Page:Sophocles (Storr 1912) v1.djvu/289

 Or stir a chord of wrath or tenderness,

And to the tongue-tied somehow give a tongue

Well dost thou counsel, and I will speak out.

First will I call in aid the god himself,

Poseidon, from whose altar I was raised,

With warrant from the monarch of this land,

To parley with you, and depart unscathed.

These pledges, strangers, I would see observed

By you and by my sisters and my sire.

Now, father, let me tell thee why I came.

I have been banished from my native land

Because by right of primogeniture

I claimed possession of thy sovereign throne

Wherefrom Eteocles, my younger brother,

Ousted me, not by weight of precedent,

Nor by the last arbitrament of war,

But by his popular acts; and the prime cause

Of this I deem the curse that rests on thee.

So likewise hold the soothsayers, for when

I came to Argos in the Dorian land

And took the king Adrastus’ child to wife,

Under my standard I enlisted all

The foremost captains of the Apian isle,

To levy with their aid that sevenfold host

Of spearmen against Thebes, determining

To oust my foes or die in a just cause.

Why then, thou askest, am I here to-day?

Father, I come a suppliant to thee

Both for myself and my allies who now

With squadrons seven beneath their seven spears 267