_Enter from Main Door Orestes and Pylades, their Attendants bearing the
Corpses, and the net in which Agamemnon had been murdered._
_Orestes_ solemnly declares that they have perished as murderers; they
swore to live and die together and they have kept the oath. He bids
the Attendants stretch out in full light of the Sun, the great
Purifier, the fatal net, as pledge that he did his dread deed only as
deed of necessary vengeance--he dwells on the cruel device--but
_Chorus_ seeing side by side the net and the slaughter by which it has
been avenged, can think of nothing but the woe which its avenger by his
deed of vengeance must bring on himself. _Orestes_ reiterates the
crime of which this deed is the reminder. The _Chorus_ cannot help
repeating the unhappy omen. {1009}
At this very moment Orestes changes and begins to feel the oncoming
madness--while reason yet stays with him he repeats his innocence and
puts on the suppliant's fillet, with which he will go to Delphi, and
challenge the God who sent him on the errand to free him from its dire
consequences. Madness increases, and he can see the Furies in bodily
shape dark-robed, and all their long tresses entwined with serpents.
In rapid dialogue the _Chorus_ bid him cling to the idea of Apollo, and
he _bursts away through Distance-Door on Left_ to commence his long
career of wanderings. The Chorus conclude:
Here, then, upon this palace of our kings
A third storm blows again;
The blast that haunts the race has run its course.
First came the wretched meal of children's flesh;
Next what befel our king:
Slain in the bath was he who ruled our host,
Of all the Achaeans lord;
And now a third has come, we know not whence,
To save . . . or shall I say,
To work a doom of death?
Where will it end? Where will it cease at last,
The mighty Atè dread,
Lulled into slumber deep?