Part 2 (1/2)

PRIEST.

Are the friends of the dead so bitter against you?

ORESTES.

The friends of the dead are dead, and my friends are dead. I have none to fear; but I have been wronged, my house taken from me, and my father's wealth, and the woman that was vowed me to wife. No more, old man! I am an exile, and I live in happier lands than mine own.

PRIEST.

Is it in Phthia you seek for a happy land? No matter; affliction comes to the good as to the evil.

ORESTES.

Why, what ails your city, if a stranger may know?

PRIEST.

See you that shrine, and the footprint of Thetis in the rock? Once it was all covered with offerings!

ORESTES.

It is not so well loaded, nor yet so ill. Is there no worse than that?

PRIEST.

Worse? Barren fields and a barren queen, and hatred in the house of Achilles!

ORESTES.

Is it some sin the King has done?

PRIEST.

The King and a woman.

ORESTES.

[_Starting._] Has _that_ sin met its punishment? Speak plainly, Priest.

PRIEST.

Long years ago, Pyrrhus brought back from Troy a slave woman to share his bed.

ORESTES.

[_As though rea.s.sured._] Hector's wife, Andromache, men say.

PRIEST.

The wife of his father's bitterest enemy! Ay, and she was his enemy too, and loathed her life with Pyrrhus.