University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Electra, Orestes, and Pylades.
ELECTRA.
My noble brother—

ORESTES.
Rise, Electra, rise:
Too long the daughter of the king of heroes,
Has bent in lowliness and pined forlorn.
Why knelt you thus to me?

ELECTRA.
Your mien, Orestes,
O'erawes my spirit; and my heart foregone,
The joyous throb with which I sought you here,
Stands in my bosom, fearful and restrained,
As if I saw, incarnated in you,
The energy of an avenging God.
But wherefore here, at this most perilous hour?
This is the portico of Phœbus' temple.—

ORESTES.
Hail holy temple of my guardian God!

ELECTRA.
And daily, as the sun ascends to noon,
The vot'ries still their pious visits pay.
But though no more the guilty court esteems
The God or worship, here Egysthus's spies,
Keep constant watch, and list with greedy ear,
E'en to the tenour of the pilgrim's prayer.
Retire my brother; shun their deadly sight;
Come when 'tis dark, and I will meet you then.

ORESTES.
I know the danger, but I trust the Gods
And my own destiny. Full well I know,
That the usurper, conscious of his crimes,
And dreading retribution, has contrived
A subtile and infernal enginry,
To crush the fruit of justice in the germ.

ELECTRA.
There's not a place it does not penetrate.
The sacred temples hold the tyrant's echoes.—
Know you, Egysthus has already heard
The number and equipment of your men?

ORESTES.
But of our enterprize he cannot know.

PYLADES.
Rumour is taught, that we advance ourselves
In quest of labours and romantic feats.

ORESTES.
Has not Egysthus heard of this?

ELECTRA.
He has.

ORESTES.
And laughs at us?

PYLADES.
Is it not so, Electra?

ELECTRA.
I never enter in the Tyrant's circle.
My feminine and simple pray'r is still,
That all your purposes may be for good,
And for their aim, be prosper'd by the Gods.

ORESTES.
What! though they mock at us, my dear Pylades,
They know us not, nor can their downward thoughts
Conceive the scope and motives of our daring.
Let them laugh on, while we pass to the goal
Of our magnificent and awful purpose.

ELECTRA.
But here, Orestes, do not linger now.
The very air is here a whisperer;
And as the viewless arrows of the pest,
The unknown ministers of vengeance speed,
And give the death before the victims feel,
Or fear themselves infected.—Stay not here.

ORESTES.
You must, Electra, then be spy for us.
The troops are waiting in the mountain pass,
With all prepared, the signals and the signs.
Pylades, safe in his disguise, will here
Attend your intimations. In the temple,
I will the anxious interval employ.