Ho, loose the portals! Ye within! What ho!
Open, and tell our master one doth stand
Without here, with strange evil in his hand.
[enter THAOS from the temple.]
THOAS.
Who dares before this portal consecrate
Make uproar and lewd battering of the gate?
Thy noise hath broke the Altar's ancient peace.
MESSENGER.
Ye Gods! They swore to me—and bade me cease
My search—the King was gone. And all the while …!
THOAS.
These women? How? What sought they by such guile?
MESSENGER.
Of them hereafter!—Give me first thine ear
For greater things. The virgin minister
That served our altar, she hath fled from this
And stolen the dread Shape of Artemis,
With those two Greeks. The cleansing was a lie.
THOAS.
She fled?—What wild hope whispered her to fly?
MESSENGER.
The hope to save Orestes. Wonder on!
THOAS.
Orestes—how? Not Clytemnestra's son?
MESSENGER.
And our pledged altar-offering. 'Tis the same.