Parodos
[Choral 1]
Sent forth from the palace I have come to convey libations to the sound of sharp blows of my hands. My cheek is marked with bloody gashes
Chorus
where my nails have cut fresh furrows. And yet through all my life my heart is fed with lamentation. Rips are torn by my griefs through the linen web of my garment, torn in the cloth that covers my breast,
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the cloth of robes struck for the sake of my mirthless misfortunes.
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For with a hair-raising shriek, Terror, the diviner of dreams for our house, breathing wrath out of sleep, uttered a cry of terror in the dead of night from the heart of the palace,
a cry that fell heavily on the women’s quarter.The language of the passage is accommodated to a double purpose: (1) to indicate an oracular deliverance on the part of the inspired prophetess at Delphi, and (2) to show the alarming nature of Clytaemestra’s dream: while certain limiting expressions (as ἀωπόνυκτον, ὕπτου) show the points of difference. Phoebus is used for a prophetic possession, which assails Clytaemestra as a nightmare (cp. βαρὺς πίτνων); so that her vision is itself called an ὀνειρόμαντις.
And the readers of these dreams, bound under pledge, cried out from the god that those
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beneath the earth cast furious reproaches and rage against their murderers.
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[Choral 2]
Intending to ward off evil with such a graceless grace, O mother Earth,
Chorus
she sends me forth, godless woman that she is. But I am afraid to utter the words she charged me to speak. For what atonement is there for blood fallen to earth? Ah, hearth of utter grief!
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Ah, house laid low in ruin! Sunless darkness, loathed by men, enshrouds our house due to the death of its master.
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The awe of majesty once unconquered, unvanquished, irresistible in war, that penetrated the ears and heart of the people, is now cast off. But there is still fear. And prosperity—this,
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among mortals, is a god and more than a god. But the balance of Justice keeps watch: swiftly it descends on those in the light; sometimes pain waits for those who linger on the frontier of twilight;
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and others are claimed by strengthless night.
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[Choral 3]
Because of blood drunk up by the fostering earth, the vengeful gore lies clotted and will not dissolve away. Soul-racking calamity distracts
Chorus
the guilty man till he is steeped in utter misery.
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But for the violator of a bridal chamber there is no cure. And though all streams flow in one course to cleanse the blood from a polluted hand, they rush in vain.
[Choral]
For since the gods laid constraining doom about my city and led me from my father’s house to a slave’s lot, it is fitting for me to govern my bitter hate, even against my will, and submit to the wishes of my masters, whether just or unjust.
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Chorus
But I weep beneath my veil over the senseless fate of my lord, my heart chilled by secret grief.