Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/234

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We went to wash our cattle in sea-brine.

To this return—where laid ye hold on them,

And in what manner? This I fain would learn.

For late they come: the Goddess' altar long

Hath been with streams of Hellene blood undyed.

Even as we drave our woodland-pasturing kine

Down to the sea that parts the Clashing Rocks,—

There was a cliff-chine, by the ceaseless dash

Of waves grooved out, a purple-fishers' haunt;—

Even there a herdman of our company

Beheld two youths, and backward turned again,

With tiptoe stealth his footsteps piloting,

And spake, "Do ye not see them?—yonder sit

Gods!" One of us, a god-revering man,

Lifted his hands, and looked on them, and prayed:

"Guardian of ships, Sea-queen Leukothea's son,

O Lord Palaimon, gracious be to us,—

Whether the Great Twin Brethren yonder sit,

Or Nereus' darlings, born of him of whom

That company of fifty Nereids sprang."

But one, a scorner, bold in lawlessness,

Mocked at his prayers: for shipwrecked mariners

Dreading our law, said he, sat in the cleft,

Who had heard how strangers here be sacrificed.

And now the more part said, "He speaketh well:

Let us then hunt the Goddess' victims due."

One of the strangers left meantime the cave,