The Eumenides Quotes

Quote 1: "May all [gods]/grant me that this of all my entrances shall be/the best by far. If there are any Hellenes here/let them draw lots, so enter, as the custom is./My prophesy is only as the god may guide." Lines 29-33

Quote 2: "Things terrible to tell and for the eyes to see/terrible drove me out again from [Apollo's] house/so that I have no strength and cannot stand on springing/ feet, but run with my hands' help and my legs have no speed." Lines 34-37

Quote 3: "You would sleep, then? And what use are you, if you sleep?/It is because of you I go dishonored thus/among the rest of the dead.../I am driven in disgrace. I say to you/that I am charged with guilt...And yet/I suffered too, horribly, and from those most dear,/yet none among the powers is angered for my sake/that I was slaughtered, and by matricidal hands./Look at these gashes in my heart, think where they came/from." Lines 94-104

Quote 4: "Sleep and fatigue, two masterful conspirators,/have dimmed the deadly anger of the mother-snake." Lines 124-125

Quote 5: "Let go/upon this man the stormblasts of your bloodshot breath,/wither him in your wind, after him, hunt him down/once more, and shrivel him in your vitals' heat and flame." Lines 136-139

Quote 6: "Such are the actions of the younger gods. These hold/by unconditional force, beyond all right, a throne/that runs reeking blood,/blood at the feet, blood at the head.../[Apollo] has spoiled his secret shrine's/hearth with the stain, driven and hallowed the action on./He made man's way cross the place of the ways of god/and blighted age-old distributions of power." Lines 162-172

Quote 7: "This house is no right place for such as you to cling/upon...by [your] judgment given, heads are lopped/and eyes are gouged out, throats cut, and by the spoil of sex/the glory of young boys is defeated, where mutilation/lives, and stoning, and the long moan of tortured men.../Listen/to how the gods spit out the manner of that feast/your love leans to." Lines 185-192

Quote 8: "But I shall give the suppliant help and rescue, for/if I willingly fail him who turns to me for aid,/his wrath, before gods and men, is fearful thing." Lines 232-234

Quote 9: "Whether now ranging somewhere in the Libyan land/beside her father's crossing and by Triton's run/of waters she sets upright or enshrouded foot/rescuing there her friends, or on the Phlegraean flat/like some bold man of armies sweeps with eyes the scene,/let her come! She is a god and hears me far away." Lines 292-297

Quote 10: "Over the beast doomed to the fire/this is the chant, scatter of wits,/frenzy and fear, hurting the heart,/song of the Furies/binding brain and blighting blood/in its stringless melody.../Men's illusions in their pride under the sky melt/down, and are diminished into the ground, gone/before the onset of our black robes, pulsing/of our vindictive feet against them." Lines 341-371

Quote 11: "Is there a man who does not fear/this, does not shrink to hear/how my place has been ordained,/granted and given by destiny/and god, absolute? Privilege/primeval yet is mine, nor am I without a place/though it be underneath the ground/and in no sunlight and in gloom that I must stand." Lines 389-396

Quote 12: "You wish to be called righteous rather than act right." Lines 430

Quote 13: "He died/without honor when he came home. It was my mother/ [Clytaemnestra]/of the dark heart, who.../cut him down. The bath is witness to his death./I was an exile in the time before this. I came back/and killed the woman who gave me birth. I plead guilty./My father was dear, and this was vengeance for his blood./Apollo shares responsibility for this./He counterspurred my heart and told me of pains to come/if I should fail to act against the guilty ones." Lines 458-467

Quote 14: "Here is dilemma. Whether I let them stay or drive/them off, it is hard course and will hurt. Then, since/the burden of the case is here, and rests on me,/I shall select judges of manslaughter, and swear/them in, establish a court into all time to come." Lines 480-484

Quote 15: "Now/the House of Justice has collapsed./There are times when fear is good./It must keep its watchful place/at the heart's controls. There is/advantage/in the wisdom won from pain./Should the city, should the man/rear a heart that nowhere goes/in fear, how shall such a one/any more respect the right?/Refuse the life of anarchy." Lines 515-526

