Prologos
Chorus
(whine) The Chorus continues to whine.
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Ghost of Clytaemestra
You are too drowsy and do not pity my suffering. Orestes, the murderer of me, his mother, is gone!
Chorus
(moan) The Chorus begins to moan
Ghost of Clytaemestra
You moan, you drowse—will you not get up at once? Is it your destiny to do anything other than cause harm?
Chorus
(moan) The Chorus continues to moan.
Ghost of Clytaemestra
Sleep and toil, effective conspirators, have destroyed the force of the dreadful dragoness.
Chorus
Catch him! Catch him! Catch him! Catch him! Look sharp!
Ghost of Clytaemestra
In a dream you are hunting your prey, and are barking like a dog that never leaves off its keenness for the work. What are you doing? Get up; do not let fatigue overpower you, and do not ignore my misery because you have been softened by sleep.
Sting your heart with merited reproaches; for reproach becomes a spur to the right-minded. Send after him a gust of bloody breath, shrivel him with the vapor, the fire from your guts, follow him, wither him with fresh pursuit! The Ghost of Clytaemestra disappears; the Furies, roused by their leader, awake one after the other.
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Chorus
Awake! Wake her up, as I wake you.Still asleep? Get up, shake off sleep, let us see if any part of this beginningThe utterances of the Furies, as they rouse themselves to action, will be only a prelude to the fuller expression of their wrath. It is uncertain whether the first and second strophic groups were sung by single voices or by semi-choruses.is in vain.
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