Orestes It is you I seek. He over there has had enough.
Clytaemestra Oh no! My beloved, valiant Aegisthus! You are dead!
Orestes You love this man? Then you will lie in the same grave, and you will never abandon him in death.
Clytaemestra Wait, my son! Have pity, child, upon this breast at which many times while you slept you sucked with toothless gums the milk that nourished you.
Orestes Pylades, what shall I do? Shall I spare my mother out of pity?
Pylades What then will become in the future of Loxias’ oracles declared at Pytho, and of our sworn pact? Count all men your enemies rather than the gods.
Orestes I judge you victor: you advise me well. Come, this way! I mean to kill you by his very side. For while he lived, you thought him better than my father. Sleep with him in death, since you love him but hate the man you were bound to love.
Clytaemestra It was I who nourished you, and with you I would grow old.
Orestes What! Murder my father and then make your home with me?
Clytaemestra Fate, my child, must share the blame for this.
Orestes And fate now brings this destiny to pass.
Clytaemestra Have you no regard for a parent’s curse, my son?
Orestes You brought me to birth and yet you cast me out to misery.
Clytaemestra No, surely I did not cast you out in sending you to the house of an ally.
Orestes I was sold in disgrace, though I was born of a free father.
Clytaemestra Then where is the price I got for you?
Orestes I am ashamed to reproach you with that outright.
Clytaemestra But do not fail to proclaim the follies of that father of yours as well.
Orestes Do not accuse him who suffered while you sat idle at home.
Clytaemestra It is a grief for women to be deprived of a husband, my child.
Orestes Yes, but it is the husband’s toil that supports them while they sit at home.
Clytaemestra You seem resolved, my child, to kill your mother.
Orestes You will kill yourself, not I.
Clytaemestra Take care: beware the hounds of wrath that avenge a mother.
Orestes And how shall I escape my father’s if I leave this undone?
Clytaemestra I see that though living I mourn in vain before a tomb.
Orestes Yes, for my father’s fate has marked out this destiny for you.
Clytaemestra Oh no! I myself bore and nourished this serpent!
Orestes Yes, the terror from your dream was indeed a prophet. You killed him whom you should not; so suffer what should not be.
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