Libation Bearers (495-571)

Father, are you not roused by taunts such as these?

Are you not raising that dearest head of yours?

Either send Justice to battle for those dear to you, or grant us in turn to get a similar grip[*] on them, if indeed after defeat you would in turn win victory.

So listen, father, to this last appeal of mine as you behold these fledglings crouching at your tomb. Have compassion on your offspring, on the woman and on the man as well, and let not this seed of Pelops’ line be blotted out: for then, in spite of death, you are not dead.

For children are voices of salvation to a man, though he is dead; like corks, they buoy up the net, saving the flaxen cord from out of the deep. Hear! For your own sake we make this lament. By honoring this plea of ours you save yourself.

In truth you have drawn out this plea of yours to your own content in showing honor to this unlamented tomb. As for the rest, since your heart is rightly set on action, put your fortune to the test and get to your work at once.

It will be so. But it is in no way amiss to inquire how, from what motive,

she came to send her libations, seeking too late to make amends for an irremediable deed. They would be a sorry gift to send to the senseless dead: I cannot guess what they mean. The gifts are too paltry for her offence.

For though a man may pour out all he has in atonement for one deed of blood, it is wasted effort. So the saying goes. If indeed you know, tell me: I wish to learn.

I know, my child, for I was there. It was because she was shaken by dreams and wandering terrors of the night

that she sent these offerings, godless woman that she is.

And have you learned the nature of the dream so as to tell it properly?

She dreamed she gave birth to a serpent: that is her own account.

And where does the tale end, and what is its consummation?

She laid it to rest as if it were a child, in swaddling clothes.

What food did it crave, the newborn viper?

In her dream she offered it her own breast.

Surely her nipple was not unwounded by the loathsome beast?

No: it drew in clotted blood with the milk.

Truly it is not without meaning: the vision signifies a man!

Then from out of her sleep she raised a shriek and awoke appalled, and many lamps that had been blinded in the darkness flared up in the house to cheer our mistress. Then she sent these libations for the dead in the hope that they might be an effective cure for her distress.

Well then, I pray to this earth and to my father’s grave that this dream may come to its fulfilment in me. As I understand it, it fits at every point. For if the snake left the same place as I; if it was furnished with my swaddling clothes;

if it sought to open its mouth to take the breast that nourished me and mixed the sweet milk with clotted blood while she shrieked for terror at this, then surely, as she has nourished a portentous thing of horror, she must die by violence. For I, turned serpent,

am her killer, as this dream declares.

I choose your reading of this portent. Let it be so. As for the rest, give your friends their parts. Tell some what to do, others what to leave undone.

It is a simple story. My sister must go inside, and I charge her to keep concealed this pact with me,

so that as by craft they killed a worthy man, so by craft they may likewise be caught and perish in the very same snare, even as Loxias decreed, lord Apollo, the prophet who has never before been false.

In the guise of a stranger, one fully equipped,I will come to the outer gate, and with me Pylades, whom you see here, as a guest and ally of the house. Both of us will speak the speech of Parnassus, imitating the accent of a Phocian tongue. And in case none of the keepers of the door will give us a hearty welcome

on the plea that the house is afflicted with trouble by the gods, then we will wait so that anyone passing the house will consider and say: Why then does Aegisthus have his door shut on his suppliant, if in fact he is at home and knows?

But if I indeed pass the outermost threshold of the gate and find that man sitting on my father’s throne, or if then coming face to face with me he lifts and casts down his eyes, know well: