[Enter PYTHIA from the side.]
In these my prayers I honor firstly Gaia,
the primeval prophetess;
then Themis, who was second to possess
this place, her mother’s oracle.
The third to take it—by consent, no use of violence—
was another daughter born of Earth, named Phoebe;
she next gave it as a birth-gift to Apollo,
who now has the further name of Phoebus.
He, when he had left the rocks and lake of Delos,
10 made first landfall on Athena’s coast;
and the Athenians escorted him with reverence
on his journey to this place beneath Parnassus.
They pioneered a sacred way from there
by civilizing lands that had been savage.
The people of this country and their ruler, Delphos,
honored him on his arrival.
Zeus inspired him with the power of prophecy,
and settled him, as Loxias, to be the fourth upon this throne.
20 These are the gods I name as prelude to my prayers.
Then next Athena-before-Delphi takes the pride of place.
And I pay homage to the Nymphs of the Corycian cavern,
favorite haunt for birds, frequented by the gods.
And let me not forget that Dionysus holds this upland,
ever since he led an army of his bacchants here
to weave a fatal trap round Pentheus, like a hare.
I call as well upon the river Pleistus;
and on great Poseidon;
and on Zeus supreme, who brings completion.
(30) After this I go inside to take my seat as prophetess.
If there be any Greeks here present,
let them now consult,
as drawn in order by the customary lot.
for I deliver prophecies as guided by the god.
[She goes in; there is an empty stage before she comes stumbling back out.]
Oh terrible! terrible to tell, to see . . .
horrors so foul they force me back outside the shrine,
and drain my strength so I can’t stand,
reduced to crawling on my hands and knees—
a terrified old woman is a nothing . . . no more than a child.
As I am entering the inner sanctum,
40 there I see beside the sacred navel-stone
a man who’s taken refuge as a suppliant,
his hands polluted with still-dripping blood:
in one he holds a naked sword, the other
grasps an olive-bough entwined with wool.
About him, fast asleep, there lie
the strangest band of women—not women really,
more like Gorgons . . . but then not Gorgons either. . . .
I did once see such beings in a painting,
50 pilfering the feast of Phineus.
But these ones have no wings, and are pitch black,
and utterly repulsive, reeking with disgusting snorts,
and from their eyes there drips revolting ooze.
Their whole appearance is not right for bringing near
the shrines of gods, nor human houses either.
I never have set eyes upon this race of creatures,
and I’ve no idea what country could
have bred them without damage or regret.
60 From now, though, it’s the master of this temple
has to be responsible for this—mighty Apollo.
He is the healer, prophet, seer, and purifier.
[PYTHIA goes off to the side she came from.]
[Enter APOLLO and ORESTES.]
(85) My lord Apollo, as you know how negligence is wrong,
so too you must find out how not to be unjust.
It is your strength that is my reassurance.
(88) Remember that, and don’t let terror swamp your mind.
I’ll not betray you, but protect you through and through,
both standing close, and from far off.
And I shall not be soft toward your enemies:
as you see now, these crazy females
have been overcome, plunged deep in slumber—
these abominations, ancient maidens, virgin crones.
No god gets close involved with them,
70 nor man, nor animal of any kind.
They cultivate the evil dark of Tartarus beneath the earth,
detested by both humans and the higher gods.
Yet, all the same, you have to flee; and show no weakness,
as they’re going to drive you over seas and lands.
Don’t let this struggle weary you,
but keep right on until you reach Athena’s city,
80 and then stay, your arms about her ancient statue.
There we’ll search out judges and beguiling words
which will ensure you are released from this distress
for all of future time—because I was the one
persuaded you to strike your mother dead.
I call upon you, Hermes, brother sharing
the same father’s blood: take care of him,
90 and faithful to your title, be the guide and shepherd
to my suppliant here; and bring him,
with the help of people that he meets, good fortune.
[APOLLO goes into the temple; ORESTES sets off in haste.]
[The ghost of CLYTEMNESTRA enters from the temple and speaks back to the Erinyes, who are sleeping inside.]
Sleep on! Sleep on!
Hey! What’s the use of you asleep?
Meanwhile, as long as I’m disdained by you like this,
I stay denounced among the dead by those I killed.
And so I wander in humiliation, held to blame
because, although I have been made
100 to suffer horribly by my own closest kin,
there is not one divinity enraged on my behalf,
not even for me butchered at my children’s hands.
Just bring yourselves to see these gashes in my breast!
Yet you have lapped up many offerings
that I have poured unmixed with wine;
and I have burned rich sacrifices for you in the night—
a ritual time not shared with any other god.
110 I see all this go trampled underfoot,
while he has managed to escape.
Like some young deer, he’s lightly bounded off
right from inside your nets, and boldly leers at you.
Hear me—it is my very self at stake.
Pay me attention, chthonic goddesses:
this dream that summons you is
Clytemnestra, me!
