by Aeschylus
[1455] O mad Helen, who did yourself alone destroy these many lives, these lives exceeding many, beneath the walls of Troy. Now you have bedecked yourself with your final crown, that shall long last in memory, because of blood not to be washed away. Truly in those days strife, an affliction that has subdued its lord, dwelt in the house.
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1462] Do not burden yourself with thoughts such as these, nor invoke upon yourself the fate of death. Nor yet turn your wrath upon Helen, and deem her a slayer of men, as if she alone had destroyed many a Danaan life and had wrought anguish past all cure.
CHORUS
[1468] O Fiend who falls upon this house and Tantalus’ two descendants, you who by the hands of women exert a rule matching their temper, a rule bitter to my soul! Perched over his body like a hateful raven, in hoarse notes she chants her song of triumph.
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1475] Now you have corrected the judgment of your lips in that you name the thrice-gorged Fiend of this race. For by him the lust for lapping blood is fostered in the mouth; so before the ancient wound is healed, fresh blood is spilled.
CHORUS
[1481] Truly you speak of a mighty Fiend, haunting the house, and heavy in his wrath (alas, alas!) — an evil tale of catastrophic fate insatiate; woe, woe, done by will of Zeus, author of all, worker of all! For what is brought to pass for mortal men save by will of Zeus? What herein is not wrought of god?
[1489] Alas, alas, my King, my King, how shall I bewail you? How voice my heartfelt love for you? To lie in this spider’s web, breathing forth your life in an impious death! Ah me, to lie on this ignoble bed, struck down in treacherous death wrought by a weapon of double edge wielded by the hand of your own wife!
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1497] Do you affirm this deed is mine? Do not imagine that I am Agamemnon’s spouse. A phantom resembling that corpse’s wife, the ancient bitter evil spirit of Atreus, that grim banqueter, has offered him in payment, sacrificing a full-grown victim in vengeance for those slain babes.
CHORUS
[1505] That you are innocent of this murder — who will bear you witness? How could anyone do so? And yet the evil genius of his father might well be your accomplice. By force amid streams of kindred blood black Havoc presses on to where he shall grant vengeance for the gore of children served for meat.
[1513] Alas, alas, my King, my King, how shall I bewail you? How voice my heartfelt love for you? To lie in this spider’s web, breathing forth your life in impious death! Alas, to lie on this ignoble bed, struck down in treacherous death wrought by a weapon of double edge wielded by your own wife’s hand!
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1521] [Neither do I think he met an ignoble death.] And did he not himself by treachery bring ruin on his house? Yet, as he has suffered — worthy prize of worthy deed — for what he did to my sweet flower, shoot sprung from him, the sore-wept Iphigenia, let him make no great boasts in the halls of Hades, since with death dealt him by the sword he has paid for what he first began.
CHORUS
[1530] Bereft of any ready expedient of thought, I am bewildered where to turn now that the house is tottering. I fear the beating storm of bloody rain that shakes the house; no longer does it descend in drops. Yet on other whetstones Destiny is sharpening justice for another evil deed.
[1536] O Earth, Earth, if only you had taken me to yourself before ever I had lived to see my lord occupying a lowly bed of a silver-sided bath! Who shall bury him? Who shall lament him? Will you harden your heart to do this — you who have slain your own husband — to lament for him and crown your unholy work with an uncharitable gift to his spirit, atoning for your monstrous deeds? And who, as with tears he utters praise over the hero’s grave, shall sorrow in sincerity of heart?
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1551] To care for that duty is no concern of yours. By your hands down he fell, down to death, and down below shall we bury him — but not with wailings from his household. No! Iphigenia, his daughter, as is due, shall meet her father lovingly at the swift-flowing ford of sorrows, and shall fling her arms around him and kiss him.
CHORUS
[1560] Reproach thus meets reproach in turn — hard is the struggle to decide. The spoiler is despoiled, the slayer pays penalty. Yet, while Zeus remains on his throne, it remains true that to him who does it shall be done; for it is law. Who can cast from out the house the seed of the curse? The race is bound fast in calamity.
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1567] Upon this divine deliverance have you rightly touched. As for me, however, I am willing to make a sworn compact with the Fiend of the house of Pleisthenes that I will be content with what is done, hard to endure though it is. Henceforth he shall leave this house and bring tribulation upon some other race by murder of kin. A small part of the wealth is fully enough for me, if I may but rid these halls of the frenzy of mutual murder.
[Enter Aegisthus with armed retainers.]
AEGISTHUS
[1577] Hail gracious light of the day of retribution! At last the hour has come when I can say that the gods who avenge mortal men look down from on high upon the crimes of earth. Now that, to my joy, I behold this man lying here in a robe spun by the Avenging Spirits and making full payment for the deeds contrived in craft by his father’s hand.
