Eumenides

Aeschylus

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

  1. We drive murderers from their homes.
Athena
  1. And where is the end of flight for the killer?
Chorus
  1. Where joy is absent and unknown.[*](Literally where joy (or the wordjoy) is nowhere in use.)
Athena
  1. And would you drive this man with your shrieks to such flight?
Chorus
  1. Yes, for he thought it right to be his mother’s murderer.
Athena
  1. Through other compulsions, or in fear of someone’s wrath?
Chorus
  1. Where is there a spur so keen as to compel the murder of a mother?
Athena
  1. Two parties are present; only half the case is heard.
Chorus
  1. But he will not receive an oath nor does he want to give one.
Athena
  1. You want to be called just rather than to act justly.
Chorus
  1. How so? Teach me. For you are not poor in subtleties.
Athena
  1. I say that oaths must not win victory for injustice.
Chorus
  1. Well then, question him, and make a straight judgment.
Athena
  1. Then would you turn over the decision of the charge to me?
Chorus
  1. How not?—since we honor you because you are worthy and of worthy parentage.
Athena
  1. What do you want to say to this, stranger, in turn? After you name your country and family and fortunes, then defend yourself against this charge; if indeed, relying on the justice of your case,
  2. you sit clinging to my image near my hearth, as a sacred suppliant, like Ixion.[*](Ixion, king of the Lapiths, murdered the father of his bride, and was given purification by Zeus after having been denied by the other gods. Cp. 718.) To all this give me a plain answer.
Orestes
  1. Lady Athena, first of all I will take away a great anxiety from your last words.
  2. I am not a suppliant in need of purification, nor did I sit at your image with pollution on my hands. I will give you strong proof of this. It is the law for one who is defiled by shedding blood to be barred from speech until he is sprinkled with the blood of
  3. a new-born victim by a man who can purify from murder. Long before at other houses I have been thus purified both by victims and by flowing streams. And so I declare that this concern is out of the way. As to my family, you will soon learn.