Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

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

  1. Go, deliver your message! Do what you are asked to do!
  2. The gods take care of what they take care of.
Nurse
  1. Well, I will go and do your bidding. With the gods’ blessing may everything turn out for the best! Exit
Chorus
  1. Now at my supplication, O Zeus, father of the Olympian gods, grant that the fortunes of our house be firmly established,
  2. so that those who rightly desire the rule of order may behold it. Every word of mine has been uttered in justice. O Zeus, may you safeguard it!
Chorus
  1. O Zeus, set him who is within the palace before his foes;
  2. since, if you exalt him, he will gladly pay you with double and triple recompense.
Chorus
  1. Know that the orphaned colt of a loved one is harnessed to the chariot of distress.
  2. And by setting bounds to his course may you grant that we see him keep a steady pace through this race and win the goal in the straining stride of a gallop.[*](That is, let him bide his time by guarding against haste.)
Chorus
  1. And you who within the house inhabit the inner chamber that exults in its wealth, hear me, you gods, that feel with us! By a fresh award redeem the blood of deeds done long ago.
  2. May aged Murder cease begetting offspring in our house!
Chorus
  1. And you who occupy the mighty, gorgeously built cavern,[*](The inner sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi was a narrow cave or vault in which, over a cleft, stood a tripod covered by a slab on which the prophetess sat (Athenaeus , 701c, Strabo, ix. 641).) grant that the man’s house may lift up its eyes again in joy, and that with glad
  2. eyes it may behold from under its veil of gloom the radiant light of freedom.
Chorus
  1. May Maia’s son,[*](Hermes, the patron of guile and god of eloquence.) as he rightfully should, lend his aid, for no one can better sail a deed on a favoring course, when he would do so.[*](The bracketed line 815 reads And many another hidden thing he will make plain, if he desires.)
  2. But by his mysterious utterance he brings darkness over men’s eyes by night, and by day he is no more clear at all.