Stasimon 2
[Episode]
Guard them, attendants, without chains. Perhaps I will send unexpected news to one of my friends,
Iphigenia
whom I especially love, in Argos; and the tablet, in telling him that those whom he thought dead are alive, will report a joy that can be believed. Exit Iphigenia.
640
Chorus
(to Orestes.) I raise a lament for you; the drops from the holy water,
mingled with blood, will soon take you into their care.
645
Orestes
This is not a case for pity, but farewell, strangers.
Chorus
(to Pylades.) We honor you, young man, for your happy fate, because you will tread on your native land some day.
Pylades
An unenviable fate indeed for a friend, when his friend is to die.
650
Ah, ah! You are destroyed! Alas, alas! Which is better?
For still my mind disputes a double argument, shall I mourn for you or rather for you.
655
Orestes
By the gods, Pylades, do you feel the same thing I do?
Pylades
I do not know; I have no reply to your question.
Orestes
Who is the girl? How like a Hellene she questioned me about the labors in Ilium and the return of the Achaeans, and Calchas, wise in omens, and Achilles’ name; and how she pitied the wretched Agamemnon, and asked me about
660
his wife and children! This stranger is an Argive by race, and from that land; or she would not be sending the tablet and examining these things, as if she had some share in Argos’ prosperity.
665
Pylades
You are not much ahead of me: I was about to say the same things you said,
except this: all who move about in the world know what happens to kings. But I have arrived at another consideration.
670
Orestes
What is it? Share it with me so that you may know better.
Pylades
It is shameful for me to live when you are dead;
I sailed together with you, and I ought to die together with you. For I will seem a coward and base in Argos and Phocis of the many mountain folds. Most will think—for most people are base—that I betrayed you and saved myself to come home alone,
675
or I plotted your death, in the afflictions of your house, for the sake of your kingdom, since I married your sister and heiress. I fear these things and I am ashamed; and I must breathe my last with you,
680
be slaughtered with you and consumed on the pyre; because I am your friend and I fear reproach.
685
Orestes
Hush! I must bear my own ills, and when the grief is single, I will not bear it double. What you call vile and infamous,
would be mine, if I cause you, who have toiled with me, to die; for it is not a hardship for me, suffering as I do at the hands of the gods, to give up my life. But you are prosperous, and you have a house that is pure, not afflicted, while mine is impious and unfortunate.
690
If you are saved and get sons from my sister, whom I gave to you for wife, my name would remain and the whole house of my father would not be wiped out in childlessness. But go, and live, and dwell in my father’s house.
695
And when you come to Hellas and to Argos of the horses, I charge you, by this right hand: heap up a tomb and build a memorial for me, and let my sister give her hair and tears to the tomb. Report that I died at the hand of an Argive
700
woman, at an altar, purified for death. Do not ever betray my sister, when you see how lonely is my father’s house that you have joined by marriage. And now farewell; I have found you the dearest of my friends, you who have hunted with me, grown up with me,
705
and borne with me many miseries. Phoebus, though a prophet, has deceived me; creating his plot, he drove me far away from Hellas, ashamed of his earlier prophecies. I gave him my all and trusted in his words,
710
killed my mother, and myself perish in turn.
715
Pylades
You will have a tomb, and I will never betray your sister’s bed, unhappy youth, since I will hold you dearer when dead than when alive. But the prophecy of the god has not destroyed you yet;
although you stand near to slaughter. Great misfortune can offer great reversals, when it is fated; it can indeed.
720
