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Chorus
But a man's blood, once it has first fallen by murder to earth [1020] in a dark tide—who by magic spell shall call it back? Even he1who possessed the skill to raise from the dead—did not Zeus make an end of him as warning? [1025] And unless one fate ordained of the gods restrains another fate from winning the advantage, my heart would outstrip my tongue and pour forth its fears2; [1030] but, as it is, it mutters only in the dark, distressed and hopeless ever to unravel anything in time when my soul's aflame.
1 Aesculapius, who was blasted by the thunderbolt of Zeus for this offence.
2 The further expression of their forebodings is checked by the desperate hope that since divine forces sometimes clash, the evil destiny of Agamemnon may yet be averted by a superior fate, which they dimly apprehend will ordain his deliverance from the consequences of his shedding the blood of Iphigenia.
Aeschylus. Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. 2.Agamemnon. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926.
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