Electra
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Chrysothemis
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I do not, but to bend before the strong.
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Electra
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Keep your flattery to yourself; it is not in my character.
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Chrysothemis
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Regardless, it brings no honor to fall through senselessness.
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Electra
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I will fall, if need be, while honoring my father.
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Chrysothemis
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But our father, I know, pardons me for this.
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Electra
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It is for cowards to commend such sentiments.
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Chrysothemis
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So you will not be persuaded to agree with me?
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Electra
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No, indeed; may I not yet be so devoid of intelligence.
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Chrysothemis
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Then I will move on to where I was sent.
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Electra
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And where is it that you go? For whom do you take these offerings to be burned?
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Chrysothemis
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Mother sends me with funeral libations for our father.
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Electra
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What are you saying? For her deadliest enemy?
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Chrysothemis
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Whom she herself killed, no doubt you wanted to say this as well.
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Electra
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What friend persuaded her? Whose idea was it?
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Chrysothemis
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The cause, I think, was fear induced by some vision in the night.
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Electra
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My father’s Gods! Stand with me now at last!
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Chrysothemis
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Do you find something heartening in this terror?
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Electra
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If you would tell me the vision, then I could answer.
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Chrysothemis
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I know no more than a small part of the story.
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Electra
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Tell me that, anyway; a small tale has often before now tripped men up, or set them upright.
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Chrysothemis
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It is said that she saw the father of you and of me restored to the sunlight and to her company once more. Then he took the scepter—
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once his own, but now carried by Aegisthus—and planted it at the hearth. From it branched upward a flourishing limb, by which the whole land of the Mycenaeans was overshadowed. Such was the tale that I heard told by one who was present
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when she revealed her dream to the Sun-god. More than this I do not know, except that she sent me by reason of this fear of hers. Now, I beg you by our ancestral gods, obey me, and do not fall in your senselessness!
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If you reject me now, it is in misery that you will next seek me out.
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Electra
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Dear sister, let none of these offerings in your hands touch the tomb. For neither divine law nor piety allows you to dedicate funeral gifts or bring libations to our father from his hateful wife.
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No! To the winds with them! Or cover them in a deep, dusty hole, where not one of them will ever come near our father’s resting place. Rather let these treasures be preserved for her below when she dies. Were she not by nature the most audacious
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of all women, she would never at all have tried to pour these ill-willed offerings to the man she killed. Consider whether you believe that the dead in his tomb will welcome this tribute with affection towards her, by whose hand he died dishonored and was mutilated
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like an enemy? She, who, as if to wash herself clean, wiped off the bloodstains on his head? Surely you do not believe that your bringing these things will absolve her of the murder?It is not possible. No, be rid of them. Give him instead a lock of your hair’s ends, cut from your own head,
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and from wretched me, too, give these gifts, poor as they are, though all I have. Take this hair, not glossy with unguents, and this girdle, decked with no rich ornament. Then fall down and pray that he himself may come in kindness to us from the world below, a helper against our enemies;
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and that young Orestes may live to set his foot upon our enemies in superior might, so that hereafter we may crown our father’s tomb with wealthier hands than those with which we honor him now.I think, yes, I think that he too had some part
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in sending her these appalling dreams. Still, sister, do yourself this service and help me, and him, too, that most beloved of all men, who rests in Hades’ domain, our shared father.
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Chorus
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The girl’s advice is pious; you,
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dear friend, will do what she says, if you are wise.
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Chrysothemis
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I will. In regard to a just deed, it is unreasonable for two people to argue, but reasonable to jump to action. But, by the gods, my friends, when I attempt this task, let me have your silence,
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since if my mother hears of it, I believe that this attempt which I will dare shall in the end cause me bitterness. Exit Chrysothemis on the spectators’ right.
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Chorus
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If I am not a deranged prophet and one who lacks wise judgments,
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Justice, the sender of the omen, will come, winning the just victory of her hands’ might. She will come in pursuit before long, my child. Courage is mine,
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since I heard just now of this sweet-blowing dream. Never does the lord of the Hellenes, your producer forget,
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nor does the axe of long ago forget, striking with bronze on its jaws, which in most shameless disgrace annihilated him.
