Peace, I advise you; for of those within

I hear one coming outward.

ELECTRA.

Enter, sirs;

The rather that you bring —what none would drive

Far from their doors —or willingly receive!

Enter Guardian.

GUARDIAN.

O most unwise and impotent of mind,

Have you no longer any care to live,

Or is no natural prudence bred in you,

When in the very midst of ills most great,

Not on their verge, you stand, and do not see it?

If I had not been keeping, all along,

Watch at the door-posts, all your business here

Would have forestalled your presence in the house;

But as it is, I took good heed of that.

Now make an end of your long conference,

And this insatiate crying out for joy,

And pass within; for in such work as this

Delay is loss, and it is time to finish.

ORESTES.

What will the issue be, if I go in?

GUARDIAN.

All’s well so far, that you are quite unknown.

ORESTES.

YOU told them, I suppose, that I was dead?

GUARDIAN.

You’d think you were in Hades, though alive,

To hear them talk!

ORESTES.

DO they rejoice at that?

What are they saying?

GUARDIAN.

When the time is ripe

I will inform you; but as things are now,

All they are doing, however ill, goes well.

ELECTRA.

Brother, who is this man? For Heaven’s sake, tell me!

ORESTES.

DO you not know him?

ELECTRA.

I cannot even guess.

ORESTES.

Not him, to whom you once delivered me?

ELECTRA.

What man? what do you mean?

ORESTES.

Him, in whose hands

I was made off with to the Phocians’ land

By your providing?

ELECTRA.

What, is this the man

Whom only I found faithful out of many

When our sire perished?

ORESTES.

Once for all, ’tis he.

ELECTRA.

O happy day! O only saviour

Of Agamemnon’s house! How art thou come hither!

Art thou the man who out of many woes

Didst save both him and me? O hands most dear!

O feet, most grateful for your ministry!

How could’st thou so long hide thee in my presence,

And kill me with false words, and shew me not,

Knowing all the while, the sweet reality?

O welcome, father! in thee I seem to see

A father! Welcome! Surely of all men thee

Within one day I have hated most —and love!

GUARDIAN.

Enough, I say; the story of all since then

Many revolving nights and days as many

Shall make to pass before Electra’s eyes. —

But now I warn you both, you who stand by,

This is the time to act; now Clytæmnestra

Is left alone; now no one of the men

Is within doors; but if you will delay,

Consider, you will have to cope with these,

And more besides, and of more wit, than they.

ORESTES.

This need not be a matter to us now

For any long discoursing, Pylades!

Rather, first worshipping the ancestral shrines

Of all the Gods who keep this vestibule,