Yes, so wasted with sorrow that I sigh for it.ElectraAnd my head and hair, close shaven as if by a Scythian’s razor.OrestesYour brother and your dead father perhaps gnaw at your heart.ElectraAlas! For what is dearer to me than they?OrestesAh! What are you to your brother, do you think?ElectraHe is far away, not here to be my friend.OrestesWhy are you living here, far from the city?ElectraI am married, stranger; a deadly match.OrestesI pity your brother. Is your husband a Mycenaean?ElectraNot one to whom my father ever hoped to give me.OrestesTell me so that I may hear and inform your brother.ElectraI live in his house, at a distance from the city.OrestesA ditch-digger or a herdsman is worthy of the house.ElectraHe is a man poor but noble, and respectful to me.OrestesWhat is this respect that your husband has?ElectraHe has never dared to touch me in bed.OrestesDoes he hold some form of religious chastity, or does he think you unworthy?ElectraHe did not think himself worthy to insult my family.OrestesAnd how was he not delighted to make such a marriage?ElectraHe thinks the person who gave me did not have that right, stranger.OrestesI understand; he fears that he may someday be punished by Orestes.ElectraHe does fear that, but he is also a virtuous man.OrestesAh! You have described a noble man, and he must be treated well.ElectraYes, if ever the one now absent comes home.OrestesBut did your mother, who gave you birth, endure this?ElectraWomen love their husbands, stranger, not their children.OrestesWhy did Aegisthus insult you in this way?ElectraHe planned for me to bear powerless children, when he gave me to such a man.OrestesSo that you might not bear sons to punish him, of course?