Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/180

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Doth this not argue an insensate sire?

I think so, though your wisdom may demur.

And could my lost one speak, she would confirm it.

For my part, I can dwell on what I have done

Without regret. You, if you think me wrong,

Bring reasons forth and blame me to my face!

. Thou canst not say this time that I began

And brought this on me by some taunting word.

But, so you’d suffer me, I would declare

The right both for my sister and my sire.

. Thou hast my sufferance. Nor would hearing vex,

If ever thus you tuned your speech to me.

. Then I will speak. You say you slew him. Where

Could there be found confession more depraved,

Even though the cause were righteous? But I’ll prove

No rightful vengeance drew thee to the deed,

But the vile bands of him you dwell with now.

Or ask the huntress Artemis, what sin

She punished, when she tied up all the winds

Round Aulis.—I will tell thee, for her voice

Thou ne’er may’st hear! ’Tis rumoured that my sire,

Sporting within the goddess’ holy ground,

His foot disturbed a dappled hart, whose death

Drew from his lips some rash and boastful word.

Wherefore Latona’s daughter in fell wrath

Stayed the army, that in quittance for the deer

My sire should slay at the altar his own child.

So came her sacrifice. The Achaean fleet

Had else no hope of being launched to Troy

Nor to their homes. Wherefore, with much constraint

And painful urging of his backward will,

Hardly he yielded;—not for his brother’s sake.

But grant thy speech were sooth, and all were done

In aid of Menelaüs; for this cause

Hadst thou the right to slay him? What high law

Ordaining? Look to it, in establishing

Such precedent thou dost not lay in store

Repentance for thyself. For if by right