He who is with me now, and witnesseth.
God’s prophet bade thee plot thy mother’s death?
Yes: and hath never failed me to this day.
And when the vote is cast, what wilt thou say?
I fear not. Helpers from my father’s grave.
Go, mother-murderer! Call the dead to save!
Two stains of death lay mingled on her hand.
How two? Let these who judge thee understand.
A husband and a father, both, she slew.
And death hath purged her. Shalt not thou die too?
Ye never hunted her, for all her stain.
’Twas not one blood in slayer and in slain.
And are my mother’s blood and my blood one?
How did she feed thee else beneath her zone?
Caitiff! Thy mother’s blood wilt thou deny?
Overcome.
I can no more. …37 Give witness, and reply,
Lord Phoebus, in my stead, if righteously
I slew. … I slew: denied it cannot be:
But rightly, or most foully—as thine own
Heart speaks, give judgement, and let all be known.
Ye judges of Athena’s Court most high,
I come to speak before you faithfully,
Being God’s prophet: therefore truth is mine.
Nor ever spake I from my throne divine
Of man nor woman, land nor city wall,
Save by command of Him who ruleth all,
Zeus, the Olympian Father. Is there Right
Holier than this, I charge ye think, or Might
More mighty? Follow ye the All-father’s will:
If oaths be strong, is Zeus not stronger still?
’Twas Zeus, thou tellest, laid this duty large
Upon thy lips? ’Twas Zeus who bade thee charge
This man to avenge his father and cast down,
As nothing worth, his mother’s sacred crown?
Are these the same? That a great man, raised high
By royal sceptre, given of God, should die,
And die by a woman’s hand—and not in war
By Amazonian arrow, sped from far, …
But—Hear my tale, O Pallas, and ye too
Who sit enthronèd to sift false from true;
He came from battle after sufferings sore
But greater glories, and she stood before
The gate to greet and praise him, strewed his path
With crimson robes and led him to his bath—
A marble bed!38—and o’er the end thereof
Laid the great web and curtained it above,
To ensnare him as he rose; then, in the wide
Unending folds, she smote him and he died!
So died a man, ye hear it from my lips,
All-honoured, War-Lord of a thousand ships;
And such a wife was she! Be stern, and smite
The guilty, ye who sit to establish right!
Doth Zeus count fatherhood so high a thing?
Who cast in bonds his father and his king,39
Old Cronos? Are these things not contrary?
I charge ye, judges, hearken his reply.
Ye worms of hate, O ye that Gods abhor,
Bonds can be loosened; there is cure therefor,
And many and many a plan in God’s great mind
To free the prisoners whom he erst did bind.
But once the dust hath drunk the blood of men
Murdered, there is no gathering it again.
For that no magic doth my Father know,
Though all things else he changeth high and low
Or fixeth, and no toil is in his breath.
Is that thy pleading against this man’s death?
The kindred blood, his mother’s blood, the well
Of his own life, he hath spilt. How shall he dwell
In Argos? In his home? What altar-stair,
When Argos worships, will receive his prayer?
What love-bowl of the brethren cleanse his hand?
That too I answer; mark and understand.
The mother to the child that men call hers
Is no true life-begetter, but a nurse
Of live seed. ’Tis the sower of the seed
Alone begetteth. Woman comes at need,
A stranger, to hold safe in trust and love
That bud of new life—save when God above
Wills that it die. And would ye proof of this,
There have been fathers where no mother is.
Whereof a perfect witness standeth nigh,
Athena Pallas, child of the Most High,40
A thought-begotten unconceivèd bloom,
No nursling of the darkness of the womb,
But such a flower of life as goddess ne’er
Hath born in heaven nor ever more shall bear.
Pallas, in all things it is mine to swell
In power thy people and thy citadel;
And therefore to thine Altar did I send
This suppliant, that hereafter to the end
Of mortal time he may be true to thee,
And plant his spear by thine unfalteringly,
And on through generations yet unborn
Argos observe the pact her King hath sworn.
Now shall I charge upon their faith these men
To cast true stones, or would ye speak again?
Shot is our every arrow: I but stay
To learn how ends the issue of the day.
How shall I cast a judgement in this cause
Unblamed of you, and of the eternal laws?
Ye have heard what ye have heard. Strangers, revere
Your oaths, and cast your judgement without fear.
Hear now mine ordinance, ye who have striven
This day to give, what none before hath given,41
True judgement o’er spilt blood. O Attic Folk,
Henceforth for ever, under Aigeus’ yoke,
This Council and this Judgement Seat by me
Are stablisht. On this mountain shall it be,
Here in the Amazons’ most virgin hold,
Who came in wrath for Theseus’ wrongs of old
Embattled, and this fortress against ours,
Hill against hill, towers against soaring towers,
Built, and to Ares on the rock with flame
Gave sacrifice: whence comes its awful name,
The Rock, the Mount, of Ares. All things here
Being holy, Reverence and her sister, Fear,
In darkness as in daylight shall restrain
From all unrighteousness the sons of men,
While Athens’ self corrupt not her own law.
With mire and evil influx ye can flaw
Fair water till no lips may drink thereof.
I charge you, citizens, enfold and love
That spirit that nor anarch is nor thrall;
And casting away Fear, yet cast not all;
For who that hath no fear is safe from sin?
That Fear which is both Ruth and Law within
Be yours, and round your city and your land
Shall be upraised a rampart, yea, a hand
Of strong deliverance, which no sons of men,
From the Isle of Pelops to the Scythian fen,
Possess nor know, this
