Why should I fear an omen,* if I say that I
Am dead, then by this story I fulfil
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My life’s true purpose, to secure my vengeance?
No need to fear a tale that brings me gain.
For I have heard of those philosophers*
Who were reported dead: when they returned,
Each to his city, they were honoured more.
And so, I trust, may I, through this pretence,
Look down triumphant like the sun* in heaven
Upon my enemies.
Only do thou, my native soil; you, gods of Argos,
Receive and prosper me. House of my fathers,
Receive me with your blessing! The gods have sent me,
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And I have come to purify and purge you.
Do not reject me, drive me not away,
But let me enter into my possessions;
Let me rebuild my father’s fallen house.
Such is my prayer. My friend, go to your task
And do it well. We go to ours; for Time
Calls only once, and that determines all.
ELECTRA [within]. Ah me! Ah me!
TUTOR. Listen, my son: I thought I heard a cry
From near the gates, a cry of bitter grief. *
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ORESTES. Electra, my unhappy sister! Could
It be her cry?—Let us wait and listen.
TUTOR. No. The command that God has given us,
That must come first, to offer your libations
At Agamemnon’s tomb. His aid will bring
Victory to us, and ruin to his foes.
[Exeunt ORESTES, PYLADES, the TUTOR, and attendants
Enter ELECTRA
ELECTRA [chants]. Thou holy light,
Thou sky that art earth’s canopy,
How many bitter cries of mine
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Have you not heard,* when shadowy night
Has given place to days of mourning!
And when the night has come again
My hateful bed alone can tell
The tears that I have shed within
This cruel palace. O my father!
No Trojan spear,* no god of war,*
Brought death to you on foreign soil.
My mother killed you, and her mate
Aegisthus! As a woodman fells
An oak, they took a murderous axe
And cut you down.
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And yet no other voice but mine
Cries out upon this bloody deed.
I only, father, mourn your death.
Nor ever will
I cease from dirge and sad lament
So long as I behold the sun
By day and see the stars by night;
But like the sorrowing nightingale*
Who mourns her young unceasingly,
Here at the very gates will I
Proclaim my grief for all to hear.
You powers of Death! you gods below!*
Avenging Spirits, who behold
Each deed of blood,
each faithless act
Dishonouring the marriage-vow,*
Desert me not. Come to my aid!
Avenge my father’s death!
And send my brother; bring to me Orestes! For I can no more
Sustain this grief; it crushes me.
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Enter the CHORUS
[From here until line 250 everything is sung.]
Strophe 1
CHORUS. Electra, child of a most pitiless mother,
Why are you so wasting your life in unceasing
Grief and despair? Agamemnon
Died long ago. Treachery filled the heart,
Your mother’s heart, that gave him,
Snared, entrapped, to a shameful supplanter who killed him.
If I may dare to say it, may
Those who did such a thing
Suffer the same themselves.
ELECTRA. O my noble, generous friends,
You are here, I know, to comfort me in my sorrow.
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Welcome to me, most welcome, is your coming.
But ask me not to abandon my grief
Or cease to mourn my father.
No, my friends; give, as always you give me, your
love and devotion,
But bear with my grief; I cannot betray my sorrow.
Antistrophe 1
CHORUS. But he has gone to the land to which we all
must
Go. Neither by tears nor by mourning can
He be restored from the land of the dead.
Yours is a grief beyond the common measure,
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A grief that knows no ending,
Consuming your own life, and all in vain.
For how can mourning end wrong?
Cannot you part yourself from your long
Sorrow and suffering?
ELECTRA. Hard the heart, unfeeling the mind,
Of one who should forget a father, cruelly slain.
Her will my heart follow, the sad nightingale,*
Bird of grief, always lamenting
Itys, Itys,* her child.
And O, Niobe,* Queen of Sorrow, to thee do I turn, as a goddess
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Weeping for ever, in thy mountain-tomb.
Strophe 2
CHORUS. Not upon you alone, my child,
Has come the heavy burden of grief
That chafes you more than those with whom you live,
The two bound to you by kindred blood.
See how Chrysothemis lives, and Iphianassa,*
Your two sisters within.
