PERSONS

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Danaus, according to the received Greek story, was an Egyptian, who founded a colony in Argos, at some date between the age of the oldest Argive king Inachus, and the Trojan war. In the reality of this sea-faring adventurer, modern historians, following the faith of the ancient Greeks, have generally acquiesced, till, latterly, the Germans, with that instinctive hostility to external tradition which characterises them, have boldly ventured to explain both the Egyptian and his colony away into a symbol, or an inanity. Of our most recent writers, however, Thirlwall, after considering all the German speculations on the subject, is not ashamed to say a word in favour of the possibility or probability of an Egyptian colony in Argos;^f1 while Clinton^f2 (Introd. pp. 6, 7), boldly announces the principle that “we may acknowledge as real persons all those whom there is no reason for rejecting. The presumption is in favour of the early tradition. . . . Cadmus and Danaus appear to be real persons; for it is conformable to the state of mankind, and perfectly credible that Phoenician and Egyptian adventurers, in the ages to which these persons are ascribed, should have found their way to the coasts of Greece.” Grote, however, seems to have acted most wisely in refusing to decide whether any particular legend of the earliest times is mythical or historical, on the ground that, though many of the legends doubtless contain truth, they contain it only “in a sort of chemical combination with fiction, which we have no means of decomposing”—(II. p. 50). This play of Æschylus, therefore, cannot boast of any accessory historical superadded to the principal poetic interest.

Danaus, the legend tells, though an Egyptian born, was not of Egyptian descent. The original mother of his race was Io, daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, and priestess of Hera in that place. How this much-persecuted maid found her way from the banks of the “Erasinus old” to the shores of the nurturing Nile, we have seen in the previous piece. Danaus had a brother called Ægyptus, the father of fifty sons, as himself was of fifty daughters. These fifty sons Ægyptus sought to unite in wedlock to the equal-numbered progeny of his brother; but the chaste maidens, whether because they actually thought it unholy (as it certainly is, in the general case, unadvisable) for first cousins to marry first cousins, or because the suit was pressed in a manner not the most respectful, or from a combination of both motives, refused to enter into the bond; and, to escape the importunities of their stronger male suitors, fled, under the guidance of their father, over the seas to Greece. As kind chance, or, rather, Divine Providence, would have it, they were wafted to that very part of Greece whence their famous ancestress Io had originally proceeded, when the god-sent gadfly drove her, in a career of tempestuous wanderings, through great part of Europe and Asia, to Egypt. With their landing on this coast the present opera commences; and the action which it represents is the very simple one of the reception of the Libyan fugitives, by the Argive monarch Pelasgus (otherwise called Gelanor), and their participation in the rights and privileges of Argive citizenship. The transference of their affections from Nile to Erasinus is solemnly sung in the concluding chaunt. The Danaides are now Argives.

Considered by itself, the action of this piece is the most meagre that can be conceived, and, as the poet has handled it, contains little that can stir the deeper feelings of the heart, or strike the imagination strongly. That the king of the Argives should feel serious doubts as to the propriety of receiving such a band of foreigners into his kingdom, formidable not in their own strength, indeed, but in respect of the pursuing party, by whom they were claimed, was most natural; equally natural, however, and, in a poetic point of view, necessary, that his political fears should finally be outweighed by his benevolent regard for the rights of unprotected virgins, and his pious fear of the wrath of Jove, the protector of suppliants. The alternation of mind between these contending feelings, till a final resolve is taken on the side of the right, affords no field for the higher faculty of the dramatist to display itself. As we have it, accordingly, the Suppliants is, perhaps, the weakest performance of Æschylus. But the fact is, there is the best reason to believe that the great father of tragedy never meant this piece to stand alone, but wrote it merely to usher in the main action, which followed in the other pieces of a trilogy; the names of which pieces—????pt???, and ?a?a?de?—are preserved in the list of the author’s pieces still extant. Of this, the whole conclusion of the present piece, and especially the latter half of the last choral chaunt, furnishes the most conclusive evidence.

