e! set fire to the
palace, Electra, from beneath: and thou, Pylades, the most true of my
friends, light up these battlements of the walls.

MEN. O land of the Danai, and inhabitants of warlike Argos, will ye not, ho
there! come in arms to my succor? For this man here, having perpetrated the
shocking murder of his mother, brings destruction on your whole city, that
he may live.

APOLLO.

Menelaus, cease from thy irritated state of mind; I Phoebus the son of
Latona, in thy presence, am addressing thee. Thou too, Orestes, who
standest over that damsel with thy sword drawn, that thou mayest know what
commands I bring with me. Helen indeed, whom thou minded to destroy,
working Menelaus to anger, didst fail of thy purpose, she is here, whom ye
see wrapt in the bosom of the sky, preserved, and not slain by thy hands.
Her I preserved, and snatched from thy sword, commanded by my father Jove.
For being the daughter of Jove, it is right that she should live immortal.
And she shall have her seat by Castor and Pollux in the bosom of the sky,
the guardian of mariners. But take to thyself another bride, and lead her
home, since for the beauty of this woman the Gods brought together the
Greeks and Trojans, and caused deaths, that they might draw from off the
earth the pride of mortals, who had become an infinite multitude. Thus is
it with regard to Helen; but thee, on the other hand, Orestes, it
behooveth, having passed beyond the boundaries of this land, to inhabit the
Parrhasian plain during the revolution of a year, and it shall be called by
a name after thy flight, so that the Azanes and Arcadians shall call it
Oresteum: and thence having departed to the city of the Athenians, undergo
the charge of shedding thy mother's blood laid by the three Furies. But the
Gods the arbiters of the cause shall pass on thee most sacredly their
decree on the hill of Mars, in which it behooveth thee to be victorious.
But Hermione, to whose neck thou art holding the sword, it is destined for
thee, Orestes, to wed, but Neoptolemus, who thinks to marry her, shall
never marry her. For it is fated to him to die by the Delphic sword, as he
is demanding of me satisfaction for his father Achilles. But to Pylades
give thy sister's hand, as thou didst formerly agree, but a happy life now
coming on awaits him. But, O Menelaus, suffer Orestes to reign over Argos.
But depart and rule over the Spartan land, having it as thy wife's dowry,
who exposing thee to n