Orestes
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Menelaus
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Poor wretch! you have arrived at the extremity of woe.
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Orestes
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In you I have hopes of escape from my troubles. But since you have come with good fortune,
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share with your friends, who are wretched, your prosperity; do not hold aside that goodness for yourself alone; but partake of troubles in your turn, and so pay back my father’s kindness to those who have a claim on you. For such friends as desert us in adversity
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are friends in name but not in deed.
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Chorus Leader
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And here is Tyndareus, the Spartan, struggling with aged step, clad in black robes, with his hair cut short in mourning for his daughter.
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Orestes
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Menelaus, I am ruined. See, Tyndareus
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approaches us, the man of all others I most shrink from facing, because of the deed I have done. For he nursed me when I was small, and lavished on me many a fond caress, carrying me about in his arms as the son of Agamemnon; and so did Leda;
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for they both honored me no less than the Dioscuri.
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Ah me! my wretched heart and soul, it was a sorry return I made them! What darkness can I find for my face? What cloud can I spread before me in my efforts to escape the old man’s eye?
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Tyndareus
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Where, where may I see Menelaus, my daughter’s husband? For as I was pouring libations on Clytemnestra’s grave I heard that he had come to Nauplia with his wife, safe home again after many years. Lead me to him; for I want to approach him
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and clasp his hand, as a friend whom at last I see again.
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Menelaus
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Hail, old man, rival of Zeus for a bride!
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Tyndareus
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All hail to you, Menelaus, my kinsman!
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Catching sight of Orestes. Ah! What an evil it is to be ignorant of the future! There is that matricide before the house, a viper darting venomous flashes from his eyes, whom I loathe.
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Menelaus, are you speaking to that godless wretch?
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Menelaus
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And why not? He is the son of one whom I loved.
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Tyndareus
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This is his son, this creature here?
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Menelaus
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Yes, his son; if he is in misfortune, he ought to be honored.
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Tyndareus
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You have been so long among barbarians that you have become one of them.
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Menelaus
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Always to honor one’s kin is a custom in Hellas.
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Tyndareus
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And another custom is to yield a willing deference to the laws.
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Menelaus
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The wise hold that everything which depends on necessity is a slave.
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Tyndareus
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Keep that wisdom for yourself; I will not have it.
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Menelaus
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Yes, for you are angry, and also old age is not wise.
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Tyndareus
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What does a dispute about foolishness have to do with him? If right and wrong are clear to all, who was ever more senseless than this man, because he never weighed the justice of the case,
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nor appealed to the universal law of Hellas? For instance, when Agamemnon breathed his last struck on his head by my daughter a most foul deed, which I will never defend,
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he should have brought a charge against his mother and inflicted a holy penalty for bloodshed, banishing her from his house; thus he would have gained moderation instead of calamity, keeping strictly to the law and showing his piety as well. As it is, he has come into the same fate as his mother.
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for though he had just cause for thinking her a wicked woman, he has become more wicked by murdering her.
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I will ask you, Menelaus, just one question. If a man’s wedded wife should kill him, and his son in turn will kill his mother in revenge;
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next the avenger’s son to expiate this murder will commit another: where will the chain of horrors end?
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Our forefathers settled these matters the right way. They forbade any one with blood upon his hands to appear in their sight or cross their path;
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but they purified him by exile, they did not kill him in revenge. Otherwise someone, by taking the pollution last upon his hands, is always going to be liable to have his own blood shed.
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Now I hate wicked women, especially my daughter who killed her husband;
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Helen, too, your own wife, I will never commend, nor would I even speak to her; and I do not envy you a voyage to Troy for a worthless woman. But the law I will defend with all my might, to put an end to this brutal spirit of murder,
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which is always the ruin of countries and cities alike. Turning to Orestes Wretch! Had you no heart when your mother was baring her breast in her appeal to you? I, who did not see that awful deed, weep unhappy tears from my old eyes.
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One thing at least agrees with what I say: you are hated by the gods, and you pay atonement for your mother by your fits of madness and terror. Why do I need to hear from other witnesses what I can see for myself? Therefore, Menelaus, take heed;
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do not oppose the gods in your wish to help this man; but leave him to be stoned to death by the citizens, or do not set foot on Spartan land. My daughter is dead, and rightly; but it should not have been his hand that slew her.
