Electra
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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persuaded Atreus’ own wife to secret love, and carried off to his house the portent; coming before the assembly he declared that he had in his
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house the horned sheep with fleece of gold.
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Chorus Leader
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Oh, oh! My friends, did you hear a noise—or did an empty notion come to me?—like the underground rumbling from Zeus? Look, the breeze rises, bringing with it a sign.
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Mistress, Electra, leave the house!
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Electra
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My friends, what is it? How do we stand in the contest?
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Leader
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I only know this; I hear a wailing that means bloodshed.
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Electra
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I heard it also, far off, but still heard.
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Leader
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Yes, the sound is coming a long way, but it is clear.
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Electra
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The groan was of an Argive; was it from my friends?
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Leader
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I don’t know; for the whole tune of the shout is confused.
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Electra
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You are calling out to me my death; why do I delay?
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Leader
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Hold back, to learn your fortune clearly.
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Electra
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No, no; we are vanquished; where are the messengers?
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Leader
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They will come; it is no trivial matter to kill a king.
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Messenger
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O victorious maidens of Mycenae, I report to all his friends that Orestes has conquered, and Aegisthus, the murderer of Agamemnon, lies on the ground; but we must offer prayers to the gods.
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Electra
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Who are you? How trustworthy is your announcement?
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Messenger
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Don’t you know your brother’s servant when you look at me?
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Electra
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O best of friends! I could not recognize your face out of fear; but now I know you well. What are you saying? Is my father’s hated murderer dead?
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Messenger
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He is dead; I am telling you twice what you certainly want to hear.
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Electra
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O gods, and all-seeing justice, at last you have come. In what way and by what form of death did he kill Thyestes’ son? I would like to learn.
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Messenger
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After we had left this house,
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we stepped onto the broad highway and went to the place where the famous King of Mycenae was. He turned out to be walking in a well-watered garden, plucking a wreath of tender myrtle-sprays for his head; when he saw us, he called out, Welcome, strangers! Who are you
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and from where do you come? from what country? Orestes said, We are Thessalians, going to the Alpheus river to sacrifice to Olympian Zeus. When Aegisthus heard that, he said, You must be my guests for the feast
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with us now, for I happen to be sacrificing an ox to the Nymphs; and if you get out of bed at dawn, it will make no difference to you. But let us go within—while he was addressing us, he took us by the hand and led us off the road—you must not refuse.
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And when we were in the house, he gave the command: Let someone bring water immediately for my guests, so that they may stand around the altar near the basin. But Orestes said: Just now we purified ourselves in clean water from the river’s streams.
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So if strangers must join in the sacrifice with citizens, Aegisthus, we are ready and will not refuse, lord. So they ended their public conversation. The slaves who formed the master’s bodyguard laid aside their spears, and all applied their hands to the work.
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Some brought the bowl to catch the blood, others took up baskets, while others kindled fire and set cauldrons around the hearth, and the whole roof rang. Then your mother’s bed-fellow took barley for sprinkling, and cast it upon the altar with these words,
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Nymphs of the rocks, may I and my wife, the daughter of Tyndareus, often sacrifice at home, in good fortune as now, and may my enemies suffer—meaning you and Orestes. But my master prayed for the opposite, not speaking the words aloud,
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that he might win his father’s house. Aegisthus took from a basket a long straight knife, and cutting off some of the calf’s hair laid it with his right hand on the sacred fire, and then cut the calf’s throat when the servants had lifted it upon their shoulders, and said this to your brother:
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They boast that this is among the honorable accomplishments for the Thessalians: to cut up a bull rightly and to tame horses; take the knife, stranger, and show us if the report about the Thessalians is true.
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Orestes seized in his hands the well-hammered Dorian knife and
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threw from his shoulders his graceful buckled robe; he chose Pylades as an assistant in the work and drove back the servants; and taking the calf by the hoof, he laid bare its white flesh, with arm outstretched, and flayed the hide quicker than a runner
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finishes the two laps of the horses’ race-course; and then he laid the flanks open. Aegisthus took the entrails in his hands and inspected them. Now the liver had no lobe, while the portal vein and near-by gall-bladder revealed threatening approaches to the one who was observing it.
