Away with you, cruel and utterly brazen mother! You dared to give your husband a most cruel burial: unmourned, without lamentation, a king unattended by his people.
 Orestes Ah me, your words spell utter dishonor. Yet with the help of the gods, and with the help of my own hands, will she not atone for the dishonor she did my father? Let me only take her life, then let me die!
 Chorus Yes, and I would have you know he was brutally mangled. An allusion to the savage custom by which the extremities of the murdered man were cut off, then hung about his neck and tied together under the arm-pits ( μασχάλαι ). At least one object of this arm-pitting was to disable the spirit of the dead from taking vengeance on the murderer.