Teucer (cont.)
Was Phrygian Pelops, a barbarian?
That Atreus who begat thee, wretch, did set
Before his brother a most impious feast,
His brother’s children’s flesh? That thou thyself
Com’st of a Cretan mother whom her sire
Caught with an alien slave, her paramour,
And sent to feed dumb fishes of the deep?
Thus basely born thou twit’st me with my birth!
My sire was Telamon who won the prize
As champion of the host, a peerless bride,
A princess, daughter of Laomedon,
The meed assigned him by Alemena’s son.
She was my mother. And am I, thus born
Nobly of parents both of noblest birth,
Am I to shame my kindred overthrown,
Now helpless, whelmed in utter misery,
Whom thou wouldst spurn and rob of burial rites,
Nor art ashamed to promulgate this ban?
Know this full well, where’er ye cast this man,
We three, three corpses, ye will cast beside.
For me ’twere nobler before all men’s eyes
To fall in his behalf than for a wife
Of thine—or of thy brother, should I say?
Therefore bethink thee—’tis thine interest
No less than mine—if on me thou dar’st lay
A finger, thou wilt surely wish full soon
Rather to bear the brand of cowardice
Than prove thy reckless bravery on me.
Chorus
My lord Odysseus, thou art come in time,
If thou art here to mediate, not embroil.