What! did brother rob brother of his inheritance?AdrastusTo avenge this I set out; hence my ruin. TheseusDidst consult seers, and gaze into the flame of burnt-offerings?AdrastusAh me! thou pressest on the very point, wherein I most did fail.TheseusIt seems thy going was not favoured by heaven.AdrastusWorse; I went in spite even of Amphiaraus.TheseusAnd so heaven lightly turnedReiske conjectures ἀπεστράφης, and omits σ’. its face from thee.AdrastusI was carried away by the clamour of younger men.TheseusThou didst favour courage instead of discretion.AdrastusDindorf condemns this line. Paley brackets it as spurious. Nauck assigns it to Theseus, and retains it.~~True; and many a general owes defeat to that.~~ O king of Athens, bravest of the sons of Hellas, I blush to throw myself upon the ground and clasp thy knees, I a grey-haired king, blest in days gone by; yet needs must I yield to my misfortunes. I pray thee save the dead; have pity on my sorrows and on these, the mothers of the slain, whom hoary eld finds reft of their sons; yet they endured to journey hither and tread a foreign soil with aged tottering steps, bearing no embassy to Demeter’s mysteries; only seeking burial for their dead, which lot should have been theirs, e’en burial by the hands of sons still in their prime.The following two lines are bracketed as spurious by Nauck. And ’tis wise in the rich to see the poor man’s poverty, and in the poor man to turn ambitious eyes toward the rich, that so he may himself indulge a longing for property; and they, whom fortune frowns not on, should gaze on misery’s presentment; likewise, who maketh songs should take a pleasure in their making; for if it be not so with him, he will in no wise avail to gladden others, if himself have sorrow in his home; nay, ’tis not even right to expect it. Mayhap thou’lt say, Why pass the land of Pelops o’er, and lay this toil on Athens? This am I bound to declare. Sparta is cruel, her customs variable; the other states are small and weak. Thy city alone would be able to undertake this labour; for it turns an eye on suffering, and hath in thee a young and gallant king, for want whereof to lead their hosts states ere now have often perished.