Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/254

198 Enter Peasant.

How now? What strangers these about my doors?

For what cause unto these my rustic gates

Come they?—or seek they me? Beseemeth not

That with young men a wife should stand in talk.

O kindest heart, do not suspect me thou,

And thou shalt hear the truth. These strangers come

Heralds to me of tidings of Orestes.

And, O ye strangers, pardon these his words.

What say they? Is he man, and seeth light?

Yea, by their tale—and I mistrust it not.

Ha!—and remembereth thy sire's wrongs and thine?

Hope is as yet all: weak the exile is.

And what word from Orestes have they brought?

These hath he sent, his spies, to mark my wrongs.

They see but part: thou haply tell'st the rest?