Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/289

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And caitiff deed be ranged by baseless plea,1190
And none avail to gloze injustice o'er.
There be whose craft such art hath perfected;
Yet cannot they be cunning to the end:
Foully they perish : never one hath 'scaped.
Such prelude hath my speech as touching thee.1195
Now with plea answering plea to him I turn:—
To spare the Greeks, say'st thou, a twice-toiled task,
For Agamemnon's sake thou slew'st my son.
Villain of villains, when, when could thy race,
Thy brute race, be a friend unto the Greeks?1200
Never. And, prithee, whence this fervent zeal
To serve his cause?—didst look to wed his daughter?
Art of his kin?—Or what thy private end?
Or were they like to sail again and waste
Thy crops? Whom think'st thou to convince hereby?1205
That gold—hadst thou the will to tell the truth—
Murdered my son: that, and thy greed of gain.
For, hearken: why, when all went well with Troy,
When yet her ramparts girt the city round,
And Priam lived, and triumphed Hector's spear,1210
Why not then, if thou fain wouldst earn kings' thanks,
When in mine halls ye had my son and fostered,
Slay him, or living bring him to the Greeks?
But, soon as in the light we walked no more,
And the smoke's token proved our town the foe's,1215
Thou slew'st the guest that came unto thine hearth.
Nay more, hear now how thou art villain proved:
Thou oughtest, if thou wert the Achaians' friend,
Have brought the gold thou dar'st not call thine own,
But for him held in trust, to these impoverished1220
And long time exiled from their fatherland.
But thou not yet canst ope thine heart to unclose