_Aeg._ She is Atrides' daughter!
_El._ He is Atrides' murderer!
_Cly._ Electra!
Have pity, Aegisthus! Look--the tomb! Oh, look,
The horrible tomb!--and art thou not content?
_Aeg._ Woman, be less unlike thyself. Atrides,--
Tell me by whose hand in yon tomb he lies?
_Cly._ O mortal blame! What else is lacking now
To my unhappy, miserable life?
Who drove me to it now upbraids my crime!
_El._ O marvelous joy! O only joy that's blessed
My heart in these ten years! I see you both
At last the prey of anger and remorse;
I hear at last what must the endearments be
Of love so blood-stained.
The first act closes with a scene between Aegisthus and Clytemnestra,
in which he urges her to consent that he shall send to have Orestes
murdered, and reminds her of her former crimes when she revolts from
this. The scene is very well managed, with that sparing phrase which
in Alfieri is quite as apt to be touchingly simple as bare and poor.
In the opening scene of the second act, Orestes has returned in
disguise to Argos with Pylades the son of Strophius, to whom he
speaks:
We are come at last. Here Agamemnon fell,
Murdered, and here Aegisthus reigns.
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