Remains to think what honour best may greet My lord, the majesty of Argos, home. What day beams fairer on a woman’s eyes Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide, To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war? This to my husband, that he tarry not, But turn the city’s longing into joy! Yea, let him come, and coming may he find A wife no other than he left her, true And faithful as a watch-dog to his home, His foemen’s foe, in all her duties leal, Trusty to keep for ten long years unmarred The store whereon he set his master-seal. Be steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see Ill joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me! HERALD ’Tis fairly said: thus speaks a noble dame, Nor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast. [_Exit Clytemnestra._ CHORUS So has she spoken—be it yours to learn By clear interpreters her specious word. Turn to me, herald—tell me if anon The second well-loved lord of Argos comes? Hath Menelaus safely sped with you? HERALD Alas—brief boon unto my friends it were, To flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair! CHORUS Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst— Too plainly, truth and joy are here divorced. HERALD The hero and his bark were rapt away Far from the Grecian fleet? ’tis truth I say. CHORUS Whether in all men’s sight from Ilion borne, Or from the fleet by stress of weather torn? HERALD Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light, And one short word hath told long woes aright. CHORUS But say, what now of him each comrade saith? What their forebodings, of his life or death? HERALD Ask me no more: the truth is known to none, Save the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun, CHORUS Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven? How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?