Opening The Libation Bearers — Aeschylus in Plato Scroll…
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Aeschylus · Herbert Weir Smyth (Loeb Classical Library, 1926)
[Image: ]Orestes, Electra and Hermes before the tomb of Agamemnon, as depicted by a Choephoroi vase-painter NOW WHEN SHE had slain Agamemnon, Queen Clytaemestra with her lover Aegisthus ruled in the land of Argos. But the spirit of her murdered lord was worth and sent a baleful vision to distress her soul in sleep. She dreamed that she gave birth to a serpent and that she suckled it, as if it had been a babe; but together with the mother’s milk the noxious thing drew clotted blood from out her breast. With a scream of horror she awoke, and when the seers of the house had interpreted the portent as a sign of the anger of the nether powers, she bade Electra, her daughter, and her serving-women bear libations to the tomb of Agamemnon, if haply she might placate his spirit. Now Princess Electra dwelt in the palace, but was treated no better than a slave; but, before that Agamemnon was …
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