Leader:
Zeus, you say,
sets more store by a father’s death? He shackled
his own father, Kronos proud with age.
Doesn’t that contradict you? 650

(to the judges.)

Mark it well. I call you all to witness.

Apollo:
You grotesque, loathsome – the gods detest you!
Zeus can break chains, we’ve cures for that,
countless ingenious ways to set us free.
But once the dust drinks down a man’s blood, 655
he is gone, once for all. No rising back,
no spell sung over the grave can sing him back -
not even Father can. Though all things else
he can overturn and never strain for breath.

Leader:
So
you’d force this man’s acquittal? Behold Justice! 660

(exhibiting Apollo and Orestes.)
Can a son spill his mother’s blood on the ground,
then settle into his father’s halls in Argos?
Where are the public altars he can use?
Can the kinsmen’s holy water touch his hands?

Apollo:
Here is the truth, I tell you – see how right I am. 665
The woman you call the mother of the child
is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed,
the new-sown seed that grows and swells inside her.
The man is the source of life – the one who mounts.
She, like a stranger for a stranger, keeps 670
the shoo alive unless god hurts the roots.
I give you proof that all I say is true.
The father can father forth without a mother.
Here she stands, our living witness. Look -

(exhibiting Athena)

Child sprung full-blown from Olympian Zeus, 675
never bred in the darkness of the womb
but such a stock no goddess could conceive!

And I, Pallas, with all my strong techniques
will rear your host and battlements to glory.
So I dispatched this suppliant to your hearth 680
the he might be your trusted friend forever,
that you might win a new ally, dear goddess.
He and his generations arm-in-arm with yours,
your bonds stand firm for all posterity -
Athena:
Now
have we heard enough? May I have them cast 685
their honest lots as conscience may decide?

Leader:
For us, we have shot our arrows, every one.
I wait to hear how this ordeal will end.

Athena:
Of course,
And what can I do to merit your respect?

Apollo:
You have heard what you have heard. 690

(to the judges.)

Cast your lots, my friends,
strict to the oath that you have sworn.