Classic Poem

Pyth. First, with this prayer, of all the Gods I honour
The primal seeress Earth, and Themis next,
Who in due order filled her mother's place,
(So runs the tale,) and in the third lot named,
With her goodwill and doing wrong to none,
Another of the Titans' offspring sat,
Earth's daughter Phaebe, and as birthday gift
She gives it up to Phaebos, and he takes
His name from Phaebe. And he, leaving then
The pool and rocks of Delos, having steered
To the ship-traversed shores that Pallas owns,
Came to this land and to Parnassos' seat:
And with great reverence they escort him on,
Hephaestos' sons, road-makers, turning thus
The wilderness to land no longer wild;
And when he comes the people honour him,
And Delphos too, chief pilot of this land.
And him Zeus sets, his mind with skill inspired,
As the fourth seer upon these sacred seats;
And Loxias is his father Zeus's prophet.
These Gods in prologue of my prayer I worship;
Pallas Pronaia too claims highest praise;
The Nymphs adore I too where stands the rock
Korykian, hollow, loved of birds and haunt
Of Gods. [And Bromios also claims this place,
Nor can I now forget it, since the time
When he, a God, with help of Bacchants warred,
And planned a death for Pentheus, like a hare's.]
Invoking Pleistos' founts, Poseidon's might,
And Zeus most High, supreme Accomplisher,
I in due order sit upon this seat
As seeress, and I pray them that they grant
To find than all my former divinations
One better still. If Hellas pilgrims sends,
Let them approach by lot, as is our law;
For as the God guides I give oracles.
Dread things to tell, and dread for eyes to see,
Have sent me back again from Loxias' shrine,
So that strength fails, nor can I nimbly move,
But run with help of hands, not speed of foot;
A woman old and terrified is nought,
A very child. Lo! into yon recess
With garlands hung I go, and there I see
Upon the central stone a God-loathed man,
Sitting as suppliant, and with hands that dripped
Blood-drops, and holding sword but newly drawn,
And branch of olive from the topmost growth,
With amplest tufts of white wool meetly wreathed;
For this I will say clearly. And a troop
Of women strange to look at sleepeth there,
Before this wanderer, seated on their stools;
Not women they, but Gorgons I must call them;
Nor yet can I to Gorgon forms compare them:
I have seen painted shapes that bear away
The feast of Phineus. Wingless, though, are these,
And swarth, and every way abominable.
They snort with breath that none may dare approach;
And from their eyes a loathsome humour pours,
And such their garb as neither to the shrine
Of Gods is meet to bring, nor mortal roof.
Ne'er have I seen a race that owns this tribe,
Nor is there land can boast it rears such brood,
Unhurt and free from sorrow for its pains.
Henceforth be it the lot of Loxias;
Our mighty lord, himself to deal with them:
True prophet-healer he, and portent-seer,
And for all others cleanser of their homes.

Apol. Nay, I'll not fail thee, but as close at hand
Will guard thee to the end, or though far off,
Will not prove yielding to thine adversaries;
And now thou see'st these fierce ones captive ta'en,
These loathly maidens fallen fast in sleep.
Hoary and ancient virgins they, with whom
Nor God, nor man, nor beast, holds intercourse.
They owe their birth to evils; for they dwell
In evil darkness, yea in Tartaros
Beneath the earth, and are the hate and dread
Of all mankind, and of Olympian Gods.
Yet fly thou, fly, and be not faint of heart;
For they will chase thee over mainland wide,
As thou dost tread the soil by wanderers tracked,
And o'er the ocean, and by sea-girt towns;
And fail thou not before the time, as brooding
O'er this great toil. But go to Pallas' city,
And sit, and clasp her ancient image there;
And there with judges of these things, and words
Strong to appease, will we a means devise
To free thee from these ills for evermore;
For I urged thee to take thy mother's life.
Orest. Thou know'st, O king Apollo, not to wrong;
And since thou know'st, learn also not to slight:
Thy strength gives full security for act.
Apol. Remember, let no fear o'ercome thy soul;
And thou, my brother, of one father born,
My Hermes, guard him; true to that thy name,
Be thou his Guide, true shepherd of this man,
Who comes to me as suppliant: Zeus himself
Reveres this reverence e'en to outcasts due,
When it to mortals comes with guidance good.

Clytaem. What ho! Sleep on! What need of sleepers now?
And I am put by you to foul disgrace
Among the other dead, nor fails reproach
Among the shades that I a murderess am;
And so in shame I wander, and I tell you
That at their hands I bear worst form of blame.
And much as I have borne from nearest kin,
Yet not one God is stirred to wrath for me,
Though done to death by matricidal hands.
See ye these heart-wounds, whence and how they came?
Yea, when it sleeps, the mind is bright with eyes;
But in the day it is man's lot to lack
All true discernment. Many a gift of mine
Have ye lapped up, libations pure from wine,
And soothing rites that shut out drunken mirth;
And I dread banquets of the night would offer
On altar-hearth, at hour no God might share.
And lo! all this is trampled under foot.
He is escaped, and flees, like fawn, away;
And even from the midst of all your toils
Has nimbly slipped, and draws wide mouth at you.
Hear ye; for I have spoken for my life:
Give heed, ye dark, earth-dwelling Goddesses,
I, Clytaemnestra's phantom, call on you.
Moan on, the man is gone, and flees far off:
My kindred find protectors; I find none.
Too sleep-oppressed art thou, nor pitiest me:
Orestes, murderer of his mother, 'scapes.
Dost snort? Dost drowse? Wilt thou not rise and speed?
What have ye ever done but work out ill?
Yea, sleep and toil, supreme conspirators,
Have withered up the dreaded dragon's strength.
Chor. Seize him, seize, seize, yea, seize: look well to it.
Clytaem. Thou, phantom-like, dost hunt thy prey, and criest,
Like hound that never rests from care of toil.
What dost thou? ( to one Erinnys .) Rise and let not toil o'ercome thee,
Nor, lulled to sleep, lose all thy sense of loss.
Let thy soul ( to another ) feel the pain of just reproach:
The wise of heart find that their goad and spur.
And thou ( to a third ), breathe on him with thy blood-flecked breath,
And with thy vapour, thy maw's fire, consume him;
Chase him, and wither with a fresh pursuit.
Leader of the Chor . Wake, wake, I say; wake her, as I wake thee.
Dost slumber? Rise, I say, and shake off sleep.
Let's see if this our prelude be in vain.

