Orestes. 

Am I foredoom’d to action and to life,
Would that a god from my distemper’d brain
Might chase this dizzy fever, which impels
My restless steps along a slipp’ry path,
Stain’d with a mother’s blood, to direful death;
And pitying, dry the fountain, whence the blood,
For ever spouting from a mother’s wounds,
Eternally defiles me!

Pylades. 
Wait in peace! 
Thou dost increase the evil, and dost take
The office of the Furies on thyself. 
Let me contrive,—­be still!  And when at length
The time for action claims our powers combin’d,
Then will I summon thee, and on we’ll stride,
With cautious boldness to achieve the event.

Orestes. 
I hear Ulysses speak!

Pylades. 
Nay, mock me not. 
Each must select the hero after whom
To climb the steep and difficult ascent
Of high Olympus.  And to me it seems
That him nor stratagem nor art defile
Who consecrates himself to noble deeds.

Orestes. 
I most esteem the brave and upright man.

                  Pylades. 

And therefore have I not desir’d thy counsel. 
One step is ta’en already:  from our guards
I have extorted this intelligence. 
A strange and godlike woman now restrains
The execution of that bloody law: 
Incense, and prayer, and an unsullied heart,
These are the gifts she offers to the gods. 
Her fame is widely spread, and it is thought
That from the race of Amazon she springs,
And hither fled some great calamity.

                  Orestes. 

Her gentle sway, it seems, lost all its power
At the approach of one so criminal,
Whom the dire curse enshrouds in gloomy night. 
Our doom to seal, the pious thirst for blood
Again unchains the ancient cruel rite: 
The monarch’s savage will decrees our death;
A woman cannot save when he condemns.

                  Pylades. 

That ’tis a woman is a ground for hope! 
A man, the very best, with cruelty
At length may so familiarize his mind,
His character through custom so transform,
That he shall come to make himself a law
Of what at first his very soul abhorr’d. 
But woman doth retain the stamp of mind
She first assum’d.  On her we may depend
In good or evil with more certainty. 
She comes; leave us alone.  I dare not tell
At once our names, nor unreserv’d confide
Our fortunes to her.  Now retire awhile,
And ere she speaks with thee we’ll meet again.

SceneII.

Iphigenia.  Pylades.

Iphigenia. 
Whence art thou?  Stranger, speak!  To me thy bearing
Stamps thee of Grecian, not of Scythian race.
(She unbinds his chains.)
The freedom that I give is dangerous: 
The gods avert the doom that threatens you!