OR.  And [dost thou remember] a picture on the loom, the turning away of the sun?

IPH.  I wove this image also in the fine-threaded web.

OR.  And didst thou receive[108] a bath from thy mother, sent to Aulis?

IPH.  I know it:  for the wedding, though good, did not take away my recollection.[109]

OR.  But what? [Dost thou remember] to have given thine hair to be carried to thy mother?

IPH.  Ay, as a memorial for the tomb[110] in place of my body.

OR.  But the proofs which I have myself beheld, these will I tell, viz. the ancient spear of Pelops in my father’s house, which brandishing in his hand, he [Pelops] won Hippodameia, having slain AEnomaus, which is hidden in thy virgin chamber.

IPH.  O dearest one, no more, for thou art dearest.  I hold thee, Orestes, one darling son[111] far away from his father-land, from Argos, O thou dear one!

OR.  And I [hold] thee that wast dead, as was supposed.  But tears, yet tearless,[112] and groans together mingled with joy, bedew thine eyelids, and mine in like manner.

IPH.  This one, this, yet a babe I left, young in the arms of the nurse, ay, young in our house.  O thou more fortunate than my words[113] can tell, what shall I say?  This matter has turned out beyond marvel or calculation.

OR. [Say this.] May we for the future be happy with each other!

IPH.  I have experienced an unaccountable delight, dear companions, but I fear lest it flit[114] from my hands, and escape toward the sky.  O ye Cyclopean hearths, O Mycenae, dear country mine.  I am grateful to thee for my life, and grateful for my nurture, in that thou hast trained for me this brother light in my home.

OR.  In our race we are fortunate, but as to calamities, O sister, our life is by nature unhappy.

IPH.  But I wretched remember when my father with foolish spirit laid the sword upon my neck.

OR.  Ah me!  For I seem, not being present, to behold you there.[115]

IPH.  Without Hymen, O my brother, when I was being led to the fictitious nuptial bed of Achilles.  But near the altar were tears and lamentations.  Alas! alas, for the lustral waters there!

OR.  I mourn aloud for the deed my father dared.

IPH.  I obtained a fatherless, a fatherless lot.  But one calamity follows upon another.[116]

OR. [Ay,] if thou hadst lost thy brother, O hapless one, by the intervention of some demon.

IPH.  O miserable for my dreadful daring!  I have dared horrid, I have dared horrid things.  Alas! my brother.  But by a little hast thou escaped an unholy destruction, stricken by my hands.  But what will be the end after this?  What fortune will befall me?  What retreat can I find for thee away from this city? can I send you out of the reach of slaughter to your country Argos, before that my sword enter on the contest concerning thy blood?[117]