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Orestes
By the gods, Pylades, do you feel the same thing I do?
By the gods, Pylades, do you feel the same thing I do?
Pylades
I do not know; I have no reply to your question.
I do not know; I have no reply to your question.
Orestes
Who 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
660
Who 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
660
Pylades
You 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.
670
You 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.
670
Orestes
What is it? Share it with me so that you may know better.
What is it? Share it with me so that you may know better.
Pylades
It 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,
675
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,
680
be slaughtered with you and consumed on the pyre; because I am your friend and I fear reproach.
685
It 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,
675
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,
680
be slaughtered with you and consumed on the pyre; because I am your friend and I fear reproach.
685
Iphigenia in Tauris. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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