Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  In the last scene, as Clytemnestra steals through the darkness to her husband’s chamber, she soliloquizes, with the dagger in her hand:

  It is the hour; and sunk in slumber now

  Lies Agamemnon. Shall he nevermore

  Open his eyes to the fair light? My hand,

  Once pledge to him of stainless love and faith,

  Is it to be the minister of his death?

  Did I swear that? Ay, that; and I must keep

  My oath. Quick, let me go! My foot, heart, hand —

  All over I tremble. Oh, what did I promise?

  Wretch! what do I attempt? How all my courage

  Hath vanished from me since Aegisthus vanished!

  I only see the immense atrocity

  Of this, my horrible deed; I only see

  The bloody specter of Atrides! Ah,

  In vain do I accuse thee! No, thou lovest

  Cassandra not. Me, only me, thou lovest,

  Unworthy of thy love. Thou hast no blame,

  Save that thou art my husband, in the world!

  Of trustful sleep, to death’s arms by my hand?

  And where then shall I hide me? O perfidy!

  Can I e’er hope for peace? O woful life —

  Life of remorse, of madness, and of tears!

  How shall Aegisthus, even Aegisthus, dare

  To rest beside the parricidal wife

  Upon her murder-stained marriage-bed,

  Nor tremble for himself? Away, away, —

  Hence, horrible instrument of all my guilt

  And harm, thou execrable dagger, hence!

  I’ll lose at once my lover and my life,

  But never by this hand betrayed shall fall

  So great a hero! Live, honor of Greece

  And Asia’s terror! Live to glory, live

  To thy dear children, and a better wife!

  — But what are these hushed steps? Into these rooms

  Who is it comes by night? Aegisthus? — Lost,

  I am lost!

  Aegisthus. Hast thou not done the deed?

  Cly. Aegisthus ——

  Aeg. What, stand’st thou here, wasting thyself in

  tears?

  Woman, untimely are thy tears; ‘t is late,

  ‘T is vain, and it may cost us dear!

  Cly. Thou here?

  But how — woe’s me, what did I promise thee!

  What wicked counsel —

  Aeg. Was it not thy counsel?

  Love gave it thee and fear annuls it — well!

  Since thou repentest, I am glad; and glad

  To know thee guiltless shall I be in death.

  I told thee that the enterprise was hard,

  But thou, unduly trusting in the heart,

  That hath not a man’s courage in it, chose

  Thyself thy feeble hands to strike the blow.

  Now may Heaven grant that the intent of evil

  Turn not to harm thee! Hither I by stealth

  And favor of the darkness have returned

  Unseen, I hope. For I perforce must come

  Myself to tell thee that irrevocably

  My life is dedicated to the vengeance

  Of Agamemnon.

  He appeals to her pity for him, and her fear for herself; he reminds her of Agamemnon’s consent to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and goads her on to the crime from which she had recoiled. She goes into Agamemnon’s chamber, whence his dying outcries are heard: —

  O treachery!

  Thou, wife? O headens, I die! O treachery!

  Clytemnestra comes out with the dagger in her hand:

  The dagger drips with blood; my hands, my robe,

  My face — they all are wet with blood. What vengeance

  Shall yet be taken for this blood? Already

  I see this very steel turned on my breast,

  And by whose hand!

  The son whom she forebodes as the avenger of Agamemnon’s death passes his childhood and early youth at the court of Strophius in Phocis. The tragedy named for him opens with Electra’s soliloquy as she goes to weep at the tomb of their father: —

  Night, gloomy, horrible, atrocious night,

  Forever present to my thought! each year

  For now two lusters I have seen thee come,

  Clothed on with darkness and with dreams of blood,

  And blood that should have expiated thine

  Is not yet spilt! O memory, O sight!

  Upon these stones I saw thee murdered lie,

  Murdered, and by whose hand!...

  I swear to thee,

  If I in Argos, in thy palace live,

  Slave of Aegisthus, with my wicked mother,

  Nothing makes me endure a life like this

  Saving the hope of vengeance. Far away

  Orestes is; but living! I saved thee, brother;

  I keep myself for thee, till the day rise

  When thou shalt make to stream upon yon tomb

  Not helpless tears like these, but our foe’s blood.

