Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays eBook

Nay but here also shall ye find young men,
Unsodden with the juices oozed from grain.[6]
[Exit HERALD OF AEGYPTUS
But ye, O maids, with your attendants true,
Pass hence with trust into the fenced town,
Ringed with a wide confine of guarding towers. 
Therein are many dwellings for such guests
As the State honours; there myself am housed
Within a palace neither scant nor strait. 
There dwell ye, if ye will to lodge at ease
In halls well-thronged:  yet, if your soul prefer,
Tarry secluded in a separate home. 
Choose ye and cull, from these our proffered gifts,
Whiche’er is best and sweetest to your will: 
And I and all these citizens whose vote
Stands thus decreed, will your protectors be. 
Look not to find elsewhere more loyal guard.

[Footnote:  6:  For this curious taunt, strongly illustrative of what Browning calls “nationality in drinks,” see Herodotus, ii. 77.  A similar feeling may perhaps be traced in Tacitus’ description of the national beverage of the Germans:  “Potui humor ex hordeo aut frumento, in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus” (Germania, chap, xxiii).]

CHORUS

O godlike chief, God grant my prayer:  Fair blessings on thy proffers fair, Lord of Pelasgia’s race!  Yet, of thy grace, unto our side Send thou the man of courage tried, Of counsel deep and prudent thought,—­ Be Danaus to his children brought; For his it is to guide us well And warn where it behoves to dwell—­ What place shall guard and shelter us From malice and tongues slanderous:  Swift always are the lips of blame A stranger-maiden to defame—­ But Fortune give us grace!

THE KING OF ARGOS

A stainless fame, a welcome kind
From all this people shall ye find: 
Dwell therefore, damsels, loved of us,
Within our walls, as Danaus
Allots to each, in order due,
Her dower of attendants true.

          
                                                                        [Re-enter DANAUS.  DANAUS

High thanks, my children, unto Argos con,
And to this folk, as to Olympian gods,
Give offerings meet of sacrifice and wine;
For saviours are they in good sooth to you. 
From me they heard, and bitter was their wrath,
How those your kinsmen strove to work you wrong,
And how of us were thwarted:  then to me
This company of spearmen did they grant,
That honoured I might walk, nor unaware
Die by some secret thrust and on this land
Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not. 
Such boons they gave me:  it behoves me pay
A deeper reverence from a soul sincere. 
Ye, to the many words of wariness
Spoken by me your father, add this word,
That, tried by time, our unknown company
Be held for honest:  over-swift are tongues
To slander strangers, over-light is speech