[1583] For Atreus, lord of this land, this man’s father, challenged in his sovereignty, drove forth, from city and from home, Thyestes, who (to speak it clearly) was my father and his own brother. And when he had come back as a suppliant to his hearth, unhappy Thyestes secured such safety for his lot as not himself to suffer death and stain with his blood his native soil. But Atreus, the godless father of this slain man, with welcome more hearty than kind, on the pretence that he was cheerfully celebrating a happy day by serving meat, served up to my father as entertainment a banquet of his own children’s flesh. The toes and fingers he broke off . . . sitting apart. And when all unwittingly my father had quickly taken servings that he did not recognize, he ate a meal which, as you see, has proved fatal to his race. Now, discovering his unhallowed deed, he uttered a great cry, reeled back, vomiting forth the slaughtered flesh, and invoked an unbearable curse upon the line of Pelops, kicking the banquet table to aid his curse, “thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes!” This is the reason that you see this man fallen here. I am he who planned this murder and with justice. For together with my hapless father he drove me out, me his third child, as yet a baby in swaddling-clothes. But grown to manhood, justice has brought me back again. Exile though I was, I laid my hand upon my enemy, compassing every device of cunning to his ruin. So even death would be sweet to me now that I behold him in justice’s net.
CHORUS
[1612] Aegisthus, excessive triumph amid distress I do not honor. You say that of your own intent you slew this man and did alone plot this pitiful murder. I tell you in the hour of justice that you yourself, be sure of that, will not escape the people’s curses and death by stoning at their hand.
AEGISTHUS
[1617] You speak like that, you who sit at the lower oar when those upon the higher bench control the ship? Old as you are, you shall learn how bitter it is at your age to be schooled when prudence is the lesson set before you. Bonds and the pangs of hunger are far the best doctors of the spirit when it comes to instructing the old. Do you have eyes and lack understanding? Do not kick against the goads lest you strike to your own hurt.
CHORUS
[1625] Woman that you are! Skulking at home and awaiting the return of the men from war, all the while defiling a hero’s bed, did you contrive this death against a warrior chief?
AEGISTHUS
[1628] These words of yours likewise shall prove a source of tears. The tongue of Orpheus is quite the opposite of yours. He led all things by the rapture of his voice; but you, who have stirred our wrath by your silly yelping, shall be led off yourself. You will appear tamer when put down by force.
CHORUS
[1633] As if you would ever t
ruly be my master here in Argos, you who did contrive our king’s death, and then had not the courage to do this deed of murder with your own hand!
AEGISTHUS
[1636] Because to ensnare him was clearly the woman’s part; I was suspect as his enemy of old. However, with his gold I shall endeavor to control the people; and whoever is unruly, him I’ll yoke with a heavy collar, and in truth he shall be no well-fed trace-horse! No! Loathsome hunger that houses with darkness shall see him gentle.
CHORUS
[1643] Why then, in the baseness of your soul, did you not kill him yourself, but leave his slaying to a woman, a plague to her country and her country’s gods? Oh, does Orestes perhaps still behold the light, that, with favoring fortune, he may come home and be the slayer of this pair with victory complete?
AEGISTHUS
[1649] Oh well, since you plan to act and speak like that, you shall be taught a lesson soon. On guard, my trusty guardsmen, your work lies close to hand.
CHORUS
[1651] On guard then! Let every one make ready his sword with hand on hilt.
AEGISTHUS
[1652] My hand too is laid on my sword hilt, and I do not shrink from death.
CHORUS
[1653] “Death for yourself,” you say. We hail the omen. We welcome fortune’s test.
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1654] No, my dearest, let us work no further ills. Even these are many to reap, a wretched harvest. Of woe we have enough; let us have no bloodshed. Venerable elders, go back to your homes, and yield in time to destiny before you come to harm. What we did had to be done. But should this trouble prove enough, we will accept it, sorely battered as we are by the heavy hand of fate. Such is a woman’s counsel, if any care to learn from it.
AEGISTHUS
[1662] But to think that these men should let their wanton tongues thus blossom into speech against me and cast about such insults, putting their fortune to the test! To reject wise counsel and insult their master!
CHORUS
[1665] It would not be like men of Argos to cringe before a man as low as you.
AEGISTHUS
[1666] Ha! I will visit you with vengeance yet in days to come.
CHORUS
[1667] Not if fate shall guide Orestes to return home.
AEGISTHUS
[1668] From my own experience I know that exiles feed on hope.
CHORUS
[1669] Keep on, grow fat, polluting justice, since you can.
AEGISTHUS
[1670] Know that you shall atone to me for your insolent folly.
CHORUS
[1671] Brag in your bravery like a cock beside his hen.
CLYTAEMESTRA
[1672] Do no care for their idle yelpings. I and you will be masters of this house and order it aright.
