Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

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

  1. For in your life you were a king of those who have the power to assign the portion of death,[*](He was a king of those princes who have the right to apportion life or death to their subjects.) and who wield the staff all mortals obey.
Electra
  1. No, not even beneath the walls of Troy, father,
  2. would I wish you to have fallen and to be entombed beside Scamander’s waters among the rest of the host slain by the spear. I wish rather that his murderers had been killed by their own loved ones, just as they killed you,
  3. so that someone in a distant land who knew nothing of these present troubles should learn of their fatal doom.
Chorus
  1. In this, my child, your wish is better than gold. It surpasses great good fortune, even that of the supremely blesssed;[*](The Hyperboreans, a fabulous people dwelling beyond the North wind, were imagined to live longer and in greater felicity than other mortals.) for it is easy to wish.