CHRYSOTHEMIS.

It will be long, yet, before that is settled.

ELECTRA.

There is no service in you; get you gone.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

There is! With you there is no towardness.

ELECTRA.

Go to your mother; tell it all to her.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

Nay, I am not so much your enemy.

ELECTRA.

DO not forget, though, to what shame you drag me.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

Shame not at all; but forethought for your good.

ELECTRA.

SO I must follow what you think is just?

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

When you are prudent, you shall guide us both.

ELECTRA.

Pity that you should speak so well, and miss it!

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

You have named right the fault on your own side.

ELECTRA.

HOW can that be? Do you deny the justice

Of what I say?

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

Justice sometimes brings damage.

ELECTRA.

Under those laws I do not choose to live

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

Well, you will find me right, if you will do it.

ELECTRA.

Ay and I will! You cannot frighten me.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

Is’t really so? Will you not change your mind?

ELECTRA.

Nothing’s more odious than an evil mind.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

You seem to care for nothing I can say.

ELECTRA.

I have resolved to do it of old time,

Not newly.

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

I am going. Neither you

Deign to approve my words, nor I your ways.

ELECTRA.

GO in, then! I shall never follow you;

Not though you come to wish it earnestly;

There were small sense in running after — folly!

CHRYSOTHEMIS.

And if you think that reason is with you,

So reason still! for, when your footsteps light

In evil ways, then you will find me right.

[Exit CHRYSOTHEMIS.

CHORUS.

I. 1.

We that regard

The excellent wisdom of the birds of air,

Who for the nurture care

Of those they spring from — those who gave them food,

Why is it hard

For us, like them, to render good for good?

But, by the thunderbolt of sovereign Jove,

And Themis, throned above,

We scape not long!

Thou, who to mortals in the realms of death

Passest through earth, send forth thy voice, O Fame,

With piteous cry, to Atreus’ sons beneath,

Bearing thy tale of shame

Unmeet for song.

I. 2.

How first of all

Corruption dwells within their palace hall,

And, with their children, strife;

The dissonant watchword harmonized no more

Now, as before,

By sweet endearments of their household life.

Electra, left alone, by rude waves tossed,

Mourns for her father lost

With ceaseless wail,

Even as the ever-sorrowing nightingale,

Careless for death, so she might end them too,

The accursed pair -— yea, ready for the gloom;

What woman lives as true

This side the tomb?

II. 1.

For none among the great

Would court oblivion,

Darkening his honour by a life of pain,

As thou, my child, hast done,

Choosing to share a fate

Full of all tears, not caring to obtain

At once, in the same breath, the twofold prize

Of daughter perfect, and of maiden wise.

II. 2.

Live thou — in wealth and force