The remainder of the story, which formed the main action of the trilogy, is well known. Immediately after the reception of the fugitives, by the Argives, their pursuers arrive, and land on the coast. This arrival is announced in the last scene of the present piece. On this, Danaus, unwilling to lead his kind host into a war, pretends to yield to the suit still as eagerly pressed, and the marriage is agreed on. But a terrible revenge had been devised. At the very moment that he hands over his unwilling but obedient daughters to the subjection of their hated cousins, he gives them secret instructions to furnish themselves each with a dagger, and, during the watches of the nuptial night, to dip the steel in the throats of their unsuspecting lords. The bloody deed was completed. Only one of all the fifty daughters, preferring the fame of true womanhood to the claims of filial homage, spared her mate. Hypermnestra saved her husband Lynceus. This conduct, of course, brought the daughter into collision with her father and her father’s family; and one of those strifes of our mysterious moral nature was educed, which, as we have seen in the trilogy of the Orestiad, it was one great purpose of the Æschylean drama to reconcile. If the murder occupied the second piece, as the progress of the story naturally brings with it, a third piece, according to the analogy of the Eumenides, would be necessary to bring about the reconciliation, and effect that purifying of the passions which Aristotle points out as the great moral result of tragic composition. That Aphrodite was the great celestial agent employed in the finale of the Suppliants, as Pallas Athena is in the Furies, has been well divined; a beautiful fragment in celebration of love, and in favour of Hypermnestra remains; but to attempt a reconstruction of these lost pieces at the present day, though an amusement of which the learned Germans are fond, is foreign to the habits of the British mind. Those who feel inclined to see what ingenuity may achieve in this region, are referred to Welcker’s Trilogie, and Gruppe’s Ariadne.

The moral tone and character of this piece is in the highest degree pleasing and satisfactory. The Supreme Jove, whose prominent attribute is power, here receives a glorification as the protector of the persecuted, and the refuge of the distressed. On the duty of hospitality, under the sanction of ?e?? ?????? and ??es???, as practised among the ancient Greeks, I refer the reader with pleasure to Grote’s History of Greece, Vol. II., p. 114.

“The scene,” says Potter, “is near the shore, in an open grove, close to the altar and images of the gods presiding over the sacred games, with a view of the sea and ships of Egyptus on one side, and of the town of Argos on the other, with hills, and woods, and vales, a river flowing between them: all, together with the persons of the drama, forming a picture that would have well employed the united pencils of Poussin and Claude.”

THE SUPPLIANTS

Chorus, entering the stage in procession. March time.

Chorus.

Jove, the suppliant’s high protector,ⁿ¹

Look from Heaven, benignly favouring

Us the suppliant band, swift-oared

Hither sailing, from the seven mouths

Of the fat fine-sanded Nile!ⁿ²

From the land that fringes Syria,

Land divine, in flight we came,

Not by public vote forth-driven,

Not by taint of blood divorced

From our native state,^f3 but chastely

Our abhorrent foot withdrawing

From impure ungodly wedlock

With Ægyptus’ sons, too nearly

Cousined with ourselves. For wisely,

This our threatened harm well-weighing,

Danaus, our sire, prime counsellor,

And leader of our sistered band,

Timely chose this least of sorrows

O’er the salt-sea wave to flee;

And here on Argive soil to plant us,

Whence our race its vaunted spring

Drew divinely, when great Jove

Gently thrilled the brize-stung heiferⁿ³

With his procreant touch, and breathed

Godlike virtue on her womb.

Where on Earth should we hope refuge

On more friendly ground than this,

In our hands these green boughs bearing

Wreathed with precatory wool?^f4

Ye blissful gods supremely swayingⁿ⁴

Land and city, and lucid streams;

And ye in sepulchres dark, severely

Worshipped ’neath the sunless ground;

And thou, the third, great Jove the Saviour,

Guardian of all holy homes,

With your spirit gracious-wafted,

Breathe fair welcome on this band

Of suppliant maids. But in the depth

Of whirling waves engulph the swarm

Of insolent youths, Ægyptus’ sons,

Them, and their sea-cars swiftly oared,

Ere this slimy shore receive

Their hated footprint. Let them labour,

With wrath-spitting seas confronted:

By the wild storm wintry-beating,

Thunder-crashing, lightning flashing,

By the tyrannous blast shower-laden

Let them perish, ere they mount

Marriage beds which right refuses,ⁿ⁵

Us, their father’s brother’s daughters

To their lawless yoke enthralling!

[The Chorus assemble in a band round the centre of the Orchestra, and sing the Choral Hymn.

CHORAL HYMN.
STROPHE I.

