Libation Bearers
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Chorus
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Then may blessings go with you, and may the god watch benevolently over you and guard you with favorable fortunes!
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Look! Now again, for the third time, has the tempest of this clan burst on the royal house and run its course. First, at the beginning, came the cruel woes of children slain for food; next, the fate of a man, a king,
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when the warlord of the Achaeans perished, murdered in his bath. And now, once again, there has come from somewhere a third, a deliverer, or shall I say a doom?
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Oh when will it finish its work, when will the fury of calamity, lulled to rest, find an end and cease?
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Chorus
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Intending to ward off evil with such a graceless grace, O mother Earth,
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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!
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Ah, house laid low in ruin! Sunless darkness, loathed by men, enshrouds our house due to the death of its master.
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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,
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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;
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and others are claimed by strengthless night.
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Chorus
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My child, the fire’s ravening jaw does not overwhelm the wits of the dead man,
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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,
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when raised loud and strong, makes its search everywhere.
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Chorus
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—Welcomed there below by your comrades
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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.Pluto and Proserpine.
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For in your life you were a king of those who have the power to assign the portion of death,He was a king of those princes who have the right to apportion life or death to their subjects. and who wield the staff all mortals obey.
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Chorus
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Let whoever is not flighty in his wits know this, when he has learned of the device of a lit brand contrived
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by Thestius’ heartless daughter:When Meleager, the child of Althaea, who was daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia, and wife to Oeneus of Calydon, was a week old, the Fates appeared to the mother and declared that he would die when the brand on the hearth was consumed. Whereupon Althaea took the brand and put it in a chest; but when Meleager, grown to youthful manhood, slew her brothers, she threw it into the fire, and her son died suddenly. 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,
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and it aged in pace with him through his life to the day decreed by fate.
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Chorus
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And there is in legend another murderous virgin to be loathed,Nisus was besieged in his town of Megara by Minos, king of Crete. Nisus’ daughter Scylla, being in love with Minos, cut from the head of her father the purple hair on which his life depended, so that he was slain by the Cretans.
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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
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as he drew breath in unsuspecting sleep. And HermesHermes, the conductor to Hades of the souls of the dead. overtook him.
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Chorus
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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.
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May aged Murder cease begetting offspring in our house!
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Chorus
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And you who occupy the mighty, gorgeously built cavern,The inner sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi was a narrow cave or vault in which, over a cleft, stood a tripod covered by a slab on which the prophetess sat (Athenaeus , 701c, Strabo, ix. 641). grant that the man’s house may lift up its eyes again in joy, and that with glad
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eyes it may behold from under its veil of gloom the radiant light of freedom.
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Chorus
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May Maia’s son,Hermes, the patron of guile and god of eloquence. as he rightfully should, lend his aid, for no one can better sail a deed on a favoring course, when he would do so.The bracketed line 815 reads And many another hidden thing he will make plain, if he desires.
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But by his mysterious utterance he brings darkness over men’s eyes by night, and by day he is no more clear at all.
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Chorus
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The commands proclaimed loudly by Loxias, tenant of the mighty cavern shrine of Parnassus, assail with guileless guile
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the mischief now become inveterate. May the divine word prevail that so I may not serve the wicked!The translation is based of Hermann’s text: κρατείτω δ’ ἔπος τὸ θεῖον τὸ μή μ’ | ὑπουργεῖν κακοῖς.
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It is right to revere the rule of heaven.
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Chorus
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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.
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Chorus
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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
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with faces all lovely to behold, favorably disposed to whoever stays in our house.
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Chorus
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Look, the light has come,
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and I am freed from the cruel curb that restrained our household. House, rise up! You have lain too long prostrate on the ground.
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Chorus
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Because of blood drunk up by the fostering earth, the vengeful gore lies clotted and will not dissolve away. Soul-racking calamity distracts
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the guilty man till he is steeped in utter misery.
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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.
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Orestes
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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,
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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—
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Electra
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No, not even beneath the walls of Troy, father,
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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,
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so that someone in a distant land who knew nothing of these present troubles should learn of their fatal doom.
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Chorus
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But since I have recalled tales of pitiless afflictions, it is the right time to tell of a marriage void of love,
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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,
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and in woman a spirit that shrinks from audacious deeds.
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Chorus
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Indeed the LemnianThe women of Lemnos, jealous of Thracian slaves, killed their husbands, so that when the Argonauts visited the island they found no men. 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;
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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?
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Chorus
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And then at last with a loud voice we shall sing a song of the deliverance of our house,
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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.
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Chorus
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But may you with good courage, when the part of action comes, cry out loud the name Father when she exclaims Son,
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and accomplish the baneful but irreproachable deed.
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Chorus
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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
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by working bloody ruin in our house and obliterating the guilt of murder.Of verses 819-837 only the general sense is clear.
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Orestes
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This has pierced the earth and reached your earThe ear of Agamemnon. 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. . . .
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And yet it will be accomplished for our father’s sake.He thus justifies his (unvoiced) prayer, slay my mother
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Electra
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And when will mighty Zeus bring down his hand on them
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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!
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Chorus
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But the keen and bitter sword is near the breast and drives home its blow at the bidding of Justice.
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For truly the injustice of him who has unjustly transgressed the sovereign majesty of Zeus
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lies on the ground trampled under foot.The translation is based on the reading παρεκβάντος (Stanley); but this and all other alterations do not remove the difficulties of the original.
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Chorus
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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,
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to requite at last the pollution of blood shed long ago.
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Chorus
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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?
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Full against the prow of my heart wrath blows sharply in rancorous hate.
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Chorus
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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.
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But when hope once again lifts and strengthens me, it puts away my distress and dawns brightly on me.
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Orestes
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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?
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Electra
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To what could we more fittingly appeal than to those very miseries we have endured from the woman herself who bore us?
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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.
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Chorus
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On my breast I beatAt the time of Agamemnon’s murder, when the women wailed with the extravagance of professional Asiatic mourners. Here they repeat those signs of mourning. an Arian Aria was a district of Persia. For Eranians (Old-Persian ariya) the Greeks used Ἄριοι; at least Herodotus says this was an ancient name of the Medes. dirge in just the same fashion as a CissianCissia formed part of Susiana. wailing woman.
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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.
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Electra
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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.
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Hear my tale and inscribe it on your heart.
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Electra
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Away with you, cruel
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and utterly brazen mother! You dared to give your husband a most cruel burial: unmourned, without lamentation, a king unattended by his people.
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Chorus
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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.
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You must enter the contest with inflexible wrath.
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Orestes
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Ah me, your words spell utter dishonor.
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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!
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Chorus
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Yes, and I would have you know he was brutally mangled.An allusion to the savage custom by which the extremities of the murdered man were cut off, then hung about his neck and tied together under the arm-pits (μασχάλαι). At least one object of this arm-pitting was to disable the spirit of the dead from taking vengeance on the murderer.
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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.
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Orestes
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Father, I call on you; side with your loved ones!
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Electra
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And I in tears join my voice to his.
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Chorus
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And let all our company blend our voices to echo the prayer. Hear! Come to the light!
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Side with us against the foe!
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Orestes
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Ares will encounter Ares; Right will encounter Right.
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Electra
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O you gods, judge rightly the plea of right!
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Chorus
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A shudder steals over me as I hear these prayers. Doom has long been waiting,
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but it will come in answer to those who pray.
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Chorus
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Ah, inbred trouble and bloody stroke of ruin striking a discord! Ah, lamentable and grievous sorrows!
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Ah, the unstaunched pain!
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Chorus
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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.
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This hymn is for the gods beneath the earth.