Orestes.
Now will I speak. Better are many words640
Than few, and clearer to be understood.
Menelaus, give me nothing of thine own:
That thou receivedst from my sire repay.
I meant not treasure: if thou save my life,
Treasure, of all I have most dear, is this.645
Grant I do wrong: I ought, for a wrong's sake,
To win of thee a wrong; for Agamemnon
Wrongly to Ilium led the hosts of Greece:—
Not that himself had sinned, but sought to heal
The sin and the wrong-doing of thy wife.650
This boon for boon thou oughtest render me.
He verily sold his life for thee, as friends
Should do for friends, hard-toiling under shield,
That so thou mightest win thy wife again.
This hadst thou there: to me requite the same.655
Toil one day's space for my sake: for my life
Stand up. I ask thee not, wear out ten years.
Aulis received my sister's blood: I spare
Thee this: I bid not slay Hermionê.
Thou needst must, when I fare as now I fare,660
Have vantage, and the debt must I forgive.
But to my hapless father give my life,
And hers, so long unwed, my sister's life.
For heirless, if I die, I leave his house.
'Tis hopeless, wilt thou say?—thine hour is this.665
In desperate need ought friends to help their friends.
When Fortune gives her boons, what need of friends?
Her help sufficeth, when she wills to help.
All Greece believeth that thou lov'st thy wife,—
Not cozening thee by soft words say I this:—670
