Stasimon 2
[Episode]
And see, a king draws near, lord Menelaus; from his magnificence it is plain to see
Chorus Leader
that he belongs to the blood of the Tantalids.
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All hail! you that set out with a thousand ships to Asia’s land; good fortune is your friend,
for you have accomplished, with divine aid, all that you prayed for.
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Menelaus
O my home, some joy I feel to see you again on my return from Troy, but I also grieve at the sight; for never have I seen another house more closely encircled by dire affliction.
For I learned Agamemnon’s fate and the death he died at his wife’s hands, as I was trying to put in at Malea; when the sailors’ prophet, the truthful god Glaucus, Nereus’ seer, brought the news to me from the waves;
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he stationed himself in full view and told me this: Menelaus, your brother lies dead, plunged in a fatal bath, the last his wife will ever give him. My sailors and I wept greatly at his words. When I arrived at Nauplia,
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my wife already on the point of starting here, I was expecting to give a fond embrace to Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, and his mother, thinking that they were doing well, when I heard from a sailor the unholy murder of Tyndareus’ child.
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And now tell me, young ladies, where to find the son of Agamemnon, who dared such evil. For he was a baby in Clytemnestra’s arms when I left my home to go to Troy, so that I would not recognize him if I saw him.
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Orestes
Menelaus, I am Orestes, whom you are asking about. I will of my own accord inform you of my sufferings. But as my first portion, I clasp your knees as a suppliant, giving you prayers from the mouth of one without the suppliant’s bough; save me, for you have come at the crisis of my troubles.
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Menelaus
O gods, what do I see? What living corpse greets my sight?
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Orestes
You are right; I am dead through misery, though I still gaze upon the light.
Menelaus
How savage the look your unkempt hair gives you, poor wretch!
Orestes
It is not my looks, but my deeds that torture me.
Menelaus
Your tearless eyes glare dreadfully!
Orestes
My body is gone, though my name has not deserted me.
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Menelaus
Unsightly apparition, so different from what I expected!
Orestes
Here I am, the murderer of my wretched mother.
Menelaus
I have heard, spare your words; evils should be seldom spoken.
Orestes
I will be sparing; but the deity is lavish of woe in my case.
Menelaus
What ails you? what is your deadly sickness?
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Orestes
My conscience; I know that I am guilty of a dreadful crime.
Menelaus
What do you mean? Wisdom is shown in clarity, not in obscurity.
Orestes
Grief especially has ruined me—
Menelaus
Yes, she is a dreadful goddess, yet are there cures for her.
Orestes
And fits of madness, the vengeance of a mother’s blood.
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Menelaus
When did your madness begin? Which day was it?
Orestes
On the day I was heaping the mound over my poor mother’s grave.
Menelaus
When you were in the house, or watching by the pyre?
Orestes
As I was waiting by night to gather up her bones.
Menelaus
Was any one else there, to help you rise?
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Orestes
Pylades who shared with me the bloody deed, my mother’s murder.
Menelaus
You are sick from phantom shapes; what sort?
Orestes
I seemed to see three maidens, black as night.
Menelaus
I know whom you mean, but I do not want to name them.
Orestes
Yes, for they are revered; you were well-informed, to avoid naming them.
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Menelaus
Are these the ones that drive you to frenzy, with the curse of kindred blood?
Orestes
Oh! the torment I endure from their pursuit!
Menelaus
It is not strange, if those who have done dreadful things should suffer them.
Orestes
But I have a way to recover from these troubles.
Menelaus
Do not speak of death; that is not wise.
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Orestes
It is Phoebus, who commanded me to kill my mother.
Menelaus
Showing a strange ignorance of what is fair and right.
Orestes
We are slaves to the gods, whatever those gods are.
Menelaus
And does Loxias not help your affliction?
Orestes
He will in time; this is the nature of gods.
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Menelaus
How long is it since your mother breathed her last?
Orestes
This is the sixth day; her funeral pyre is still warm.
Menelaus
How soon the goddesses arrived to avenge your mother’s blood!
