Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/157

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Now will I speak. Better are many words

Than few, and clearer to be understood.

Menelaus, give me nothing of thine own:

That thou receivedst from my sire repay.

I meant not treasure: if thou save my life,

Treasure, of all I have most dear, is this.

Grant I do wrong: I ought, for a wrong's sake,

To win of thee a wrong; for Agamemnon

Wrongly to Ilium led the hosts of Greece:—

Not that himself had sinned, but sought to heal

The sin and the wrong-doing of thy wife.

This boon for boon thou oughtest render me.

He verily sold his life for thee, as friends

Should do for friends, hard-toiling under shield,

That so thou mightest win thy wife again.

This hadst thou there: to me requite the same.

Toil one day's space for my sake: for my life

Stand up. I ask thee not, wear out ten years.

Aulis received my sister's blood: I spare

Thee this: I bid not slay Hermionê.

Thou needst must, when I fare as now I fare,

Have vantage, and the debt must I forgive.

But to my hapless father give my life,

And hers, so long unwed, my sister's life.

For heirless, if I die, I leave his house.

'Tis hopeless, wilt thou say?—thine hour is this.

In desperate need ought friends to help their friends.

When Fortune gives her boons, what need of friends?

Her help sufficeth, when she wills to help.

All Greece believeth that thou lov'st thy wife,—

Not cozening thee by soft words say I this:—