PYL.  Thou hast outstripped me a little, but thou outstrippest me in saying the same things, save in one respect—­for all, with whom there is any communication, know the fate of the king.  But I was[90] considering another subject.

OR.  What? laying it down in common, you will better understand.

PYL.  ’Tis base that I should behold the light, while you perish; and, having sailed with you, with you I must needs die also.  For I shall incur the imputation of both cowardice and baseness in Argos and the Phocian land with its many dells, and I shall seem to the many, for the many are evil, to have arrived alone in safety to mine home, having deserted thee, or even to have murdered thee, taking advantage of the sickly state of thine house, and to have devised thy fate for the sake of reigning, in order that, forsooth, I might wed thy sister as an heiress[91].  These things, then, I dread, and hold in shame, and it shall not be but I will breathe my last with thee, be slain, and have my body burned with thee, being a friend, and dreading reproach.

OR.  Speak words of better omen.  I must needs bear my troubles, but when I may [endure] one single trouble, I will not endure twain.  For what thou callest bitter and reproachful, that is my portion, if I cause thee to be slain who hast shared my toils.  For, as far as I am concerned, it stands not badly with me, faring as I fare at the hands of the Gods, to end my life.  But thou art prosperous, and hast a home pure, not sickening, but I [have] one impious and unhappy.  And living thou mayest raise children from my sister, whom I gave thee to have[92] as a wife, and my name might exist, nor would my ancestral house be ever blotted out.  But go, live, and dwell in my father’s house; and when thou comest to Greece and chivalrous Argos, by thy right hand, I commit to thee this charge.  Heap up a tomb, and place upon it remembrances of me, and let my sister offer tears and her shorn locks upon my sepulchre.  And tell how I died by an Argive woman’s hand, sacrificed as an offering by the altar’s side.  And do thou never desert my sister, seeing my father’s connections and home bereaved.  And fare thee well! for I have found thee best among my friends.  Oh thou who hast been my fellow-huntsman, my mate!  Oh thou who hast borne the weight of many of my sorrows!  But Phoebus, prophet though he be, has deceived me.  For, artfully devising, he has driven me as far as possible from Greece, in shame of his former prophecies.  To whom I, yielding up mine all, and obeying his words, having slain my mother, myself perish in turn.

PYL.  Thou shalt have a tomb, and never will I, hapless one, betray thy sister’s bed, since I shall hold thee more a friend dead than living.  But the oracle of the God has never yet wronged thee, although thou art indeed on the very verge of death.  But excessive mischance is very wont, is very wont to present changes, when the matter so falls.