Significant Passages from Aeschylus’ Eumenides
But what are you doing?/Up! Don’t yield to the labor, limp with sleep./Never forget my anguish./Let my charges hurt you, they are just;/deep in the righteous heart they prod like spurs./You, blast him on with your gory breath,/the fire of your vitals – wither him, after him,/one last foray – waste him, burn him out! Ghost of Clytemnestra (Eum. 131-137)
Lord Apollo, now it is your turn to listen./You are no mere accomplice in this crime./You did it all, and all the guilt is yours. Chorus Leader (Eum. 196-199)
Embrace one? Expel the other? It defeats me./But since the matter comes to rest on us,/I will appoint the judges of manslaughter,/swear them in, and found a tribunal here for all time to come. My contestants,/summon your trusted witness and proofs,/your defenders under oath to help your cause./And I will pick the finest men of Athens,/return and decide the issue fairly, truly -/bound to our oaths, our spirits bent on justice. Athena (Eum. 496-505)
I come/as a witness. This man, according to custom,/this suppliant sought out my house and hearth./I am the one who purged his bloody hands./His champion too, I share responsibility/for his mother’s execution. Bring on the trial./You know the rules, now turn them into justice. Apollo (Eum. 581-586)
Here is the truth, I tell you – see how right I am./The woman you call the mother of the child/is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed,/the new-sown seed that grows and swells inside her./The man is the source of life – the one who mounts./She, like a stranger for a stranger, keeps/the shoot alive unless god hurts the roots./I give you proof that all I say is true./The father can father forth without a mother./Here she stands, our living witness. Look – /Child sprung full-blown from Olympian Zeus,/never bred in the darkness of the womb/but such a stock no goddess could conceive! Apollo (Eum. 665-677)
My work is here, to render the final judgment/Orestes, I will cast my lot for you./No mother gave me birth./I honor the male, in all things but marriage./Yes, with all my heart I am my Father’s child./I cannot set more store by the woman’s death – /she killed her husband, guardian of their house./Even if the vote is equal, Orestes wins. Athena (Eum. 749-756)
And the lightning stroke/that cuts men down before their prime, I curse,/but the lovely girl who finds a mate’s embrace,/the deep joy of wedded life – O grant that gift, that prize,/you gods of wedlock, grant it, goddesses of Fate!/Sisters born of the Night our mother,/spirits steering law,/sharing at all our hearths,/at all times bearing down/to make our lives more just,/all realms exalt you highest of the gods. Furies (Eum. 968-978)