THE MYCENAEAN SAGA 427
ORESTES: Of whom are you afraid? Whom do you not recognize?
AEGISTHUS: Into the trap of what men have I fallen? Poor me!
ORESTES: Haven't you been aware that you who are alive have been con-
versing face to face with the dead?
AEGISTHUS: I understand your meaning. It cannot be otherwise; this must be
Orestes who is speaking to me.
ORESTES: You the best of prophets and yet fooled for so long?
AEGISTHUS: Wretched me, I am done for! Yet let me say a word.
ELECTRA: Don't let him say more, brother; don't prolong all this talk, by the
gods. When mortals are enmeshed in evil, what advantage is there in delay for
the one who is about die? Kill him as quickly as possible, and when he is dead
throw his body to scavengers for the burial he deserves, far from our sight, since
for me this would be the only deliverance from evil.
ORESTES: Go inside. Be quick about it. For now the contest is no longer of
words but about your life.
AEGISTHUS: Why do you force me into the palace? If your action is good,
how come you need the dark and are not ready to kill me out here?
ORESTES: Don't give orders to me. Go inside where you killed my father so
that you may die in the same place.
AEGISTHUS: Is it really necessary that this house witness future as well as the
present evils that have fallen upon the family of Pelops?
ORESTES: It will witness yours, for sure. I am your unerring prophet in this.
AEGISTHUS: You boast about a skill that you did not inherit from your fa-
ther.
ORESTES: Your replies are too long and our short journey is delayed. Now go.
AEGISTHUS: Lead on.
ORESTES: You must go first.
AEGISTHUS: So that I may not escape you?
ORESTES: No, so that you may not die where it pleases you. I must see to it
that this is bitter for you. This swift justice should be meted out to all who de-
sire to act outside of the laws—death, for then there would not be so much crime.
CHORUS: O family of Atreus, how much you have suffered to reach freedom
amid such adversity, freedom crowned by this present act of daring.Apollo's will has been accomplished and the justice of Zeus has been ful-
filled. There are no Furies to pursue a guilty Orestes in this masterpiece that ex-
plores so profoundly the heart and the soul of a frightening, pitiable, and tragic
Electra.
EURIPIDES' ELECTRA
By clever manipulation of the plot to create a different emphasis in the inter-
pretation of the characters and their motives, Euripides seriously questions re-
ligious and philosophical beliefs about right and wrong action and the nature
of justice. The setting for his play is the hut of a peasant, who is the husband of
Electra. This peasant provides a prologue that gives the essential background