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Ghost of Clytaemestra
Sleep on! Aha! Yet what need is there of sleepers? It is due to you that I am thus dishonored among the other dead; [95] because of those I killed the dead never cease to reproach me, and I wander in disgrace. I tell you that I am most greatly accused by them. And yet, although I have suffered cruelly in this way from my nearest kin, [100] no divine power is angry on my behalf, slaughtered as I have been by the hands of a matricide. See these gashes in my heart, and from where they came! For the sleeping mind has clear vision, but in the daytime the fate of mortals is unforeseeable. [105]

Truly, you have lapped up many of my offerings—wineless libations, a sober appeasement; and I have sacrificed banquets in the solemn night upon a hearth of fire at an hour unshared by any god. I see all this trampled under foot. [110] But he has escaped and is gone, like a fawn; lightly indeed, from the middle of snares, he has rushed away mocking at you. Hear me, since I plead for my life, awake to consciousness, goddesses of the underworld! [115] For in a dream I, Clytaemestra, now invoke you.

Chorus
(whine)The Chorus begins to move uneasily, uttering a whining sound.

Ghost of Clytaemestra
Whine, if you will! But the man is gone, fled far away. For he has friends that are not like mine!

Chorus
(whine) [120] The Chorus continues to whine.

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? [125]

Chorus
(moan)The Chorus continues to moan.

Ghost of Clytaemestra
Sleep and toil, effective conspirators, have destroyed the force of the dreadful dragoness.

Chorus
With whining redoubled and intensified. Catch him! Catch him! Catch him! Catch him! Look sharp! [130]

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