_Semi-Chor. B._ Yea, but as cure for this, And healing salve,'tis yours with your own hands, With no help from without, *To press your suit of blood; So runs our hymn to those great Gods below. _Chor._ Yea, hearing now, ye blest Ones 'neath the earth, This prayer, send ye your children timely help That worketh victory. _Orest._ O sire, who in no kingly fashion died'st, 470 Hear thou my prayer; grant victory o'er this house. _Elect._ I, father, ask this prayer, that I may work *Ægisthos' death, and then acquittal gain. _Orest._ Yea, thus the banquets that men give the dead Would for thee too be held, but otherwise *Dishonoured wilt thou lie 'mid those that feast,[430] Robbed of thy country's rich burnt-offerings. _Elect._ I too from out my father's house will bring Libations from mine own inheritance, As marriage offerings. Chief and first of all, Will I do honour to this sepulchre. _Orest._ Set free my sire, O Earth, to watch the battle. 480 _Elect._ O Persephassa, goodly victory grant! _Orest._ Remember, sire, the bath in which they slew thee! _Elect._ *Remember thou the net they handselled so! _Orest._ In fetters not of brass wast thou snared, father. _Elect._ Yea, basely with that mantle they devised. _Orest._ Art thou not roused by these reproaches, father? _Elect._ Dost thou not lift thine head for those thou lov'st? _Orest._ Or send thou Vengeance to assist thy friends; Or let them get like grasp of those thy foes, If thou, o'ercome, dost wish to conquer them. 490 _Elect._ And hear thou this last prayer of mine, my father, Seeing us thy nestlings sitting at thy tomb, Have mercy on thy boy and on thy girl; Nor blot thou out the seed of Pelopids: So thou, though thou hast died, art yet not dead; For children are the voices that preserve Man's memory when he dies: so bear the net The corks that float the flax-mesh from the deep. Hear thou: This is our wailing cry for thee, And thou, our prayer regarding, sav'st thyself. 500 _Chor._ Unblamed have ye your utterance lengthened out, Amends for that his tomb's unwept-for lot. But as to what remains, since thou'rt resolved To act, act now; make trial of thy Fate. _Orest._ So shall it be. Yet 'tis not out of course To ask why she libations sent, why thus Too late she cares for ill she cannot cure? Yea, to a dead man heeding not 'twas sent, A sorry offering. Why, I fail to guess: The gifts are far too little for the fault; 510 For should a man pour all he has to pay For one small drop of blood, the toil were vain: So runs the saying. But if thou dost know, Tell this to me as wishing much to learn. _Chor._ I know, my child, for I was by. Stirred on By dreams and wandering terrors of the night, That godless woman these libations sent. _Orest._ And have ye learnt the dream, to tell it right?