Yes; with the same axe that slew
My father!

ORESTES.

’Tis thy message?  And thy mood
Unchanging?

ELECTRA.

Let me shed my mother’s blood,
And I die happy.

ORESTES.

God!...  I would that now
Orestes heard thee here.

ELECTRA.

Yet, wottest thou,
Though here I saw him, I should know him not.

ORESTES.

Surely.  Ye both were children, when they wrought
Your parting.

ELECTRA.

One alone in all this land
Would know his face.

ORESTES.

The thrall, methinks, whose hand
Stole him from death—­or so the story ran?

ELECTRA.

He taught my father, too, an old old man
Of other days than these.

ORESTES.

Thy father’s grave... 
He had due rites and tendance?

ELECTRA.

What chance gave,
My father had, cast out to rot in the sun.

ORESTES.

God, ’tis too much!...  To hear of such things done
Even to a stranger, stings a man....  But speak,
Tell of thy life, that I may know, and seek
Thy brother with a tale that must be heard
Howe’er it sicken.  If mine eyes be blurred,
Remember, ’tis the fool that feels not.  Aye,
Wisdom is full of pity; and thereby
Men pay for too much wisdom with much pain.

LEADER.

My heart is moved as this man’s.  I would fain
Learn all thy tale.  Here dwelling on the hills
Little I know of Argos and its ills.

ELECTRA.

If I must speak—­and at love’s call, God knows,
I fear not—­I will tell thee all; my woes,
My father’s woes, and—­O, since thou hast stirred
This storm of speech, thou bear him this my word—­
His woes and shame!  Tell of this narrow cloak
In the wind; this grime and reek of toil, that choke
My breathing; this low roof that bows my head
After a king’s.  This raiment ... thread by thread,
’Tis I must weave it, or go bare—­must bring,
Myself, each jar of water from the spring. 
No holy day for me, no festival,
No dance upon the green!  From all, from all
I am cut off.  No portion hath my life
’Mid wives of Argos, being no true wife. 
No portion where the maidens throng to praise
Castor—­my Castor, whom in ancient days,
Ere he passed from us and men worshipped him,
They named my bridegroom!—­
                           And she, she!...  The grim
Troy spoils gleam round her throne, and by each hand
Queens of the East, my father’s prisoners, stand,
A cloud of Orient webs and tangling gold. 
And there upon the floor, the blood, the old
Black blood, yet crawls and cankers, like a rot
In the stone!  And on our father’s chariot
The murderer’s foot stands glorying, and the red
False hand uplifts that ancient staff, that led
The armies of the world!...  Aye, tell him how