Orestes
I am not clever, but I am by nature a true friend to my friends.
Menelaus
Does your father give you any help at all, for your avenging him?
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Orestes
Not yet; I call delay the equal of inaction.
Menelaus
How do you stand in the city after that deed of yours?
Orestes
I am so hated that no one will speak to me.
Menelaus
Have your hands not even been cleaned of blood, according to custom?
Orestes
No, for wherever I go, the door is shut against me.
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Menelaus
Which citizens are driving you from the land?
Orestes
Oeax, who refers to my father his reason for hating Troy.
Menelaus
I understand; he is avenging on you the blood of Palamedes.
Orestes
That was nothing to do with me; yet I am destroyed for three reasons.
Menelaus
Who else? Some of the friends of Aegisthus, I suppose?
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Orestes
They insult me, and the city listens to them now.
Menelaus
Will the city allow you to keep the scepter of Agamemnon?
Orestes
How, seeing that they will not allow me to remain alive?
Menelaus
What is their method? Can you tell me plainly?
Orestes
A vote will be taken against us today.
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Menelaus
To leave the city? Or to die, or not to die?
Orestes
Death by stoning at the hands of the citizens.
Menelaus
Then why not cross the border and try to escape?
Orestes
Because we are encircled by men fully armed.
Menelaus
Private foes or Argive troops?
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Orestes
All the citizens, so that I may die; it is shortly told.
Menelaus
Poor wretch! you have arrived at the extremity of woe.
Orestes
In you I have hopes of escape from my troubles. But since you have come with good fortune,
share with your friends, who are wretched, your prosperity; do not hold aside that goodness for yourself alone; but partake of troubles in your turn, and so pay back my father’s kindness to those who have a claim on you. For such friends as desert us in adversity
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are friends in name but not in deed.
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Chorus Leader
And here is Tyndareus, the Spartan, struggling with aged step, clad in black robes, with his hair cut short in mourning for his daughter.
Orestes
Menelaus, I am ruined. See, Tyndareus
approaches us, the man of all others I most shrink from facing, because of the deed I have done. For he nursed me when I was small, and lavished on me many a fond caress, carrying me about in his arms as the son of Agamemnon; and so did Leda;
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for they both honored me no less than the Dioscuri.
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Ah me! my wretched heart and soul, it was a sorry return I made them! What darkness can I find for my face? What cloud can I spread before me in my efforts to escape the old man’s eye?
Tyndareus
Where, where may I see Menelaus, my daughter’s husband? For as I was pouring libations on Clytemnestra’s grave I heard that he had come to Nauplia with his wife, safe home again after many years. Lead me to him; for I want to approach him
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and clasp his hand, as a friend whom at last I see again.
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Menelaus
Hail, old man, rival of Zeus for a bride!
Tyndareus
All hail to you, Menelaus, my kinsman!
Catching sight of Orestes. Ah! What an evil it is to be ignorant of the future! There is that matricide before the house, a viper darting venomous flashes from his eyes, whom I loathe.
Menelaus, are you speaking to that godless wretch?
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Menelaus
And why not? He is the son of one whom I loved.
Tyndareus
This is his son, this creature here?
Menelaus
Yes, his son; if he is in misfortune, he ought to be honored.
Tyndareus
You have been so long among barbarians that you have become one of them.
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Menelaus
Always to honor one’s kin is a custom in Hellas.
Tyndareus
And another custom is to yield a willing deference to the laws.
Menelaus
The wise hold that everything which depends on necessity is a slave.
Tyndareus
Keep that wisdom for yourself; I will not have it.
Menelaus
Yes, for you are angry, and also old age is not wise.
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Tyndareus
What does a dispute about foolishness have to do with him? If right and wrong are clear to all, who was ever more senseless than this man, because he never weighed the justice of the case,
nor appealed to the universal law of Hellas? For instance, when Agamemnon breathed his last struck on his head by my daughter a most foul deed, which I will never defend,
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he should have brought a charge against his mother and inflicted a holy penalty for bloodshed, banishing her from his house; thus he would have gained moderation instead of calamity, keeping strictly to the law and showing his piety as well. As it is, he has come into the same fate as his mother.
