EURIPIDES
And cling about his knees. I cry to him:
"It is you yourself, yourself, who brought me here,
You who deceived my maidens and my mother! 565
They sing my marriage-song at home, they fill
The house with happiness, while all the time
Here am I dying at my father's hands!
You led me in your chariot to take
Achilles for my lord, but here is death 370
And the taste of blood, not kisses, on my lips!"
And I had left my home with my white veil
Drawn down. I had not taken in my arms
My brother—dead this day—nor kissed my sister.
I had saved all my kisses and embraces 375
For the man I was to marry. Even then
My heart was homesick and was faint with hope
That I should soon be back again in Argos.
And now, O dead Orestes, you, as I,
Forfeit your heritage and lose your home.
And what does Artemis ask of me here?— 380
She who forbids approach by any man
Whose hand is stained with bloodshed or with touch
Of childbirth or of burial, finds him
Unclean and bans him. She so delicate
In all these ways will yet demand the blood
Of human beings on Her altar-stone!
It cannot be. How could Latona bear 385
To Zeus so cruel a daughter? It is not true.
It is as false as tales of Tantalus
Feeding the Gods a child. O Artemis,
These people, being murderers themselves,
Are charging Thee with their own wickedness. 390
No! I will not believe it of a God!
The Second Maiden
O Clashing Rocks, under whose shadow the dark
Threat waits, though through this cleft
lo fled safe, in her disguise as heifer
Pursued by the sharp stinging of the gadfly, 395
386