At my desire? Not thus hast thou been train'd.
_Elec._ Thee equal to the gods I deem my friend,
For in my ills thou hast not treated me
With insult. In misfortunes thus to find
What I have found in thee, a gentle pow'r,
Lenient of grief, must be a mighty source
Of consolations. It behoves me then,
Far as my pow'r avails, to ease thy toils,
That lighter thou may'st feel them, and to share
Thy labour, though unbidden; in the fields
Thou hast enough of work; be it my task
Within to order well. The lab'rer tired
Abroad, with pleasure to his house returns.
Accustom'd all things grateful there to find.

_Peas._ Go then, since such thy will; nor distant far
The fountain from the house. At the first dawn
My bullocks yoked I to the field will drive,
And sow my furrows; for no idle wretch
With the gods always in the mouth can gain
Without due labour the support of life. {95}

_Stage vacant a moment. Then enter by Distance-door Orestes and
Pylades._

_Orestes_ in conversation with his friend makes known he is come by
divine command to avenge his father's death: he has fulfilled the god's
first charge to present offerings on his father's tomb; the second is
that he must not enter the walls of the city; thus he wishes to find
his sister--now, as he hears, wedded to a peasant!--and consult--they
step aside as they see one whom 'female slave her tresses show'
approaching. {127}

_Re-enter Electra with her water-pot filled_: and in a _Monody_
(_strophe, antistrophe and epode_) laments her situation: laments for
her lost father, her brother afar off, in servitude it may be: and
adjures her father's spirit to send vengeance. {187}

PARODE JOINING ON TO EPISODE I

_Enter the Orchestra Chorus of Maidens of Mycenae, and in dialogue_
(_two Strophes and Antistrophes_) beg Electra to join them in an
approaching festival, as she had been wont in happier days.--Electra
declares she is fit for tears and rags, not for festivities.--As for
rags they will find her the festal robes; and vows, instead of tears
may gain the goddess's help.--No god, says Electra, has an ear for the
wretched, and in wretched toil and obscure retreat her life is wasting
away.--_A sob from the concealed Orestes startles them, and they are
about to flee, whe