PHRY.  Lest I should become a corse, but I know not of the Gorgon’s head.

ORES.  Slave as thou art, dost thou fear death, which will rid thee from thy woes?

PHRY.  Every one, although a man be a slave, rejoices to behold the light.

ORES.  Thou sayest well; thy understanding; saves thee, but go into the house.

PHRY.  Thou wilt not kill me then?

ORES.  Thou art pardoned.

PHRY.  This is good word thou hast spoken.

ORES.  Yet we may change our measures.

PHRY.  But this thou sayest not well.

ORES.  Thou art a fool, if thou thinkest I could endure to defile me by smiting thy neck, for neither art thou a woman, nor oughtest thou to be ranked among men.  But that thou mightest not raise a clamor came I forth out of the house:  for Argos, when it has heard a noise, is soon roused, but we have no dread in meeting Menelaus, as far as swords go; but let him come exulting with his golden ringlets flowing over his shoulders, for if he collects the Argives, and brings them against the palace seeking revenge for the death of Helen, and is not willing to let me be in safety, and my sister, and Pylades my accomplice in this affair, he shall see two corses, both the virgin and his wife.

CHORUS.

Alas! alas!  O fate, the house of the Atridae again falls into another, another fearful struggle.

SEMICHOR.  What shall we do? shall we carry these tidings to the city, or shall we keep in silence?

SEMICHOR.  This is the safer plan, my friends.

SEMICHOR.  Behold before the house, behold this smoke leaping aloft in the air portends something.

SEMICHOR.  They are lighting the torches, as about to burn down the mansion of Tantalus, nor do they forbear from murder.

CHOR.  The God rules the events that happen to mortals, whichsoever way he wills.  But some vast power by the instigation of the Furies has struck, has struck these palaces to the shedding of blood on account of the fall of Myrtilus from the chariot.

But lo!  I see Menelaus also here approaching the house with a quick step, having by some means or other perceived the calamity which now is present.  Will ye not anticipate him by closing the gates with bolts, O ye children of Atreus, who are in the palace?  A man in prosperity is a terrible thing to those in adversity, as now them art in misery, Orestes.

MENELAUS below, ORESTES, PYLADES, ELECTRA, HERMIONE above, CHORUS.

MEN.  I am present, having heard the horrid and atrocious deeds of the two lions, for I call them not men.  For I have now heard of my wife, that she died not, but vanished away, this that I heard was empty report, which one deceived by fright related; but these are the artifices of the matricide, and much derision.  Open some one the door, my attendants I command to burst open these gates here, that my child at least we may deliver from the hand of these blood-polluted men, and may receive my unhappy, my miserable lady, with whom those murderers of my wife must die by my hand.