[Moaning noises from the Erinyes.]
Yes, go on moaning!
But meanwhile the man has got away.
120 [More moaning noises.]
You’re fast asleep, and feel no pity for my pain.
I am the mother that Orestes killed—he’s got away.
[Crying-out noises from the Erinyes.]
You cry aloud, yet stay asleep. Get up, I tell you.
What’s your function other than inflicting pain?
[More crying-out noises.]
Exhaustion joined in league with sleep
has drained the menace of your snakes.
130 Get him! Get him! Get him! Get him!
Look, here’s the trail!
You run in hot pursuit of your dream-prey
with yelping like a dog intent upon the chase.
Yet you are doing nothing!
Get up, I tell you!
Don’t let weariness subdue your power;
don’t let slumber lull you senseless.
Feel stabbing in your guts from my reproaches,
blast him with your bloody breath,
and shrivel him with scorching from your womb.
Go after him; once more pursue, and bleed him dry.
[The dream-ghost goes; the CHORUS begin to wake each other and to enter in disarray.]
140 Wake up!
And you wake her.
And I wake you.
What, still asleep?
Get up!
Kick slumber off.
Let’s find out
if this prelude points to deeds.
[Cries of anguish on finding ORESTES gone.]
Sisters, we have suffered,
labored hard for nothing,
suffered pain unhealing,
wrong beyond all bearing.
He’s escaped the trap-net,
and the beast has bolted.
We’ve been caught out napping,
and have lost our quarry.
Son of Zeus, Apollo,
you have played the robber.
150 You, the young, have ridden
over gods so agèd.
Bowing to the godless
killer of his mother,
you have been his cover.
Who could call this justice?
Reproachful dreams interrupted sleep,
blows like a charioteer’s keen whip,
160 reaching my innards, and stinging sharp.
Like being flogged in a public place,
I felt it biting as cold as ice.
This is the way they abuse what’s right,
these younger gods, who defile with blood
the sacred oracle head to foot,
smearing the earth’s central navel-stone
with indelibly filthy stain.
The prophet has polluted
the hearth of his own house,
170 self-prompted, self-invited;
and wrecked the gods’ own laws,
rights that are deep-rooted.
But never shall he free him;
that man shall not escape,
and down below earth even
his guilt shall keep him trapped—
revenge shall still consume him.
[Enter APOLLO from the temple.]
Out! Out, I tell you!
Leave this shrine immediately
180 and void the inner chamber of the oracle:
or you’ll be pierced through by a silver fang
sent flashing from my golden bow,
and that will make you fetch up livid bile,
and spew the human blood that you have swilled.
This temple’s not a proper place for you:
you should be rather where men’s heads
are severed, eyes are gouged;
where boys’ virility is mangled by castration;
where there’s amputation, stoning,
190 and men moan as they die slowly through impalement.
D’you hear the kind of god-detested
entertainment you take pleasure in?
Your whole appearance makes this obvious:
such creatures should by rights
live in a flesh-devouring lions’ den,
and not be smearing their defilement round this oracle.
Be on your way, then, herd without a shepherd;
there’s no god who wants to tend a flock like yours.
Now, lord Apollo, listen in your turn.
You are yourself no mere accomplice,
200 you’re the agent bearing full responsibility.
What do you mean? Just tell me that.
It was your oracle that told the man to kill his mother?
I gave an oracle that told him to avenge his father, yes.
Then promised to protect him, though still smeared with blood?
I told him to take refuge at this shrine.
And yet you still abuse us when we form his escort?
Because you are not fit to enter in this place.
But this role is the one assigned to us.
What can this function be, this fine prerogative?
210 We harry mother-killers from their homes.
And what about a woman who cuts down her man?
Ah, that would not be spilling her own kindred blood.
That means you rate as valueless the bonds
that wed together Zeus and Hera;
and Aphrodite is by your account discarded with contempt,
the god who offers what’s most close for humankind.
For man and wife the marriage bed, kept under guard
by justice, is more binding than an oath.
If they descend to murdering each other,
220 and you are to go easy, not applying your full fury,
then it’s not right, I say, for you to drive Orestes out.
I find you’re too concerned about one side,
and far too lenient with the other.
Athena shall arrange a trial to judge these issues.
Well, I shall never give up harrying that man.
Go on, pursue him; make more trouble for yourselves.
Don’t you attempt to whittle down my rights.
I wouldn’t want your rights, not even as a gift.
Because you stand secure beside the throne of Zeus:
230 but I am drawn on by a mother’s blood,
and shall pursue this man until I have exacted justice.
[The Erinyes set off in pursuit of ORESTES.]
And I shall take care of my suppliant.
A suppliant’s anger, if he is betrayed,
is fearsome for the gods as well as men.
[APOLLO goes back into the temple, leaving the stage empty.]
