Libation Bearers

1Chorus Sent forth from the palace I have come to convey libations to the sound of sharp blows of my hands. My cheek is marked with bloody gashes where my nails have cut fresh furrows. And yet through all my life my heart is fed with lamentation. Rips are torn by my griefs through the linen web of my garment, torn in the cloth that covers my breast, the cloth of robes struck for the sake of my mirthless misfortunes.

1Chorus For with a hair-raising shriek, Terror, the diviner of dreams for our house, breathing wrath out of sleep, uttered a cry of terror in the dead of night from the heart of the palace, a cry that fell heavily on the women’s quarter.†And the readers of these dreams, bound under pledge, cried out from the god that those beneath the earth cast furious reproaches and rage against their murderers.

2Chorus Intending to ward off evil with such a graceless grace, O mother Earth, she sends me forth, godless woman that she is. But I am afraid to utter the words she charged me to speak. For what atonement is there for blood fallen to earth? Ah, hearth of utter grief! Ah, house laid low in ruin! Sunless darkness, loathed by men, enshrouds our house due to the death of its master.

2The awe of majesty once unconquered, unvanquished, irresistible in war, that penetrated the ears and heart of the people, is now cast off. But there is still fear. And prosperity—this, among mortals, is a god and more than a god. But the balance of Justice keeps watch: swiftly it descends on those in the light; sometimes pain waits for those who linger on the frontier of twilight; and others are claimed by strengthless night.

3Chorus Because of blood drunk up by the fostering earth, the vengeful gore lies clotted and will not dissolve away. Soul-racking calamity distracts the guilty man till he is steeped in utter misery.

3But for the violator of a bridal chamber there is no cure. And though all streams flow in one course to cleanse the blood from a polluted hand, they rush in vain.

1Orestes 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.

2Chorus 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.

1Electra 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?

3Orestes 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—

2Chorus —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.

3Electra 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.

4Orestes 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.†

5Chorus 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.

4Electra 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!

6Orestes 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?

5Chorus 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.

6Electra 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.

7Chorus 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.

8Electra 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.

9Orestes 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!

9Chorus 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.

7Electra 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.

8Chorus 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.

10Orestes Father, I call on you; side with your loved ones! Electra And I in tears join my voice to his. Chorus And let all our company blend our voices to echo the prayer. Hear! Come to the light! Side with us against the foe!

10Orestes Ares will encounter Ares; Right will encounter Right. Electra O you gods, judge rightly the plea of right! Chorus 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.

11Chorus Ah, inbred trouble and bloody stroke of ruin striking a discord! Ah, lamentable and grievous sorrows! Ah, the unstaunched pain!

11Chorus 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.

1Chorus Many are the horrors, dread and appalling, bred of earth, and the arms of the deep teem with hateful monsters. Likewise between heaven and earth lights hung high in the air draw near; and winged things and things that walk the earth can also tell of the stormy wrath of whirlwinds.

1Chorus But who can tell of man’s overweening spirit, and of the reckless passions of women hardened of soul, partners of the woes of mortals? Inordinate passion, overmastering the female, gains a fatal victory over the wedded unions of beasts and humans alike.

2Chorus Let whoever is not flighty in his wits know this, when he has learned of the device of a lit brand contrived by Thestius’ heartless daughter:†she destroyed her own child by burning the charred brand of the same age as he when, coming from his mother’s womb, he cried out, and it aged in pace with him through his life to the day decreed by fate.

2Chorus And there is in legend another murderous virgin to be loathed,†who ruined a loved one at the bidding of his foes, when, lured by Minos’ gift, the Cretan necklace forged of gold, she with her dog’s heart despoiled Nisus of his immortal lock as he drew breath in unsuspecting sleep. And Hermes†overtook him.

3Chorus But since I have recalled tales of pitiless afflictions, it is the right time to tell of a marriage void of love, an abomination to the house, and the plots devised by a wife’s cunning against her warrior lord, against her lord revered with reason by his foes. But I honor the hearths of homes not heated by passion’s fires, and in woman a spirit that shrinks from audacious deeds.

