by Aeschylus
CHORUS No one can count the terrors that the
earth spawns,
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catastrophic,
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gruesome, and the vast arms of the sea swarm
with brute monsters
bent on harm, and everywhere between
the sky and ground
lights bloom by day in flares and sudden bolts;
and birds and beasts
alike can tell of the whirlwind’s whirling wrath.
But who can describe the overweening
pride
Antistrophe 1
of men? Or women
mad with passion, reckless in their hearts,
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soulmates
to every kind of ruin that befalls us?
Wild passion,
unrestrained, boundless, that overcomes
the women, perverts
the yoke of wedlock for beasts and men alike.
Let anyone whose mind is steady
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remember this, once he has learned
the story of Thestius’ daughter,
ruthless Althaea, who killed
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her own son. She contrived a plot
to burn the brand that fate assigned
to span his life; it had been kept
since the day he came out crying
from his mother’s loins. Deliberately,
deceitfully, she set on fire
what was to have kept pace with him
from birth to death. It glowed bright red
before the fire blackened it.
And they tell of another woman,
Antistrophe 2
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a hateful maiden, the bloody Scylla,
friend to her enemies, murderous
enemy to her dearest friend,
her father; lured by a gold-forged necklace,
a gift from Minos, ruthlessly,
deliberately as Nisus kept
on sleeping unsuspecting as
a baby, she snipped off his lock
of immortality, and all
at once dark Hermes led him down.
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Since I’m recalling hatreds that stopped
Strophe 3
at nothing, it is right
I come at last to this hateful marriage,
this heartbreak for the house,
and the outrageous work of cunning
hatched in a woman’s mind
against the warrior, her husband,
against a husband even
enemies had reason to revere.
I honor a low and steady
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burning hearth within the house,
not one that flares up wildly;
and a woman’s sharp, unwarlike spirit
that would never dare.
Of all the storied crimes, the crime
Antistrophe 3
of Lemnos is the worst;
yes, people everywhere all groan
and spit out their disgust at
the very thought, and even call
every new horror that happens
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a Lemnian crime. For such a foul
deed hateful to the gods,
that race has utterly died away
in stark dishonor, since
no one respects what the gods despise.
Which of these tales I’ve told
here is beside the point, unjust?
The sharp point of the sword is poised
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near the lungs and driven down
and through them by the force of Justice
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that strikes back at all who defy her,
flouting the majesty of Zeus,
trampling justice underfoot.
The base of justice is firmly set,
Antistrophe 4
and fate, the swordsmith, hammers out
her sword beforehand. Now a child
is brought to the house of ancient bloodshed
by the far famed Erinyes
to pay for the pollution at long last.
ORESTES goes up to the gateway,
accompanied by PYLADES.
ORESTES Boy! Boy! Hey, don’t you hear me knocking? Once
more,
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is anybody home? For the third time
won’t anyone from the house come out to greet me
if Aegisthus would have it welcome strangers?
SLAVE All right, all right. I hear you. Where are you from,
stranger?
ORESTES Tell the masters of the house that someone
is here with news for them. Now hurry! The night’s
dim chariot is rushing on to darkness,
it’s time for travelers to drop anchor
some place where a host will welcome them.
Call whoever’s in charge inside the house
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to come out here to us, the mistress, maybe,
who runs the place, or better yet the master,
for, out of respect, a man must veil his words
when talking with a woman, but with a man
he can frankly say whatever’s on his mind.
Enter CLYTEMNESTRA.
CLYTEMNESTRA Strangers, just say whatever it is you need,
for we have all a house like this should have,
warm baths, and beds to charm away fatigue,
and the attention of judicious eyes.
But if you two have come on graver business,
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requiring more serious thought, well, that’s the work
men do, and we will let them know about it.
ORESTES I am a stranger, from Daulis, a town in Phocis.
As I set out for Argos shouldering
my own pack (at long last I can put it down),
I fell in with a stranger who wanted to know
my destination, and he told me his. Strophius,
a Phocian, was the name he gave me. “Friend,”
he says, “since you are headed anyway
for Argos, do me this favor, won’t you? Tell
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the parents of Orestes that he is dead.
