(Athena turns to the furies).
ATHENA:
The trial begins! Yours is the first word -
the prosecution opens. Start to finish,
set the facts before us, make them clear.
Leader: Numerous as we are, we will be brief.
(To Orestes).
Answer count for count, charge for charge. First, tell us, did you k** your mother?
Orestes: I k**ed her. There's no denying that
LEADER:
Three falls in the match. One is ours already.
Orestes: You exult before your man is on his back.
Leader: But how did you k** her? You must tell us that.
Orestes: I will. I drew my sword - more, I cut her throat.
Leader: And who persuaded you? who led you on?
Orestes: This god and his command.
Indicating Apollo.
He bears me witness.
Leader: The Seer? He drove you on to matricide?
Orestes:
Yes, and to this hour I have no regrets.
Leader:
If the verdict brings you down, you'll change your story quickly.
Orestes: I have my trust; my father will help me from the grave.
Leader: Trust to corpses now! You made your mother one.
ORESTES:
I do. She had two counts against her, deadly crimes.
Leader: How? Explain that to your judges.
Orestes: She k**ed her husband - k**ed my father too,
Leader: But murder set her free, and you live on for trial.
Orestes: She lived on. You never drove her into exile - why?
Leader: The blood of the man she k**ed was not her own.
Orestes: And I? Does mother's blood run in my veins?
Leader: How could she breed you in her body, murderer? Disclaim your mother's blood? She
gave you life.
Orestes:
ORESTES turns to APOLLO.
Bear me witness - show me the way, Apollo!
Did I strike her down with justice?
Strike I did, I don't deny it, no.
But how does our bloody work impress you now? -
Just or not? Decide.
I must make my case to them.
Looking to the judges.
Apollo:
Just,
I say, to you and your high court, Athena. Seer that I am, I never lie. Not once from the
Prophet's thrones have I declared a word that bears on man, woman or city that Zeus did not
command, the Olympian Father.
This is his justice - omnipotent, I warn you. Bend to the will of Zeus. No oath can match the
power of the Father.