Euripides' HERACLEIDAE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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47 pages - You are on Page 10

For excessive praise is apt to breed disgust; and oft ere now have
myself felt vexed at praise that knows no bounds. But to thee, as
ruler of this land, fain would show the reason why thou art bound
to save these children. Pittheus was the son of Pelops; from him sprung
Aethra, and from her Theseus thy sire was born. And now will I trace
back these children's lineage for thee. Heracles was son of Zeus and
Alcmena; Alcmena sprang from Pelops' daughter; therefore thy father
and their father would be the sons of first cousins. Thus then art
thou to them related, O Demophon, but thy just debt to them beyond
the ties of kinship do I now declare to thee; for I assert, in days
gone by, I was with Theseus on the ship, as their father's squire,
when they went to fetch that girdle fraught with death; yea, and from
Hades' murky dungeons did Heracles bring thy father up; as all Hellas
doth attest. Wherefore in return they crave this boon of thee, that
they be not surrendered up nor torn by force from the altars of thy
gods and cast forth from the land. For this were shame on thee, and
hurtful likewise in thy state, should suppliants, exiles, kith and
kin of thine, be haled away by force. In pity cast one glance at them.
I do entreat thee, laying my suppliant bough upon thee, by thy hands
and beard, slight not the sons of Heracles, now that thou hast them
in thy power to help. Show thyself their kinsman and their friend;
be to them father, brother, lord; for better each and all of these
than to fall beneath the Argives' hand.

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