by Aeschylus
630
I tell you, then, revere,
Antistrophe 3
in all you do, the altar
of Justice.
don’t kick it over in a wild forgetfulness,
fixing your hungry gaze
on some brief gain beyond it.
Vengeance will track you down.
The inevitable waits.
Knowing this, first honor
your parents, then respect
640
the guest you welcome in.
And doing this you will be just
Strophe 4
by choice, not by compulsion, and never lack
well-being—you and yours
will never be dragged down into dirt.
But the wild man, I tell you, shamelessly defiant
in the face of justice, hauling
his plunder off—he’ll be compelled,
in time, to lower his sails when the storm grips him
and his yardarm snaps and shatters.
650
He calls to those who will not hear him
Antistrophe 4
as he wrestles to get a grip on whirling water,
and the god howls with laughter
to see him there, the bold and cocky man
who’d brag that no bad thing could ever touch him
and now flails, battered by sorrows,
waves rising insurmountably around him.
His lifelong wealth breaks up on the reef of Justice,
and he sinks, unwept, unseen.
ATHENA enter from the rights, accompanied by a group
of Athenian citizen-jurors.
ATHENA Herald, declare the court in session, call
660
the people to their places, and let the piercing
Etruscan trumpet, dense with human breath,
blare out its shrill voice to the assembly.
While the court is filling, it is right
that everyone be silent, so that both
the city and these jurors learn the laws
I’ve fashioned for all time; in that way those
who stand here will receive a just decision.
APOLLO enters from the left.
My lord Apollo, take charge of your own affairs:
What role have you played in this matter? Tell us.
670
APOLLO I am here as a witness: when this man
came in supplication to my house
and hearth, as is the custom, I purged him
of the blood he shed. And I am also here
to represent him, for I ordered him
to kill his mother. I am responsible.
Now start the trial, Athena. Take it in hand,
as you know how to do, and set it right.
ATHENA The case is now before us. Plaintiffs speak first.
It’s only right you should, for the pursuer,
680
telling the story from beginning to end,
can best explain the nature of the case.
CHORUS LEADER Though we are many, we’ll keep our speeches short.
(addressing ORESTES)
Answer our charges, each one, as we present it:
First, did you kill your mother? Yes or no.
ORESTES Yes, I killed her. I never said I didn’t.
CHORUS LEADER The first fall goes to us. Two more to go.
ORESTES Or so you boast, but no one’s thrown me yet.
CHORUS LEADER Then tell us how you killed her, since you must.
ORESTES Yes. I drew my sword and slit her throat.
690
CHORUS LEADER By whose persuasion? By whose sage advice?
ORESTES By this god’s oracle. He is my witness.
CHORUS LEADER The god taught you it’s right to kill your mother?
ORESTES Yes, and till now I have nothing to complain of.
CHORUS LEADER But when the verdict snares you, you’ll change your tune.
ORESTES I trust him; and my father will help me from the grave.
CHORUS LEADER Good, kill your mother, and then trust in corpses!
ORESTES Yes, I killed her since she was doubly defiled.
CHORUS LEADER How exactly? Explain it to the judges.
ORESTES She killed my father when she killed her husband.
700
CHORUS LEADER Death freed her from her guilt, but you’re still living.
ORESTES Why didn’t you hunt her down while she still lived?
CHORUS LEADER The man she killed was not her flesh and blood.
ORESTES You think I have the same blood as my mother’s?
CHORUS LEADER How else could she have fed you in her womb,
you killer? You spurn the mother blood you live by?
ORESTES Now testify, Apollo, on my behalf
and teach the law to show whether I did
or didn’t act with justice when I killed her—
for I did kill her, that I don’t deny.
710
But you determine whether or not this blood
was justly shed, so I can make my case.
APOLLO I say to all of you, to this high court
established by Athena, he acted justly.
I am a prophet; I can never lie.
Not once from my far seeing throne have I
said anything concerning a man, a woman,
or even a city that Zeus himself, father
of the Olympians, did not command.
Be mindful of how powerful this plea
720
for justice is. Follow my father’s will.
No oath is stronger than almighty Zeus.
