Note 417 — THE LIBATION-POURERS
E. H. (Edward Hayes) Plumptre translation
The words are both doubtful and obscure. Taking the reading which I have adopted, they seem to mean that while men in general had means of propitiating the Erinnyes and other Powers for the guilt of unavenged bloodshed, Orestes and Electra had no such way of escape open to them. If they, the next of kin, failed to do their work, they would be exposed to the full storm of wrath. But a conjectural emendation of one word gives us,
“For making known to men the earth-born ills
That come from wrathful Powers.”