Stasimon 5
[Choral 1]
when the arms were made the prize for a contest in the skills of warfare!
935
Chorus
True anguish, I know, pierces your heart.
Chorus
I do not wonder, lady, that you wail and wail again, when you have just lost one so loved.
940
Tecmessa
It is for you to analyze my troubles, but for me to feel them too fully.
Tecmessa
Oh, my son, to what a heavy yoke of slavery
we advance! What cruel task-masters stand over us!
945
Chorus
Ah, the deeds of the two ruthless Atreidae which you name in our present grief would be unthinkable! May the gods hold them back!
Tecmessa
These events that you see would not have happened as they have without the will of the gods.
950
Chorus
Yes, they have brought upon us a burden too heavy to bear.
Tecmessa
Yet what suffering the divine daughter of Zeus, fierce Pallas, engenders for Odysseus’
sake!
Chorus
No doubt the much-enduring hero exults in his dark soul and mocks in loud laughter at these frenzied sorrows—what shame!—
955
and with him, when they hear the news, will laugh the royal brothers, the Atreidae.
960
