into the underworld
where you will pay in currencies of torment
for the murder of your mother.
And there you’ll see all other mortal sinners,
the ones who flout
310
the honor owed to gods or guests,
or loving parents—
you’ll see them get the justice they deserve.
For Hades holds men mightily to a strict
accounting down below the earth;
he sees all things, inscribes them
within the book
of his remembering.
ORESTES I have been schooled by my own suffering:
I’ve learned the many ways of being purged.
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I know where words are proper, and when silence is,
and that on this occasion a wise teacher
has ordered me to speak. For the blood drowses,
sloughs from my hand, the stain of having killed
my mother has been entirely washed away:
when it was still fresh at Apollo’s hearth,
he cast it out by sacrificing swine.
My story would be a long one if I told it
right from the start, the many men I met
and mingled with, not one of whom was harmed.
330
Time cleanses what it touches over time.
So now with clean lips and well-omened words
I call Athena, this land’s queen, to be
my savior. Not by force of spear or sword,
she’ll claim me, my land, and all the people of Argos,
as her true allies till the end of time.
Wherever she is—whether in distant Libya,
there by the stream of Triton where she was born,
enthroned or on the march to help her friends,
or whether like a dauntless leader she over-
340
sees the Phlegrean plain—O let her come
(a god can hear even from far away),
and save me from the troubles that hound me still.
CHORUS LEADER No, not Apollo’s, not Athena’s strength
can save you, keep you from going down in disgrace,
forgotten, no place in your heart for joy, all blood
sucked from your body till it’s nothing but
death’s vaporous feedbag, shadowy husk of air.
So you have nothing to say? You just spit at my
words—
calf fattened all for me, my living feast,
350
my calf not butchered first over any altar?
Hear the spell we sing to bind you fast:
CHORUS Let’s dance as well as sing around him,
hand in hand,
and let’s reveal the terrifying
power of our dark melody
and tell the way our company
fulfills the offices assigned
to us, our given
right to guide the lives of men.
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We keep straight on the path of justice,
that’s our belief:
our wrath is never aimed at the one
who holds up hands no blood has stained—
for that one lives out his life unharmed.
But the man, like this one here before us,
who tries to keep
his red hands hid, yet reeks of guilt,
will find us ever at his side,
bearing witness
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truthfully for those who died,
the court of last appeal, the final
blood avengers.
Mother, O mother Night,
Strophe 1
who bore me as a scourge
to those under the sun,
and those in sunlessness,
hear me. Leto’s child,
Apollo, steals my honor,
he’s trying now to steal
380
out of my rightful grasp
this trembling hare whose blood
alone is the atonement
for the motherblood he spilled.
Over our victim’s head,
Refrain 1
this is the song we sing,
this is the maddening song,
the raging song of fear
that twists the brain, that binds it,
the lyre-shunning song
390
of the Erinyes, draining,
withering life away.
When Fate, the all-directing,
Antistrophe 1
spun the unchangeable, ever-
piercing thread of life,
this was the task she gave
us to be ours forever:
those whom rage seizes, who
willfully kill their own
kin with their own hands, we
400
will hound them, drive them down
beneath the earth, and even
in death they’ll find scant freedom.
Over our victim’s head,
Refrain 1
this is the song we sing,
this is the maddening song,
the raging song of fear
that twists the brain, that binds it,
the lyre-shunning song
of the Erinyes, draining,
410
withering life away.
Yes, at our birth, we were given this holy
task.
Strophe 2
So the high gods steer clear of us, and we of them.
None of them would feast with us at the same table;
we have no part in festivals where white robes are
worn.
The calling I’ve made my own
Refrain 2
is the destruction of houses
when the spirit of Ares, reared,
tamed, pampered in the home,
cuts down a loved one. Then
420
we hunt the doer down,
strong though he is, we suck
his blood away to nothing
for all the blood he shed.
