Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (26 page)

[526]
Do not approve
of a lawless life or one subject to a tyrant. The god grants power to
moderation in every form, but he oversees other matters in different ways.
 I have a timely word of advice: arrogance is truly the child of impiety,
but from health of soul comes happiness, dear to all, much prayed for.

[538]
And as for the
whole matter, I say to you: respect the altar of Justice and do not, looking to
profit, dishonor it by spurning with godless foot; for punishment will come
upon you. The appointed fulfilment remains. Therefore, let a man rightly put
first in honor the reverence owed to his parents, and have regard for
attentions paid to guests welcomed in his house.

[550]
Whoever is just
willingly and without compulsion will not lack happiness; he will never be
utterly destroyed. But I say that the man who boldly transgresses, amassing a
great heap unjustly — by force, in time, he will strike his sail, when trouble
seizes him as the yardarm is splintered.

[559]
He calls on
those who hear nothing and he struggles in the midst of the whirling waters.
The god laughs at the hot-headed man, seeing him, who boasted that this would
never happen, exhausted by distress without remedy and unable to surmount the
cresting wave. He wrecks the happiness of his earlier life on the reef of
Justice, and he perishes unwept, unseen.

[
Enter, in
procession, Athena, a herald, the jury of the Areopagus, a crowd of citizens.
Orestes removes to the place appointed for the accused. Apollo appears after
Athena’s first speech.
]

ATHENA
[566]
Herald,
give the signal and restrain the crowd; and let the piercing Tyrrhenian
trumpet, filled with human breath, send forth its shrill blare to the people!
For while this council-hall is filling, it is good to be silent, and for my
ordinances to be learned, by the whole city for everlasting time, and by these
appellants, so that their case may be decided well.

[
Enter Apollo.
]

CHORUS
[574]
Lord
Apollo, be master of what is yours. Say what part you have in this matter.

APOLLO
[576]
I have
come both to bear witness — for this man was a lawful suppliant and a guest of
my sanctuary, and I am his purifier from bloodshed — and to be his advocate
myself. I am responsible for the murder of his mother. [
To Athena.
]
Bring in the case, and, in accordance with your wisdom, decide it.

ATHENA
[582]
[
To the
Furies.
] It is for you to speak — I am only bringing in the case; for the
prosecutor at the beginning, speaking first, shall rightly inform us of the
matter.

CHORUS
[585]
We are
many, but we will speak briefly. [
To Orestes.
] Answer our questions, one
by one. Say first if you killed your mother.

ORESTES
[588]
I killed
her. There is no denial of this.

CHORUS
[589]
Of the
three falls that win the wrestling match, this one is already ours.

ORESTES
[590]
You make
this boast over a man who is not down yet.

CHORUS
[591]
You must,
however, say how you killed her.

ORESTES
[592]
I will say
it: with drawn sword in hand, I stabbed her in the throat.

CHORUS
[593]
By whom
were you persuaded and on whose advice?

ORESTES
[594]
By the
oracles of this god here; he is my witness.

CHORUS
[595]
The
prophet directed you to kill your mother?

ORESTES
[596]
Yes, and
to this very hour, I do not blame my fortune.

CHORUS
[597]
But if the
jury’s vote catches hold of you, you’ll soon speak differently.

ORESTES
[598]
I have
good confidence. My father will send protection from his grave.

CHORUS
[599]
Put your
confidence in the dead now, after you have killed your mother!

ORESTES
[600]
I do, for
she was twice afflicted with pollution.

CHORUS
[601]
How so?
Teach the judges this.

ORESTES
[602]
By
murdering her husband, she killed my father.

CHORUS
[603]
And so,
although you are alive, she is free of pollution by her death.

ORESTES
[604]
But why
did you not drive her into exile, while she lived?

CHORUS
[605]
She was
not related by blood to the man she killed.

ORESTES
[606]
Then am I
my mother’s kin by blood?

CHORUS
[607]
How else
could she have nurtured you, murderer, beneath her belt? Do you reject the
nearest kinship, that of a mother?

ORESTES
[609]
Apollo,
give your testimony now. Explain, on my behalf, whether I was justified in
killing her. For I do not deny that I did it, as it is done. But decide whether
this bloodshed was, to your mind, just or not, so that I may inform the court.

APOLLO
[614]
I will
speak justly before you, Athena’s great tribunal, — since I am a prophet, I
cannot lie. I have never yet, on my oracular throne, said anything about a man
or woman or city that Zeus, the father of the Olympians, did not command me to
say. Learn how strong this plea of justice is; and I tell you to obey the will
of my father;  for an oath is not more powerful than Zeus.

CHORUS
[622]
Zeus, as
you say, gave you this oracular command, to tell Orestes here to avenge his
father’s murder but to take no account at all of the honor due his mother?

APOLLO
[625]
Yes, for
it is not the same thing — the murder of a noble man, honored by a god-given
scepter, and his murder indeed by a woman, not by rushing arrows sped from
afar, as if by an Amazon, but as you will hear, Pallas, and those who are
sitting to decide by vote in this matter.

[631]
She received him
from the expedition, where he had for the most part won success beyond
expectation, in the judgment of those favorable to him; then, as he was
stepping from the bath, on its very edge, she threw a cloak like a tent over
it, fettered her husband in an embroidered robe, and cut him down.

[636]
This was his
death, as I have told it to you — the death of a man wholly majestic, commander
of the fleet. As for that woman, I have described her in such a way as to whet
the indignation of the people who have been appointed to decide this case.

CHORUS
[640]
Zeus gives
greater honor to a father’s death, according to what you say; yet he himself
bound his aged father, Cronus. How does this not contradict what you say? I
call on you as witnesses turning to the judges to hear these things.

