"Take up my cause, ye cranes," he said, "since no voice
but yours answers to my cry." So saying he closed his eyes in
death.
The body, despoiled and mangled, was found, and though disfigured
with wounds, was recognized by the friend in Corinth who had
expected him as a guest. "Is it thus I find you restored to me?"
he exclaimed. "I who hoped to entwine your temples with the wreath
of triumph in the strife of song!"
The guests assembled at the festival heard the tidings with
dismay. All Greece felt the wound, every heart owned its loss.
They crowded round the tribunal of the magistrates, and demanded
vengeance on the murderers and expiation with their blood.
But what trace or mark shall point out the perpetrator from amidst
the vast multitude attracted by the splendor of the feast? Did he
fall by the hands of robbers or did some private enemy slay him?
The all-discerning sun alone can tell, for no other eye beheld
it. Yet not improbably the murderer even now walks in the midst of
the throng, and enjoys the fruits of his crime, while vengeance
seeks for him in vain. Perhaps in their own temple's enclosure he
defies the gods mingling freely in this throng of men that now
presses into the amphitheatre.
For now crowded together, row on row, the multitude fill the seats
till it seems as if the very fabric would give way.
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