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254 . Ah, woe is me! Whose, then, can have been those ample offerings to our father's tomb?

. Most likely, I think, some one brought those gifts in memory of the dead Orestes.

. Oh, hapless that I am! And I was bringing such news in joyous haste, ignorant, it seems, how dire was our plight; but now that I have come, I find fresh sorrows added to the old!

. So stands thy case; yet, if thou wilt hearken to me, thou wilt lighten the load of our present trouble.

. Can I ever raise the dead to life?

. I meant not that; I am not so foolish.

. What biddest thou, then, for which my strength avails?

. That thou be brave in doing what I enjoin.

. Nay, if any good can be done, I will not refuse.

. Remember, nothing succeeds without toil.

. I know it, and will share thy burden with all my power.

. Hear, then, how I am resolved to act. As for the support of friends, thou thyself must know that we have none; Hades hath taken our friends away, and we two are left alone. I, so long as I heard that my brother still lived and prospered, had hopes that he would yet come to avenge the murder of our sire. But now that he is no more, I look next to thee, not to flinch from aiding me thy sister to slay our father's murderer, Aegisthus:—I must have no secret from thee more.

How long art thou to wait inactive? What hope is