Don’t let it slip your mind. And what his people
now want to do—if they want to bring him home,
or bury him in a foreign land, an outcast here
forever—carry their wishes back to me.
For as it is, the smooth walls of a bronze
urn now enclose the ashes of a man
we greatly mourned.” I’ve told you all I heard.
Whether I’m speaking with someone who may have
authority in any of these matters,
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I couldn’t say. His parent, though, should know.
CLYTEMNESTRA Ah me! Your news destroys us top to bottom!
O curse that stalks the house, that we can’t throw,
is there anywhere your seeing doesn’t reach?
Striking with well-aimed arrows from afar
even what’s been so carefully hidden away,
you strip me in my anguish of those I love.
And now Orestes—prudent as he was
to steer clear of this slough of butchery:
you can write off whatever hope we had
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in him to be the doctor who would rid
the house of all your hideous carousing.
ORESTES I wish, with hosts so wealthy, it could have been
good news that made me known to you, and
welcomed,
for what kindness is greater than the kindness
between a host and guest? And yet I felt
it would have been a grave impiety
not to have seen this task through to the end
for Orestes’ friends, when I had promised to,
and since I’m taken in as guest-friend here. 810
CLYTE
MNESTRA Put your mind at ease. You’ll be no less
deserving of our hospitality,
no less a friend to us, because of this.
Another messenger could just as easily
have brought the news. But now you must be tired
from traveling all day. Time for the rest
you’ve earned.
(To an attendant)
Take him and his fellow traveler
to the men’s guest-quarters; give them everything
a house like this can give. See to it all
as if your very life depended on it.
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In the meantime, I’ll give the ruler of the house
all the particulars you’ve told me, and we
will not lack friends as we deliberate
about this terrible, sudden stroke of fate.
Exit CLYTEMNESTRA with the others.
CHORUS Handmaidens faithful to the house,
when shall we sound
the strength of our tongue to serve Orestes?
O sacred earth, and sacred barrow
raised high over the king’s body,
the master of the fleet, now hear us,
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now help us! Now
is Persuasion’s time with all
her slick deceit
to be his second as he steps out
onto the field, and Hermes’ time,
lord of the dark earth, lord
of stealthy night, to oversee
and guide the contest
of the swift, death-dealing sword!
Enter ORESTES’ NURSE.
CHORUS LEADER The stranger must be busy causing trouble:
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for here’s Orestes’ nurse, in tears.
Cilissa,
where are you off to through the outer gate,
with grief your unpaid traveling companion?
NURSE The mistress orders me to tell Aegisthus
to come and see the strangers right away,
so he can hear for himself, man to man,
in more detail, the news they have to tell.
You should have seen her, the phony look of sorrow
she put on in front of the servants, and the way
she hid behind those sad eyes a gloating laugh
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of triumph for the work done well enough
for her—but for the house, what is it but
the final insult of an evil that
the stranger’s story has made all too clear.
And that one will be glad at heart, I tell you,
when he hears the news! O god, god! it
was hard enough to bear, all those miseries
mixed up together to assault the house
of Atreus, that kept the shattered heart
within my breast forever shattering.
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But no agony I suffered was as bad as this!
I braved the storm of all my other troubles
best I could. But now my own Orestes!
How I wore my life away, caring for him
right from the moment when he came out bawling
from his mother’s womb, oh how I nursed him,
reared him, walked the floors with him at night,
when his loud cries would wake me, that and more,
the endless chores, the headaches, all of it
I did—and for what?—that’s how you nurture such
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a helpless thing, like a dumb beast, you have to
learn how to read the weather of its moods.
A baby still in swaddling bands can’t say
in words whether it has to eat, or drink,
or pee, its stomach needs what it needs when it
needs it.
I had to be a prophet to guess what to do,
and often I guessed wrong, and had to scrub clean
the baby’s clothes, both nurse and washer-woman,
both handicrafts required of this one hand, my hand
that took charge of Orestes for his father.
