El. Ah! wherefore that question, when there is no prospect of his return at all?
Or. But supposing he should return, how would he go about to revenge the death of his father?
El. In the same way, in which that father suffered from the daring attempts of his enemies.
Or. And could you then dare to undertake with him the murder of your mother?
El. Yes, with that very steel, with which she murdered my father.
Or. And am I at liberty to relate this to your brother, as your fixed resolution?
El. I desire only to live, till I have murdered my mother. The Greek is still stronger:
May I die, as soon as I have murdered my mother!
Now that this last sentence is absolutely unnatural, will not be pretended. There have been doubtless many examples, under the like circumstances, of an expression of revenge carried thus far. Yet, I think, we can hardly help being a little shocked at the fierceness of this expression. At least Sophocles has not thought fit to carry it to that extreme. In him, Electra contents herself with saying to Orestes, on a similar occasion:
“The conduct of this affair now rests upon you. Only let me observe this to you, that, had I been left alone, I would not have failed in one of these two purposes, either to deliver myself gloriously, or to perish gloriously.”