Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/331

Rh than convulsions seized her feathered form and she went mad, and screaming aloud uttered strange unwonted cries; and all the feasters gathered there marvelled to see the bird's cruel agony, for she lay writhing in the toils of death, and her red claws relaxed their hold.

Forthwith the son, vouchsafed by oracles, bared his arm by casting off his cloak and stretched it out across the board crying "Who was it strove to slay me? Proclaim it, old sirrah, for thine was the officious zeal and thine the hand from which I took the cup." With that he caught the grey-beard by the arm and set to searching him that he might take the old man red-handed in the act. So was he detected, and under strong constraint declared Creusa's daring deed and all the trick of the poisoned draught. Forth rushed the young man, whom the oracle of Loxias to his sire assigned, taking with him the banqueters, and standing mid the Delphic nobles made harangue, "O! hallowed soil, a stranger woman, daughter of Erechtheus, seeks to poison me." And the lords of Delphi decreed by general vote that my mistress should be hurled from the rock to die, because she strove to slay the priest and compass his death in the temple. So now is the whole city seeking her, who hath to her sorrow sped a hapless journey; for, coming to crave the boon of offspring from Phœbus, she hath lost her life and children too.

. Ah me! I see no way at all to turn death's hand aside; all, all, ere this, is brought to light owing to that fatal draught of the wine-god's juice mixed for death with drops of viper's gore, quick to slay; detected is our offering to the dead; for me my life must end in woe, while death by stoning waits my mistress. How can I escape? Shall I take wings and fly away, or creep beneath the darksome caverns of the earth, striving to shun the doom of death by stoning? or shall I mount the car drawn by swiftest steeds, or embark upon a ship No man may hide his guilt, save when some god of his own will steals him away. Ah! my