Give ear to our prayer, we implore thee,

Thou son, and the mother that bore thee—

The calf and the heifer divine!^f5

From afar be thine offspring’s avenger,

Even thou, once a beautiful ranger

O’er these meads with the grass-cropping kine!

And thou, whom she bore to her honor,

When the breath of the Highest was on her,

And the touch of the finger divine;

Thine ear, mighty god, we implore thee

To the prayer of thine offspring incline!

ANTISTROPHE I.

O Thou who with blessing anointed,

Wert born when by Fate ’twas appointed,

With thy name to all ages a sign!^f6

In this land of the mother that bore thee,

Her toils we remember before thee,

Where she cropped the green mead with the kine.

O strange were her fortunes, and stranger

The fate that hath chased me from danger

To the home of the heifer divine.

O son, with the mother that bore thee,

Stamp my tale with thy truth for a sign!

STROPHE AND ANTISTROPHE II.

While we cry, should there haply be near us

An Argive, an augur,^f7 to hear us,

When our shrill-piercing wail

His ear shall assail,

’Tis the cry he will deem, and none other,

Of Procne, the woe-wedded mother,

The hawk-hunted nightingale;^f8

Sad bird, when its known streams it leaveth,

And with fresh-bleeding grief lonely grieveth,

And telleth the tale,

With a shrill-voiced wail,

How the son that she loved, and none other,

Was slain by his fell-purposed mother,

The woe-wedded nightingale!

STROPHE III.

Even so from the Nile summer-tinted,

With Ionian wailings unstinted,ⁿ⁶

My cheek with the keen nail I tear;

And I pluck, where it bloweth,

Griefs blossom that groweth

In this heart first acquainted with care;

And I fear the fierce band,

From the far misty land,ⁿ⁷

Whom the swift ships to Argos may bear.

ANTISTROPHE III.

Ye gods of my race, seeing clearly

The right which ye cherish so dearly,

To the haughty your hatred declare!

’Gainst the right ye will never

Chaste virgins deliver,

The bed of the lawless to share;

From the god-fenced altar

Each awe-struck assaulter

Back shrinks. Our sure bulwark is there.

STROPHE IV.

O would that Jove might show to men

His counsel as he planned it;

But ah! he darky weaves the scheme,

No mortal eye hath scanned it.

It burns through darkness brightly clear

To whom the god shall show it;

But mortal man, through cloudy fear,

Shall search in vain to know it.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Firm to the goal his purpose treads,

His will knows no frustration;

When with his brow the mighty god

Hath nodded consummation.

But strangely, strangely weave their maze

His counsels, dusky wending,

Concealed in densely-tangled ways

From human comprehending.

STROPHE V.

From their high-towering hopes the proud

In wretched rout he casteth.

No force he wields; his simple will,

His quiet sentence blasteth.

All godlike power is calm;ⁿ⁸ and high

On thrones of glory seated,

Jove looks from Heaven with tranquil eye,

And sees his will completed.

ANTISTROPHE V.

Look down, O mighty god, and see

How this harsh wedlock planning,

That dry old tree in saplings green,

The insolent lust is fanning!

Madly he hugs the frenzied plan

With perverse heart unbending,

Hot-spurred, till Ruin seize the man,

Too late to think of mending.

STROPHE VI.

Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!ⁿ⁹

Thus sadly I hymn the sorrowful lay,

With a shrill-voiced cry,

With a sorrow-streaming eye,

Well-a-day, woe’s me!

Thus I grace my own tomb with the wail pouring free,

Thus I sing my own dirge, ah me!^f9

Ye Apian hills, be kind to me,

And throw not back the stranger’s note,

But know the Libyan wail.

Behold how, rent to sorrow’s note,

My linen robes all loosely float,

And my Sidonian veil.

ANTISTROPHE VI.

Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day!

My plighted vows I’ll duly pay,

Ye gods, if ye will save

From the foe, and from the grave

My trembling life set free!

Surges high, surges high, sorrow’s many-billowed sea,

And woe towers on woe. Ah me!

Ye Apian hills,ⁿ¹⁰ be kind to me,

And throw not back the stranger’s note

But know the Libyan wail!

Behold how, rent to sorrow’s note,

My linen robes all loosely float,

And my Sidonian veil!

STROPHE VII.

And yet, in that slight timbered house, well-armed

With frequent-plashing oar,

Stiff sail and cordage straining, all unharmed

By winter’s stormy roar,

We reached this Argive shore.

