Ten years since Ilion’s righteous foes,
  The Atreidae strong,
Menelaues and eke Agamemnon arose,
Two thrones, two sceptres, yoked of God;
And a thousand galleys of Argos trod
  The seas for the righting of wrong;
And wrath of battle about them cried,
    As vultures cry,
Whose nest is plundered, and up they fly
In anguish lonely, eddying wide,
Great wings like oars in the waste of sky,
Their task gone from them, no more to keep
Watch o’er the vulture babes asleep. 
But One there is who heareth on high
Some Pan or Zeus, some lost Apollo—­
That keen bird-throated suffering cry
Of the stranger wronged in God’s own sky;
And sendeth down, for the law transgressed,
  The Wrath of the Feet that follow.

  So Zeus the Watcher of Friend and Friend,
Zeus who Prevaileth, in after quest
For One Beloved by Many Men
On Paris sent the Atreidae twain;
Yea, sent him dances before the end
    For his bridal cheer,
Wrestlings heavy and limbs forespent
For Greek and Trojan, the knee earth-bent,
The bloody dust and the broken spear. 
He knoweth, that which is here is here,
And that which Shall Be followeth near;
He seeketh God with a great desire,
He heaps his gifts, he essays his pyre
With torch below and with oil above,
With tears, but never the wrath shall move
Of the Altar cold that rejects his fire.

We saw the Avengers go that day,
And they left us here; for our flesh is old
And serveth not; and these staves uphold
A strength like the strength of a child at play. 
For the sap that springs in the young man’s hand
And the valour of age, they have left the land. 
And the passing old, while the dead leaf blows
And the old staff gropeth his three-foot way,
Weak as a babe and alone he goes,
A dream left wandering in the day.

[Coming near the Central Altar they see CLYTEMNESTRA, who is still rapt in prayer.

But thou, O daughter of Tyndareus,
Queen Clytemnestra, what need?  What news? 
What tale or tiding hath stirred thy mood
To send forth word upon all our ways
For incensed worship?  Of every god
That guards the city, the deep, the high,
Gods of the mart, gods of the sky,
    The altars blaze. 
    One here, one there,
To the skyey night the firebrands flare,
Drunk with the soft and guileless spell
Of balm of kings from the inmost cell. 
Tell, O Queen, and reject us not,
All that can or that may be told,
And healer be to this aching thought,
Which one time hovereth, evil-cold,
And then from the fires thou kindlest
Will Hope be kindled, and hungry Care
Fall back for a little while, nor tear
The heart that beateth below my breast.

[CLYTEMNESTRA rises silently, as though unconscious of their presence, and goes into the House.  The CHORUS take position and begin their first Stasimon, or Standing-song,