The spring is from yon cot. I at the dawn
Will drive my team afield and sow the glebe.
None idle—though his lips aye prate of Gods— 80
Can gather without toil a livelihood.
Enter Orestes and Pylades.
Orestes.
Pylades, foremost thee of men I count
In loyalty, love, and friendship unto me.
Sole of Orestes' friends, thou honouredst me
In this my plight, wronged foully by Aegisthus, 85
Who, with my utter-baneful mother, slew
My sire. At Phœbus' oracle-hest[1] I come
To Argos' soil, none privy thereunto,
To pay my father's murderers murder-wage.
This night o'erpast to my sire's tomb I went; 90
There tears I gave and offerings of shorn hair,
And a slain sheep's blood poured upon the grave,
Unmarked of despot-rulers of this land.
And now I set not foot within their walls,
But blending two assays in one I come 95
To this land's border,—that to another soil
Forth I may flee, if any watch and know me;
To seek withal my sister,—for she dwells
In wedlock yoked, men say, nor bides a maid,—
To meet her, for the vengeance win her help, 100
And that which passeth in the city learn.
Now—for the Dawn uplifteth her bright eyne—
Step we a little from this path aside.
- ↑ χρηστηρίων (Barnes). Others read μυστηρίων, "From Phœbus' mystic shrine."
