ORES. _Yes. She shall,_ if she will not depart from my sight... Hear ye
not--see ye not the winged shafts impelled from the distant-wounding bow?
Ha! ha! Why tarry ye yet? Skim the high air with your wings, and impeach
the oracles of Phœbus.--Ah! why am I thus disquieted, heaving my panting
breath from my lungs? Whither, whither have I wandered from my couch? For
from the waves again I see a calm.--Sister, why weepest, hiding thine eyes
beneath thy vests, I am ashamed to have thee a partner in my sufferings,
and to give a virgin trouble through my malady. Pine not away on account of
my miseries: for thou indeed didst assent to this, but the shedding of my
mother's blood was accomplished by me: but I blame Apollo, who, after
having instigated me to a most unholy act, with words indeed consoled me,
but not with deeds. But I think that my father, had I, beholding him, asked
him if it were right for me to slay my mother, would have put forth many
supplications, beseeching me by this beard not to impel my sword to the
slaughter of her who bore me, if neither he thereby could be restored to
life, and I thus wretched must go through such miseries. And now then
unveil thyself, my sister, and cease from tears, even though we be very
miserable: but when thou seest me desponding, do thou restrain my
distraction, and that which preys upon my mind, and console me; but when
thou groanest, it becomes my duty to come to thee, and suggest words of
comfort. For these are the good offices friends ought to render each other.
But go thou into the house, O unfortunate sister, and, stretched at full
length, compose thy sleepless eyelids to sleep, and take refreshment, and
pour the bath upon thy fair skin. For if thou forsakest me, or gettest any
illness by continually sitting by me, we perish; for thee I have my only
succor, by the rest, as thou seest, abandoned.
ELEC. This can not be: with thee will I choose to die, with thee to live;
for it is the same: for if then shouldst die, what can I do, a woman? how
shall I be preserved, alone and destitute? without a brother, without a
father, without a friend: but if it seemeth good to thee, these things it
is my duty to do: but recline thy body on the bed, and do not to such a
degree conceive to be real whatever frightens and startles thee from the
couch, but keep quiet on the bed strewn for thee. For though thou be not
ill, but only seem to be ill, still this even is an evil and a distress to
mortals. (Note [C].)
CHORUS. Alas! alas! O swift-winged, raving[6] Goddesses, who keep up the
dance, not that of Bacchus, with tears and groans. You, dark Eumenides,
you, that fly through the wide extended air, executing vengeance, executing
slaughter, you do I supplicate, I supplicate: suffer the offspring of
Agamemnon to forget his furious madness; alas! for his sufferings. What
were they that eagerly grasping at, thou unhappy perishest, having received
from the tripod the oracle which Phœbus spake, on that pavement, where are
said to be the recesses in the midst of the globe! O Jupiter, what pity is
there? what is this contention of slaughter that comes persecuting thee
wretched, to whom some evil genius casts tear upon tear, transporting to
thy house the blood of thy mother which drives thee frenzied! Thus I
bewail, I bewail. Great prosperity is not lasting among mortals; but, as
the sail of the swift bark, some deity having shaken him, hath sunk him in
the voracious and destructive waves of tremendous evils, as in the waves of
the ocean. For what other[6a] family ought I to reverence yet before that
sprung from divine nuptials, sprung from Tantalus?--But lo! the king! the
prince Menelaus, is coming! but he is very easily discernible from the
elegance of his person, as king of the house of the Tantalidæ.
O thou that didst direct the army of a thousand vessels to Asia's land,
hail! but thou comest hither with good fortune, having obtained the object
of thy wishes from the Gods.