Stasimon 2
[Episode]
So that if a good report comes from you, the whole house will cry aloud in triumph; but, if you die, it will be the opposite of that. These are my words to you.
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Electra
Therefore you must be a man. Exeunt Orestes, Pylades, and Old Man. And you, women, please take care to give
a shout in signal of this contest. I will keep a sword ready, holding it in my hand, for I will not ever, if defeated, submit to my enemies the right to insult my body.
Exit Electra.
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[Choral 1]
The story remains in old legends
Chorus
that Pan, the keeper of wild beasts, breathing sweet-voiced music on his well-joined pipes, once brought from its tender mother on Argive hills
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a lamb with beautiful golden fleece. A herald stood on the stone platform and cried aloud, To assembly, Mycenaeans, go to assembly
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to see the omens given to our blessed rulers. . . . and they honored the house of Atreus.
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The altars of beaten gold were set out; and through the town the
altar fires of the Argives blazed; the flute, handmaid of the Muse’s song, sounded its note sweetly, and lovely songs of the golden lamb swelled forth, saying that Thyestes had the luck; for he
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persuaded Atreus’ own wife to secret love, and carried off to his house the portent; coming before the assembly he declared that he had in his
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house the horned sheep with fleece of gold.
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[Choral 2]
Then, it was then that Zeus changed the radiant paths of the stars, and the light of the sun, and the
Chorus
bright face of dawn; and the sun drove across the western back of the sky with hot flame from heaven’s fires, while the rain-clouds went northward and Ammon’s
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lands grew parched and faint, not knowing moisture, robbed of heaven’s fairest showers of rain.
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It is said, but I have small belief in it, that the sun turned round his glowing
throne of gold, changing it to the misfortune of mankind, for the punishment of mortals. But tales that frighten men are profitable for service to the gods; of whom you had no thought, when you
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killed your husband, you who are the relative of famous brothers.
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