CH.  With kind intent IV
Full tenderly my words are meant;
Like a true mother pressing heart to heart,
I pray thee, do not aggravate thy smart.

EL.  But have my miseries a measure?  Tell. 
        Can it be well
To pour forgetfulness upon the dead? 
        Hath mortal head
Conceived a wickedness so bold? 
O never may such brightness shine for me,
        Nor let me peaceful be
With aught of good my life may still enfold,
If from wide echoing of my father’s name
The wings of keen lament I must withhold. 
        Sure holy shame
And pious care would vanish among men,
If he, mere earth and nothingness, must lie
In darkness, and his foes shall not again
Render him blood for blood in amplest penalty.

LEADER OF CH.  Less from our own desires, my child, we came,
Than for thy sake.  But, if we speak amiss,
Take thine own course.  We still will side with thee.

EL.  Full well I feel that too impatiently
I seem to multiply the sounds of woe. 
Yet suffer me, dear women!  Mighty force
Compels me.  Who that had a noble heart
And saw her father’s cause, as I have done,
By day and night more outraged, could refrain? 
Are my woes lessening?  Are they not in bloom?—­
My mother full of hate and hateful proved,
Whilst I in my own home must dwell with these,
My father’s murderers, and by them be ruled,
Dependent on their bounty even for bread. 
And then what days suppose you I must pass,
When I behold Aegisthus on the throne
That was my father’s; when I see him wear
Such robes, and pour libations by the hearth
Where he destroyed him; lastly, when I see
Their crowning insolence,—­our regicide
Laid in my father’s chamber beside her,
My mother—­if she still must bear the name
When resting in those arms?  Her shame is dead. 
She harbours with blood-guiltiness, and fears
No vengeance, but, as laughing at the wrong,
She watches for the hour wherein with guile
She killed our sire, and orders dance and mirth
That day o’ the month, and joyful sacrifice
Of thanksgiving.  But I within the house
Beholding, weep and pine, and mourn that feast
Of infamy, called by my father’s name,
All to myself; for not even grief may flow
As largely as my spirit would desire. 
That so-called princess of a noble race
O’ercrows my wailing with loud obloquy: 
’Hilding! are you alone in grief?  Are none
Mourning for loss of fathers but yourself? 
’Fore the blest Gods! ill may you thrive, and ne’er
Find cure of sorrow from the powers below!’
So she insults:  unless she hear one say
‘Orestes will arrive’:  then standing close,
She shouts like one possessed into mine ear,
’These are your doings, this your work, I trow. 
You stole Orestes from my gripe, and placed
His life with fosterers; but you shall pay