house, and from its capital it seemed to stream down yellow locks, and to receive a human voice, and I, cherishing this man-slaying office which I hold, weeping [began] to besprinkle it, as though about to be slain.  But I thus interpret my dream.  Orestes is dead, whose rites I was beginning.  For male children are the pillars of the house, and those whom my lustral waters[13] sprinkle die.  Nor yet can I connect the dream with my friends, for Strophius had no son, when I was to have died.  Now, therefore, I being present, will to my absent brother offer the rites of the dead—­for this I can do—­in company with the attendants whom the king gave to me, Grecian women.  But from some cause they are not yet present.  I will go[14] within the home wherein I dwell, these shrines of the Goddess.

ORESTES.  Look out!  Watch, lest there be any mortal in the way.

PYLADES.  I am looking out, and keeping watch, turning my eyes every where.

OR.  Pylades, does it seem to you that this is the temple of the Goddess, whither we have directed our ship through the seas from Argos?[15]

PYL.  It does, Orestes, and must seem the same to thee.

OR.  And the altar where Grecian blood is shed?

PYL.  At least it has its pinnacles tawny with blood.

OR.  And under the pinnacles themselves do you behold the spoils?

PYL.  The spoils, forsooth, of slain strangers.

OR.  But it behooves one, turning one’s eye around, to keep a careful watch.  O Phoebus, wherefore hast thou again led me into this snare by your prophecies, when I had avenged the blood of my father by slaying my mother?  But by successive[16] attacks of the Furies was I driven an exile, an outcast from the land, and fulfilled many diverse bending courses.  But coming [to thy oracle] I required of thee how I might arrive at an end of the madness that drove me on, and of my toils [which I had labored through, wandering over Greece.[17]] But thou didst answer that I must come to the confines of the Tauric territory, where thy sister Diana possesses altars, and must take the image of the Goddess, which they here say fell from heaven[18] into these shrines; and that taking it either by stratagem or by some stroke of fortune, having gone through the risk, I should give it to the land of the Athenians—­but no further directions were given—­and that having done this, I should have a respite from my toils.[19] But I am come hither, persuaded by thy words, to an unknown and inhospitable land.  I ask you, then, Pylades, for you are a sharer with me in this toil, what shall we do?  For thou beholdest the lofty battlements of the walls.  Shall we proceed to the scaling of the walls?  How then should we escape notice[20] [if we did so?] Or shall we open the brass-wrought fastenings of the bolts? of which things we know nothing.[21] But if we are caught opening the gates and contriving an entrance, we shall die.  But before we die, let us flee to the temple, whither we lately sailed.