Part 9 (2/2)

PYRRHUS.

You are mad, woman. Orestes had murdered his mother, and the Spirits without Name haunted him day and night----

HERMIONE.

My father knew that when he betrothed me. He could be purified.

PYRRHUS.

[_Scornfully._] Purified? For slaying his mother?

HERMIONE.

And you, you dared not enter the land while Agamemnon's son was there; you waited till----

PYRRHUS.

'Twas your father cozened Orestes away. How should I fear Agamemnon's son? Am I not the son of Achilles?

HERMIONE.

And was Achilles a better man than Agamemnon?

PYRRHUS.

All the world knows he was.

HERMIONE.

Then why did all the world choose Agamemnon to be their king?

PYRRHUS.

Bah! Very feeble men may be kings.

HERMIONE.

They may, in Phthia; and beggarly men, and savage, and witch-ridden, and makers of atonement, and stealers of wives!

PYRRHUS.

By Peleus! if I stole you, you were willing. 'Tis yourself you mark with a dog's name, Helen's daughter!

HERMIONE.

G.o.d be witness, willing I never was! Though I dreamed not then that I should come to a beggared land and the house of a master who hated me!

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