ORES. O precious balm of sleep, thou that relievest my malady, how pleasant
didst thou come to me in the time of need! O divine oblivion of my
sufferings, how wise thou art, and the goddess to be supplicated by all in
distress!--whence, in heaven's name, came I hither? and how brought? for I
remember not things past, bereaved, as I am, of my senses.
ELEC. My dearest brother, how didst thou delight me when thou didst fall
asleep! wilt thou I touch thee, and raise thy body up?
ORES. Raise me then, raise me, and wipe the clotted foam from off my
wretched mouth, and from my eyes.
ELEC. Behold, the task is sweet, and I refuse not to administer to a
brother's limbs with a sister's hand.
ORES. Lay thy side by my side, and remove the squalid hair from my face,
for I see but imperfectly with my eyes.
ELEC. O wretched head, sordid with ringlets, how art thou disordered from
long want of the bath!
ORES. Lay me on the couch again; when my fit of madness gives me a respite,
I am feeble and weak in my limbs.
ELEC. Behold, the couch is pleasant to the sick man, an irksome thing to
keep, but still a necessary one.
ORES. Again raise me upright--turn my body.
CHOR. Sick persons are hard to be pleased from their feebleness.
ELEC. Wilt thou set thy feet on the ground, putting forward thy
long-discontinued[5] step? In all things change is sweet.
ORES. Yes, by all means; for this has a semblance of health, but the
semblance is good, though it be distant from the truth.
ELEC. Hear now therefore, O my brother, while yet the Furies suffer thee to
have thy right faculties.
ORES. Wilt thou tell any news? and if good indeed, thou art conferring
pleasure; but if it pertain at all to mischief--I have enough distress.
ELEC. Menelaus has arrived, the brother of thy father, but his ships are
moored in the Nauplian bay.
ORES. How sayest? Is he come, a light in mine and thy sufferings, a man of
kindred blood, and that hath received benefits from our father?
ELEC. He is come; take this a sure proof of my words, bringing with him
Helen from the walls of Troy.
ORES. Had he been saved alone, he had been more blest. But if he brings his
wife, he has arrived with a mighty evil.
ELEC. Tyndarus begat an offspring of daughters, a conspicuous mark for
blame, and infamous throughout Greece.
ORES. Do thou then be unlike the bad, for it is in thy power. And not only
say, but also hold these sentiments.
ELEC. Alas! my brother, thine eye rolls wildly; quick art thou changed to
madness, so late in thy senses.
ORES. O mother, I implore thee, urge not on me those Furies gazing blood,
horrid with snakes, for these, these are leaping around me.
ELEC. Remain, O wretched man, calmly on thy couch, for thou seest none of
those things, which thou fanciest thou seest plainly.
ORES. O Phœbus, these dire Goddesses in the shape of dogs will kill me,
these gorgon-visaged ministers of hell.
ELEC. I will not let thee go, but, putting my arm around thee, will stop
thy starting into those unfortunate convulsions.
ORES. Loose me. Thou art one of my Furies, and seizest me by the middle,
that thou mayest hurl me into Tartarus.
ELEC. Oh! wretched me! what assistance can I obtain, since we have on us
the vengeful wrath of heaven!
ORES. Give me my bow of horn, the gift of Phœbus, with which Apollo said I
should repel the Fiends, if they appalled me by their maddened raging.