Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/158

130 son, no! nor his aged sire. Their own child they had not the courage to rescue, the wretches! albeit they were grey-headed. But thou in thy youth and beauty hast died for thy lord and gone thy way. O be it mine to have for partner such a loving wife! for this lot is rare in life. Surely she should be my help-meet all my life and never cause one tear.

. Mine hosts, dwellers on this Pheræan soil! say, shall I find Admetus in the house?

. The son of Pheres is within, Heracles. Tell me what need is bringing thee to the Thessalian land, to visit this city of the Pheræans?

. I am performing a labour for Tirynthian Eurystheus.

. And whither art thou journeying? on what wandering art thou forced to go?

. To fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes.

. How canst thou? art a stranger to the ways of thy host?

. I am; for never yet have I gone to the land of the Bistones.

. Thou canst not master his horses without fighting.

. Still I cannot refuse these labours.

. Then shalt thou slay them and return, or thyself be slain and stay there.

. It will not be the first hard course that I have run.

. And what will be thy gain, suppose thou master their lord?

. The steeds will I drive away to the Tirynthian king.

. No easy task to bit their jaws.

. Easy enough, unless their nostrils vomit fire.

. With ravening jaws they rend the limbs of men.

. Thou speakest of the food of mountain beasts, not of horses.

. Their mangers blood-bedabbled thou shalt see.