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Chorus
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She, too, will come, she of many hands and many feet who lurks in her terrible ambush,
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the bronze-shod Erinys. For an unwed, unbetrothed passion for a marriage polluted by murder seized the pair, though divine law forbade it to them.
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Therefore I am confident that the portent—a wonder which I will never blame—will draw near to the criminals and conspirators. To be sure, mortal prophecy
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from fearful dreams or divine signs exists no more, if this vision of the night does not find due fulfillment.
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Chorus
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O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow,
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what disaster you have brought upon this land! For ever since Myrtilus sank to rest beneath the waves,
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hurled to utter destruction from his golden chariot in disgraceful outrage, from that time to this, outrage and its many sorrows
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were never yet gone from this house.
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Clytaemnestra
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You run loose again, it seems, since Aegisthus is not here, who used always to keep you at least from coming out to the gates and shaming your family. But now, since he is absent, you pay
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me no mind. And yet you have said of me often and to many listeners that I am a rash and unjust tyrant, who violently abuse you and yours. But it is not I who do violence; I only return the insults that I so often hear from you.
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Your father—this and nothing else is your constant pretext—was slain by me. Yes, by me. I know it well. I make no denial. Justice took hold of him, not I alone—Justice, whom you ought to have supported, if you had been in your right mind.
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For this father of yours whom you constantly bewail alone of all the Greeks had the heart to sacrifice your own blood, your sister, to the gods—he, who, when sowing his seed, felt none of the pains I did when I gave birth.Come, tell me now, why, or to please whom,
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did he sacrifice her? To please the Argives, you will say? No, they had no right to kill my daughter. Or, if indeed it was for the sake of his brother Menelaus that he killed my child, was he not to pay me the penalty for that? Did Menelaus not have two children,
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who should in fairness have died instead of my daughter, since the father and mother from whom they were sprung had caused that voyage? Did Hades have some greater desire to feast on my offspring than on hers? Or had all love of the children of my womb been
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abandoned by their accursed father, while love for the children of Menelaus filled him? Were these not the marks of a thoughtless and malicious parent? I think so, even if I differ from your judgment. So, too, would the dead girl speak, if she could find a voice. For myself, then, I view the past without
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dismay; but if you think my attitude criminal, see that your own judgment is just before you blame your neighbor.
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Electra
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This time, at least, you cannot say that I first gave you cause for upset and thereby provoked such words from you. But, if you will permit me,
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I would gladly declare the truth, on behalf of my dead father and my sister alike.
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Clytaemnestra
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Certainly I permit you; and if you always addressed me in such a tone, you would not be difficult to listen to.
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Electra
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Then I will speak. You admit that you killed my father. What statement could be more shameful still than that,
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whether you did it justly or not? But I will demonstrate to you that you did not justly kill him. No, the persuasion of that wicked man with whom you now sleep dragged you to it.Ask the huntress Artemis what wrong she punished when she stayed the frequent winds at Aulis;
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or I will tell you, since we may not learn from her. My father, as I have heard, was once hunting in the grove of the goddess, when his footfall flushed a dappled and antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to make a certain boast concerning its slaughter.
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Angered by this, Leto’s daughter detained the Greeks so that in requital for the beast’s life my father should sacrifice his own daughter. So it was that she was sacrificed, since the fleet had no other release, neither homeward nor to Troy.
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For that reason, under fierce constraint and with much resistance, at last he sacrificed her—but it was not for the sake of Menelaus.But suppose—for I will make your own plea—suppose that the motive of his deed was to benefit his brother. Should you have killed him because of that? Under what sort of law?
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See that by laying down such a law for men, you do not lay down trouble and remorse for yourself. For, if we are to take blood for blood, you surely would be the first to die, if you were to meet with justice.But consider whether this pretext is any excuse at all.
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For tell me, if you please, what crime it is that you requite by doing the most shameless deeds of all: sharing your bed with that blood-guilty one, with whom you first destroyed my father and now bear his children
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while you have cast out the earlier born, the pious offspring of a pious marriage? How can I commend these deeds? Or will you claim that this, too, is recompense for your daughter? No, it is a shameful plea, if you so plead, for there is nothing noble in marrying an enemy for a daughter’s sake.
