to Tantalus, my forefather, who begot the ancestors of my house. They saw infatuate ruin, the chase of winged steeds, when Pelops in four-horse chariot drove over the sea, hurling the body of murdered Myrtilus into the ocean swell, after his race near Geraestus’ strand, foam-flecked from the tossing sea. From this came a woeful curse upon my house, brought to birth among the sheep by the son of Maia, when there appeared a baleful, baleful portent of a lamb with golden fleece, for Atreus, breeder of horses; from which Strife changed the course of the sun’s winged chariot, fitting the westward path of the sky towards the single horse of Dawn; and Zeus diverted the career of the seven Pleiads into a new track and exchanged . . . death for death: both the banquet to which Thyestes gave his name, and the treacherous love of Cretan Aerope, in her treacherous marriage; but the crowning woe has come on me and on my father by the bitter constraints of our house.

Chorus LeaderLook, here comes your brother, condemned to die, and with him Pylades, most loyal of friends, true as a brother, guiding his feeble steps, his yoke-fellow, pacing carefully.