Heracleidae (330-435)

My son, why, prithee, art thou returned with that anxious look? Hast thou news of the enemy? Are they coming, are they here, or what thy tidings? For of a surety yon herald will not play us false.

No! sure I am their captain, prosperous heretofore, will come, with thoughts exceeding proud against Athens. But Zeus doth punish overweening pride.

The host of Argos is come, and Eurystheus its king;

my own eyes saw him, for the man who thinks he knows good generalship must see the foe not by messengers alone. As yet, however, he hath not sent his host into the plain, but, camped upon a rocky brow,

is watching—I only tell thee what I think this means—to see by which road to lead his army hither without fighting, and how to take up a safe position in this land. However, all my plans are by this time carefully laid; the city is under arms, the victims

stand ready to be slain to every god, whose due this is; my seers have filled the town with sacrifices, to turn the foe to flight and keep our country safe. All those who chant prophetic words have I assembled, and have examined ancient oracles, both public and secret,

as means to save this city. And though the several answers differ in many points, yet in one is the sentiment of all clearly the same; they bid me sacrifice to Demeter’s[*] daughter some maiden from a noble father sprung.

Now I, though in your cause I am as zealous as thou seest, yet will not slay my child, nor will I compel any of my subjects to do so against his will; for who of his own will doth harbour such an evil thought as to yield with his own hands the child he loves?

And now thou mayest[*] see angry gatherings, where some declare, ’tis right to stand by suppliant strangers, while others charge me with folly; but if I do[*] this deed, a civil war is then and there on foot.

Do thou then look to this and help to find a way to save yourselves and this country without causing me to be slandered by the citizens. For I am no despot like a barbarian monarch; but provided[*] I do what is just, just will my treatment be.

Can it be that heaven forbids this city to help strangers, when it hath the will and longing so to do?

My children, we are even as those mariners, who have escaped the storm’s relentless rage, and have the land almost within their reach, but after all are driven back from shore by tempests to the deep again.

Even so we, just as we reach the shore in seeming safety, are being thrust back from this land. Ah me! Why, cruel hope, didst thou then cheer my heart, though thou didst not mean to make the boon complete?

The king may well be pardoned, if he will not slay his subjects’ children; and with my treatment here I am content; if indeed ’tis heaven’s will, I thus should fare, still is my gratitude to thee in no wise lost. Children, I know not what to do for you.