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Aegisthus was angry, but my master asked, Why are you disheartened? Stranger, I fear some treachery from abroad. Agamemnon’s son is the man I hate most, and an enemy to my house. But Orestes said, Do you really fear treachery from an exile,
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when you rule the city? Instead of the Dorian knife, let someone bring me a Thessalian axe and let me split the breast-bone, so that we may hold the sacrificial feast. He took the axe and cut. Now Aegisthus took up the entrails, and was inspecting and sorting them out. As he was bending down,
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your brother rose on tiptoe and struck him on the spine; his back-bone broke apart; with his whole body he struggled up and down, and cried out, dying hard in his blood. As soon as the servants saw it, they rushed to arms,
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many to fight against two; yet Pylades and Orestes in their bravery stood to face them, brandishing their weapons. Then he said: I do not come hostile to this city or to my own servants; I, the unhappy Orestes, have avenged myself on the murderer of my father;
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but do not kill me, old servants of my father! They, when they heard his words, held back their spears, and he was recognized by an old man, who had been long in the household. Immediately they crowned your brother with a wreath, and shouted with joy.
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And he comes bringing a head to show you, not that of the Gorgon, but of the one you hate, Aegisthus; his death today has paid in blood a bitter debt of blood.
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Chorus
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Set your step to the dance, my dear,
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like a fawn leaping high up to heaven with joy. Your brother is victorious and has accomplished the wearing of a crown . . . beside the streams of Alpheus. Come sing
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a glorious victory ode, to my dance.
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Electra
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O light, O blaze of the sun, drawn by its team! O earth and night, all that I saw before; now I am free to open my eyes, for Aegisthus, my father’s murderer, has fallen.
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Come, let me bring out whatever adornment for hair that I have and my house contains, friends, and I shall wreath the head of my conquering brother.
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Chorus
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It is for you to bring adornment now for his head;
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our dance, dear to the Muses, will go on. Now, those who were once our dear kings will rule our land justly, having destroyed the unjust. So let the shout, harmonious with joy, go up.
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Electra
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O glorious victor, Orestes, son of a father victorious in battle under Troy, receive this band for the locks of your hair. You have come home, running a contest of the stadium that was not useless, but rather killing
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Aegisthus, the murderer of your father and mine. And you, his companion, Pylades, taught by a most pious father, receive a garland from my hand; for you also bear an equal part of the contest, with Orestes. May you always seem to me fortunate!
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Orestes
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First believe that the gods, Electra, are the leaders of our fortune, and then praise me as the servant of them and of fate. I come, having killed Aegisthus not in word but in deed; to add this proof to your knowledge,
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I am bringing you his corpse, which, if you wish, you may expose as prey for wild animals or impale and press it down on a stake as spoil for birds, the children of the air; for now he is your slave, once called your master.
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Electra
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I am ashamed, but equally I wish to speak.
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Orestes
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What is it? Speak, as you are free from fear.
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Electra
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I am ashamed to insult the dead, for fear someone might hurl malice at me.
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Orestes
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There is no one who would blame you.
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Electra
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Our citizens are hard to please, and love scandal.
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Orestes
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Speak, if you need to say anything, sister; for we engaged in hostilities with him on terms without truce.
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Electra
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Well then! Which of your evil acts shall I tell of first, as a beginning? What sort of end shall I make? What part of my speech shall I assign to the middle place? And yet I never ceased, throughout the early mornings,
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repeating what I wished to say to your face, if ever I were free from my old terrors. And now I am; so I will pay you back with those reproaches I wanted to make when you were alive. You destroyed me, and orphaned me
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and this man here of a dear father, though you were wronged in no way by us; and you made a shameful marriage with my mother, and killed her husband, who led the armies of Hellas, though you never went to Troy. You were so foolish that you really expected, in marrying my mother, that she would not be unfaithful to you,
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though you were wronging my father’s bed. Know that whoever ruins another’s wife, in secret love, and then is forced to take her himself, is pitiable, if he thinks that the chastity which did not govern her before will do so with him.
