Electra
Old man, your words are unworthy of a wise man,
[525]
if you think my own brave brother would come to this land secretly for fear of Aegisthus. Then, how will a lock of hair correspond, the one made to grow in the wrestling schools of a well-bred man, the other, a woman's lock, by combing? No, it is impossible.
[530]
But you could find in many people hair very similar, although they are not of the same blood, old man.
Old man
Then stand in the footprint and see if the tread of the boot will measure with your own foot, child.
Electra
How could there be an imprint of feet on a stony plot of ground?
[535]
And if there is, the foot of brother and sister would not be the same in size, for the male conquers.
Old man
There is not, even if your brother, coming to this land . . . by which you might know your loom's weaving,
[540]
in which I once stole him away from death?
Electra
Don't you know that I was still young when Orestes was driven out of the land? And even if I had woven him a robe, how could he, a child then, have the same one now, unless his clothes grew together with his body?
[545]
But either a stranger, taking pity on his grave. . .
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Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 2. Electra, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938.
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