Succours not always the same side alike;

And on us twain it has frowned hitherto;

But none the less, this morning shall be fraught

With many things for good.

ELECTRA.

Alack the while!

How I pity you for your folly!

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

But what is it?

Do I not speak to please you now?

ELECTRA.

YOU know not

Whither you are borne — how far you are astray!

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

But how can I not know, what I saw plainly?

ELECTRA.

O wretched girl, he’s dead! his saving us

Is done and ended; never look to him!

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

Alas for pity! Who was it told you so?

ELECTRA.

One that was present with him, when he perished.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

’Tis very strange. Where is he?

ELECTRA.

In the house;

Welcome, not odious, in-our mother’s eyes.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

Alas for pity! But from whom, then, came

All those oblations to our father’s grave?

ELECTRA.

I think most likely some one put them there

In memory of Orestes, who was dead.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

O miserable! and I was hastening hither,

Joyful to have such tidings, unaware

What mischief was upon us! Now, arrived,

I find the old sorrows still, with others new.

ELECTRA.

’Tis so indeed; but if you list to me,

You can relieve the burden of the woe

Weighing on us now.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

What, can I raise the dead?

ELECTRA.

That is not what I said; I am not so senseless!

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

What do you bid me, that is in my power?

ELECTRA.

Dare to do that which I shall urge on you!

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

If it will aid us, I shall not refuse.

ELECTRA.

Look, without effort nothing thrives.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

I know it.

All I have strength for I will help to bear.

ELECTRA.

Hear, then, the course I am resolved upon.

Friends to stand by us even you must know

That none are left us; but the Grave has taken

And reft them; and we two remain alone.

I, while I heard my brother was alive

And well, had hopes that he would come, one day,

To the requiting of his father’s death;

But since he is no more, to you I look

Not to refuse, with me, your sister here,

To slay the author of that father’s murder,

Ægisthus; (we need have no secrets, now.)

For whither — to what still surviving hope

Do you yet look, and suffer patiently?

Who for the loss of your ancestral wealth

Have cause for grieving, and have cause for pain

At all the time that passes over you,

Growing so old, a maiden and unwed.

And these delights no longer hope to gain

At any time; Ægisthus is too prudent

To suffer that your progeny or mine

Should see the light, to his own clear undoing!

While, if you will be guided by my counsels,

First, you shall have the praise of piety

From your dead sire and brother in the grave,

Next, shall be called hereafter, as at first,

Free, and obtain a marriage worthy of you