Twice five years have passed This very day since that dread night of blood, When, slain by treachery, my father made The whole wide palace with his dolorous cries Echo again. Oh, well do I remember! Electra swiftly bore me through this hall Thither where Strophius in his pitying arms Received me--Strophius, less by far thy father Than mine, thereafter--and fled onward with me By yonder postern-gate, all tremulous; And after me there ran upon the air Long a wild clamor and a lamentation That made me weep and shudder and lament, I knew not why, and weeping Strophius ran, Preventing with his hand my outcries shrill, Clasping me close, and sprinkling all my face With bitter tears; and to the lonely coast, Where only now we landed, with his charge He came apace; and eagerly unfurled His sails before the wind. Pylades strives to restrain the passion for revenge in Orestes, which imperils them both. The friend proposes that they shall feign themselves messengers sent by Strophius with tidings of Orestes' death, and Orestes has reluctantly consented, when Electra re-appears, and they recognize each other. Pylades discloses their plan, and when her brother urges, “The means is vile,” she answers, all woman,-- Less vile than is Aegisthus. There is none Better or surer, none, believe me. When You are led to him, let it be mine to think Of all--the place, the manner, time, and arms, To kill him. Still I keep, Orestes, still I keep the steel that in her husband's breast She plunged whom nevermore we might call mother. _Orestes._ How fares it with that impious woman? _Electra._ Ah, Thou canst not know how she drags out her life! Save only Agamemnon's children, all Must pity her--and even we must pity. Full ever of suspicion and of terror, And held in scorn even by Aegisthus' self, Loving Aegisthus though she know his guilt; Repentant, and yet ready to renew Her crime, perchance, if the unworthy love Which is her shame and her abhorrence, would; Now wife, now mother, never wife nor mother, Bitter remorse gnaws at her heart by day Unceasingly, and horrible shapes by night Scare slumber from her eyes.--So fares it with her. In the third scene of the following act Clytemnestra meets Orestes and Pylades, who announce themselves as messengers from Phocis to the king; she bids them deliver their tidings to her, and they finally do so, Pylades struggling to prevent Orestes from revealing himself. There are touchingly simple and natural passages in the lament that Clytemnestra breaks into over her son's death, and there is fire, with its true natural extinction in tears, when she upbraids Aegisthus, who now enters: My only son beloved, I gave thee all. * * * * *