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for though he had just cause for thinking her a wicked woman, he has become more wicked by murdering her.
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I will ask you, Menelaus, just one question. If a man’s wedded wife should kill him, and his son in turn will kill his mother in revenge;
next the avenger’s son to expiate this murder will commit another: where will the chain of horrors end?
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Our forefathers settled these matters the right way. They forbade any one with blood upon his hands to appear in their sight or cross their path;
but they purified him by exile, they did not kill him in revenge. Otherwise someone, by taking the pollution last upon his hands, is always going to be liable to have his own blood shed.
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Now I hate wicked women, especially my daughter who killed her husband;
Helen, too, your own wife, I will never commend, nor would I even speak to her; and I do not envy you a voyage to Troy for a worthless woman. But the law I will defend with all my might, to put an end to this brutal spirit of murder,
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which is always the ruin of countries and cities alike.
Turning to Orestes Wretch! Had you no heart when your mother was baring her breast in her appeal to you? I, who did not see that awful deed, weep unhappy tears from my old eyes.
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One thing at least agrees with what I say: you are hated by the gods, and you pay atonement for your mother by your fits of madness and terror. Why do I need to hear from other witnesses what I can see for myself? Therefore, Menelaus, take heed;
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do not oppose the gods in your wish to help this man; but leave him to be stoned to death by the citizens, or do not set foot on Spartan land. My daughter is dead, and rightly; but it should not have been his hand that slew her.
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In all except my daughters I have been a happy man; there I am not blessed.
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Chorus Leader
He is enviable, who is fortunate in his children, and does not bring hazardous notoriety on himself.
Orestes
Old man, I am afraid to speak before you,
in a matter where I am sure to grieve you to the heart. I am unholy because I killed my mother, I know it, yet holy on another count, because I avenged my father. Only let your years, which frighten me from speaking, set no barrier in the path of my words,
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and I will go forward; but now I fear your gray hairs.
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What ought I to have done? Set one thing against another. My father begot me; your daughter gave me birth, being the field that received the seed from another; for without a father no child would ever be born.
So I reasoned that I ought to stand by the author of my being rather than the woman who undertook to rear me. Now your daughter—I am ashamed to call her mother—came to a man’s bed in a private and unchaste wedding; I speak against myself when I speak
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badly of her, yet I will speak. Aegisthus was her secret husband in the home; I killed him, and I sacrificed my mother, an unholy crime, no doubt, but done to avenge my father.
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Now, as regards the matters for which I deserve to be stoned as you threatened,
hear the service I am conferring on all Hellas. For if women become so bold as to murder their husbands, taking refuge in their children, with the mother’s breast to catch the pity, they would think nothing of destroying their husbands
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on any charge whatsoever. But I, by a horrible crime, as you boast it to be, have put an end to this custom. I hated my mother and killed her justly. She was false to her husband when he was gone from his home to fight for all Hellas at the head of its armies,
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and she did not keep his bed undefiled; and when her sin had found her out, she did not impose punishment on herself, but, to avoid paying the penalty to her husband, punished my father by death. By the gods! it is not a good time for me to mention the gods,
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when defending the charge of murder; but if I consented by my silence to my mother’s conduct, what would the murdered man have done to me? Would he not now in hatred be tormenting me with the Furies? Or does my mother have goddesses as allies, but he does not, in his deeper wrong?
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You, yes! you, old man, have been my ruin by begetting a wicked daughter; for it was owing to her audacious deed that I lost my father and became my mother’s murderer.
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You see, Telemachus did not kill the wife of Odysseus, because she did not marry husband upon husband,
but the marriage-bed remained untainted in her home.
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And you see Apollo, who makes the navel of the earth his home, dispensing to mortals unerring prophecies, whom we obey in all he says; I killed my mother in obedience to him.
