University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE FOURTH.

ARCAS, ÆTHON and ELECTRA.
ELECTRA.

ARCAS.
Much-injur'd Princess, more than feeble words,
These falling drops express your servant's joy
For your implor'd deliv'rance.

ELECTRA.
Gentle friend,
The friend of Agamemnon's injur'd house—
What, Æthon too? and melting to behold me!
This mournful comfort hath affliction then,
I am not wretched to the last extreme;
Since fell oppression leaves one gen'rous pair
To mingle sorrows with a child of grief.

ÆTHON.
Sorrow is fruitless. Vengeance better suits
A cause like yours—the cause of all mankind.

ELECTRA.
Where is my brother? Does Orestes come,
Like hea'vn's high delegate, a righteous Monarch,
To call offenders to severe account?
Hears he the cries his suff'ring subjects raise,
And, like a parent, yearns for their deliv'rance?
The call of nature—is he deaf to that?
Or comes he, with his falchion flaming high,
To strike for vengeance; and, in pious rage,
With an assassin's, a usurper's blood,
To make oblation to his father's ghost?

ARCAS.
The womb of fate, in folds impenetrable,
Securely still that long'd-for secret wraps.
Warm are our wishes, but the hop'd event
Is in the hand of heav'n.

ELECTRA.
But does he come—
O ease my wild impatience! Does he come
Like happy tidings to the pining heart,
Like welcome day-light to the frozen pole,
A wish'd reliever? Are his subjects tongues
Eager to hail him King? and all their swords
To aid his cause, and seat him on his throne?

ARCAS.
We hope he comes. His last dispatches told
We might expect him ere the present hour.
And here ten thousand hearts, with fierce impatience,
Pant to avow and vindicate his claim.

ELECTRA.
O wherefore loiters then th' unthrifty boy?
Had he the spirit that inflames my breast,
'Twould lend his purpose wings. Alas, my friends,
Less than a sister does the out-cast son
Of Agamemnon feel a father's wrongs,
Less feels his own, and hers who suffers for him.
Else had my prison-bars ere this been broke,
And his vex'd people rescu'd from oppression;
While signal justice to the world had shewn,
That Heav'n is active in behalf of Kings:
That royal hardships claim severe account,
And murder'd Majesty will have revenge.

ÆTHON.
All these he doubtless meditates with caution:
But slow the progress is of deep designs.

ELECTRA.
Had I been slow and cautious when the swords
Of Regicides, yet reeking with the blood
Of Agamemnon, with a father's blood,
Were ev'n uplifted, by determin'd arms,
To make a second sacrifice of his,
He instant had partook that father's fate.
No, 'midst my grief, my horror, my distraction!
I paus'd not, stopt not to secure his flight,
But seiz'd the first, the only lucky minute
That fate allow'd to snatch him from destruction;
Which, had I miss'd, could ne'er have been retriev'd.
O why delays he? Wherefore lingers thus?
Urge, gracious Gods! his haste, and save his honour,
Ere busy tongues proclaim such caution fear.

ARCAS.

ELECTRA.
Buoy'd by that hope, I struggle with the stream
Of rushing injuries, of raging woes—
Nor sink the victim of o'erwhelming anguish.

ÆTHON.
The Queen approaches!—

ELECTRA.
Aid me, Resolution.