Hermione's silence has alarmed her confidante Cleone, who fears the passions it conceals. Upon hearing the news of Pyrrhus' change of heart, Hermione has asked for Orestes, and now he appears. She demands to know if he loves her; if so, she will leave Epirus with him, but on one condition: that she does not depart scorned and unavenged. Orestes must kill Pyrrhus.
Orestes is horrified. He detests Pyrrhus, and is prepared to urge Greece to make war on him, but not to assassinate him. Such an act, while Orestes is ambassador at the court of Epirus, would be treachery; moreover, the divinity which hedges a king makes Pyrrhus' life sacred.
Hermione scorns his protests. Is it not enough, she asks, that Hermione condemns Pyrrhus? Does Orestes not realize that as long as Pyrrhus lives, Hermione, though she hates him now, may come to love him once more? Shaken, Orestes consents, but how, he asks, is he to carry out this crime? May he not have until nightfall to plan it? Hermione refuses: Pyrrhus must die before his marriage with Andromache is consummated--now, within the hour, at the temple where he is about to wed her. If Orestes does not agree, she will go personally to the temple and kill, first, Pyrrhus and then herself.
Orestes prefers to kill Pyrrhus himself and goes to carry out his task. Cleone protests that Hermione is destroying herself, but she is deaf to everything except her jealousy and her desire for revenge.