Safely so far. May Jove, the all-seeing, send

As the beginning, so the prosperous end.

And may he grant, indeed,

That we, a gracious mother’s gracious seed,

By no harsh kindred wooed,

May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued!

ANTISTROPHE VII.

May she, the virgin daughter of high Jove,^f10

Our virgin litany hear,

Our loving homage answering with more love!

She that, with face severe,

Repelled, in awful fear,

Each rude aggressor, in firm virtue cased,

Nor knew the lustful touch divinely chaste.

And may she grant, indeed,

That we, a gracious mother’s gracious seed,

By no harsh kindred wooed,

May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued.

STROPHE VIII.

But if no aid to us may be,

Libya’s swart sun-beaten daughters,

The rope shall end our toils; and we,

Beneath the ground, shall fare to thee,

Thou many-guested Jove,^f11

To thee our suppliant boughs we’ll spread,

Thou Saviour of the weary Dead,

Far from the shining thrones of blissful gods above.

Ah, Jove too well we know

What wrath divine scourged ancient Io, wailing

Beneath thy consort’s anger heaven-scaling;

And even so,

On Io’s seed may blow

A buffeting blast from her of black despairful woe.

ANTISTROPHE VIII.

O Jove, how then wilt thou be free

From just reproach of Libya’s daughters,

If thou in us dishonoured see

Him whom the heifer bore to thee

Whom thou didst chiefly love.

If thou from us shalt turn thy face,

What suppliant then shall seek thy grace?

O hear my prayer enthroned in loftiest state above!

For well, too well, we know

What wrath divine scourged ancient Io, wailing

Beneath thy consort’s anger heaven-scaling;

And even so,

On Io’s seed may blow

A buffeting blast from her of black despairful woe.

Enter Danaus.

Danaus.

Be wise, my daughters. In no rash flight with me,

A hoary father, and a faithful pilot,

Ye crossed the seas; nor less is wisdom needful

Ashore; be wise, and on your heart’s true tablet

Engrave my words. For lo! where mounts the dust,

A voiceless herald of their coming; hear

Their distant-rumbling wheels! A host I see

Of bright shield-bearing and spear-shaking men,

Swift steeds, and rounded cars.ⁿ¹¹ Of our here landing,

Timely apprised, the chiefs that rule this country

Come with their eyes to read us. But be their coming

Harmless, or harsh with fell displeasure, here

On this high-seat of the Agonian godsⁿ¹²

Is safety for my daughters; for an altar

Is a sure tower of strength, a shield that bears

The rattling terror dintless. Go ye, therefore,

Embrace these altars, in your sistered handsⁿ¹³

These white-wreathed precatory boughs presenting,

Which awful Jove reveres; and with choice phrase

Wisely your pity-moving tale-commend

When they shall ask you; as becomes the stranger,

The bloodless motive of your flight declaring

With clear recital. The bold tongue eschewing,

With sober-fronted face and quiet eye

Your tale unfold. The garrulous prate, the length

Of slow-drawn speech beware. Such fault offends

This people sorely. Chiefly know to yield:

Thou art the weaker—a poor helpless stranger—

The bold-mouthed phrase suits ill with thy condition.

Chorus.

Father, thou speakest wisely: nor unwisely

Thy words would we receive, in memory’s ward

Storing thy hests; ancestral Jove be witness!

Danaus.

Even so; and with benignant eye look down!ⁿ¹⁴

Chorus.

* * * *

Danaus.

Delay not. In performance show thy strength.

Chorus.

Even there where thou dost sit, I’d sit beside thee!

Danaus.

O Jove show pity ere pity come too late!

Chorus.

Jove willing, all is well.

Danaus.

Him, therefore, pray,

There where his bird the altar decorates:ⁿ¹⁵ pray

Apollo, too, the pure, the exiled onceⁿ¹⁶

From bright Olympus.

Chorus.

The sun’s restoring rays

We pray: the god what fate he knew will pity.

Danaus.

May he with pity and with aid be near!

Chorus.

Whom next shall I invoke?

Danaus.

Thou see’st this trident

And know’st of whom the symbol?

Chorus.

May the same

That sent us hither kindly now receive us!

Danaus.

Here’s Hermes likewise, as Greece knows the god.ⁿ¹⁷

Chorus.

