by the murder of a wicked and godless woman who would prevent men from taking up arms and going on foreign service, if those who remain behind, corrupt and seduce wives left at home to keep house. To the better sort, at least, his word carried conviction. No one spoke after him. Then your brother came forward and said: You dwellers in the land of Inachus! Pelasgians in ancient times, and later Danaids I helped you no less than my father when I slew my mother; for if the murder of men by women is to be sanctioned, then the sooner you die, the better, or you must become the slaves of women; and that will be doing the very reverse of what you should. As it is, she who betrayed my father’s bed has died, but if you take my life, the law becomes relaxed, and the sooner each one of you dies, the better; for it will never be daring at any rate that they will lack. Yet, for all he seemed to speak well, he did not persuade the assembly; but that villain who spoke in favor of slaying you and your brother gained his point by appealing to the mob. Poor Orestes scarcely persuaded them not to kill him by stoning, promising to die by his own hand, with you, on this day. Pylades, in tears, is now bringing him from the conclave; and his friends bear him company, with wailing and lamentation; so he comes, a bitter sight and piteous vision. Make ready the sword or prepare the noose for your neck, for you must leave the light; your noble birth availed you nothing, nor did Phoebus from his seat on the tripod at Delphi ; he was your undoing.
 Exit Messenger. Chorus Leader Ah, hapless maiden! How silent you are, your face covered and bent to the ground, as if about to dash upon a course of lamentation and wailing. Electra O Pelasgia, I take up the dirge, doing bloody outrage on my cheeks with white nail, and beating on my head; these are the portion of Persephone, fair young goddess of the nether world. Let the Cyclopian land break forth into wailing for the sorrows of our house, laying the steel upon the head to crop it close. This is the piteous, piteous strain that goes up for those who are about to die, once the battle-leaders of Hellas . Electra It has gone, it has gone, and is lost, all the race of Pelops, and the glory that crowned their happy home once; the envy of heaven seized them and that cruel murdering vote among the citizens. Oh, oh! you tribes of short-lived men, full of tears, full of suffering, see how fate runs counter to your hopes! All receive in turn their different troubles in length of time; and the whole of mortal life is uncertain. Electra Oh! to reach that rock which hangs suspended midway between earth and heaven, that fragment from Olympus , which swings on chains of gold, so that I may utter my lament to Tantalus, my forefather, who begot the ancestors of my house. They saw infatuate ruin, the chase of winged steeds, when Pelops in four-horse chariot drove over the sea, hurling the body of murdered Myrtilus into the ocean swell, after his race near Geraestus’ strand, foam-flecked from the tossing sea. From this came a woeful curse upon my house, brought to birth among the sheep by the son of Maia , when there appeared a baleful, baleful portent of a lamb with golden fleece, for Atreus, breeder of horses; from which Strife changed the course of the sun’s winged chariot, fitting the westward path of the sky towards the single horse of Dawn; and Zeus diverted the career of the seven Pleiads into a new track and exchanged . . . death for death: both the banquet to which Thyestes gave his name, and the treacherous love of Cretan Aerope, in her treacherous marriage; but the crowning woe has come on me and on my father by the bitter constraints of our house. Chorus Leader Look, here comes your brother, condemned to die, and with him Pylades, most loyal of friends, true as a brother, guiding his feeble steps, his yoke-fellow, pacing carefully. Electra Alas! I weep to see you stand before the tomb, my brother, face to face with the funeral pyre. Alas, again! as I take my last look at you, my senses leave me. Orestes Be silent! an end to womanish lamenting! resign yourself to your fate. It is piteous, but nevertheless you must bear the present fate. Electra How can I be silent, when we poor sufferers are no longer to gaze upon the sun-god’s light?