[Athens: Enter ORESTES, exhausted; he approaches the statue of ATHENA.]
Mistress Athena, I have come here on the orders of Apollo:
please receive the wanderer with favor.
I am not seeking refuge with my hands polluted:
any stain has been long blunted and abraded
through my journeys and my time with other people.
240 I’ve traversed both rugged land and seas
in my obedience to Apollo’s oracle;
and here I am before your temple and its image.
Here I stay, and wait for final judgment.
[Enter CHORUS in pursuit, like dogs on the track.]
Aha! Clear traces of our man!
Run down the clues of the informant with no voice:
like hounds that track a wounded deer,
we’re scenting out a trail of dripping blood.
My guts are gasping with our long, exhausting toils,
for we have scavenged every part of earth,
250 and skimmed across the seas, though with no wings.
And now at last . . . he’s cowering somewhere here—
the whiff of human blood is smiling out at me.
Search, search, and search again.
Look all round for the man.
Don’t let the matricide
escape with crime unpaid.
Ah! Here he is!
His arms hold in embrace
the statue of the goddess.
260 He’s hoping for legal trial,
but that’s not possible.
A mother’s pulsing blood
once spilled upon the ground
can’t be fetched up again;
it soaks in and is gone.
In return you must give
your red liquor, while alive,
so that eagerly we gulp
from your veins the sour syrup.
Once we’ve drained you hollow,
we shall drag you down below.
There you’ll see all who’ve sinned
270 against god or guest or kin.
For Hades keeps a tally
of every human folly,
and writes them down retained
in the ledger of his mind.
I’ve learned in my ordeals when is the time to speak
and when to keep my silence: at this crisis,
with a teacher’s wise advice, I should now speak.
280 The blood upon my hands is fading, sleepy;
and pollution from the killing of my mother
has been washed away, purged by Apollo at his hearth.
And I could tell of many I have visited
while causing them no harm.
So now I speak with purity and call upon Athena,
mistress of this land, to come and bring me help.
That way she shall recruit myself, my country,
290 and the Argives as true allies for the rest of time.
So whether she’s in Africa to help her friends,
beside the Triton’s flow, where she was born,
or else surveying Phlegra’s landscape, like a bold commander,
I now call on her to come—a god can hear far off—
so she may set me free.
No, not Apollo, not Athena can protect you
300 from the fate of wandering disregarded,
ignorant of feeling glad—
a dinner for us goddesses,
till drained of blood, a shadow.
[ORESTES does not respond.]
No reply? Contempt for what I say?
You have been reared, I tell you,
as an offering for me,
and you shall feed me live—
no need for ritual slaughter.
So listen to this hymn
that works to bind you tight.
Come then, let us link together
in our chorus, now that we are
set on showing off our gruesome
music. Firstly, listen how we
310 make allotments among humans
as we think is upright justice:
when a man is pure in actions,
there’s no threat of anger from us,
and he lives his life undamaged;
but the sinner who attempts to
hide his violent deeds of murder—
we bear witness for the victim,
and extract the blood-price from him
320 so he pays the final reckoning.
Mother Night, my mother Night,
now hear me.
As a goddess of revenge
you bore me.
Yet Apollo’s trying to
deprive me
of my rights by snatching off
this cringing,
consecrated creature from
my clutches,
which should be sacrificed
for bloodshed.
Over our victim
chant our refrain,
Erinyes’ hymn,
driving insane,
330 destroying his mind,
binding his brain—
tune without music,
withering refrain.
Moira’s thread has spun for us
this province:
to maintain forever as
our essence
power to follow with pursuit
untiring
those who’ve killed their closest kin
uncaring,
right down to the world below,
relentless.
Even there they are not free
340 entirely.
Over our victim
sing our refrain,
Erinyes’ hymn,
driving insane,
destroying his mind,
binding his brain—
chant without music,
withering refrain.
This standing was allotted to us
(350) from our birth:
to share no common feasting with
the gods above;
we have no part in rituals that
don white robes.
Our chosen role is as destroyers
of a house
when violent strife leads one to killing
kin most close;
then we wear down his strength and drain
him to a husk.
Because we free the other gods from
(360) this grim task,
they do not have to bring such cases
to the test.
And Zeus excludes our blood-soaked party
from his feast.
Men seem high and mighty
underneath the sky,
but they shrink and dwindle
to indignity,
370 crushed beneath the pounding
dances of our fury.
Down from above
I leap and stamp,
full weight of my leg,
limb strong enough
even to trip
an athlete’s step
with no escape.
Ignorant he tumbles,
damaged in his mind,
dark cloud of pollution
hovering around.
And over his household
380 grieving voices spread.
This is our task: resourceful we
make it complete and done;
long we remember wrongs, and press
implacably on men.
Away from gods we do our work
in murk that sees no sun.
390 What person feels no awe and dread
when hearing of our writ,
granted to us by the gods,
invariable, complete?