CHORUS LEADER So you want us to believe that Zeus gave you
this oracle to pass on to Orestes,
told him to avenge his father’s murder
and, in the process, cast aside, trample
to nothing, the respect he owed his mother?
APOLLO Yes, I do. For it’s a different thing
entirely when a noble man who holds
the scepter Zeus bestows is murdered, struck down
730
not even by the far-shot arrow of
some Amazon, but by a woman’s hand,
and in a manner I’ll describe to you,
Athena, and to all you seated here
to judge the case by vote. Once he returned
from war where he did well enough, on balance,
the woman made a show of being kind,
seemed anxious to please him, fuss over him like a
wife,
until, as he was stepping from the bath,
there at the very end, she swaddled him
740
in a winding cloth, tangling him up from head
to toe within the endless fold on fold
of the embroidered robe, then struck him down.
This is how wretchedly he died, a man
all men revered, commander of the fleet.
I’ve spoken as I have to whip up anger
in you who are called to set this matter right.
CHORUS LEADER So it’s your view that Zeus’ main concern
is for a father’s death. Yet didn’t he
himself chain up his aged father, Cronus?
750
How do you square this with your argument?
Heed what you just heard, judges. Remember it.
APOLLO You stinking, hideous filth, shunned by the gods,
we can break bonds, we can slip out of shackles!
There’s
a cure for ills like those, yes, countless ways
of getting free. But once a man is dead,
and the ground has sucked dry all his blood,
nothing can ever raise him up again.
My father made no healing spell for that,
though he can turn all other things, at will,
760
inside and out, and not pant from the effort.
CHORUS LEADER See
where your way of pleading for this man
has led you: he has spilled his mother’s dear
blood on the ground—so how can he live in Argos,
take possession of his father’s house?
What public altars could he use? How can he touch
the cleansing water at his kinsmen’s shrine?
APOLLO I’ll tell you something else, to show how right
I am: the so-called mother of the child
isn’t the child’s begetter, but only a sort
770
of nursing soil for the new-sown seed.
The man, the one on top, is the true parent,
while she, a stranger, fosters a stranger’s sprout,
if no god blights it. And I can prove it to you:
a father can give birth without a mother.
And here before us is our witness, child
of Olympian Zeus, daughter who never fed
and grew within the darkness of a womb,
a seedling that no goddess could bring forth.
In all things, Pallas, and with all my power,
780
I’ll glorify your people and your city;
for that’s the very reason I sent this man
here to your house and hearth so he could be
a constant friend to you for all time to come,
a friend and ally, goddess, he and his heirs,
each one of their descendents who will keep
this sacred bond, this covenant forever.
ATHENA Have we now heard enough? Should I tell these
judges
to cast their votes where they think justice lies?
APOLLO Our quiver’s empty, all our arrows shot.
790
I’ll wait to see which way the trial goes.
ATHENA
(turning to the CHORUS)
And what must I do now to avoid your reproach?
CHORUS LEADER You’ve heard what you’ve heard, and as you vote, my
friends,
with all your heart respect the oath you’ve sworn.
ATHENA Now hear my ordinance, you men of Athens,
you who have been chosen to decide
this first trial ever for the shedding of blood.
Now and in future time, this court of judges
will continue to exist for the people of Aegeus,
here on this hill of Ares where the Amazons
800
pitched their tents when they invaded, armed,
and angry at King Theseus, raised up
against the city the towering walls of their
own battlements, and slit the throats of beasts
in sacrifice to Ares. This is why
we call this place the rock and hill of Ares.
Here the people’s awe and innate fear
will hold injustice back by day, by night,
so long as the people leave the laws intact,
just as they are, and never alter them
810
with foul infusions: muddy the cleanest spring,
and all you’ll have to drink is muddy water.
I urge my people to follow and revere
neither tyranny nor anarchy,
and to hold fear close, never to cast it out
entirely from the city. For what man
who feels no fear is able to be just?
And if you fear and justly revere this court,
then you will have a bulwark for your land,
the city’s guardian, the like of which
820
nobody else on earth possesses, not even
the law-abiding Scythians, or Spartans.
