Beyond all hope or thought!

ORESTES.

YOU saw me then, when the Gods urged my coming.

ELECTRA.

O grace, far more

Than that thou first didst tell!

If to thy kinsmen’s door

God sent thee safe, that count I miracle!

ORESTES.

I am unwilling to restrain your joy,

But fear you are too much overcome with rapture.

ELECTRA.

Oh, if after years of waiting

I have found thee condescending

By a way full fraught with blessing

Here before me to appear,

Seeing me so full of troubles,

Spare, O spare —

ORESTES.

what should I spare thee?

ELECTRA.

Be not thou so much my wronger

As to make me lose the pleasure

Of thy presence!

ORESTES.

Nay,

I should be very wroth with other men

If I beheld them—

ELECTRA.

DO you say so?

ORESTES.

How

Could I forbear?

ELECTRA.

Hark, the voice, women dear,

I had never hoped to hear!

Listening, how could I have heard,

And held my peace, without one word,

Sorrowing? But I have thee, now!

With most sweet face there standest thou,

Face, that even in misery

Could not pass away from me.

ORESTES.

Pass what need not be said; spare me the telling

How base our mother; how Ægisthus drains

The family substance, giving largess here,

There scattering without purpose; for the tale

Would keep you from the occasion time has given.

But what will fit the present urgency,

Where, either visible or from ambushment,

We may give pause in this day’s enterprise

To foes who mock, explain; be careful, too,

That as we enter at the palace door

Your mother do not spy your secret out

In your glad aspect; but be sighing, still,

As at that fiction of calamity;

For when we are successful, we shall be

Free to rejoice and laugh ungrudgingly.

ELECTRA.

Well, brother, as it pleases you in this,

So too shall be my pleasure; for from you

I have derived the blessings I enjoy —

Blessings not mine; and I could never bear,

By causing you annoy, ever so brief,

To reap great gain myself; for ill should I

So minister to the Providence at hand.

You know, no doubt, all that is passing here;

You heard Ægisthus was away from home,

My mother in the palace; and for her,

Fear not she will perceive my countenance

Radiant with smiles; for my long-standing hate

Is well worn in; and, having seen thy face,

I shall not leave off weeping now, for joy.

How should I leave it? who in this day’s work

Saw thee first dead, then living! Yea, thou hast wrought

Very strangely with me; so that if my sire

Were to come here in life, I should not now

Deem it a marvel, but believe I saw him.

Since then by such a road thou art come hither

Lead on, as thou art minded; for alone

One of two things I had not failed to achieve —

Bravely to right myself, or bravely perish.

I LADY.