Theirs in effect; but since he draws his line From Jove, and seems to plead a right divine; From Jove, like him, I claim my pedigree, And am descended in the same degree. My sire Laertes was Arcesius’ heir; Arcesius was the son of Jupiter: No parricide, no banish’d man is known, In all my line: let him excuse his own. Hermes ennobles too my mother’s side, By both my parents to the gods allied. But not because that on the female part My blood is better, dare I claim desert, Or that my sire from parricide is free; But judge by merit between him and me: The prize be to the best; provided yet That Ajax for a while his kin forget, And his great sire, and greater uncle’s name, To fortify by them his feeble claim; Be kindred and relation laid aside, And honour’s cause by laws of honour tried: For if he plead proximity of blood; That empty title is with ease withstood. Peleus, the hero’s sire, more nigh than he, And Pyrrhus, his undoubted progeny,