APOLLO
[644]
Oh,
monsters utterly loathed and detested by the gods! Zeus could undo fetters,
there is a remedy for that, and many means of release. But when the dust has
drawn up the blood of a man, once he is dead, there is no return to life. For
this, my father has made no magic spells, although he arranges all other
things, turning them up and down; nor does his exercise of force cost him a
breath.

CHORUS
[652]
See how
you advocate acquittal for this man! After he has poured out his mother’s blood
on the ground, shall he then live in his father’s house in Argos? Which of the
public altars shall he use? What purification rite of the brotherhoods will
receive him?

APOLLO
[657]
I will
explain this, too, and see how correctly I will speak. The mother of what is
called her child is not the parent, but the nurse of the newly-sown embryo. The
one who mounts is the parent, whereas she, as a stranger for a stranger,
 preserves the young plant, if the god does not harm it. And I will show
you proof of what I say: a father might exist without a mother. A witness is
here at hand, the child of Olympian Zeus, who was not nursed in the darkness of
a womb,  and she is such a child as no goddess could give birth to.

[667]
For my part,
Pallas, as in all other matters, as I know how, I will make your city and
people great; and I have sent this man as a suppliant to your sanctuary so that
he may be faithful for all time, and that you, goddess, might win him and those
to come after him as a new ally and so that these pledges of faith might remain
always, for the later generations of these people to cherish.

ATHENA
[674]
Am I to
assume that enough has been said, and shall I now command these jurors to cast
an honest vote according to their judgment?

CHORUS
[676]
For our
part, every bolt is already shot. But I am waiting to hear how the trial will
be decided.

ATHENA
[678]
Why not?
As for you, [
To Apollo and Orestes.
] how shall I arrange matters so that
I will not be blamed by you?

APOLLO
[679]
You have
heard what you have heard; and as you cast your ballots, keep the oath sacred
in your hearts, friends.

ATHENA
[681]
Hear now
my ordinance, people of Attica, as you judge the first trial for bloodshed. In
the future, even as now, this court of judges will always exist for the people
of Aegeus. And this Hill of Ares, the seat and camp of the Amazons, when they
came with an army in resentment against Theseus, and in those days built up
this new citadel with lofty towers to rival his, and sacrificed to Ares, from
which this rock takes its name, the Hill of Ares: on this hill, the
reverence of the citizens, and fear, its kinsman, will hold them back from
doing wrong by day and night alike, so long as they themselves do not pollute
the laws with evil streams; if you stain clear water with filth, you will never
find a drink.

[696]
Neither anarchy
nor tyranny — this I counsel my citizens to support and respect, and not to
drive fear wholly out of the city. For who among mortals, if he fears nothing,
is righteous? Stand in just awe of such majesty, and you will have a defense
for your land and salvation of your city, such as no man has, either among the
Scythians or in Pelops’ realm. I establish this tribunal, untouched by greed,
worthy of reverence, quick to anger, awake on behalf of those who sleep, a
guardian of the land.

[707]
I have prolonged
this advice to my citizens for the future; but now you must rise and take a
ballot, and decide the case under the sacred obligation of your oath. My word
has been spoken.

[
The judges rise
from their seats and cast their ballots one by one during the following
altercation.
]

CHORUS
[711]
And I
counsel you not to dishonor us in any way, since our company can be a burden to
your land.

APOLLO
[713]
And I, for
my part, command you to stand in fear of the oracles, both mine and Zeus’, and
not cause them to be unfulfilled.

CHORUS
[715]
Although
it is not your office, you have respect for deeds of bloodshed. You will
prophesy, dispensing prophecies that are no longer pure.

APOLLO
[716]
Then was
my father mistaken in any way in his purposes when Ixion, who first shed blood,
was a suppliant?

CHORUS
[719]
You do
argue! But if I fail to win the case, I will once more inflict my company on
this land as a burden.

APOLLO
[721]
But you
have no honor, among both the younger and the older gods. I will win.

CHORUS
[723]
You did
such things also in the house of Pheres, when you persuaded the Fates to make
mortals free from death.

APOLLO
[725]
Is it not
right, then, to do good for a worshipper, especially when he is in need?

CHORUS
[727]
It was you
who destroyed the old dispensations when you beguiled the ancient goddesses
with wine.

APOLLO
[729]
Soon, when
you have lost the case, you will spit out your venom — no great burden to your
enemies.
[
The balloting is now ended.
]

CHORUS
[731]
Since you,
a youth, would ride me down, an old woman, I am waiting to hear the verdict in
the case, since I have not decided whether to be angry at the city.

ATHENA
[734]
It is my
duty to give the final judgment and I shall cast my vote for Orestes. For there
was no mother who gave me birth; and in all things, except for marriage,
whole-heartedly I am for the male and entirely on the father’s side. Therefore,
I will not award greater honor to the death of a woman who killed her husband,
the master of the house. Orestes wins, even if the vote comes out equal. Cast
the ballots out of the urns, as quickly as possible, you jurors who have been
assigned this task.
[
The ballots are turned out and separated.
]

ORESTES
[744]
O Phoebus
Apollo! How will the trial be decided?

CHORUS
[745]
O Night,
our dark Mother, do you see this?

ORESTES
[746]
Now I will
meet my end by hanging, or I will live.

CHORUS
[747]
Yes, and
we will be ruined, or maintain our honors further.

APOLLO
[748]
Correctly
count the ballots cast forth, friends, and be in awe of doing wrong in the
division of the votes. Error of judgment is the source of much distress, and
the cast of a single ballot has set upright a house.
[
The ballots are shown to Athena.
]

ATHENA
[752]
This man
is acquitted on the charge of murder, for the numbers of the casts are equal.