The scene is now set with seats for the Council of the Areopagus. Enter Athena, the Judges, a Herald, a crowd of Citizens, the Furies, Orestes.
Athena
Herald, thine office! See that yonder crowds
Hold back, and let this piercer of the clouds,
Filled with man’s breath, the Tuscan trumpet, blow
His fiery summons to the host below.
Then all be silence, while the people fill
This Council Hall. Thus shall my sovran will
And ordinance to this people, great and small,
Be known for ever, and upheld by all
Within our gates; and thus my wardens do
Justice this day, discerning false from true.
Enter Apollo.
Leader
Apollo, thou! Go, reign where thou art king!
What portion hast thou in this doom-saying?
Apollo
I come to bear my witness. This is one
Who in great anguish came to me alone
For refuge, and knelt suppliant at my shrine.
Therefore the cleansing of his stain is mine.
Likewise I share his plea, and on me take
What guilt he bears for that dead mother’s sake.
Ope thou the court, O Pallas, and, as well
Thou canst, establish justice durable.
Athena
Ho! Opened is the Court; and yours the speech.
To the Furies.
He who pursueth, speaking first, can teach
Best his whole grief, and how the evil grew.
Leader
Many are we, yet shall our words be few.
Make answer thou, point against point. And say
First this one thing: thy mother didst thou slay?
Orestes
I slew her. … Aye. Denied it cannot be.
Leader
Aha! The first of the three bouts to me!
Orestes
Too soon ye vaunt. I am not yet outsped.
Leader
How didst thou slay? That also must be said.
Orestes
With an effort.
I will say it. I drew sword and clave her throat.
Leader
Who and what tempted thee? Who laid the plot?
Orestes
He who is with me now, and witnesseth.
Leader
God’s prophet bade thee plot thy mother’s death?
Orestes
Yes: and hath never failed me to this day.
Leader
And when the vote is cast, what wilt thou say?
Orestes
I fear not. Helpers from my father’s grave.
Leader
Go, mother-murderer! Call the dead to save!
Orestes
Two stains of death lay mingled on her hand.
Leader
How two? Let these who judge thee understand.
Orestes
A husband and a father, both, she slew.
Leader
And death hath purged her. Shalt not thou die too?
Orestes
Ye never hunted her, for all her stain.
Leader
’Twas not one blood in slayer and in slain.
Orestes
And are my mother’s blood and my blood one?
Leader
How did she feed thee else beneath her zone?
Caitiff! Thy mother’s blood wilt thou deny?
Orestes
Overcome.
I can no more. … 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.
Apollo
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?
Leader
’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?
Apollo
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!—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!
Leader
Doth Zeus count fatherhood so high a thing?
Who cast in bonds his father and his king,
Old Cronos? Are these things not contrary?
I charge ye, judges, hearken his reply.
Apollo
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.
Leader
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?
Apollo
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,
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.
Athena
Now shall I charge upon their faith these men
To cast true stones, or would ye speak again?
Leader
Shot is our every arrow: I but stay
To learn how ends the issue of the day.
Athena
How shall I cast a judgement in this cause
Unblamed of you, and of the eternal laws?
Apollo
Ye have heard what ye have heard. Strangers, revere
Your oaths, and cast your judgement without fear.
Athena
Hear now mine ordinance, ye who have striven
This day to give, what none before hath given,
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 Council of the Right,
Untouched of lucre, terrible to smite,
And swift and merciful, a guard to keep
Vigil above my people while they sleep.
Which here I establish. Let these words advise
My city evermore.—I charge you, rise
And lift your stones of doom and judge, alway
Your oath remembering. I have said my say. The Judges rise and go one by one past the two urns, casting their stones as they pass.
Leader
Behold, an awful presence moveth yet
Within your land, which mock not nor forget!
Apollo
The will of Zeus, by my lips ministered,
I charge you make not fruitless nor unfeared!
Leader
And what wouldst thou with blood, having therein
No place? Henceforth thine altars are unclean!
Apollo
Did Zeus, then, sin, who bowed his head to spare
Blood-red Ixion for his burning prayer?
Leader
Thou speakest: but my Law, if it be broke,
Shall come again in wrath to haunt this folk.
Apollo
Thou hast no honour more ’mid things divine,
Or old or new: the victory shall be mine.
Leader
So in Admêtus’ House thou didst betray
The Fates, to make man deathless past his day.
Apollo
Shall not a god regard his worshipper
Then chiefliest, when in peril and in prayer?
Leader
The ancient boundaries thou didst desecrate,
Thou mad’st a drunkard of Eternal Fate!
Apollo
True Justice thou canst know not. Thou shalt spue
Thy venom forth, and none give heed thereto.