He also lives, your brother,
Although in exile, suffering grief;
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And glory awaits Orestes, for
He will come by the kindly guidance of Zeus, and be Received with honour and welcome, here in
ELECTRA. But I, year after year, waiting for him,
Tread my weary path, unwedded, childless,
Bathed in tears, burdened with endless sorrow.
For the wrongs he has suffered, the crimes of which
I have told him,
He cares nothing. Messages come; all are belied;
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He longs to be here, but not enough to come!
Antistrophe 2
CHORUS. Comfort yourself, take comfort, child;
Zeus is still King in the heavens.
He sees all; he overrules all things.
Leave this bitter grief and anger to him.
Do not go too far in hatred with those you hate,
Nor be forgetful of him.
Time has power to heal all wounds.
Nor will he who lives in the rich
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Plain of Crisa,* near the sea,
Agamemnon’s son, neglect his own father.*
ELECTRA. But how much of my life has now been spent,
Spent in despair! My strength will soon be gone.
I am alone, without the comfort of children; no
Husband to stand beside me, and share the burden;
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Spurned like a slave, dressed like a slave, fed on the scraps,
I serve, disdained by all—in the house of my fathers!
Strophe 3
CHORUS. Pitiful the cry at his return,
Your father’s cry in the banquet-hall,
When the straight, sharp blow of an axe was launched at him.
Guile was the plotter, lust was the slayer,
Hideous begetters of a hideous crime,
Whether the hand that wrought the deed
Was a mortal hand, or a Spirit loosed from Hell.*
200
ELECTRA. That day of horrors beyond all other horrors!
Hateful and bitter beyond all other days!
That accursed night of banqueting
Filled with fear and blo
od!
My father looked, and saw two murderers aiming
A deadly, cowardly blow at him,
A blow that has betrayed my life
To slavery, to ruin.
O God that rulest Heaven and Earth,*
Make retribution fall on them!
210
What they have done, that may they suffer.
Leave them not to triumph!
Antistrophe 3
CHORUS. Yet you should be wise, and say no more,
It is yourself and what you do
That brings upon yourself this cruel outrage.
Your sullen, irreconcilable heart,
Breeding strife and enmity,
Adds to your own misery.
To fight with those that hold the power is folly.
220
ELECTRA. I know, I know my bitter and hateful temper;
But see what I have to suffer! That constrains me.
Because of that, I cannot help
But give myself to frenzied hate
So long as life shall last. My gentle friends,
What words of comfort or persuasion
Can prevail, to reconcile
My spirit with this evil?
No; leave me, leave me; do not try.
These are ills past remedy.
230
Never shall I depart from sorrow
And tears and lamentation.
Epode
CHORUS. In love and friendship, like a mother,
I beg you: do not make, my child,
Trouble on top of trouble.
ELECTRA. In what I suffer, is there moderation?
To be neglectful of the dead, can that be right?
Where among men is that accounted honour?
I’ll not accept praise from them!
Whatever happiness is mine,
240
I’ll not enjoy dishonourable ease,
Forget my grief, or cease to pay
Tribute of mourning to my father.
For if the dead shall lie there, nothing but dust and ashes,
And they who killed him do not suffer death in return,
Then, for all mankind,
Fear of the gods, respect for men, have vanished.
250
CHORUS. Your cause I make my own. So, if my words
Displease you, I recall them and let yours
Prevail; for I will always follow you.
ELECTRA. My friends, these lamentations are a sore
Vexation to you, and I am ashamed.
But bear with me: I can do nothing else.
What woman would not cry to Heaven, if she
Had any trace of spirit,* when she saw
Her father suffering outrage such as I
Must look on every day—and every night?
And it does not decrease, but always grows
260
More insolent. There is my mother: she,
My mother! has become my bitterest enemy.
And then, I have to share my house with those
Who murdered my own father; I am ruled
By them, and what I get, what I must do
Without, depends on them. What happy days,
Think you, mine are, when I must see Aegisthus
Sitting upon my father’s throne, wearing
My father’s robes, and pouring his libations
Beside the hearth-stone* where they murdered him?
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And I must look upon the crowning outrage,
The murderer lying in my father’s bed
With my abandoned mother—if I must
Call her a mother who dares sleep with him!
She is so brazen that she lives with that
Defiler; vengeance from the gods is not
A thought that frightens her! As if exulting
In what she did she noted carefully
The day on which she treacherously killed
My father, and each month, when that day comes,