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And now, O god, they tell me he is dead,
and here I’m fetching the very man who’s ruined
the house! He’ll savour the news, that one. You’ll see!
CHORUS LEADER Does she tell him to come prepared in any way?
NURSE What do you mean “prepared”? I don’t follow you.
CHORUS LEADER With his bodyguards, I mean, or by himself.
NURSE She says his henchmen are to come with him.
CHORUS LEADER Don’t tell him that, not if you hate our master;
tell him instead that he’s to come alone
to hear the news, tell him to come quickly,
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that he doesn’t need to take precautions.
And say it cheerfully. The messenger
can make the bent word look as if it’s straight.
NURSE What, are you happy after news like this?
CHORUS LEADER But what if Zeus should make our bad wind good?
NURSE How so? Orestes, hope of the house, is gone.
CHORUS LEADER Not yet. Only a poor prophet would say that.
NURSE What are you saying? Have you heard something else?
CHORUS LEADER Go give your message. Just do as you’re told.
The gods will care for what the gods will care for.
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NURSE All right, I’ll go then and do just what you say.
And, please god, may it all be for the best.
NURSE exits to the left.
CHORUS Now hear my prayer, O Zeus,
Strophe 1
father of the Olympian gods,
grant that the house may prosper, bring
the just light of deliverance
to those who long to see it. My
every word’s been spoken for
the sake of Justice. Protect her, Zeus.
Zeus, Zeus, set the one inside the house
Mesode 1
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over his enemies,
for if only you raise him up to greatness,
twofold, three-
fold will he pay you back, and do it gladly!
See how the colt of a man you loved
Antistrophe 1
is yoked to a chariot of struggle;
keep a firm hold on the reins
to help him hit his stride and keep it
so that we can see him surge
straining forward as he gallops
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down the homestretch of the course.
And you gods within, who inhabit
Strophe 2
the inner rooms piled high with wealth,
delighting in their glitter, you gods
who feel what we feel, hear us, come
wash clean the blood of past crimes with
a fresh-kill act of justice! May
old murder no longer breed in the house!
And you, Apollo, who dwell in the
magnificent
Mesode 2
great cave, grant
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that this man’s house stand tall again, and that
he see with glad eyes
the light of freedom shine out from its dark veil.
May Hermes help him too, in justice,
Antistrophe 2
he who best can see the deed
to port, blown on a favoring breeze;
whenever he wants, he will reveal
what’s kept obscure, or speak obscurely;
he is the dark before our eyes
by night, and no less dark by day.
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And then we’ll sing a far-famed song
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to celebrate our deliverance
from bloodshed, a woman’s tune
sung on a favoring breeze, sung shrill
and clamorous; “Our ship goes well,”
we’ll sing, “and our gain grows, while ruin
keeps away from those we love.”
And you, Orestes, when it’s time to act,
Mesode 3
be strong, and when
she says to you “My son,” cry in return,
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“My father” and
accomplish a destruction none can fault.
Harden your heart into the heart
Antistrophe 3
of Perseus, and for the ones
you love below the earth, and those
above, exact some joy at last
from all that anger; make the house
run red with Gorgon gore, and kill
the man whose hands are red from killing.
AEGISTHUS enters from the left.
AEGISTHUS I’ve come as I was bid, and the summons
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tells me there are strangers here with news
no one would welcome of Orestes’ death.
To add this fearful burden to the house
still stung and festering from earlier bloodshed
would make its deep wounds ooze and drip again.
But how do I know the story’s really true,
and not just words ignited by a woman’s fear,
flaring in air a moment before it dies
away to nothing? Can you say anything
about this that might make it clear to me?
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CHORUS LEADER Yes, we did hear the story, but you go in
yourself and ask the strangers. A messenger’s
report is a poor substitute for hearing
one’s questions answered by the man himself.
AEGISTHUS That’s what I want: to see the messenger
and grill him carefully: was he there, did he see
Orestes die? Or is he just repeating
some second- or third-hand rumor? One thing’s for
certain,
