aeschylus - Conscious Evolution TV

396-443 AESCHYLUS
Grasp the bolt with grapplings dread
To cleave their climbing crests amain?
May firm affiance keep our land;
I sue for nothing at God's hand
But that after oppression long
Justice walk the world again.
Hear, Earth; and all the Chthonian throng
Throned in the darkness of the dead!
Ch. It is the Law; when man's blood falls
El. They would have none of me; humbled
and chidden,
Like a pestilent hound, a cur unwhipped,
Closeted up in the castle-crypt;
There in the kennelled darkness hidden
Freelier flowed my secret weeping
Than ever careless laughter leaping
When the world was gay and my heart was light.
Brother, my wrongs in the memory write!
Man's blood shall pay full cess:
Ch. Let that thy courage brace,
With "Haro! Haro!" Murder calls
Like steel-drilled marble, mortised and made one
God's fell Erinyes,
With thy calm heart's unshaken base.
And in some late succeeding age
What's done is done:
For souls slain long ago
But stick not till Expectancy behold
Fresh horrors mount the bloody stage
The sequel: on; be firm as thou art bold.
For blacker deeds of woe.
Or. Father, be with us! Father, thee I callI
Or. Oho! 0 heigh! Yedim Dominionsl
El. And I with heavy heart and streaming eyesl
Princedoms of Death! Ye potent malisons
Ch. And all our many voices sound as one I
Of murdered men! Behold and see
Rise, oh, rise,
Of Atreus' noble tree
And feel the sun:
The poor, the pitiful, the last
Be with us 'gainst the common enemy of alii
Scantling, from home and kingly state outcast! Or. Plea shall encounter Plea, Power grapple
Hear us, 0 Zeus, for we have none bu t Thee!
Power I
Ch. I listen and tremble; thy cry of dole
El. The righteous cause, ye Gods, judge
Fevers my heart; anon
righteously I
Faint for wanhope am I;
Ch. I listen, and I shudder while ye pray:
It thicks my blood, it clouds my soul,
Destiny
Thy passing piteous cryl
Abides alway,
But when the fit is gone,
But prayer can hasten on the inveitable houri
And my fixed heart is firm to dare,
Or. Oh, heritage of Grief! Incarnate Woe I
Pain stands far off; and calm and fair
Oh, Bloody Hand of Doom that jars the strings I
And cool the brightening sky.
Now is the voice of melody brought low I
El. How move the dead? How prosper in our plea? El. Oh, how they grate, these harsh chords
Oh, what can wring them like our misery!
Sorrow wrings!
This cloud that overhangs
All. Pang on pang, and throe on throe I
Our house, these parent-pangs?
Or. Within there is no styptic for this wound,
Traitress I She could fawn and glose,
And the wide world is powerless to aid;
But she can never cheat us of our woes;
By our own hands our safety must be found,
We are her children and have wolfish fangs.
Ch. I beat to the sound of the Arian dirging,
El. Fury with fury, blood in blood be stayed.
All. This is our hymn to the Gods Earth-bound.
Yea, to the Kissian wailer's cry;
Ch. Hear ,ye Earth dwellers all, that have
With wild hands lifted high and high,
Power and bliss beyond the gravel
Clashing and clutching and tossing and surging; The seed of Childhood succour and save I
Faster, faster, never ending;
Or. Father, by thy unkingly death, grant me
A tempest of blows on my head descending; In thy high house lordship and mastery I
And the noise, like a hammer, dinned through my El. Take away my rebuke, let not men say,
brain;
"Behold,
A passion of Sorrow, a tumult of Pain!
Aegisthus' chattel, marketed and sold I"
El. Oh, mother, deep in all
Or. Then, as our fathers used, feasts shall be spread
Damnation I Oh, remorseless enemy I
For thee; else at the banquets of the Dead
A king borne out to unkind burial,
Among the steaming bakemeats thou shalt pine.
No liegeman by!
El. And of my rich dower, plenished from thy
A husband thrust in his grave, and none
store,
To wail or weep or chant an orison I
To thee refreshing draughts my cup shall pour;
Or. Ha I Did she use him so despitefully?
First of all sepulchres I will honour thine.
She shall aby full dearly her despite I
Or. Earth, grant our sire our combat sore to see!
With Heaven to help and hands to smite, El. Give, Persephassa, beauteous victory I
I'll slay her in her blood and die I
Or. Think, father, of the bath, thy life-blood
Ch. Hacked like a thief, by her that felon-wise
dyed.
Graved him; in her cold malice, that his doom El. Think of the cunning-net, the deep and wide I
Might insupportably thy days consume; Or. In gyves, no smith e'er hammered, caught
These were thy father's last death-agonies.
and bound I
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