These examples are by no means exhaustive, but it is high time that we turn to the passages which are of crucial importance to the three-actor theory. In Aeschylus’ _Libation-Bearers_ a servant has just informed Clytemnestra that her paramour is slain, and she cries out: “Let some one quickly give me an ax to slay a man withal” (vs. 889). We are to suppose that the slave at once makes his exit to comply with her command. She speaks two lines more and Orestes enters. They divide seven more lines between them, and Orestes’ purpose is beginning to waver when he catches sight of Pylades entering and asks: “Pylades, what shall I do? Shrink from killing my mother?” Pylades’ electrifying response has already been quoted (vss. 900-902; see p. 170, above). Here we have four speaking characters between vss. 886 and 900 and consequently four actors, unless the servant can be transformed into Pylades within the space of nine lines, vss. 891-99. This would be a “lightning” change indeed (4_a_), and it is not surprising that it has been challenged. Yet the ancient scholiast accepts it and I do not believe we are warranted in pronouncing it impossible, especially since the shift is merely from one male character to another. Another sort of difficulty is presented by Euripides’ _Andromache_. Menelaus, Andromache, and her son, Molossus, all have speaking (or singing) parts just before the entrance of Peleus at vs. 547. Since none of the earlier speakers has withdrawn and since Peleus at once begins to talk, it would seem at first glance that we had four actors indisputably before us. Not so, answer the defenders of the traditional view, for it is significant that Molossus becomes utterly dumb after Peleus enters. Therefore we are asked to believe that Molossus was played by a mute throughout, and the actor who is presently to appear as Peleus delivered from behind the scenes the words which belong to Molossus, the mute furnishing only the gestures. We have already found support for this kind of thing in a suspected scene of Aeschylus’ _Seven against Thebes_, principle (11), second alternative (pp. 175 f.). But we are asked to go further and believe that this was always the practice when children seemed to sing or speak upon the Greek stage;[280] and in confirmation of this it is pointed out that whenever children have a part, as in Euripides’ _Alcestis_, vss. 393 ff. and _Medea_, vss. 1271 ff., one of the actors is always off the scene and available for this purpose. The most difficult example of this problem has recently come to light in the fragments of Euripides’ _Hypsipyle_, vss. 1579 ff.[281] The heroine and Amphiaraus converse from the beginning of the fragment to vs. 1589, where the latter makes his exit. Two lines of farewell (vss. 1590 f.) are addressed to him and are assigned by the papyrus to “the children of Hypsipyle.” Moreover, they are of such a nature that one line must have been spoken by each of the two youths.