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    Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (ed. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D.)

    Editions and translations: Greek (ed. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph.D.) | English (ed. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D.)
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    The tomb of Agamemnon. Enter Orestes and Pylades
    Orestes

    Hermes of the nether world, you who guard the powers that are your father's,1 prove yourself my savior and ally, I entreat you, now that I have come to this land and returned from exile. On this mounded grave I cry out to my father to hearken, to hear me
    *

    [5] [Look, I bring] a lock to Inachus2 in requital for his care, and here, a second, in token of my grief.

    For I was not present, father, to lament your death, nor did I stretch forth my hand to bear your corpse.

    What is this I see? [10]  What is this throng of women that moves in state, marked by their sable cloaks? To what calamity should I set this down? Is it some new sorrow that befalls our house? Or am I right to suppose that for my father's sake they bear these libations to appease the powers below? [15]  It can only be for this cause: for indeed I think my own sister Electra is approaching, distinguished by her bitter grief. Oh grant me, Zeus, to avenge my father's death, and may you be my willing ally!

    Pylades, let us stand apart, [20]  that I may

    know clearly what this band of suppliant women intends. Exit Orestes and Pylades. Enter Electra with women carrying libations.

    1 Hermes is invoked (1) as a god of the lower world, because he is the “conducter of souls” and herald between the celestial and infernal gods (l. 124), and can thus convey Orestes' appeal to the rulers of the dead and to the spirit of his father; (2) as administrator of the powers committed to him by his father, Zeus the Saviour. Some prefer to take patrôi not as patrôia but as patrôie i.e.“god of my fahters.”

    2 Orestes offers a lock of his hair to do honour to Inachus, the river-god of Argos, because rivers were worshipped as givers of life.

    There are a total of 3 comments on and cross references to this page.

    Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone:
    * [1-99]

    Cross references from W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886):
    10, 518 [Book 10 (k)]

    Cross references from Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek:
    40 [chrêma and pragma.]: ti chrêma leussô;

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    The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

    This text is based on the following book(s):
    Aeschylus. Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. 2. Libation Bearers. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926.
    OCLC: 13109528
    ISBN: 0674991613

    Buy a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com.

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