EL.  What pain o’ercomes thee?  Wherefore speak’st thou so?

OR.  Can this be famed Electra I behold?

EL.  No other.  In sad case, as you may see

OR.  Ah! deep indeed was this calamity!

EL.  Is’t possible that thou shouldst grieve for me?

OR.  O ruined form! abandoned to disgrace!

EL.  ’Tis me you mean, stranger, I feel it now.

OR.  Woe ’s me!  Untrimmed for bridal, hapless maid!

EL.  Why this fixed gaze, O stranger! that deep groan?

OR.  How all unknowing was I of mine ill!

EL.  What thing hath passed to make it known to thee?

OR.  The sight of thee attired with boundless woe.

EL.  And yet thine eye sees little of my pain.

OR.  Can aught be still more hateful to be seen?

EL.  I have my dwelling with the murderers—­

OR.  Of whom?  What evil would thy words disclose?

EL.  Of him who gave me birth.  I am their slave.

OR.  Whose power compels thee to this sufferance?

EL.  One called my mother, most unmotherly.

OR.  How? by main force, or by degrading shames?

EL.  By force and shames, and every kind of evil.

OR.  And is there none to succour or prevent?

EL.  None.  Him I had, you give me here in dust.

OR.  How mine eye pities thee this while, poor maid!

EL.  Know now, none ever pitied me but you.

OR.  None ever came whose heart like sorrow wrung.

EL.  Is’t possible we have some kinsman here?

OR.  I will tell it, if these women here be friendly.

EL.  They are.  They may be trusted.  Only speak.

OR.  Let go yon vase, that thou may’st learn the whole.

EL.  Nay, by the Gods! be not so cruel, sir!

OR.  Obey me and thou shalt not come to harm.

EL.  Ah, never rob me of what most I love!

OR.  You must not hold it.

EL.  O me miserable
For thee, Orestes, if I lose thy tomb!

OR.  Speak no rash word.  Thou hast no right to mourn.

EL.  No right to mourn my brother who is gone?

OR.  Such utterance belongs not to thy tongue,

EL.  Oh, am I thus dishonoured of the dead?

OR.  Far from dishonour.  But this ne’er was thine.

EL.  Is’t not Orestes’ body that I bear?

OR.  Nay, but the idle dressing of a tale.

EL.  And where is his poor body’s resting-place?

OR.  Nowhere.  Seek not the living with the dead,

EL.  My son, what saidst thou?

OR.  Nought but what is true.

EL.  Doth he yet live?

OR.  If I have life in me.

EL.  Art thou Orestes?

OR.  Let my signet here,
That was our father’s, tell thine eyes, I am.