arrow leap forth from this string and smite you so
that ye vomit forth the blood of men that ye have drunk. This is no fit
halting-place for you; in the habitations of cruelty is your best abode,
or in some lion's den, dripping with blood, not, verily, where men come
to hear the oracles of truth. Depart ye, therefore, with all speed."

"Nay," said they; "hear, King Apollo, what we would say. For thou art
verily guilty of this matter."

"How so? So much thou mayest say."

"Thou badest this stranger slay his mother."

"I bade him take vengeance for his father's blood."

"And thou wast ready to answer for this deed?"

"I bade him come for succour to this shrine."

"Yet they who attend him please thee not?"

"No, for it fitteth not that they should approach this place."

"Yet 'tis our appointed task to follow him that slayeth his mother."

"And what if a wife slay her husband?"

"Between wife and husband there is no kindred blood."

"Thou dost dishonour, saying this, to great Here that is wife to Zeus,
and to all love, than which there is nothing dearer to men."

"Yet will I hunt this man to the death, for the blood of his mother
drives me on."

"And I will help him and save him."

But in the meantime Orestes fled with all speed to the city of Athens,
and came to the temple of Athene, and sat clasping the image of the
goddess, and cried to her that he was come at the bidding of Apollo, and
was ready to abide her judgment. But the Furies followed hard upon him,
having tracked him as a dog tracks a fawn that hath been wounded, by the
blood. And when they were come and had found him in the temple, they
cried that it was of no avail that he sought the help of the Gods, for
that the blood of his mother that had been shed cried against him from
the ground, and that they would drink his blood, and waste him, and
drive him a living man among the dead, that all men might shun to do
such deeds in time to come.

Then said Orestes, "I have learnt in many troubles both how to be silent
and how to speak. And now I speak as a wise man biddeth me. For lo! the
stain of blood that is upon my hand groweth pale, and the defilement is
cleansed away. Therefore, I call to Athene that is Queen of this land,
to help me, wherever she be; for though she be far, yet being a goddess,
she can hear my voice. And helping me, she shall gain me, and my people,
and my land to be friends to her and to her people for ever."

But not the les