Libation Bearers
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Orestes
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Hermes of the nether world, you who guard the powers that are your father’s,Hermes is invoked (1) as a god of the lower world, because he is the conducter of souls and herald between the celestial and infernal gods (l. 124), and can thus convey Orestes’ appeal to the rulers of the dead and to the spirit of his father; (2) as administrator of the powers committed to him by his father, Zeus the Saviour. Some prefer to take πατρῷ not as πατρῷα but as πατρῷε i.e. god of my fathers. 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
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to hearken, to hear me Look, I bring a lock to InachusOrestes offers a lock of his hair to do honour to Inachus, the river-god of Argos, because rivers were worshipped as givers of life. 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.
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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
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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!
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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.
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Chorus
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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
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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,
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the cloth of robes struck for the sake of my mirthless misfortunes.
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Chorus
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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,
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a cry that fell heavily on the women’s quarter.The language of the passage is accommodated to a double purpose: (1) to indicate an oracular deliverance on the part of the inspired prophetess at Delphi, and (2) to show the alarming nature of Clytaemestra’s dream: while certain limiting expressions (as ἀωπόνυκτον, ὕπτου) show the points of difference. Phoebus is used for a prophetic possession, which assails Clytaemestra as a nightmare (cp. βαρὺς πίτνων); so that her vision is itself called an ὀνειρόμαντις. And the readers of these dreams, bound under pledge, cried out from the god that those
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beneath the earth cast furious reproaches and rage against their murderers.
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Chorus
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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.
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But I weep beneath my veil over the senseless fate of my lord, my heart chilled by secret grief.
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Electra
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You handmaidens who set our house in order, since you are here as my attendants in this rite of supplication,
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give me your counsel on this: what should I say while I pour these offerings of sorrow? How shall I find gracious words, how shall I entreat my father? Shall I say that I bring these offerings to a loved husband from a loving
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wife—from my own mother? I do not have the assurance for that, nor do I know what I should say as I pour this libation onto my father’s tomb. Or shall I speak the words that men are accustomed to use: To those who send these honors may he return benefits—
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a gift, indeed, to match their evil?Their evil is unexpectedly substituted for their good. The question is ironical, since it was natural for a Greek to return evil for evil (cp. 123). Or, in silence and dishonor, even as my father perished, shall I pour them out for the earth to drink and then retrace my steps, like one who carries refuse away from a rite, hurling the vessel from me with averted eyes?
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In this, my friends, be my fellow-counsellors. For we cherish a common hatred within our house. Do not hide your counsel in your hearts in fear of anyone. For the portion of fate awaits both the free man and the man enslaved by another’s hand.
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If you have a better course to urge, speak!
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Chorus
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In reverence for your father’s tomb, as if it were an altar, I will speak my thoughts from the heart, since you command me.
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Electra
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Speak, even as you revere my father’s grave.
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Chorus
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While you pour, utter benedictions for loyal hearts.
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Electra
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And to whom of those dear to me should I address them?
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Chorus
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First to yourself, then to whoever hates Aegisthus.
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Electra
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Then for myself and for you also shall I make this prayer?
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Chorus
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That is for you, using your judgment, to consider now for yourself.
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Electra
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Then whom else should I add to our company?
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Chorus
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Remember Orestes, though he is still away from home.
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Electra
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Well said! You have indeed admonished me thoughtfully.
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Chorus
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For the guilty murderers now, mindful of—
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Electra
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What should I say? Instruct my inexperience, prescribe the form.
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Chorus
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Pray that some divinity or some mortal may come to them—
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Electra
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As judge or as avenger, do you mean?
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Chorus
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Say in plain speech, One who will take life for life.
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Electra
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And is it right for me to ask this of the gods?
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Chorus
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How could it not be right to repay an enemy with ills?