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But no, I can hardly even admonish you, when your every cry is that I slander my mother. I think, rather, that you are no less a mistress to me than a mother; so lowly is the life that I live,
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ever beset with miseries come from you and your consort. And your other child, the exile who scarcely escaped your hand, poor Orestes, wastes away his unhappy life. You have often accused me of rearing him to punish your crime,
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and I would have done so, if I could, you may be sure. As far as he is concerned, you can denounce me to all as disloyal, if you like, or loud-mouthed, or impudent. For if my nature is familiar with such wrongdoings, I hardly bring disgrace upon your nature.
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Chorus
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I see her breathing fury; but whether justice is with her, her concern for this I see no longer.
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Clytaemnestra
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And what manner of concern should I use against her, who has abused her mother like this at her mature age? Do you not think
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that she would go forward to any deed without shame?
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Electra
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Now be assured that I do feel shame for it, though I seem not to you. I know that my behavior is unsuited to my age and inappropriate. But then the enmity I get from you and your
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behavior compel me with harsh necessity to do this; for reprehensible deeds are learned from reprehensible examples.
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Clytaemnestra
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You shameless creature! Truly I and my speech and my deeds give you too much to talk about.
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Electra
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The words are yours, not mine; for yours
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are the deeds, and they find their own expression.
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Clytaemnestra
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Now by our mistress Artemis, you shall not escape the consequences of this audacity once Aegisthus returns.
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Electra
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You see? You are driven to rage and, even though you grant me free speech, you have no patience to listen.
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Clytaemnestra
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Will you not allow me to sacrifice without ominous shouting, when I have permitted you to say anything and everything you wished?
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Electra
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I allow it; I exhort you to it: sacrifice! But do not blame my voice, for I would not say another word.
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Clytaemnestra
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Raise then, my attendant, the offerings
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of many fruits, so that I may uplift my prayers for release from my present fears to this image of our King. Please, O Phoebus our defender, may you now listen to my prayer, though it is muffled; for I do not make my plea among friends, nor does it suit me to unfold it all
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to the light while she stands near me, lest by her malice and a cry of her clamorous tongue she sow reckless rumors through the whole city. Nevertheless, hear me thus, since in this way I will speak. That vision which I saw last night
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in ambiguous dreams—if its appearance was to my good, grant, Lycean king, that it be fulfilled; but if to my harm, then hurl it back upon those who would harm me. And if any are plotting to eject me by treachery from my present prosperity, do not permit them.
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Rather grant that living forever unharmed as I am I may govern the house of the sons of Atreus and their throne, sharing prosperous days with the friends who share them now, and with those of my children who feel no enmity or bitterness towards me.
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O Lycean Apollo, hear these prayers with favor, and grant them to us all just as we ask! As for all my other prayers, though I am silent, I judge that you, a god, must know them, since it is appropriate that Zeus’s children see all.
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Paedagogus
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Foreign ladies, how might I know for certain if this be the palace of the king Aegisthus?
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Chorus
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This is the palace, stranger; you yourself have guessed correctly.
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Paedagogus
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And am I on target when I surmise that this lady is his wife? She is indeed regal to look upon.
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Chorus
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Exactly right; this is she before you.
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Paedagogus
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Greetings, royal lady! I bring happy news to you and to Aegisthus from a friend.
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Clytaemnestra
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I welcome your greeting; but I would like first to know who may have sent you.
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Paedagogus
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Phanoteus the Phocian provided me the weighty task.
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Clytaemnestra
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And what is it, sir? Tell me. Coming from a friend you will bring, I know, a kindly message.
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Paedagogus
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Orestes is dead, to put it briefly.
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Electra
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Oh, miserable me! My ruin comes today!
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Clytaemnestra
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What, friend? What did you say? Do not listen to her!
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Paedagogus
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I said, and say again, Orestes is dead.
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Electra
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This is my wretched end! I am no more!