_by Orestes, Electra and Chorus, in highly intricate and interwoven
Strophes and Antistrophes, with funereal gesture_. The jaws of flame
do not reduce the corpse to senselessness; they can hear below this our
Rite and will send answer--what a fate was Agamemnon's, not that of the
warrior who dies leaving high fame at home and laying strong and sure
his children's paths in life, but to be struck down by his own kin!
But there is a sense of Vengeance being at hand, Erinnys and the Curses
of the slain; they make the heart quiver: _the Dirge crescendoes till
it breaks into the 'Arian rhythm,' a foreign funeral rhythm with
violent gestures (proper to the Chorus as Asiatics); and so as a climax
breaks up into two semi-choruses: one sings of woe, the other of
vengeance, and then the formal Dirge terminates and the Blank Verse
recommences_. {469}
In a composed frame (and in Blank Verse) _Orestes and Electra_ repeat
the distinct prayer for Vengeance and the death of Aegisthus and then
address themselves to the means. _Orestes_ enquires as to the meaning
of the Sepulchral rites, and the dream is narrated, which he interprets
as good omen.
_Orest._ And have ye learnt the dream, to tell it right? {517}
_Chor._ As she doth say, she thought she bare a snake.
_Orest._ How ends the tale, and what its outcome then?
_Chor._ She nursed it, like a child, in swaddling clothes.
_Orest._ What food did the young monster crave for then?
_Chor._ She in her dream her bosom gave to it.
_Orest._ How 'scaped her breast by that dread beast unhurt?
_Chor._ Nay, with the milk it sucked out clots of blood.
_Orest._ Ah, not in vain comes this dream from her lord.
_Chor._ She, roused from sleep, cries out all terrified,
And many torches that were quenched in gloom
Blazed for our Mistress' sake within the house.
Then these libations for the dead she sends,
Hoping they'll prove good medicine of ills.
_Orest._ Now to earth here, and my sire's tomb I pray,
They leave not this strange vision unfulfilled.
So I expound it that it all coheres;
For if, the self-same spot that I left leaving,
The snake was then wrapt in my swaddling clothes,
And sucked the very breast that nourished me,
And mixed the sweet milk with a clot of blood,
And she in terror wailed the strange event,
So must she, as that monster dread she nourished,
Die cruel death: and I, thus serpentised,
Am here to slay her, as this dream portends;
I take thee as my dream-interpreter.
They rapidly arrange their plan to appear as foreigners, and get
admission to the Palace, or, if Aegisthus come out, strike him down at
once--with a prayer to Apollo _exeunt Electra, Orestes, and Pylades by
the Distance Sidedoor_. {575}