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Electra
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Supreme herald of the realm above and the realm below, O Hermes of the nether world, come to my aid,
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summon to me the spirits beneath the earth to hear my prayers, spirits that watch over my father’s house, and Earth herself, who gives birth to all things, and having nurtured them receives their increase in turn. And meanwhile, as I pour these lustral offerings to the dead,
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I invoke my father: Have pity both on me and on dear Orestes! How shall we rule our own house? For now we are bartered away like vagrants by her who bore us, by her who in exchange got as her mate Aegisthus, who was her accomplice in your murder.
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As for me, I am no better than a slave, Orestes is an outcast from his inheritance, while they in their insolence revel openly in the winnings of your toil. But that Orestes may come home with good fortune I pray to you, father: Oh, hearken to me!
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And as for myself, grant that I may prove far more circumspect than my mother and more reverent in deed. I utter these prayers on our behalf, but I ask that your avenger appear to our foes, father, and that your killers may be killed in just retribution.
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So I interrupt my prayer for good to offer them this prayer for evil. But be a bearer of blessings for us to the upper world, with the help of the gods and Earth and Justice crowned with victory. She pours out the libations Such are my prayers, and over them I pour out these libations.
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It is right for you to crown them with lamentations, raising your voices in a chant for the dead.
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Chorus
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Pour forth your tears, splashing as they fall for our fallen lord, to accompany this protection against evil, this charm for the good
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against the loathsome pollution. Hear me, oh hear me, my honored lord, out of the darkness of your spirit.Or ἀμαυρᾶς may mean feeble, helpless, to contrast the spirit of the dead with that of the living. But cp. 323. Woe, woe, woe! Oh for
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a man mighty with the spear to deliver our house, an Ares, brandishing in the fight the springing Scythian bow and wielding his hilted sword in close combat. As they conclude, Electra discovers the lock of Orestes’ hair
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Electra
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My father has by now received the libations, which the earth has drunk.
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But take your share of this startling news.
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Chorus
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Speak—but my heart is dancing with fear.
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Electra
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I see here a lock cut as an offering for the tomb.
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Chorus
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A man’s, or a deep-girt maid’s?
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Electra
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That is open to conjecture—anyone may guess.
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Chorus
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How then? Let my age be taught by your youth.
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Electra
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There is no one who could have cut it but myself.
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Chorus
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Yes, for those who ought to have mourned with a lock of hair are enemies.
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Electra
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And further, in appearance it is very much like—
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Chorus
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Whose lock? This is what I would like to know.
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Electra
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It is very much like my own in appearance.
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Chorus
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Then can this be a secret offering from Orestes?
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Electra
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It is his curling locks that it most resembles.
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Chorus
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But how did he dare to come here?
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Electra
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He has merely sent this cut lock to honor his father.
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Chorus
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What you say is no less a cause of tears for me, if he will never again set foot on this land.
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Electra
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Over my heart, too, there sweeps a surge of bitterness, and I am struck as if a sword had run me through.
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From my eyes thirsty drops of a stormy flood fall unchecked at the sight of this tress. For how can I expect to find that someone else, some townsman, owns this lock? Nor yet in truth did she clip it from her head, the murderess,
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my own mother, who has assumed a godless spirit regarding her children that ill accords with the name of mother. But as for me, how am I to assent to this outright, that it adorned the head of Orestes, the dearest to me of all mortals? No, hope is merely flattering me.
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Ah, woe! If only, like a messenger, it had a kind voice, so that I would not be tossed by my distracted thoughts. Rather it would plainly bid me to spurn this tress, if it was severed from a hated head. Or if it were a kinsman’s, he would share my grief
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as an adornment to this tomb and a tribute to my father. But I invoke the gods, who know by what storms we are tossed like seafarers. Yet if I am fated to reach safety, a great stock may come from a little seed.
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And look! Another proof! Footprints>matching each other—and like my own! Yes, here are the outlines of two sets of feet, his own and some companion’s. The heels and the imprints of the tendons agree
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in proportion with my own tracks. I am in torment, my brain is in a whirl!
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Orestes
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Give recognition to the gods that your prayers have been fulfilled, and pray that success may attend you in the future.
