Libation Bearers (440-494)

And even as she buried him in this way, she acted with intent to make the manner of his death a burden on your life past all power to bear. You hear the story of the ignominious outrage done to your father.

My father was murdered just as you say. But all the while I was kept sequestered, despised, accounted a worthless thing. Kennelled in my room as if I were a vicious cur, I gave free vent to my streaming tears, which came more readily than laughter, as in my concealment I poured out my lament in plentiful weeping.

Hear my tale and inscribe it on your heart.

Yes, let it sink deep into your ears, but keep inside a quiet steadfastness of soul. So far things are so. But you yourself be eager to resolve what is to follow.

You must enter the contest with inflexible wrath.

Ares will encounter Ares; Right will encounter Right.

O you gods, judge rightly the plea of right!

A shudder steals over me as I hear these prayers. Doom has long been waiting,

but it will come in answer to those who pray.

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.

This hymn is for the gods beneath the earth.