A) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1085-1093

Cassandra: Apollo, Apollo! God of the Ways, my destroyer! Ah, what way is this that you have brought me? To what house?

Chorus: To that of Atreus' sons. If you do not perceive this, I'll tell it to you. And you shall not say that it is untrue.

Cassandra: No, no, rather to a god-hating house, a house that knows many a horrible butchery of kin, a slaughter-house of men and a floor swimming with blood.

B) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 716-736: Even so a man reared in his house a lion's whelp, robbed of its mother's milk yet still desiring the breast. Gentle it was in the prelude of its life, kindly to children, and a delight to the old. Much did it get, held in arms like a nursling child, with its bright eye turned toward his hand, and fawning under compulsion of its belly's need. But brought to full growth by time it demonstrated the nature it had from its parents. Unbidden, in return [kharis] for its fostering, it prepared a feast with a slaughter of destruction [atê] inflicted on the flocks; so that the house was defiled with blood, and they that lived there could not control their anguish, and great was the carnage far and wide. A priest of Derangement [atê], by order of a god, it was reared in the house.

C) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1499-1504: Do not imagine that I am Agamemnon's spouse. A phantom resembling that corpse's wife, the ancient bitter evil spirit of Atreus, that grim banqueter, has offered him in payment, sacrificing a full-grown victim in vengeance for those slain children.

D) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1-21: I ask the gods for release from these ordeals [ponoi] of mine, throughout this long year's watch, in which, lying upon the palace roof of the descendants of Atreus, upon my bent arm, like a dog, I have learned to know well the gathering of the night's stars, those radiant potentates conspicuous in the firmament, bringers of winter and summer to mankind. So now I am still watching for the signal [sumbolon] of the flame, the gleaming fire that is to bring news from Troy and tidings of its capture. … But tonight may there come a happy release from these ordeals [ponoi] of mine! May the fire with its glad tidings flash through the gloom! Oh welcome, you blaze in the night, a light as if of day, you harbinger of the setting up of many khoroi in Argos in thanksgiving for this glad event! Iou! Iou! To Agamemnon's Queen I thus make a signal [sêmainô] to rise from her bed, and as quickly as she can to utter in a proper way [euphêmeô] in her palace halls a shout of ololu in welcome of this fire, if the city of Ilion truly is taken, as this beacon unmistakably announces. And I will join the khoros in a prelude upon my own account. … For the rest I stay silent; a great ox stands upon my tongue - yet the house itself, could it but speak, might tell a plain enough tale; since, for my part, by my own choice I have words for those who know, and to those who do not know, I am without memory.

E) Aeschylus, Agamemnon 184-254
So then the captain of the Achaean ships, the elder of the two - 185 holding no seer at fault, bending to the adverse blasts of fortune, when the Achaean people, on the shore over against Khalkis 190 in the region where Aulis' tides surge to and fro, were very distressed by opposing winds and failing stores;

and the breezes that blew from the Strymon, bringing harmful leisure, hunger, and tribulation of spirit in a cruel port, idle wandering of men, and sparing neither ship 195 nor cable, began, by doubling the season of their stay, to rub away and wither the flower of Argos; and when the seer, pointing to Artemis as cause, proclaimed to the chieftains another remedy, 200 more oppressive even than the bitter storm, so that the sons of Atreus struck the ground with their canes and did not stifle their tears

- then the elder king spoke and said: "It is a hard fate to refuse obedience, and hard, if I must slay my child, the glory of my home, and at the altar-side stain 210 a father's hand with streams of virgin's blood. Which of these courses is not filled with evil? How can I become a deserter to my fleet and fail my allies in arms? 215 For that they should with all too impassioned passion crave a sacrifice to lull the winds - even a virgin's blood - stands within their right. May all be for the best."

But when he had donned the yoke of Necessity, with veering of mind, 220 impious, unholy, unsanctified, from then he changed his intention and began to conceive that deed of uttermost audacity. For wretched delusion, counselor of ill, primal source of woe, makes man bold. So then he hardened his heart to sacrifice his daughter 225 so that he might further a war waged to avenge a woman, and as an offering for the voyaging of a fleet!

For her supplications, her cries of "Father," and her virgin life, 230 the commanders in their eagerness for war cared nothing. Her father, after a prayer, told his ministers to raise her - fallen about her robes, she lay face-down 235 in supplication with all her thûmos - to lift her like a young goat, high above the altar; and with a gag upon her lovely mouth to hold back the shouted curse against her house -

by the bit's strong and stifling might. Then, as she shed to earth her saffron robe, she 240 struck each of her sacrificers with a glance from her eyes beseeching pity, looking as if in a drawing, wishing she could speak; for she had often sung where men met at her father's hospitable table, 245 and with her virgin voice would lovingly honor her dear father's prayer for blessing at the third libation.

What happened next I did not see and do not tell. The art of Kalkhas was not unfulfilled. 250 Justice [Dikê] inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering [pathos]. But the future, that you shall know when it occurs; till then, leave it be - it is just as someone weeping ahead of time. Clear it will come, together with the light of dawn.

For a summary of the myths of the House of Atreus and the curse on that house see "The Five Generations of the House of Atreus, and its Curse." An even more compressed outline can be found here.