by
Aeschylus

Translated by E.D.A. Morshead

Intoductory Note

Of the life of Aeschylus, the first of the three great masters of Greek tragedy, only a very meager outline has come down to us. He was born at Eleusis, near Athens, B. C. 525, the son of Euphorion. Before he was twenty-five he began to compete for the tragic prize, but did not win a victory for twelve years. He spent two periods of years in Sicily, where he died in 456, killed, it is said, by a tortoise which an eagle dropped on his head. Though a professional writer, he did his share of fighting for his country, and is reported to have taken part in the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.

Of the seventy or eighty plays which he is said to have written, only seven survive: “The Persians,” dealing with the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis; “The Seven against Thebes,” part of a tetralogy on the legend of Thebes; “The Suppliants,” on the daughters of Danaüs; “Prometheus Bound,” part of a trilogy, of which the first part was probably “Prometheus, the Fire-bringer,” and the last, “Prometheus Unbound”; and the “Oresteia,” the only example of a complete Greek tragic trilogy which has come down to us, consisting of “Agamemnon”, “Choephorae” (The Libation-Bearers), and the “Eumenides” (Furies).

The importance of Aeschylus in the development of the drama is immense. Before him tragedy had consisted of the chorus and one actor; and by introducing a second actor, expanding the dramatic dialogue thus made possible, and reducing the lyrical parts, he practically created Greek tragedy as we understand it. Like other writers of his time, he acted in his own plays, and trained the chorus in their dances and songs; and he did much to give impressiveness to the performances by his development of the accessories of scene and costume on the stage. Of the four plays here reproduced, “Prometheus Bound” holds an exceptional place in the literature of the world. (As conceived by Aeschylus, Prometheus is the champion of man against the oppression of Zeus; and the argument of the drama has a certain correspondence to the problem of the Book of Job.) The Oresteian trilogy on “The House of Atreus” is one of the supreme productions of all literature. It deals with the two great themes of the retribution of crime and the inheritance of evil; and here again a parallel may be found between the assertions of the justice of God by Aeschylus and by the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel. Both contend against the popular idea that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge; both maintain that the soul that sinneth, it shall die. The nobility of thought and the majesty of style with which these ideas are set forth give this triple drama its place at the head of the literary masterpieces of the antique world.

Dramatis Personae

ORESTES
CHORUS OF CAPTIVE WOMEN
ELECTRA
A NURSE
CLYTEMNESTRA
AEGISTHUS
AN ATTENDANT
PYLADES

The Scene is the Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae; afterwards, the Palace of Atreus, hard by the Tomb.

Orestes
Lord of the shades and patron of the realm
That erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,
Hermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,
Me who from banishment returning stand
On this my country; lo, my foot is set
On this grave-mound, and herald-like, as thou,
Once and again, I bid my father hear.
And these twin locks, from mine head shorn, I bring,
And one to Inachus the river-god,
My young life’s nurturer, I dedicate,
And one in sign of mourning unfulfilled
I lay, though late, on this my father’s grave.
For O my father, not beside thy corse
Stood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand
Stretched out to bear thee forth to burial.

What sight is yonder? what this woman-throng
Hitherward coming, by their sable garb
Made manifest as mourners? What hath chanced?
Doth some new sorrow hap within the home?
Or rightly may I deem that they draw near
Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire
Of dead men angered, to my father’s grave?
Nay, such they are indeed; for I descry
Electra mine own sister pacing hither,
In moody grief conspicuous. Grant, O Zeus,
Grant me my father’s murder to avenge —
Be thou my willing champion!
Pylades,
Pass we aside, till rightly I discern
Wherefore these women throng in suppliance.

Exeunt Pylades and Orestes; enter the Chorus bearing vessels for libation; Electra follows them; they pace slowly towards the tomb of Agamemnon.

CHORUS
Forth from the royal halls by high command
I bear libations for the dead.
Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,
And all my cheek is rent and red,
Fresh-furrowed by my nails, and all my soul
This many a day doth feed on cries of dole.
And trailing tatters of my vest,
In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,
Hang rent around my breast,
Even as I, by blows of Fate most stern
Saddened and torn.

Oracular thro’ visions, ghastly clear,
Bearing a blast of wrath from realms below,
And stiffening each rising hair with dread,
Came out of dream-land Fear,
And, loud and awful, bade
The shriek ring out at midnight’s witching hour,
And brooded, stern with woe,
Above the inner house, the woman’s bower.
And seers inspired did read the dream on oath,
Chanting aloud In realms below
The dead are wroth;
Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.

Therefore to bear this gift of graceless worth —
O Earth, my nursing mother! —
The woman god-accurs’d doth send me forth
Lest one crime bring another.
Ill is the very word to speak, for none
Can ransom or atone
For blood once shed and darkening the plain.
O hearth of woe and bane,
O state that low doth lie!
Sunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood
Above the home of murdered majesty.

Rumour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,
Pervading ears and soul of lesser men,
Is silent now and dead.
Yet rules a viler dread;
For bliss and power, however won,
As gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.

Justice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,
Some that are yet in light;
Others in interspace of day and night,
Till Fate arouse them, stay;
And some are lapped in night, where all things are undone.

