ar,
And who thou art who speakest to me? I
Am Merope, thy murder'd master's wife;
And thou art Polyphontes, first his friend,
And then ... his murderer. These offending tears
That murder moves; this breach that thou would'st close
Was by that murder open'd; that one child
(If still, indeed, he lives) whom thou would'st seat
Upon a throne not thine to give, is heir,
Because thou slew'st his brothers with their father.
Who can patch union here? What can there be
But everlasting horror 'twixt us two,
Gulfs of estranging blood? Across that chasm
Who can extend their hands?... Maidens, take back
These offerings home! our rites are spoil'd to-day.

_Polyphontes_

Not so; let these Messenian maidens mark
The fear'd and blacken'd ruler of their race,
Albeit with lips unapt to self-excuse,
Blow off the spot of murder from his name.--
Murder!--but what _is_ murder? When a wretch
For private gain or hatred takes a life,
We call it murder, crush him, brand his name.
But when, for some great public cause, an arm
Is, without love or hate, austerely raised
Against a power exempt from common checks,
Dangerous to all, to be but thus annull'd--
Ranks any man with murder such an act?
With grievous deeds, perhaps; with murder, no!
Find then such cause, the charge of murder falls--
Be judge thyself if it abound not here.
All know how weak the eagle, Heracles,
Soaring from his death-pile on OEta, left
His puny, callow eaglets; and what trials--
Infirm protectors, dubious oracles
Construed awry, misplann'd invasions--wore
Three generations of his offspring out;
Hardly the fourth, with grievous loss, regain'd
Their fathers' realm, this isle, from Pelops named.
Who made that triumph, though deferr'd, secure?
Who, but the kinsmen of the royal brood
Of Heracles, scarce Heracleidae less
Than they? these, and the Dorian lords, whose king
AEgimius gave our outcast house a home
When Thebes, when Athens dared not; who in arms
Thrice issued with us from their pastoral vales,
And shed their blood like water in our cause?
Such were the dispossessors; of what stamp
Were they we dispossessed?--of us I speak,
Who to Messenia with thy husband came;
I speak not now of Argos, where his brother,
Not now of Sparta, where his nephews reign'd.--
What we found here were tribes o