Leprous sores that creep All o'er the flesh, and as with cruel jaws Eat out its ancient nature, and white hairs On that foul ill to supervene: and still He spake of other onsets of the Erinnyes, As brought to issue from a father's blood; For the dark weapon of the Gods below Winged by our kindred that lie low in death, And beg for vengeance, yea, and madness too, And vague, dim fears at night disturb and haunt me, Seeing full clearly, though I move my brow In the thick darkness . . . . and that then my frame Thus tortured should be driven from the city With brass-knobbed scourge: and that for such as I It was not given to share the wine-cup's taste, Nor votive stream in pure libation poured; And that my father's wrath invisible Would drive me from all altars, and that none Should take me in or lodge with me: at last, That loathed of all and friendless I should die, A wretched mummy, all my strength consumed. Must I not trust such oracles as these? { 297}
_The Chorus, breaking into lyrics, feel that Justice has at last taken their side: then follows an elaborate_
_by Orestes, Electra and Chorus, in highly intricate and interwoven Strophes and Antistrophes, with funereal gesture_. The jaws of flame do not reduce the corpse to senselessness; they can hear below this our Rite and will send answer--what a fate was Agamemnon's, not that of the warrior who dies leaving high fame at home and laying strong and sure his children's paths in life, but to be struck down by his own kin! But there is a sense of Vengeance being at hand, Erinnys and the Curses of the slain; they make the heart quiver: _the Dirge crescendoes till it breaks into the 'Arian rhythm,' a foreign funeral rhythm with violent gestures (proper to the Chorus as Asiatics); and so as a climax breaks up into two semi-choruses: one sings of woe, the other of vengeance, and then the formal Dirge terminates and the Blank Verse recommences_. { 469}
In a composed frame (and in Blank Verse) _Orestes and Electra_ repeat the distinct prayer for Vengeance and the death of Aegisthus and then address themselves to the means. _Orestes_ enquires as to the meaning of the Sepulchral rites, and the dream is narrated, which he interprets as good omen.