There we saw a Hellene ship, winged with ready blade for the stroke, and at the oar-locks were fifty rowers with their oars; the two youths stood by the stern, freed from their chains. Some were holding the prow in place with poles; others were fastening the anchor from the cat-heads; others were drawing the stern-cables through their hands, and making haste to let down the ladders into the sea for the strangers. Without sparing ourselves, when we saw their treacherous wiles, we seized the priestess and the cables, and tried to draw the ship’s rudder-oars out through their holes. Then there was a debate: What is your reason for carrying the statue and the priestess away from the land by theft?
Who is your father, who are you, to smuggle her away?
He said: Know that I am Orestes, her brother, Agamemnon’s son, and I have come to take my sister, whom I lost from her home.
But we held her no less,