being stoned with stones, or having whet the sword, should plunge it into our necks.  But I yet have some hope that we may not die, for Menelaus has arrived at this country from Troy, and filling the Nauplian harbor with his oars is mooring his fleet off the shore, having been lost in wanderings from Troy a long time:  but the much-afflicted Helen has he sent before to our palace, having taken advantage of the night, lest any of those, whose children died under Ilium, when they saw her coming, by day, might go so far as to stone her; but she is within bewailing her sister, and the calamity of her family.  She has however some consolation in her woes, for the virgin Hermione, whom Menelaus bringing from Sparta, left at our palace, when he sailed to Troy, and gave as a charge to my mother to bring up, in her she rejoices, and forgets her miseries.  But I am looking at each avenue when I shall see Menelaus present, since, for the rest, we ride on slender power,[3] if we receive not some succor from him; the house of the unfortunate is an embarrassed state of affairs.

ELECTRA.  HELEN.

HEL.  O daughter of Clytaemnestra and Agamemnon, O Electra, thou that hast remained a virgin a long time.  How are ye, O wretched woman, both you, and your brother, the wretched Orestes (he was the murderer of his mother)?  For by thy converse I am not polluted, transferring, as I do, the blame to Phoebus.  And yet I groan the death of Clytaemnestra, whom, after that I sailed to Troy, (how did I sail, urged by the maddening fate of the Gods!) I saw not, but of her bereft I lament my fortune.

ELEC.  Helen, why should I inform thee of things thou seest thyself here present, the race of Agamemnon in calamities.  I indeed sleepless sit companion to the wretched corse, (for he is a corse, in that he breathes so little,) but at his fortune I murmur not.  But thou a happy woman, and thy husband a happy man, have come to us, who fare most wretchedly.

HEL.  But what length of time has he been lying on his couch?

ELEC.  Ever since he shed his parent’s blood.

HEL.  Oh wretched, and his mother too, that thus she perished!

ELEC.  These things are thus, so that he is unable to speak for misery.

HEL.  By the Gods wilt thou oblige me in a thing, O virgin?

ELEC.  As far as I am permitted by the little leisure I have from watching by my brother.

HEL.  Wilt thou go to the tomb of my sister?

ELEC.  My mother’s tomb dost thou desire? wherefore?

HEL.  Bearing the first offerings of my hair, and my libations.

ELEC.  But is it not lawful for thee to go to the tomb of thy friends?

HEL.  No, for I am ashamed to show myself among the Argives.

ELEC.  Late art thou discreet, then formerly leaving thine home disgracefully.

HEL.  True hast thou spoken, but thou speakest not pleasantly to me.

ELEC.  But what shame possesses thee among the Myceneans?