On the life-giving lap of Earth
Blood hath flowed forth;
And now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain —
Unmelting, uneffaced the stain.
And Atè tarries long, but at the last
The sinner’s heart is cast
Into pervading, waxing pangs of pain.

Lo, when man’s force doth ope
The virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hope
For what is lost, — even so, I deem,
Though in one channel ran Earth’s every stream,
Laving the hand defiled from murder’s stain,
It were vain.

And upon me — ah me! — the gods have laid
The woe that wrapped round Troy,
What time they led down from home and kin
Unto a slave’s employ —
The doom to bow the head
And watch our master’s will
Work deeds of good and ill —
To see the headlong sway of force and sin,
And hold restrained the spirit’s bitter hate,
Wailing the monarch’s fruitless fate,
Hiding my face within my robe, and fain
Of tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.

ELECTRA
Hand maidens, orderers of the palace-halls,
Since at my side ye come, a suppliant train,
Companions of this offering, counsel me
As best befits the time: for I, who pour
Upon the grave these streams funereal,
With what fair word can I invoke my sire?
Shall I aver, Behold, I bear these gifts
From well-beloved wife unto her well-beloved lord,
When ’tis from her, my mother, that they come?
I dare not say it: of all words I fail
Wherewith to consecrate unto my sire
These sacrificial honours on his grave.
Or shall I speak this word, as mortals use —
Give back, to those who send these coronals
Full recompense — of ills for acts malign?
Or shall I pour this draught for Earth to drink,
Sans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,
And homeward pass with unreverted eyes,
Casting the bowl away, as one who flings
The household cleansings to the common road?
Be art and part, O friends, in this my doubt,
Even as ye are in that one common hate
Whereby we live attended: fear ye not
The wrath of any man, nor hide your word
Within your breast: the day of death and doom
Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.
Speak, then, if aught thou know’st to aid us more.

CHORUS
Thou biddest; I will speak my soul’s thought out,
Revering as a shrine thy father’s grave.

ELECTRA
Say then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest.

CHORUS
Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.

ELECTRA
And of his kin whom dare I name as kind?

CHORUS
Thyself; and next, whoe’er Aegisthus scorns.

ELECTRA
Then ’tis myself and thou, my prayer must name.

CHORUS
Whoe’er they be, ’tis thine to know and name them.

ELECTRA
Is there no other we may claim as ours?

CHORUS
Think of Orestes, though far-off he be.

ELECTRA
Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.

CHORUS
Mindfully, next, on those who shed the blood —

ELECTRA
Pray on them what? expound, instruct my doubt.

CHORUS
This; Upon them some god or mortal come —

ELECTRA
As judge or as avenger? speak thy thought.

CHORUS
Pray in set terms, Who shall the slayer slay.

ELECTRA
Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven?

CHORUS
How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe?

ELECTRA
O mighty Hermes, warder of the shades,
Herald of upper and of under world,
Proclaim and usher down my prayer’s appeal
Unto the gods below, that they with eyes
Watchful behold these halls, my sire’s of old —
And unto Earth, the mother of all things,
And foster-nurse, and womb that takes their seed.

Lo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,
Call on my father, who yet holds in ruth
Me and mine own Orestes, Father, speak —
How shall thy children rule thine halls again?
Homeless we are and sold; and she who sold
Is she who bore us; and the price she took
Is he who joined with her to work thy death,
Aegisthus, her new lord. Behold me here
Brought down to slave’s estate, and far away
Wanders Orestes, banished from the wealth
That once was thine, the profit of thy care,
Whereon these revel in a shameful joy.
Father, my prayer is said; ’tis thine to hear —
Grant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,
And unto me grant these — a purer soul
Than is my mother’s, a more stainless hand.

These be my prayers for us; for thee, O sire,
I cry that one may come to smite thy foes,
And that the slayers may in turn be slain.
Cursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,
Praying mine own, a counter-curse on them.
And thou, send up to us the righteous boon
For which we pray: thine aids be heaven and earth,
And justice guide the right to victory,

To the Chorus.

Thus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,
And follow ye the wont, and as with flowers
Crown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge,
Your lips ring out above the dead man’s grave.

She pours the libations.

CHORUS
Woe, woe, woe!
Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground
Where our lord lies low:
Fall and cleanse away the cursed libation’s stain,
Shed on this grave-mound,
Fenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane
From the dead are found.
Lord of Argos, hearken!
Though around thee darken
Mist of death and hell, arise and hear!
Hearken and awaken to our cry of woe!
Who with might of spear
Shall our home deliver?
Who like Ares bend until it quiver,
Bend the northern bow?
Who with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust with glaive,
Thrust and slay and save?

ELECTRA
Lo! the earth drinks them, to my sire they pass —
Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.

CHORUS
Speak thou; my breast doth palpitate with fear.

ELECTRA
I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.

CHORUS
Shorn from what man or what deep-girded maid?

ELECTRA
That may he guess who will; the sign is plain.

CHORUS
Let me learn this of thee; let youth prompt age.

ELECTRA
None is there here but I, to clip such gift.

CHORUS
For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.

ELECTRA
And lo! in truth the hair exceeding like —

CHORUS
Like to what locks and whose? instruct me that.

ELECTRA
Like unto those my father’s children wear.