Orestes Lady Athena, at Loxias’ command I have come. Receive kindly an accursed wretch, not one who seeks purification, or with unclean hand, but with my guilt’s edge already blunted and worn away at other homes and in the travelled paths of men. Going over land and sea alike, keeping the commands of Loxias’ oracle, I now approach your house and image, goddess. Here I will keep watch and await the result of my trial.
Chorus Aha! This is a clear sign of the man. Follow the hints of a voiceless informer. For as a hound tracks a wounded fawn, so we track him by the drops of blood. My lungs pant from many tiring struggles, for I have roamed over the whole earth, and I have come over the sea in wingless flight, pursuing him, no slower than a ship. And now he is here somewhere, cowering. The smell of human blood gives me a smiling welcome.
Chorus
Look! Look again! Look everywhere, so that the matricide will not escape by secret flight, with his debt unpaid! Yes, here he is again with a defense; his arms twisted around the image of the immortal goddess, he wishes to be tried for his debt. But that is not possible; a mother’s blood upon the earth is hard to recover—alas, the liquid poured on the ground is gone. But you must allow me in return to suck the red blood from your living limbs. May I feed on you—a gruesome drink! I will wither you alive and drag you down, so that you pay atonement for your murdered mother’s agony. And you will see any other mortal who has sinned by not honoring a god or a stranger or dear parents, each having a just punishment. For Hades is mighty in holding mortals to account under the earth, and he observes all things and within his mind inscribes them.
Orestes
Taught by misery, I know many purification rituals, and I know where it is right to speak and equally to be silent; and in this case, I have been ordered to speak by a wise teacher. For the blood is slumbering and fading from my hand, the pollution of matricide is washed away; while it was still fresh, it was driven away at the hearth of the god Phoebus by purifying sacrifices of swine. It would be a long story to tell from the beginning, how many people I have visited, with no harm from association with me. So now with a pure mouth I piously invoke Athena, lady of this land, to come to my aid. Without the spear, she will win me and my land and the Argive people as faithful and true allies for all time. But whether in some region of the Libyan land, near the waters of Triton, her native stream, she is in action or at rest, aiding those whom she loves, or whether, like a bold marshal, she is surveying the Phlegraean plain, oh, let her come—as a goddess, she hears even from far away—to be my deliverer from distress!
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