Find him guilty of the crime, slay him; his was the sin, not mine. What ought I to have done? or is the god not competent to expiate the pollution when I refer it to him? Where then should anyone flee, if he will not rescue me from death after giving his commands?
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Do not say that the deed was done badly, but unfortunately for the ones who did it.
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A blessed life those mortals lead who make wise marriages; but those for whom it does not fall out well are unfortunate in their public and private concerns.
Chorus Leader
Women by nature always meddle in the doings of men, with unfortunate results.
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Tyndareus
Since you are so bold and suppress nothing, but answer me back in such a way as to vex my heart, you will lead me to go to greater lengths in procuring your execution;
and I shall regard this as a fine addition to my labors in coming here to adorn my daughter’s grave. Yes, I will go to the chosen band of Argives and set the city, willing or not, on you and your sister, to pay the penalty of stoning.
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She deserves to die even more than you, for it was she who embittered you against your mother, always carrying tales to your ear to increase your hate the more, announcing dreams from Agamemnon, and Aegisthus’ bed,
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may the gods in Hades loathe it! for even here on earth it was bitter; till she set the house ablaze with fires never kindled by Hephaestus.
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Menelaus, I tell you this, and I will do it, too: if you then consider my hatred or our marriage connection of any account, do not ward off this man’s doom in defiance of the gods,
but leave him to be stoned to death by the citizens, or do not set foot on Spartan land. Remember you have been told all this, and do not choose the ungodly as friends, pushing aside the more righteous. Servants, lead me from this house.
Exit Tyndareus.
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Orestes
Go, so that the remainder of my speech may come to this man without interruption, free from your old age.
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Menelaus, why are you pacing round and round in thought, going back and forth, in a dilemma?
Menelaus
Let me alone! When I think it over,
I am perplexed to know where to turn in these events.
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Orestes
Do not come to a final decision now, but after first hearing what I have to say, then make up your mind.
Menelaus
Good advice! Speak. There are times when silence would be better than speech, and the reverse also.
Orestes
I will speak now. A long statement has advantages over a short one and is more intelligible to listen to. Give me nothing of your own, Menelaus, but repay what you received from my father. As Menelaus makes a deprecating gesture. I am not speaking of possessions; if you save my life,
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you will save my dearest possession.
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I have done wrong; I ought to have a little wrong-doing from you to requite that evil, for my father Agamemnon also did wrong in gathering the Hellenes and going to Ilium, not that he had sinned himself,
but he was trying to find a cure for the sin and wrong-doing of your wife. So this is one thing you are bound to pay me back. For he really gave his life, as friends should, toiling hard in battle with you, so that you might have your wife again.
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Pay back to me the same thing you got there. For one day exert yourself, on my behalf standing up in my defense, not ten full years.
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As for what Aulis took, the sacrifice of my sister, I let you have that; do not kill Hermione.
For in my present plight, you must have an advantage over me and I must pardon it. But give to my miserable father my life and the life of my sister, a maiden so long; for by my death I shall leave my father’s house without an heir.
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You will say it is impossible. That’s the point; friends are bound to help friends in trouble. But when fortune gives of its best, what need of friends? For the god’s help is enough of itself when he is willing to give it.
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All Hellas believes that you love your wife,
and I am not saying this to flatter or wheedle you; by her I implore you.
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As Menelaus turns away. Ah me, my misery! to what have I come! Well? (preparing to make a final appeal) I must suffer, for I am making this appeal on behalf of my whole family. O my uncle, my father’s own brother! Imagine that the dead man in his grave
is listening, that his spirit is hovering over you and saying what I say, this much for tears and groans and misfortunes. I have spoken and I have begged for my safety, hunting what all seek, not myself alone.
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Chorus Leader
I, too, though I am only a woman, beseech you to help those who need it; for you have the power.
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Menelaus
Orestes, you are a man for whom I have a deep regard, and I want to take part in your troubles; it is a duty, too, to help relatives bear their ills,
by dying or killing enemies, if god gives the power to do so. I wish I had that power granted me by the gods. For I have come quite destitute of allies, after my long weary wanderings,
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with the small strength of my surviving friends. We should never get the better of Pelasgian Argos by fighting; if we should prevail by soothing speeches, we will come to some hope there. For how can you win a great cause by small
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efforts? It is foolish even to wish it.
