Chorus
I will sing for you, my mistress, responsive songs and
[180]
a barbarian cry of Asian hymns; this song, dear to the dead,
[185]
Hades sings in laments, in chants—not songs of triumph. Alas for the house of the Atreidae; the light of their scepter, alas, of the ancestral house, is lost. Once they ruled
[190]
as prosperous kings in Argos, but troubles dart out from troubles: Pelops, on his horses swiftly whirling, made his cast; the sun changed from its seat the holy beam of its rays.
[195]
One pain comes after another, to the house of the golden lamb. . . . from that earlier time when the Tantalids were killed,
[200]
punishment came to the house, and fate presses what you do not want upon you.