city, and the circle of the forum; one who farmed his own land,[24] which class of persons[25] alone preserve the country, but prudent, and wishing the tenor of his conduct to be in unison with his words, uncorrupted, one that had conformed to a blameless mode of living; he proposed to crown Orestes the son of Agamemnon,[25a] who was willing to avenge his father by slaying a wicked and unholy woman, who took this out of the power of men, and would no one have been the cause of arming the hand for war, nor undertaking an expedition, leaving his home, if those who are left destroy what is intrusted to their charge in the house, disgracing their husbands’ beds.  And to right-minded men at least he appeared to speak well:  and none spoke besides, but thy brother advanced and said, “O inhabitants of the land of Inachus, avenging you no less than my father, I slew my mother, for if the murder of men shall become licensed to women, ye no longer can escape dying, or ye must be slaves to your wives.  But ye do the contrary to what ye ought to do.  For now she that was false to the bed of my father is dead; but if ye do indeed slay me, the law has lost its force, and no man can escape dying, forasmuch as there will be no lack of this audacity.”

But he persuaded not the people, though appearing to speak well.  But that villain, who spoke among the multitude, overcomes him, he that harangued for the killing of thy brother and thee.  But scarcely did the wretched Orestes persuade them that he might not die by stoning; but he promised that this day he would quit his life by self-slaughter together with thee:—­but Pylades is conducting him from the council, weeping:  but his friends accompany him bewailing him, pitying him; but he is coming a sad spectacle to thee, and a wretched sight.  But prepare the sword, or the noose for thy neck, for thou must die, but thy nobleness of birth hath profited thee nothing, nor the Pythian Phoebus who sits on the tripod, but hath destroyed thee.

CHOR.  O unhappy virgin! how art thou dumb, casting thy muffled countenance toward the ground, as though about to run into a strain of groans and lamentations!

ELEC.  I begin the lament, O land of Greece, digging my white nail into my cheek, sad bleeding woe, and dashing my head, which[26] the lovely[27] goddess of the manes beneath the earth has to her share.  And let the Cyclopian land[28] howl, applying the steel to their head cropped of hair over the calamity of our house.  This pity, this pity, proceeds for those who are about to die, who once were the princes of Greece.  For it is gone, it is gone, the entire race of the children of Pelops has perished, and the happiness which once resided in these blest abodes.  Envy from heaven has now seized it, and the harsh decree of blood in the state.  Alas! alas!  O race of mortals that endure for a day, full of tears, full of troubles, behold how contrary to expectation fate comes.  But in the long lapse of time each different man receives by turns his different sufferings.[29] But the whole race of mortals is unstable and uncertain.