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For when the people fall into a vigorous fury, they are as hard to quench as a raging fire; but if you gently slacken your hold and yield a little to their tension, cautiously watching your opportunity,
they may possibly calm down; if their gusts abate, you may obtain whatever you want from them easily. They have pity, and a hot temper too, an invaluable quality if you watch it closely. So for you I will go and try to persuade Tyndareus
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and the city to moderation. A ship also dips if its sheet is hauled too taut, but rights itself again if it is let go.
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The god hates excessive eagerness, and the citizens do also; I must save you, I don’t deny it,
by cleverness, not by violence against those who are stronger. I could not do it by strength, as you perhaps imagine; for it is not easy to triumph single-handed over the troubles that beset you. I would never have tried to bring the Argive land over to softness;
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but it is necessary. for the wise to be slaves to fortune. Exit Menelaus.
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Orestes
O you that have no use, except to lead an army in a woman’s cause! O worst of men in your friends’ defense,
do you turn your back on me and flee, the deeds of Agamemnon lost and gone?
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After all, father, you had no friends in adversity. Alas! I am betrayed; no longer do I have any hope of finding a refuge where I may escape the death-sentence of Argos; for this man was my haven of safety.
But I see Pylades, the best of friends, coming at a run from Phocis—a pleasant sight! A man who can be trusted in troubles is a better sight than a calm to sailors.
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Pylades
I have come through the city quickly, as I should,
having heard and myself clearly seen the citizens assembling, against you and your sister, to kill you at once. What is happening? How is it with you? How are you doing, my best of comrades, friends and kin? For you are all these to me.
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Orestes
I am ruined, to make plain to you my troubles in brief.
Pylades
You must destroy me also; for friends have all in common.
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Orestes
Menelaus is the worst of men to me and my sister.
Pylades
It is natural for the husband of an evil woman to become evil.
Orestes
He no more repaid me by coming here, than if he had never come.
Pylades
Oh, has he really arrived in this land?
Orestes
He took a long time, but he was very soon detected as evil to his friends.
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Pylades
And did he bring his wife, the worst of women, with him on his ship?
Orestes
It was not he who brought her here, but she who brought him.
Pylades
Where is she, the one woman who proved the ruin of so many Achaeans?
Orestes
In my house; if, that is, I ought to call it mine.
Pylades
And what did you say to your father’s brother?
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Orestes
Not to see me and my sister killed by the citizens.
Pylades
By the gods! What did he say to that? I would like know this.
Orestes
He was cautious, the usual policy of ignoble friends.
Pylades
What excuse did he advance? When I have learned that, I know everything.
Orestes
There was a new arrival, the father who begot those noble daughters.
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Pylades
You mean Tyndareus; he was angry with you, perhaps, for his daughter’s sake?
Orestes
You understand. And Menelaus preferred the family relationship with him to that with my father.
Pylades
He did not have the courage to share your troubles, when he was here?
Orestes
No, for he was not born a warrior, though strong among women!
Pylades
Your case is desperate, it seems, and you must die.
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Orestes
The citizens must give their vote about us on the murder.
Pylades
And what is that to decide? Tell me, for I am alarmed.
Orestes
Our life or death; a brief speech on a large subject.
Pylades
Leave the palace with your sister now and try to escape.
Orestes
Don’t you see? We are being watched by guards on every side.
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Pylades
I saw that the streets of the city were secured with armed men.
Orestes
We are as closely beleaguered as a city by its foes.
Pylades
Ask me now of my state; for I too am ruined.
Orestes
By whom? This would be a further trouble to add to mine.
Pylades
Strophius, my father, in a fit of anger, has banished me from his house.
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Orestes
Bringing against you a private charge, or one in which the citizens share?
Pylades
He says it is an unholy crime to have helped you slay your mother.
