hands the Edonian
looms, and praised these robes, looking at them in the light; but others,
beholding with admiration my Thracian spear, deprived me of my double
ornament. But as many as were mothers caressed my children in their arms in
seeming admiration, that they might be farther removed from their father,
successively handing them from one to another: and then, amidst their kind
blandishments, what think you? in an instant, snatching from somewhere
beneath their garments their daggers, they stab my children. But they
having seized me in an hostile manner held my hands and feet; and if,
wishing to succor my children, I raised my head, they held me by the hair:
but if I attempted to move my hands, I wretched could effect nothing
through the host of women. But at last, cruelty and worse than cruelty,
they perpetrated dreadful things; for having taken their clasps they pierce
and gore the wretched pupils of my eyes, then vanish in flight through the
tent. But I, having leaped out, like some exasperated beast, pursue the
blood-stained wretches, searching every wall, as the hunter, casting down,
rending. This have I suffered, while studious to advance thy interest,
Agamemnon, and having killed thine enemy. But that I may not extend my
speech to a greater length, if any one of those of ancient times hath
reviled women, or if any one doth now, or shall hereafter revile them, I
will comprise the whole when I say, that such a race neither doth the sea
nor the earth produce, but he who is always with them knows it best.

CHOR. Be not at all insolent, nor, in thy calamities, thus comprehending
the female sex, abuse them all. For of us there are many, some indeed are
envied _for their virtues_, but some are by nature in the catalogue of bad
things.

HEC. Agamemnon, it never were fitting among men that the tongue should have
greater force than actions. But if a man has acted well, well should he
speak; if on the other hand basely, his words likewise should be unsound,
and never ought he to be capable of speaking unjust things well. Perhaps
indeed they who have brought these things to a pitch of accuracy are
accounted wise, but they can not endure wise unto the end, but perish
vilely, nor has any one yet escaped this. And this in my prelude is what I
have to say to thee. Now am I going to direct my discourse to this man, and
I will answer his arguments. Thou, that assertest, that in order to rid the
Greeks of their redoubled toil