Orestes. 
Would I had seiz’d the border of his robe. 
And follow’d him!

Pylades. 
They kindly car’d for me
Who here detain’d thee; for if thou hadst died
I know not what had then become of me;
Since I with thee, and for thy sake alone,
Have from my childhood liv’d, and wish to live.

                  Orestes. 

Do not remind me of those tranquil days,
When me thy home a safe asylum gave;
With fond solicitude thy noble sire
The half-nipp’d, tender flow’ret gently rear’d;
While thou, a friend and playmate always gay,
Like to a light and brilliant butterfly
Around a dusky flower, didst around me
Still with new life thy merry gambols play,
And breathe thy joyous spirit in my soul,
Until, my cares forgetting, I with thee
Was lur’d to snatch the eager joys of youth.

Pylades. 
My very life began when thee I lov’d.

                  Orestes. 

Say, then thy woes began, and thou speak’st truly. 
This is the sharpest sorrow of my lot,
That, like a plague-infected wretch, I bear
Death and destruction hid within my breast;
That, where I tread, e’en on the healthiest spot,
Ere long the blooming faces round betray
The writhing features of a ling’ring death.

                  Pylades. 

Were thy breath venom, I had been the first
To die that death, Orestes.  Am I not,
As ever, full of courage and of joy? 
And love and courage are the spirit’s wings
Wafting to noble actions.

Orestes. 
Noble actions? 
Time was, when fancy painted such before us! 
When oft, the game pursuing, on we roam’d
O’er hill and valley; hoping that ere long
With club and weapon arm’d, we so might track
The robber to his den, or monster huge. 
And then at twilight, by the glassy sea,
We peaceful sat, reclin’d against each other
The waves came dancing to our very feet. 
And all before us lay the wide, wide world. 
Then on a sudden one would seize his sword,
And future deeds shone round us like the stars,
Which gemm’d in countless throngs the vault of night.

                      Pylades. 
    Endless, my friend, the projects which the soul
    Burns to accomplish.  We would every deed
    At once perform as grandly as it shows
    After long ages, when from land to land
    The poet’s swelling song hath roll’d it on. 
    It sounds so lovely what our fathers did,
    When, in the silent evening shade reclin’d,
    We drink it in with music’s melting tones;
    And what we do is, as their deeds to them,
    Toilsome and incomplete! 
    Thus we pursue what always flies before;
    We disregard the path in which we tread,
    Scarce see around the footsteps