Orestes
Alas! It seems my troubles will cause you grief as well.
Pylades
I am not like Menelaus in character; this must be endured.
Orestes
Are you not afraid that Argos will desire your death as well as mine?
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Pylades
I am not theirs to punish; I belong to Phocis.
Orestes
A terrible thing is the mob, whenever it has villains to lead it.
Pylades
But with honest leaders its counsels are always honest.
Orestes
Very well; we must consult together.
Pylades
About what necessity?
Orestes
Suppose I go and tell the citizens—
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Pylades
That your action was just?
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Orestes
In avenging my father?
Pylades
I am afraid they would be glad to catch you.
Orestes
Well, am I to crouch in fear and die without a word?
Pylades
That is cowardly.
Orestes
How then should I act?
Pylades
Suppose you stay here, what means of safety do you have?
Pylades
And if you go, is there any hope of escaping your troubles?
Orestes
There might be, possibly.
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Pylades
Then that is better than staying.
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Pylades
At least you die in this way, you will die more honorably.
Orestes
You are right; in this way I escape cowardice.
Pylades
Better than by staying.
Orestes
After all, my action was just.
Pylades
Pray that this may be the only view they take.
Orestes
Some one or two might pity me—
Pylades
Yes, your noble birth is a great point.
Orestes
Resenting my father’s death.
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Pylades
That is all quite clear.
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Orestes
I must go, for to die ignobly is a coward’s part.
Orestes
Shall we tell my sister?
Orestes
True, there might be tears.
Pylades
That would be a grave omen.
Orestes
Yes, silence is clearly better.
Pylades
And you will gain time.
Orestes
There is only one obstacle in my way.
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Pylades
What fresh objection now?
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Orestes
I am afraid the goddesses will prevent me by madness.
Pylades
But I will take care of you.
Orestes
It is annoying to have to touch a sick man.
Pylades
Not to me, when it is you.
Orestes
Beware of becoming a partner in my madness.
Orestes
You will not hesitate?
Pylades
No, for hesitation is a grave mischief among friends.
Orestes
On then, pilot of my course!
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Pylades
A service I am glad to render.
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Orestes
And guide me to my father’s tomb.
Pylades
For what purpose?
Orestes
That I may appeal to him to save me.
Pylades
Yes, that is the proper way.
Orestes
May I not see my mother’s grave!
Pylades
No; she was an enemy. But hasten, so that the vote of Argos may not catch you first,
supporting those limbs, slow from sickness, on mine; for I will carry you through the town, thinking little of the mob and unashamed. For how shall I prove my friendship, if not by helping you in sore distress?
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Orestes
Ah! the old saying again, get friends, not relations only.
For a man who fuses into your ways, though he is an outsider, is better for a man to possess as a friend than a whole host of relations.
Exeunt Orestes and Pylades.
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[Choral 1]
The great prosperity and the prowess, proudly boasted throughout Hellas and by the streams of Simois,
Chorus
went back again from good fortune for the Atreidae long ago, from an old misfortune to their house, when strife came to the sons of Tantalus over a golden ram, to end in most pitiable banqueting and
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the slaughter of high-born children; and this is why murder exchanges for murder, through blood, and does not leave the two Atreidae.
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What seemed good was not good,
to cut a mother’s flesh with ruthless hand and show the sword stained black with blood to the sun’s bright beams; to commit a noble crime is an impious, subtle, malignant madness!
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The wretched daughter of Tyndareus in terror of death screamed to him: My son, this is unholy, your bold attempt upon your mother’s life; do not, while honoring your father,
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fasten on yourself an eternity of shame.
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[Choral]
What affliction on earth surpasses this? What calls for keener grief or pity, than to shed with your hand a mother’s blood? Oh! what a dreadful crime he committed,
Chorus
and now is raving mad, a prey to the Furies, whirling blood with racing eyes, the son of Agamemnon! O the wretch! when
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he saw a mother’s bosom over her robe of golden weave, and yet he made her his victim, in recompense for his father’s sufferings.
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