ELECTRA.

What ails thine eyes, old friend?  After these years
Doth my low plight still stir thy memories? 
Or think’st thou of Orestes, where he lies
In exile, and my father?  Aye, long love
Thou gavest him, and seest the fruit thereof
Wasted, for thee and all who love thee!

OLD MAN.

All
Wasted!  And yet ’tis that lost hope withal
I cannot brook.  But now I turned aside
To see my master’s grave.  All, far and wide,
Was silence; so I bent these knees of mine
And wept and poured drink-offerings from the wine
I bear the strangers, and about the stone
Laid myrtle sprays.  And, child, I saw thereon
Just at the censer slain, a fleeced ewe,
Deep black, in sacrifice:  the blood was new
About it:  and a tress of bright brown hair
Shorn as in mourning, close.  Long stood I there
And wondered, of all men what man had gone
In mourning to that grave.—­My child, ’tis none
In Argos.  Did there come ...  Nay, mark me now... 
Thy brother in the dark, last night, to bow
His head before that unadored tomb? 
  O come, and mark the colour of it.  Come
And lay thine own hair by that mourner’s tress! 
A hundred little things make likenesses
In brethren born, and show the father’s blood.

ELECTRA (trying to mask her excitement and resist the contagion of his).

Old heart, old heart, is this a wise man’s mood?... 
O, not in darkness, not in fear of men,
Shall Argos find him, when he comes again,
Mine own undaunted ...  Nay, and if it were,
What likeness could there be?  My brother’s hair
Is as a prince’s and a rover’s, strong
With sunlight and with strife:  not like the long
Locks that a woman combs....  And many a head
Hath this same semblance, wing for wing, tho’ bred
Of blood not ours....  ’Tis hopeless.  Peace, old man.

OLD MAN.

The footprints!  Set thy foot by his, and scan
The track of frame and muscles, how they fit!

ELECTRA.

That ground will take no footprint!  All of it
Is bitter stone....  It hath?...  And who hath said
There should be likeness in a brother’s tread
And sister’s?  His is stronger every way.

OLD MAN.

But hast thou nothing...?  If he came this day
And sought to show thee, is there no one sign
Whereby to know him?...  Stay; the robe was thine,
Work of thy loom, wherein I wrapt him o’er
That night and stole him through the murderers’ door.

ELECTRA.

Thou knowest, when Orestes was cast out
I was a child....  If I did weave some clout
Of raiment, would he keep the vesture now
He wore in childhood?  Should my weaving grow
As his limbs grew?...  ’Tis lost long since.  No more! 
O, either ’twas some stranger passed, and shore
His locks for very ruth before that tomb: 
Or, if he found perchance, to seek his home,
Some spy...