Misery is changing sides; the breeze veers round, and now blows fair
upon my house. The day is past when my chief fell murdered in his
bath, and the roof and the very stones of the walls rang with this
his cry: "O cruel wife, why art thou murdering me on my return to
my dear country after ten long years?"
(antistrophe)
The tide is turning, and justice that pursues the faithless wife
is drawing within its grasp the murderess, who slew her hapless lord,
when he came home at last to these towering Cyclopean walls,-aye,
with her own hand she smote him with the sharpened steel, herself
the axe uplifting. Unhappy husband! whate'er the curse that possessed
that wretched woman. Like a lioness of the hills that rangeth through
the woodland for her prey, she wrought the deed.
Clytemnestra: (within) O my children, by Heaven I pray ye spare your
mother.
Chorus: (chanting) Dost hear her cries within the house?
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