Thou heardest, when the night
Of murky darkness ceased;
And how, in all my vigils of the night
I wail my hapless sire,
It knows, the loathèd bed of hated house;—
My sire, whom Ares fierce and murderous,
On alien shore received not as a guest,
But she, my mother, and her paramour,
Ægisthos, with the blood-stained hatchet, smote,
As those that timber fell
Smite down the lofty oak.
And thou, my father, hast no pity gained100
From any one but me,
Though thou a death hast died
So grievous and so foul to look upon.
But I at least will ne'er
Refrain mine eyes from weeping, while I live,
Nor yet my voice from wail;
Not while I see this day,
And yon bright twinkling stars;
But, like a nightingale
Of its young brood bereaved,
Before the gates I speak them forth to all.
Ο house of Hades and Persephone,110
Ο Hermes of the abyss, and thou, dread Curse,[1]
And ye, Erinnyes, daughters of the Gods,
Ye dreaded Ones who look
On all who perish, slain unrighteously,
On all whose bed is stealthily defiled,
Come ye, and help, avenge my father's death;
Send me my brother here,
For I alone must fail,
- ↑ Hermes was the God who had led the soul of Agamemnon to Hades; the Curse, that which he had uttered, when dying, against Clytemnestra.
