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Hark ye and learn-for what the end shall be

For me I know not: breaking from the curb

My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,

Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught

Far from the course, and madness in my breast

Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave-

Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes!

I say that rightfully I slew my mother,

A thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire.

And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me

Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer

Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,

The guilt of murder done should pass from me;

But if I spared, the fate that should be mine

I dare not blazon forth-the bow of speech

Can reach not to the mark, that doom to tell.

And now behold me, how with branch and crown

I pass, a suppliant made meet to go

Unto Earth's midmost shrine, the holy ground

Of Loxias, and that renowned light

Of ever-burning fire, to 'scape the doom

Of kindred murder: to no other shrine,

So Loxias bade, may I for refuge turn.

Bear witness, Argives, in the after time,

How came on me this dread fatality.

Living, I pass a banished wanderer hence,

To leave in death the memory of this cry.

Look, look, alas!

Handmaidens, see-what Gorgon shapes throng up

Dusky their robes and all their hair enwound-

Snakes coiled with snakes-off, off,-I must away!

These are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,

But clear to sight another's hell-hounds come!

O king Apollo-see, they swarm and throng-

Black blood of hatred dripping from their eyes!

Ye can behold them not, but I behold them.

Up and away! I dare abide no more.

Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, trans. E.D.A. Morshead, 1881.