IPH.  O noblest spirit, how art thou sprung from some generous root, thou truly a friend to thy friends!  Such might he be who is left of my brothers!  For in good truth, strangers, I am not brotherless, save that I behold him not.  But since thou willest thus, let us send this man bearing the letter, but thou wilt die, and some great desire of this chances to possess thee?[79]

OR.  But who will sacrifice me, and dare this dreadful deed?

IPH.  I; for I have this sacrificial duty[80] from the Goddess.

OR.  Unenviable indeed.  O damsel, and unblest.

IPH.  But we lie under necessity, which one must beware.

OR.  Thyself, a female, sacrificing males with the sword?

IPH.  Not so; but I shall lave around thy head with the lustral stream.

OR.  But who is the slayer, if I may ask this?

IPH.  Within the house are they whose office is this.

OR.  And what manner of tomb will receive me, when I die?

IPH.  The holy flame within, and the dark chasm of the rock.[81]

OR.  Alas!  Would that a sister’s hand might lay me out.[82]

IPH.  A vain prayer hast thou uttered, whoever thou art, O stranger, for she dwells far from this barbarian land.  Nevertheless, since thou art an Argive, I will not fail to do thee kindness in what is possible.  For on thy tomb will I place much adornment, and with the tawny oil will I cause thy body to be soon consumed,[83] and on thy pyre will I pour the flower-sucked riches of the swarthy bee.  But I will go and fetch the letter from the shrines of the Goddess.  But do thou not bear ill will against me.  Guard them, ye servants, [but] without fetters.[84] Perchance I shall send unexpected tidings to some one of my friends at Argos, whom I chiefly love, and the letter, telling to him that she lives whom he thinks dead, will announce a faithful pleasure.

CHOR.  I deplore thee now destined to the gory streams of the lustral waters.[85]

OR.  ’Tis piteous, truly;[86] but fare ye well, stranger ladies.

CHOR.  But thee, (to Pylades) O youth, we honor for thy happy fortune, that at some time thou wilt return to thy country.

PYL.  Not to be coveted[87] by friends, when friends are to die.

CHOR.  O mournful journeying!  Alas! alas! thou art undone.  Woe! woe! which is the [victim] to be?  For still my mind resolves[88] twain doubtful [ills,] whether with groans I shall bemoan thee (to Orestes) or thee (to Pylades) first.

OR.  Pylades, hast thou, by the Gods, experienced the same feeling as myself?

PYL.  I know not.  Thou askest me unable to say.

OR.  Who is this damsel?  With what a Grecian spirit she asked us concerning the toils in Troy, and the return of the Greeks, and Calchas wise in augury, and about Achilles, and how she pitied wretched Agamemnon, and asked me of his wife and children.  This stranger lady is[89] some Greek by race; for otherwise she never would have been sending a letter and making these inquiries, as sharing a common weal in the well-doing of Argos.