(to Orestes.) I raise a lament for you; the drops from the holy water, mingled with blood, will soon take you into their care.OrestesThis is not a case for pity, but farewell, strangers.
Chorus(to Pylades.)We honor you, young man, for your happy fate, because you will tread on your native land some day.PyladesAn unenviable fate indeed for a friend, when his friend is to die.
ChorusO cruel mission!Ah, ah! You are destroyed! Alas, alas! Which is better?For still my mind disputes a double argument, shall I mourn for you or rather for you.OrestesBy the gods, Pylades, do you feel the same thing I do?PyladesI do not know; I have no reply to your question.OrestesWho is the girl? How like a Hellene she questioned me about the labors in Ilium and the return of the Achaeans, and Calchas, wise in omens, and Achilles’ name; and how she pitied the wretched Agamemnon, and asked me about his wife and children! This stranger is an Argive by race, and from that land; or she would not be sending the tablet and examining these things, as if she had some share in Argos’ prosperity.PyladesYou are not much ahead of me: I was about to say the same things you said, except this: all who move about in the world know what happens to kings. But I have arrived at another consideration.OrestesWhat is it? Share it with me so that you may know better.PyladesIt is shameful for me to live when you are dead; I sailed together with you, and I ought to die together with you. For I will seem a coward and base in Argos and Phocis of the many mountain folds. Most will think—for most people are base—that I betrayed you and saved myself to come home alone, or I plotted your death, in the afflictions of your house, for the sake of your kingdom, since I married your sister and heiress. I fear these things and I am ashamed; and I must breathe my last with you, be slaughtered with you and consumed on the pyre; because I am your friend and I fear reproach.OrestesHush! I must bear my own ills, and when the grief is single, I will not bear it double. What you call vile and infamous,