Be he my herald, heralding the free!

Danaus.

This common altar of these mighty gods

Adore: within these holy precincts lodged,

Pure doves from hawks of kindred plumage fleeing,

Foes of your blood, polluters of your race.

Can bird eat bird and be an holy thing?ⁿ¹⁸

Can man be pure, from an unwilling father

Robbing unwilling brides? Who does these deeds

Will find no refuge from lewd guilt in Hades;

For there, as we have heard, another Jove

Holds final judgment on the guilty shades.

But now be ready. Here await their coming;

May the gods grant a victory to our prayers!

Enter King.

King.

Whom speak we here? Whence come? Certes no Greeks.

Your tire rich-flaunting with barbaric pride

Bespeaks you strangers. Argos knows you not,

Nor any part of Greece. Strange surely ’tis

That all unheralded, unattended all,

And of no host the acknowledged guest, unfearing

Ye tread this land.ⁿ¹⁹ If these boughs, woolly-wreathed,

That grace the altars of the Agonian gods

Speak what to Greeks they should speak, ye are suppliants.

Thus much I see: what more remains to guess

I spare; yourselves have tongues to speak the truth.

Chorus.

That we are strangers is most true; but whom

See we in thee? a citizen? a priest?

A temple warder with his sacred wand?

The ruler of the state?

King.

Speak with a fearless tongue, and plainly. I

Of old earth-born PalÆcthon am the son,ⁿ²⁰

My name Pelasgus, ruler of this land;

And fathered with my name the men who reap

Earth’s fruits beneath my sway are called Pelasgi;

And all the land where Algos flows, and Strymon,ⁿ²¹

Toward the westering sun my sceptre holds.

My kingdom the PerrhÆbians bound, and those

Beyond high Pindus, by PÆonia, and

The DodonÉan heights; the briny wave

Completes the circling line; within these bounds

I rule; but here, where now thy foot is planted,

The land is Apia, from a wise physician

Of hoary date so called. He, from Naupactus,

Apollo’s son, by double right, physician

And prophet both,ⁿ²² crossed to this coast, and freed it

By holy purifyings, from the plague

Of man-destroying monsters, which the ground

With ancient taint of blood polluted bore.

This plague his virtue medicinal healed,

That we no more unfriendly fellowship

Hold with the dragon-brood. Such worthy service

With thankful heart the Argive land received,

And Apis lives remembered in her prayers.

Of this from me assured, now let me hear

Your whence, and what your purpose. Briefly speak;

This people hates much phrase.

Chorus.

Our tale is short.

We by descent are Argives, from the seed

Of the heifer sprung, whose womb was blest in bearing;

And this in every word we can confirm

By manifest proofs.

King.

That ye are Argives, this

My ear receives not; an unlikely tale!

Like Libyan women rather; not a line

I trace in you that marks our native race.

Nile might produce such daughters; ye do bear

A Cyprian character in your female features,

The impressed likeness of some plastic male.^f12

Of wandering Indians I have heard, that harness

Camels for mules, huge-striding, dwelling near

The swarthy Æthiop land; ye may be such;

Or, had ye war’s accoutrement, the bow,

Ye might be Amazons, stern, husband-hating,

Flesh-eating maids. But speak, that I may know

The truth. How vouch ye your descent from Argos?

Chorus.

They say that Io, on this Argive ground,

Erst bore the keys to Hera,ⁿ²³ then ’tis said,

So runs the general rumour—ⁿ²⁴

King.

I have heard.

Was it not so, Jove with the mortal maid

Mingled in love?

Chorus.

Even so; in love they mingled,

Deceiving Hera’s bed.

King.

And how then ended

The Olympian strife?

Chorus.

Enraged, the Argive goddess

To a heifer changed the maid.

King.

And the god came

To the fair horned heifer?

Chorus.

Like a leaping bull,

Transformed he came;ⁿ²⁵ so the hoar legend tells.

King.

And what did then the potent spouse of Jove?

Chorus.

She sent a watchman ringed with eyes to watch.

King.

This all-beholding herdsman, who was he?

Chorus.

Argus the son of Earth, by Hermes slain.

King.

How further fared the ill-fated heifer, say?

Chorus.

A persecuting brize was sent to sting her.

King.

And o’er the wide earth goaded her the brize?

Chorus.

Just so; thy tale with mine accordant chimes.

