Stasimon 6
[Episode]
(expressing the most abject terror.) I have escaped from death by Argive sword,
Phrygian
in my Asian slippers, by clambering over the cedar-beams that roof the porch and the Doric triglyphs, away, away! O Earth, Earth! in barbaric flight!
1370
Alas! You foreign women, where can I escape, flying through the clear sky or over the sea, which bull-headed Ocean rolls about as he circles the world in his embrace?
1375
Chorus Leader
What is it, Helen’s slave, creature from Ida?
1380
Phrygian
Ilium, Ilium, oh me! city of Phrygia, and Ida’s holy hill with fruitful soil, how I mourn for your destruction a shrill song
with barbarian cry; destroyed through her beauty, born from a bird, swan-feathered, Leda’s cub, hellish Helen! to be a curse to Apollo’s tower of polished stone. Ah! Alas!
1385
woe to Dardania, its wailing, wailing, for the horsemanship of Ganymede, bedfellow of Zeus.
1390
Chorus Leader
Tell us clearly each event within the house. for till now I have been guessing at what I do not clearly understand.
Phrygian
Ah, for Linus! Ah, for Linus! That is what barbarians say, alas, in their eastern tongue as a prelude to death, whenever royal blood is spilled upon the ground by deadly iron blades.
1395
To tell you everything in turn, they came into the house, two twin lions of Hellas; one was called the general’s son; the other was the son of Strophius, a crafty plotter, like Odysseus, treacherous in silence,
1400
but true to his friends, bold for the fight, clever in war and a deadly serpent. Curse him for his quiet plotting, the villain!
1405
In they came to the throne of the wife of Paris the archer,
faces wet with tears, and took their seats in all humility, one on this side, one on that, each with weapons. They threw, they threw their suppliant arms round the knees
1410
of Helen. Her Phrygian servants sprang up frantic, frantic; they called to each other in terror that there was treachery.
1415
To some there seemed no cause, but others thought that the viper who killed his mother was entangling the daughter of Tyndareus in the snare of his plot.
1420
Chorus Leader
And where were you? fled long before in terror?
1425
Phrygian
It happened that I, in Phrygian style, Phrygian, was wafting the breeze, the breeze by the curls of Helen, Helen, with a round feathered fan, before her face,
in barbarian style; and she was twisting flax on her distaff with her fingers, and letting her yarn fall on the floor, for she wanted to sew with her flax purple cloth
1430
as adornment for the tomb from the Trojan spoils, a gift to Clytemnestra.
1435
Orestes said to the Spartan girl: Daughter of Zeus, get up from your chair
and come here to the old hearth of Pelops, our ancestor, to hear something I have to say. He led her, led her, and she followed,
1440
no prophet of the future. But his accomplice, the Phocian villain, was off on other business: Out of my way! Well, Phrygians always were cowards. So he shut them up in different parts of the house, some in the stables, others in the halls,
1445
one here, one there, disposing of them severally at a distance from their mistress.
1450
Chorus Leader
What happened next?
Phrygian
Mother of Ida, great, great mother!
Oh! the murderous scenes and lawless wickedness that I saw, I saw, in the palace! They drew forth swords from hiding under their purple-bordered cloaks, each darting his eye a different way, lest anyone should be near. Like boar of the hills,
1455
they stood opposite the woman and said: You will die, you will die; your cowardly husband is killing you, because he betrayed his brother’s son to death in Argos.
1460
She screamed, oh, oh! she screamed, and brought down her white arm upon her breast and beat her poor head; then turned her golden-sandalled steps in flight, in flight; but Orestes got before her in his Mycenean boots and clutched his fingers in her hair,
1465
and, bending back her neck on to her left shoulder, was on the point of driving the black sword into her throat.
1470
Chorus Leader
Where were you Phrygians in the house to help her?
