chorus:
Oh the dreadful work... d**h calls and she is gone.
But oh, for you, the survivor, suffering is just about to bloom.
ORESTES:
Did she do the work or not? - Here, come close - 1005
This shroud's my witness, dyed with Aegisthus' blade -Look, the blood ran here, conspired
with time to blot the swirling dyes, the handsome old brocade.
Clutching Agamemnon's robes, burying his face in them and weeping.
Now I can praise you, now I am here to mourn.
You were my father's d**h, great robe, I hail you! 1010
Even if I must suffer the work and the agony
and all the race of man -
I embrace you ... you, my victory, are my guilt, my curse, and still -
chorus:
No man can go through life
and reach the end unharmed. 1015
Aye, trouble is now, and trouble still to come.
Orestes:
But still, that you may know -
I see no end in sight, I am a charioteer - the reins are flying, look, the mares plunge off the
track -
my bolting heart, 1020
it beats me down and terror beats the drum, my dance-and-singing master pitched to fury -
And still, while I still have some self-control,
I say to my friends in public: I k**ed my mother,
not with a little justice. She was stained 1025
with father's murder, she was cursed by god.
And the magic spells that fired up my daring?
One comes first. The Seer of Delphi who declared,
'Go through with this and you go free of guilt.
Fail and -
I can't repeat the punishment. 1030
What bow could hit the crest of so much pain?
PYLADES gives Orestes a branch of olive and invests him in the robes of APOLLO, the
wreath and insignia of suppliants to Delphi.
Now look on me, armed with the branch and wreath,
a suppliant bound for the Navelstone of Earth,
Apollo's sacred heights
where they say the fire of heaven can never die. 1035
Looking at his hand that still retains the sword.
I must escape this blood ... it is my own.
- Must turn towards his hearth,
none but his, the Prophet God decreed.
I ask you, Argos and all my generations,
remember how these brutal things were done. 1040
Be my witness to Menelaus when he comes.
And now I go, an outcast driven off the land,
in life, in d**h, I leave behind a name for -
Leader: But you've done well. Don't burden yourself with bad omens, lash yourself with guilt.
1045
You've set us free, the whole city of Argos, lopped the heads of these two serpents once for
all.
Staring at the women and beyond, Orestes screams in terror.
ORESTES:
No, no! Women - look - like Gorgons, shrouded in black, their heads wreathed, swarming
serpents!
- Cannot stay, I must move on. 1050