Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (21 page)

ORESTES
[246]
O Zeus, O
Zeus, regard our cause! Behold the orphaned brood of a father eagle that
perished in the meshes, in the coils of a fierce viper. They are utterly
orphaned, gripped by the famine of hunger: for they are not grown to full
strength to bring their father’s quarry to the nest. So you see both me and
poor Electra here, children bereft of their father, both outcasts alike from
our home. If you destroy these nestlings of a father who made sacrifice and
revered you greatly, from what like hand will you receive the homage of rich
feasts? Destroy the brood of the eagle and you cannot again send tokens that
mortals will trust; nor, if this royal stock should wither utterly away, will
it serve your altars on days when oxen are sacrificed. Oh foster it, and you
may raise our house from low estate to great, though now it seems utterly
overthrown.

CHORUS
[264]
O
children, O saviors of your father’s hearth, speak not so loud, dear children,
in case someone should overhear and report all this to our masters merely for
the sake of rumor. May I some day see them dead in the ooze of flaming pitch!

ORESTES
[269]
Surely he
will not abandon me, the mighty oracle of Loxias, who urged me to brave this
peril to the end and loudly proclaims calamities that chill the warmth of my
heart, if I do not take vengeance on my father’s murderers. He said that,
enraged by the loss of my possessions, I should kill them in requital just as
they killed. And he declared that otherwise I should pay the debt myself with
my own life, after many grievous sufferings. For he spoke revealing to mortals
the wrath of malignant powers from underneath the earth, and telling of
plagues: leprous ulcers that mount with fierce fangs on the flesh and eat away
its primal nature; and how a white down should sprout up on the diseased place.
And he spoke of other assaults of the Furies that are destined to be brought to
pass from paternal blood. For the dark bolt of the infernal powers, who are
stirred by kindred victims calling for vengeance, and madness, and groundless
terrors out of the night, torment and harass a man, and he sees clearly, though
he moves his eyebrows in the dark. And with his body marred by the brazen
scourge, he is even chased in exile from his country. And the god declared that
to such as these it is not allowed to have a part either in the ceremonial cup
or in the cordial libation; his father’s wrath, though unseen, bars him from the
altar; no one receives him or lodges with him; and at last, despised by all,
friendless, he perishes, shrivelled pitifully by a death that wastes him
utterly away.

[297]
Must I not put
my trust in oracles such as these? Yet even if I do not trust them, the deed
must still be done. For many impulses conspire to one conclusion. Besides the
god’s command, my keen grief for my father, and also the pinch of poverty — that
my countrymen, the most renowned of mortals, who overthrew Troy in the spirit
of glory, should not be subjected so to a pair of women. For he has a woman’s
mind, or if not, it will soon be found out.

CHORUS
[306]
You mighty
Fates, through the power of Zeus grant fulfilment in the way to which Justice
now turns. “For a word of hate let a word of hate be said,” Justice cries out
as she exacts the debt, “and for a murderous stroke let a murderous stroke be
paid.” “Let it be done to him as he does,” says the age-old wisdom.

ORESTES
[315]
O father,
unhappy father, by what word or deed of mine can I succeed in sailing from far
away to you, where your resting-place holds you, a light to oppose your
darkness? Yet a lament in honor of the Atreidae who once possessed our house is
none the less a joyous service.

CHORUS
[323]
My child,
the fire’s ravening jaw does not overwhelm the wits of the dead man, but
afterwards he reveals what stirs him. The murdered man has his dirge; the
guilty man is revealed. Justified lament for fathers and for parents, when
raised loud and strong, makes its search everywhere.

ELECTRA
[332]
Hear then,
O father, as in turn we mourn with plentiful tears. Look, your two children
mourn you in a dirge over your tomb. As suppliants and exiles as well they have
sought a haven at your sepulchre. What of these things is good, what free of evil?
Is it not hopeless to wrestle against doom?