This council I establish will be immune
from greed, majestic, poised for wrath, the country’s
wakeful watchman over those who sleep.
I’ve given this long advice to all my people—
it’s for the future. But now you must stand up,
take up your ballots and decide the case,
respecting your sacred oath. My speech is done.
During the following exchange, the jurors arise,
proceed to the voting urns, deposit their ballots,
and return to their seats.
CHORUS LEADER I warn you all—if you dishonor us,
830
we’ll be a crushing burden on your land.
APOLLO And I tell you to fear the oracles,
Zeus’ and mine. Don’t keep them from bearing fruit.
CHORUS LEADER You honor bloody crimes that aren’t your business.
Your oracles will never now be pure.
APOLLO So Zeus made a mistake when Ixion,
the first to kill, appealed to him for help?
CHORUS LEADER You said it, I didn’t. But if I don’t get justice,
I will come back to crush this land forever.
APOLLO How so? You have no honor among gods,
840
young or old. I will win this case.
CHORUS LEADER You did the same thing, too, in Pheres’ house:
you persuaded the Fates to let men hide from death.
APOLLO Is it unjust to treat someone so kindly,
someone that pious, in his time of need?
CHORUS LEADER You overturned the age-old covenant
by duping those ancient goddesses with wine.
APOLLO And when you lose this trial, you’ll vomit all
your venom at the ones you hate—quite harmlessly.
CHORUS LEADER Young one, since you would trample down your
elders,
850
I’ll have to wait to hear if the court will give me
justice, or the city feel my wrath.
ATHENA My office makes me last to judge this case.
And I will cast my ballot for Orestes.
No mother gave me birth, and in all things
but marriage I wholeheartedly approve
the male—I am entirely my father’s child.
And this is why the killing of a woman
who killed her husband, guardian of the house,
can have no overriding claim on me.
860
Orestes wins, even if the votes be equal.
(turning to the jurors)
You jurors who have this duty to fulfill,
quickly spill out the ballots from the urns.
Two jurors return to the urns and begin the count.
ATHENA takes a place behind the urns.
ORESTES Phoebus Apollo, how will it be decided?
CHORUS LEADER Black Night, our mother, are you watching this?
ORESTES It’s time now—to feel the noose, or see the light!
CHORUS LEADER To be disgraced, or forever keep our honors!
APOLLO Count up the spilled out votes precisely, friends,
make no mistake, be sure the sum is just.
Out of bad judgment comes catastrophe,
870
But when the judgment’s sound, a single vote
can reestablish order in a house.
ATHENA (examining the ballots) This man’s acquitted on the
charge of murder—
the number of votes for both sides is the same.
ORESTES O Pallas Athena, you have saved my house!
When I was stripped bare of my homeland,
you gave it back to me. Now Greeks will say:
“The man is Argive once again; he lives
among his father’s holdings by the grace
of Pallas and Apollo, and of the third,
880
the savior, he who brings all to fulfillment.”
Yes he, himself, gave due weight to the way
my father died, and has delivered me
to safety from my mother’s advocates.
And now before I leave for home, I swear
to your country and your people, now and forever,
up to the fullest ripening of time
that no
helmsman of my realm, spear poised for
battle,
will come against them. Even from my tomb,
I’ll torture the transgressors of this oath
890
with failure and befuddlement. I’ll sap
the spirit from their marches, and beset
their way with ominous wingbeats, so that they
regret they ever did what they have done.
But only if they keep an upright course,
and give enduring honor to the city
of Pallas with their loyal spears, will I
remain a blessing to them.
And so goodbye
to you, and to the people of your city.
May the hold you get on all your enemies
900
allow them no escape, and keep you safe,
and if war comes bring you the victory.
ORESTES exits to the left, accompanied by APOLLO.
CHORUS IOU! IOU! You young gods—you
Refrain 1
have trampled down the age-old laws,
ripped them out of my hands!
My honor stripped away, enraged,
aggrieved, now I
will squeeze out all the poison in my heart
against the land for all I’ve suffered,
yes, poison now will ooze and drip
910
unbearably into the soil.
And out of it pale fungus
blighting leaf and child (O justice!)
will quicken across
the land to cover it and all the people