Electra.
Alas! we are undone: thy speech is plain.855
Thou com'st, meseems, a messenger of ill.
Messenger.
Pelasgia's vote this day hath doomed that thou,
O hapless, and thy brother, are to die.
Electra.
Woe! that I looked for cometh, which long since
I feared, and pined with wailings for my fate!860
How went the trial? Before Argos' folk
What pleadings ruined us, and doomed to die?
Tell, ancient, must I under stoning hands,
Or by the steel, gasp out my dying breath,
I, who am sharer in my brother's woes?865
Messenger.
It chanced that I was entering the gates
Out of the country, fain to learn thy state,
And of Orestes; for unto thy sire
Aye was I loyal: thine house fostered me,
A poor man, yet true-hearted to his friends.870
Then throngs I saw to seats on yon height climb
Where first, as men say, Danaus, by Aegyptus
Impeached, in general session gathered us.
Marking the crowd, I asked a citizen:
"What news in Argos? Hath a bruit of foes875
Startled the city of the Danaïds?"
But he, "Dost thou not mark Orestes there
Draw near to run the race whose goal is death?"
Would I had ne'er seen that unlooked-for sight—
