FURIES:
-There he is!
Clutching the knees of power once again,
twined in the d**hless goddess' idol, look,
he wants to go on trial for his crimes.
- Never...
the mother's blood that wets the ground,
you can never bring it back, dear god,
the Earth drinks, and the running life is gone.
-No,
you'll give me blood for blood, you must!
Out of your living marrow I will drain
my red libation, out of your veins I s** my food,
my raw, brutal cups -
- Wither you alive,
drag you down and there you pay, agony
for mother-k**ing agony!
- And there you will see them all.
Every mortal who outraged god or guest or loving parent:
each receives the pain his pains exact.
- A mighty god is Hades. There
at the last reckoning underneath the earth
he scans all, he squares all men's accounts
and graves them on the tablets of his mind.
(Orestes remains impa**ive.)
ORESTES:
I have suffered into truth. Well I know
the countless arts of purging, where to speak,
where silence is the rule. In this ordeal
a compelling master urges me to speak.
(Looking at his hands.)
The blood sleeps, it is fading on my hands,
the stain of mother's murder washing clean.
It was still fresh at the god's hearth. Apollo
k**ed the swine and the purges drove it off.
Mine is a long story
if I'd start with the many hosts I met,
I lived with, and I left them all unharmed.
Time refines all things that age with time.
And now with pure, reverent lips I call
the queen of the land. Athena, help me!
Come without your spear - without a battle
you will win myself, my land, the Argive people
true and just, your friends-in-arms for ever.
Where are you now? The scorching wilds of Libya,
bathed by the Triton pool where you were born?
Robes shrouding your feet
or shod and on the march to aid allies?
Or striding the Giants' Plain, marshal of armies,
hero scanning, flashing through the ranks?
Come-
you can hear me from afar, you are a god.
Set me free from this!