Act III 

Orestes,  Pylades, Electra and the Chorus. 

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ORESTES: 
I to this earth and to my father's tomb
Pray that this dream be consummate in me.
And as I read it, sooth, it tallies well.
For if the snake, quitting the self-same womb,
Was girded straightway with my swathing-clothes,
And, gaping round the breast that nourished me,
Sucked with my nurture-milk the clotted blood,
While she in terror, at the portent shrieked;—
Clear is it, as she reared the ghastly pest,
So forceful must she die. I, dragon-like,
Myself shall slay her, as this dream declares.—
As augur of these portents thee I choose.
[...] Hear then, in brief;—Sister, go thou within;
But these I counsel to conceal my plans.
For as with guile an honoured man they slew,
Themselves with guile shall be entrapped, and die
In the same toils, foretold by Loxias,
Apollo Lord, no faithless seer of yore.—
For I, equipped for travel, with this man,
With Pylades, will reach the outer gate;
I as a stranger;—he as ransom-friend;—
Familiar both with the Parnassian speech,
The tongue of Phocis we will imitate.
And if no friendly warder, on the plea
That by dire evils is the house possessed,
Will give us entrance, we without will bide,
Until some passer guess our plight, and say,
"If that Ægisthos knoweth, being at home,
Why 'gainst the suppliant doth he shut the door?"
Then if the threshold of the gates I cross,
And him discover on my father's seat,—
Or should he meet me face to face, and set
His eyes on me, ere he can speak the word,
"Whence is this stranger?"—I will lay him dead,
Spitting his body round my nimble steel.
The Fury thus, of gore insatiate,
Shall blood untempered quaff, third, crowning draught.
⁠[To Electra.] 
Go thou,—keep watchful guard within the house,
That all, well ordered, fitly may combine.
⁠[To the Chorus.] 
To you a tongue of wisdom I commend,
To speak in season, or from speech refrain.—
⁠[To Pylades.] 
And for the rest let this man look to it,
When in the strife of swords this arm hath won.
[Exeunt Orestes and Pylades. Electra enters the palace.]