Stasimon 3
[Episode]
How so? Hast thou the same mistrust that I experience?
Old Servant
Thou wilt get the credit of his death, although thou slay him not.
Creusa
True; men say stepdames are jealous of their husband’s children.
1025
Old Servant
Kill him here then, that so thou mayst deny the murder.
Creusa
Well, thus I do anticipate the pleasure.
Old Servant
Yea, and thou wilt from thy husband keep the very secret he would keep from thee.
Creusa
Dost know then what to do? Take from my arm
this golden bracelet, Athena’s gift, some ancient craftsman’s work, and seek the spot where my lord is offering secret sacrifice; then when their feasting is o’er and they are about to pour drink-offering to the gods, take this phial in thy robe and pour it into the young man’s goblet;
1030
not for all, but for him alone, providing a separate draught, who thinks to lord it o’er my house. And if once it pass his lips, never shall he come to glorious Athens, but here abide, of life bereft.
1035
Old Servant
Go thou within the house of our public hosts;
I the while will set about my appointed task. On! aged foot, grow young again in action, for all that time saith no to thee. Go, aid thy mistress against her enemy, help slay and drag him from her house.
1040
’Tis well to honour piety in the hour of fortune, but when thou wouldst harm thy foe, no law doth block thy path.
1045
[Choral 1]
Daughter of Demeter, goddess of highways, queen as thou art of haunting powers of darkness,
Chorus
oh! guide as well the hand that fills by day a cup of death, against those to whom my revered mistress is sending a philtre of the gore that dripped from hellish Gorgon’s severed head,
1050
yea, ’gainst him who would obtrude upon the halls of the Erechthidae. Never may alien, from alien stock, lord it o’er my city,
1055
no! none save noble Erechtheus’ sons!
1060
For if this deadly deed and my lady’s aims pass unfulfilled, and the right moment for her daring go by, and with it the hope which now sustains her, either will she seize the whetted knife
or fasten the noose about her neck, and by ending one sorrow by another will go down to other phases of existence. For never will that daughter of a noble line,
1065
while life is hers, endure within the sunshine of her eyes the sight of alien rulers in her halls.
1070
[Choral 2]
I blush for that god of song,
Chorus
if this stranger is to witness the torch-dance, that heralds in the twentieth dawn, around Callichorus’ fair springs, a sleepless votary in midnight revels, what time the star-lit firmament of Zeus,
1075
the moon, and Nereus’ fifty daughters, that trip it lightly o’er the sea and the eternal rivers’ tides, join the dance in honour
1080
of the maiden with the crown of gold and her majestic mother; where this vagabond, by Phoebus favoured, thinks to reign, entering into other men’s hard toil.
1085
Look to it, all ye bards, who, in malicious strains, expose our amours and unholy bonds of lawless love; see how far our
1090
virtue surpasses man’s disloyalty. Change the burden of your song and keep your spiteful verse to brand man’s faithlessness. For this scion of the stock of Zeus
1095
shows himself a heedless wight, denying to the mistress of his halls the lot of mutual offspring, and, paying all his court to some strange love,
1100
hath gotten him a bastard son.
1105
