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Rather belatedly, have a big chunk of Orestes. It is, alas, hard for me to convey just how funny a lot of this is in the Greek; the awkwardness makes it all sound dead serious, but the part in which Orestes is haggling like a used-car dealer to convince Menelaus to help him out, without ever actually specifying how Menelaus can be helpful... Anyway.
The footnotes are hinky, due to a compilation of two different files. Sorry about that.
Chorus:
Enviable is the man who is lucky in children, and didn't get remarkable misfortunes for himself.
Orestes:
Old man, I am afraid to speak to you, in a matter where I will grieve you and your heart. May your old age stand out of the way of my words--it deters me from speech--and I'll go down this road; for now I fear your hair.*
And I am unholy, having killed my mother; then again, my name is holy, having avenged my father. What must I do? You set two things against two things: my father sired me, and your child bore me; the tilled field of one received the seed from the other. Without the father, the child never exists. Therefore I reckoned I ought to defend the author of my creation more than the supporter of my growing.** And your daughter--I am ashamed to call her mother--was going to a man's bed in a secret, unwise wedding; if I speak ill of her, I speak about myself, but I will speak all the same. Aigisthus was the secret husband in the house; I killed this man, and then sacrificed my mother, doing unholy deeds, but avenging my father.
Regarding the things for which you threaten I must be stoned, hear how I help all of Greece. For if women have come into this courage, to kill men, and taking refuge from their deeds with their children, seeking mercy by their breasts,*** women who happened to have any annoyance would kill their spouses; but with me having done this terrible deed, as you claim, I stopped this custom.
Hating my mother, I killed her justly, who betrayed her husband, who was absent under arms as general over the whole land of Greece, and did not preserve an undefiled bed; and when she noticed her error, she didn't impose justice on herself, but, so as not to give justice to her spouse,^ she punished my father and killed him. By the gods--it's not good that I'm reminded of the gods, while judging murder.
And if by being silent I was showing approval for my mother’s acts, what would the murdered man do to me? Wouldn’t he, hating me, dance to the Furies? Or are the goddesses present, allied to my mother, but not to my father, who was more wronged?
You, old man, destroyed me when you sired a wicked daughter; through that woman’s boldness I, deprived of a father, became a matricide. See? Telemachos didn’t killed Odysseus’ wife; she didn’t marry one spouse after another, and a respectable bedchamber remains in that house.
And you see Apollo, who dwelling at his navel sanctuary* deals out to mortals the clearest things, whom we obey in everything he says; obeying him, I killed my mother. Think that god unholy and kill him; he erred, not I. What must I do? Or did the god not command me, who took up the guilt, worthily? To where should anyone flee, if the one who ordered it will not protect me from death? No, do not say this deed was not carried out well, but that it was unlucky for those who did it. Holy** marriages establish a blessed lifetime well for a mortal man; but those that don’t fall well are unlucky indoors and out.
Chorus:
Women always create misfortunes in the way of men, in an unluckier direction.
Tyndareos:
Since you’re brash and don’t restrain your speech, and answer me thus so that it pains my heart, you make me burn to pursue your murder; I’ll make that a nice secondary task for the work I came to do, honoring the tomb of my daughter. For when I’ve gone to the Argive assembly of judges, I’ll set the city (willing or not) upon you and your sister, to pay the penalty in being stoned. It’s even more worthy that this woman of yours die, who drove you wild against your mother, by always sending stories to prompt the most hatred, sending messages about dreams of Agamemnon and the bed of Aegisthus--may the gods of the dead hate that! for it was bitter then--until she burned down the house with a figurative fire.***
But Menelaus, I say these things to you, and I will do them toward you: if you take into account my hatred and my sorrow, don’t ward off this man’s murder, in opposition to the gods, but allow him to be slaughtered with rocks by the townsfolk, or don’t set foot on Spartan soil. Go on, having heard all this, and may you not take up with unholy men, pushing aside more righteous friends. Now take me away from this house, servants.
Orestes:
Go on, so that my words might reach this man without an uproar, your old age having fled. Menelaus, where are you pacing to in deep thought, going double-minded on doubled roads?
Menelaus:
Permit me; reflecting in my mind on this, I turn in myself to where there’s luck for a man without means.
Orestes:
Now don’t just act on opinion, but listen to my words first, then make plans.
Menelaus:
Speak! Since you speak well. Sometimes silence is better than speech, and sometimes speech is better than silence.
