le,
beat[49] their swords out of their hands with stones, and they dropped
their knees to earth [overcome] with toil. And we brought them to the king
of this land, but he, when he beheld them, sent them as quickly as possible
to thee for lustral waters and sacrifice. But do thou, O virgin, wish that
such strangers may be here as victims, and if thou slayest these strangers,
Hellas will atone for thy [intended] murder, paying the penalty of the
sacrifice at Aulis.[50]

CHOR. Thou hast told wondrous things concerning him who has appeared,
whosoever he be that has come to the inhospitable sea from the Grecian
earth.[51]

IPH. Be it so. Do thou go and bring the strangers, but I will take care
respecting the matters[52] here. O hapless heart, that once wast mild and
full of pity toward strangers, awarding the tear to those of thine own
land, when thou didst receive Grecian men into thine hands.[53] But now,
because of the dreams by which I am driven wild, thinking that Orestes no
longer beholds the sun, ye will find me ill disposed, whoever ye be that
come. For this is true, I perceive it, my friends,[54] for the unhappy who
themselves fare ill have no good feelings toward those more fortunate. But
neither has any wind sent by Jove ever come [hither,] nor ship, which could
have brought hither Helen, who destroyed me, and Menelaus, in order that I
might be avenged on them, placing an Aulis here to the account[55] of the
one there, where the sons of Danaus seized, and would have slain me like as
a calf, and the father who begat me was the priest. Ah me! for I can not
forget the ills of that time, how oft I stretched out my hands to his
beard, and hanging on the knees of him who gave me life, spake words like
these: "O father, basely am I, basely am I wedded at thine hands. But my
mother, while thou art slaying me, and her Argive ladies are hymning my
wedding[56] with their nuptial songs, and all the house resounds with the
flute, while I perish by thy hands. Hades in truth was Achilles, not the
son of Peleus, whom thou didst name as my husband, and in the chariot didst
pilot me by craft unto a bloody wedding." But I, casting mine eye through
my slender woven veil, neither took up with mine hands my brother who is
now dead, nor joined my lips to my sister's,[57] through modesty, as
departing to the home of Peleus; and many a salutation I deferred, as
though about to come again to Argos. Oh wretched one, if thou hast died!
from