  While Electra fiercely muses, Clytemnestra enters, with the appeal:

  Cly. Daughter!

  El. What voice! Oh Heaven, thou here?

  Cly. My daughter,

  Ah, do not fly me! Thy pious task I fain

  Would share with thee. Aegisthus in vain forbids,

  He shall not know. Ah, come! go we together

  Unto the tomb.

  El. Whose tomb?

  Cly. Thy — hapless — father’s.

  El. Wherefore not say thy husband’s tomb? ‘T is well:

  Thou darest not speak it. But how dost thou dare

  Turn thitherward thy steps — thou that dost reek

  Yet with his blood?

  Cly. Two lusters now are passed

  Since that dread day, and two whole lusters now

  I weep my crime.

  El. And what time were enough

  For that? Ah, if thy tears should be eternal,

  They yet were nothing. Look! Seest thou not still

  The blood upon these horrid walls the blood

  That thou didst splash them with? And at thy presence

  Lo, how it reddens and grows quick again!

  Fly, thou, whom I must never more call mother!

  * * * *

  Cly. Oh, woe is me! What can I answer? Pity —

  But I merit none! — And yet if in my heart,

  Daughter, thou couldst but read — ah, who could look

  Into the secret of a heart like mine,

  Contaminated with such infamy,

  And not abhor me? I blame not thy wrath,

  No, nor thy hate. On earth I feel already

  The guilty pangs of hell. Scarce had the blow

  Escaped my hand before a swift remorse,

  Swift but too late, fell terrible upon me.

  From that hour still the sanguinary ghost

  By day and night, and ever horrible,

  Hath moved before mine eyes. Whene’er I turn

  I see its bleeding footsteps trace the path

  That I must follow; at table, on the throne,

  It sits beside me; on my bitter pillow

  If e’er it chance I close mine eyes in sleep,

  The specter — fatal vision! — instantly

  Shows itself in my dreams, and tears the breast,

  Already mangled, with a furious hand,

  And thence draws both its palms full of dark blood,

  To dash it in my face! On dreadful nights

  Follow more dreadful days. In a long death

  I live my life. Daughter, — whate’er I am,

  Thou art my daughter still, — dost thou not weep

  At tears like mine?

  Clytemnestra confesses that Aegisthus no longer loves her, but she loves him, and she shrinks from Electra’s fierce counsel that she shall kill him. He enters to find her in tears, and a violent scene between him and Electra follows, in which Clytemnestra interposes.

  Cly. O dau
ghter, he is my husband. Think, Aegisthus,

  She is my daughter.

  Aeg. She is Atrides’ daughter!

  El. He is Atrides’ murderer!

  Cly. Electra!

  Have pity, Aegisthus! Look — the tomb! Oh, look,

  The horrible tomb! — and art thou not content?

  Aeg. Woman, be less unlike thyself. Atrides, —

  Tell me by whose hand in yon tomb he lies?

  Cly. O mortal blame! What else is lacking now

  To my unhappy, miserable life?

  Who drove me to it now upbraids my crime!

  El. O marvelous joy! O only joy that’s blessed

  My heart in these ten years! I see you both

  At last the prey of anger and remorse;

  I hear at last what must the endearments be

  Of love so blood-stained.

  The first act closes with a scene between Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, in which he urges her to consent that he shall send to have Orestes murdered, and reminds her of her former crimes when she revolts from this. The scene is very well managed, with that sparing phrase which in Alfieri is quite as apt to be touchingly simple as bare and poor. In the opening scene of the second act, Orestes has returned in disguise to Argos with Pylades the son of Strophius, to whom he speaks:

  We are come at last. Here Agamemnon fell,

  Murdered, and here Aegisthus reigns. Here rose

  In memory still, though I a child departed,

  These natal walls, and the just Heaven in time

  Leads me back hither.

  Twice five years have passed

  This very day since that dread night of blood,

  When, slain by treachery, my father made

  The whole wide palace with his dolorous cries

  Echo again. Oh, well do I remember!

