Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu/196

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190
APPENDIX.
To sweet endearing fondness. Lead me then,
Instantly lead me to my house, consign
My wretched age to darkness, there to pine
And waste away.
Old age,
Struggling with many griefs, O how I hate thee!”

But to return to Iphigenia,—how infinitely melting is her appeal to Orestes, whom she holds in her robe.

“ My brother, small assistance canst thou give
Thy friends; yet for thy sister with thy tears
Implore thy father that she may not die:
Even infants have a sense of ills; and see,
My father! silent though he be, he sues
To thee: be gentle to me; on my life
Have pity: thy two children by this beard
Entreat thee, thy dear children: one is yet
An infant, one to riper years arrived.”

The mention of Orestes, then an infant, all through, though slight, is of a domestic charm that prepares the mind to feel the tragedy of his after lot. When the Queen says

“Dost thou sleep,
My son? The rolling chariot hath subdued thee;
Wake to thy sister's marriage happily.”

We understand the horror of the doom which makes this cherished child a parricide. And so when Iphigenia takes leave of him after her fate is by herself accepted.

Iphi.  “To manhood train Orestes,
Cly. Embrace him, for thou ne'er shall see him more.
Iphi. (To Orestes.) Far as thou couldst, thou didst assist thy friends.”

We know not how to blame the guilt of the maddened wife and mother. In her last meeting with

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