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Aeschylus, agamemnon<br />
Disguised as friend, weave the mesh straitly round him,<br />
Not to be overleaped, a net of doom?<br />
This is the sum and issue of old strife,<br />
Of me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.<br />
All is avowed, and as I smote I stand<br />
With foot set firm upon a finished thing!<br />
I turn not to denial: thus I wrought<br />
So that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.<br />
Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,<br />
I trapped him with inextricable toils,<br />
The ill abundance of a baffling robe;<br />
Then smote him, once, again--and at each wound<br />
He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed<br />
Each limb and sank to earth; and as he lay,<br />
Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,<br />
Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.<br />
And thus he fell, and as he passed away,<br />
Spirit with body chafed; each dying breath<br />
Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,<br />
And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood<br />
Fell upon me; and I was fain to feel<br />
That dew-- not sweeter is the rain of heaven<br />
To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.<br />
Elders of Argos--since the thing stands so,<br />
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