140 EURIPIDES. [L. 279-349 only joy, in her I forget my sorrows;^ my one comfort she in place of many a loss, my city ^ and my nurse, my staff and journey's guide. 'Tis never right that those in power should use it out of season, or when prosperous suppose they will be always so. For I like them was prosperous once, but now my life is lived, and one day robbed me of all my bliss. Friend, by thy beard, have some regard and pity for me; go to Achaea's host, and talk them over, saying how hateful a thing it is to slay women whom at first ye spared out of pity, after dragging them from the altars. For amongst you the self-same law holds good for bond and free alike respecting bloodshed ; such influence as thine will persuade them even though thy ^ words are weak ; for the same argument, when proceeding from those of no account, has not the same force as when it is uttered by men of mark. Cho. Human nature is not * so stony-hearted as to hear thy plaintive tale and catalogue of sorrows, without shedding a tear. Ody. O Hecuba ! be schooled by me, nor in thy passion count him a foe who speaketh wisely. Thy life I am pre- pared to save, for the service I received ; I say no otherwise. But what I said to all, I will not now deny, that after Troy's capture I would give thy daughter to the chiefest of our host because he asked a victim. For herein is a source of weakness to most states, whene'er a man of brave and gene- rous soul receives no greater honour than his inferiors. Now Achilles, lady, deserves honour at our hands, since for Hellas he died as nobly as a mortal can. Is not this' a foul reproach to treat a man as a friend in life, but, when he is gone ' from ^ Nauck brackets this line as suspicious. ^ TToXtg, for which Weil proposes jSiog, Czwalina, TroXidg. ' Xlyyg ; so Porson and Dindorf after Muretus.
- ovK tcTTiv, Porson tiq eariv, from Gregory of Corinth.
^ aireoTi. Porson and Nauck retain the old reading, oXtoXe, which is thought to be a gloss.
