Words were stored up and hid: I should come back
So soon to Argos!
And thou, too: alack,
Brother, if dead thou art, from what high things
Thy youth is outcast, and the pride of kings
Fallen!
And this the goddess deemeth good!
If ever mortal hand be dark with blood;
Nay, touch a new-made mother or one slain
In war, her ban is on him. 'Tis a stain
She driveth from her outer walls; and then
Herself doth drink this blood of slaughtered men?
Could ever Leto, she of the great King
Beloved, be mother to so gross a thing?
These tales be lies, false as those feastings wild
Of Tantalus and Gods that tore a child.
This land of murderers to its god hath given
Its own lust; evil dwelleth not in heaven.

[SHE GOES INTO THE TEMPLE.]

CHORUS.

Dark of the sea, dark of the sea, [STROPHE 1.]
Gates of the warring water,
One, in the old time, conquered you,
A winged passion that burst the blue,
When the West was shut and the Dawn lay free
To the pain of Inachus' daughter.
But who be these, from where the rushes blow