Note (return) — Chapter XV

The pollution and curse of sin, when once contracted by an individual, or entailed upon a family, will rest upon them and pursue them till the polluted individual or the hated and accursed race is extinct, unless in some way the sin can be expiated, or some god interpose to arrest the penalty. The criminal must die by the hand of justice, and even in Hades vengeance will still pursue him. 948 Others may in time be washed away by ablutions, worn away by exile and pilgrimage, and expiated by offerings of blood. 949 But great crimes can not be washed away; "For what expiation is there for blood when once it has fallen on the ground." 950 Thus the law ([νόµος])--for so it is expressly called--as from an Attic Sinai, rolls its reverberating thunders, and pronounces its curses upon sin, from act to act and from chorus to chorus of that grand trilogy--the "Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe," and the "Eumenides."