CILISSA

  But how can you be happy with this news?

  CHORUS LEADER

  Supposing Zeus might turn our troubles round. . . .

  CILISSA

  How so? Our greatest hope Orestes is no more.

  CHORUS LEADER

  Don’t be too quick. That could turn out a poor prediction.

  CILISSA

  What? Do you know of something different?

  CHORUS LEADER

  Go, give your message in the form we’ve told you.

  780 The gods take care of what they care about.

  CILISSA

  All right. I’ll do as you have said.

  God willing, may all turn out for the best.

  [Exit CILISSA.]

  Choral Song

  CHORUS

  Father Zeus, now hear our pleas:

  grant this house may gain success.

  Bring for those who wish it well

  the sight they long for in its hall.

  Zeus, fulfill our prayers:

  help the man inside

  to crush his enemies.

  790 If you help him rise,

  he’ll heap recompense,

  twice and thrice as high.

  Ready by the chariot–

  yoke he stands, the orphan colt,

  son of him you highly prized—

  set good rhythm to his stride.

  800 You gods who guard the wealth

  stored deep in the house,

  now hear and sympathize;

  lend strength and join our cause,

  to clear away the blood

  of crimes done long ago.

  Bring justice, so old grudge

  may no more multiply.

  Revive, Apollo, here

  the light of freedom’s flame,

  810 and help it to shine from

  behind the veil of gloom.

  May Hermes join what’s just:

  with slanting words awry

  he may spread darkness, yet

  be no more clear by day.

  And then at last we’ll sing,

  820 to help the house sail free,

  our full-voiced female song,

  our breath a following breeze.

  But you be brave and true

  when action takes its turn:

  when she cries out, “My son,”

  shout back, “My father’s son.”

  That way you’ll bring to pass

  830 a ruin that’s no wrong.

  Put Perseus in your heart

  to shear the Gorgon’s head,

  and sprinkle blood to blight

  for good the murder-seed.

  Scene 8

  [Enter AEGISTHUS, by himself.]

  AEGISTHUS

  I have been summoned here, and here I am.

  840 I gather that some strangers have arrived

  with far from welcome news about Orestes’ death,

  a blow to set the blood fresh dripping in this house,

  still raw and oozing from the earlier killing.

  What is this, then? Should I regard it as the actual truth?

  Or is it merely women’s panic-talk,

  which sends sparks flying up that then die out?

  What can you tell me that might clear my mind?

  CHORUS LEADER

  We’ve heard of it. But you should go inside

  and find out from the visitors yourself.

  Reported news is nowhere near as good

  850 as learning from the messenger direct.

  AEGISTHUS

  I want to meet and ask him if he was himself

  nearby the day Orestes died.

  Or is he merely passing on a distant rumor?

  He’ll not fool a mind that keeps its wits awake.

  [Exit AEGISTHUS into the palace.]

  Choral Chant

  CHORUS

  Zeus, Zeus, where should I begin my

  prayers and pleading? Where to end them?

  860 Now the bloodstained slashing blades are

  either just about to snuff forever

  Agamemnon’s family,

  or to light the flame of freedom,

  and to pass the city’s power and

  riches over to Orestes.

  That’s the contest he is joining

  singlehanded with a double

  rival. May he be victorious.

  Scene 9

  [A death-cry is heard from inside.]

  CHORUS LEADER

  870 Ah! What’s happening? What’s the outcome?

  Let us keep our distance while the issue is decided,

  so we seem quite free of blame.

  It’s clear the battle has now been decided.

  SLAVE [hurrying out]

  Ah, ah! Disaster, help!

  The master’s been attacked.

  Ah! help! I call again.

  Aegisthus lives no more!

  Open the doors as quickly as you can;

  unbolt the women’s quarters too.

  We need a strong young man—

  880 yet that won’t help the one who’s been dispatched.

  Help, help! I’m calling on deaf ears,

  I’m yelling pointlessly at people fast asleep.

  Where’s Clytemnestra gone? What is she at?

  CHORUS LEADER

  It looks as though her neck is on the block,

  about to be hacked through by Justice.

  CLYTEMNESTRA [entering hastily]

  What’s going on here?

