Orestes (208-260)

Electra, you are nearby; see whether your brother has not died without your knowing it;

for I do not like his utter prostration.

Sweet charm of sleep, savior in sickness, how sweetly you came to me, how needed! Revered forgetfulness of troubles, how wise a goddess you are, and invoked by every suffering soul!

Addressing Electra.Where have I come from? How am I here? For I have lost all previous recollection and remember nothing.

My dearest, how glad I was to see you fall asleep! Do you want me take you in my arms and lift your body?

Take, oh! take me in your arms, and from this sufferer’s mouth

and eyes wipe off the flakes of foam.

There! The service is sweet, and I do not refuse to tend a brother’s limbs with a sister’s hand.

Prop me up, your side to mine; brush the matted hair from my face, for I see dimly.

Ah, poor head, how dirty your hair! How savage you look, remaining so long unwashed!

Put me once more upon the couch; whenever the madness leaves me, I am unnerved and weak.

As she lays him down.There! His couch is welcome to the sick man,

a painful possession, but a necessary one.

Set me upright once again, turn my body round; it is their helplessness that makes the sick so hard to please.

Will you set your feet upon the ground and take a step at last? Change is always pleasant.

Oh, yes; for that has a semblance of health; and the semblance is preferable, though it is far from the truth.

Hear me now, my brother, while the Furies permit you to use your senses.

You have news to tell; if it is good, you do me a kindness;

but if it tends to my hurt, I have suffered enough.

Menelaus, your father’s brother, has come; his ships are moored in Nauplia.

What did you say? Has he come to be a light in our troubles, a man of our own family, who owes gratitude to our father?

He has come, and is bringing Helen from the walls of Troy—accept this as proof of what I say.

If he had returned alone in safety, he would be more enviable; but if he is bringing his wife, he has come with great mischief.

Tyndareus begot a race of daughters notorious for blame,

infamous throughout Hellas.

Then you be different from that evil brood, for you can be; and not only in words, but also in heart.

Ah! brother, your eye is growing wild, and in a moment you are turning mad again, when you were just now sane.

Mother, I implore you! Do not shake at me those maidens with their bloodshot eyes and snaky hair. Here they are, close by, to leap on me!

Lie still, poor sufferer, on your couch; your eye sees nothing, you only imagine that you recognize them.

O Phoebus! they will kill me, the hounds of hell, death’s priestesses with glaring eyes, the dreadful goddesses.