Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/415

Rh Is wisest policy, still to harm all foes

That beyond range shrink not, oneself unhurt.

These words have sense opposed full-face to thine

Touching the matter set at issue here.

But wherefore art thou fain to slay these boys?

What have they done? Herein I count thee wise,

That thou, thyself a dastard, fear'st the seed

Of heroes: yet hard fate is this for us,

If we shall for thy cowardice' sake be slain,

As thou by us thy betters shouldst have been,

If Zeus to us were righteously inclined.

Yet, if thy will be still to keep Thebes' crown,

Suffer us exiled to go forth the land;

But do no violence, lest thou suffer it,

When God shall haply cause the wind to change.

Out on it!

Land of Kadmus,—for to thee I turn,

Over thee hurling mine upbraiding words,—

Herakles and his sons thus succourest thou,

Even him who met the Minyans all in fight,

And made the eyes of Thebes see freedom's dawn?

And shame on Hellas!—I will hold my peace

Never, who prove her base towards my son,—

Her, whom behoved with fire, with spear, with shield

To have helped these babes, thank-offering for his toils,

Repayment for his purging seas and lands.

Ah boys, such aid to you the Thebans' town

Nor Hellas brings! To me, a strengthless friend,

Ye look, who am nothing but a voice's sound:

For vanished is the might I had of old,

Palsied with eld my limbs are, gone my strength.

Were I but young yet, master of my thews,