COP.  Not if it be just, and I prevail in argument?

DE.  And how can it be just to drag away a suppliant by force?

COP.  This, then, is not disgraceful to me, but an injury to you.

DE.  To me indeed, if I allow you to drag them away.

COP.  But do you depart, and then will I drag them thence.

DE.  You are stupid, thinking yourself wiser than a God.

COP.  Hither it seems the wicked should fly.

DE.  The seat of the Gods is a common defense to all.

COP.  Perhaps this will not seem good to the Mycenaeans.

DE.  Am not I then master over those here?

COP. [Ay,] but not to injure them, if you are wise.

DE.  Are ye hurt, if I do not defile the Gods?

COP.  I do not wish you to have war with the Argives.

DE.  I, too, am the same; but I will not let go of these men.

COP.  At all events, taking possession of my own, I shall lead them away.

DE.  Then you will not easily depart back to Argos.

COP.  I shall soon see that by experience.

DE.  You will touch them to your own injury, and that without delay.

CHOR.  For God’s sake, venture not to strike a herald!

DE.  I will not, if the herald at least will learn to be wise.

CHOR.  Depart thou; and do not you touch him, O king!

COP.  I go; for the struggle of a single hand is powerless.  But I will come, bringing hither many a brazen spear of Argive war; and ten thousand shield-bearers await me, and Eurystheus, the king himself, as general.  And he waits, expecting news from hence, on the extreme confines of Alcathus; and, having heard of your insolence, he will make himself too well known to you, and to the citizens, and to this land, and to the trees; for in vain should we have so much youth in Argos, if we did not chastise you.

DE.  Destruction on you! for I do not fear your Argos.  But you are not likely, insulting me, to drag these men away from hence by force; for I possess this land, not being subject to that of Argos, but free.

CHOR.  It is time to provide, before the army of the Argives approaches the borders.  And very impetuous is the Mars of the Mycenaeans, and on this account more than before; for it is the habit of all heralds to tower up what is twice as much.  What do you not think he will say to his princes about what terrible things he has suffered, and how within a little he was losing his life.

IOL.  There is not, to this man’s children, a more glorious honor than to be sprung from a good and valiant father, and to marry from a good family; but I will not praise him who, overcome by desire, has mingled with the vulgar, to leave his children a reproach instead of pleasure; for noble birth wards off misfortune better than low descent; for we, having fallen into the extremity of evils, find these men friends and relations, who alone, in so large a country