow. —Lo, when famine stalketh near, One good gift of Zeus again From the furrows of one year Endeth quick the starving pain; [_Antistrophe 2._ —But once the blood of death is fallen, black And oozing at a slain man’s feet, alack! By spell or singing who shall charm it back? —One there was of old who showed Man the path from death to day; But Zeus, lifting up his rod, Spared not, when he charged him stay.