< Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu
This page has been validated.

114

EURIPIDES.

So compassed round with toils of woeful ills.

For touching Agamemnon's fate I knew,⁠360
And by what death at his wife's hands he died,
When my prow touched at Malea: from the waves
The shipman's seer, the unerring God, the son
Of Nereus, Glaucus, made it known to me.
For full in view he rose, and cried to me:⁠365
"Thy brother, Menelaus, lieth dead,
Fall'n in the bath, the death-snare[1] of his wife!"—
So filled me and my mariners with tears
Full many. As I touched the Nauplian land,
Even as my wife was hasting hitherward,⁠370
And looked to clasp dead Agamemnon's son
Orestes, and his mother, in loving arms,
As prospering yet, I heard a fisher tell
Of Tyndareus' daughter's murder heaven-accurst.
Now tell to me, ye damsels, where is he,⁠375
Agamemnon's son, who dared that awful deed?
A babe was he in Klytemnestra's arms,
When Troyward bound I went from mine halls forth:
Wherefore I should not know him, if I saw.


Orestes.

I am Orestes! This is he thou seekest.⁠380
Free-willed shall I declare to thee my woes:
Yet suppliant first for prelude clasp thy knees
Linking to thee the leafless prayers of lips.[2]
Save me: thou comest in my sorest need.

  1. ↑ Reading ἀρκυστάτοις (Nauck), for πανυστάτοις, "Fallen in that last bath, by a wife prepared."
  2. ↑ Suppliants who approached a God brought leafy boughs, which they laid on his altar, linking themselves thereto by woollen fillets. This is an oral petition, without that outward symbol.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.