Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/356

Yet oft of self-reliance profit comes. 925
Fostered by Cheiron, one that feared God most,
Was I, and learned to tread no tortuous ways.
And Atreus' sons, if righteously they lead,
Will I obey; else will I not obey.
Here, as in Troy, I'll keep me free man still, 930
And, as I may, will grace a hero's part.
Thee, lady, outraged by thy nearest kin,
Will I, so far as such young champion can,
Right; so shall my compassion buckler thee.
Ne'er by her father slain shall be thy child, 935
Once called my bride. I will not lend myself
To be thy lord's tool in his subtle plots;
Else this my name, though it have raised no steel,
Shall slay thy daughter:—and the cause thereof
Thy lord! My very blood were murder-tainted, 940
If this maid, suffering wrongs intolerable,
For my sake and my marriage be destroyed,
With outrage past belief unmerited.
So were I basest among Argive men,
A thing of nought,—and Menelaus a man!— 945
Sprung of no Peleus, but some vengeance-fiend,
If my name shall do butchery for thy lord!
No, by the foster-son of Ocean's waves,
Nereus, the sire of Thetis who bare me,
King Agamemnon shall not touch thy child— 950
Not on her robe to lay a finger-tip!
Else half-barbaric Sipylus^[1] were a city,
Whence sprang the line of yonder war-chief's house,
And Phthia's name were nowhere named of men.