n Orestes and Pylades discover themselves and
reassure them_. With difficulty he restrains his emotions throughout a
long conversation, personating a messenger from himself to Electra.

_Ores._ Bearing thy brother's words to thee I come. {251}
_Elec._ Most welcome: breathes he yet this vital air?
_Ores._ He lives: I first would speak what brings thee joy.
_Elec._ Oh be thou blest for these most grateful words!
_Ores._ To both in common this I give to share.
_Elec._ Where is th' unhappy outcast wand'ring now?
_Ores._ He wastes his life not subject to one state.
_Elec._ Finds he with toil what life each day requires?
_Ores._ Not so; but mean the wand'ring exile's state.
_Elec._ But with what message art thou from him charg'd?
_Ores._ T' inquire, if living, where thou bear'st thy griefs.
_Elec._ First then observe my thin and wasted state.
_Ores._ Wasted with grief, so that I pity thee.
_Elec._ Behold my head, its crisped honours shorn.
_Ores._ Mourning thy brother, or thy father dead?
_Elec._ What can be dearer to my soul than these?
_Ores._ Alas! What deem'st thou are thy brother's thoughts?
_Elec._ He, though far distant, is most dear to me.
_Ores._ Why here thy dwelling from the city far?
_Elec._ O, stranger, in base nuptials I am join'd--
_Ores._ I feel thy brother's grief!--To one of rank?
_Elec._ Not as my father once to place me hop'd--
_Ores._ That hearing I may tell thy brother, speak.
_Elec._ This is his house: in this I dwell remote.
_Ores._ This house some digger or some herdsman suits.
_Elec._ Generous, though poor, in reverence me he holds.
_Ores._ To thee what reverence doth thy husband pay?
_Elec._ He never hath presumed t' approach my bed.

The conversation is prolonged, bringing out for the benefit of the
Strangers and the Chorus the whole of Electra's troubles, and how her
father's blood is crying for vengeance.

_Elec._ The monarch's tomb
Unhonoured, nor libations hath receiv'd,
Nor myrtle bough, no hallow'd ornament
Hath dignified the pyre. Inflamed with wine,
My mother's husband, the illustrious lord,
For so they call him, trampled on the earth
Insultingly where Agamemnon lies,
And hurling 'gainst his monument a stone,
Thus taunts us with proud scorn, "Where is thy son,
"Orestes where? ri