ELECTRA
Electra
What need for silence?
Orestes
’Twere wise, lest someone from the house should hear.
Electra
Nay, by Queen Artemis the virgin maid,
Of women-folk I ne’er will be afraid,
Those stay-at-homes, mere cumberers of the ground.
Orestes
Yet note that in the breasts of women dwells
The War-God too, as thou methinks hast found.
Electra
Ah me, ah me!
Thou wak’st a memory
Inveterate, ineffaceable,
An ache time cannot quell.
Orestes
I know it too; but when the hour shall strike
Then it behoves us to recall those deeds.
Electra
All time, each passing hour (Ant.)
Henceforward I were fain
To tell my gfriefs, my pain,
For late and hardly have I won free speech.
Orestes
’Tis so; then forfeit not this liberty.
Electra
How forfeit it?
Orestes
By speaking out of season overmuch.
