CHORUS
Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.
APOLLO
What office? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.
CHORUS
From home to home we chase the matricide.
APOLLO
What? to avenge a wife who slays her lord?
CHORUS
That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.
APOLLO
How darkly ye dishonour and annul
The troth to which the high accomplishers,
Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus
Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,
The queen of rapture unto mortal men.
Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained
For man and woman standeth Right as guard,
Enhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn;
Therefore, if thou art placable to those
Who have their consort slain, nor will’st to turn
On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou
In hounding to his doom the man who slew
His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath
Against one deed, but all too placable
Unto the other, minishing the crime.
But in this cause shall Pallas guard the right.
CHORUS
Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.
APOLLO
Follow then, make thee double toil in vain!
CHORUS
Think not by speech mine office to curtail.
APOLLO
None hast thou, that I would accept of thee!