My state is honored, though beneath
the earth with no sun’s light.
[Enter ATHENA.]
From far away I heard a cry for help—
I was at Troy, where I was marking out the share of land
400 allotted by the leaders of the Greeks to me,
for the Athenians to keep forever as a special gift.
I’ve hastened all the way from there,
though not with wings, my snake-cloak whirring in the wind.
And now I see this strange new gathering of visitors.
I feel no fear, but still I am astonished at the sight.
Who are you—all of you, I mean?
This stranger by my statue,
[To the Erinyes.]
410 and you—you don’t resemble
any gods known to the gods,
nor do you have a form like that of any humans.
But it would be wrong of me to speak
discourteously of those who’ve given no offense.
You shall hear everything concisely, child of Zeus.
We are the daughters born of Night;
and in the world beneath the earth
we’re known as Curses.
So now I know your birth and title.
Next you should learn of our prerogatives:
(420) we harry people-killers from their homes.
Where does the killer’s running reach its end?
Some place where joy is quite unknown.
And that’s the way you’re hustling this man here?
We are: he thought it right to be his mother’s killer.
With no compulsion? Or in dread of some fierce anger?
Could any be enough to spur a man to kill his mother?
(430) There are two parties here, and I’ve heard only half.
Then test the case, and pass your judgment honestly.
And would you really hand to me the final outcome?
Indeed, if you respect us in return for our respect.
Now, stranger, what have you to answer in your turn?
Tell me your country, family, and fortune;
and then defend yourself against their hostile charges—
440 if, that is, you are a solemn suppliant,
and taking this position by my statue out of trust in justice.
Athena, I shall first allay your anxious question.
I’m not here beside your image with my hands polluted.
I’ll give a weighty proof of this: it is laid down
a man with blood upon his hands is not allowed to speak
450 until he has been cleansed by one with power to purify.
Well, I’ve been purged in other places,
both by sacrificial blood and by the flow of water.
So now I’ll tell you of my family: I am from Argos,
son of Agamemnon, marshal of the naval force—
and you, with him, reduced Troy’s city to a nothing-place.
And yet he died a squalid death when he came home.
My dark-intentioned mother slaughtered him
460 once she had cloaked him in a rich-embroidered net,
complicit with his murder in the bath.
And I, when I eventually returned from exile,
killed my mother—I do not deny it—
to make her pay the price for killing my dear father.
And Apollo shares responsibility for this,
since he proclaimed that I would suffer
heart-impaling agonies if I did nothing to the guilty ones.
Now it’s for you to pass your judgment:
was it with injustice or with justice that I struck?
Whatever way you deal with me,
I shall assent to your decision.
470 This issue is too grave for any human
to assess decisively.
And it would not be right even for me
to pass a judgment which is bound to stir such anger.
On the one side, you’ve approached my temple
as a suppliant pure and free of harm:
these, on the other side, possess a function
that is far from airily dismissed.
And if they don’t emerge victorious in this affair,
then they shall drizzle poison of resentment,
which, as it falls upon the ground,
will spread consuming plague.
480 That’s how things stand—and either course
seems bound to bring down rancor.
So, since the issue has advanced this far,
I shall establish here a charter for all time:
a board of jurors, bound by solemn oath,
who shall be judges in the case of homicide.
[To both sides.]
You therefore should assemble here your witnesses
and evidence supportive for your case.
Meanwhile, I shall select the finest of my citizens,
and gather them to pass conclusive judgment here.
[Exit ATHENA; ORESTES stays.]
490 If these new rules now overrule,
then unjust justice will prevail
to win the mother-killer’s cause.
This act will set all humans loose
from decency; set people free
to murder with impunity;
leave parents helpless to stop harm
at children’s hands in future time.
500 Unhindered by our manic gaze,
all kinds of death shall be released.
Though all about the victims claim
they have been harmed by kindred crime,
they will not find that there’s redress
in answer to their anguished cries.
And though they try to stem their pain,
their remedies shall be in vain.
No use for anyone to shout
510 when they have been struck down:
“O Justice, O Erinyes
upon your lofty throne!”
Although a new-harmed father or
a mother’s anguish calls
for pity, it’s no use because
the house of Justice falls.
There is a way that terror can
improve the minds of men,
520 and fear prove beneficial since
good sense is reached through pain.
Those who do not cultivate
at heart a sense of fear—
the same for cities as for men—
will not hold Justice dear.
Don’t praise a life oppressed,
nor yet a life dispersed
in careless anarchy.
In every sphere the god
530 empowers the middle way.
I frame a thought that’s apt:
proud arrogance indeed
springs from impiety,
while from a mind with health
develops longed-for growth
of true prosperity.
I say that everyone
should treat the altar-stone
of Justice with respect;
540 don’t kick it in contempt
for some imagined gain.
There will be punishment.
