CHO. With piety the damsel speaks: but thou, my friend, if thou be wise, wilt do this. CHR. I will do it, for the just thing cannot afford argument for two to cavil, but to hasten its performance. But, in the God's name, my friends, be silence yours at my essaying these deeds, since if my mother shall hear of this, methinks I shall yet hazard this a bitter attempt. CHO. If I be not naturally an insane prophet, and wanting in wise judgment, Justice the prophetic [of herself] will come, bringing to our hands righteous mastery: she will pursue them, my child, at no distant period. Confidence rises within me, just now hearing the sweetly-breathing dreams. For never is thy parent the King of Greeks forgetful at least, nor the ancient two-edged axe forged of brass, which slew him with most shameful insults. The many-footed and manyhanded Erinnys of brazen tread shall come, that is concealed in dreadful ambush. For they to whom it was unlawful " embarked on the unhallowed, of blood-polluted nuptials. For these deeds, observe, it holds by me that this portent can never, never be come upon us harmless to either the principals or the accomplices. Believe me, there are really no auguries to mortals in alarming dreams, nor in oracles, unless this apparition of the night shall end in good. O toilsome horsemanship of Pelops in old time, X rivalry, in bed and bridal "Nominativus etsi pluralis simulque masculinus sit, potest tamen verbum singulare adjunctum habere, ut ostendi ad Eurip. Helen. 1378. Επέβα igitur cum ἐπέβαν non mutaverim.” Musgrave. * Musgrave proposes to read ὁμιλήματα. y how woeful wert thou to this country. For since the drowned Myrtilus was sent to [his last] sleep, hurled headlong forth in dire insult from his all-golden car, no troublous calamity hath ever yet been wanting to this house. CLYTEMNESTRA. Let loose, it seems, again thou roamest; for Ægisthus is not here, who ever checked thee from dishonouring thy friends by being abroad. But now, as he is absent, thou heedest not me at least. Nay more, thou hast actually denounced me at large and to many, as that I am impudent, and contrary to justice am the aggressor in insolence to thee and thine. Yet have I no insolence: but give thee evil words, since I so often am slandered by thee: how that thy father, no other pretence hast thou constantly, fell by my hand. My hand: I know it well, I have no denial to make of this. For Justice took him off, not I only, which thou oughtest to aid, wert thou haply in thy senses. Since this Myrtilus, son of Mercury and Phaethusa, was charioteer to Enomaus, king of Pisa, the father of Hippodamia, whose horses he rendered the most famous for their swiftness in all Greece. This it was which produced the confidence of (Enomaus in challenging his daughter's suitors to the chariot race, and had already been the destruction of thirteen chiefs, when Pelops bribed Myrtilus with a promise of sharing the favours of Hippodamia. Thus allured, he gave an old chariot to (Enomaus, which broke down in the course, and killed him. When however Myrtilus demanded the reward of his perfidy, Pelops threw him into the sea, thus exemplifying the words of Shakspeare's Henry : "They love not poison, that do poison need; 2 thy father, whom thou art ever wailing, alone of Greeks had the heart to sacrifice to the Gods thine own sister, though he suffered not from pain, when he begat her, equally with me that bare her. Enough, teach me now for whose sake he sacrificed her. Wilt thou say, for the Greeks? But they had no claim to kill my daughter at least. But was it then for his brother Menelaus ? Having murdered what was mine, was he not bound to to give me due satisfaction? Had not he two children, for whom to die was more reasonable than for her, they being of the father and mother for whose sake was the voyage? What, had Hades a desire of my children, rather than her's, to glut himself with them? Or had all affectionate feeling for his children by me died away from their all-accursed father, yet lived in Menelaus? Were not these the acts of a witless sire, a villain in purpose? I indeed think so, even though I speak contrary to thy sentiments. But the deceased at least would say so, could she resume her voice. I then am not disheartened at what I have done; but if I seem to thee to judge amiss, do thou, a preserving righteous judgment, chide thy neighbours. EL. Thou wilt not now at least assert that I having This, says the Scholiast, though it militates against Homer's account, is in union with Hesiod's : Η τέκεθ' Ερμιόνην δουρικλειτῷ Μενελάῳ, This appears ironical. Musgrave proposes Γνώμην δικαίαν σχοῦσα, τους φαύλους στέγω. And translates it, ipsa mentem puram habens, ineptos patienter fero. commenced with some offensive words, have then heard this from thee: but, wouldst thou permit me, I would rightly argue at once in behalf of the deceased and my sister. CLY. Nay then I do permit; but hadst thou always thus begun in thine address to me, thou hadst not been offensive to listen to. EL. Well then, to thee I speak. Thou ownest the murder of my father. Than this what confession could be yet more base, whether in fine with justice or without? But I will prove to thee that thou didst not slay him with justice at least; but persuasion from a villain, with whom thou now companiest, allured thee to it. Nay, ask the huntress Diana, in revenge for what she withheld the many winds at Aulis: or I will tell thee, for from her it is not allowed thee to learn: my father once, as I hear, sporting in the grove of the Goddess, roused on foot a dappled, antler'd stag, in whose slaughter exulting, he chanced to drop certain [proud] The business of the ancient poets, and, till very lately, of our own, has constantly been to inculcate submission to the will of heaven, and respect for all things more immediately connected with it. In conformity to this proposed object, insolence to Minerva is stated by Calchas to be the cause of Ajax' madness; and the wound inflicted on Venus by Diomed leads to his expulsion from his home by an unfaithful wife; while the still more audacious, because more personal insults to the Deities offered by Laomedon, lay the towers of Ilium, the work of more than human hands, in the dust. Nor was the prince of lyric poets less religious than the tragedians: vid. Ol. 9. 56. λοιδορῆσαι θέους, ἔχθρα σοφία· καὶ words. And, thenceforth angered, the maiden daughter of Latona detained the Greeks, that my father to counterpoise the beast should offer up his daughter. Thus was her sacrifice, since no other release was there to the host, homewards or to Troy. On whose behalf, having been forcefully constrained, and having resisted much, he reluctantly sacrificed her, not for Menelaus' sake. If however, for I will state even thy plea, wishing to profit him, he acted thus, ought he for this to have died by thy hands? By what right? Beware, lest in ordaining to mankind this rule, thou ordain thyself woe and repentance. For if we shall slay one for another, thou, mark me, shouldst die the first, at least hadst thou thy due. But look to it, lest thou set up a pretence that does not exist. For tell me, an thou wilt, in requital of what thou happenest at present to be committing deeds the most infamous possible: thou that couchest with the assassin, with whom thou erst didst destroy my father, and hast children by him: while thy former virtuous progeny, from virtuous lineage sprung, thou castest out. How could I approve of this? What, wilt thou say that this too is vengeance thou takest for thy daughter? Basely, even shouldst с τὸ καύχασθαι παρὰ καιρὸν Hence we see that it wanted but little supernatural influence to drive Ajax to the phrenzy with which he was afterwards possessed. с Euripides strengthens this plea by the addition of another, which the ladies will think more forcible, viz. that Agamemnon kept another |