The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Women at the Graveside, Orestes in Athens

by Aeschylus

Ares trades men into jars, ashes for lament and praise: “He,” they say, “knew battle skill”; “this one sacrificed his life”; “bravely in the field he fell”; “died for . . . someone else’s wife.”

Who could have named her quite so fitly? —unless it was some unseen deity, one whose foreknowing tongue dictated precisely what was to be fated— matching the war-in-law bride, spelling her proper name for conflict: Helen, which predicts hell for ships and sailors, and hell for soldiers, hell for cities.

tell of death by tricks enough to fill a deadly murder-bath. CHORUS 1130 I am no expert judge of prophecy, but all these things you say sound bad to me.

A little one in baby clothes can’t say what is the matter: whether it is hunger or else thirst, or other business—a baby’s bowels and bladder have a willpower of their own.

I say that everyone should treat the altar-stone of Justice with respect; 540 don’t kick it in contempt for some imagined gain. There will be punishment.