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In all except my daughters I have been a happy man; there I am not blessed.
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Chorus Leader
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He is enviable, who is fortunate in his children, and does not bring hazardous notoriety on himself.
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Orestes
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Old man, I am afraid to speak before you,
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in a matter where I am sure to grieve you to the heart. I am unholy because I killed my mother, I know it, yet holy on another count, because I avenged my father. Only let your years, which frighten me from speaking, set no barrier in the path of my words,
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and I will go forward; but now I fear your gray hairs.
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What ought I to have done? Set one thing against another. My father begot me; your daughter gave me birth, being the field that received the seed from another; for without a father no child would ever be born.
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So I reasoned that I ought to stand by the author of my being rather than the woman who undertook to rear me. Now your daughter—I am ashamed to call her mother—came to a man’s bed in a private and unchaste wedding; I speak against myself when I speak
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badly of her, yet I will speak. Aegisthus was her secret husband in the home; I killed him, and I sacrificed my mother, an unholy crime, no doubt, but done to avenge my father.
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Now, as regards the matters for which I deserve to be stoned as you threatened,
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hear the service I am conferring on all Hellas. For if women become so bold as to murder their husbands, taking refuge in their children, with the mother’s breast to catch the pity, they would think nothing of destroying their husbands
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on any charge whatsoever. But I, by a horrible crime, as you boast it to be, have put an end to this custom. I hated my mother and killed her justly. She was false to her husband when he was gone from his home to fight for all Hellas at the head of its armies,
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and she did not keep his bed undefiled; and when her sin had found her out, she did not impose punishment on herself, but, to avoid paying the penalty to her husband, punished my father by death. By the gods! it is not a good time for me to mention the gods,
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when defending the charge of murder; but if I consented by my silence to my mother’s conduct, what would the murdered man have done to me? Would he not now in hatred be tormenting me with the Furies? Or does my mother have goddesses as allies, but he does not, in his deeper wrong?
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You, yes! you, old man, have been my ruin by begetting a wicked daughter; for it was owing to her audacious deed that I lost my father and became my mother’s murderer.
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You see, Telemachus did not kill the wife of Odysseus, because she did not marry husband upon husband,
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but the marriage-bed remained untainted in her home.
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And you see Apollo, who makes the navel of the earth his home, dispensing to mortals unerring prophecies, whom we obey in all he says; I killed my mother in obedience to him.
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Find him guilty of the crime, slay him; his was the sin, not mine. What ought I to have done? or is the god not competent to expiate the pollution when I refer it to him? Where then should anyone flee, if he will not rescue me from death after giving his commands?
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Do not say that the deed was done badly, but unfortunately for the ones who did it.
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A blessed life those mortals lead who make wise marriages; but those for whom it does not fall out well are unfortunate in their public and private concerns.
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Chorus Leader
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Women by nature always meddle in the doings of men, with unfortunate results.
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Tyndareus
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Since you are so bold and suppress nothing, but answer me back in such a way as to vex my heart, you will lead me to go to greater lengths in procuring your execution;
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and I shall regard this as a fine addition to my labors in coming here to adorn my daughter’s grave. Yes, I will go to the chosen band of Argives and set the city, willing or not, on you and your sister, to pay the penalty of stoning.
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She deserves to die even more than you, for it was she who embittered you against your mother, always carrying tales to your ear to increase your hate the more, announcing dreams from Agamemnon, and Aegisthus’ bed,
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may the gods in Hades loathe it! for even here on earth it was bitter; till she set the house ablaze with fires never kindled by Hephaestus.
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Menelaus, I tell you this, and I will do it, too: if you then consider my hatred or our marriage connection of any account, do not ward off this man’s doom in defiance of the gods,
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but leave him to be stoned to death by the citizens, or do not set foot on Spartan land. Remember you have been told all this, and do not choose the ungodly as friends, pushing aside the more righteous. Servants, lead me from this house. Exit Tyndareus.
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Orestes
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Go, so that the remainder of my speech may come to this man without interruption, free from your old age.
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Menelaus, why are you pacing round and round in thought, going back and forth, in a dilemma?
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Menelaus
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Let me alone! When I think it over,
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I am perplexed to know where to turn in these events.
