Only your acts and your hostility

Force me to this behaviour. Infamy

Is got by contact with the infamous.

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

Insolent creature! I, my words and acts,

Make you so loudly over-eloquent?

ELECTRA.

It is your fault, not mine; you are the doer,

And deeds find names.

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

Now not by Artemis,

Who is my mistress, when yEgisthus comes Shall you escape, for this audacity!

ELECTRA.

See, now you fly into a frenzy! First

You let me speak my mind —then, you’ll not listen!

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

Will you not let me sacrifice, without

Words of ill omen, after suffering you

To say all that you can?

ELECTRA.

Go, sacrifice!

I let you! Nay, I bid you! Censure not

My mouth again, for I shall say no more.

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

Take up the offerings, you that wait on me,

The fruits of earth, that unto this my Lord

I may prefer petitions for release

Out of my present terrors. — Hear thou now,

Protector Phoebus, my unuttered vow!

For what I say I say not among friends,

Nor is it meet to uncover all my ends

Here, in her presence, to the open sky,

Lest she with malice and loud clamorous cry

Scatter vain babblings to the city round;

But softly list, and soft my words shall sound.

The ambiguous visions, whose dim shadowing

Last night I witnessed, O Lycean King,

If they portended good, give them like close;

If evil, turn them backward on my foes,

And do not thou, if any would by stealth,

Let them disturb me from my present wealth;

Let me live on securely, as to-day,

Holding the Atridæ’s palace, and their sway,

Abiding with the friends I bide withal

Now, in good case; and with my children, all

Through whom no bitter pang is made to strike

Their mother’s heart, nor shudder of dislike.

Hear, great Apollo, what I pray for thus,

And, as we ask, in grace give all of us.

— The rest, I think, thou, being divine, perceiv’st,

Though I be silent; for it cannot be

But all is open to the sons of Jove.

Enter Guardian.

GUARDIAN.

Ladies, to whom I am a foreigner,

Pray how might I discover if this palace

Be that of King Ægisthus?

I LADY.

Sir, it is;

Your guess is right.

GUARDIAN.

And am I further right

In guessing that this lady is his wife?

She bears a queenly presence.

I LADY.

Certainly:

You see her there before you.

GUARDIAN.

Madam, hail!

I bring you pleasant tidings from a friend;

You, and Ægisthus also.

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

They are welcome.

But I would hear first, who he was that sent you.

GUARDIAN.

Phanoteus of Phocis, with a weighty charge.

CLYTVEMNESTRA.

Of what sort, stranger, say? for I am sure,

Being from a friend, that you will speak us friendly.

GUARDIAN.

Briefly I speak. ORESTES is no more.

ELECTRA.

O I am lost, unhappy!

CLYTÆMNESTRA.

What sir, what?

Never mind her!

GUARDIAN.

I say as I have said.

Orestes is dead.