Strophe I

Pah! pah! Oh me! we suffered, O my friends. . . .
Yea, many mine own sufferings undeserved. . . .
We suffered a great sorrow, full of woe,
An evil hard to bear.
Out of the nets he's slipped, our prey is gone:
O'ercome by sleep I have my quarry lost.

A NTISTROPHE I

Ah, son of Zeus, a very robber thou,
Though young, thou didst old Goddesses ride down,
Honouring thy suppliant, godless though he be,
One whom his parents loathe:
Thou, though a God, a matricide hast freed:
Of which of these acts can one speak as just?

Strophe II

Yea, this reproach that came to me in dreams
Smote me, as charioteer
Smites with a goad he in the middle grasps,
Beneath my breast, my heart;
'Tis ours to feel the keen, the o'er keen smart,
As by the public scourger fiercely lashed.

A NTISTROPHE II

Such are the doings of these younger Gods,
Beyond all bounds of right
Stretching their power. . . . A clot of blood besmeared
Upon the base, the head, ...
Earth's central shrine itself we now may see
Take to itself pollution terrible.

Strophe III

And thou, a seer, with guilt that stains thy hearth
Hast fouled thy shrine, self-prompted, self-impelled,
Against God's laws a mortal honouring,
And bringing low the Fates
Born in the hoary past.

A NTISTROPHE III

Me he may vex, but shall not rescue him;
Though 'neath the earth he flee, he is not freed
For he, blood-stained, shall find upon his head
Another after me,
Destroyer foul and dread.

Apol. Out, out, I bid you, quickly from this temple;
Go forth, and leave this shrine oracular,
Lest, smitten with a serpent winged and bright,
Forth darted from my bow-string golden-wrought,
Thou in sore pain bring up dark foam, and vomit
The clots of blood thou suck'dst from human veins.
This is no house where ye may meetly come,
But there where heads upon the scaffold lie,
And eyes are gouged, and throats of men are cut,
And mutilation mars the bloom of youth,
Where men are maimed and stoned to death, and groan
With bitter wailing, 'neath the spine impaled;
Hear ye what feast ye love, and so become
Loathed of the Gods? Yes, all your figure's fashion
Points clearly to it. Such as ye should dwell
In cave of lion battening upon blood,
Nor tarry in these sacred precincts here,
Working defilement. Go, and roam afield
Without a shepherd, for to flock like this
Not one of all the Gods is friendly found.
Chor. O king Apollo, hear us in our turn:
No mere accomplice art thou of these things,
But guilty art in full as principal.
Apol. How then? Prolong thy speech to tell me this.
Chor. Thou bad'st this stranger be a matricide.
Apol. I bade him to avenge his sire. Why not?
Chor. Then thou did'st welcome here the blood just shed.
Apol. I bade him seek this shrine as suppliant.
Chor. Yet us who were his escort thou revilest.
Apol. It is not meet that ye come nigh this house.
Chor. Yet is this self-same task appointed us.
Apol. What function's this? Boast thou of nobler task?
Chor. We drive from home the murderers of their mothers.
Apol. What? Those who kill a wife that slays her spouse?
Chor. That deed brings not the guilt of blood of kin.
Apol. Truly thou mak'st dishonoured, and as nought,
The marriage-vows of Zeus and Hera great;
And by this reasoning Kypris too is shamed,
From whom men gain the ties of closest love.
For still to man and woman marriage bed,
Assigned by Fate and guided by the Right,
Is more than any oath. If thou then deal
So gently, when the one the other slays,
And dost not even look on them with wrath,
I say thou dost not justly chase Orestes;
For thou, in the one case, I know, dost rage;
I' the other, clearly tak'st it easily:
The Goddess Pallas shall our quarrel judge.
Chor. That man I ne'er will leave for evermore.
Apol. Chase him then, chase, and gain yet more of toil.
Chor. Curtail thou not my functions by thy speech.
Apol. Ne'er by my choice would I thy functions own.
Chor. True; great thy name among the thrones of Zeus:
But I, his mother's blood constraining me,
Will this man chase, and track him like a hound.
Apol. And I will help him and my suppliant free;
For dreadful among Gods and mortals too
The suppliant's curse, should I abandon him.

Scene changes to Athens, in front of the Temple of Athena Polias, on the Acropolis

Orest. O Queen Athena, I at Loxias' hest
Am come: do thou receive me graciously,
Sin-stained though I have been: no guilt of blood
Is on my soul, nor is my hand unclean,
But now with stain toned down and worn away,
In other homes and journeyings among men,
O'er land and water travelling alike,
Keeping great Loxias' charge oracular,
I come, O Goddess, to thy shrine and statue:
Here will I stay and wait the trial's issue.