Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/297

Rh May hurl them, or on stakes impale alive.

You women, who were privy to this plot,

Hereafter, when my leisure serveth me,

Will I yet punish. Having now in hand

The instant need, I will not idly wait.

Athena appears in mid-air above the stage.

Whither, now whither, speed'st thou this pursuit,

King Thoas? Hear my words—Athena's words.

Cease from this chase, from pouring forth thine host;

For, foreordained by Loxias' oracles,

Orestes came, to escape the Erinnyes' wrath,

And lead his sister unto Argos home,

And bear the sacred image to my land,

So to win respite from his present woes.

This is my word to thee: Orestes, whom

Thou think'st to take in mid-sea surge, and slay—

Even now for my sake doth Poseidon lull

To calm the breakers, speeding on his bark.

And thou, Orestes, to mine hests give heed—

For, though afar, thou hear'st the voice divine:—

Taking the image and thy sister, go;

And when thou com'st to Athens' god-built towers,

A place there is upon the utmost bounds

Of Attica, hard by Karystus' ridge,

A holy place, named Halae of my folk.

Build there a shrine, and set that image up,

Named from the Taurian land and from thy toils,

The travail of thy wandering through Greece,

Erinnys-goaded. Men through days to come

Shall chant her—Artemis the Taurian Queen.