Your mother-wit still with you? Know ye not
Ye stand—I say not on the very verge,
But in the ills—the greatest ills themselves?1330
Had I not chanced long since to keep my watch
Just at the gate, your doings had been known
There, in the house, before your forms were seen.
But, as it is, I guarded against this;
And now, set free from all this flood of talk,
Free from this girl's insatiate burst of joy,
Go ye within. In such a deed delay
Is evil, and 'tis time to end with it.
Ores. How stand things there for me to go within?
Attend. Right well! for none is found who knows thee there.1340
Ores. 'Twould seem that thou hast told of me as dead.
Attend. Know thou art here as one to Hades gone.
Ores. Do they rejoice in this? What words were said?
Attend. When all is o'er, I'll tell thee. As it is,
All is well with them, even what is ill.
Elec. Who is this, brother? Tell me, by the Gods.
Ores. Dost thou not know?
Elec. I call him not to mind.
Ores. Know'st thou not him whose hands thou gav'st me to?
Elec. To whom? What say'st thou?
Ores. Even he, who brought me,
Through thy wise forethought, to the Phokian plain.1350
Elec. What? Is this he, whom only, out of many,
I faithful found when they our father slew?
Ores. 'Tis he: waste no more words in questioning.
Elec. Ο blessed light, Ο thou preserver sole
Of Agamemnon's house, how cam'st thou here?
And art thou he who then did rescue him
And me from many sorrows? Ο dear hands,
