Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/142

114 So compassed round with toils of woeful ills.

For touching Agamemnon's fate I knew,

And by what death at his wife's hands he died,

When my prow touched at Malea: from the waves

The shipman's seer, the unerring God, the son

Of Nereus, Glaucus, made it known to me.

For full in view he rose, and cried to me:

"Thy brother, Menelaus, lieth dead,

Fall'n in the bath, the death-snare of his wife!"—

So filled me and my mariners with tears

Full many. As I touched the Nauplian land,

Even as my wife was hasting hitherward,

And looked to clasp dead Agamemnon's son

Orestes, and his mother, in loving arms,

As prospering yet, I heard a fisher tell

Of Tyndareus' daughter's murder heaven-accurst.

Now tell to me, ye damsels, where is he,

Agamemnon's son, who dared that awful deed?

A babe was he in Klytemnestra's arms,

When Troyward bound I went from mine halls forth:

Wherefore I should not know him, if I saw.

I am Orestes! This is he thou seekest.

Free-willed shall I declare to thee my woes:

Yet suppliant first for prelude clasp thy knees

Linking to thee the leafless prayers of lips.

Save me: thou comest in my sorest need.