Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/469

AGIS. 461 forsook him, and wholly devoted herself to comfort her father in his affliction ; whilst he still remained in Sparta, she remained also, as a suppliant, with him, and when he fled, she fled with him, bewailing his misfortune, and ex- tremely displeased with Cleombrotus. But now, upon this turn of fortune, she changed in like manner, and was seen sitting now, as a suppliant, with her husband, embrac- ing him with her arms, and having her two little children beside her. All men were full of wonder at the piety and tender affection of the young woman, who, pointing to her robes and her hair, both alike neglected and unattended to, said to Leonidas, " I am not brought, my father, to this condition you see me in, on account of the present mis- fortunes of Cleombrotus; my mourning habit is long since familiar to me. It was put on to condole with you in your banishment ; and now you are restored to your country, and to your kingdom, must I still remain in grief and misery ? Or would you have me attired in my royal ornaments, that I may rejoice with you, when you have killed, within my arms, the man to whom you gave me for a wife ? Either Cleombrotus must appease you by mine and my children's tears, or he must suffer a pun- ishment greater than you propose for his faults, and shall see me, whom he loves so well, die before him. To what end should I live, or how shall I appear among the Spar- tan women, when it shall so manifestly be seen, that I have not been able to move to compassion either a hus- band or a father ? I was born, it seems, to participate in the ill fortune and in the disgrace, both as a wife and a daughter, of those nearest and dearest to me. As for Cleombrotus, I sufficiently surrendered any honorable plea on his behalf, when I forsook him to follow you ; but you yourself offer the fairest excuse for his proceedings, by showing to the world that for the sake of a kingdom, it is just to kill a son-in-law, and be regardless of a daugh-