1st Half-Chorus Unhappy mothers of those hapless chiefs! How wildly in my heart pale fear stirs up alarm!
2nd Half-Chorus What is this new cry thou utterest?
1st Half-Chorus I fear the issue of the strife, whereto the hosts of Pallas march.
2nd Half-Chorus Dost speak of issues of the sword, or interchange of words?
1st Half-Chorus That last were gain indeed; but if the carnage of battle, fighting, and the noise of beaten breasts again be heard in the land, what, alas! will be said of me, who am the cause thereof?
2nd Half-Chorus Yet may fate again bring low the brilliant victor; ’tis this brave thought that twines about my heart.
1st Half-Chorus Thou speak’st of the gods as if they were just.
2nd Half-Chorus For who but they allot whate’er betides?
1st Half-Chorus I see many a contradiction in their dealings with men.
2nd Half-Chorus The former fear hath warped thy judgment. Vengeance calls vengeance forth; slaughter calls for slaughter, but the gods give respite from affliction, holding in their own hands each thing’s allotted end.
1st Half-Chorus Would I could reach yon plains with turrets crowned, leaving Callichorus, fountain of the goddess!
2nd Half-Chorus O that some god would give me wings to fly to the city of rivers twain!
1st Half-Chorus So might’st thou see and know the fortunes of thy friends.
2nd Half-Chorus What fate, what issue there awaits the valiant monarch of this land?
1st Half-Chorus Once more do we invoke the gods we called upon before; yea, in our fear this is our first and chiefest trust.
2nd Half-Chorus O Zeus, father to the child the heifer-mother bore in days long past, that daughter of Inachus!
1st Half-Chorus O be gracious, I pray, and champion this city!
2nd Half-Chorus ’Tis thy own darling, thy own settler in the city of Argos that I am striving to rescue for the funeral pyre from outrageous insult.
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