Orestes.
Ah, thou wilt melt me! Fain would I reply
With arms of love! Wretch, wherefore shame I now?
Ah, sister-bosom, dear embrace to me!
In children's stead, instead of wedded arms,1050
This farewell to the hapless is vouchsafed.
Electra (sighs).
Oh might the selfsame sword, if this may be,
Slay us, one coffin cedar-wrought receive!
Orestes.
Most sweet were this: yet, how forlorn of friends
Thou seest are we, who cannot claim one tomb!1055
Electra.
Spake Menelaus not for thee, to plead
Against thy death—base traitor to my sire?
Orestes.
His face he showed not—fixed upon the throne
His hope, with good heed not to save his friends!1060
Come, prove we by our deeds our high-born strain,
And worthily of Agamemnon die.
And I will show all men my royal blood,
Plunging the sword into mine heart: but thou
Must match with thine the unflinching deed I do.
Sit thou as umpire, Pylades, to our death.1065
Meetly lay out the bodies of the dead:
Bear to our sire's grave, and with him entomb.
Farewell: I go, thou seest, to do the deed.[Going.
