Sporting with thine were sporting with my own.
ELECTRA.
And is it to Orestes' self I speak?
ORESTES.
Orestes' self, whom seeing thou dost doubt
Thine eyesight, though a lock of hair or prints
Of feet that tallied with thine own could raise
My apparition in thy fluttering heart.
Apply the lock which tallies with thy hair
To this my head from which it was cut off.
Look on this robe, the work of thine own hand,
And trace the figures which thy shuttle wrought.
But calm thee, let not joy distract thy soul,
For near of kin we know is far from kind.
ELECTRA.
O hope and darling of my father's house,
Seed of redemption, watered with my tears,
Trust thy right arm; it shall win back thy home.
Thou art the fourfold object of my love:
Electra has no father left but thee;
No mother—hateful she who bears that name;
Thou art to me in my lost sister's place;
The brother thou that dost my name uphold;
Only let might and justice and the king
Of gods and men be with thee in the fight.
ORESTES.
Zeus, Zeus, look down on what is passing here,
Take pity on the eagle's brood, whose sire,
Trapped in the coils of a most deadly snake,
Was stung to death and left his orphan brood
A prey to hunger. For no strength have they
To bring the quarry home, as did their sire.
In me and my Electra here thou seest
Two eaglets of their sire alike bereft,
And outcasts both from what was once their home.