Part 3

Well, hold thy peace. Our mistress will be told All in good time. Speak thou no word hereof.

NURSE.

My babes! What think ye of your father's love? God curse him not, he is my master still: But, oh, to them that loved him, 'tis an ill Friend. . . .

ATTENDANT.

And what man on earth is different? How? Hast thou lived all these years, and learned but now That every man more loveth his own head Than other men's? He dreameth of the bed Of this new bride, and thinks not of his sons.

NURSE.

Go: run into the house, my little ones: All will end happily! . . . Keep them apart: Let not their mother meet them while her heart Is darkened. Yester night I saw a flame Stand in her eye, as though she hated them, And would I know not what. For sure her wrath Will never turn nor slumber, till she hath . . . Go: and if some must suffer, may it be Not we who love her, but some enemy!

VOICE (within).

Oh shame and pain: O woe is me! Would I could die in my misery!

NURSE.

Ah, children, hark! She moves again Her frozen heart, her sleeping wrath. In, quick! And never cross her path, Nor rouse that dark eye in its pain;

That fell sea-spirit, and the dire Spring of a will untaught, unbowed. Quick, now!--Methinks this weeping cloud Hath in its heart some thunder-fire,

Slow gathering, that must flash ere long. I know not how, for ill or well, It turns, this uncontrollable Tempestuous spirit, blind with wrong.

VOICE (within).

Have I not suffered? Doth it call No tears? . . . Ha, ye beside the wall Unfathered children, God hate you As I am hated, and him, too, That gat you, and this house and all!

NURSE.

For pity! What have they to do, Babes, with their father's sin? Why call Thy curse on these? . . . Ah, children, all These days my bosom bleeds for you.

Rude are the wills of princes: yea, Prevailing alway, seldom crossed, On fitful winds their moods are tossed: 'Tis best men tread the equal way.

Aye, not with glory but with peace May the long summers find me crowned: For gentleness--her very sound Is magic, and her usages.

All wholesome: but the fiercely great Hath little music on his road, And falleth, when the hand of God Shall move, most deep and desolate.

LEADER.

I heard a voice and a moan, A voice of the eastern seas: Hath she found not yet her ease? Speak, O aged one. For I stood afar at the gate, And there came from within a cry, And wailing desolate. Ah, no more joy have I, For the griefs this house doth see, And the love it hath wrought in me.

NURSE.

There is no house! 'Tis gone. The lord Seeketh a prouder bed: and she Wastes in her chamber, not one word Will hear of care or charity.

VOICE (within).

O Zeus, O Earth, O Light, Will the fire not stab my brain? What profiteth living? Oh, Shall I not lift the slow Yoke, and let Life go, As a beast out in the night, To lie, and be rid of pain?

CHORUS.

Some Women