Orestes:
So I’m speaking. Long speeches come first compared to little ones, and are more clear to hear. You needed give to me anything of yours, Menelaus, but repay what you took, since you took my father from me.^ I’m not speaking of resources; “resources”, if you save my life, which is dearest to me of all I have.
I do wrong; I must take from you an injustice to set against this evil; for indeed my father Agamemnon, having unjustly gathered together Greece, went to Ilion--not out of his own mistakes, but for curing your wife’s error and injustice.
You must do this one thing for us, in return for that one thing; he truly gave up--as family must for family--his own body, working for you beside your shield, so that you might steal back your wife. Therefore repay me this same thing you took back then, working for one day, standing for my salvation--not filling up ten years.
And the offerings Auris took, my sister,^^ I leave you that; do not kill Hermione; you should get a full bargain for yourself, with me experiencing what I now experience, and take my forgiveness. Give my life to my wretched father, and my sister’s, unmarried for so long; for if I die I will leave my father’s house orphaned.
You’ll say “Impossible.” The very thing! In bad times, friends must help friends. And whenever the spirits do well for us, what need is there of friends? For the god itself assists us when he wishes to help.
All Greece believes you love your wife (and I do not tell you this to seek flattery); I beseech you for her--O wretched in my evils, that I’d come to such a plea! But so what? I must endure hardship; for I’m begging on behalf of the whole house. Uncle, blood of my father, think of the dead man below the earth listening to these things, his spirit hovering over you, saying what I say! I have spoken and demand this thing of tears and weeping and misfortunes, seeking salvation, which all men (not I alone) seek.
---
* The translation expands this into "gray hair", which makes sense to me; due deference to age, especially between a man and his grandfather.
** Following, I believe, the notion that the man is the one who makes children, and the woman just sort of provides a storage box for the growing proto-people.
*** In the sense of appealing to the children they nursed, not in the sense of being sexy.
^ That is: so as not to be punished by her spouse.
* Yes, “navel” and not “naval”. As in, the center of the world.
** Pious? Lawful? Virtuous? It’s one of those fuzzy words to translate in English, where “divinely approved” and “legally appropriate” and “morally good” are not considered to overlap quite so closely.
*** Literally, “until she set the house on fire from underneath by means of the fire without real fire.” So. Yeah. I do the best I can.
^ That is, Menelaus owes a debt to Agamemnon, who supported the war against Troy.
^^ Iphegenia, who Agamemnon sacrificed to get a favorable wind for the journey. Orestes is conveniently removing his father from any involvement in this act.
The footnotes are hinky, due to a compilation of two different files. Sorry about that.
Chorus:
Enviable is the man who is lucky in children, and didn't get remarkable misfortunes for himself.
Orestes:
Old man, I am afraid to speak to you, in a matter where I will grieve you and your heart. May your old age stand out of the way of my words--it deters me from speech--and I'll go down this road; for now I fear your hair.*
And I am unholy, having killed my mother; then again, my name is holy, having avenged my father. What must I do? You set two things against two things: my father sired me, and your child bore me; the tilled field of one received the seed from the other. Without the father, the child never exists. Therefore I reckoned I ought to defend the author of my creation more than the supporter of my growing.** And your daughter--I am ashamed to call her mother--was going to a man's bed in a secret, unwise wedding; if I speak ill of her, I speak about myself, but I will speak all the same. Aigisthus was the secret husband in the house; I killed this man, and then sacrificed my mother, doing unholy deeds, but avenging my father.
Regarding the things for which you threaten I must be stoned, hear how I help all of Greece. For if women have come into this courage, to kill men, and taking refuge from their deeds with their children, seeking mercy by their breasts,*** women who happened to have any annoyance would kill their spouses; but with me having done this terrible deed, as you claim, I stopped this custom.
Hating my mother, I killed her justly, who betrayed her husband, who was absent under arms as general over the whole land of Greece, and did not preserve an undefiled bed; and when she noticed her error, she didn't impose justice on herself, but, so as not to give justice to her spouse,^ she punished my father and killed him. By the gods--it's not good that I'm reminded of the gods, while judging murder.
And if by being silent I was showing approval for my mother’s acts, what would the murdered man do to me? Wouldn’t he, hating me, dance to the Furies? Or are the goddesses present, allied to my mother, but not to my father, who was more wronged?
You, old man, destroyed me when you sired a wicked daughter; through that woman’s boldness I, deprived of a father, became a matricide. See? Telemachos didn’t killed Odysseus’ wife; she didn’t marry one spouse after another, and a respectable bedchamber remains in that house.