King.

Then to Canopus, and to Memphis came she?

Chorus.

There, touched by Jove’s boon hand, she bore a son.

King.

The heifer’s boasted offspring, who was he?

Chorus.

Epaphus, who plainly with his name declares

His mother’s safety wrought by touch of Jove.

King.

* * * *ⁿ²⁶

Chorus.

Libya, dowered with a fair land’s goodly name.

King.

And from this root divine what other shoots?

Chorus.

Belus, my father’s father, and my uncle’s.

King.

Who is thy honoured father?

Chorus.

Danaus;

And fifty sons his brother hath, my uncle.

King.

This brother who? Spare not to tell the whole.

Chorus.

Ægyptus. Now, O king, our ancient race

Thou knowest. Us from our prostration raising,

Thou raisest Argos.

King.

Argives in sooth ye seem,

By old descent participant of the soil;

But by what stroke of sore mischance harsh-smitten,

Dared ye to wander from your native seats?

Chorus.

Pelasgian prince, a motley-threaded web

Is human woe; a wing of dappled plumes.

Past hope and faith it was that we, whose blood

From Argive Io flows, to Io’s city,

In startled flight, should measure back our way,

To escape from hated marriage.

King.

How say’st thou?

To escape from marriage thou art here, displaying

These fresh-cropt branches, snowy-wreathed, before

The Agonian gods?

Chorus.

Ay! Never, never may we

Be thralled to Ægyptus’ sons!

King.

Speak’st thou of hate

To them, or of a bond your laws forbid?

Chorus.

Both this and that.ⁿ²⁷ Who should be friends were foes,

And blood with blood near-mingled basely flows.

King.

But branch on branch well grafted goodlier grows.

Chorus.

Urge not this point; but rather think one word

From thee the wretched rescues.

King.

How then shall I

My friendly disposition show?

Chorus.

We ask

But this—from our pursuers save us.

King.

What!

Shall I for unknown exiles breed a war?

Chorus.

Justice will fight for him who fights for us.

King.

Doubtless; if Justice from the first hath stamped

Your cause for hers.

Chorus.
(pointing to the altar)

The state’s high poop here crowned

Revere.

King.

This green environment of shade,

Mantling the seats of the gods I see, and shudder.

Chorus.

The wrath of suppliant Joveⁿ²⁸ is hard to bear.

STROPHE I.

O hear my cry, benignly hear!

Thou son of PalÆcthon, hear me!

The fugitive wandering suppliant hear!

Thou king of Pelasgians, hear me!

Like a heifer young by the wolf pursuedⁿ²⁹

O’er the rocks so cliffy and lonely,

And loudly it lows to the herdsman good,

Whose strength can save it only.

King.

My eyes are tasked; there, ’neath the shielding shade

Of fresh-lopt branches I behold you clinging

To these Agonian gods; but what I do

Must spare the state from harm. I must provide

That no unlooked-for unprepared event

Beget new strife; of this we have enough.

ANTISTROPHE I.
Chorus.

Great Jove that allotteth their lot to all,

By his sentence of right shall clear thee,

Dread Themis that heareth the suppliants’ call,

No harm shall allow to come near thee.

Though I speak to the old with the voice of the young,

Do the will of the gods, and surely

Their favour to thee justly weighed shall belong,

When thy gifts thou offerest purely.

King.

Not at my hearth with precatory boughs

Ye lie. The state, if guilty taint from you

Affect the general weal, will for the state

Take counsel. I nor pledge nor promise give,

Till all the citizens hear what thou shalt say.

STROPHE II.
Chorus.

Thou art the state, and the people art thou,ⁿ³⁰

The deed that thou doest who judges?

The hearth and the altar before thee bow,

The grace that thou grantest who grudges?

Thou noddest; the will that thou willest is thine,

Thy vote with no voter thou sharest;

The throne is all thine, and the sceptre divine,

And thy guilt, when thou sinnest, thou bearest.

King.

Guilt lie on those that hate me! but your prayers

Harmless I may not hear; and to reject them

Were harsh. To do, and not to do alike

Perplex me; on the edge of choice I tremble.

ANTISTROPHE II.
Chorus.

Him worship who sitteth a watchman in Heaven,

And looks on this life of our labour;

Nor looketh in vain, when the wretched is driven

From the gate of his pitiless neighbour.