Quote 16: "He calls on those who hear not, caught inside/the hard wrestle of water./The spirit laughs at the hot-hearted man,/the man who said 'never to me,' watches him/pinned in distress, unable to run free of the crests./He had good luck in his life. Now/he smashes it on the reef of Right/and drowns, unwept and forgotten." Lines 558-565

Quote 17: "Let the stabbing voice of the Etruscan/trumpet, blown to the full with mortal wind, crash out/its high call to all the assembled populace./For in the filling of this senatorial ground/it is best for all the city to be silent and learn/the measures I have laid down into the rest of time." Lines 567-572

Quote 18: "This [the murder of Clytaemnestra] is justice. Recognize then how great its strength./I tell you, follow our father's will. For not even/the oath that binds you is more strong than Zeus is strong." Lines 619-621

Quote 19: "The mother is no parent of that which is called/her child, but only nurse of the new-planted seed/that grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger she/preserves a stranger's seed, if no god interfere.../There can/be a father without any mother. There [Athena] stands,/the living witness, daughter of Olympian Zeus,/she who was never fostered in the dark womb/yet such a child as no goddess could bring to birth." Lines 658-666

Quote 20: "I shall make great your city and its populace./So I have brought this man to sit beside the hearth/of your house, to be your true friend for the rest of time,/so you shall win him, goddess, to fight by your side,/and among men to come this shall stand a strong bond/that his and your own people's children shall be friends." Lines 668-673

Quote 21: "Since you, a young god, would ride down my elder age,/I must stay here and listen to how the trial goes,/being yet uncertain to loose my anger on the state." Lines 731-733

Quote 22: "There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth,/and, but for marriage, I am always for the male/with all my heart, and strongly on my father's side./So, in a case where the wife has killed her husband, lord/of the house, her death shall not mean most to me." Lines 736-740

Quote 23: "Gods of the younger generation, you have ridden down/the laws of the elder time, torn them out of my hands./I, disinherited, suffering, heavy with anger/shall let loose on the land/the vindictive poison/dripping deadly out of my heart upon the ground;/this from itself shall breed/cancer.../What shall I do? Afflicted/I am mocked by these people." Lines 778-789

Quote 24: "In complete honesty I promise you a place/of your own, deep hidden underground that is yours by right/where you shall sit on shining chairs beneath the hearth/to accept devotions offered by your citizens." Lines 804-807

Quote 25: "The wind I breathe is fury and utter hate./Earth, ah, earth/what is this agony that crawls under my ribs?/Night, hear me, o Night,/mother. They have wiped me out/and the hard hands of the gods/and their treacheries have taken my old rights away." Lines 840-847

Quote 26: "No, let our wars rage outward hard against the man/who has fallen horribly in love with high renown./No true fighter I call the bird that fights at home./Such life I offer you, and it is yours to take./Do good, receive good, and be honored as the good/are honored. Share our country, the beloved of god." Lines 864-869

Quote 27: "A place free of all grief and pain. Take it for yours.../No household shall be prosperous without your will.../So we shall straighten the lives of all who worship us.../Stay here, then. You will win the hearts of others, too." Lines 893-901

Quote 28: "Let it come out of the ground, out of the sea's water,/and from the high air make the waft of gentle gales/wash over the country in full sunlight, and the seed/and stream of the soil's yield and of the grazing beasts/be strong and never fail our people as time goes,/and make the human seed be kept alive." Lines 904-909

Quote 29: "Let there blow no wind that wrecks the trees./I pronounce words of grace./Nor blaze of heat blind the blossoms of grown plants.../Let no barren deadly sickness creep and kill./Flocks fatten. Earth be kind/to them, with double fold of fruit/in time appointed for its yielding. Secret child/of earth, her hidden wealth, bestow/blessing and surprise of gods." Lines 938-948

Quote 30: "Go then. Sped by majestic sacrifice/from these, plunge beneath the ground. There hold/off what might hurt the land; pour in/the city's advantage, success in the end.../For good things given,/your hearts' desire be for good to return." Lines 1006-1013

Quote 31: "Gracious be, wish what the land wishes,/follow, grave goddesses, flushed in the flame sprung/torchlight gay on your journey./Singing all follow our footsteps./There shall be peace forever between these people/of [Athena] and their guests. Zeus the all seeing/met with Destiny to confirm it./Singing all follow our footsteps." Lines 1040-1047