What’s fixed remains secure:
with time it takes effect.
In view of this, be sure
to put first parents’ care,
and treat guests with respect.
550 The man of unforced justice
will be securely prosperous:
the man of lawless daring—
pirate-fashion steering
a cargo overloaded
with goods unjustly looted—
will end with sail in tatters,
and with his mainmast shattered.
He cries out from the circles
of overwhelming whirlpools,
but there is none to hear him.
560 God mocks the man so certain
that he’s immune from dangers.
He cannot ride the breakers;
wrecked on the reef of Justice,
he drowns unwept, unnoticed.
[ATHENA reenters with jurors, who bring on benches and two voting urns. It emerges that the scene is now set on the hill of the Areopagus.]
Now let the herald call the people here to order;
and let the piercing trumpet ring out loud and clear.
570 For as this council is assembled, silence is appropriate
so that the city as a whole may listen to my charter.
This will stand for all of future time,
(573) so justice may be well decided here.
(681) Now listen to my charter, citizens of Athens,
you who are the judges in this trial,
the first trial ever held for bloodshed.
This just assembly shall hold good
for my Athenians for evermore.
It shall convene upon this outcrop,
the encampment of the Amazons,
when they invaded and then fortified
this citadel confronting the Acropolis.
And here they sacrificed to Ares, which is why
(690) this hilltop has been named the Areopagus.
And here the sense of awe and inborn fear
shall keep my citizens by day and night
from doing wrong—provided they themselves
do not revise and tamper with the laws.
If you pollute clear water with bad effluent
and dirt, you’ll never find it good to drink.
So I advise my citizens to venerate a way of life
that’s neither anarchy nor yet oppression either.
And do not expel the element of fear
entirely from the city—who can live a life
that’s just, with no deterrent fear at all?
(700) If you maintain this kind of just respect,
you’ll have protection for both land and city
of a strength no other humans have achieved.
So this assembly here—immune from love of gain,
full of respect and fierce in righteous anger,
wakeful over those who sleep—
this I establish as a fortress for the land.
I have dwelled long on this advice
(708) for all my citizens for all of future time.
<But now, before proceedings are begun,
it is the proper time for witnesses
to be assembled. Are there any here
who wish to take their stand before our court?
[Enter APOLLO.]
Yes, queen Athena, I have come in haste,
departing from my shrine at Delphi
to be present here.
It’s only right, my lord Apollo, that you>
(574) exercise your power in your own province.
How is this issue of concern to you?
I’ve come to act as witness for this man:
he is my suppliant who looked for refuge at my hearth,
and there I purified him after bloodshed.
And I shall speak on his behalf,
580 since I am answerable for the killing of his mother.
So begin proceedings, and conduct
the case as you know best.
I do hereby begin proceedings.
[To the Erinyes.]
It is for you to make your case,
since it is proper for the prosecution to be first to speak,
and to explain the issue from the start.
We may be many, yet we shall each speak incisively.
[To ORESTES.]
And you must give your answers point by point.
So this first: did you kill your mother?
I killed her, yes. There is no way I can deny the deed.
Three falls are needed—that’s already one!
590 You claim that, but I’m not yet on the floor.
Then next you have to say: how did you murder her?
I say I drew my sword and slit her throat.
And who persuaded you? Whose plan was this?
The oracle of this god here, as he’s my witness.
The prophet authorized your mother-killing?
Yes—and, thus far, I stand by what has happened.
But when the vote entraps you, then you’ll change your tune.
I keep on trusting. And my father helps me from the grave.
You kill your mother, and then pin your faith on corpses!
600 I do, because she had been doubly stained.
What do you mean? Explain this to the judges.
In murdering her husband, she destroyed my father too.
But you are still alive: she’s been absolved through death.
So, when she was alive, why did you not chase after her?
She did not share his blood, the man she killed.
And do I share my mother’s blood?
Of course you do. She nurtured you within her womb,
you loathsome murderer. Would you deny
your mother’s blood, the nearest to your own?
610 Please stand, Apollo, as my witness now:
explain if I had justice on my side in killing her.
I can’t deny I did it—that’s a fact—
but give your judgment if my shedding of this blood
was justified or not.
Then I declare to you, who represent
this mighty charter set up by Athena:
it was justified.
I am a prophet and can never lie:
from my prophetic throne I’ve never said a thing,
concerning man or woman or a city,
not one word which was not authorized
by great Olympian Zeus.
I would advise you to appreciate
just how supreme this justice is,
620 and act in concert with the father’s will—
there is no oath that binds more strongly than does Zeus.
So Zeus, by your account, conveyed to you this oracle,
which told Orestes to take vengeance for his father’s death,
and to account his mother’s claims as valueless?
Just so—because they’re not to be compared.
This was the killing of a noble man,
distinguished by the scepter, gift of Zeus;
and, what is more, it was a woman laid him low—
yet nothing like the arrow of some warlike Amazon.
