Thou might’st retain: though in this wretched state
Thou speak to serve thy interests. Among you
Perhaps the murder of your guests seems light;
We Greeks esteem it base. If I acquit thee,
How shall I ’scape reproach? Indeed, I cannot:
Since thou hast dared to perpetrate the crime,
Endure the consequence.
The acceptance by Polymestor of Agamemnon’s decision suggests to us the potency of Achaean military discipline in matters of homicide. Was this acceptance indicated in an ancient legend, which was preserved in Thrace, and which was transmitted without adulteration, or is Euripides correctly archaising from his general knowledge of Achaean procedure as revealed by Homer? The former alternative seems to us the more probable in view of the consistently archaic atmosphere of this play. There is no reference to homicide as a ‘pollution,’ to purgation, to Apollo, to State trial. A certain degree of divine anger against Polymestor is indicated, but this was caused by the violation of hospitality and by the act of deprivation of burial, both of which acts are religious offences in Homer. Hecuba says to the Chorus[345]:
O, ’twas a deed
Unutterable, a deed without a name,