Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Washed in the Blood
Aeschylus, Eumenides 281-283 (tr. Alan H. Sommerstein, with his note):
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And the pollution of matricide has been washed out: at the hearth of the god Phoebus, when it was still fresh, it was expelled by means of the purification-sacrifice of a young pig.71
71 The priest held a young pig over the head of the person to be purified, and cut its throat so that the blood dripped on the man's head and hands. See R. Parker, Miasma (Oxford, 1983) 370-4.
μητροκτόνον μίασμα δ᾽ ἔκπλυτον πέλει·
ποταίνιον γὰρ ὂν πρὸς ἑστίᾳ θεοῦ
Φοίβου καθαρμοῖς ἠλάθη χοιροκτόνοις.
