aeschylus - Conscious Evolution TV

Alas, my suffering heart! in days gone by thou
wert always kind and compassionate towards strangers,
paying their kindred race the tribute of a tear,
whenever thou hadst Hellenes in thy power; but
now, by reason of dreams which have made me cruel
from thinking that Orestes is no longer alive, ye will
find my heart hardened, whoe'er ye are that have
arrived. So then this also is a true saying, friends,
and I experience it; "The unfortunate, having once
known prosperity themselves, bear no kind feelings
towards their luckier neighbours."
No breeze from Zeus hath ever blown, nor vessel
sailed, which might have carried Helen hither from
her course between "the clashing rocks"-Helen,
my bane, and Menelaus with her-that so I might
have taken vengeance on them, putting Aulis here
to balance Aulis there, where Danaid chiefs with
brutal violence were for slaughtering me like a heifer,
my own father being the priest.
Oh! I can never forget that hideous scene, the
many times I strained my hands to touch his beard,
and how I clung to my father's knees and cried,
" 'Tis to a sorry wedding I am brought by thee, my
sire; e'en now while thou art slaying me, my mother
and the Argive maids are singing my marriage-hymn,
and our house is filled with music; but I am dying
all the time, slain by thee. Hades, it seems, and not
the son of Peleus was the Achilles thou didst offer
me as lord, having brought me in thy chariot to a
bloody wedding by a trick." A fine-spun veil was
o'er my eyes, so I never took my brother in my
arms-that brother now no more-nor kissed my
sister on the lips from modesty, as if it were for
Peleus' halls that I was bound; but many a fond caress
I kept in store for the future, believing I should
yet return to Argos.
Ah! Orestes, woe is thee! if thou art dead; from
what a glorious lot and envied heritage art thou cut
off! I blame these subtle quibbles of our goddess;
say a man has spilt another's blood or even come in
contact with a labouring woman or a corpse, she
bars him from her altars, counting him unclean, and
yet herself delights in human sacrifice. It cannot be
that Leto, bride of Zeus, ever bore so senseless a
daughter. Nol for my part I put no credit in that
banquet served by Tantalus to the gods, to believe
that they felt pleasure in devouring a child; rather
I suspect that the natives of this land, being cannibals
themselves, impute this failing to their deity;
for I cannot believe that any god is such a sinner.
Exit.
Ch. Ye dim dark rocks where meet the seas, o'er
whose forbidding billows 10 crossed, driven from
Argos by the winged gad-fly, passing from Europe to
the strand of Asia! who can these be that left the
fair waters of Eurotas, with green beds of reeds, or
Dirce's holy streams, to tread this savage soil, where
the daughter of Zeus bedews her altars and columned
fanes with blood of men? Can they have
sped a chariot of the deep across the waves with
oars of pine, dashed in on either side, before the
breeze that fills the sail, heaping up riches for their
EURIPIDES
homes in eager rivalry? for hope, fond hope, appears
to man's undoing, insatiate in the hearts of those
who carry home a load of wealth, wanderers they
across the main, visitors to foreign towns in idle expectation.
Some there are whose thoughts of wealth
are not timed right, and some who find it come to
them.
How did they pass those clashing rocks or the
restless beach of Phineus, racing along the sea-beat
strand o'er the breakers of Ocean's queen, before
the breeze that filled their sails, to the land where
choirs of fifty Nereid maids circle in the dance and
sing-the rudder steady at the stern and whistling
to the breath of south-west wind or zephyr, on to
that gleaming strand, where fowls in plenty roost,
to the fair race-course of Achilles along the cheerless
sea?
Oh! that chance would bring Helen, the darling
child of Leda, hither on her way from Troy-town,
as my lady prayed, that she might have the fatal
water sprinkled round her hair and die by my mistress'
knife, paying to her a proper recompense!
What joy to hear the welcome news that some
mariner from Hellas had landed here, to end the
sufferings of my bitter bondage! Ohl to set foot, if
only in a dream, in my father's home and city, a
luxury sweet sleep affords, a pleasure shared by us
with wealth!
Enter ORESTES and PY LADES, guarded.
But see where the prisoners twain approach, their
hands fast bound with chains, new victims for our
goddess. Silence now, my friends! for those choice
offerings from Hellas are now close to the temple,
and it was no false news the herdsman announced.
Thou awful queen! if by such acts this city wins
thy fa\'our, accept its sacrifice, not sanctioned by
Hellenes, though openly offered by our custom.
Enter IPIlIGENIA.
Ip. Ah, well! my first thought must be the due
performance of the goddess's service.
Loose the hands of the strangers; they are now
devoted and must not be chained; then enter the
temple and make ready, whatever present need requires
or custom ordains. (Exit guards.)
(Tumingto the prisoners) Ah! who was the mother
that bare you? your father, who was he? or your
sister, if haply ye had one? of what a gallant pair of
brothers will she be bereft! Who knows on whom
such strokes of fate will fall? for all that Heaven
decrees, proceeds unseen, and no man knoweth of
the ills in store; for Fate misleads us into doubtful
paths.
Whence come ye, hapless strangers? for long as
ye have been in sailing hither, so shall ye be long
absent from your homes, aye for ever in that world
below.
Or. Woman, whoe'er thou art, why weep'st thou
thus, or why distress us at the thought of our impending
doom? No wise man I count him, who,
when death looms near, attempts to quell its terrors
by piteous laments, nor yet the man who bewails
the Death-god's arrival, when he has no hope of