Robert Fagles - The Libation Bearers (Lines 38 to 80) lyrics

Aie! bristling Terror struck the seer of the house, the nightmare ringing clear breathed its wrath in sleep, in the midnight watch a cry! the voice of Terror deep in the house, bursting down on the women's darkened chambers, yes, and the old ones, sk**ed at dreams, swore oaths to god and called, 'The proud dead stir under earth, they rage against the ones who took their lives.' But the gifts, the empty gifts she hopes will ward them off good Mother Earth! that godless woman sends me here... I dread to say her prayer. What can redeem the blood that wets the soil? Oh for the hearthfire bank ed with grief, the rampart's down, a fine house down dark, dark, and the sun, the life is curst, and mist enshrouds the halls where the lords of war went down. And the ancient pride no war, no storm, no force could tame, ringing in all men's ears, in all men's hearts is gone. They are afraid. Success, they bow to success, more god than god himself But Justice waits and turns the scales: a sudden blow for some at dawn, for some in the no man's land of dusk her torments grow with time, and the lethal night takes others. And the blood that Mother Earth consumes clots hard, it won't seep through, it breeds revenge and frenzy goes through the guilty, seething like infec tion, swarming through the brain. For the one who treads a virgin's bed there is no cure. All the streams of the world, all channels run into one to cleanse a man's red hands will swell the bloody tide. And I... Fate and the gods brought down their yoke, they ringed our city, out of our fathers' halls they led us here as slaves. And the will breaks, we kneel at their command our masters right or wrong! And we beat the tearing hatred down, behind our veils we weep for her, Turning to electra. her senseless fate. Sorrow turns the secret heart to ice.