For these things, then, I take both shame and fear:
It cannot be but I must die with thee,
With thee be slaughtered and with thee be burned,685
Seeing I am thy friend, and dread reproach.
Orestes.
Ah, speak not so! My burden must I bear;
Nor, when but one grief needs, will I bear twain.
For that reproach and grief which thou dost name
Is mine, if thee, the sharer of my toil,690
I slay. For my lot is not evil all,—
Being thus tormented by the Gods,—to die.
But thou art prosperous: taintless are thine halls,
Unstricken; mine accurst and fortune-crost.
If thou be saved, and get thee sons of her,695
My sister, whom I gave thee to thy wife,
Then should my name live, nor my father's house
Ever, for lack of heirs, be blotted out.
Pass hence, and live: dwell in my father's halls.
And when to Greece and Argos' war-steed land700
Thou com'st,—by this right hand do I charge thee—
Heap me a tomb: memorials lay of me
There; tears and shorn hair let my sister give.
And tell how by an Argive woman's hand
I died, by altar death-dews consecrate.705
Never forsake my sister, though thou see
Thy marriage-kin, my sire's house, desolate.
Farewell. Of friends I have found thee kindliest,
O fellow-hunter, foster-brother mine,
Bearer of many a burden of mine ills!710
Me Phœbus, prophet though he be, deceived,
And by a cunning shift from Argos drave
Afar, for shame of those his prophecies.
