Orestes.
I would pray him to deliver.
Pylades.
Yea, 'twere just it should be so.
Orestes.
But my mother's tomb, I would not see it—
Pylades.
For she was a foe.
Haste then, lest the Argive vote have doomed thee ere thou reach the place,
Yielding up thy frame with sickness wasted unto mine embrace.800
Through the streets unshamed, and taking of the rabble little heed,
I will bear thee onward. Wherein shall I show me friend indeed,
If mine helpfulness in terrible affliction be not shown?
Orestes.
Herein true is that old saying—"Get thee friends, not kin alone."
He whose soul is knit with thine, although he be not of thy kin,805
Better than a thousand kinsfolk this is for thy friend to win.
Chorus.
The stately fortune, the prowess exceeding,
Whose high vaunts rang through the land of Greece,
