Classic Greek Drama_ 10 Plays by Euripides in a Single File [NOOK Book] - Euripides [25]
ELEC. Hear now therefore, O my brother, while yet the Furies suffer thee to have thy right faculties.
ORES. Wilt thou tell any news? and if good indeed, thou art conferring pleasure; but if it pertain at all to mischief--I have enough distress.
ELEC. Menelaus has arrived, the brother of thy father, but his ships are moored in the Nauplian bay.
ORES. How sayest? Is he come, a light in mine and thy sufferings, a man of kindred blood, and that hath received benefits from our father?
ELEC. He is come; take this a sure proof of my words, bringing with him Helen from the walls of Troy.
ORES. Had he been saved alone, he had been more blest. But if he brings his wife, he has arrived with a mighty evil.
ELEC. Tyndarus begat an offspring of daughters, a conspicuous mark for blame, and infamous throughout Greece.
ORES. Do thou then be unlike the bad, for it is in thy power. And not only say, but also hold these sentiments.
ELEC. Alas! my brother, thine eye rolls wildly; quick art thou changed to madness, so late in thy senses.
ORES. O mother, I implore thee, urge not on me those Furies gazing blood, horrid with snakes, for these, these are leaping around me.
ELEC. Remain, O wretched man, calmly on thy couch, for thou seest none of those things, which thou fanciest thou seest plainly.
ORES. O Phoebus, these dire Goddesses in the shape of dogs will kill me, these gorgon-visaged ministers of hell.
ELEC. I will not let thee go, but, putting my arm around thee, will stop thy starting into those unfortunate convulsions.
ORES. Loose me. Thou art one of my Furies, and seizest me by the middle, that thou mayest hurl me into Tartarus.
ELEC. Oh! wretched me! what assistance can I obtain, since we have on us the vengeful wrath of heaven!
ORES. Give me my bow of horn, the gift of Phoebus, with which Apollo said I should repel the Fiends, if they appalled me by their maddened raging.
ELEC. Shall any God be wounded by mortal hand? (Note [B].)
ORES. _Yes. She shall,_ if she will not depart from my sight... Hear ye not--see ye not the winged shafts impelled from the distant-wounding bow? Ha! ha! Why tarry ye yet? Skim the high air with your wings, and impeach the oracles of Phoebus.--Ah! why am I thus disquieted, heaving my panting breath from my lungs? Whither, whither have I wandered from my couch? For from the waves again I see a calm.--Sister, why weepest, hiding thine eyes beneath thy vests, I am ashamed to have thee a partner in my sufferings, and to give a virgin trouble through my malady. Pine not away on account of my miseries: for thou indeed didst assent to this, but the shedding of my mother's blood was accomplished by me: but I blame Apollo, who, after having instigated me to a most unholy act, with words indeed consoled me, but not with deeds. But I think that my father, had I, beholding him, asked him if it were right for me to slay my mother, would have put forth many supplications, beseeching me by this beard not to impel my sword to the slaughter of her who bore me, if neither he thereby could be restored to life, and I thus wretched must go through such miseries. And now then unveil thyself, my sister, and cease from tears, even though we be very miserable: but when thou seest me desponding, do thou restrain my distraction, and that which preys upon my mind, and console me; but when thou groanest, it becomes my duty to come to thee, and suggest words of comfort. For these are the good offices friends ought to render each other. But go thou into the house, O unfortunate sister, and, stretched at full length, compose thy sleepless eyelids to sleep, and take refreshment, and pour the bath upon thy fair skin. For if thou forsakest me, or gettest any illness by continually sitting by me, we perish; for thee I have my only succor, by the rest, as thou seest, abandoned.
ELEC. This can not be: with thee will I choose to die, with thee to live; for it is the same: for if then shouldst