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Rh reject them. The appeal is continued. The king urges objections. "What if the suitors have some legal claim upon them? What if his people condemn his clemency, and say that he prefers the interest of foreigners to that of his own subjects?" But it gradually becomes evident that his inclination is to yield, so terrible is the risk of provoking the suppliants' god. Loss of wealth may be repaired by Zeus the giver; malicious words, if the people were offended, a soft answer might appease; but if he should incur, for himself and his people, any stain from the blood of suppliants abandoned, and those suppliants, too, a kindred race, that pollution many sacrifices could scarcely expiate. One more argument remains, a threat so horrible that it is only dimly and gradually unfolded. If Pelasgus refuses their request, the desperate maidens will destroy themselves at the very shrines of the gods, will hang themselves by their girdles to the statues, and so lay the whole land under an intolerable pollution. Pelasgus resists no longer. "Lo then!" he says—

Lo then! in many ways sore troubles come.

A host of evils rushes like a flood;

A sea of woe none traverse, bottomless,

This have I entered; haven is there none,

For if I fail to do this work for you,

Thou tellest of defilement unsurpassed;

And if for thee against Ægyptos' sons,

Thy kindred, I before my city's walls

In conflict stand, how can there fail to be

A bitter loss, to stain the earth with blood

Of man for woman's sake? And yet I needs