_ Daughter!
_El._ What voice! Oh Heaven, thou here?
_Cly._ My daughter,
Ah, do not fly me! Thy pious task I fain
Would share with thee. Aegisthus in vain forbids,
He shall not know. Ah, come! go we together
Unto the tomb.
_El._ Whose tomb?
_Cly._ Thy--hapless--father's.
_El._ Wherefore not say thy husband's tomb? 'T is well:
Thou darest not speak it. But how dost thou dare
Turn thitherward thy steps--thou that dost reek
Yet with his blood?
_Cly._ Two lusters now are passed
Since that dread day, and two whole lusters now
I weep my crime.
_El._ And what time were enough
For that? Ah, if thy tears should be eternal,
They yet were nothing. Look! Seest thou not still
The blood upon these horrid walls the blood
That thou didst splash them with? And at thy presence
Lo, how it reddens and grows quick again!
Fly, thou, whom I must never more call mother!
* * * *
_Cly._ Oh, woe is me! What can I answer? Pity--
But I merit none!--And yet if in my heart,
Daughter, thou couldst but read--ah, who could look
Into the secret of a heart like mine,
Contaminated with such infamy,
And not abhor me? I blame not thy wrath,
No, nor thy hate.
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