Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

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

  1. But now the lash of this double scourge[*](The lash of this double scourge refers to the appeal to the dead, lashing him to vengenace, to the beating of the head and breast, and to the stamping open the ground, which, like the invocation of the dead, were intended to arouse the nether powers. The scourge is double (cp. Agam.647) because the participants in the scene are the two children (l. 334) and the Chorus.) comes home: our cause already has its champions beneath the earth, while the hands of our loathsome opponents, though they have the mastery, are unholy. The children have won the day.
Orestes
  1. This has pierced the earth and reached your ear[*](The ear of Agamemnon.) as if it were an arrow. O Zeus, O Zeus, who send long-deferred retribution up from below onto the reckless and wicked deeds done by the hands of mortals. . . .
  2. And yet it will be accomplished for our father’s sake.[*](He thus justifies his (unvoiced) prayer, slay my mother)
Chorus
  1. May it be mine to raise a hearty shout in triumph over the man when he is stabbed and over the woman as she perishes! Why should I try to keep hidden what nevertheless hovers before my soul?
  2. Full against the prow of my heart wrath blows sharply in rancorous hate.