Leader
Women are we, and old; and thou dost ride
Above us, trampling, in thy youth and pride.
Howbeit, I wait to know the end, being still
In doubt to work this City good or ill.
Athena
One judgement still remains. I, at the last,
To set Orestes free this stone will cast:
For, lo, no mother bare me: I approve
In all—save only that I know not love—
The man’s way. Flesh and spirit I am His
Who gave me life. And in this coil it is
No dire deed that a woman, who had slain
Her mate and house-lord, should be quelled again.
Wherefore I judge that here, if equal be
The votes ye cast, Orestes shall go free.
Ye judges, haste: on you this office turns:
And cast the gathered sea-stones from the urns.
Orestes
Apollo, Lord, what shall the issue be?
Leader
O Night, O dark-eyed Mother, dost thou see?
Orestes
Is it the noose of death, or life and light?
Leader
My law down-trodden or enthroned in right?
Apollo
Divide the fallen sea-stones as is due,
Strangers, and in the count see all be true.
An absent voice hath made life ruinous,
And one cast pebble built a fallen house. The scrutineers bring their results to Athena.
Athena
This prisoner, since the stones for ill and good
Are equal, hath escaped the doom of blood.
Orestes
O Pallas, O deliverer of my race,
Thou hast led back the wanderer to his place,
The homeless to his home; and men shall say
“Once more he is an Argive, and this day
Dwells in his father’s riches, by the word
Of Pallas, Loxias, and Zeus the Third,
Who saveth all and all accomplisheth.”
’Twas He of old who saw my father’s death,
And pitied; He who saw pursuing me
My mother’s ministers, and set me free.
Pallas, to this thy people and thy clime
Through all the long years of ensuing Time
I swear, ere I depart to mine own land,
This oath. No captain of an Argive band
Shall ever against Athens raise his spear.
Yea, and if any break this law, I swear
Myself out of the grave bewilderment
Shall set before their host, and discontent,
Disheartened roads and rivers evil-starred,
Till back they turn, bowed down by toils too hard
For bearing. But if still with vow unbroke,
Through storm or shine, for Pallas and her folk
Their lance is lifted, then to Argos too
My love shall be the greater, and hold true.
And fare thee well, O Pallas; fare you well,
All that within her ancient rampart dwell;
Iron may your grasp against all evil be,
And strong to save, and big with victory! Exit Orestes.
Furies
Woe on you, woe, ye younger gods!
Ye have trampled the great Laws of old
Beneath your chariots! Ye have broke the rods
Of justice, yea and torn them from my hold!
Mine office gone, unhappy and angered sore,
I rage alone. What have I any more
To do? Or be? Shall not mine injury turn
And crush this people? Shall not poison rain
Upon them, even the poison of this pain
Wherewith my heart doth burn?
And up therefrom there shall a lichen creep,
A leafless, childless, blight,
A stain in the earth man-slaying. … O just
Throne of Right!
Have ye not suffered deep,
Deep, ye unhappy children of old Night,
Born to be scorned and weep!
Athena
I pray you, nay! Make not this bitter moan;
Ye are not conquered. Equal, stone for stone,
The judgement fell, in honesty of thought,
Not scorn of thee. From Zeus on high was brought
A shining witness; and the god, who gave
The word to slay, himself was here to save,
Lest this man for obedience to his will
Should perish. … And for this ye fain would spill
Your poison? Ah, take thought! Nor on our heads
Rain the strange dew a spirit’s anger sheds,
Seed-ravening blight and mildews merciless,
Till all the land lie waste in fruitlessness.
Spare us, and, lo, I promise: here shall be
A home your own, a caverned mystery,
Where alway ye shall sit, enthroned in pride
And shining, by my people glorified.
Furies
Woe on you, woe, ye younger gods!
Ye have trampled the great Laws of old
Beneath your chariots! Ye have broke the rods
Of justice, yea and torn them from my hold!
Mine office gone, unhappy and angered sore,
I rage alone. What have I any more
To do? Or be? Shall not mine injury turn
And crush this people? Shall not poison rain
Upon them, even the poison of this pain
Wherewith my heart doth burn?
And up therefrom there shall a lichen creep,
A leafless, childless, blight,
A stain in the earth man-slaying. … O just
Throne of Right!
Have ye not suffered deep,
Deep, ye unhappy children of old Night,
Born to be scorned and weep!
Athena
Ah, rage not. No dishonour comes you nigh;
Nor, being immortal, blast for these who die
Their little life and land. I, even as you,
Obey the supreme Father, yea, I too.
What boots it to say more? To me alone
The keys of that great treasure-house are known
Where sleep the lightnings.—But He needs them not!
