than care to speak right.--_Clyt._ Thus to show
scorn for her mother! she will go all lengths and feel no
shame.--_Elec._ Shame I do feel, but the deeds which beget the shame
are yours.--_Clyt._ By Artemis, you shall pay for this when Aegisthus
comes!--_Elec._ I thought I had leave to speak.--_Clyt._ Will you not
be silent and let me perform my rites without disorder?--_Elec._ Now I
am silent (_Retires_).--_Clyt._ then proceeds to offer her gifts to
Phoebus, with prayer to avert the ill omen of the past night: as her
prayer "is not amongst friends," she can allude but darkly to all she
means, but He is a God and will understand all she leaves unsaid. {659}

_Enter by the Distance-door Attendant of Orestes._

Enquiring of Chorus he finds he is arrived before the people he is
seeking, and announces to Clytaemnestra that Orestes is dead.
_Electra_ utters a wail of agony, while _Clyt._ asks for particulars.
Then follows the regular 'Messenger's Speech,' a detailed and graphic
account of a chariot race, in which he was thrown and killed.--_Clyt._
trembles between joy at deliverance from her suspense, and a touch of
motherly feeling; still she triumphs over the now hopeless Electra: for
him, what is is well.

_Elec._ Hear this, thou Power avenging him who died!
_Clyt._ Right well she heard, and what she heard hath wrought.

The Messenger is taken into the Palace, _Electra_ left to wail without,
with attempt of Chorus to condole (_lyric concerto_). {870}

_Enter from Tomb of Agamemnon Chrysothemis jubilant and bearing a lock
of hair of Orestes._

She eagerly insists that Orestes is come; shows the lock and describes
the libations that no other would pour on that tomb. Bit by bit
_Electra_ checks her joy, and informs her of the news. They mourn
together, till Electra breaks out with proposal, that since their
friends are snatched from them, and they two are left alone, they shall
themselves work their revenge; that will be the safest and will bring
glory: 'the sisters twain who saved their father's house.'--_Chor._
This requires consideration.--_Chry_. Will you never learn that you are
a woman and not a man? _Elec._ then declares she will do it herself,
and after a stichomuthic contest _exit Chrysothemis_. {1057}

CHORAL INTERLUDE II

_In two Strophes and Antistrophes._

The storks show a pattern of filial piety: why do not men follow it?
By Zeus and Themis there is a punishment for the unfilial; may the