Epeisodion 4
Orestes
Ah! How can I kill her when she bore me and brought me up?
Electra
As she killed your father and mine.
970
Orestes
O Phoebus, you prophesied a great folly—
Electra
Where Apollo is a fool, who are the wise?
Orestes
You who declared I was to kill my mother, whom it is clearly wrong to kill.
Electra
How can you be hurt by avenging your father?
Orestes
I shall stand trial as a matricide, though I was pure before.
975
Electra
And by not defending your father, you will be impious.
Orestes
I, my mother—? To whom will I pay the penalty for her murder?
Electra
And to whom, if you give up our father’s vengeance?
Orestes
Was it a fiend who spoke in the likeness of the god?
Electra
Seated on the holy tripod? I do not think so.
980
Orestes
I cannot believe that this oracle was well prophesied.
Electra
Do not become a coward and fall into unmanliness!
Orestes
Am I to devise the same crafty scheme for her?
Electra
The same death that you gave to her husband, Aegisthus.
Orestes
I will go in; it is a dreadful task I am beginning and I will do dreadful things. If the gods approve, let it be; to me the contest is bitter and also sweet.
985
