Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/432

334 Thou wretch, what face hast thou to utter this?

And know'st thou not the father that begat

Thy father, Pelops, was of alien blood,

A Phrygian born, of old; that Atreus, he

Who gave thee life, was godless in his deeds,

And placed before his brother banquet foul

Of his own children's flesh; and thou thyself

Wast born of Cretan mother, whom her sire,

Detecting with the alien, headlong cast

A prey to voiceless fishes? And dost thou,

Such as thou art, reproach me with my birth,

Such as I am, who, on my father's side,

From Telamon am sprung, who gained the prize

Of all the host for valour, and obtained

My mother as a concubine, who claimed

A kingly birth from old Laomedon,

And whom Alcmena's son as chosen gift

Gave to my father? And should I, thus sprung

Noble, from noblest, shame my kith and kin,

Whom now, in such ill plight as this enwrapt,

Thou thrustest out unburied, and dost feel

No shame to speak it? But of this be sure,

If ye will cast him forth, ye will cast, too,

Us three around him clinging; for 'twere good,

Striving for him to die in open fight,

Much rather than for that false wife of thine,