We are all keen to spare others these troubling
cares,
Antistrophe 2
keen, too, to keep the gods from meddling with our
prayers.
But Zeus despises our band as being soaked in blood
and calls us unworthy to be part of his high company.
The calling I’ve made my own
Refrain 2
is the destruction of houses
430
when the spirit of Ares, reared,
tamed, pampered in the home,
cuts down a loved one. Then
we hunt the doer down,
strong though he is, we suck
his blood away to nothing
for all the blood he shed.
But the self-preening conceits of men, swelling
so big
Strophe 3
under the sun, rot away into earth, all dishonored,
driven
down by the gale of our black robes rushing upon
them,
440
by the quick kicks of our raging dance.
For leaping from a great
Refrain 3
height I bring the full
force of my foot down
more heavily upon him;
unseen, I thrust out my leg
and even the swiftest runner
stumbles and falls down
to ruin beyond enduring.
But as he falls, his mind so crazed he doesn’t know
it—
Antistrophe 3
450
this the miasmal dark that hovers about the man,
and rumor passes its groan from voice to voice to say
that a dense fog has shrouded his house.
For leaping from a great
Refrain 3
height I bring the full
f
orce of my foot down
more heavily upon him;
unseen, I thrust out my leg
and even the swiftest runner
stumbles and falls down
460
to ruin beyond enduring.
This stands fixed. Adept at devising,
Strophe 4
unmatched alike in remembering wrong done
as in repaying it;
awful to men, deaf to their pleas,
detested and dishonored we fulfill
our given office; cut off
from the gods, we in the dark slime make
the path rough both for those who live in sunlight
and for those in sunlessness.
470
Who among mortals is immune
Antistrophe 4
to feeling awe and fear when I describe
the covenant that fate
assigned me, that the gods made final?
My privileges, ancient as they are,
remain still no less mine.
And I am no less honored for
the station that I hold beneath the ground
deep in the sunless slime.
ATHENA enters from the left, in full
armor and wearing her aegis.
ATHENA From the Scamander far away I heard
480
your call for help, as I took possession there
of land that the Achaean chieftains gave me,
all completely and forever mine,
a rich allotment from the spoils of war,
and a precious gift for Theseus’ sons.
From there I sped, my stride unwearied, wingless
but for the flap and billow of the folds
my aegis made.
But now I see a strange
and motley crew of visitors to this land.
Though I feel no fear, my eyes grow wide with
wonder.
490
Who are you? I mean all of you together—
you stranger with your arms around my image,
and you who look like nothing ever born—
not seen by gods among the goddesses,
or shaped in any human form. But, no,
it isn’t just to speak ill of another
when he’s done nothing wrong; Right won’t abide it.
CHORUS LEADER Daughter of Zeus, you’ll learn all, in a few words:
we are the children of the never-dying Night.
In our homes beneath the earth we’re known as
“Curses.”
500
ATHENA I now know your descent, and your true names.
CHORUS LEADER And soon you’ll learn our privileges as well.
ATHENA I will, yes, if you tell them to me plainly.
CHORUS LEADER We hound from home the ones who kill their own.
ATHENA Do you chase the killer to some final place?
CHORUS LEADER A place where all joy is unknown to him.
ATHENA And this man here, you howl him on that far?
CHORUS LEADER Yes, since he thought it right to kill his mother.
ATHENA Was he made to do it, fearing some other anger?
CHORUS LEADER What spur’s so sharp to make one kill his mother?
510
ATHENA The case has two sides; so far we’ve heard just one.
CHORUS LEADER He won’t swear he’s innocent, or yield if I swear to his
guilt.
ATHENA So you would rather seem just than act with justice?
CHORUS LEADER How so? Tell me. For you are rich in wisdom.
ATHENA Injustice shouldn’t triumph on an oath.
CHORUS LEADER Then question him yourself. And judge him fairly.
ATHENA You’d take my verdict as the final one?
CHORUS LEADER Yes. We pay you the respect you pay to us.
