The scent of flesh upon the air,
her supple skin begins to boil
The golden robes that don her form
are what will put her in the soil
An unflawed maiden; virgin child
who shall not know your brazen hand
Only the embrace of her sire
whose fate, like hers, was also planned
They are much like you - our dear sons -
and that fact reviles me so
My sweet boys shall not reach manhood
A swift death I shall bestow
Blood: thick as oil, thick as water
Streams of scarlet spilling out
Little limbs fall limp. Thus, they die
I can still hear your anguished shout

Your betrayal scathed me deeply,
crushed my heart and honour both
My love for you is infallible,
as sacred as our marriage oath
We have two sons, did you forget?
Or perhaps you do not care
If so, fine; relax your mind
I'll teach them life can be unfair
I watched their hands flail wildly,
heard their desperate pleas for help
They now sleep upon the riverbed
I drowned the boys I did so whelp
Oh, my sin - the heavens know it
I cannot breach their pearly gates
but, instead, am made to ponder
as my despair morphs into hate

Ten years I had to plan your death;
long years spent grieving for my child
She paid the debt that was your own
to the goddess you so defiled
Proud Aegisthus stands beside me -
a better man than you could know
He conceals his naked blade and I
shall be the one to strike the blow
But my vengeance is far from finished
for you had dared to stray away
Amongst your piles of Trojan treasure,
sits a different kind of prey
Fair Cassandra is a beauty
Eyes of wisdom; eyes of sight
Shame, though, that she never foresaw
her bloody murder in the night

Belly full with our creation,
one may say my mind was deaf
as, in my bliss, I failed to see
your evil plot and bated breath
You fed me lies of health and strength
yet merely stood and watched
as my vision began to dwindle
and my face began to blotch
Your sweet Oume looked exquisite,
cloaked in white, prepared to wed
I say! She had never looked so lovely
than without her pretty head
Lanterns flicker in the distance
Voices hiss within your ear
The depths of fear consume you
But fear not love. I am here.

A/N

pronunciations of complicated names for the sake of rhythm:
• Aegisthus — ee-jis-thus
• Oume — ouh-meh

Quick explanation of the women featured in each stanza:

— The first stanza is the story of the witch Medea who, in Greek mythology, was the estranged wife of Jason (leader of the Argonauts) and mother to his two sons. However, when offered the hand of a young princess, Jason accepted and Medea went absolutely batshit crazy. Using a poisoned dress, she brutally murdered Jason's new bride and his new father-in-law, before going on to stab her own two sons to death to spite him. She also took their bodies so Jason. couldn't bury them. Yeah. Petty.

— The next stanza is based on the figure La Llorona from Mexican folklore. According to the stories I've read, she drowned her children in the river after also being abandoned by her husband for a younger woman (there's a lot of cheating-filicide going on, I've noticed). Because of her crime, she was not permitted to enter heaven and forced to wander the world in search of her children's lost bodies so that she might be absolved (of course, she can't find their bodies since she threw them in a river, so she's basically forced to walk the earth forever yay)

— Stanza three is in reference to Clytemnestra - another famous femme fatale from Greek mythology. She was wife to Agamemnon, one of the famous Greek leaders in the Trojan war. Before leaving for Troy, he was made to sacrifice their daughter Iphigenia to appease the offended goddess Artemis (he killed one of her sacred deers - BIG nono), something that deeply wounded Clytemnestra. Upon his return, she orchestrated the murder of her royal husband and his new Trojan mistress, the prophetess Cassandra. Together, she and her lover Aegisthus slaughtered the pair of them.

— Stanza four refers to Oiwa - an onryō (vengeful ghost) from the Japanese legend 'Yotsuya Kaidan'. She was horribly disfigured by her unfaithful husband in a failed murder attempt involving poison, and ended up killing herself. To make this tragic story even more tragic, she'd also recently had a baby son/was pregnant at the time of death (depending on which source you read). She haunted her husband after death, her disfigured face appearing in lanterns and hissing his name. She even appeared on his wedding day - on the face of his new bride, Oume, whom he mistakenly decapitated in his horror. She continued to haunt him, eventually driving him to madness

art credit: "The Ghost of Oiwa" - Utagawa Kuniyoshi