ORESTES.

If these are friends about us, I will tell.

ELECTRA.

Yes, they are friends; you parley to safe ears.

ORESTES.

Put down this vessel, now, and learn the whole.

ELECTRA.

Ah sir, for Heaven’s sake urge not this on me!

ORESTES.

DO as I tell you, and you shall not err.

ELECTRA.

Now, I adjure you, do not take away

My greatest treasure!

ORESTES.

I will not let you hold it.

ELECTRA.

O my Orestes! Woe is me for thee,

If I must be deprived of burying thee!

ORESTES.

DO not speak rashly. You do wrong to mourn.

ELECTRA.

HOW wrong, in mourning for my brother dead?

ORESTES.

It is not meet that you should call him so.

ELECTRA.

Am I then so disdained of him that’s dead?

ORESTES.

Disdained of none; but you have no part here.

ELECTRA.

Not when I bear Orestes’ ashes?

ORESTES.

Not

Orestes’ ashes; only his in feigning.

ELECTRA.

Then where is that poor body’s sepulchre?

ORESTES.

NO where. The living have no sepulchre!

ELECTRA.

What say you, fellow?

ORESTES.

What I say is true.

ELECTRA.

IS he alive?

ORESTES.

Yes, unless I am dead!

ELECTRA.

What, are you he?

ORESTES.

See here, my father’s seal!

Look at it well, and learn if I speak truly.

ELECTRA.

O happy day!

ORESTES.

Most happy; even so.

ELECTRA.

O art thou come, dear voice?

ORESTES.

No more to sound

From alien lips.

ELECTRA.

What, have I got you?

ORESTES.

Yes,

For you to keep, in future, evermore.

ELECTRA.

O dearest friends! O ladies, neighbours! Look,

Here is Orestes, only dead in craft,

And by that craft alive and safe at home!

I LADY.

Daughter, we see it; and the tears of joy

Steal from our eyes, at what has come to pass:

ELECTRA.

O son, dear seed

Of one most dear to me!

And art thou come indeed?

Thou hast found —hast come, hast seen those thou didst seek to see!

ORESTES.

Yes, I am here; but hush, keep silence.

ELECTRA.

Why?

ORESTES.

Best to keep close, lest some one hear indoors.

ELECTRA.

Nay but, by the ever-virgin Artemis,

I never think to quail again at this,

The cumbering plague of numbers feminine,

That ever swarm within!

ORESTES.

O but remember that in women too

There lives a spirit of war; and thou hast proved it.

ELECTRA.

Ah well a day!

Thou makest the memory plain —

That will not pass away —

That cannot be forgotten — of my pain.

ORESTES.

Sister, I know it; but, when occasion speaks,

Then is it we should call to mind these doings.

ELECTRA.

All day, all night,

Were not too much for me

To speak of them aright;

Now that my lips at last are set at liberty.

ORESTES.

I say not nay; therefore take heed.

ELECTRA.

Of what?

ORESTES.

Now ’tis no time for talk, be sparing of it.

ELECTRA.

Who, after thy appearing, would exchange

Language for silence? That were dearly bought,

Now I have found thee, in a manner strange