Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/241

Rh Haply shall some hind or some bondswoman

Appear to us, of whom we shall enquire

If in some spot hereby my sister dwell.

Lo, yonder I discern a serving-maid

Who on shorn head her burden from the spring

Bears: sit we down, and of this bondmaid ask,

If tidings haply we may win of that

For which we came to this land, Pylades.

[Orestes and Pylades retire to rear.

Re-enter Electra.

Bestir thou, for time presses, thy foot's speed;

Haste onward, weeping bitterly.

I am his child, am Agamemnon's seed,—

Alas for me, for me!

And I the daughter Klytemnestra bore—

Tyndareus' child, abhorred of all;—

And me the city-dwellers evermore

Hapless Electra call.

Woe and alas for this my lot of sighing,

My life from consolation banned!

O father Agamemnon, thou art lying

In Hades, thou whose wife devised thy dying—

Her heart, Aegisthus' hand.

On, wake once more the selfsame note of grieving:

Upraise the dirge of tears that bring relieving.

Bestir thou, for time presses, thy foot's speed;

Haste onward weeping bitterly.

Ah me, what city sees thee in thy need,

Brother?—alas for thee!