CHORUS
[340]
Yet
heaven, if it pleases, may still turn our utterance to more joyfully sounding
strains. In place of dirges over a tomb, a song of triumph within the royal
halls will welcome back a reunited friend.

ORESTES
[345]
Ah, my
father, if only beneath Ilium’s walls you had been slain, slashed by some
Lycian spearman! Then you would have left a good name for your children in
their halls, and in their maturity you would have made their lives admired by men.
And in a land beyond the sea you would have found a tomb heaped high with
earth, no heavy burden for your house to bear —

CHORUS
[354]
— Welcomed
there below by your comrades who nobly fell, a ruler of august majesty,
distinguished even beneath the earth, and minister of the mightiest, the
deities who rule in the nether world. For in your life you were a king of those
who have the power to assign the portion of death, and who wield the staff all
mortals obey.

ELECTRA
[363]
No, not
even beneath the walls of Troy, father, would I wish you to have fallen and to
be entombed beside Scamander’s waters among the rest of the host slain by the
spear. I wish rather that his murderers had been killed by their own loved
ones, just as they killed you, so that someone in a distant land who knew
nothing of these present troubles should learn of their fatal doom.

CHORUS
[372]
In this,
my child, your wish is better than gold. It surpasses great good fortune, even
that of the supremely blesssed; for it is easy to wish. But now the lash of
this double scourge comes home: our cause already has its champions beneath the
earth, while the hands of our loathsome opponents, though they have the
mastery, are unholy. The children have won the day.

ORESTES
[380]
This has
pierced the earth and reached your ear as if it were an arrow. O Zeus, O Zeus,
who send long-deferred retribution up from below onto the reckless and wicked
deeds done by the hands of mortals. . . . And yet it will be accomplished for
our father’s sake.

CHORUS
[386]
May it be
mine to raise a hearty shout in triumph over the man when he is stabbed and
over the woman as she perishes! Why should I try to keep hidden what
nevertheless hovers before my soul? Full against the prow of my heart wrath
blows sharply in rancorous hate.

ELECTRA
[394]
And when
will mighty Zeus bring down his hand on them and split their heads open? Let it
be a pledge to the land! After injustice I demand justice as my right. Hear, O
Earth, and you honored powers below!

CHORUS
[400]
And it is
the eternal rule that drops of blood spilled on the ground demand yet more
blood. Murder cries out on the Fury, which from those killed before brings one
ruin in the wake of another.

ORESTES
[405]
Alas, you
sovereign powers of the world below, behold, you potent Curses of the slain,
behold the remnants of the line of Atreus in their helpless plight, cast out
from house and home in dishonor. Which way can we turn, O Zeus?

CHORUS
[410]
But again
my heart throbs as I hear this pitiful lament. At once I am devoid of hope and
my viscera are darkened at the words I hear. But when hope once again lifts and
strengthens me, it puts away my distress and dawns brightly on me.

ELECTRA
[417]
To what
could we more fittingly appeal than to those very miseries we have endured from
the woman herself who bore us? She may fawn upon us, but they are past all
soothing. For like a fierce-hearted wolf the temper we have acquired from our
mother is implacable.

CHORUS
[423]
On my
breast I beat an Arian dirge in just the same fashion as a Cissian wailing
woman. With clenched fists, raining blows thick and fast, my outstretched hands
could be seen descending from above, from far above, now on this side, now on
that, till my battered and wretched head resounded with the strokes.

ELECTRA
[429]
Away with
you, cruel and utterly brazen mother! You dared to give your husband a most
cruel burial: unmourned, without lamentation, a king unattended by his people.

ORESTES
[434]
Ah me,
your words spell utter dishonor. Yet with the help of the gods, and with the
help of my own hands, will she not atone for the dishonor she did my father?
Let me only take her life, then let me die!

CHORUS
[439]
Yes, and I
would have you know he was brutally mangled. And even as she buried him in this
way, she acted with intent to make the manner of his death a burden on your
life past all power to bear. You hear the story of the ignominious outrage done
to your father.

