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.

ORESTES.

They all struggle, these women captives. But what harm came of it?

PRIEST.

She is a foe to the land and to Thetis!

ORESTES.

But has he not cast her off? [_With constraint._] Men say he has wedded a new Queen, the daughter of Helen.

PRIEST.

Oh, the Trojan has not dwelt in the King's house these ten years back.

She begged him for a hut in the mountain, and he gave it her.

ORESTES.

She begged to be sent away! How was that?

PRIEST.

Why should a woman wish to live in secret, and not be seen? [_Slight pause._] There be wise women among the barbarians.

ORESTES.

Wise in bad drugs and magic; I know no other wisdom in them.

PRIEST.

You have said it! There is a prophet here who knows of counter-charms--I gave him three ewes for this that I wear--[_showing a charm made of wolves' teeth_]--else I durst not face her!

ORESTES.

Whom has she chiefly hurt?

PRIEST.

Men say she has waked the dead Hector to come to her across the seas!

[_He shudders._] But for the King, we should have judged her long ago.

ORESTES.

Does the new Queen hate her?

PRIEST.