No, listen how it was, Athena,
630 and you jurors sitting here to give your votes.
When he had come back from the war,
where he had managed mostly well,
she welcomed him with lavish words;
and then, as he was lying in the bath,
she tented him inside a robe,
and, with him fettered in this crafty cloak of cloth,
she struck.
This is the sad tale of his death,
a man revered by all, commander of the fleet.
I emphasize this so the people gathered
to decide this case may feel the sting of it.
640 According to your version, then, you claim that Zeus accords
a father’s death the heavier weight.
Yet he himself tied up his ancient father, Cronus.
Is not that a blatant contradiction?
I call upon you listeners to confirm this point.
You loathsome, god-detested monsters!
Zeus could loose mere chains—there is a mass of ways
of getting those unlocked, with no harm done—
but once the soil has gulped the life-blood of a man,
there is no way to stand him up again.
My father can reverse all other things
650 by turning them this way and that, without much effort,
but for this he has composed no counterspell.
Now think what your defense of this man means.
He’s spilled his mother’s blood upon the ground,
his own shared blood: how can he then
inhabit his ancestral home in Argos?
How could he stand by altars that are communal?
What brotherhood could have him at their rites?
I shall explain this; and you’ll see that I am right.
The person who is called the mother
is no parent of the child, merely the feeder
of the new-implanted embryo.
660 The true begetter is the one who thrusts;
and she is like a stranger acting for a stranger:
she keeps the seedling safe, provided no god injures it.
I offer an exhibit that will prove the point
and show a father can give birth without a mother:
here stands the daughter of Olympian Zeus as witness.
She was never cultured in the darkness of a womb.
And I, Athena, shall so far as I am able
make your city and its people great.
I’ve guided this man to your hearth
670 so that he may stay loyal for all of future time,
and you may gain him and those after him as allies,
ever standing firm as pledges for the children of these men.
Now I instruct these jurors to apply
their honest judgment, and to cast their votes.
Enough has now been argued.
[The jurors proceed to vote in the course of the following dialogue.]
Well, we have fired off all our arrows,
So we wait to see what way the issue is decided.
You’ve heard what you have heard,
680 So, strangers, when you vote, revere your oath.
(711) I would advise you not to underrate our claims:
we could become a harmful presence for this land.
I tell you to feel fearful of my oracles from Zeus,
and not to leave them barren.
If you embark on bloodshed—matters not your business,
the temple of your oracle will not stay pure.
Was Zeus then in the wrong when he assessed
the case of Ixion, the world’s first homicide?
Whatever you may say, if we don’t win this case,
720 we shall stay on to be a menace for this land.
You have no standing with the younger gods,
nor with the older. I shall win.
You did this kind of thing back when you coaxed
the Moirai to release Admetus from mortality.
Was it not right to do a favor for that virtuous man,
especially in his hour of need?
You upset age-old functions when you fooled
those ancient goddesses with wine.
Well, soon, when you have lost this case,
you shall be spewing toxic bile—
730 although it cannot harm your enemies.
A younger god, you try to trample over me, the old,
and so I’ll stay to hear the outcome of this trial,
still undecided whether I should turn my anger on this city.
[The jurors’ voting is now complete.]
It is my place to give my judgment last:
and I shall cast this vote in favor of Orestes.
[She puts in her vote.]
This is because no mother gave me birth,
and so in every way I’m for the male—
except for intercourse—with all my heart.
I’m strongly on the father’s side,
and shall not grant a wife’s fate precedence—
740 not one who killed her man, the master of her house.
It is the rule that, if the votes are equally divided,
the defendant wins.
And now, you jurors who’ve been trusted with this task,
be quick and tip the vote-stones from the urns.
[The vote-tellers turn out the urns and count.]
Phoebus Apollo, which way will this judgment go?
O mother Night, dark mother, do you see?
Now it is either hanging or the light of life for me.
For us it’s nothingness or keeping our prerogatives.
Count up the emptied votes correctly, strangers.
Give justice your supreme respect as you decide.
750 A lapse of honesty can cause immeasurable harm.
A single vote can make or break a house.
This man has been acquitted of the charge of murder,
since the tally of the votes is equal for both sides.
[APOLLO departs.]
Athena, you have saved my heritage.
It’s you who have restored me in my home
when I was dispossessed of fatherland.
And Greeks will say:
“This man is once again a man of Argos,
rich in his ancestral property.
He owes this to Athena and Apollo
and, third, all-achieving Zeus, the guardian.”
760 Zeus gave my father’s death his full respect,
and saved me from my mother’s champions.
And now, as I head home, I swear an oath
to this whole country and its people,
good for all of future time:
no leader of my land shall ever marshal here
a hostile armored force.
If any should transgress this oath of mine,
then I myself, from in my tomb,
shall set against them fatal obstacles;
770 and make their march ill-omened and demoralized,
till they regret the undertaking.
