The great happiness, and the valor high sounding throughout Greece, and by
the channels of the Simois, has again withdrawn from the fortune of the
Atridæ, as of old, from the ancient calamity of the house, when the strife
of the golden lamb[20] arose among the descendants of Tantalus; most
shocking feasts, and the slaughter of noble children; from whence murder
responsive to murder fails not to attend on the two sons of Atreus. What
seems good is not good, to gash the parents' skin with a fierce hand, and
brandish the sword black-stained with blood in the sunbeams. But, on the
other hand, to act wickedly[21] is mad impiety, and the folly of
evil-minded men.
But the wretched daughter of Tyndarus in the fear of death shrieked out,
"My son, thou darest impious deeds, killing thy mother; do not, attending
to the gratification of thy father, kindle an everlasting disgrace."
What malady, or what tears, or what pity on earth is greater, than to
imbrue one's hand in a mother's blood? What a deed, what a deed having
performed, does the son of Agamemnon rave with madness, a prey to the
Eumenides, marked for death, giddy with his rolling eyes! O wretched on
account of his mother, when though seeing the breast bared from the robe of
golden texture, he stabbed the mother in retaliation for the father's
sufferings.