ORES. Yes.  She shall, if she will not depart from my sight...  Hear ye not—­see ye not the winged shafts impelled from the distant-wounding bow?  Ha! ha!  Why tarry ye yet?  Skim the high air with your wings, and impeach the oracles of Phoebus.—­Ah! why am I thus disquieted, heaving my panting breath from my lungs?  Whither, whither have I wandered from my couch?  For from the waves again I see a calm.—­Sister, why weepest, hiding thine eyes beneath thy vests, I am ashamed to have thee a partner in my sufferings, and to give a virgin trouble through my malady.  Pine not away on account of my miseries:  for thou indeed didst assent to this, but the shedding of my mother’s blood was accomplished by me:  but I blame Apollo, who, after having instigated me to a most unholy act, with words indeed consoled me, but not with deeds.  But I think that my father, had I, beholding him, asked him if it were right for me to slay my mother, would have put forth many supplications, beseeching me by this beard not to impel my sword to the slaughter of her who bore me, if neither he thereby could be restored to life, and I thus wretched must go through such miseries.  And now then unveil thyself, my sister, and cease from tears, even though we be very miserable:  but when thou seest me desponding, do thou restrain my distraction, and that which preys upon my mind, and console me; but when thou groanest, it becomes my duty to come to thee, and suggest words of comfort.  For these are the good offices friends ought to render each other.  But go thou into the house, O unfortunate sister, and, stretched at full length, compose thy sleepless eyelids to sleep, and take refreshment, and pour the bath upon thy fair skin.  For if thou forsakest me, or gettest any illness by continually sitting by me, we perish; for thee I have my only succor, by the rest, as thou seest, abandoned.

ELEC.  This can not be:  with thee will I choose to die, with thee to live; for it is the same:  for if then shouldst die, what can I do, a woman? how shall I be preserved, alone and destitute? without a brother, without a father, without a friend:  but if it seemeth good to thee, these things it is my duty to do:  but recline thy body on the bed, and do not to such a degree conceive to be real whatever frightens and startles thee from the couch, but keep quiet on the bed strewn for thee.  For though thou be not ill, but only seem to be ill, still this even is an evil and a distress to mortals. (Note [C].)

CHORUS.  Alas! alas!  O swift-winged, raving[6] Goddesses, who keep up the dance, not that of Bacchus, with tears and groans.  You, dark Eumenides, you, that fly through the wide extended air, executing vengeance, executing slaughter, you do I supplicate, I supplicate:  suffer the offspring of Agamemnon to forget his furious madness; alas! for his sufferings.  What were they that eagerly grasping at, thou unhappy perishest, having received from the tripod the oracle which Phoebus