Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

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

  1. O you gods, judge rightly the plea of right!
Chorus
  1. A shudder steals over me as I hear these prayers. Doom has long been waiting,
  2. but it will come in answer to those who pray.
Chorus
  1. Ah, inbred trouble and bloody stroke of ruin striking a discord! Ah, lamentable and grievous sorrows!
  2. Ah, the unstaunched pain!
Chorus
  1. Our house has a cure to heal these woes, a cure not from outside, from the hands of others, but from itself, by fierce, bloody strife.
  2. This hymn is for the gods beneath the earth.
Chorus
  1. O you blessed powers below, hear this supplication of ours, and with a favorable will send forth to these children your aid for victory!
Orestes
  1. O father, who perished by a death unbefitting a king,
  2. grant in answer to my prayer the lordship over your halls!
Electra
  1. And I too, father, have a like request of you: to escape when I have wrought great destruction on Aegisthus.
Orestes
  1. Yes, for then the customary funeral feasts of men would be established in your honor. But otherwise, at the rich and savory banquet
  2. of burnt offerings made to the earth, you will be without a portion of honor.
Electra
  1. And I will likewise at my wedding offer libations to you out of the fullness of my inheritance from my father’s house, and before all else I will hold this tomb of yours in the highest honor.
Orestes
  1. O Earth, send up my father to watch my battle!
Electra
  1. O Persephone, grant us indeed a glorious victory!
Orestes
  1. Father, remember the bath where you were robbed of life.
Electra
  1. And remember how they devised a strange net to cast about you.
Orestes
  1. You were caught, my father, in fetters forged by no smith’s hand.
Electra
  1. And in a fabric shamefully devised.