MEN. O palace, in some respect indeed I behold thee with pleasure, coming
from Troy, but in other respect I groan when I see thee. For never yet saw
I any other house more completely encircled round with lamentable woes. For
I was made acquainted with the misfortune that befell Agamemnon, [and his
death, by what death he perished at the hands of his wife,][6b] when I was
landing my ships at Malea; but from the waves the prophet of the mariners
declared unto me, the foreboding Glaucus the son of Nereus, an unerring
God, who told me thus in evident form standing by me. "Menelaus, thy
brother lieth dead, having fallen in his last bath, which his wife
prepared." But he filled both me and my sailors with many tears; but when I
come to the Nauplian shore, my wife having already landed there, expecting
to clasp in my friendly embraces Orestes the son of Agamemnon, and his
mother, as being in prosperity, I heard from some fisherman[7] the
unhallowed murder of the daughter of Tyndarus. And now tell me, maidens,
where is the son of Agamemnon, who dared these terrible deeds of evil? for
he was an infant in Clytæmnestra's arms at that time when I left the palace
on my way to Troy, so that I should not know him, were I to see him.
ORES. I, Menelaus, am Orestes, whom thou seekest, I of my own accord will
declare my evils. But first I touch thy knees in supplication, putting up
prayers from my mouth, not using the sacred branch:[8] save me. But thou
art come in the very season of my sufferings.
MEN. O ye Gods, what do I behold! whom of the dead do I see!
ORES. Ay! well thou sayest the dead; for in my state of suffering I live
not; but see the light.
MEN. Thou wretched man, how disordered thou art in thy squalid hair!
ORES. Not the appearance, but the deeds torment me.
MEN. But thou glarest dreadfully with thy shriveled eyeballs.
ORES. My body is vanished, but my name has not left me.
MEN. Alas, thy uncomeliness of form which has appeared to me beyond
conception!
ORES. I am he, the murderer of my wretched mother.
MEN. I have heard; but spare a little the recital of thy woes.
ORES. I spare it; but in woes the deity is rich to me.
MEN. What dost thou suffer? What malady destroys thee?
ORES. The conviction that I am conscious of having perpetrated dreadful
deeds.
MEN. How sayest thou? Plainness, and not obscurity, is wisdom.