Accept my word, and cast not here the hot
Fruits of a passion that turns all to ill:
Bid the dark tempest’s bitter surge be still,
Thou great in glory, partner of my home!
From many miles of land to thee shall come
First-fruits for maidens wed, for children born;
Then shall ye bless this peace that we have sworn.
Furies
That this should fall on me,
Me of the ancient way,
The faithful of heart! To be
Unclean, abominable,
In the darkness where I dwell,
And mine honour shorn away!
My breath is as a fire flung far and wide,
And a strange anguish stabbeth at my side.
Hear thou my wrath, O Mother, Night, mine own,
Hear what these young false-handed gods have wrought!
Mine immemorial honour is overthrown,
And I am naught!
Athena
Thine heaviness myself will help thee bear.
Older thou art than I, and surely ware
Of wisdom that I wot not: yet also
To me Zeus giveth both to think and know.
And if ye leave us for the stranger’s shore,
This know I, that your heart shall still be sore
For Athens. Time’s great river in its flow
From darkness shall but make her glory grow.
And here in honour at Erechtheus’ side
Enthronèd, thou shalt garner gifts of pride
From men and women worshippers, in fair
Procession moving, richer and more rare
Than eye of man hath seen in other lands.
Such offering now awaits thee at my hands:
Blessing and blest, ’mid glories gladly given,
To share this land, the best beloved of Heaven.
Furies
That this should fall on me,
Me of the ancient way,
The faithful of heart! To be
Unclean, abominable,
In the darkness where I dwell,
And mine honour shorn away!
My breath is as a fire flung far and wide,
And a strange anguish stabbeth at my side.
Hear thou my wrath, O Mother, Night, mine own,
Hear what these young false-handed gods have wrought!
Mine immemorial honour is overthrown,
And I am naught!
Athena
I will not cease thine anger to assuage
With good words. None shall say that, in thine age,
By younger gods and city-building men
Thou and thy law were mocked, cast out again
To walk the wilderness, exiles from hence.
If thou canst hold that spirit in reverence
Which hears Persuasion and which thinks again,
Whose understanding and whose peace doth reign
By God’s appointment in my word and thought,
Here thou wilt stay. Or, if that please thee not,
Thou shalt not justly lay upon this land
Or wrath, or vengeance, or afflicting hand.
Stay, if ye will. Let this soil be your own
With Right made perfect and an ageless throne.
Leader
Great Pallas, what abode shall be my lot?
Athena
A throne unwashed by tears; reject it not.
Leader
Say I consent; what shall mine office be?
Athena
No house shall prosper save by aid of thee.
Leader
Such greatness mine! Wilt thou thereof have care?
Athena
Yea; and through life uphold thy worshipper.
Leader
For dateless time thou giv’st me warranty?
Athena
How should I speak the thing that shall not be?
Leader
Thou wilt soften me. … Methinks mine anger bends.
Athena
Stay, and that softened mood will find thee friends.
Leader
What spell upon the land wouldst have me lay?
Athena
All that brings Victory and not Dismay.
From earth and dewy sea—be this thy prayer—
From moving winds and the still dome of air
Let breaths of gladness and sweet sunlight come;
The fruit of flocks and fields round every home
Abundant flow and, year by year, be true.
The seeds of human life make fruitful, too,
Save in the ungodly: them thy Rule of Right
Shall uproot, as of old. For I delight,
Like one that tends his garden, to uprear
These plants of righteousness, untouched by fear
Of evil. Cast not on this soil of mine
Thy whet-stones of the blood, like poisonous wine
In young men’s hearts, till rage and death be stirred.
Oh, take not from the fierce mate-murdering bird
The heart to give my people, the blind war
Within, that burneth most where brethren are.
War with the stranger, yes; no stint thereof;
Terror is there, and glory, and great love;
But not the mad bird-rage that slays at home.
Such let thine office be. And if there come
True-hearted war, I will not fail to uphold
This land victorious where great deeds are told. At a sign from the Leader, the Furies take formation for a Song of Blessing.
Furies
A home with Pallas shall be mine.
I will not give this City nay,
The Fort of Heaven, which Zeus divine
And faithful Ares hold in sway,
A shining loveliness to enfold
The altars of the gods of old.
For whom—so do I weave my prayer
And move with words of presage good—
All fortunes whereby life is fair,
Like springing fountains, up shall flood,
From Earth’s deep-bosomed caverns won
By wooing of the enthronèd Sun.
Athena
I love my City; and with plan
Aforethought here have welcomed these,
The Awarders great and hard to appease,
Whose realm is all the estate of man.
Justice is theirs: though many an one
May meet their wrath in innocence,
Not knowing why the wound nor whence,
That striketh. Some great evil done
Aforetime, with no payment just,
Casts him to These. Strange wrath and hate
Are round him, and he cries: but Fate,
Unanswering, grindeth him to dust.