But so long as they stay firm and true
toward this city of Athena with alliance in the field,
then I shall look on them with favor.
So farewell to you, and to the people
who maintain your city in their care.
May you hold fast a grip upon your enemies
that brings security and victory.
[Exit ORESTES.]
You younger gods have ridden down
the ancient laws,
wrenching them roughly from my hands
and into yours.
780 Deprived of rights, and full of rage,
I’ll blight this earth
with poison, poison from my heart
to pay back grief.
I’ll drip it on the soil to make
foul cankers sprout,
mildews that bring to children death
and foliage blight—
O Justice!—make plagues sweep the land
and rot the soil,
rot human flesh. What can I do?
I mourn, I howl.
790 These citizens have made us fools,
so we, dark Night’s
dear daughters, are consumed by grief,
deprived of rights.
I must persuade you that you should not take offense
with such extreme resentment.
Understand: you were not beaten,
since the votes came out as truly equal,
and with no disgrace to you.
There was, though, clear-cut testament from Zeus,
delivered by the god who gave the oracle himself,
which said Orestes should not come to harm
because of what he’d done.
So you should not rain down
800 such deadly rancor on this land.
Hold back your anger; don’t create a sterile desert
by exhaling poison droplets,
acid froth that eats at healthy seed.
I give my solemn promise: you shall have
a cavern-dwelling in this land, where you shall take
your seats on glistening stones beside your altars,
and receive due worship from these citizens.
You younger gods have ridden down
the ancient laws,
wrenching them roughly from my hands
and into yours.
810 Deprived of rights, and full of rage,
I’ll blight this earth
with poison, poison from my heart
to pay back grief.
I’ll drip it on the soil to make
foul cankers sprout,
mildews that bring to children death
and foliage blight—
O Justice!—make plagues scour the land
and rot the soil,
rot human flesh. What can I do?
I mourn, I howl.
820 These citizens have made us fools,
so we, dark Night’s
dear daughters, are consumed by grief,
deprived of rights.
You do still have your rights.
Do not be so incensed; and don’t, as gods,
infect the land of humans with foul blight.
I too have my support—
I should not need to mention Zeus—
and I’m the only god who knows about the key
to where his thunderbolt is locked away.
But there’s no call for that:
be open to persuasion by my words.
830 Don’t hurl about these vitriolic threats
to poison every fruit that grows.
Soothe down the seething storm-waves of your rage,
so you may be most solemnly revered,
and stay as fellow settlers here.
When you are given first fruits from this fertile land,
receiving sacrifices to promote good childbirth
and good marriage, you shall be
forever grateful for this pledge of mine.
For me to be demeaned,
despite my age-old mind!
To stay in this land where
pollution’s everywhere!
840 Such force is in my breath,
its blast is full of wrath.
Such pain is this that jabs
me deep beneath my ribs.
Hear me, my mother Night:
the gods’ deceitfulness
has stripped me of old rights,
and made me nothingness.
I shall be patient with your anger,
seeing you are older and far wiser than I am—
850 though Zeus has granted me intelligence as well.
I tell you, if you part from here
in favor of some other people’s land,
then you shall come to feel fierce longing for this place.
As time flows on, and as the standing
of these citizens grows great, you should possess
an honored dwelling near to their Acropolis,
where men and women would bring offerings far greater
(857) than you would receive from any others.
(867) This is the kind of future you may choose
to have from me: to do good deeds,
and to secure good treatment, and to share
good privileges in this land most favored by the gods.
870 For me to be demeaned,
despite my age-old mind!
To stay in this land where
pollution’s everywhere!
Such force is in my breath,
its blast is full of wrath.
Such pain is this that jabs
me deep beneath my ribs.
Hear me, my mother Night:
the gods’ deceitfulness
has stripped me of old rights,
880 and made me nothingness.
I shall untiringly remind you of these benefits,
to make quite sure you never will have cause
to say that you, more ancient gods, because of me,
the younger, and these human guardians of this city,
have been made to wander,
disrespected exiles from this place.
But if you give Persuasion her due reverence,
Persuasion who imparts enchantment to my words,
then you will stay.
And if you do not wish to stay,
it still would not be right for you to bear down
with your fury or bring harm upon these people,
890 seeing that there is a way for you to be a sharer
in this land, with privileges here forevermore.
Athena, queen, what is this place you tell me I shall have?
One that’s secure from all distress. Accept it, do.
And if I did, what privileges would there be for me?
No house could thrive except with your support.
Will you yourself make sure I have such influence?
I shall, through favoring those who show you reverence.
And do you pledge me this for all of future time?
The things I say I’m bound to carry through.
900 You are enchanting me, I think—I’m shifting from my rage.
And once you’re safely in this land, you shall gain friends.
What themes should I compose, then, for this place?
