Chorus and Clytemnestra

Cl.—Word of joy this morning brings From the bosom of the night, Higher joy than Hope’s gay wings Circled in her farthest flight! Troy is taken, Troy is fallen By the victor Argive’s might!

CH.—Troy has fallen dost thou tell me? Have I heard thy words aright?

CL.—Hearken! I repeat the words,— Troy is held by Grecian lords.

CH.—Ah! what gladness fills my heart, And my tears with rapture start!

CL.—Yes, thine eyes thy feeling shew.

CH.—This by what proof dost thou know?

CL.—The gods, that never would deceive, Brought these tidings.

CH.—Dost believe In the fickle shapes of dreams?

CL.—Nay; the dozings of the mind Leave in me no trace behind.

CH.—Some wild rumour, then, meseems?

CL.—Dost thou think me but a child, Thus and thus to be beguiled?

CH.—How long, then, is it since proud Ilion fell?

CL.—Since but the night that bore this morning’s light.

CH.—And who this message hither brought so well?

CL.—Hephæstus, sending forth his beacon bright From Ida’s summit; then, from height to height With blaze successive, beacon kindling beacon, Bore us the tidings. Ida glanced it forth To Lemnos, even to th’ Hermæan rock; And next steep Athos, dear to Zeus, received From Lemnos the bright flame, which, in its strength Joyous, pursued its onward course, and flew O’er the broad shoulders of Oceanus, Giving its gleams all-golden, like the sun, To those that on Makistos kept high watch. Nor dallying he, nor won by ill-timed sleep, Assumed his part of messenger; and far Over Euripus speeds the signal flame, Telling their tasks to the Messapian guards, Who answered with a blaze that straightway lit The heather on old Graia’s mountain-tops. Then in full-gleaming strength, like a fair moon, The beacon-light shot o’er Asopus plain, And lit with answering fire Cithæron’s cliff, Whose emulous watch made brighter still the blaze. Thence darted on the fiery messenger Over Gorgopis lake and up the sides Of Ægiplanctus, whence (the waiting wards Heaping no niggard pile), a beard-like flame Streamed onward till it touched the cliff that spies The billows of the blue Saronic sea; But paused not in its course, until it reached The heights of Arachnæum, over there. And thence it strikes upon these palace-roofs,— Far offspring of the light of fallen Troy.