LEADER OF CHORUS. Dwellers in our native Thebe, fix on Oedipus your eyes. Who resolved the dark enigma, noblest champion and most wise. Like a star his envied fortune mounted beaming[6] far and wide: Now he sinks in seas of anguish, whelmed beneath a raging tide. Therefore, with the old-world sages, waiting for that final day, I will call no mortal happy, while he holds his house of clay, Till without one pang of sorrow, all his hours have passed away. * * * * * ELECTRA THE PERSONS An Old Man, _formerly one of the retainers of Agamemnon._ ORESTES, _son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra_. ELECTRA, _sister of Orestes_. CHORUS _of Argive Women_. CHRYSOTHEMIS, _sister of Orestes and Electra_. CLYTEMNESTRA. AEGISTHUS. PYLADES _appears with_ ORESTES, _but does not speak_. SCENE. Mycenae: before the palace of the Pelopidae. Agamemnon on his return from Troy, had been murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus, who had usurped the Mycenean throne. Orestes, then a child, had been rescued by his sister Electra, and sent into Phocis with the one servant who remained faithful to his old master. The son of Agamemnon now returns, being of a full age, accompanied by this same attendant and his friend Pylades, with whom he has already concerted a plan for taking vengeance on his father's murderers, in obedience to the command of Apollo. Orestes had been received in Phocis by Strophius, his father's friend. Another Phocian prince, named Phanoteus, was a friend of Aegisthus. ELECTRA ORESTES _and the_ Old Man--PYLADES _is present._ OLD MAN. Son of the king who led the Achaean host Erewhile beleaguering Troy, 'tis thine to day To see around thee what through many a year Thy forward spirit hath sighed for. Argolis Lies here before us, hallowed as the scene Of Io's wildering pain: yonder, the mart Named from the wolf slaying God[1], and there, to our left, Hera's famed temple. For we reach the bourn Of far renowned Mycenae, rich in gold And Pelops' fatal roofs before us rise, Haunted with many horrors, whence my hand, Thy murdered sire then lying in his gore, Received thee from thy sister, and removed Where I have kept thee safe and nourished thee To this bright manhood thou dost bear, to be The avenger of thy father's bloody death. Wherefore, Orestes, and thou, Pylades, Dearest of friends, though from a foreign soil, Prepare your enterprise with speed. Dark night Is vanished with her stars, and day's bright orb Hath waked the birds of morn into full song. Now, then, ere foot of man go forth, ye two Knit counsels. 'Tis no time for shy delay: The very moment for your act is come.