Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/161

Rh my house should be called no friend to guests. Yea, and I find him myself the best of hosts whene'er to Argos' thirsty land I come.

. Why then didst thou conceal thy present misfortune, if, as thy own lips declare, it was a friend that came?

. He would never have entered my house, had he known aught of my distress. Maybe there are who think me but a fool for acting thus, and these will blame me; but my halls have never learnt to drive away or treat with scorn my guests.

. O home of hospitality, thrown open by thy lord to all now and ever! In thee it was that Pythian Apollo, the sweet harper, deigned to make his home, and in thy halls was content to lead a shepherd's life, piping o'er the sloping downs shepherd's madrigals to thy flocks. And spotted lynxes couched amid his sheep in joy to hear his melody, and the lions' tawny troop left the glen of Othrys and came; came too the dappled fawn on nimble foot from beyond the crested pines and frisked about thy lyre, O Phœbus, for very joy at thy gladsome minstrelsy. And so it is thy lord inhabits a home rich in countless flocks by Bœbe's lovely mere, bounding his tilled corn-land and his level pastures with the clime of the Molossi near the sun's dark stable, and holding sway as far as the harbourless strand of the Ægean 'neath Pelion's shadow. Now too hath he opened wide his house and welcomed a guest although his eye is wet with tears in mourning for his wife so dear but lately dead within his halls; yea, for noble birth to noble feeling is inclined. And in the good completest wisdom dwells; and at my heart sits the bold belief that heaven's servant will be blesed.

. Men of Pheræ, kindly gathered here, lo! even now my servants are bearing the corpse with all its trappings