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Electra
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What? Have I succeeded now by the will of the gods?
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Orestes
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You have come to the sight of what you have long prayed for.
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Electra
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And do you know whom among mortals I was invoking?
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Orestes
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I know that you are pining for Orestes.
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Electra
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Then how have I found an answer to my prayers?
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Orestes
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Here I am. Search for no other friend than me.
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Electra
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But surely, stranger, you are weaving some snare about me?
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Orestes
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Then I am devising plots against myself.
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Electra
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No, you wish to mock my distress.
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Orestes
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Then my own also, if yours.
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Electra
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Am I then to address you as Orestes in truth?
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Orestes
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Now, even though you see him in me, you are slow to learn. Yet at the sight of this tress cut in mourning, and when you were scrutinizing the footprints of my tracks, your thought took wings and you knew you had found me.
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Put the lock of hair, your own brother’s, in the spot it was cut from and observe how it matches the hair on my head. And see this piece of weaving, your handiwork, the strokes of the batten and the beasts in the design. Control yourself! Do not go mad with joy! For I know that our nearest kin are bitter foes to us both.
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Electra
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O best beloved darling of your father’s house, its hope of a saving seed longed for with tears, trust in your prowess and you will win back your father’s house. O delightful eyes that have four parts of love for me: for I must call you father;
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and to you falls the love I should bear my mother, whom I most rightly hate; and the love I bore my sister, victim of a pitiless sacrifice; and you were my faithful brother, bringing me your reverence. May Might and Justice,
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with Zeus, supreme over all, in the third place, lend you their aid!
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Orestes
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O Zeus, O Zeus, regard our cause! Behold the orphaned brood of a father eagle that perished in the meshes, in the coils of a fierce viper. They are utterly orphaned, gripped by the famine of hunger:
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for they are not grown to full strength to bring their father’s quarry to the nest. So you see both me and poor Electra here, children bereft of their father, both outcasts alike from our home.
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If you destroy these nestlings of a father who made sacrifice and revered you greatly, from what like hand will you receive the homage of rich feasts? Destroy the brood of the eagle and you cannot again send tokens that mortals will trust;
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nor, if this royal stock should wither utterly away, will it serve your altars on days when oxen are sacrificed. Oh foster it, and you may raise our house from low estate to great, though now it seems utterly overthrown.
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Chorus
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O children, O saviors of your father’s hearth,
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speak not so loud, dear children, in case someone should overhear and report all this to our masters merely for the sake of rumor. May I some day see them dead in the ooze of flaming pitch!
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Orestes
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Surely he will not abandon me, the mighty oracle of Loxias,
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who urged me to brave this peril to the end and loudly proclaims calamities that chill the warmth of my heart, if I do not take vengeance on my father’s murderers. He said that,
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I should pay the debt myself with my own life, after many grievous sufferings. For he spoke revealing to mortals the wrath of malignant powers from underneath the earth, and telling of plagues:
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leprous ulcers that mount with fierce fangs on the flesh and eat away its primal nature; and how a white downThe down upon the sore, not the temples turned white (cp. Leviticus xiii.3). should sprout up on the diseased place. And he spoke of other assaults of the Furies that are destined to be brought to pass from paternal blood.
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For the dark bolt of the infernal powers, who are stirred by kindred victims calling for vengeance, and madness, and groundless terrors out of the night, torment and harass a man, and he sees clearly, though he moves his eyebrows in the dark.He cannot sleep through terror of the Erinyes of his murdered kin whom he has not avenged. And with his body marred by the brazen scourge,
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he is even chased in exile from his country. And the god declared that to such as these it is not allowed to have a part either in the ceremonial cup or in the cordial libation; his father’s wrath, though unseen, bars him from the altar; no one receives him or lodges with him;
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and at last, despised by all, friendless, he perishes, shrivelled pitifully by a death that wastes him utterly away. Must I not put my trust in oracles such as these? Yet even if I do not trust them, the deed must still be done. For many impulses conspire to one conclusion.