3Chorus Indeed the Lemnian†holds first place among evils in story: it has long been told with groans as an abominable calamity. Men compare each new horror to Lemnian troubles; and because of a woeful deed abhorred by the gods a race has disappeared, cast out in infamy from among mortals. For no man reveres what is hated by the gods. Is there one of these tales I have gathered that I do not justly cite?

4Chorus But the keen and bitter sword is near the breast and drives home its blow at the bidding of Justice. For truly the injustice of him who has unjustly transgressed the sovereign majesty of Zeus lies on the ground trampled under foot.†

4Chorus The anvil of Justice is planted firm. Destiny fashions her arms and forges her sword quickly, and the famed and deeply brooding Fury is bringing the son into our house, to requite at last the pollution of blood shed long ago.

1Chorus Now at my supplication, O Zeus, father of the Olympian gods, grant that the fortunes of our house be firmly established, so that those who rightly desire the rule of order may behold it. Every word of mine has been uttered in justice. O Zeus, may you safeguard it!

1Chorus O Zeus, set him who is within the palace before his foes; since, if you exalt him, he will gladly pay you with double and triple recompense.

1Chorus Know that the orphaned colt of a loved one is harnessed to the chariot of distress. And by setting bounds to his course may you grant that we see him keep a steady pace through this race and win the goal in the straining stride of a gallop.†

2Chorus And you who within the house inhabit the inner chamber that exults in its wealth, hear me, you gods, that feel with us! By a fresh award redeem the blood of deeds done long ago. May aged Murder cease begetting offspring in our house!

2Chorus And you who occupy the mighty, gorgeously built cavern,†grant that the man’s house may lift up its eyes again in joy, and that with glad eyes it may behold from under its veil of gloom the radiant light of freedom.

2Chorus May Maia’s son,†as he rightfully should, lend his aid, for no one can better sail a deed on a favoring course, when he would do so.†But by his mysterious utterance he brings darkness over men’s eyes by night, and by day he is no more clear at all.

3Chorus And then at last with a loud voice we shall sing a song of the deliverance of our house, the song that women raise when the wind sits fair, and not the shrill strain of those who mourn: The ship goes well. This grows to profit for me, for me, and calamity holds off from those I love.

3Chorus But may you with good courage, when the part of action comes, cry out loud the name Father when she exclaims Son, and accomplish the baneful but irreproachable deed.

3Chorus Raise up Perseus’ spirit within my breast. And for those dear to you below the earth, and for those above, exact satisfaction for their dire wrath by working bloody ruin in our house and obliterating the guilt of murder.†

1Chorus As to Priam and his sons justice came at last in crushing retribution, so to Agamemnon’s house came a twofold lion, twofold slaughter.†The exile, the suppliant of Pytho, has fulfilled his course to the utmost, justly urged on by counsels from the gods.

1Chorus Oh raise a shout of triumph over the escape of our master’s house from its misery and the wasting of its wealth by two who were unclean, its grievous fortune!

1Chorus And he has come whose part is the crafty vengeance of stealthy attack, and in the battle his hand was guided by her who is in very truth daughter of Zeus, breathing murderous wrath on her foes. We mortals aim true to the mark when we call her Justice.†

1Chorus Oh raise a shout of triumph over the escape of our master’s house from its misery and the wasting of its wealth by two who were unclean, its grievous fortune!

2Chorus The commands proclaimed loudly by Loxias, tenant of the mighty cavern shrine of Parnassus, assail with guileless guile the mischief now become inveterate. May the divine word prevail that so I may not serve the wicked!†It is right to revere the rule of heaven.

2Chorus Look, the light has come, and I am freed from the cruel curb that restrained our household. House, rise up! You have lain too long prostrate on the ground.

2Chorus But soon time that accomplishes all will pass the portals of our house, and then all pollution will be expelled from the hearth by cleansing rites that drive out calamity. The dice of fortune will turn as they fall and lie with faces all lovely to behold, favorably disposed to whoever stays in our house.

2Chorus Look, the light has come, and I am freed from the cruel curb that restrained our household. House, rise up! You have lain too long prostrate on the ground.