SCENE THE SIXTH.
ELECTRA, ARCAS and ÆTHON.
ELECTRA.
Then all my dreams of happiness resolve
In disappointment, and substantial woe!
O gentle friends! the meteor hope, that play'd
In fancy's airy region, now has spent
Its pleasing fires—and all is void and chearless.
Comfort is vanish'd—peace for ever fled—
All that was worth a wish, ourselves, our country,
Perish with poor Orestes.
ÆTHON.
Hah! Orestes?
ELECTRA.
Oh! he is gone for ever.
ARCAS.
Then these eyes
Last to behold the day, when nothing's left
To stir an old man's pulse—or wake one care.
ELECTRA.
Wretched and hopeless since we're thus become,
Let us unite our miseries together:
Swell up the load with ev'ry added grief,
Till its own pressures crush all feeling out,
And gasping nature groans sad being off.
I have no duties now for life remaining,
But, when they come, to clasp my brother's ashes,
Perform the solemn, sad sepulchral rites,
And sacrifice to the infernal Gods
For his departed soul. Be those accomplish'd,
And death shall be my deity. I'll pray
The meagre pow'r to take to his embrace
The last of Agamemnon's hapless race.
