Fury: Proceed, loathsome shade: goad this unnatural house into vengeful rage. Let them compete in crime (scelere) of every kind, and take turns to unsheathe the sword. Let there be no limit to their anger, no shame in it; let blind rage incite their minds, let the parents’ frenzy last and the long-lived evil (nefas) pass into the grandchildren.
…Bring havoc on the housegods, summon hatred, slaughter, death, fill the whole house with Tantalus. (23-29 & 52-3)
Atreus: Come, my spirit, do what no future age will endorse, but none fail to talk about. I must dare some fierce, bloody outrage, such as my brother would have wished his own. You do not avenge crimes unless you surpass them. (192-6)
Assistant: Let a king want what is honourable: everyone will want the same.
Atreus: Where a sovereign is permitted only what is honorable, he rules on sufferance.
Assistant: Where there is no shame, no concern for the law, no righteousness, goodness, loyalty, rule is unstable.
Atreus: Righteousness, goodness, loyalty are private values: kings should go where they please. (213-8)
Atreus: A tumult of frenzy is shaking my breast, and churning it deep within. I am swept along, and know not where, but I am swept along. – The ground moans from its lowest depths, the sky thunders though cloudless, the house cracks throughout its structure as if shattered, and the housegods shake and avert their faces. Let it be done, let it be done, this outrage that makes the gods afraid! (260-266)
Atreus: Agamemnon must serve my scheme knowingly, and Menelaus assist his brother knowingly. Let me gain assurance about my questionable issue from this crime: if they refuse to engage in this war of hatred, if they call him uncle, he is their father. (325-330)
Thyestes: My intention is to proceed, but my body is weak-kneed and faltering, and I am pulled away from the goal I struggle towards. Just so a ship urged on by oar and sail, is carried back by the tide resisting oar and sail. (435-9)
Thyestes: A throne has no room for two. (444)
Thyestes: It is a vast kingdom, to be able to cope without a kingdom. (470)
Thyestes: Thyestes loved by his brother? Sooner the ocean will soak the Bears of heaven, and the whirling waves of Sicily’s tides will halt: ripe grain will grow on the Ionian Sea, and black night give light to the earth; sooner will water join flame, life join death, wind join sea in a bond of allegiance.
Chorus: No one should trust too much in success, no one despair of misfortune improving. Clotho mixes the two, forbidding Fortune to rest, and spins each destiny around. No one has enjoyed such favouring gods that he could promise himself the morrow. God keeps our lives hastening, turning in a speeding whirlwind. (615-622)
Messenger: At the farthest and lowest remove there lies a secret area that confines an age-old woodland in a deep vale – the inner sanctum of the realm.
…In the gloom is a dismal stagnant spring, oozing slowly in the black swamp. Such is the unsightly stream of dread Styx, which generates trust in heaven. Here in the blind darkness rumour has it that death gods groan; the grove resounds to the rattling of chains, and ghosts howl. Anything fearful to hear can be seen there. A hoary crowd walks abroad, released from their ancient tombs, and things more monstrous than any known caper about the place. In addition, flames repeatedly flicker throughout the wood, and the lofty treetrunks burn without fire. Often the grove booms with threefold barking, often the house is awed by huge apparitions. (650-2 & 664-677)
Messenger:…The grove begins to tremble; as the earth shakes the whole palace sways, uncertain which way to topple and seeming to waver. From the sky’s left quarter races a comet, leaving a black trail. Wine poured in libation on the fires changes as it flows to blood; the royal emblem slips repeatedly from his head; ivory statues weep in the temples. All are affected by these prodigies, but Atreus alone remains unaffected and constant; he counter-threatens the menacing gods.
…Torn from the living chests the organs are still trembling, the veins pulsing and the hearts throbbing in terror. But he handles the entrails and looks into destiny and takes note of the still-hot veins on the viscera.
…O long-suffering Phoebus! Though you have fled backward, snatched the day from mid-heaven and drowned it, you set too late! (695-705, 755-7, & 776-8)
Chorus: This highway of the holy planets, that crosses the zones with its slanting track, Sing-bearer, guide of the lengthy years, will see the fallen stars as it falls. This Ram, that before spring weather is kind restores sails to the balmy Zephyr, will fall headlong into the waves over which it carried the frightened Helle. This Bull, that displays the Hyades on his gleaming horn, will drag down with him the Twins, and the claws of the curving Crab. Hercules’ Lion, blazing with fiery heat, will fall once more from heaven; the Virgin will fall to the earth she left, the weights of the even-handed Scales will fall and drag sharp Scorpion down with them. The one who holds feathered darts against his bowstrings, old Haemonian Chiron, will lose his darts, the bowstring broken. The chill restorer of sluggish winter, Goat’s horn, will fall, and smash your, whoever you are; with you will depart the last of heaven’s stars, the Fish.
And the monsters that never bathe in the sea will be drowned by the all-engulfing flood. Both the one that glides like a river between the Bears and keeps them apart, the Snake, and the great Serpent’s lesser neighbour, Cynosura, chilled by icy frost, and the slow guard of the Wain, no longer standing firm, will fall – Bear-ward. (844-875)
Thyestes: I recognize my brother. Earth, can you bear to support such a weight of outrage? Do you not plunge us down with you into infernal Styx – break open a huge passageway and drag this kingdom with its king into the empty void? Not uproot every building from its base and overturn Mycenae? We two should have been set long ago on each side of Tantalus. Wrench your frame apart here and here; if there is anything below Tartarus and our ancestors, hollow out an immense ravine within yourself to plummet down that far: bury us and hide us beneath the whole of Acheron. Over our heads let guilty souls roam, and let fiery Phlegethon, that carries charred sands in its burning stream, flow violently over our place of exile. Do you lie motionless, Earth, just a solid mass? The gods above have fled. (1006-1021)
