Orestes (lowering his sword).
Pylades!
What can I? Dare I let my mother live?
Pylades.
Where is God's voice from out the golden cloud
At Pytho? Where the plighted troth we vowed?
Count all the world thy foe, save God on high.
Orestes.
I will obey. Thou counsellest righteously.—
Follow! Upon his breast thou shalt expire
Whom, living, thou didst hold above my sire.
Go, lie in his dead arms! . . . This was the thing
Thou lovedst, loathing thine anointed King.
Clytemnestra.
I nursed thee. I would fain grow old with thee.
Orestes.
Shall one who slew my father house with me?
Clytemnestra.
Child, if I sinned, Fate had her part therein.
Orestes.
Then Fate is here, with the reward of sin.
Clytemnestra.
Thou reck'st not of a Mother's Curse, my child?
Orestes.
Not hers who cast me out into the wild.
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