Orestes.
Who is the maiden? With how Greek a heart660
She asked us of the toils in Ilium,
The host's home-coming, Kalchas the wise seer
Of birds, Achilles' name! How pitied she
Agamemnon's wretched fate, and questioned me
Touching his wife, his children! Sure, her birth665
Is thence, of Argos; else she ne'er would send
A letter thither, nor would question thus,
As one whose welfare hung on Argos' weal.
Pylades.
Mine own thought but a little thou forestallest,
Save this—that the calamities of kings670
All know, who have had converse with the world.
But my mind runneth on another theme.[1]
Orestes.
What? Share it, and thou better shalt conclude.
Pylades.
'Twere base that I live on, when thou art dead:
With thee I voyaged, and with thee should die.675
A coward's and a knave's name shall I earn
In Argos and in Phocis' thousand glens.
Most men will think—seeing most men be knaves—
That I forsook thee, escaping home alone,—
Yea, slew thee, mid the afflictions of thine house680
Devising, for thy throne's sake, doom for thee,
As being to thine heiress sister wed.
- ↑ Or (διῆλθε), "But of another matter, too, she spake."
