Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/87

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Thou, thou a man?—Coward, of cowards bred!

What part or lot hast thou amongst true men?

Thou, by a Phrygian from thy wife divorced,

Who leftest hearth and home unbarred, unwarded,

As who kept in his halls a virtuous wife,—

And she the vilest! Though one should essay,

Virtuous could daughter of Sparta never be.

They gad abroad with young men from their homes,

And with bare thighs and loose disgirdled vesture

Race, wrestle with them,—things intolerable

To me! And is it wonder-worthy then

That ye train not your women to be chaste?

This well might Helen have asked thee, who forsook

Thy love, and from thine halls went revelling forth

With a young gallant to an alien land.

Yet for her sake thou gatheredst that huge host

Of Greeks, and leddest them to Ilium.

Thou shouldst have spued her forth, have stirred no spear,

Who hadst found her vile, but let her there abide,

Yea, paid a price to take her never back.

But nowise thus the wind of thine heart blew.

Nay, many a gallant life hast thou destroyed,

And childless made grey mothers in their halls,

And white-haired sires hast robbed of noble sons;—

My wretched self am one, who see in thee,

Like some foul fiend, Achilles' murderer;—

Thou who alone unwounded cam'st from Troy,

And daintiest arms in dainty sheaths unstained,

Borne thither, hither back didst bring again!

I warned my bridegroom-grandson not to make