  Why raise this alarm?

  SLAVE

  I say the dead are slaughtering the living.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Ah, I see the meaning of your riddle:

  we’re about to die by trickery, just as we killed.

  Quick, someone fetch an ax that’s good to kill a man.

  890 Let’s see if we shall conquer or be conquered—

  since that’s the dreadful depth that we have reached.

  [ORESTES enters with PYLADES from inside.]

  ORESTES

  It’s you I’m looking for: this one has had enough.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Oh, are you dead, Aegisthus, my dear love?

  ORESTES

  You love the man? In that case you can lie

  beside him in a double grave—

  that way you’ll never be unfaithful, even not in death.

  CLYTEMNESTRA [baring her breast]

  —Stop there, my son!

  Now feel restraint, my child, before this breast of mine,

  where often drowsily with toothless gums

  you used to suck at the nutritious milk.

  ORESTES

  What should I do now, Pylades,

  should I hold back from striking my own mother dead?

  PYLADES

  900 What then to make in future of Apollo’s

  Delphic oracles, and of our sacred oaths?

  Treat any human as your enemy before the gods.

  ORESTES

  I judge you win, and your advice is good.

  [Turning back to CLYTEMNESTRA.]

  Now come with me—I want to kill you at his side,

  considering you rated him above my father still alive.

  Now you can go to bed with him in death,

  the man you loved, while filled with loathing

  for the one you should have loved.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  I nourished you when young: I want to age with you.

  ORESTES

  You killed my father, yet you think to live with me?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  910 What-must-be shares responsibility, my child.

  ORESTES

  Then what-must-be lays down your death as well.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Have you no dread before a mother’s curse, my child?

  ORESTES

  No, since you bore me only to abandon me.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  I sent you to an allied house—that’s not abandoning.

  ORESTES

  I was free-born, and yet you sold me off.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  So where’s the price that I received for that?

  ORESTES

  I feel ashamed to put that plainly into words.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  So should you be to list your father’s dallyings.

  ORESTES

  Don’t criticize the man who toiled while you sat snug.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  920 It’s hard for wives when separated from their man.

  ORESTES

  The man’s hard labor keeps their women safe at home.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  It seems you mean to kill your mother, then.

  ORESTES

  It’s you, not me, inflicting your own killing.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Look out: beware a mother’s rabid hunting dogs.

  ORESTES

  How could I then escape my father’s if I were to fail?

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  It seems I’m pointlessly lamenting to a tomb.

  ORESTES

  Because my father’s blood decrees your death.

  CLYTEMNESTRA

  Ah, this . . . this is the snake I bore and fed.

  My horror at that dream has proved prophetic.

  ORESTES

  930 You killed as you should not have:

  so now suffer what you should not.

  [ORESTES takes CLYTEMNESTRA inside.]

  CHORUS LEADER

  I sorrow even for their double fate.

  But now Orestes has advanced these

  many bloodsheds to their crisis point,

  our choice is that the bright hope of the house

  should not fall utterly destroyed.

  Choral Song

  CHORUS

  There came to the race of Priam

  harsh-punishing justice at last;

  there comes, though, to Agamemnon’s

  palace a two-footed lion.

  940 And oracles sent from Apollo

  encourage the exile’s brave quest.

  Let us raise up our triumph-cries

  for the rescuing of our house

  from the draining of its riches

  by that pair of tainted leeches.

  To help there came Hermes, the subtle

  tactician of devious battle;

  (950) alongside Justice, Zeus’ daughter,

  whose anger withers the guilty.

  (960) Clear we can see the light,

  now the muzzle’s been unbound.

  So rise, our house, stand upright,

  too long you’ve lain on the ground.

  Soon our ruling lord

  shall come out through this door,

  once pollution has

  (970) been cleansed, and all made pure.

  Scene 10

  [ORESTES is revealed standing over the bodies of CLYTEMNESTRA and AEGISTHUS; his bloodstained hands hold a sword and an olive bough.]

  ORESTES

  Look, see this pair of tyrants,

  killers of my father, looters of my heritage.

  They were once so majestic sitting on their thrones,

  and even now they still stay close,

  and faithful to their promises.