On our knees when we fall, and for mercy we call,

If his right thou deny to the stranger,

Jove shall look on thy home, from his thunder dome,

Sternly wrathful, the suppliants’ avenger.

King.

But if Ægyptus’ sons shall claim you, pleading

Their country’s laws, and their near kinship, who

Shall dare to stand respondent? You must plead

Your native laws, so the laws plead for you,

And speak you free from who would force your love.

STROPHE III.
Chorus.

Ah ne’er to the rough-handed youth let me yield,

But rather alone, ’neath the wide starry field,

Let me wander, an outcast, a stranger!

The ill-sorted yoke I abhor: and do thou,

With Justice to second thee, judge for me now,

And fear Him above, the Avenger!

King.

Not I shall judge: it is no easy judgment.

What I have said, I said. Without the people

I cannot do this thing;ⁿ³¹ being absolute king,

I would not. Justly, if mischance shall follow,

The popular tongue will blame the ruler, who,

To save the stranger, ruined his own flock.

ANTISTROPHE III.
Chorus.

Where kindred with kindred contendeth in war,

Jove looks on the strife, and decides from afar,

Where he holdeth the scales even-handed;^f13

O why wilt thou doubt to declare for the right?

He blesseth the good, but in anger will smite,

Where the sons of the wicked are banded.

King.

To advise for you in such confounding depths,

My soul should be a diver, to plunge down

Far in the pool profound with seeing eye,

And feel no dizziness. ’Tis no light matter

Here to unite your safety and the state’s.

If that your kindred claim you as their right,

And we withstand, a bloody strife ensues.

If from these altars of the gods we tear you,

Your chosen refuge, we shall surely bring

The all-destroying god, the stern Alastor,^f14

To house with us, whom not the dead in Hades

Can flee. Is here no cause to ponder well?

STROPHE I.
Chorus.

Ponder well;

With thee to dwell,

A righteous-minded host receive us!

Weary-worn,

Exiles lorn,

From the godless men that grieve us

Save to-day;

Nor cast-a-way

Homeless, houseless, hopeless leave us!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Shall rash assaulters

From these altars

Rudely drag the friendless stranger?

Thou art king,

’Neath thy wing

Cowers in vain the weak from danger?

Thy terror show

To our fierce foe,

Fear, O fear our High Avenger!

STROPHE II.

Where they see

The gods and thee,

Shall their lawless will not falter?

Shall they tear

My floating hair,

As a horse dragged by the halter?

Wilt thou bear

Him to tear

My frontlets fair,

My linen robes—the bold assaulter?

ANTISTROPHE II.

One the danger,

If the stranger

Thou reject, or welcome wisely:

For thee and thine

To Mars a fine

Thou shalt pay the same precisely:

From Egypt far

Fearing war,

Thou shalt mar

Thy peace with mighty Jove, not wisely.

King.

Both ways I’m marred. Even here my wits are stranded.

With these or those harsh war to make, strong Force

Compels my will. Nailed am I like a vessel

Screwed to the dock, beneath the shipwright’s tool.

Which way I turn is woe. A plundered house

By grace of possessory Joveⁿ³² may freight

New ships with bales that far outweigh the loss;

And a rash tongue that overshoots the mark

With barbÉd phrase that harshly frets the heart,

With one smooth word, may charm the offence away.

But ere the sluice of kindred blood be opened,

With vows and victims we must pray the gods

Importunate, if perchance such fateful harm

They may avert. Myself were little wise

To mingle in this strife: of such a war

Most ignorant is most blest: but may the gods

Deceive my fears, and crown your hopes with blessing!

Chorus.

Now hear the end of my respectful prayers.

King.

I hear. Speak on. Thy words shall not escape me.

Chorus.

Thou see’st this sash, this zone my stole begirding.

King.

Fit garniture of women. Yes; I see it.

Chorus.

This zone well-used may serve us well.

King.

How so?

Chorus.

If thou refuse to pledge our safety, then—

King.

Thy zone shall pledge it how?

Chorus.

Thou shalt behold

These ancient altars with new tablets hung.

King.

Thou speak’st in riddles. Explain.

Chorus.

These gods shall see me

Here hanging from their shrines.

King.

Hush, maiden! Hush!

Thy words pierce through my marrow!

Chorus.

Thou hast heard

No blind enigma now. I gave it eyes.

King.