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274 Take all the covering from the face, that kinship, at least, may receive the tribute of lament from me also.

. Lift the veil thyself; not my part this, but thine, to look upon these relics, and to greet them kindly.

. 'Tis good counsel, and I will follow it.—(To Electra) But thou—call me Clytaemnestra, if she is within.

. Lo, she is near thee: turn not thine eyes elsewhere.

[ removes the face-cloth from the corpse.

. O, what sight is this!

. Why so scared? Is the face so strange?

. Who are the men into whose mid toils I have fallen, hapless that I am?

. Nay, hast thou not discovered ere now that the dead, as thou miscallest them, are living?

. Alas, I read the riddle: this can be none but Orestes who speaks to me!

. And, though so good a prophet, thou wast deceived so long?

. Oh lost, undone! Yet suffer me to say one word…

. In heaven's name, my brother, suffer him not to speak further, or to plead at length! When mortals are in the meshes of fate, how can such respite avail one who is to die? No,—slay him forthwith, and cast his corpse to the creatures from whom such as he should have burial, far from our sight! To me,