Peasant: Surely then he remembers something of your father’s wrongs and your own?
Electra: These are things to hope for; a man in exile is powerless.
Peasant: What message from Orestes have they come to declare?
Electra: He sent them as spies of my wrongs.
Peasant: Then they see a part of it, and perhaps you are telling them the rest.
Electra: They know; they have all these things in abundance.
Peasant: Then shouldn’t you have opened the doors to them long before? Go into the house; for in return for your good tidings, you shall find as much hospitality as my house holds in store. Servants, take their baggage within the house. Do not contradict me, since you are friends coming from a friend; for, even if I am poor, I will not display manners that are ill-bred.
Orestes: By the gods! Is this the man who makes a fraud of your marriage, because he does not want to shame Orestes?
Electra: This is the one who is called my husband, unhappy as I am.
The quote: Orestes: Ah! There is no exact way to test a man’s worth; for human nature has confusion in it. For instance, I have seen before now the son of a noble father worth nothing, and good children from evil parents; famine in a rich man’s spirit, and a mighty soul in a poor man’s body.
Orestes: How then does one rightly distinguish and judge these things? By wealth? A sorry test to use. Or by those who have nothing? But poverty has a disease, it teaches a man to be wicked in his need. But shall I turn to warfare? Who, facing the enemy’s spear, could be a witness as to who is brave? It is best to leave these matters alone, at random. For this man, neither important in Argos, nor puffed up by the good reputation of his family, but one of the many, has been found to be the best.
