actions, what then would the deceased have done to me?  To my mother indeed the Furies are present as allies, but would they not be present to him, who has received the greater injury?  Would he not, detesting me, have haunted me with the Furies?  Thou then, O old man, by begetting a bad daughter, hast destroyed me; for through her boldness deprived of my father, I became a matricide.  Dost see?  Telemachus slew not the wife of Ulysses, for she married not a husband on a husband, but her marriage-bed remains unpolluted in the palace.  Dost see?  Apollo, who, dwelling in his habitation in the midst of the earth, gives the most clear oracles to mortals, by whom we are entirely guided, whatever he may say, on him relying slew I my mother.  ’Twas he who erred, not I:  what could I do?  Is not the God sufficient for me, who transfer the deed to him, to do away with the pollution?  Whither then can any fly for succor, unless he that commanded me shall deliver me from death?  But say not these things have been done “not well;” but say “not fortunately” for us who did them.  But to whatsoever men their marriages are well established, there is a happy life, but to those to whom they fall not out well, with regard to their affairs both at home and abroad they are unfortunate.

CHOR.  Women were born always to be in the way of what may happen to men, to the making of things unfortunate.

TYND.  Since thou art bold, and yieldest not to my speech, but thus answerest me so as to grieve my mind, thou wilt rather inflame me to urge thy death.  But this I shall consider a handsome addition to those labors for which I came, namely, to deck my daughter’s tomb.  For going to the multitude of the Argives assembled, I will rouse the state willing and not unwilling, to pass the sentence[16a] of being stoned on thee and on thy sister; but she is worthy of death rather than thee, who irritated thee against her mother, always pealing in thine ear words to increase thy hatred, relating dreams she had of Agamemnon, and this also, that the infernal Gods detested the bed of AEgisthus; for even here on earth it were hard to be endured; until she set the house in flames with fire more strong than Vulcan’s.—­Menelaus, but to thee I speak this, and will moreover perform it.  If thou regard my hate, and my alliance, ward not off death from this man in opposition to the Gods; but suffer him to be slain by the citizens with stones, or set not thy foot on Spartan ground.  Thus much having heard, depart, nor choose the impious for thy friends, passing over the pious.—­But O attendants, conduct us from this house.

ORES.  Depart, that the remainder of my speech may reach this man uninterrupted by the clamors of thy age:  Menelaus, whither dost thou roam in thought, entering on a double path of double care?

MEN.  Suffer me; having some thoughts with myself, I am perplexed to which side of fortune to turn me.