hou art partner of my madness.

PYL. Let not this be thought of.

ORES. Wilt thou not then be timid to assist me?

PYL. No, for timidity is a great evil to friends.

ORES. Go on now, the helm of my foot.

PYL. Having a charge worthy of a friend.

ORES. And guide me to my father's tomb.

PYL. To what end is this?

ORES. That I may supplicate him to save me.

PYL. This at least is just.

ORES. But let me not see my mother's monument.

PYL. For she was an enemy. But hasten, that the decree of the Argives
condemn thee not before thou goest; leaning thy side, weary with disease,
on mine: since I will conduct thee through the city, little caring for the
multitude, nothing ashamed; for where shall I show myself thy friend, if I
assist thee not when them art in perilous condition?

ORES. This it is to have companions, not relationship alone; so that a man
who is congenial in manners, though a stranger in blood, is a better friend
for a man to have, than ten thousand relatives.

CHORUS.

The great happiness, and the valor high sounding throughout Greece, and by
the channels of the Simois, has again withdrawn from the fortune of the
Atridae, as of old, from the ancient calamity of the house, when the strife
of the golden lamb[20] arose among the descendants of Tantalus; most
shocking feasts, and the slaughter of noble children; from whence murder
responsive to murder fails not to attend on the two sons of Atreus. What
seems good is not good, to gash the parents' skin with a fierce hand, and
brandish the sword black-stained with blood in the sunbeams. But, on the
other hand, to act wickedly[21] is mad impiety, and the folly of
evil-minded men.

But the wretched daughter of Tyndarus in the fear of death shrieked out,
"My son, thou darest impious deeds, killing thy mother; do not, attending
to the gratification of thy father, kindle an everlasting disgrace."

What malady, or what tears, or what pity on earth is greater, than to
imbrue one's hand in a mother's blood? What a deed, what a deed having
performed, does the son of Agamemnon rave with madness, a prey to the
Eumenides, marked for death, giddy with his rolling eyes! O wretched on
account of his mother, when though seeing the breast bared from the robe of
golden texture, he stabbed the mother in retaliation for the father's
sufferings.

ELECTRA, CHORUS.

ELEC. Ye virgins, has the wretched Orestes, overcome with heaven-inflicted
madness, rushed any where