Than in a nook obscure, where kindred hands
Have spread assassination’s wily net. 
Yield me this brief repose, infernal Powers! 
Ye, who, like loosen’d hounds, still scent the blood,
Which, trickling from my feet, betrays my path. 
Leave me! ere long I come to you below. 
Nor you, nor I, should view the light of day. 
The soft green carpet of the beauteous earth
Is no arena for unhallow’d fiends. 
Below I seek you, where an equal fate
Binds all in murky, never-ending night. 
Thee only, thee, my Pylades, my friend,
The guiltless partner of my crime and curse,
Thee am I loath, before thy time, to take
To yonder cheerless shore!  Thy life or death
Alone awakens in me hope or fear.

                      Pylades. 
    Like thee, Orestes, I am not prepar’d
    Downwards to wander to yon realm of shade. 
    I purpose still, through the entangl’d paths,
    Which seem as they would lead to blackest night,
    Again to guide our upward way to life. 
    Of death I think not; I observe and mark
    Whether the gods may not perchance present
    Means and fit moment for a joyful flight. 
    Dreaded or not, the stroke of death must come;
    And though the priestess stood with hand uprais’d,
    Prepar’d to cut our consecrated locks,
    Our safety still should be my only thought: 
    Uplift thy soul above this weak despair;
    Desponding doubts but hasten on our peril. 
    Apollo pledg’d to us his sacred word,
    That in his sister’s’ holy fane for thee
    Were comfort, aid, and glad return prepar’d. 
    The words of Heaven are not equivocal,
    As in despair the poor oppress’d one thinks.

                     Orestes. 
    The mystic web of life my mother spread
    Around my infant head, and so I grew,
    An image of my sire; and my mute look
    Was aye a bitter and a keen reproof
    To her and base AEgisthus[1].  Oh, how oft,
    When silently within our gloomy hall
    Electra sat, and mus’d beside the fire,
    Have I with anguish’d spirit climb’d her knee,
    And watch’d her bitter tears with sad amaze! 
    Then would she tell me of our noble sire: 
    How much I long’d to see him—­be with him! 
    Myself at Troy one moment fondly wish’d,
    My sire’s return, the next.  The day arrived—­

(Transcriber’s Note 1:  Original text read “Egisthus".)

                  Pylades. 

Oh, of that awful hour let fiends of hell
Hold nightly converse!  Of a time more fair
May the remembrance animate our hearts
To fresh heroic deeds.  The gods require
On this wide earth the service of the good,
To work their pleasure.  Still they count on thee;
For in thy father’s train they sent thee not,
When he to Orcus went unwilling down.