Leader.
What meanst thou there? Speak out thy subtlety.
Athena.
Let no bare oath the deeper right subdue.
Leader.
Try thou the cause, then, and give judgement true.
Athena.
Ye trust me this whole issue to decide?
Leader.
Who would not trust thee? True thou art and tried.
Athena (turning to Orestes).
Strange man, and what in turn hast thou to advance?
Thy land and lineage, and thy long mischance
Show first, then make thine answer to their laws.
If truly in the justice of thy cause
Trusting, thou clingest here in need so dire
To mine own shape, hard by my deathless fire,
In fearful prayer, as lost Ixîon prayed,
Make to all these thine answer unafraid.
Orestes.
Most high Athena, let me from the last
Of these thy questionings one fear outcast.
Pollution is not in me, nor with hand
Blood-reeking cleave I to thine altar-strand;
In sign whereof, behold, I have cast away
That silence which the man of blood alway
22
