Epeisodion 1
Copreus
give me naught, but let me take mine own, and so gain Mycenae; but forbear to act now, as is your Athenian way, and take the weaker side, when it is in thy power to choose the stronger as thy friends.
175
Chorus
Who can decide a cause or ascertain its merits,
till from both sides he clearly learn what they would say?
180
Iolaus
O king, in thy land I start with this advantage, the right to hear and speak in turn, and none, ere that, will drive me hence as elsewhere they would. ’Twixt us and him is naught in common,
for we no longer have aught to do with Argos since that decree was passed, but we are exiles from our native land; how then can he justly drag us back as subjects of Mycenae,Mycenae and Argos are used indiscrimately, in the same way that Euripides elsewhere speaks of Greeks as Argives, Achaeans, Hellenes, etc., without distinction. seeing that they have banished us? For we are strangers.
185
Or do ye claim that every exile from Argos is exiled from the bounds of Hellas? Not from Athens surely; for ne’er will she for fear of Argos drive the children of Heracles from her land. Here is no Trachis, not at all; no! nor that Achaean town, whence thou, defying justice,
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but boasting of the might of Argos in the very words thou now art using, didst drive the suppliants from their station at the altar. If this shall be, and they thy words approve, why then I trow this is no more Athens, the home of freedom. Nay, but I know the temper and nature of these citizens;
195
they would rather die, for honour ranks before mere life with men of worth. Enough of Athens! for excessive praise is apt to breed disgust; and oft ere now I have myself felt vexed at praise that knows no bounds.
200
But to thee, as ruler of this land, I fain would show the reason why thou art bound to save these children. Pittheus was the son of Pelops; from him sprung Aethra, and from her Theseus thy sire was born. And now will I trace back these children’s lineage for thee.
205
Heracles was son of Zeus and Alcmena; Alcmena sprang from Pelops’ daughter; therefore thy father and their father would be the sons of first cousins. Thus then art thou to them related, O Demophon, but thy just debt to them beyond the ties of kinship
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do I now declare to thee; for I assert, in days gone by, I was with Theseus on the ship, as their father’s squire, when they went to fetch that girdle fraught with death; yea, and from Hades’ murky dungeons did Heracles bring thy father up; as all Hellas doth attest.
215
The following six lines have been condemned by the joint verdict of Paley, Porson, and Dindorf. Wherefore in return they crave this boon of thee, that they be not surrendered up nor torn by force from the altars of thy gods and cast forth from the land. For this were shame on thee, andThis line as it stands has a syllable too many for the metre. Hermann omits τε. Wecklein inserts τῇ and omits κακόν. hurtful likewise in thy state, should suppliants, exiles,
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kith and kin of thine, be haled away by force. For pity’s sake! cast one glance at them. I do entreat thee, laying my suppliant bough upon thee, by thy hands and beard, slight not the sons of Heracles, now that thou hast them in thy power to help. Show thyself their kinsman and their friend;
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be to them father, brother, lord; for better each and all of these than to fall beneath the Argives’ hand.
230
Chorus
O king, I pity them, hearing their sad lot Now more than ever do I see noble birth o’ercome by fortune; for these, though sprung from a noble sire,
are suffering what they ne’er deserved.
235
Demophon
Three aspects of the case constrain me, Iolaus, not to spurn the guests thou bringest; first and foremost, there is Zeus, at whose altar thou art seated with these tender children gathered round thee;
next come ties of kin, and the debt I owe to treat them kindly for their father’s sake; and last, mine honour, which before all I must regard; for if I permit this altar to be violently despoiled by stranger hands, men will think
240
the land I inhabit is free no more, and that through fearReading ὄκνῳ. I have surrendered suppliants to Argives, and this comes nigh to make one hang oneself. Would that thou hadst come under a luckier star! yet, as it is, fear not that any man shall tear thee and these children from the altar by force.
245
Get thee (to Copreus) to Argos and tell Eurystheus so; yea and more, if he have any charge against these strangers, he shall have justice; but never shalt thou drag them hence.
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