Electra: Oh, miserable that I am! I am lost this day!
Clytemnestra: What sayest thou, friend, what sayest thou?- listen
not to her!
Paedagogus: I said, and say again- Orestes is dead.
Electra: I am lost, hapless one, I am undone!
Clytemnestra: (to Electra) See thou to thine own concerns.- But do
thou, sir, tell me exactly,-how did he perish?
Paedagogus: I was sent for that purpose, and will tell thee all. Having
gone to the renowned festival, the pride of Greece, for the Delphian
games, when he heard the loud summons to the foot-race which was first
to be decided, he entered the lists, a brilliant form, a wonder in
the eyes of all there; and, having finished his course at the point
where it began, he went out with the glorious meed of victory. To
speak briefly, where there is much to tell, I know not the man whose
deeds and triumphs have matched his; but one thing thou must know;
in all the contests that the judges announced, he bore away the prize;
and men deemed him happy, as oft as the herald proclaimed him an Argive,
by name Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who once gathered the famous armament
of Greece.
Studies
