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your quarrel? Mean of soul ye cannot be—such anger proves it—even through bloodshed the noble signs of a proud race show clear.”

Scarce had he spoken, when with mingled clamour and sidelong glance together they begin: “Achaean prince! most gracious monarch! what need of words? thou seest thyself this face all bloody”—their words are lost in the confused sound of bitter accents. Then Tydeus taking first place of speech thus recounts his tale: “Desiring solace for my unhappy lot I left the wealth of Calydon, nurse of monsters, and the Acheloian fields: and lo! in your boundaries deepest night o’ertakes me. Who was he to forbid me shelter from the sky? or was it because he won his way first to this threshold? But twy-form Centaurs stall with each other, so ’tis said, and Cyclopes have peace together beneath Aetna; nay even to wild monsters nature has given laws and their own rule of right; and for us to share a lodging on the ground? but why waste words? either thou, whoe’er thou art, shalt to-day depart rejoicing in my spoils, or, if rising pain dulls not my blood, thou shalt know me to be of mighty Oeneus’ stock and no degenerate scion of my forefather Mars!” “Nor lack I spirit or race” returns the other, but conscious in his heart of ruthless fate he hesitates to name his sire. Then kindly Adrastus: “Nay come now, cease the threatening words which night or sudden wrath or valour prompted, and pass beneath my palace-roof. Now let your right hands be joined to pledge your hearts. These doings have not been vain nor without the sanction of the powers above: perchance even these angry quarrels do but foreshadow a friendship to come, so that ye may have