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THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

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278 Aeschylus [205-225]<br />

APOLLO<br />

Yea, and I bade him to this temple flee.<br />

LEADER<br />

And yet forsooth dost chide us following himl<br />

APOLLO<br />

Ay—not for you it is, to near this fane.<br />

LEADER<br />

Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.<br />

APOLLO<br />

What office? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.<br />

LEADER<br />

From home to home we chase the matricide.<br />

APOLLO<br />

What? to avenge a wife who slays her lord?<br />

LEADER<br />

That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.<br />

APOLLO<br />

How darkly ye dishonour and annul<br />

The troth to which the high accomplishers,<br />

Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus<br />

Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,<br />

The queen of rapture unto mortal men.<br />

Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained<br />

For man and woman standeth Right as guard,<br />

Enhancing sanctity of trothplight sworn;<br />

Therefore, if thou art placable to those<br />

Who have their consort slain, nor wilPst to turn<br />

On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou<br />

In hounding to his doom the man who slew<br />

His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath<br />

Against one deed, but all too placable<br />

Unto the other, minishing the crime.<br />

But in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.<br />

LEADER<br />

Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.

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