No More Learning

ATHENA

Two stand to plead--one only have I heard.

CHORUS

He will not swear nor challenge us to oath.

ATHENA

The form of justice, not its deed, thou willest.

CHORUS

Prove thou that word; thou art not scant of skill.

ATHENA

I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.

CHORUS

Then test the cause, judge and award the right.

ATHENA

Will ye to me then this decision trust?

CHORUS

Yea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.

ATHENA (_to Orestes_)

O man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn
Speak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes;
Then, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame--
If, as I deem, in confidence of right
Thou sittest hard beside my holy place,
Clasping this statue, as Ixion sat,
A sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse,--
To all this answer me in words made plain.

ORESTES

O queen Athena, first from thy last words
Will I a great solicitude remove.
Not one blood-guilty am I; no foul stain
Clings to thine image from my clinging hand;
Whereof one potent proof I have to tell.
Lo, the law stands--_The slayer shall not plead,
Till by the hand of him who cleanses blood
A suckling creature's blood besprinkle him_.
Long since have I this expiation done--
In many a home, slain beasts and running streams
Have cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.
Next, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn:
An Argive am I, and right well thou know'st
My sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed
The fleet and them that went therein to war--
That chief with whom thy hand combined to crush
To an uncitied heap what once was Troy;
That Agamemnon, when he homeward came,
Was brought unto no honourable death,
Slain by the dark-souled wife who brought me forth
To him,--enwound and slain in wily nets,
Blazoned with blood that in the laver ran.
And I, returning from an exiled youth,
Slew her, my mother--lo, it stands avowed!
With blood for blood avenging my loved sire;
And in this deed doth Loxias bear part,
Decreeing agonies, to goad my will,
Unless by me the guilty found their doom.
Do thou decide if right or wrong were done--
Thy dooming, whatsoe'er it be, contents me.

ATHENA

Too mighty is this matter, whatsoe'er
Of mortals claims to judge hereof aright.
Yea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids
To judge the issues of blood-guilt, and wrath
That follows swift behind. This too gives pause,
That thou as one with all due rites performed
Dost come, unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.
Whate'er thou art, in this my city's name,
As uncondemned, I take thee to my side,--
Yet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,
I may not banish them: and if they fail,
O'erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith
Their anger's poison shall infect the land--
A dropping plague-spot of eternal ill.
Thus stand we with a woe on either hand:
Stay they, or go at my commandment forth,
Perplexity or pain must needs befall.
Yet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,
I choose unto me judges that shall be
An ordinance for ever, set to rule
The dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.
But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,
Words strong for justice, fortified by oath;
And I, whoe'er are truest in my town,
Them will I chose and bring, and straitly charge,
_Look on this cause, discriminating well,
And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong.

[Exit Athena. _


CHORUS

Now are they all undone, the ancient laws,
If here the slayer's cause
Prevail; new wrong for ancient right shall be
If matricide go free.
Henceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,
Too ready to the hand:
Too oft shall parents in the aftertime
Rue and lament this crime,--
Taught, not in false imagining, to feel
Their children's thrusting steel:
No more the wrath, that erst on murder fell

From us, the queens of Hell.
Shall fall, no more our watching gaze impend--
Death shall smite unrestrained.

Henceforth shall one unto another cry
_Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die
Around me! _ and that other answers him,
_O thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,
Behold, with dark increase
They throng and press upon thee; yea, and dim
Is all the cure, and every comfort vain!