Aeschylus - Eumendides (Lines 587- 627) lyrics

(Athena turns to the furies). ATHENA: The trial begins! Yours is the first word - the prosecution opens. Start to finish, set the facts before us, make them clear. Leader: Numerous as we are, we will be brief. (To Orestes). Answer count for count, charge for charge. First, tell us, did you k** your mother? Orestes: I k**ed her. There's no denying that LEADER: Three falls in the match. One is ours already. Orestes: You exult before your man is on his back. Leader: But how did you k** her? You must tell us that. Orestes: I will. I drew my sword - more, I cut her throat. Leader: And who persuaded you? who led you on? Orestes: This god and his command. Indicating Apollo. He bears me witness. Leader: The Seer? He drove you on to matricide? Orestes: Yes, and to this hour I have no regrets. Leader: If the verdict brings you down, you'll change your story quickly. Orestes: I have my trust; my father will help me from the grave. Leader: Trust to corpses now! You made your mother one. ORESTES: I do. She had two counts against her, deadly crimes. Leader: How? Explain that to your judges. Orestes: She k**ed her husband - k**ed my father too, Leader: But murder set her free, and you live on for trial. Orestes: She lived on. You never drove her into exile - why? Leader: The blood of the man she k**ed was not her own. Orestes: And I? Does mother's blood run in my veins? Leader: How could she breed you in her body, murderer? Disclaim your mother's blood? She gave you life. Orestes: ORESTES turns to APOLLO. Bear me witness - show me the way, Apollo! Did I strike her down with justice? Strike I did, I don't deny it, no. But how does our bloody work impress you now? - Just or not? Decide. I must make my case to them. Looking to the judges. Apollo: Just, I say, to you and your high court, Athena. Seer that I am, I never lie. Not once from the Prophet's thrones have I declared a word that bears on man, woman or city that Zeus did not command, the Olympian Father. This is his justice - omnipotent, I warn you. Bend to the will of Zeus. No oath can match the power of the Father.