Robert Fagles - The Libation Bearers (Lines 226-268) lyrics

ORESTES: I am! Open your eyes. So slow to learn. You saw the lock of hair I cut in mourning. You scanned my tracks, you could see my marks, your breath leapt, you all but saw me in the flesh - Look- (Holding the lock to his temple, then to ELECTRA'S.) put it where I cut it. It's your brother's. Try, it matches yours. (Removing a strip of weaving from his clothing.) Work of your own hand, you tamped the loom, look, there are wild creatures in the weaving. (She kneels beside him, weeping; he lifts her to her feet and they embrace.) No, no, control yourself- don't lose yourself in joy! Our loved ones, well I know, would slit our throats. LEADER: Dearest, the darling of your father's house, hope of the seed we nursed with tears - you save us. Trust to your power, win your father's house once more! ELECTRA: You light to my eyes, four loves in one! I have to call you father, it is fate; and I turn to you the love I gave my mother – I despise her, she deserves it, yes, and the love I gave my sister, sacrificed on the cruel sword, I turn to you. You were my faith, my brother – you alone restore my self-respect. (Praying.) Power and Justice, Saving Zeus, Third Zeus, almighty all in all, be with us now. ORESTES: Zeus, Zeus, watch over all we do, fledglings reft of the noble eagle father. He died in the coils, the viper's dark embrace. We are his orphans worn down with hunger, weak, too young to haul the father's quarry home to shelter. Look down on us! I and Electra, too, I tell you, children robbed of our father, both of us bound in exile from our house. And what a father – a priest at sacrifice, he showered you with honours. Put an end to his nestlings now and who will serve you banquets rich as his? Destroy the eagle's brood, you can never send a sign that wins all men's belief. Rot the stock of a proud dynastic tree - it can never shore your altar steaming with the oxen in the mornings. Tend us – we seem in ruins now, I know. Up from nothing rear a house to greatness.