embark immediately in their ship with them. The complaints and prayers of the Chorus are now mingled with the haughty orders of the herald. They refuse; he threatens force; they cry, and call upon the gods, and imprecate bitter curses upon their ravishers, but all in vain; the herald seizes their leader to drag her by her hair towards the ship. At this point the king with his train appears, and indignantly demands an account of this outrage. The herald protests that he is only asserting a legal claim, and is prepared to justify it by war. The king replies, that if he can persuade the maidens to accompany him, he may take them, but that no constraint shall be put upon them. "Here," he says, "the nail is fixed." The decree is unchangeable, and the herald is peremptorily dismissed. "The Greeks," says the king, "will be more than a match for the Nile; wine and bread are better than barley-beer and byblus-fruit, the food of the Egyptians." Then, turning to the maidens, he offers them safe dwellings in the city—whether they prefer to live among others in the public palaces, or to dwell apart with their attendants; and they refer the choice to their father, who is now returned with a force of soldiers. His answer is wise and fatherly, but a little reminds us of the somewhat tedious wisdom of Polonius. "Men are apt," he says, "to find fault in foreigners, and young girls especially must beware of the least breath of scandal; the safer course must be theirs, to dwell apart in maidenly modesty."
And now all the action of the play is ended, and nothing remains but the final ode. Divided into two
