ELECTRA. And may I pray the gods such boon as this? CHORUS. Why not? What other quittance to a foe Than hate repaid with hate, and blow with blow?[n11] {103} ELECTRA. (_approaching to the tomb of Agamemnon_) Hermes, that swayest underneath the ground,[f4] [n12] Of powers divine, Infernal and Supernal, Most weighty herald, herald me in this, That every subterranean god, and earth, Even mother earth, who gave all things their birth, And nurseth the reviving germs of all, May hear my prayer, and with their sleepless eyes Watch my parental halls. And while I dew Thy tomb with purifying stream, O father, Pity thou me, and on thy loved Orestes With pity look, and to our long lost home Restore us!--us, poor friendless outcasts both, Bartered by her who bore us, and exchanged Thy love for his who was thy murderer. Myself do menial service in this house; Orestes lives in exile; and they twain In riot waste the fruits of thy great toils. Hear thou my prayers, and quickly send Orestes With happy chance to claim his father's sceptre! And give thou me a wiser heart, and hand More holy-functioned than the mother's was That bore thy daughter. Thus much for myself, And for my friends. To those that hate my father, Rise thou with vengeance mantled-dark to smite Those justly that unjustly smote the just. These words of evil imprecation dire,[n13] Marring the pious tenor of my prayer, I speak constrained: but thou for me and mine Send good, and only good, to the upper air, The gods being with thee, mother Earth, and Justice With triumph in her train. This prayer receive And these libations. Ye, my friends, the while Let your grief blossom in luxuriant wail, Lifting the solemn pæan of the dead. CHORUS.[n14] Flow! in plashing torrents flow! Wretched grief for wretched master! O'er this heaped mound freely flow, Refuge of my heart's disaster! O thou dark majestic shade, {104} Hear, O hear me! While anear thee Pours this sorrow-stricken maid The pure libation, May the solemn wail we lift Atone the guilt that taints the gift With desecration! O that some god from Scythia far, To my imploring, Might send a spearman strong in war, Our house restoring! Come Mars, with back-bent bow, thy hail Of arrows pouring, Or with the hilted sword assail, And in the grapple close prevail, Of battle roaring! ELECTRA.[n15] These mild libations, earth-imbibed, my father Hath now received. Thy further counsel lend. CHORUS. In what? Within me leaps my heart for fear. ELECTRA. Seest thou this lock of hair upon the tomb? CHORUS. A man's hair is it, or a low-zoned maid's?[n16] ELECTRA. Few points there are to hit. 'Tis light divining. CHORUS. I am thine elder; yet I fain would reap Instruction from young lips.