Classic Poem

She-kin, show our force. Join hands!
Dance the doom-dance steps, display
through our grim music that our band's
a power over men that gets its way:

Our mission's bloodright, we're not sent
ever to harm the innocent

Show us your hands. If they're not red
you'll sleep soundly in your bed.

Show us your hands. Left. Right.
You'll live unhunted if they're white.

Show us your hands. There's one we know
whose hands are red and daren't show.
With men like him whose hands are red
we are the bloodgrudge of the dead.

Our band of witnesses pursues
the bloodkin-killer for blood-dues.

NIGHT, Night, Mother Night
who bore us to uphold bloodright,
Leto's he-child takes away
the rights you gave us to our prey,

this cringing beast, this cowering whelp
evades us with that he-god's help.
Apollo's foiled us of the hide
of our allotted matricide.

Victim! Victim!
Listen! Our song!

The Furies' lyreless lullaby's
music maddening men's mind

Victim! Victim!
Listen! Our song!

it binds man's brain and dries
man's fruity flesh to rind.

The she-god of life-lot gave us these powers,
ours, ours, for ever ours.

Those who kill their kin I hound
until I've got them underground.

Even dead they don't go free,
I torment them endlessly . . .

Victim! Victim!
Listen! Our song!

The Furies' lyreless lullaby's
music maddening men's mind

Victim! Victim!
Listen! Our song!

it binds man's brain and dries
man's fruity flesh to rind.