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Apollo, then, is spokesman for his father Zeus.
I make these gods the prelude of my prayer,
yet in all I say I also honor Pallas
whose shrine stands there, apart, and revere the
Nymphs
whose dwelling is the hollowed Corycian rock,
sweet haunt of birds and spirits lingering.
And Bromius too (I don’t forget) has held
sway in this region ever since the day
he, in his true form, led his troop of women,
his wild bacchants, to hunt down Pentheus,
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to snare him like a hare in a net of death.
I call on the streams of Pleistus in the gorge below,
and on Poseidon’s power, and on Zeus,
who brings all to fulfillment, the Most High.
And as I take my seat to prophesy,
may they all grant me foresight that exceeds
whatever foresight I have had before.
If there are any Greeks here, let them enter
in order of the lots they drew, as the custom is.
My prophecies will follow where the god leads.
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The PYTHIA enters the temple, then immediately returns,
but now crawling at first on hands and knees.
Terror for tongue to tell of, for eyes to see,
sheer terror has driven me away, again,
from Apollo’s house, so that my strength falters,
and I can’t stand on my own two legs, and
I go on all fours, trembling, inch by inch,
because a terrified old woman’s nothing
at all, no better than a child.
I was
making my way into the inner chamber
where the air glows green from the garlands left there
when I saw a man polluted before the gods
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sitting the way a suppliant would sit
on the navel stone, blood dripping from his hands,
blood also dripping from his just drawn sword;
he held a tall branch of an olive tree
wreathed as it should be with a shock of wool,
the white fleece radiant—this I can say for sure.
But an astounding gang of women sleeps
around him, all slouched in chairs. Women?
No, not women. Gorgons maybe, but, no,
not even Gorgon shapes could do them justice.
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I saw a painting once of flying female-
creatures snatching food from Phineus,
but this gang has no wings, and they’re all black,
disgusting, and their phlegmy snores spew out
a stink that blinds and repels, and their eyes drip
a sickening ooze. Their dark rags, too, aren’t fit
to wear before the statues of the gods,
or even right to bring into the house.
I’ve never seen the tribe this crew belongs to,
or known a land that could rear a brood like this
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and not be damaged and regret the labor.
How this will end up now is his concern,
the master of the house, great Loxias
himself, the wily one. He is the prophet,
the healer; he scans the signs to see what is
to come; he has the power to purify.
The PYTHIA exits to the right. APOLLO and
ORESTES enter from the temple.
APOLLO I won’t betray you. Your guardian to the end,
both when I’m here with you and far away—
I won’t ease up against your enemies.
See how I’ve tamed, for now, these crazed hags,
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lulled them to sleep, these maidens of filth, these
wrinkled
children no god, or man, or any beast
would want to touch: born evil, born for evil,
their only dwelling place the evil darkness
of the deepest underground, despised
alike by men and all the gods above.
They’re tamed for now. But flee them, don’t let up,
for they will dog you, there at your heels, as you run
on from horizon to horizon, fast
at your pounding heels, over the vast mainland,
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and across the sea to sea-encircled cities.
Don’t tire or lose heart till you’ve shepherded
your hard task all the way to Pallas Athena’s
city. Once there, sit as a suppliant,
And we’ll have judges for your case, and words
that spellbind; we will find the means to free you
from this toil you’ve been caught in, once and for all.
For I persuaded you to kill your mother.
ORESTES My lord Apollo, you know how not to be
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unjust; learn, too, how not to be neglectful.
Your strength assures me of your power for good.
APOLLO Remember, don’t let fear overtake you.
Now, Hermes, my brother, son of my father too,
watch over him; be your own namesake and
escort him, guide him well, for he’s my suppliant,
and Zeus honors the rights of outcasts who are blessed
with such a guide back to the world of men.
ORESTES exits to the left and APOLLO enters the
temple. After a brief pause, CLYTEMNESTRA’s
ghost appears, perhaps on the roof
of the stage building.
CLYTEMNESTKA Keep sleeping! You there! Ah, what good are you
to me asleep? Because of you I go
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dishonored among the other dead. The spirits
of those I killed won’t stop accusing me,
I wander in disgrace. I tell you, day
and night they hector me with blame. And though
I too have suffered from my blood relations,
none of the gods is angry on my behalf,
though I was slaughtered by my own son’s hands.
