Electra. Well. is very imperative in taking these words out of Electra’s mouth, and giving them to some other person, he does not exactly know who; but, though she left the stage before, there is no reason why she should not come back; and, in fact, she is just doing what she ought to do in appearing here, and carrying on the deception.
“Is audited at nothing.”
The passage is corrupt. I read παρ᾽ ὀυδέν, with Blomfield. ’Tis certainly difficult to say whether βακχείας καλης should be made to depend on ἐλπὶς, as I have made it, or being changed into κακης, be referred to Clytemnestra.
“. . . suasive wile, and smooth deceit!”
The reader need hardly be reminded that these qualities, so necessary to the present transaction, render the invocation (in the next line) peculiarly necessary of the god, who was the recognised patron of thieves, and of whom the Roman lyrist, in a well-known ode sings—
“Te boves olim nisi reddidisses
Per dolum amotas puerum minaci
Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra