Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

Aeschylus, Volume 2. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1926.

  1. 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 libationsSuch are my prayers, and over them I pour out these libations.
  2. It is right for you to crown them with lamentations, raising your voices in a chant for the dead.
Chorus
  1. Pour forth your tears, splashing as they fall for our fallen lord, to accompany this protection against evil, this charm for the good
  2. 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
  3. 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