But is perchance a friend, or near in blood.
Elec. [Taking the urn in her hands.] Ο sole memorial
of his life whom most
Of all alive I loved! Orestes mine,
With other thoughts I sent thee forth than these
With which I now receive thee. Now, I bear
In these my hands what is but nothingness;
But sent thee forth, dear boy, in bloom of youth.1130
Ah, would that I long since had ceased to live
Before I sent thee to a distant shore,
With these my hands, and saved thee then from death!
So had'st thou perished on that self-same day,
And had a share in that thy father's tomb.
But now from home, an exile in a land
That was not thine, without thy sister near,
So did'st thou die, and I, alas, poor me!
Did neither lay thee out with lustral rites
And loving hands, nor bear thee, as was meet,
Sad burden, from the blazing funeral pyre;1140
But thou, poor sufferer, tended by the hands
Of strangers, comest, in this paltry urn,
In paltry bulk. Ah, miserable me!
For all the nurture, now so profitless,
Which I was wont with sweetest toil to give
For thee, my brother. Never did she love,
Thy mother, as I loved thee; nor did they
Who dwell within there nurse thee, but 'twas I,
And I was ever called thy sister true;
But now all this has vanished in a day
In this thy death; for, like a whirlwind, thou1150
Hast passed, and swept off all. My father falls;
I perish; thou thyself hast gone from sight;
Our foes exult. My mother, wrongly named,
For mother she is none, is mad with joy,
