ORESTES. By manifold ills I have been taught to know All expiations; and the time to speak I know, and to be silent. In this matter As a wise master taught me, so my tongue Shapes utterance. The curse that bound me sleeps, My harsh-grained guilt is finer worn, the deep Ensanguined stain washed to a softer hue; Still reeking fresh with gore, on Phœbus' hearth, The blood of swine hath now wrought my lustration,[f12] And I have held communings with my kind Once and again unharming. Time, that smooths All things, hath smoothed the front of my offence. With unpolluted lips I now implore Thy aid, Athena, of this land the queen. Myself, a firm ally, I pledge to thee, Myself, the Argive people, and their land, Thy bloodless prize. And whether distant far On Libyan plains beside Tritonian pools,[n26] Thy natal flood, with forward foot firm planted, Erect, or with decorous stole high-seated,[n27] Thy friends thou aidest, or with practised eye The ordered battle on Phlegrean fields Thou musterest[n28]--come!--for gods can hear from far-- And from these woes complete deliverance send! CHORUS. Not all Apollo's, all Athena's power Shall aid thee. Thou, of gods and men forsook, Shalt pine and dwindle, stranger to the name Of joy, a wasted shadow, bloodless sucked To fatten wrathful gods. Thou dost not speak, But, as a thing devoted, standest dumb, My prey, even mine! my living banquet thou, My fireless victim. List, and thou shalt hear My song, that binds thee with its viewless chain. CHORUS. Deftly, deftly weave the dance! Sisters lift the dismal strain! Sing the Furies, justly dealing Dooms deserved to guilty mortals; Deftly, deftly lift the strain! Whoso lifted hands untainted {151} Him no Furies' wrath shall follow, He shall live unharmed by me; But who sinned, as this offender, Hiding foul ensanguined hands, We with him are present, bearing Unhired witness for the dead; We will tread his heels, exacting Blood for blood, even to the end. CHORAL HYMN.[n29] STROPHE I. Mother Night that bore me, A scourge, to go before thee, To scourge, with stripes delightless, The seeing and the sightless,[n30] Hear me, I implore thee, O Mother Night! Mother Night that bore me, The son of Leto o'er me Rough rides, in thy despite. From me, the just pursuer, He shields the evil-doer, The son to me devoted, For mother-murder noted, He claims against the right. Where the victim lies, Let the death-hymn rise! Lift ye the hymn of the Furies amain! The gleeless song, and the lyreless strain,[n31] That bindeth the heart with a viewless chain, With notes of distraction and maddening sorrow, Blighting the brain, and burning the marrow! Where the victim lies, Let the death-hymn rise, The hymn that binds with a viewless chain!