ELECTRA
[445]
My father
was murdered just as you say. But all the while I was kept sequestered,
despised, accounted a worthless thing. Kennelled in my room as if I were a
vicious cur, I gave free vent to my streaming tears, which came more readily
than laughter, as in my concealment I poured out my lament in plentiful
weeping. Hear my tale and inscribe it on your heart.

CHORUS
[451]
Yes, let
it sink deep into your ears, but keep inside a quiet steadfastness of soul. So
far things are so. But you yourself be eager to resolve what is to follow. You
must enter the contest with inflexible wrath.

ORESTES
[456]
Father, I
call on you; side with your loved ones!

ELECTRA
[457]
And I in
tears join my voice to his.

CHORUS
[458]
And let
all our company blend our voices to echo the prayer. Hear! Come to the light!
Side with us against the foe!

ORESTES
[461]
Ares will
encounter Ares; Right will encounter Right.

ELECTRA
[462]
O you
gods, judge rightly the plea of right!

CHORUS
[462]
A shudder
steals over me as I hear these prayers. Doom has long been waiting, but it will
come in answer to those who pray. Ah, inbred trouble and bloody stroke of ruin
striking a discord! Ah, lamentable and grievous sorrows! Ah, the unstaunched
pain! Our house has a cure to heal these woes, a cure not from outside, from
the hands of others, but from itself, by fierce, bloody strife. This hymn is for
the gods beneath the earth. O you blessed powers below, hear this supplication
of ours, and with a favorable will send forth to these children your aid for
victory!

ORESTES
[479]
O father,
who perished by a death unbefitting a king, grant in answer to my prayer the
lordship over your halls!

ELECTRA
[481]
And I too,
father, have a like request of you: to escape when I have wrought great
destruction on Aegisthus.

ORESTES
[483]
Yes, for
then the customary funeral feasts of men would be established in your honor.
But otherwise, at the rich and savory banquet of burnt offerings made to the
earth, you will be without a portion of honor.

ELECTRA
[486]
And I will
likewise at my wedding offer libations to you out of the fullness of my
inheritance from my father’s house, and before all else I will hold this tomb
of yours in the highest honor.

ORESTES
[489]
O Earth,
send up my father to watch my battle!

ELECTRA
[490]
O
Persephone, grant us indeed a glorious victory!

ORESTES
[491]
Father,
remember the bath where you were robbed of life.

ELECTRA
[492]
And
remember how they devised a strange net to cast about you.

ORESTES
[493]
You were
caught, my father, in fetters forged by no smith’s hand.

ELECTRA
[494]
And in a
fabric shamefully devised.

ORESTES
[495]
Father,
are you not roused by taunts such as these?

ELECTRA
[496]
Are you
not raising that dearest head of yours?

ORESTES
[497]
Either
send Justice to battle for those dear to you, or grant us in turn to get a
similar grip on them, if indeed after defeat you would in turn win victory.

ELECTRA
[500]
So listen,
father, to this last appeal of mine as you behold these fledglings crouching at
your tomb. Have compassion on your offspring, on the woman and on the man as
well, and let not this seed of Pelops’ line be blotted out: for then, in spite
of death, you are not dead. For children are voices of salvation to a man,
though he is dead; like corks, they buoy up the net, saving the flaxen cord
from out of the deep. Hear! For your own sake we make this lament. By honoring
this plea of ours you save yourself.

CHORUS
[510]
In truth
you have drawn out this plea of yours to your own content in showing honor to
this unlamented tomb. As for the rest, since your heart is rightly set on
action, put your fortune to the test and get to your work at once.

ORESTES
[514]
It will be
so. But it is in no way amiss to inquire how, from what motive, she came to
send her libations, seeking too late to make amends for an irremediable deed.
They would be a sorry gift to send to the senseless dead: I cannot guess what
they mean. The gifts are too paltry for her offence. For though a man may pour
out all he has in atonement for one deed of blood, it is wasted effort. So the
saying goes. If indeed you know, tell me: I wish to learn.