And you see Apollo, who dwelling at his navel sanctuary* deals out to mortals the clearest things, whom we obey in everything he says; obeying him, I killed my mother. Think that god unholy and kill him; he erred, not I. What must I do? Or did the god not command me, who took up the guilt, worthily? To where should anyone flee, if the one who ordered it will not protect me from death? No, do not say this deed was not carried out well, but that it was unlucky for those who did it. Holy** marriages establish a blessed lifetime well for a mortal man; but those that don’t fall well are unlucky indoors and out.
Chorus:
Women always create misfortunes in the way of men, in an unluckier direction.
Tyndareos:
Since you’re brash and don’t restrain your speech, and answer me thus so that it pains my heart, you make me burn to pursue your murder; I’ll make that a nice secondary task for the work I came to do, honoring the tomb of my daughter. For when I’ve gone to the Argive assembly of judges, I’ll set the city (willing or not) upon you and your sister, to pay the penalty in being stoned. It’s even more worthy that this woman of yours die, who drove you wild against your mother, by always sending stories to prompt the most hatred, sending messages about dreams of Agamemnon and the bed of Aegisthus--may the gods of the dead hate that! for it was bitter then--until she burned down the house with a figurative fire.***
But Menelaus, I say these things to you, and I will do them toward you: if you take into account my hatred and my sorrow, don’t ward off this man’s murder, in opposition to the gods, but allow him to be slaughtered with rocks by the townsfolk, or don’t set foot on Spartan soil. Go on, having heard all this, and may you not take up with unholy men, pushing aside more righteous friends. Now take me away from this house, servants.
Orestes:
Go on, so that my words might reach this man without an uproar, your old age having fled. Menelaus, where are you pacing to in deep thought, going double-minded on doubled roads?
Menelaus:
Permit me; reflecting in my mind on this, I turn in myself to where there’s luck for a man without means.
Orestes:
Now don’t just act on opinion, but listen to my words first, then make plans.
Menelaus:
Speak! Since you speak well. Sometimes silence is better than speech, and sometimes speech is better than silence.
Orestes:
So I’m speaking. Long speeches come first compared to little ones, and are more clear to hear. You needed give to me anything of yours, Menelaus, but repay what you took, since you took my father from me.^ I’m not speaking of resources; “resources”, if you save my life, which is dearest to me of all I have.
I do wrong; I must take from you an injustice to set against this evil; for indeed my father Agamemnon, having unjustly gathered together Greece, went to Ilion--not out of his own mistakes, but for curing your wife’s error and injustice.
You must do this one thing for us, in return for that one thing; he truly gave up--as family must for family--his own body, working for you beside your shield, so that you might steal back your wife. Therefore repay me this same thing you took back then, working for one day, standing for my salvation--not filling up ten years.
And the offerings Auris took, my sister,^^ I leave you that; do not kill Hermione; you should get a full bargain for yourself, with me experiencing what I now experience, and take my forgiveness. Give my life to my wretched father, and my sister’s, unmarried for so long; for if I die I will leave my father’s house orphaned.
You’ll say “Impossible.” The very thing! In bad times, friends must help friends. And whenever the spirits do well for us, what need is there of friends? For the god itself assists us when he wishes to help.
All Greece believes you love your wife (and I do not tell you this to seek flattery); I beseech you for her--O wretched in my evils, that I’d come to such a plea! But so what? I must endure hardship; for I’m begging on behalf of the whole house. Uncle, blood of my father, think of the dead man below the earth listening to these things, his spirit hovering over you, saying what I say! I have spoken and demand this thing of tears and weeping and misfortunes, seeking salvation, which all men (not I alone) seek.
---
* The translation expands this into "gray hair", which makes sense to me; due deference to age, especially between a man and his grandfather.
** Following, I believe, the notion that the man is the one who makes children, and the woman just sort of provides a storage box for the growing proto-people.
*** In the sense of appealing to the children they nursed, not in the sense of being sexy.
^ That is: so as not to be punished by her spouse.
* Yes, “navel” and not “naval”. As in, the center of the world.
** Pious? Lawful? Virtuous? It’s one of those fuzzy words to translate in English, where “divinely approved” and “legally appropriate” and “morally good” are not considered to overlap quite so closely.
*** Literally, “until she set the house on fire from underneath by means of the fire without real fire.” So. Yeah. I do the best I can.
^ That is, Menelaus owes a debt to Agamemnon, who supported the war against Troy.
^^ Iphegenia, who Agamemnon sacrificed to get a favorable wind for the journey. Orestes is conveniently removing his father from any involvement in this act.