Phrygian
With a loud cry from the house we battered down with bars the doors and doorposts where we had been,
and ran to her assistance from every direction, one with stones, another with javelins, a third with a drawn sword; but Pylades came to meet us, undaunted, like
1475
Hector of Troy or Ajax triple-plumed, as I saw him, saw him, in Priam’s gateway; and we met at sword’s point. But then it was very clear how the Phrygians were,
1480
how much less we were in battle strength to the Hellene might. There was one man gone in flight, another slain, another wounded, yet another pleading to stave off death; but we escaped under cover of the darkness; while some were falling, some were about to fall, and others were lying dead.
1485
And just as her unhappy mother sank to the ground to die, the luckless Hermione came in. Those two, like Bacchantes when they drop the thyrsus for a mountain cub, rushed and seized her; then turned again to the daughter of Zeus to slay her; but she had vanished from the room,
1490
passing right through the house, O Zeus and Earth and light and night! whether by magic spells or wizards’ arts or heavenly theft.
1495
What happened afterwards I do not know; for I stole out of the palace, a runaway.
So Menelaus endured his painful, painful suffering to recover his wife Helen from Troy to no purpose.
1500
Chorus Leader
And look, here is a strange sight succeeding others; for I see Orestes sword in hand before the palace,
advancing with excited steps.
1505
Orestes
Where is the one who fled from the palace to escape my sword?
Phrygian
Before you I prostrate myself, lord, and supplicate you in my foreign way.
Orestes
We are not in Ilium, but the land of Argos.
Phrygian
Everywhere, the wise find life sweeter than death.
Orestes
I suppose that shouting of yours was not for Menelaus to come to the rescue?
1510
Phrygian
Oh no! it was to help you I called out, for you are more deserving.
Orestes
Did the daughter of Tyndareus die justly, then?
Phrygian
Most justly, even if she had three throats to die with.
Orestes
Your cowardice makes you glib; this is not what you really think.
Phrygian
Why, surely she deserved it, the one who destroyed Hellas and the Phrygians too?
1515
Orestes
Swear you are not saying this to humor me, or I will kill you.
Phrygian
I swear by my life, an oath I would keep!
Orestes
Did every Phrygian in Troy show the same terror of steel as you do?
Phrygian
Take your sword away! Held so near it flashes a dreadful gleam of blood.
Orestes
Are you afraid of being turned to a stone, as if you had seen a Gorgon?
1520
Phrygian
To a stone, no! but to a corpse; I don’t know this Gorgon’s head.
Orestes
A slave, and yet you fear death, which will release you from trouble?
Phrygian
Slave or free, every one is glad to gaze upon the light.
Orestes
Well said! Your shrewdness saves you; go inside.
Phrygian
You will not kill me after all?
1525
Orestes
You are spared.
1525
Phrygian
How well you said that!
1525
Orestes
Now it’s time to change my plans.
Phrygian
You didn’t say that well!
Orestes
You fool! Do you think I could endure to make your throat bloody? You weren’t born a woman, nor do you belong among men. The reason I left the palace was to stop your shouting;
for Argos is quickly roused, once it hears a cry to the rescue. As for Menelaus, I am not afraid of measuring swords with him; let him come, proud of the golden ringlets on his shoulders; for if, to avenge the slaying of Helen, he gathers the Argives and leads them against the palace, refusing to attempt the rescue of me,
1530
my sister, and Pylades, my fellow conspirator, he will have two corpses to behold, his daughter’s as well as his wife’s.
Exeunt Orestes and The Phrygian Slave.
1535
[Choral 1]
Ah, fortune! Again and yet again the house comes to a fearful contest, for the race of Atreus.
Chorus
What are we to do? Carry tidings to the town?
Or hold our peace? It is safer, friends.
1540
Look, look at that sudden rush of smoke to the sky in front of the palace, telling its tale!
They are kindling torches to fire the halls of Tantalus; nor do they hold back from murder.
A god determines the end where he wishes, for mortals.
1545
Great is the power; by avenging fiends, this house has fallen, fallen, through blood, by reason of the hurling Myrtilus from the chariot.