Furies
No storm-wind—so I speak my prize—
Shall breathe the blight that poisoneth trees;
No burning things that blind the eyes
Of plants, shall pass her boundaries:
The groaning pest shall come not nigh,
Nor fruit upon the branches die.
The flocks shall browse in happy cheer,
And Pan, the Shepherd, guard them true,
With twofold increase, as the year
Repays her seeds in season due;
And deep-hid treasures of the ground
Shall be in God’s due order found.
Athena
Ye Guardians, hear the word she hath said,
And shall fulfill! Most potent hands
Hath great Erinys, in the lands
Where dwell the deathless and the dead.
And all this world of men declares
Her visible act on right and wrong;
How one man’s life she makes a song,
Another’s a long mist of tears.
Furies
Let manhood’s glory by no doom
Of death untimely be defiled;
Let life to maidens in their bloom
Bring each a lover and a child.
O whatsoever Gods have power,
And Fates eternal, grant this dower!
Ye Fates, our Mother’s Sisterhood,
Assigners true to all that be,
To every house its ill and good,
To every hour its potency;
Righteous participants through all,
Of Gods the most majestical.
Athena
With joy I hear their prescient song
Touching my land; and much in pride
I praise Persuasion gentle-eyed,
Who guarded well my lips and tongue,
When these were wrathful and denied;
But Zeus, whose Word is in the Mart,
Prevailed; and of our strife no part,
Save strife in blessing, shall abide.
Furies
Let her who hungereth still for wrong,
Faction, in Athens ne’er again
Lift on the air her ravening song;
Let not the dust of Pallas’ Plain
Drink the dark blood of any son
By fury of revenge fordone.
Rage not to smite the smiter, lest
By rage the City’s heart be torn:
Bless him that blesseth: in each breast
So shall a single love be born,
And ’gainst Her foes a single hate.
This also maketh firm a state.
Athena
Wise are they and have found the way
Of peace. And in each awful face
I see for you, my People, grace:
If ye are gentle, even as they,
And do them worship, this shall be
Your work: to guide through ill, through good,
Both land and town in that pure mood
Of truth that shuns iniquity. The Judges and the concourse of Athenians have now formed into procession, to escort the Furies to their Cavern.
Chorus of Athenians
Rejoice, rejoice! And as ye go your ways
In rich apportionment of blissful days,
Farewell, farewell!
Furies
Ye folk within the wall, approved
To neighbour Jove’s eternal eyes,
Ye lovers of the Well-beloved,
The Virgin Spirit, timely wise,
The wings of Pallas fold above you,
Therefore shall Zeus the Father love you.
Athena
Fare ye well also. I must go
Before you, guiding, to make bright
Your secret chambers with the light,
The holy light, they dared not know.
Come, and when deep beneath the veil
Of earth ye pass, ’mid offering high,
Hold down the evil that shall die,
Send up the good that shall prevail.
Ye sons of Cranaos, guide them, till
These Wanderers rest within your doors:
With them one City now is yours;
Be one in working and in will!
Chorus of Athenians
Rejoice, rejoice! I raise my voice again,
To speak that bliss that overtowereth pain.
Farewell, farewell!
Furies
All things within the Wall that dwell,
All gods and men, that are or were;
All life from Pallas’ citadel
Which draws its being, I am here:
These Dwellers in your gates adore,
And fear the tides of Life no more!
Athena
The prayers they have uttered o’er my land I praise;
And speed them on, ’mid many a torch’s blaze,
To that most deep and subterranean end Of wandering.
Let these ministers, who tend
Mine image, follow; righteous warders they.
Let all the fullness of the land this day,
Children, and wives and women bent with years,
Come forth: do worship to these Wanderers
Accepted in their robes of crimson dye.
Let leap the flash of fire. This great
Ally Shall be revealed and proven in the fate
Of Athens, if her men be true and great.
Chorus of Athenians
Gather ye home; are ye great, do ye crave adoration,
O childless Children of Night in the pride of your going?
(Give good words, O Folk of the Fold!)
Aeonian caverns of glory are yours, and oblation
Of worship, and sacrifice high, and praise overflowing.
(Give good words, O young men and old!)
Come with the Law that can pardon, the Judgement that knoweth,
O Semnai, Semnai, watchers o’er people and land;
And joy be a-stream in your ways, as the fire that bloweth
A-stream from beacon and brand. A cry of joy rises above the singing.
Outpour ye the Chalice of Peace where the torches are blending:
In Pallas the place it is found and the task it is done.
The Law that is Fate and the Father the All-Comprehending
Are here met together as one. Again a cry of joy as the Procession passes out of sight.