Such things as follow on a wholesome victory,
drawn from the earth and sea and air.
So sing to make the breezes blow
across a ground that is well warmed with sun;
and to ensure the produce of the earth and flocks
may yield abundantly, unfailing through the years,
to benefit these citizens;
(910) and sing for human seed to issue in safe births.
For like a gardener, I take tender care
to cultivate the stock of these just men,
and wish to keep them free from grief.
Such matters are for you; and I shall make it sure
that on the field of war this city shall emerge
with victory conspicuous among mankind.
Yes, I am gladly accepting
Athena’s offer of home;
and I’ll not go rejecting
a city held in esteem
by mighty Zeus and by Ares
920 for its protection of shrines
prized by the gods of the Hellenes.
I conjure blessings to come:
livelihood swelling in plenty,
warmed by the rays of the sun.
I confer a favor on these
citizens by asking powerful
gods, not easily placated,
to inhabit here. The whole of
930 human being is their province;
and the man who draws their anger
can’t tell where the lashes come from
as he is impelled to face them.
He may bluster, but a silent
doom destroys him through their anger.
I shall now tell of my blessings:
I pray no tree-blighting wind
940 or bud-searing blasts of the dog days
may trespass into this land,
nor any plague of the fruit crops
encroach. And may the god Pan
raise all the flocks impregnated
with double lambs. And may grain
grow from the earth in its richness,
refreshed by the god-given rain.
Listen to these pledges, guardian
950 citizens, what things they promise!
Great the power that they dispose of,
these Erinyes, both for the
dead below and things for humans.
Clearly they direct the shape of
lives of others: some they give a
world of music, while they make the
days of others blurred with weeping.
I prohibit untimely death,
mischance that lays men low;
may all lovely young women claim
960 a husband and a home.
This I call for from you, Moirai,
my mother’s sister powers,
gods who allocate what’s right;
you share in every house,
charged with influence for all time,
most honored in all ways.
I’m delighted how they offer
kindly goodwill to my country.
970 And I’m glad Persuasion looked with
favor on my language as I
coaxed them from their harsh refusals.
Zeus, the god of civic meeting,
won the day. So now we’re rivals
in our giving out of blessings.
And I pray that internal strife,
a harm that never wanes,
shall not ever unleash its scourge
within the city’s walls.
980 May the dust never drink the blood
of citizens as it’s shed,
spur for retaliation
and slaughter making mad.
May they compensate joy for joy
as benefit is shared,
and agree on whom they oppose—
thus many ills are cured.
You see how they’re tracing paths of
gracious wording. I can see how
blessings for my citizens will
990 come yet from these fearsome faces.
You should always treat these kind ones
kindly and respect them: that way
you shall keep your land and city
glorious in the ways of justice.
Go with joy, yes, go with joy,
wise in your prosperity,
go with joy, Athenians,
dear in your proximity
to the dearest child of Zeus.
1000 So in time you reach sound sense,
held high in the father’s thoughts
and Athena’s winged embrace.
[During the following speech, women of all ages, attendants at ATHENA’s temple, come onstage with flaming torches.]
Go with joy, you also! I shall
walk in front to show you to your
dwelling by the light of sacred
torches carried by this escort.
Once you’re under earth, then ward off
all disaster from this country;
send instead the gain of victory.
[To the jurors.]
And you who sustain the city,
1010 it is time for you to lead on
these new settlers. And show favor
in return for generous favor.
Go with joy, yes, go with joy,
I repeat to all who hear,
both divine and humans who
hold Athena’s city here.
If you stay firm and reverence
my new settling-place,
you will not have any cause
1020 to complain in all your days.
I’m grateful for these benedictions.
Now, illumined by the blaze of torches,
I shall come along with you
to your place down underneath the earth.
And you shall be attended by the women
who protect and serve my statue.
Yes, the flower of all the land of Athens
will escort you there, a splendid gathering
of girls and women, young and old.
[To the women.]
It’s right for you to pay them honor,
draping them around with purple robes.
Then let the flaring lights proceed,
1030 so that this kindly company may grant our land
for all of time a favorable fortune with fine men.
[The pro cession begins to move offstage, led by ATHENA, followed by the Erinyes with the attendant women, followed by the jurors.]
Come now to your house,
glorying in your powers,
you daughters of dark Night,
with kindly escort lit.
Lift up your joyful sound,
you people of this land!
Down beneath the earth
you shall have a wealth
of praise and sacrifice
in your primeval space.
Lift up your joyful call,
you people one and all!
1040 With kindly theme
for this land, come,
you Solemn Gods;
and take your joy
in torches’ flame,
along your way.
Raise the triumph-cry!
Praise in harmony!
Assured in peace,
approach your house.
All-seeing Zeus
with Moira joins
to bless Athena’s
citizens.
Raise the triumph-cry!
Praise in harmony!
[The pro cession moves off.]