Suppliant boughs

Yet leave behind you here the woven leaves of pale green foliage, calling to witness heaven and earth, Demeter, that fire-bearing goddess, and the sun-god’s light, that our prayers to heaven availed us naught.

And here at the holy altars of the twain goddesses, Demeter and her daughter, I wait, holding these sprays of foliage, a bond that bindeth not, in compassion for these childless mothers, hoary with age, and from reverence for the sacred fillets.

So I and all the people of Cadmus forbid thee to admit Adrastus to this land, but if he is here, drive him forth in disregard of the holy suppliant bough he bears, ere sinks yon blazing sun, and attempt not violently to take up the dead, seeing thou hast naught to do with the city of Argos.

Come, my children, as quickly as possible rise from the altar-steps, and lift these suppliant boughs.

The rest of the folk sit with wreathed branches in the market-place, and before the shrines of Pallas, and where Ismenus gives answer by fire.

My children, latest-born wards of old Cadmus, why do you sit before me like this with wreathed branches of suppliants, while the city reeks with incense, rings with prayers for health and cries of woe?