[Exeunt omnes.]
THE LIBATION BEARERS
Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth
The second part of the Oresteia trilogy continues the tale of Agamemnon’s family, opening with Orestes’ arrival at his father’s tomb, where he meets his sister Electra and plans revenge upon Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Clytemnestra’s account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus; and this leads her to order Electra, her daughter, to pour libations on Agamemnon’s tomb, with the assistance of libation bearers, hoping to make amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death, and when Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to share in the news, Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.
Orestes, Elektra and Pylades at the tomb of Agamemnon - Campanian red-figure hydria, c. 330 BC
CONTENTS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ARGUMENT
THE LIBATION BEARERS
Orestes, Electra and Hermes in front of Agamemnon's tomb as depicted by a Choephoroi artist
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ORESTES
CHORUS of Slave-women
ELECTRA
A SERVANT
CLYTAEMESTRA
PYLADES
NURSE
AEGISTHUS
SCENE. — Argos.
TIME. — The heroic age.
DATE. — 468 B.C., at the City Dionysia.
ARGUMENT
Now when she had slain Agamemnon, Queen Clytaemestra with her lover Aegisthus ruled in the land of Argos. But the spirit of her murdered lord was worth and sent a baleful vision to distress her soul in sleep. She dreamed that she gave birth to a serpent and that she suckled it, as if it had been a babe; but together with the mother’s milk the noxious thing drew clotted blood from out her breast. With a scream of horror she awoke, and when the seers of the house had interpreted the portent as a sign of the anger of the nether powers, she bade Electra, her daughter, and her serving-women bear libations to the tomb of Agamemnon, if haply she might placate his spirit.
Now Princess Electra dwelt in the palace, but was treated no better than a slave; but, before that Agamemnon was slain, her brother, Prince Orestes, had been sent to abide with his uncle Strophius in a far country, even in Phocis. There he had grown to youthful manhood, and on the selfsame day that his mother sought to avert the evil omen of her dream, accompanied by his cousin Pylades, he came to Argos seeking vengeance for his father’s murder.
On the tomb of Agamemnon he places a lock of his hair, and when Electra discovers it, she is confident that it must be an offering to the dead made by none other than her brother. She has been recognized by him by reason of her mourning garb; but not until she has had further proof, by signs and tokens, will she be convinced that it is he in very truth.
Orestes makes known that he has been divinely commissioned to his purpose of vengeance. Lord Apollo himself has commanded him thereto with threats that, if he disobey, he shall be visited with assaults of the Erinyes of his father — banned from the habitations of men and the altars of the gods, he shall perish blasted in mind and body.
Grouped about the grave of their father, brother and sister, aided by the friendly Chorus, implore his ghostly assistance to their just cause. Orestes and Pylades, disguised as Phocian travellers, are given hospitable welcome by Clytaemestra, to whom it is reported that her son is dead. The Queen sends as messenger Orestes’ old nurse to summon Aegisthus from outside accompanied by his bodyguard. The Chorus persuades her to alter the message and bid him come unattended. His death is quickly followed by that of Clytaemestra, whose appeals for mercy are rejected by her son. Orestes, displaying the bloody robe in which his father had been entangled when struck down, proclaims the justice of his deed. But his wits begin to wander; the Erinyes of his mother, unseen by the others, appear before his disordered vision; he rushes from the scene.
THE LIBATION BEARERS
[Scene: The tomb of Agamemnon. Enter Orestes and Pylades.]
ORESTES
[1] Hermes of the nether world, you who guard the powers that are your father’s, prove yourself my savior and ally, I entreat you, now that I have come to this land and returned from exile. On this mounded grave I cry out to my father to hearken, to hear me. . . . [Look, I bring] a lock to Inachus in requital for his care, and here, a second, in token of my grief. For I was not present, father, to lament your death, nor did I stretch forth my hand to bear your corpse.
[10] What is this I see? What is this throng of women that moves in state, marked by their sable cloaks? To what calamity should I set this down? Is it some new sorrow that befalls our house? Or am I right to suppose that for my father’s sake they bear these libations to appease the powers below? It can only be for this cause: for indeed I think my own sister Electra is approaching, distinguished by her bitter grief. Oh grant me, Zeus, to avenge my father’s death, and may you be my willing ally!
[19] Pylades, let us stand apart, that I may know clearly what this band of suppliant women intends.
[Exit Orestes and Pylades. Enter Electra with women carrying libations.]
CHORUS
[20] 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.
[30] 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.
[42] 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.
[55] The 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.
[66] 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. But 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. For since the gods laid constraining doom about my city and led me from my father’s house to a slave’s lot, it is fitting for me to govern my bitter hate, even against my will, and submit to the wishes of my masters, whether just or unjust. But I weep beneath my veil over the senseless fate of my lord, my heart chilled by secret grief.
