Libation Bearers

Aeschylus

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

  1. by working bloody ruin in our house and obliterating the guilt of murder.[*](Of verses 819-837 only the general sense is clear.)
Enter Aegisthus
Aegisthus
  1. I have come not unasked but summoned by a messenger. I heard startling news told by some strangers who have arrived, tidings far from welcome:
  2. —that Orestes is dead. To lay this too upon our house would be a fearful burden when it is still festering and galled by the wound inflicted by an earlier murder. How can I believe this tale is the living truth? Or is it merely a panic-stricken report spread by women
  3. which leaps up to die away in nothingness? What can you tell me of this to make it plain to my mind?
Chorus
  1. We heard the tale, it is true. But go inside and inquire of the strangers. The certainty of a messenger’s report