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You lived most miserably, although you thought it otherwise; you knew well that you had made an unholy marriage, and my mother knew that she had in you an impious husband. Both being wicked, she took up your fortune, you her evil.
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Among all the Argives you would hear this: That woman’s husband, not that man’s wife. Although this is a shameful thing, for the wife to rule the house and not the husband; and I hate those children who are called in the city not the sons of the man, their father,
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but of their mother. For instance, when a man makes a remarkable marriage, one above his rank, there is no talk of the husband but only of the wife. This deceived you the most, in your ignorance: you professed to be some one, strong in your wealth,
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but that is nothing, except to associate with briefly. It is nature that is secure, not wealth; for, always standing by, it takes away troubles; but prosperity, when it lives wickedly and with fools, flies out of the house, flowering for a short time.
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As to your women, I am silent—for it is not good for a maiden to speak of this—but I will tell riddles that can be understood. You were insolent because you had a king’s house and were endowed with good looks. May I never have a husband with a girl’s face, but one with a man’s ways.
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For the children of the latter cling to a life of arms, while the fair ones are only an ornament in the dance. Spurning the corpse with her foot Begone, knowing nothing of how you were discovered and paid the penalty in time. So let no evildoer suppose, even if he runs the first step well,
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that he will get the better of Justice, until he comes to the end of the finish-line and makes the last turn in life.
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Chorus Leader
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He did terrible things, and repaid them to you and Orestes; for Justice has great strength.
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Electra
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Well then; you must carry the body of this man inside
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and hide it, slaves, so that when my mother comes, she may not see his corpse before her slaughter.
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Orestes
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Wait! Let us go into another matter.
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Electra
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What? Those are not rescuers from Mycenae whom I see?
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Orestes
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No, but the mother who bore me.
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Electra
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Then finely she walks to the middle of the net. —And here she comes, splendid in her chariot and dress.
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Orestes
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What are we going to do? Shall we kill our mother?
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Electra
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Surely pity did not seize you, when you saw your mother?
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Orestes
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Ah! How can I kill her when she bore me and brought me up?
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Electra
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As she killed your father and mine.
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Orestes
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O Phoebus, you prophesied a great folly—
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Electra
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Where Apollo is a fool, who are the wise?
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Orestes
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You who declared I was to kill my mother, whom it is clearly wrong to kill.
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Electra
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How can you be hurt by avenging your father?
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Orestes
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I shall stand trial as a matricide, though I was pure before.
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Electra
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And by not defending your father, you will be impious.
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Orestes
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I, my mother—? To whom will I pay the penalty for her murder?
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Electra
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And to whom, if you give up our father’s vengeance?
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Orestes
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Was it a fiend who spoke in the likeness of the god?
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Electra
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Seated on the holy tripod? I do not think so.
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Orestes
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I cannot believe that this oracle was well prophesied.
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Electra
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Do not become a coward and fall into unmanliness!
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Orestes
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Am I to devise the same crafty scheme for her?
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Electra
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The same death that you gave to her husband, Aegisthus.
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Orestes
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I will go in; it is a dreadful task I am beginning and I will do dreadful things. If the gods approve, let it be; to me the contest is bitter and also sweet.
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Chorus
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Hail, Queen of the land of Argos, child of Tyndareus,
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and sister of those two noble sons of Zeus who dwell in the fiery heavens among the stars, whose honored office it is to save mortals in the high waves. Welcome, I give you worship equal to the blessed gods
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for your wealth and great prosperity. Now is the time to pay our court to your fortunes. Welcome, o queen.
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Clytemnestra
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Come out of the wagon, Trojan maids, and take my hand, that I may step down from the chariot.
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The homes of the gods are adorned with Phrygian spoils, but I have obtained these women, choice objects from the land of Troy, in return for the daughter whom I lost, a slight reward but an ornament to my house.
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Electra
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And, mother—for I live as a slave
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in this miserable house, cast out from my father’s home—may I not take that blessed hand of yours?