AG.  I commend [your words,] but go thou within the house, and it shall be well, as fortune takes its course.  Alas! what shall I wretched say?  Whence shall I begin?  Into what fetters of necessity have I fallen!  Fortune has upturned me, so as to become far too clever for my cleverness.  But lowness of birth has some advantage thus.  For such persons are at liberty to weep, and speak unhappy words, but to him that is of noble birth, all these things belong.  We have our dignity as ruler of our life, and are slaves to the multitude.  For I am ashamed indeed to let fall the tear, yet again wretched am I ashamed not to weep, having come into the greatest calamities.  Well! what shall I say to my wife?  How shall I receive her?  What manner of countenance shall I present?  And truly she hath undone me, coming uncalled amidst the ills which before possessed me.  And with reason did she follow her daughter, being about to deck her as a bride,[32] and to perform the dearest offices, where she will find us base.  But for this hapless virgin—­why [call her] virgin?  Hades, as it seems, will speedily attend on her nuptials,—­how do I pity her!  For I think that she will beseech me thus:  O father, wilt thou slay me?  Such a wedding mayest thou thyself wed, and whosoever is a friend to thee.  But Orestes being present will cry out knowingly words not knowing, for he is yet an infant.  Alas! how has Priam’s son, Paris, undone me by wedding the nuptials of Paris, who has wrought this!

CHOR.  And I also pity her, as it becomes a stranger woman to moan for the misfortune of her lords.

MEN.  Brother, give me thy right hand to touch.

AG.  I give it, for thine is the power, but I am wretched.

MEN.  I swear by Pelops, who was called the sire of my father and thine, and my father Atreus, that I indeed will tell thee plainly from my heart, and not any thing out of contrivance, but only what I think.  I, beholding thee letting fall the tear from thine eyes, pitied thee, and myself let fall [a tear] for thee in return.  And I have changed[33] my old determinations, not being wrath against you, but I will place myself in your present situation, and I recommend you neither to slay your child, nor to take my part; for it is not just that thou shouldst groan, but my affairs be in a pleasant state, and that thine should die, but mine behold the light.  For what do I wish?  Might I not obtain another choice alliance, if I crave nuptials?  But, having undone my brother, whom it least behooved me, shall I receive Helen, an evil in place of a good?  I was foolish and young, before that, viewing the matter closely, I saw what it is to beget children.  Besides, pity came over me, considering our connection, for the hapless girl, who is about to be sacrificed because of my marriage.  But what has thy virgin [daughter] to do with Helen?  Let the army go, being disbanded from Aulis.  But cease thou bedewing thine eyes with tears, my brother, and exciting me to tears.  But if I have any concern in the oracle respecting thy daughter, let me have none:  to thee I yield my part.  But I have come to a change[34] from terrible resolutions.  I have experienced[35] what was meet.  I have changed to regard him who is sprung from a common source.  Such changes belong not to a bad man, [viz.] to follow the best always.