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Orestes
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Do not come to a final decision now, but after first hearing what I have to say, then make up your mind.
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Menelaus
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Good advice! Speak. There are times when silence would be better than speech, and the reverse also.
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Orestes
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I will speak now. A long statement has advantages over a short one and is more intelligible to listen to. Give me nothing of your own, Menelaus, but repay what you received from my father. As Menelaus makes a deprecating gesture. I am not speaking of possessions; if you save my life,
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you will save my dearest possession.
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I have done wrong; I ought to have a little wrong-doing from you to requite that evil, for my father Agamemnon also did wrong in gathering the Hellenes and going to Ilium, not that he had sinned himself,
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but he was trying to find a cure for the sin and wrong-doing of your wife. So this is one thing you are bound to pay me back. For he really gave his life, as friends should, toiling hard in battle with you, so that you might have your wife again.
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Pay back to me the same thing you got there. For one day exert yourself, on my behalf standing up in my defense, not ten full years.
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As for what Aulis took, the sacrifice of my sister, I let you have that; do not kill Hermione.
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For in my present plight, you must have an advantage over me and I must pardon it. But give to my miserable father my life and the life of my sister, a maiden so long; for by my death I shall leave my father’s house without an heir.
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You will say it is impossible. That’s the point; friends are bound to help friends in trouble. But when fortune gives of its best, what need of friends? For the god’s help is enough of itself when he is willing to give it.
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All Hellas believes that you love your wife,
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and I am not saying this to flatter or wheedle you; by her I implore you.
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As Menelaus turns away. Ah me, my misery! to what have I come! Well? (preparing to make a final appeal) I must suffer, for I am making this appeal on behalf of my whole family. O my uncle, my father’s own brother! Imagine that the dead man in his grave
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is listening, that his spirit is hovering over you and saying what I say, this much for tears and groans and misfortunes. I have spoken and I have begged for my safety, hunting what all seek, not myself alone.
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Chorus Leader
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I, too, though I am only a woman, beseech you to help those who need it; for you have the power.
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Menelaus
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Orestes, you are a man for whom I have a deep regard, and I want to take part in your troubles; it is a duty, too, to help relatives bear their ills,
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by dying or killing enemies, if god gives the power to do so. I wish I had that power granted me by the gods. For I have come quite destitute of allies, after my long weary wanderings,
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with the small strength of my surviving friends. We should never get the better of Pelasgian Argos by fighting; if we should prevail by soothing speeches, we will come to some hope there. For how can you win a great cause by small
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efforts? It is foolish even to wish it.
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For when the people fall into a vigorous fury, they are as hard to quench as a raging fire; but if you gently slacken your hold and yield a little to their tension, cautiously watching your opportunity,
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they may possibly calm down; if their gusts abate, you may obtain whatever you want from them easily. They have pity, and a hot temper too, an invaluable quality if you watch it closely. So for you I will go and try to persuade Tyndareus
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and the city to moderation. A ship also dips if its sheet is hauled too taut, but rights itself again if it is let go.
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The god hates excessive eagerness, and the citizens do also; I must save you, I don’t deny it,
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by cleverness, not by violence against those who are stronger. I could not do it by strength, as you perhaps imagine; for it is not easy to triumph single-handed over the troubles that beset you. I would never have tried to bring the Argive land over to softness;
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but it is necessary. for the wise to be slaves to fortune. Exit Menelaus.
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Orestes
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O you that have no use, except to lead an army in a woman’s cause! O worst of men in your friends’ defense,
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do you turn your back on me and flee, the deeds of Agamemnon lost and gone?
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After all, father, you had no friends in adversity. Alas! I am betrayed; no longer do I have any hope of finding a refuge where I may escape the death-sentence of Argos; for this man was my haven of safety.
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But I see Pylades, the best of friends, coming at a run from Phocis—a pleasant sight! A man who can be trusted in troubles is a better sight than a calm to sailors.
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Pylades
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I have come through the city quickly, as I should,
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having heard and myself clearly seen the citizens assembling, against you and your sister, to kill you at once. What is happening? How is it with you? How are you doing, my best of comrades, friends and kin? For you are all these to me.
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Orestes
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I am ruined, to make plain to you my troubles in brief.