Page:Suppliant Maidens (Morshead) 1883.djvu/60

46

I am no host for sacrilegious hands.

This greeting will I to my masters tell.

Tell, an thou wilt—I ponder not thy will.

Yet, that I have my message clear to say

(For it behoves that heralds' words be clear,

Be they or ill or good), how art thou named?

By whom despoilèd of this sister-band

Of maidens, I pass homeward—speak and say.

For lo, henceforth in Ares' court we stand,

Who judges not by witness but by war:

No pledge of silver now can bring the cause

To issue: ere this thing end, there must be

Corpse piled on corpse and many lives gasped forth.

What skills it that I tell my name to thee?

Thou and thy mates shall learn it ere the end.

Know that if words unstained by violence

Can change these maidens' choice, then mayest thou,

With full consent of theirs, conduct them hence.

But thus the city with one voice ordained—