"Not by offerings burned in secret, not by secret libations, not by tears, shall man soften the stubborn wrath of unsanctified sacrifices." (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 69-71)

A) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 22-54
Sent forth from the palace I have come to convey libations to the sound of sharp blows of my hands. My cheek is marked with bloody gashes 25 where my nails have cut fresh furrows. And yet through all my life my heart is fed with lamentation. Rips are torn by my griefs through the linen web of my garment, torn in the cloth that covers my breast, 30 the cloth of robes struck for the sake of my mirthless misfortunes.

For with a hair-raising shriek, the seer [mantis] of dreams for our house, breathing wrath out of sleep, 35 uttered a cry of terror in the untimely [a-(h)ôr-os] part of night from the heart of the palace, a cry that fell heavily on the women's quarter. And those who sort out these dreams, bound under pledge, cried out from the god 40 that those beneath the earth cast furious reproaches and rage against their murderers.

Intending to ward off evil with such a graceless grace [kharis], 45 O mother Earth, she sends me forth, godless woman that she is. But I am afraid to utter the words she charged me to speak. For what atonement is there for blood fallen to earth? Ah, hearth of utter grief! 50 Ah, house laid low in ruin! Sunless darkness, loathed by men, enshrouds our house due to the death of its master.

B) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 235-245
Electra: O most philon object of care in your father's house, its hope of the seed of a savior [sôtêr] longed for with tears, trust in your prowess and you will win back your father's house. O delightful eyes that have four parts of love for me: for I must call you father; 240 and to you falls the love I should bear my mother, she whom I hate with complete dikê; and the love I bore my sister, victim of a pitiless sacrifice; and you were my faithful brother, bringing me your reverence. May Might and Dikê, 245 with Zeus, supreme over all, in the third place, lend you their aid!

C) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 306-322
Chorus: You mighty Fates, through the power of Zeus grant fulfillment there where what is just [dikaion] now turns. "For a word of hate 310 let a word of hate be said," Dikê cries out as she exacts the debt, "and for a murderous stroke let a murderous stroke be paid." "Let him suffer [paskhô] what he himself has done," says the mûthos of three generations.
Orestes: 315 O father, unhappy father, by what word or deed of mine can I succeed in sailing from far away to you, where your resting-place holds you, a light to oppose your darkness? 320 Yet a lament that gives kleos to the Atreidae who once possessed our house is none the less a joyous service [kharites].

D) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 345-353
Ah, my father, if only beneath Ilium's walls you had been slain, slashed by some Lycian spearman! Then you would have left a good kleos for your children in their halls, and in their maturity you would have made their lives admired by men. 350 And in a land beyond the sea you would have found a tomb heaped high with earth, no heavy burden for your house to bear -

E) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 394-404
Electra: And when will mighty Zeus, blossoming on both his father's and mother's side, bring down his hand on them 395 and split their heads open? Let it be a pledge to the land! After injustice I demand dikê as my right. Hear, O Earth, and you powers below with your tîmê!
Chorus: And it is the eternal law [nomos] that drops of blood spilled on the ground demand yet more blood. Murder cries out on the Fury [Erinys], which from those killed before brings one atê in the wake of another atê.

F) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 1014-1017
Now at last I praise [aineô] him. Now at last I am present to lament him, 1015 as I address this web that wrought my father's death. Yet I grieve for the deed and the suffering [pathos] and for my whole lineage [genos]. My victory is an unenviable pollution.

G) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 1048-1062
Orestes: Ah, ah! You slave women, look at them there: like Gorgons, wrapped in sable garments, 1050 entwined with swarming snakes! I can stay no longer.
Chorus: What visions disturb you, most philos of sons to your father? Wait, do not be all overcome by fear.
Orestes: To me these are no imagined troubles. For there indeed are the hounds of wrath to avenge my mother… O lord Apollo, look! Now they come in troops, and from their eyes they drip loathsome blood! …You do not see them, but I see them. I am driven out and can stay no longer!

H) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 1065-1076
Look! Now again, for the third time, has the tempest of this clan burst on the royal house and come to fulfillment [telos]. First, at the beginning, came the cruel woes of children slain for food; 1070 next, the suffering [pathos] of a man, a king, when the warlord of the Achaeans perished, murdered in his bath. And now, once again, there has come from somewhere a third, a savior [sôtêr], or shall I say a doom? 1075 Oh when will it bring its work to completion, when will the fury of calamity [atê], lulled to rest, find an end and cease?