Epeisodion 3
[Episode]
is the actual cause, but I shall no longer be guiltless, if, because of me and my marriage, this maiden perishes, she that has suffered past endurance and been the victim of affronts most strangely undeserved.
940
Achilles
So am I made the poorest wretch in Argos;
I a thing of nothing, and Menelaus counting for a man! No son of Peleus I, but the issue of a vengeful fiend, if my name shallReading φονεύσει with Schäfer. serve your husband for the murder. No! by Nereus, who begot my mother Thetis, in his home amid the flowing waves,
945
never shall king Agamemnon touch your daughter, no! not even to the laying of a finger-tip upon her robe; or SipylusA mountain in Lycia, near which was shown the grave of Tantalus, the ancestor of the Atridae; the town of the same name was swallowed up in very early times by an earthquake., that frontier town of barbarism, the cradle of those chieftains’ line, will be henceforth a city indeed, while Phthia’s name will nowhere find mention.
950
Calchas, the seer, shall rue beginning the sacrifice with his barley-meal and lustral water. Why, what is a seer? A man who with luck tells the truth sometimes, with frequent falsehoods, but when his luck deserts him, collapses then and there.
955
It is not to secure a bride that I have spoken thus—there are maids unnumbered
eager to have my loveReading οὐ for ἧ, and regarding μυρίαι—τοὐμὸν as parenthetical, which in the main is the view taken by Nauck and Klotz of this very nnsatisfactory passage. Paley, regarding it as an interpolation, disdains to emend it.—no! but king Agamemnon has put an insult on me; he should have asked my leave to use my name as a means to catch the child, for it was Ii.e., it was my rank, etc., as described by Agamemnon, that carried the day, and, such being the case, I ought to have had some voice in the matter. (Paley.) chiefly who induced Clytemnestra to betroth her daughter to me;
960
I would had yielded this to Hellas, if that was where our going to Ilium broke down; I would never have refused to further my fellow soldiers’ common interest. But as it is, I am as nothing in the eyes of those chieftains, and little they care of treating me well or ill.
965
My sword shall soon know if any one is to snatch your daughter from me, for then will I make it reek with the bloody stains of slaughter, before it reach Phrygia.Porson, whom Monk follows, corrects this passage thus: ὃν, πρὶν εἰσ᾽ Φρύγας | ἐλθεῖν φόνον, κλῖσιν αἵματος χρανῶ, an ingenious but not absolutely necessary emendation. Calm yourself then; as a god in his might I appeared to you, without being so, but such will I show myself for all that.
970
Chorus Leader
Son of Peleus, your words are alike worthy of you and that sea-born deity, the holy goddess.
975
Clytemnestra
Ah! would I could find words to utter your praise without excess, and yet not lose the graciousness of it by stinting it; for when the good are praised, they have some sort of feeling
of hatred for those who in their praise exceed the mean. But I am ashamed of intruding a tale of woe, since my affliction touches myself alone and you are not affected by troubles of mine; but still it looks well for the man of worth to assist the unfortunate, even when he is not connected with then.
980
Therefore pity us, for our suffering cries for pity; in the first place, I have harbored an idle hope, in thinking to have you marry my daughter; and next, perhaps, the slaying of my child will be to you an evil omen in your wooing hereafter, against which you must guard yourself.
985
Your words were good, both first and last; for if you will it so, my daughter will be saved.
990
Will you have her clasp your knees as a suppliant? it is no maid’s part; yet if it seems good to you, why, come she shall with the modest look of free-born maid;
but if I shall obtain the same end from you without her coming then let her abide within, for there is dignity in her reserve; still reserve must only go as far as the case allows.
995
Achilles
Paley regards 11. 998-1035 as spurious, pointing out much, that, in his opinion, stamps them as the work of a later hand.Do not bring your daughter out for me to see, lady, nor let us incur the reproach of the ignorant;
for an army, when gathered together without domestic duties to employ it, loves the evil gossip of malicious tongues. After all, should you both supplicate me, you will attain a like result as if I had never been supplicated;Reading ἡν for ᾑς, as Paley suggests; Nauck gives ἀνικετεύτως εἶς, to avoid the un-Attic εἰ . . . ᾔς. for I am myself engaged in a mighty struggle to rid you of your troubles.
1000
One thing be sure you have heard; I will not tell a lie; if I do that or idly mock you, may I die, but live if I preserve the girl.
1005
Clytemnestra
Bless you for always helping the distressed!
