Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/270

242 The guest-fare, tarrying 'neath the selfsame roof;

Yet from all converse by their silence banned me,

So from their meat and drink to hold me apart;

And, filling for each man a several pitcher,

All equal, had their pleasure of the wine.

I took not on me to arraign mine hosts;

But, as who marked it not, in silence grieved;

With bitter sighs the mother-slayer grieved.

Now are my woes to Athens made, I hear,

A festival, and yet the custom lives

That Pallas' people keep the Pitcher-feast.

And when to Ares' mount I came to face

My trial, I upon this platform stood,

And the Erinnyes' eldest upon that.

Then, of my mother's blood arraigned, I spake;

And Phœbus' witness saved me. Pallas told

The votes: her arm swept half apart for me.

So was I victor in the murder-trial.

They which consented to the judgment, chose

Nigh the tribunal for themselves a shrine.

But of the Erinnyes some consented not,

And hounded me with homeless chasings aye,

Until, to Phœbus' hallowed soil returned,

Fasting before his shrine I cast me down,

And swore to snap my life-thread, dying there,

Except Apollo saved me, who destroyed.