  Electra swiftly bore me through this hall

  Thither where Strophius in his pitying arms

  Received me — Strophius, less by far thy father

  Than mine, thereafter — and fled onward with me

  By yonder postern-gate, all tremulous;

  And after me there ran upon the air

  Long a wild clamor and a lamentation

  That made me weep and shudder and lament,

  I knew not why, and weeping Strophius ran,

  Preventing with his hand my outcries shrill,

  Clasping me close, and sprinkling all my face

  With bitter tears; and to the lonely coast,

  Where only now we landed, with his charge

  He came apace; and eagerly unfurled

  His sails before the wind.

  Pylades strives to restrain the passion for revenge in Orestes, which imperils them both. The friend proposes that they shall feign themselves messengers sent by Strophius with tidings of Orestes’ death, and Orestes has reluctantly consented, when Electra re-appears, and they recognize each other. Pylades discloses their plan, and when her brother urges, “The means is vile,” she answers, all woman, —

  Less vile than is Aegisthus. There is none

  Better or surer, none, believe me. When

  You are led to him, let it be mine to think

  Of all — the place, the manner, time, and arms,

  To kill him. Still I keep, Orestes, still

  I keep the steel that in her husband’s breast

  She plunged whom nevermore we might call mother.

  Orestes. How fares it with that impious woman?

  Electra. Ah,

  Thou canst not know how she drags out her life!

  Save only Agamemnon’s children, all

  Must pity her — and even we must pity.

  Full ever of suspicion and of terror,

  And held in scorn even by Aegisthus’ self,

  Loving Aegisthus though she know his guilt;

  Repentant, and yet ready to renew

  Her crime, perchance, if the unworthy love

  Which is her shame and her abhorrence, would;

  Now wife, now mother, never wife nor mother,

  Bitter remorse gnaws at her heart by day

  Unceasingly, and horrible shapes by night

  Scare slumber from her eyes. — So fares it with her.

  In the third scene of the following act Clytemnestra meets Orestes and Pylades, who announce themselves as messengers from Phocis to the king; she bids them deliver their tidings to her, and they finally do so, Pylades struggling to prevent Orestes from revealing himself. There are touchingly simple and natural passages in the lament that Clytemnestra breaks into over her son’s death, and there is fire, with its true natural extinction in tears, when she upbraids Aegisthus, who now enters:

  My only son beloved, I gave thee all.

  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 h
is arms

  His friend expired.

  Cly. O wicked death!

  Pyl. In Crete

  All men lamented him, so potent in him

  Were beauty, grace, and daring.

  Cly. Nay, who would not

  Lament him save this wretch alone? Dear son,

  Must I then never, never see thee more?

  O me! too well I see thee crossing now

  The Stygian stream to clasp thy father’s shade:

  Both turn your frowning eyes askance on me,

  Burning with dreadful wrath! Yea, it was I,

  ‘T was I that slew you both. Infamous mother

  And guilty wife! — Now art content, Aegisthus?

  Aegisthus still doubts, and pursues the pretended messengers with such insulting question that Orestes, goaded beyond endurance, betrays that their character is assumed. They are seized and about to be led to prison in chains, when Electra enters and in her anguish at the sight exclaims, “Orestes led to die!” Then ensues a heroic scene, in which each of the friends claims to be Orestes. At last Orestes shows the dagger Electra has given him, and offers it to Clytemnestra, that she may stab Aegisthus with the same weapon with which she killed Agamemnon:

  Whom then I would call mother. Take it; thou know’st how

  To wield it; plunge it in Aegisthus’ heart!

  Leave me to die; I care not, if I see

  My father avenged. I ask no other proof

  Of thy maternal love from thee. Quick, now,

  Strike! Oh, what is it that I see? Thou tremblest?

  Thou growest pale? Thou weepest? From thy hand

  The dagger falls? Thou lov’st Aegisthus, lov’st him

  And art Orestes’ mother? Madness! Go

  And never let me look on thee again!

  Aegisthus dooms Electra to the same death with Orestes and Pylades, but on the way to prison the guards liberate them all, and the Argives rise against the usurper with the beginning of the fifth act, which I shall give entire, because I think it very characteristic of Alfieri, and necessary to a conception of his vehement, if somewhat arid, genius. I translate as heretofore almost line for line, and word for word, keeping the Italian order as nearly as I can.