No More Learning

ELECTRA.

What charge laid he on thee? Speak.

ORESTES.

To learn if thou still live, and how the storm,
Living, hath struck thee.

ELECTRA.

That thou seest; this form
Wasted. . .

ORESTES.

Yea, riven with the fire of woe.
I sigh to look on thee.

ELECTRA.

My face; and, lo,
My temples of their ancient glory shorn.

ORESTES.
Methinks thy brother haunts thee, being forlorn;
Aye, and perchance thy father, whom they slew. . .

ELECTRA.

What should be nearer to me than those two?

ORESTES.

And what to him, thy brother, half so dear
As thou?

ELECTRA.
His is a distant love, not near
At need.

ORESTES.

But why this dwelling place, this life
Of loneliness?

ELECTRA (_with sudden bitterness_).

Stranger, I am a wife. . . .