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Athena
Farewell to you also; but I must lead the way to show you your dwellings by the sacred light of these, your escorts.1 [1005] Go, and, speeding beneath the earth with these solemn sacrifices, hold back what is ruinous to the land, but send what is profitable for the city to win her victory. You who hold the city, children of Cranaus,2 lead on their way these new dwellers here. [1010] May there be good will in the citizens in return for good done to them!
1 The Chorus is now to be solemnly conducted to the cave beneath the Hill of Ares, the seat of the worship of the Venerable Ones （Σεμναί, l. 1041）, with whom the poet here identifies the Erinyes, the Angry Ones, the Avenging Spirits. The identification seems also to include the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones, who were worshipped at Sicyon, at Argos, and in Attica at Phlya and Colonus （see Soph. OT）. The procession is formed by Athena （at its head）, the Chorus, the Areopagites, torch-bearers, the women who guard the Palladium, and various others. In the rear came the Athenian public.
2 Cranaus was the mythical founder of the “rocky city” （κραναός “rocky”）, a favourite name of Athens.
Aeschylus. Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. 2. Eumenides. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926.
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