Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/289

Rh And caitiff deed be ranged by baseless plea,

And none avail to gloze injustice o'er.

There be whose craft such art hath perfected;

Yet cannot they be cunning to the end:

Foully they perish : never one hath 'scaped.

Such prelude hath my speech as touching thee.

Now with plea answering plea to him I turn:—

To spare the Greeks, say'st thou, a twice-toiled task,

For Agamemnon's sake thou slew'st my son.

Villain of villains, when, when could thy race,

Thy brute race, be a friend unto the Greeks?

Never. And, prithee, whence this fervent zeal

To serve his cause?—didst look to wed his daughter?

Art of his kin?—Or what thy private end?

Or were they like to sail again and waste

Thy crops? Whom think'st thou to convince hereby?

That gold—hadst thou the will to tell the truth—

Murdered my son: that, and thy greed of gain.

For, hearken: why, when all went well with Troy,

When yet her ramparts girt the city round,

And Priam lived, and triumphed Hector's spear,

Why not then, if thou fain wouldst earn kings' thanks,

When in mine halls ye had my son and fostered,

Slay him, or living bring him to the Greeks?

But, soon as in the light we walked no more,

And the smoke's token proved our town the foe's,

Thou slew'st the guest that came unto thine hearth.

Nay more, hear now how thou art villain proved:

Thou oughtest, if thou wert the Achaians' friend,

Have brought the gold thou dar'st not call thine own,

But for him held in trust, to these impoverished

And long time exiled from their fatherland.

But thou not yet canst ope thine heart to unclose