Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

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

  1. and in woman a spirit that shrinks from audacious deeds.
Chorus
  1. Indeed the Lemnian[*](The women of Lemnos, jealous of Thracian slaves, killed their husbands, so that when the Argonauts visited the island they found no men.) holds first place among evils in story: it has long been told with groans as an abominable calamity. Men compare each new horror to Lemnian troubles;
  2. and because of a woeful deed abhorred by the gods a race has disappeared, cast out in infamy from among mortals. For no man reveres what is hated by the gods. Is there one of these tales I have gathered that I do not justly cite?
Chorus
  1. But the keen and bitter sword is near the breast and drives home its blow at the bidding of Justice.
  2. For truly the injustice of him who has unjustly transgressed the sovereign majesty of Zeus