Supplices

Aeschylus

Aeschylus, Volume 1. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.

  1. since you are slow to heed my orders.
Enter the King with retainers
King
  1. You there! What are you doing? What kind of arrogance has incited you to do such dishonor to this realm of Pelasgian men? Indeed, do you think you have come to a land of women? For a barbarian dealing with Hellenes, you act insolently.
  2. Many are the misses of your wits, and your hits are none.
Herald
  1. And in this case where have I gone wrong and transgressed my right?
King
  1. First of all, you do not know how to act as a stranger.
Herald
  1. I not know? How so, when I simply find and take my own that I had lost?
King
  1. To what patrons of your land was your notice given?
Herald
  1. To Hermes, the Searcher, greatest of patrons.
King
  1. For all your notice to the gods, you do them no reverence.
Herald
  1. I revere the deities by the Nile.
King
  1. While ours are nothing, as I understand you?
Herald
  1. I shall carry off these maids unless someone tears them away.
King
  1. If you so much as touch them, you will regret it, and right soon.
Herald
  1. I hear you; and your speech is far from hospitable.
King
  1. No, since I have no hospitality for despoilers of the gods.
Herald
  1. I will go and tell Aegyptus’ sons about this.
King
  1. My proud spirit will not ponder on this threat.
Herald
  1. But that I may know and tell a plainer tale —for it is fitting that a herald make exact report on each detail—what message am I to deliver? Who is it, am I to tell on my return, that has despoiled me of this band of women, their own cousins? It is not, I suppose, by voice of witnesses that the god of battle judges cases like this;
  2. nor is it by the gift of silver that he settles dispute; no! If that be the case, many a one shall fall and shuffle off his life.
  1. My name? Why should I tell you? In due course of time you will learn it, you and your companions.