Epeisodion 2
Clytaemnestra
Your coming, sir, deserves large recompense, if you have stopped her clamorous tongue.
Paedagogus
Then I would take my leave, if all is well.
Clytaemnestra
Not so; your welcome would then be unworthy of me, and of my ally who sent you. No, come in. Leave her out here to shout out loud her misfortunes and those of her friends. Clytaemnestra and the Paedagogus enter the house.
800
Electra
What do you think? Does it seem to you that she, poor woman, wept and wailed terribly,
like a grieving, anguished woman, over her son thus destroyed? No, she left us with a laugh! Ah, miserable me! Dearest Orestes, how your death has destroyed me! For your passing has torn from my heart
805
the only hopes which still were mine: that you would live to return some day as the avenger of our father, and also of me in my misery. But now, where shall I turn? I am alone, cheated of you, as of my father. Hereafter I must be a slave again
810
among those I most hate, my father’s murderers. Am I not in a fine way? But at least in
the time remaining me I will never enter the house to dwell with them. No,
lying down at these gates, without a friend, I shall wither away my days.
815
Therefore, if anyone in the house be angry, let him kill me. It is a favor, if I die, but a pain, if I live. I desire life no more.
820
