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Strangers, your pleasure? If ye have need of aught

All that beseems this House is yours to-day,

Warm bathing and the couch that soothes away

Toil, and the tendering of righteous eyes.

Else, if ye come on some grave enterprise,

That is man's work; and I will find the man.

I come from Phôkis, of the Daulian clan,

And, travelling hither, bearing mine own load

Of merchandise, toward Argos, as the road

Branched, there was one who met me, both of us

Strangers to one another: Strophius,

A Phocian prince, men called him. On we strode

Together, till he asked me of my road

And prayed me thus: "Stranger, since other care

Takes thee to Argos, prithee find me there

The kin of one Orestes. Plainly said

Is best remembered: tell them he is dead.

Forget not. And howe'er their choice may run,

To bear his ashes home, or leave their son

In a strange grave, in death an exile still,

Discover, and bring back to me their will.

Tell them his ashes lie with me, inurned

In a great jar of bronze, and richly mourned."

So much I tell you straight, being all I heard.

Howbeit, I know not if I speak my word

To the right hearers, princes of this old

Castle. Methinks his father should be told.