—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.
Enter Apollo.
Apollo: 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.
Leader: 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.
Apollo: What sayst thou there?—One word, and then begone.
Leader: Thou spakest and this man his mother slew.
Apollo: I spoke, and he avenged his father. True.
Leader: Thou stoodest by, to accept the new-shed gore.
Apollo: I bade him turn for cleansing to my door.
Leader: Ha! And revilest us who guide his feet?
Apollo: Ye be not clean to approach this Mercy Seat.
Leader: We be by Law eternal what we be.
Apollo: And what is that? Reveal thy dignity.
Leader: We hunt from home his mother’s murderer.
Apollo: A husband-murdering woman, what of her?
Leader: ’Twas not one blood in slayer and in slain.
Apollo: 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.
Leader: I cleave to him. I leave him never more.
Apollo: Oh, hunt thy fill! Make sorrow doubly sore.
Leader: Abridge not thou the Portions of my lot.