.--They have here, at length,
Conferred together ... But Aegisthus seems
Too much elated, and too confident,
For one condemned to exile ... She appeared
Like one disturbed in thought, but more possessed
With anger and resentment than with grief ...
O Heavens! who knows to what that miscreant base,
With his infernal arts, may have impelled her!
To what extremities have wrought her up!...
Now, now, indeed, I tremble: what misdeeds,
How black in kind, how manifold in number,
Do I behold! ... Yet, if I speak, I kill
My mother: ... If I'm silent--? ...

ACT V--SCENE II

AEGISTHUS--CLYTEMNESTRA

_Aegis._--Hast thou performed the deed?

_Cly_.--Aegisthus ...

_Aegis._--What do I behold? O woman,
What dost thou here, dissolved in useless tears?
Tears are unprofitable, late, and vain;
And they may cost us dear.

_Cly._--Thou here? ... but how? ...
Wretch that I am! what have I promised thee?
What impious counsel? ...

_Aegis_.--Was not thine the counsel?
Love gave it thee, and fear recants it.--Now,
Since thou'rt repentant, I am satisfied;
Soothed by reflecting that thou art not guilty,
I shall at least expire. To thee I said
How difficult the enterprise would be;
But thou, depending more than it became thee
On that which is not in thee, virile courage,
Daredst thyself thy own unwarlike hand
For such a blow select. May Heaven permit
That the mere project of a deed like this
May not be fatal to thee! I by stealth,
Protected by the darkness, hither came,
And unobserved, I hope. I was constrained
To bring the news myself, that now my life
Is irrecoverably forfeited
To the king's vengeance...

_Cly._--What is this I hear?
Whence didst thou learn it?

_Aegis._--More than he would wish
Atrides hath discovered of our love;
And I already from him have received
A strict command not to depart from Argos.
And further, I am summoned to his presence
Soon as to-morrow dawns: thou seest well
That such a conference to me is death.
But fear not; for I will all means employ
To bear myself the undivided blame.

_Cly_.--What do I hear? Atrides knows it all?

_Aegis_.--He knows too much: I have but one choice left:
It will be b