Peasant lines

O Argos, ancient land, in streams of the Nakis, went on a day-king Agamemnon's tale to the realm of Troy, carrying his swords aboard a thousand ships, and after he had slain Priam, who was reigning in Ilium and captured the famous city of Darnassus, he came hither to Argos and set up high on the temple wall as many a trophy. Spoiled of the barbarians, though all went well with him and Troy, that he was slain in his own palace by the guilt of his wife, Queen Mestra, and the hand of Agastias, son of Theistes. So he died and left behind him the ancient scepter of Tanatlus, and Agastias reigned in his stead with the daughter of Tyndareus, Agamemnon's wife. Now as for those whom he left in the walls, when he sailed to Troy, his son Erestes and his plundered daughter Electra, a boy Erestes, as he was like to be slain by Agastias. His sorrowful old foster father secretly moved to the land of Phocis and gave to Astrophys to bring up, but the maid Electra abode in his father's house, and soon as she had butted into maidenhood, came all the prince of Hellas, asking her marriage in hand, but Agastias kept her at home from fear, she might bear a son to some chieftain, who would avenge Agamemnon, nor would he betroth her unto any. But when he thus dared see some room for fear, that she might bear some noble lord a child by stealth, and Agastias was minded to slay her. Her mother, though she had a cruel heart, yet rescued the maid from his hand, for she could find excuses for having slain her husband, but feared the hatred she would incur for her children's mother. Wherefore, Agastias devised this scheme on Agamemnon's son, she had claimed his, who had escaped his realm by flight, he said a price should be paid to any who should slay him, while he gave Electra marriage in hand, whose ancestors were citizens of Mycenae. It is not that I blame myself, for my family was noble enough, though certain impoverished, and so my good birth sufferers, by making for her this weak alliance, he thought he would have little to fear. For if some men of high position had married her, he might have revived the vengeance of Agamemnon's murder, which is now sleeping, in which case Agastias would have paid the penalty. But Cyprus is my witness that I have ever respected in her maidenhood. She is still, although unwed, unworthy as I am, honor forbids that I should so affront the daughter of a better man. Yeah, and I'm sorry for Orestes' hapless youth, who was called my kinsman, to think he should ever have returned to Argos, and behold his father's sister's wretched marriage, and whose, count me but a fool for leaving a tender maid untouched when I have her in my house. To him, I say, he measures purity by the vicious standard of his own soul, a standard like himself.