sent me messages about her, saying that you yourself would appear for vengeance. But our evil fortune, yours and mine, has torn all that away, and has sent you back to me in this state, ash and a useless shade in place of your beloved form. ah, me, ah, me! O pitiable body! Alas, dear one sent on a most dire journey, how you have destroyed me, destroyed me indeed, my brother! Therefore accept me into this abode of yours—me, a nothing, into your nothingness,—so that I may dwell with you hereafter below. For when you were on earth, we shared equally, and now I wish to die and not to be left out of your grave, since I see that the dead are relieved of pain.
 Chorus Remember, Electra, you are the child of a mortal father, and Orestes was mortal. Therefore do not grieve too much. Death is a debt which all of us must pay. Orestes Ah, what shall I say? I am at a loss. To what words can I turn? I no longer have the strength to master my tongue! Electra What has troubled you? Why did you say that? Orestes Is this the illustrious form of Electra? Electra It is, though in a very wretched state. Orestes What pity, then, for this miserable fortune! Electra Surely, stranger, you are not saddened like this on my account? Orestes O frame dishonorably, godlessly wasted! Electra Those ills of which you speak, stranger, are none other’s than mine. Orestes Ah, pity for your unwed, ill-fated life! Electra Why, stranger, do you stare and grieve in this way? Orestes How I knew nothing, it seems, of my own sorrows! Electra What that has been said made you realize this? Orestes It was the sight of you conspicuous in your many sufferings. Electra And yet you see but a few of my troubles. Orestes And how could there be any more odious to look on than these? Electra Because I share house and table with the murderers. Orestes Whose murderers? Where lies the guilt at which you point? Electra The murderers of my father. And, further, I am forced to slave for them. Orestes Who is it that binds you with this compulsion? Electra She is called my mother, but in no respect is she like a mother. Orestes How does she do it? By violence or by inflicting hardship? Electra By violence and hardships and all manner of evil. Orestes And is there no one to help, or to prevent it? Electra No one. The one I had, his ashes you have put before me.