Picture my wounds in your heart (for the sleeping
mind
can see more clearly than the mind awake).
Remember where they came from, and don’t forget
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how many offerings I made to you,
how you would lap them up, the wineless pourings,
sober propitiations, holy feasts
burned in a hearth pit in the darkest recess
of the night, at an hour not shared by other gods—
And all for what? To see my offerings trampled
while I watch him slip away so easily
and vanish like a fawn, watch him leap free
out from the middle of your net, and taunt you,
mock you, winking, as he bounds off? Hear me!
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My very being hinges on my plea.
Wake up now, goddesses from beneath the ground,
for I am Clytemnestra, the dream that calls you.
(whining from within the temple)
The more you whine, the farther away he gets,
for his friends, unlike mine, know how to help.
(more whining)
More sleep’s in you than pity for my pain.
Orestes, who ran me—his mother!—through, is gone.
(moaning)
How can you sleep and moan like this? Get up!
Get up! Ruin’s the job you’re meant to do!
(more moaning)
Sleep and exhaustion, those arch-conspirators,
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have drained the poison from the dread snake’s tooth.
CHORUS (moaning twice as loud, still from within) Get him!
Get him! Get him! There! Over there!
CLYTEMNESTRA The quarry you keep hunting’s just a dream,
and yet you still bay like a hound that can’t
stop sniffing out the bloodtrail. What are you doing?
Get up! Don’t let exhaustion overcome you!
Don’t let sleep slacken your pace, make you forget
my misery! Let my just accusations
sting your heart awake, for they are sharp
goads to the sensible. Breathe over him the blood-
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reek of your breath, shrivel him in the sizzling
gust of your belly’s fire! Get after him,
wither him away with a fresh pursuit!
(CIYTEMNESTRA’s GHOST DISAPPEARS. The CHORUS
enters from the temple by ones and twos.)
CHORUS Up now! Wake her, just as I wake you!
Still sleeping? Come on, get up! Kick sleep away,
let’s see if this dream is a truthful prelude.
IOU! IOU! POPAX
Strophe 1
Wronged, sorely wronged, my sisters,
Oh I have suffered so much, and for what?
Yes we have suffered
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such searing pain, oh yes, a hurt
no one could bear,
the beast has slipped free of the net and vanished:
sleep took me, and the prey is lost.
O child of Zeus, you thief! So young
Antistrophe 1
yet you have trampled down the gray gods
by guarding the suppliant,
the godless, the mother-hating man.
A god yourself,
you’ve spirited away the mother-killer.
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Could anyone call these actions just?
Blame came to me in my dream—over
and over
Strophe 2
it struck me like a charioteer,
with the goad gripped
tight in his fist; in the heart, in the guts,
it struck, and I feel
the cold sting of the scourger’s cruel
quick public lash.
This is what all of you do, you younger
gods,
Antistrophe 2
your power knows no bounds, respects none.
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Gore oozes over
Apollo’s throne, from the top, to the bottom,
it drips, and I see
the earth’s stone navel smeared with filth
from bloody deeds.
A prophet himself, he’s dirtied his own
shrine,
Strophe 3
defiled his hearth
at no one’s bidding but his own,
invited blight
by placing men above the god-
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set limits, breaking
the age-old power of the fates.
Although he hurts me too, he still won’t
save
Antistrophe 3
Orestes, never;
for even hid beneath the earth,
this suppliant
will not escape, but come stained,
cursed, to where
a new avenger will rise against him.
APOLLO enters from the temple.
APOLLO Get out of this house, right now, I order you!
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Away from my temple’s deep prophetic chamber
or you’ll be bitten by a flying snake
shot from my bowstring’s beaten gold, and retch
in agony, coughing up all the black
scum sucked from men, the clotted gore you guzzled.
You have no rights here, no business in this house,
your jurisdiction is where heads are lopped off
in retribution, eyes gouged out, throats slashed;
where the manhood of mere boys is cut away,
their seed squandered, and men—their hands, their
feet,
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their ears and nose—are maimed, and they are stoned
to death, and where they feel the sharp stake driven
into their backs and groan out loud and long.
