Fright, horror, mad confusion, death, the car
Spreads in its crooked circles everywhere,
Until at last, the smoking axle dashed
With horrible shock against a marble pillar,
Orestes headlong falls--
_Cly._ No more! Ah, peace!
His mother hears thee.
_Pyl._ It is true. Forgive me.
I will not tell how, horribly dragged on,
His streaming life-blood soaked the arena's dust--
Pylades ran--in vain--within his arms
His friend expired.
_Cly._ O wicked death!
_Pyl._ In Crete
All men lamented him, so potent in him
Were beauty, grace, and daring.
_Cly._ Nay, who would not
Lament him save this wretch alone? Dear son,
Must I then never, never see thee more?
O me! too well I see thee crossing now
The Stygian stream to clasp thy father's shade:
Both turn your frowning eyes askance on me,
Burning with dreadful wrath! Yea, it was I,
'T was I that slew you both. Infamous mother
And guilty wife!--Now art content, Aegisthus?
Aegisthus still doubts, and pursues the pretended messengers with such
insulting question that Orestes, goaded beyond endurance, betrays that
their character is assumed.
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