The Libation Bearers quotes

For Fortune is a god and rules men’s life. Who knows the great Wheel’s swing, How one is smitten swift in the eyes of light; For one affliction cries Slow from the border of sunset; and one lies In deedless night? Strophe 3

Has Earth once drunk withal The blood of her child, Man, the avenging stain Hardens, nor flows again.

A blind pain draweth the slayer, draweth him, On, on, till he is filled even to the brim With sickness of the soul to atone for all. Antistrophe 3 The shrine of maidenhood Once broken ne’er may be unbroke again.

A judge? Or an avenger? Speak thy prayer.

Plain be thy word: one who shall slay the slayer.

But dare I? Is it no sin thus to pray?

But dare I? Is it no sin thus to pray?

How else? With hate thine hater to repay.

Electra mounts upon the Grave Mound and makes sacrifice.

Thou mock’st me! Thou would’st laugh to hear me moan!

Who mocks thy tribulation mocks mine own.

My heart half dares foretell that thou art he …

Set the lock here, where it was cut. Behold This cloak I wear, thy woven work of old, The battened ridges and the broidered braid Of lions … Electra throws herself into his arms. Hold! Ah, be not all dismayed With joy!

Our nearest is our deadliest foe.

O best beloved, O dreamed of long ago, Seed of deliverance washed with tears as rain, By thine own valour thou shalt build again Our father’s House! O lightener of mine eyes, Four places in my heart, four sanctities, Are thine.

Antistrophe 10

The slayer shall meet the slayer, wrong smite with wrong.

O Zeus, bless thou the murder to be this day.

And blot not out the old race that began With Pelops: and though slain thou art not dead!

Children are living voices for a head Long silent, floats which hold the net and keep The twisted line unfoundered in the deep.

Listen: ’tis thou we weep for, none but thou: Thyself art savèd if thou save us now.

And took no scathing from the evil beast?

The milk ran into blood. So deep it bit.

The dream is come. The man shall follow it.

Antistrophe 1 But, ah, the surge over-bold Of man’s passion who hath told? Who the Love, wild as hate, In woman’s bosom desperate, Which feedeth in the fields of Woe? Where lives of mortals linkèd go

The heart of a woman is perilous past all perils Of stars above or deeps below.

Strophe 2 Wist ye not, O light of mind, Her who slew her son with hate, Thestios’ daughter desolate, How she wrought All her thought To one counsel, fiery-blind, When she burned the brand of fate, That was twin to him and brother From the …

It scorneth not What the proud man to earth has trod. Its edge is bitter to the bone; It stabbeth on, thro’ iron, thro’ stone, Till it reach him who hath forgot That Ruth which is the law of God. Antistrophe 4

For Justice is an oak that yet Standeth; and Doom the Smith doth whet His blade in the dark.

But what is this? A child led to the House from lands Far off, and blood upon his hands! The great Erinys wreaks her debt, Whose thought is as the vast abyss.

What ails thee? Are these tidings to thy mind?

The wind is cold, but Zeus may change the wind.

How, when Orestes, our one hope, is dead?

To kill thy mother, Child: is that thy will?

I kill thee not: thyself it is doth kill.

A mother hath her Watchers: think and quail!

To herself.

Living, I cry for mercy to a tomb!

Yea, from the grave my father speaks thy doom.

Yea, from the grave my father speaks thy doom.

Ah God! The serpent that I bare and fed!

Surely of truth prophetic is the dread That walketh among dreams. Most sinfully Thou slewest: now hath Sin her will of thee. He drives Clytemnestra before him into the Palace. The Chorus come forward again.

And blood hath joined with the old years, to spoil The many tinctures of the broidered coil. Oh, now I weep, now praise him where he died, And calling on this web that pierced his side. …

Pain, pain is all my doing, all my fate, My race, and my begetting: and I hate This victory that sears me like a brand.⁠ ⁠…

No mortal thro’ this life shall go For ever portionless of woe. Alas! Alas! It comes to all, or swift or slow.

… Pain, pain is all my doing, all my fate, My race, and my begetting: and I hate This victory that sears me like a brand. …

No mortal thro’ this life shall go For ever portionless of woe.

Alas! Alas! It comes to all, or swift or slow.

One cleansing hast thou. Loxias can quell Thy tempest with his touch, and set thee free.

You cannot see them. I alone can see.

I am hunted. … I shall never rest again. Exit Orestes.

You cannot see them. I alone can see.

I am hunted.⁠ ⁠… I shall never rest again.

Exit Orestes.