ATHENA It’s your turn, stranger. How will you answer them?
Say first where you come from, who your family is.
520
Explain your circumstances, and then refute
these accusations. If you’re sure you sit
in justice near my hearth, clutching my image—
as a holy suppliant, like Ixion before you,
then answer clearly, so I understand.
ORESTES Queen Athena, let me speak first
to the keen anxiety your last words hold.
I’m not a suppliant in need of cleansing.
When I took my seat here at your image,
my hands weren’t stained with blood. And I can prove
530
my claim with powerful evidence: by law,
a killer is forbidden to speak a word
till someone with the power to purify
has washed away his blood-guilt with the blood
of a young beast. I have been long since purged
at other houses, both in the blood of sucklings
slain to cleanse me, and in clear-running streams.
My hands are clean. Put your mind at ease.
Now I can tell you straight out where I come from,
who my family is: I am from Argos,
540
and my father, Agamemnon, you know well
as warlord of the fleet who helped you turn
the city of Troy into no city at all.
When he came home, he died an ugly death:
my black-hearted mother cut him down,
wrapped him in her subtle net, a net that
bore witness to the blood bath of his murder.
So I returned, after my years of exile,
and killed the very woman who gave me life—
I don’t deny it—killed her for killing him,
550
the father I loved—although Apollo, too, had
an equal hand in this, for he had goaded
me on with warnings of heart-piercing pain
if I failed to get revenge on the murderers.
But it’s all up to you now to decide
whether I’ve acted justly or not. However
the case turns out, I will accept your ruling.
ATHENA This case is too hard for one man to judge.
No, even I don’t have the right to rule
on a murder trial like this one, one
560
that calls down such fierce anger either way,
especially as you’ve come here to my house
a proper suppliant who’s clean, who bears
no danger to us, and I welcome you.
And yet these, too, have their appointed task
that can’t be shrugged off lightly. If they fail
to get their way, the poison of their outrage,
dripping on the land, will soon become
a deadly everlasting sickness. But since
the problem’s up to me to solve, I’ll choose
570
a panel of judges to preside at murder
trials like this, and put them under oath,
and so set up a court to last forever.
Now call your witnesses, prepare your proofs,
bring forth whatever evidence you have
that best supports your case. Meanwhile, I’ll pick
my ablest citizens, and then return
to deal with this matter fairly, once and for all.
ATHENA exits to the right. ORESTES stands aside during
the following song.
CHORUS Catastrophes will come,
Strophe 1
disasters of new laws, if
580
the mother-killer’s mayhem-
making plea prevails.
This deed, from this time on,
will make men poised for any
and all outrageousness.
Truly, parents will await
in time to come the keen
edge of a blade thrust
home by their own child’s hand.
And we, wild revelers, who keep
Antistro
phe 1
590
a close watch over all
men do, will never again
attack them in anger. We’ll
let any murder pass:
and one man, seeing his neighbor
suffer, will ask another,
“When will the sickness ease,
or end?” Poor wretch, the balm
he hopes heals evil won’t,
and he’ll hope in vain.
600
From now on let no one
Strophe 2
struck by disaster cry
for help, call out in terror:
“O Justice! O Erinyes,
enthroned in majesty!”
Caught unaware by pain,
some father or mother now
will cry like this, because
the house of Justice falls.
There is a place where dread
Antistrophe 2
610
is good, and must abide
to keep watch over all
men think. It’s for the best
that wisdom comes from wailing.
What man, or city even,
whose heart’s not fed on fear,
would ever again pay Justice
the reverence she’s owed?
Praise no life that no law reins,
Strophe 3
no life a tyrant rules.
620
God gives
victory always to the middle way,
even while seeing to it
differently in different spheres.
Be moderate, I say:
truly, sacrilege
gives birth to recklessness,
but a well mind breeds
what we all love and pray for—
a lasting, a rich well-being.
630
I tell you, then, revere,