Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/131

Look on them, look!—be dragged away by force. 225
O, I beseech—I lay the wreath-spell on thee—
By thine hands and thine head, set not at naught
Herakles' sons, who hast them in thine hands.
Prove thee to these true kinsman, prove thee friend,
Their father, brother, lord—better all these,^[1] 230
Than into hands of Argive men to fall!

I pity these in their affliction, king.
High birth by fortune crushed I now behold
As ne'er before: born of a noble sire
Are these, yet suffer woes unmerited. 235

Three influences, that meet in one, constrain me,
Iolaus, not to thrust these from my land:
The chiefest, Zeus, upon whose altar thou
Art sitting with these nestlings compassed round;
Then, kinship, and the debt of old, that these 240
Should for their sire's sake fare well at mine hands;
Third, dread of shame,—this must my soul regard:
For if I let this altar be despoiled
By alien force, I shall be held to dwell
In no free land, but cowed by fear of Argos 245
To yield up suppliants:—hanging were not worse!
I would that thou hadst come in happier plight;
Yet, even so, fear not that any man
Shall from this altar tear thee with these boys.