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Rh announced his resolve, and the Chorus solemnly approves it. "Doer of wrong must suffer,"—this is the grand old law.

The course of the action being so clearly marked out, it is now to be still further sanctioned by appeals to Heaven, and our interest in it heightened by hearing it dwelt upon, with every variety of treatment, by the two persons engaged upon it. Orestes stands on one side of the tomb, Electra on the other, and just below the Chorus is grouped, to bear part in their alternate song:—

"Ores. What can I, Sire unblest,

Prayerfully sing,

Thee from thy couch of rest

Hither to wing?

Lo! in that drear confine,

Darkness is day!

Vainly to Atreus' line

Honours we pay!

Cho. My son, the wasting jaws of fire

Quell not the spirit of the dead,

Full late he manifests his ire.—

When mourned is he whose blood is shed,

The slayer is revealed. In time,

For slaughtered parents, righteous wail

Poured forth unceasing, doth avail

To track the crime.

Elec. In turn, my tearful strain,

O Father, hear!

Hark how thy children twain

Chant anthems drear!