Epeisodion 5
Paedagogus
I will tell when all is completed. Meanwhile,
all is favorable for us on their part, even that which is not favorable.
1345
Electra
Who is this, brother? By the gods, tell me.
Orestes
Do you not know who he is?
Electra
No, nor can I imagine.
Orestes
Do you not know the man to whose hands you gave me once?
Electra
What man? What do you mean?
Orestes
I mean him, by whose hands and through your forethought
I was secretly conveyed away to Phocian soil.
1350
Electra
Is this he in whom alone out of many I once found a true ally at the time of
our father’s murder?
Orestes
This is he; question me no further.
Electra
O joyous day! O sole preserver of Agamemnon’s house,
how did you come here? Are you indeed the man who saved my brother and myself from many sorrows? O dearest hands, O messenger whose feet were kindly servants! How could you be with me so long and remain unknown, without giving a ray of illumination,
1355
but instead afflicting me with stories, while possessed of sweetest reality? Welcome, Father, for it is a father that I seem to behold! Welcome, and know that in one day I have hated you and loved you as no man ever before!
1360
Paedagogus
That is enough, I think. As for the recounting of intervening events,
many are the circling nights and an equal number of days which will reveal them to you clearly, Electra.
1365
And this is my advice to you two, since you stand there: now is your opportunity to act, now Clytaemnestra is alone, now no man is inside. But if you pause,
consider that you will have to fight both those inside and others mightier and better skilled.
1370
Orestes
Pylades, in no way does our task call any longer for many words, but
rather demands that we enter the house immediately, after first adoring the
shrines of my father’s
gods, the keepers of these gates. Orestes and Pylades enter the house, followed by the Paedagogus. Electra remains outside.
1375
