Who is their best ally; tell them (and swear it)

Orestes has been killed by accident,

By a fall from his chariot, at the Pythian games;

Let it stand so. We, as He bade, the while,

First with libations and shorn curls of hair

Will deck my father’s grave; then back again

Return, carrying an urn of beaten brass,

(The same, you know, that in the brake lies hidden,)

That in feigned words we may convey to them

Glad tidings — how my body is destroyed,

Burnt up already and made embers of!

For where’s the harm to be called dead, when really

I am alive, and gather praise thereby?

No word that profits us can hurt, I fancy.

Why, I have seen men often, who were wise,

Falsely pretending death; then, when again

They came back home, they have been more prized than ever;

So I expect yet, out of this report,

To blaze forth, star-like, living, on my foes.

But O my native land! Gods of the soil!

Welcome me with good fortune in these ways;

And thou, paternal Home! for I thy cleanser

Come here of right, the ambassador of Heaven;

Send me not with dishonour from this land,

But grant me to inherit and set up

The old estate. — I have spoken. Now, old friend,

Be it your care to guard your post; go forward;

And let us forth. It is the season; this,

In every action, is men’s best ally.

ELECTRA

(within). Ah woe is me!

GUARDIAN.

Hark!

I thought I heard some handmaiden cry faintly

Inside the doors, my son!

ORESTES.

Is it perhaps

The wronged Electra? Shall we stay awhile

And listen to her sorrowing?

GUARDIAN.

By no means.

Do nothing ere performing what is bidden

Of Loxias,* and initiate all from thence,

Pouring lustrations on your father’s grave.

This wafts us victory, and nerves our doings.

[Exeunt.

Enter ELECTRA.

ELECTRA.

Holy Light, with Earth, and Sky,

Whom thou fillest equally,

Ah how many a note of woe,

Many a self-inflicted blow

On my scarred breast might’st thou mark,

Ever as recedes the dark;

Known, too, all my nightlong cheer

To bitter bed and chamber drear,

How I mourn my father lost,

Whom on no barbarian coast

Did red Ares greet amain,

But as woodmen cleave an oak

My mother’s axe dealt murderous stroke,

Backed by the partner of her bed,

Fell Ægisthus, on his head;

Whence no pity, save from me,

O my father, flows for thee,

So falsely, foully slain.

Yet I will not cease from sighing,

Cease to pour my bitter crying,

While I see this light of day,

Or the stars’ resplendent play,

Uttering forth a sound of wail,

Like the child-slayer, the nightingale,*

Here before my father’s door

Crying to all men evermore.

O Furies dark, of birth divine!

O Hades wide, and Proserpine!

Thou nether Hermes! Ara great!†

Ye who regard the untimely dead,

The dupes of an adulterous bed,

Come ye, help me, and require