Herdman.
We went to wash our cattle in sea-brine.255
Iphigeneia.
To this return—where laid ye hold on them,
And in what manner? This I fain would learn.
For late they come: the Goddess' altar long
Hath been with streams of Hellene blood undyed.
Herdman.
Even as we drave our woodland-pasturing kine260
Down to the sea that parts the Clashing Rocks,—
There was a cliff-chine, by the ceaseless dash
Of waves grooved out, a purple-fishers' haunt;—
Even there a herdman of our company
Beheld two youths, and backward turned again,265
With tiptoe stealth his footsteps piloting,
And spake, "Do ye not see them?—yonder sit
Gods!" One of us, a god-revering man,
Lifted his hands, and looked on them, and prayed:
"Guardian of ships, Sea-queen Leukothea's son,270
O Lord Palaimon, gracious be to us,—
Whether the Great Twin Brethren yonder sit,
Or Nereus' darlings, born of him of whom
That company of fifty Nereids sprang."
But one, a scorner, bold in lawlessness,275
Mocked at his prayers: for shipwrecked mariners
Dreading our law, said he, sat in the cleft,
Who had heard how strangers here be sacrificed.
And now the more part said, "He speaketh well:
Let us then hunt the Goddess' victims due."280
One of the strangers left meantime the cave,