  They swore together to contrive my father’s death,

  and swore to die together—and their oath holds good.

  [Points to the robe-net that was used to trap AGAMEMNON.]

  980 Now look in turn, you witnesses of these dark things,

  see this contraption, shackle for my wretched father.

  (997) What might I call it, striking proper terms?

  A trap? A coffin-drape to wrap a corpse

  from head to foot? Or, no, a net,

  a snare, a shawl for snagging ankles.

  It’s the sort of thing a highwayman might use,

  who spends his time in tricking travelers—

  (1004) with this he could enjoy dispensing death.

  [To his attendants.]

  (983) Stand round and stretch it out, this man-cloak;

  display it so the father may look down on it—

  not mine, I mean the father who is overseer of everything—

  so he might come one day to witness for me

  that with justice I pursued this deed,

  my mother’s death.

  I don’t speak of Aegisthus, since he’s simply paid

  990 the penalty that’s laid down for adulterers.

  But as for her . . . she who deployed this hateful thing

  against her husband, him whose offspring

  she had carried in her womb—

  once loved, but now her deadly enemies—

  what can you think of her?

  She is more like a sea-snake or a viper

  that could make a person putrefy by touch alone,

  not even by her bite, just by audacity and malice.

  I pray I never have that kind of wife to share my house:

  I’d rather that the gods destroyed me childless first.

  CHORUS

  Such dreadful deeds!

  She was struck down

  in gruesome death.

  Ah, ah!

  For him still here,

  pain starts to flower.

  ORESTES

  1010 Did she commit the deed, or did she not?

  This cloak here is my witness,

  dipped and dyed by stabbings from Aegisthus’ sword.

  The seeps of blood, combined with time,

  have spoiled the many colors of its ornament.

  As I address this woven cloth that killed my father,

  I can now lament him, and now speak in praise.

  I sorrow for what has been done,

  and for the anguish, and the entire dynasty.

  This victory brings stains that none can envy.

  CHORUS

  There’s no one lives

  all through their life

  exempt from grief.

  Ah, ah!

  Here’s present harm,

  1020 and more to come.

  ORESTES

  I’ve no idea where this will end:

  I’m like a charioteer

  whose horses are careering off the track.

  My mind is bolting uncontrollably,

  and Fear is straining at my heart

  to start a song and dance in step with Rage.

  So while I have my wits, I make this declaration:

  I struck home with justice when I killed my mother,

  that polluting, god-detested killer of my father.

  My incitement to take on this action

  1030 was Apollo’s Delphic oracle, which told me

  I would be exempt from guilt if I did this,

  while if I failed to do so . . .

  I won’t describe the punishment,

  for no one could fire close to such a pitch of agony.

  So now, as you can see, I’m setting off,

  equipped with this wreathed olive bough,

  toward Apollo’s shrine, the navel of the earth,

  with its undying flame, in order to escape

  from inbred bloodshed.

  Apollo told me to take refuge at his altar and no other.

  1040 I call upon the whole of Argos to bear witness

  for me in due course, and to recall

  how these sad horrors came about.

  But now I go, a wandering fugitive

  excluded from this land.

  CHORUS LEADER

  But what you have achieved is good.

  Don’t tie your speech with words that are ill-omened.

  You have freed the whole domain of Argos

  by your slicing off this pair of serpents’ heads.

  ORESTES [reacting with alarm as he sees a “vision”]

  Ah, look! These gruesome women here,

  like Gorgons, with their gloomy robes,

  1050 and thickly wreathed around with snakes.

  I cannot stay—I have to go.

  CHORUS LEADER

  What are they, these illusions whirling you about?

  Stand firm; don’t yield to fear when you have won so much.

  ORESTES

  These torments aren’t illusions. I see clearly now:

  these are my mother’s rabid dogs.

  CHORUS LEADER

  This is because there’s blood still wet upon your hands:

  that’s spreading this confusion in your mind.

  ORESTES

  O lord Apollo, here they come in swarms.

  And from their eyes they drip disgusting blood and pus.

  CHORUS LEADER

  There’s only one way to be cleansed: