Pelops and AEthra, daughter of Pittheus, and
your father Theseus was born of her. And again I trace for you their
descent: Hercules was son of Jupiter and Alcmena, and she was the child of
the daughter of Pelops; so your father and theirs must be fellow-cousins.
Thus you, O Demophoon, are related to them by birth; and, besides this
connection, I will tell you for what you are bound to requite the children.
For I say, I formerly, when shield-bearer to their father, sailed with
Theseus after the belt,[7] the cause of much slaughter, and from the murky
recesses of hell did he bring forth your father. All Greece bears witness
to this; for which things they beseech you to return a kindness, and that
they may not be yielded up, nor be driven from this land, torn from your
Gods by violence; for this would be disgraceful to you by yourself, and an
evil to the city,[8] that suppliant relations, wanderers--alas for the
misery! look on them, look--should be dragged away by force. But I beseech
you, and offer you suppliant garlands, by your hands and your chin, do not
dishonor the children of Hercules, having received them in your power; but
be thou a relation to them, be a friend, father, brother, master; for all
these things are better than [for them] to fall into the power of the
Argives.

CHOR. Hearing of these men's misfortunes, I pitied them, O king! and now
particularly I have witnessed nobleness overcome by fortune; for these men,
being sons of a noble father, are undeservedly unhappy.

DE. Three ways of misfortune urge me, O Iolaus, not to reject these
suppliants. The greatest, Jupiter, at whose altars you sit, having this
procession of youths with you; and my relationship to them, and because I
am bound of old that they should fare well at my hands, in gratitude to
their father; and the disgrace,[9] which one ought exceedingly to regard.
For if I permitted this altar to be violated by force by a strange man, I
shall not seem to inhabit a free country. But I fear to betray my
suppliants to the Argives; and this is nearly as bad as the noose. But I
wish you had come with better fortune; but still, even now, fear not that
any one shall drag you and these children by force from this altar. And do
thou, going to Argos, both tell this to Eurystheus; and besides that, if he
has any charge against these strangers, he shall meet with justice; but you
shall never drag away these men.

COP. Not if it be just, and I prevail in argum