Ah, hunting in your dreams, and clamorous yet,
Tired bloodhounds that can sleep but not forget!
How now? Awake! Be strong! And faithful keep
Thy lust of pain through all the drugs of sleep.
Thou feelst my scorn? Aye, feel and agonize
Within; such words are scourges to the wise.
Thy blood-mist fold about him, like a doom.
Waste him with vapour from thy burning womb.
A second chase is death! … Pursue! Pursue! The Ghost vanishes as the Furies gradually wake.
Awake! Quick, waken her as I wake you!
Thou sleepest? Rise; cast slumber from thy brain
And search. Is our first hunt so all in vain?
Speaking severally.
—O rage, rage and wrath! Friends, they have done me wrong!
—Many and many a wrong I have suffered, mockeries all!
—Evil and violent deeds, a shame that lingereth long
And bitter, bitter as gall!
—The beast is out of the toils, out of the toils and away!
—I slept, and I lost my prey.
—What art thou, O Child of Zeus? A thief and a cozener!
—Many and many a wrong I have suffered, mockeries all!
—Hast broken beneath thy wheels them that were holy and old?
—Many and many a wrong I have suffered, mockeries all!
—A godless man and an evil son, he but kneels in prayer,
And straight he is ta’en to thy fold.
—Thou hast chosen the man who spilt his mother’s blood!
—Are these things just, thou God?
—As a raging charioteer mid-grippeth his goad to bite
Beneath the belly, beneath the flank, where the smart is hot,
There riseth out of my dreams Derision with hands to smite;
As a wretch at the block is scourged when the scourger hateth aright,
And the shuddering pain dies not.
—These be the deeds ye do, ye Gods of the younger race:
Ye break the Law at your will; your high throne drips with gore,
The foot is wet and the head. There is blood in the Holy Place!
The Heart of Earth uplifteth its foulness in all men’s face,
Clean nevermore, nevermore!
—Blood, thou holy Seer, there is blood on thy burning hearth.
Thine inmost place is defiled, and thine was the will and the word.
Thou hast broken the Law of Heaven, exalted the things of Earth;
The hallowed Portions of old thine hand hath blurred.
—Thou knowest to hurt my soul; yea, but shalt save not him.
The earth may open and hide, but never shall he be freed.
Defiling all he goes, there where in exile dim
Many defilers more wait and bleed.
Avaunt, I charge you! Get ye from my door!
Darken this visionary dome no more!
Quick, lest ye meet that snake of bitter wing
That leaps a-sudden from my golden string,
And in your agony spue forth again
The black froth ye have sucked from tortured men!
This floor shall be no harbour to your feet.
Are there not realms where Law upon her seat
Smites living head from trunk? Where prisoners bleed
From gougèd eyes? Children with manhood’s seed
Blasted are there; maimed foot and severed hand,
And stoning, and a moan through all the land
Of men impaled to die. There is the board
Whereat ye feast, and, feasting, are abhorred
Of heaven.—But all the shapes of you declare
Your souls within. Some reeking lion’s lair
Were your fit dwelling, not this cloistered Hall
Of Mercy, which your foulness chokes withal.
Out, ye wild goats unherded! Out, ye drove
Accursed, that god nor devil dares to love! During this speech the Furies fly confusedly from the Temple down into the Orchestra. The Leader turns.
Phoebus Apollo, in thy turn give heed!
I hold thee not a partner in this deed;
Thou hast wrought it all. The guilt is thine alone.
What sayst thou there?—One word, and then begone.
Thou spakest and this man his mother slew.
I spoke, and he avenged his father. True.
Thou stoodest by, to accept the new-shed gore.
I bade him turn for cleansing to my door.
Ha! And revilest us who guide his feet?18
Ye be not clean to approach this Mercy Seat.
We be by Law eternal what we be.
And what is that? Reveal thy dignity.
We hunt from home his mother’s murderer.
A husband-murdering woman, what of her?
’Twas not one blood19 in slayer and in slain.
How? Would ye count as a light thing and vain
The perfect bond of Hera and high Zeus?
Yea, and thy word dishonoured too the use
Of Cypris, whence love groweth to his best.
The fate-ordainèd meeting, breast to breast,
Of man and woman is a tie more sure
Than oath or pact, if Justice guards it pure.
If them so joined ye heed not when they slay,
Nor rise in wrath, nor smite them on their way,
Unrighteous is thine hunting of this man,
Orestes. Why on him is all thy ban
Unloosed? The other never broke thy rest …
But Pallas, child of Zeus, shall judge this quest.
I cleave to him. I leave him never more.
Oh, hunt thy fill! Make sorrow doubly sore.
Abridge not thou the Portions of my lot.
Keep thou thy portions. I will touch them not.
Thou hast thy greatness by the throne of God;20
I … But the scent draws of that mother’s blood.
I come! I come! I hunt him to the grave. … The Furies go out on the track of Orestes.
’Tis mine then to bring succour, and to save
My suppliant. Earth and Heaven are both afraid
For God’s wrath, if one helpless is betrayed. Apollo returns behind the shrine, and the doors close. When they open again, they reveal, in place of Apollo’s Central Altar, the Statue of Athena Parthenos: the scene now represents the Temple of Athena in Athens.21
Pallas Athena, from Apollo’s wing
I come; receive in peace this hunted
