day.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Ah yes! I hear an outcry in the house amongst the servants,

confirming the news thou hast brought. Poor sufferer! she seems
about to show lively grief for her grave crimes; for she has escaped

her servants' hands and is rushing from the house, eager to end her
life.

(HERMIONE enters, in agitation. She is carrying
a sword which the NURSE wrests from her.)

HERMIONE (chanting)
Woe, woe is me! I will rend my hair and tear cruel furrows in my

cheeks.
NURSE

My child, what wilt thou do? Wilt thou disfigure thyself?
HERMIONE (chanting)

Ah me! ah me! Begone, thou fine-spun veil! float from my head
away!

NURSE
Daughter, cover up thy bosom, fasten thy robe.

HERMIONE (chanting)
Why should I cover it? My crimes against my lord are manifest

and clear, they cannot be hidden.
NURSE

Art so grieved at having devised thy rival's death?
HERMIONE (chanting)

Yea, I deeply mourn my fatal deeds of daring; alas! I am now
accursed in all men's eyes!

NURSE
Thy husband will pardon thee this error.

HERMIONE (chanting)
Oh! why didst thou hunt me to snatch away my sword? Give, oh! give

it back, dear nurse, that I may thrust it through my heart Why dost
thou prevent me hanging myself?

NURSE
What! was I to let thy madness lead thee on to death?

HERMIONE (chanting)
Ah me, my destiny! Where can I find some friendly fire? To what

rocky height can I climb above the sea or 'mid some wooded mountain
glen, there to die and trouble but the dead?

NURSE
Why vex thyself thus? on all of us sooner or later heaven's

visitation comes.
HERMIONE (chanting)

Thou hast left me, O my father, left me like a stranded bark,
all alone, without an oar. My lord will surely slay me; no home is

mine henceforth beneath my husband's roof. What god is there to
whose statue I can as a suppliant haste? or shall I throw myself in

slavish wise at slavish knees? Would I could speed away from
Phthia's land on bird's dark pinion, or like that pine-built ship, the

first that ever sailed betwixt the rocks Cyanean!
NURSE

My child, I can as little praise thy previous sinful excesses,
committed against the Trojan captive, as thy present exaggerated

terror. Thy husband will never listen to a barbarian's weak pleading
and reject his marriage with thee for this. For thou wast no captive

from Troy whom he wedded, but the daughter of a gallant sire, with a
rich dower, from a city too of no mean prosperity. Nor will thy father

forsake thee, as thou dreadest, and allow thee to be cast out from
this house. Nay, enter now, nor show thyself before the palace, lest

the sight of thee there bring reproach upon thee, my daughter.
(The NURSE departs as ORESTES and his attendants enter.)

LEADER
Lo! a stranger of foreign appearance from some other land comes

hurrying towards us.
ORESTES

Women of this foreign land! is this the home, the palace of
Achilles' son?

LEADER
Thou hast it; but who art thou to ask such a question?

ORESTES
The son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, by name Orestes, on ply way

to the oracle of Zeus at Dodona. But now that I am come to Phthia, I
am resolved to inquire about my kinswoman, Hermione of Sparta; is

she alive and well? for though she dwells in a land far from my own, I
love her none the less.

HERMIONE
Son of Agamemnon, thy appearing is as a haven from the storm to

sailors; by thy knees I pray, have pity on me in my distress, on me of
whose fortunes thou art inquiring. About thy knees I twine my arms

with all the force of sacred fillets.
ORESTES

Ha! what is this? Am I mistaken or do I really see before me the
queen of this palace, the daughter of Menelaus?

HERMIONE
The same, that only child whom Helen, daughter of Tyndareus,

bore my father in his halls; never doubt that.
ORESTES

O saviour Phoebus, grant us respite from our woe! But what is
the matter? art thou afflicted by gods or men?

HERMIONE
Partly by myself, partly by the man who wedded me, and partly by

some god. On every side I see ruin.
ORESTES

Why, what misfortune could happen to a woman as yet childless,
unless her honour is concerned?

HERMIONE
My very ill! Thou hast hit my case exactly.

ORESTES
On whom has thy husband set his affections in thy stead?

HERMIONE
On his captive, Hector's wife.

ORESTES
An evil case indeed, for a man to have two wives!

HERMIONE
'Tis even thus. So I resented it.

ORESTES
Didst thou with woman's craft devise a plot against thy rival?

HERMIONE
Yes, to slay her and her bastard child.

ORESTES
And didst thou slay them, or did something happen to rescue them

from thee?
HERMIONE

It was old Peleus, who showed regard to the weaker side.
ORESTES

Hadst thou any accomplice in this attempted murder?
HERMIONE

My father came from Sparta for this very purpose.
ORESTES

And was he after all defeated by that old man's prowess?
HERMIONE

Oh no! but by shame; and he hath gone and left me all alone.
ORESTES

I understand; thou art afraid of thy husband for what thou hast
done.

HERMIONE
Thou hast guessed it; for he will have a right to slay me. What

can say for myself? Yet I beseech thee by Zeus the god of our