Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

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

  1. and of the reckless passions of women hardened of soul, partners of the woes of mortals? Inordinate passion, overmastering the female,
  2. gains a fatal victory over the wedded unions of beasts and humans alike.
Chorus
  1. Let whoever is not flighty in his wits know this, when he has learned of the device of a lit brand contrived
  2. by Thestius’ heartless daughter:[*](When Meleager, the child of Althaea, who was daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia, and wife to Oeneus of Calydon, was a week old, the Fates appeared to the mother and declared that he would die when the brand on the hearth was consumed. Whereupon Althaea took the brand and put it in a chest; but when Meleager, grown to youthful manhood, slew her brothers, she threw it into the fire, and her son died suddenly.) she destroyed her own child by burning the charred brand of the same age as he when, coming from his mother’s womb, he cried out,
  3. and it aged in pace with him through his life to the day decreed by fate.
Chorus
  1. And there is in legend another murderous virgin to be loathed,[*](Nisus was besieged in his town of Megara by Minos, king of Crete. Nisus’ daughter Scylla, being in love with Minos, cut from the head of her father the purple hair on which his life depended, so that he was slain by the Cretans.)
  2. who ruined a loved one at the bidding of his foes, when, lured by Minos’ gift, the Cretan necklace forged of gold, she with her dog’s heart despoiled Nisus of his immortal lock
  3. as he drew breath in unsuspecting sleep. And Hermes[*](Hermes, the conductor to Hades of the souls of the dead.) overtook him.
Chorus
  1. But since I have recalled tales of pitiless afflictions, it is the right time to tell of a marriage void of love,
  2. an abomination to the house, and the plots devised by a wife’s cunning against her warrior lord, against her lord revered with reason by his foes. But I honor the hearths of homes not heated by passion’s fires,
  3. and in woman a spirit that shrinks from audacious deeds.
Chorus
  1. Indeed the Lemnian[*](The women of Lemnos, jealous of Thracian slaves, killed their husbands, so that when the Argonauts visited the island they found no men.) holds first place among evils in story: it has long been told with groans as an abominable calamity. Men compare each new horror to Lemnian troubles;
  2. and because of a woeful deed abhorred by the gods a race has disappeared, cast out in infamy from among mortals. For no man reveres what is hated by the gods. Is there one of these tales I have gathered that I do not justly cite?
Chorus
  1. But the keen and bitter sword is near the breast and drives home its blow at the bidding of Justice.
  2. For truly the injustice of him who has unjustly transgressed the sovereign majesty of Zeus