Indeed, before the servants, behind eyes that feigned grief she hid her laughter over what has occurred fortunately for her. My mistress commands me to summon Aegisthus for the strangers in all haste, 735 so that he may come and learn more clearly, from man to man, these tidings that have just arrived. And the god declared that to such as these it is not allowed to have a part either in the ceremonial cup or in the cordial libation his father’s mēnis, though unseen, bars him from the altar no one receives him with tīmē or lodges with him 295 and at last, despised by all, bereft of philoi, he perishes, turned into a mummy, in a most pitiful fashion, by a death that wastes him utterly away. 290 And with his body marred by the brazen scourge, he is even chased in exile from his polis. 285 For the dark bolt of the infernal powers, who are stirred by kindred victims calling for vengeance, and madness, and groundless terrors out of the night, torment and harass a man, and he sees clearly, though he moves his eyebrows in the dark. And he spoke of other assaults of the Furies that are destined to be brought to fulfillment from paternal blood. For he spoke revealing to mortals the wrath of malignant powers from underneath the earth, and telling of plagues: 280 leprous ulcers that mount with fierce fangs on the flesh and eat away its primal nature and how a white down should sprout up on the diseased place. 275 And he declared that otherwise I should pay the debt myself with my philē psūkhē, after many grievous sufferings. ![]() He said that, enraged like a bull by the loss of my possessions, I should kill them in requital just as they killed. Surely he will not abandon me, the mighty oracle of Loxias, 3 270 who urged me to brave this peril to the end and loudly proclaims calamities that chill the warmth of my heart, if I do not take vengeance on those who are guilty of my father’s murder. But that Orestes may come home with good fortune I pray to you, father: Oh, hearken to me! 140 And as for myself, grant that I may prove far more circumspect than my mother and more reverent in deed. 135 As for me, I am no better than a slave, Orestes is an outcast from his inheritance, while they in their insolence revel openly in the winnings of your labors. 129 And, meanwhile, as I pour these liquids of libation to the dead, 130 I say these things as I call on my father: “Have pity both on me and on philos Orestes! How shall we rule our own house? For now we wander like beggars, bartered away by her who bore us, by her who in exchange got as her mate Aegisthus, who was her accomplice in your murder. 124 Supreme herald of the realm above and the realm below, O Hermes of the nether world, summon for me 125 the superhuman forces beneath the earth to hear my 126 prayers-forces that watch over my father’s house, 127 and Earth herself, who gives birth to all things, 128 and, having nurtured them, receives from them the flow that they produce.
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