Don’t you hear then what sort of feasts you crave
that make the gods despise you? Your very shape
and dress explain it. Creatures like you belong
in caves with blood-befouled, blood-lapping lions;
you have no business in this prophetic place,
rubbing your stinking dirt off on those near you.
Get out of here, you herd without a herdsman!
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No god would ever tend a flock like this.
CHORUS LEADER It’s your turn now to listen, lord Apollo.
You are no mere accessory to this crime;
From start to finish, the blame is yours alone.
APOLLO How so? Say just enough to make it clear.
CHORUS LEADER You told your guest-friend he should kill his mother.
APOLLO I told him to avenge his father. What else?
CHORUS LEADER You took him in, blood still wet on his hands.
APOLLO I told him to come for cleansing to this shrine.
CHORUS LEADER And you malign us for serving as his escort?
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APOLLO You aren’t fit creatures to come near my house.
CHORUS LEADER But we as well have our appointed task …
APOLLO Appointed? You? Crow on about this noble job.
CHORUS LEADER We hound all mother-killers from their houses.
APOLLO And what about a wife who kills her husband?
CHORUS LEADER That isn’t killing one’s own flesh and blood.
APOLLO Why, then, you spit on, treat as less than nothing,
the solemn vows of Hera, the fulfiller,
and of Zeus; and Aphrodite, too, is thrown
away like something worthless by your words,
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yes, Aphrodite who gives to humankind
the deepest and most intimate bond of all.
Marriage is a thing of destiny,
greater than any oath, and Justice guards it.
And so if you let spouses kill each other
and overlook it, neither punishing them
nor looking on them with a wrathful vigilance,
then I maintain this hounding of Orestes
isn’t just. It’s clear to me you’re stirred
to utter outrage by the one crime while
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the other doesn’t move you in the least.
But Pallas, goddess of wisdom that she is,
will oversee the issue of this case.
CHORUS LEADER We’ll never stop harassing him, not ever.
APOLLO Go on, then. Make more trouble for yourself.
CHORUS LEADER Don’t try to steal our rights with clever words.
APOLLO If someone gave me your rights, I wouldn’t take them.
CHORUS LEADER Why should you, high and mighty as you seem
near Zeus’ throne? But the scent of motherblood
drives us,
and we will hunt the man down, get our justice.
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The CHORUS exits to the left.
APOLLO And I will help my suppliant and save him.
A suppliant’s wrath’s a dreadful thing for gods
and men alike. I never will betray him.
APOLLO exits into the temple. There is a
brief pause. The scene is now set in Athens.
ORESTES enters from the left.
ORESTES Queen Athena, I have come at Apollo’s
command. Receive me graciously, a cursed,
a hounded man, but one no longer stained,
my hands now clean, my guilt’s keen edge now
dulled,
worn down to nothing by the crowded paths
I’ve traveled, by the homes I’ve sheltered in.
Holding a firm course over both sea and land,
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obedient to Apollo’s orders, I’ve come
at last, goddess, here t
o your house, your image,
watching and waiting for justice to be fulfilled.
The CHORUS enters by ones and twos,
miming hounds tracking a scent.
CHORUS LEADER So, finally, a clear sign of the man.
Here, this way, this is where the voiceless snitch
is leading! Like a blood hound on the scent
of a wounded fawn, we track him by this trail
of blood drops. And he’s panting out his guts
from all the endless deadly labors, driven
like a sheep over every stretch of land
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while we flew wingless, faster than any ship,
across sea after sea, pursuing. I know
he’s cowering somewhere near here, for the scent
of blood is like the warm smile of an old friend.
CHORUS Look! Look again!
Check everywhere—
don’t let the mother-killer slip through our clutches
and get away unpunished.
There he is, himself, there in the flesh!
and once again
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protected, his arms around the image
of the immortal goddess,
eager to stand trial for his crime.
But that won’t happen. Once a mother’s blood
is spilled on the ground,
it can’t return again, not ever.
POPOI! The red
stream pools there, seeps into earth, and then
it’s gone for good.
You’ll have to pay with your own blood for hers,
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you’ll feel me suck the half-
caked gore out of your living flesh;
swill from your very veins
the vile dregs of the drink I crave.
I’ll shrivel you up and drag you, still alive,