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You also must run your risk here, for murder.
An equal number of votes cast will save you from dying by the verdict; for Loxias will take the blame upon himself, since it was his oracle that advised your mother’s murder. And this law will be set for posterity, that the accused will always win his case if he has equal votes.
1265
Then the dread goddesses, stricken with grief at this, will sink into a cleft of the earth beside this hill, a holy, revered prophetic shrine for mortals. You must found an Arcadian city beside the streams of Alpheus near the sacred enclosure to Lycaean Apollo;
1270
and the city will be called after your name. I say this to you. As for this corpse of Aegisthus, the citizens of
Argos
will cover it in the earth in burial. But as for your mother, Menelaus, who has arrived at
Nauplia
only now after capturing
Troy
,
1275
will bury her, with Helen helping him; for she has come from Proteus’ house, leaving
Egypt
, and she never went to
Troy
; Zeus, to stir up strife and bloodshed among mortals, sent a phantom of Helen to
Ilium
. Now let Pylades, having one who is both a virgin and a married woman,
1280
go home from the Achaean land, and let him conduct the one called your brother-in-law to the land of
Phocis
, and give him a weight of riches. But you set out along the narrow Isthmus, and go to Cecropia’s blessed hill.
1285
For once you have completed your appointed lot of murder, you will be happy, freed from these troubles.
1290
You also must run your risk here, for murder.
An equal number of votes cast will save you from dying by the verdict; for Loxias will take the blame upon himself, since it was his oracle that advised your mother’s murder. And this law will be set for posterity, that the accused will always win his case if he has equal votes.
1265
Then the dread goddesses, stricken with grief at this, will sink into a cleft of the earth beside this hill, a holy, revered prophetic shrine for mortals. You must found an Arcadian city beside the streams of Alpheus near the sacred enclosure to Lycaean Apollo;
1270
and the city will be called after your name. I say this to you. As for this corpse of Aegisthus, the citizens of
Argos
will cover it in the earth in burial. But as for your mother, Menelaus, who has arrived at
Nauplia
only now after capturing
Troy
,
1275
will bury her, with Helen helping him; for she has come from Proteus’ house, leaving
Egypt
, and she never went to
Troy
; Zeus, to stir up strife and bloodshed among mortals, sent a phantom of Helen to
Ilium
. Now let Pylades, having one who is both a virgin and a married woman,
1280
go home from the Achaean land, and let him conduct the one called your brother-in-law to the land of
Phocis
, and give him a weight of riches. But you set out along the narrow Isthmus, and go to Cecropia’s blessed hill.
1285
For once you have completed your appointed lot of murder, you will be happy, freed from these troubles.
1290
Electra. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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