Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/259

Rh Vouchsafe us to cast loose the sterns and curbs

Of these ships, kindly home-return to win

From Troy, and all to reach our fatherland."

So spake he; in that prayer joined all the host;

Then grasped his golden-plated falchion's hilt,

Drew from the sheath, and to those chosen youths

Of Argos' war-host signed to seize the maid.

But she, being ware thereof, spake forth this speech:

"O Argives, ye which laid my city low,

Free-willed I die: on my flesh let no man

Lay hand: my neck unflinching will I yield.

But, by the Gods, let me stand free, the while

Ye slay, that I may die free; for I shame

Slave to be called in Hades, who am royal."

"Yea!" like a great sea roared the host: the King

Spake to the youths to let the maiden go.

And they, soon as they heard that last behest

Of him of chiefest might, drew back their hands.

And she, when this she heard, her masters' word,

Her vesture grasped, and from the shoulder's height

Rent it adown her side, down to the waist,

And bosom showed and breasts, as of a statue,

Most fair; and, bowing to the earth her knee,

A word, of all words most heroic, spake :

"Lo here, O youth, if thou art fain to strike

My breast, strike home: but if beneath my neck

Thou wouldest, here my throat is bared to thee."

And he, loth and yet fain, for ruth of her,

Cleaves with the steel the channels of the breath:

Forth gushed the life-springs: but she, even in death,

Took chiefest thought decorously to fall,