Electra

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 471 sections

767
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?
770
He is dead; I am telling you twice what you certainly want to hear.
771
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.
774
After we had left this house,
775
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
780
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
785
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.
790
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.
795
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.
800
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,
805
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,
810
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:
815
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.
819
Orestes seized in his hands the well-hammered Dorian knife and
820
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
825
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.
830
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,
835
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,
840
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,
845
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;
850
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.
855
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.
859
Set your step to the dance, my dear,
860
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
865
a glorious victory ode, to my dance.
866
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.
870
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.
873
It is for you to bring adornment now for his head;
875
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.
988
Hail, Queen of the land of Argos, child of Tyndareus,
990
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
995
for your wealth and great prosperity. Now is the time to pay our court to your fortunes. Welcome, o queen.
998
Come out of the wagon, Trojan maids, and take my hand, that I may step down from the chariot.
1000
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.
1004
And, mother—for I live as a slave
1005
in this miserable house, cast out from my father’s home—may I not take that blessed hand of yours?
1007
These slaves are here; take no trouble on my account.
1008
What? You sent me away from home, a captive; I was taken when my home was taken, like these,
1010
all of us orphaned of a father.
1011
Well, your father laid such plots against those whom least of all he should have, his own family. I will tell you; although when a woman gets an evil reputation, her tongue is bitter.
1015
In my opinion, not rightly; but it is correct for those who learn about the matter to hate, if it deserves hatred; if not, why hate at all? Now Tyndareus gave me to your father not so that I or any children I might bear should die.
1020
But that man went from the house, taking my child, with the persuasion of a marriage with Achilles, to Aulis which held the fleet; and there he stretched Iphigenia over the pyre, and cut her white cheek. And if, as a cure for the capture of the city,
1025
or as a benefit to his house, or to save his other children, he had killed one on behalf of many, I would have pardoned him. But, because Helen was lustful and the one who had her as a wife did not know how to punish the betrayer—for these reasons he destroyed my child.
1030
Well, although I was wronged, I would not have been angry at this, nor would I have killed my husband. But he came back to me with a girl, raving and possessed, and put her in his bed, and had two brides at once in the same house.
1035
A woman is a foolish thing, I don’t deny it; but, this granted, whenever a husband goes astray and rejects his own bed, the woman is likely to imitate her husband and find another love. And then in us the blame shines clearly,
1040
while the men, who caused this, are not badly spoken of. Now if Menelaus had been secretly snatched from his home, should I have killed Orestes to save Menelaus, my sister’s husband? How would your father have endured this? And so isn’t it right for him to die
1045
when he had killed what was mine, since I would have suffered at his hands? I killed him, I turned where indeed it was possible to go—to his enemies. For which one of your father’s friends would have joined me in his murder? Speak, if you want to say anything, and make your retort with frankness,
1050
in what way your father died unfairly.
1051
Justly spoken, but this justice is shameful. For a woman should yield to her husband in all things, if she has sense; anyone who does not agree does not come within the scope of what I say.
1055
Remember, mother, those last words of yours, giving me frankness towards you.
1057
I say it again, and I do not deny it, child.
1058
Then will you treat me badly, when you hear it?
1059
No, no, I will give some pleasure to your heart.
1060
I will speak, and this is the beginning of my preface: oh, mother, I wish that you had a better heart. For though your beauty, and Helen’s, is worthy to bring you praise, yet you two were born true sisters, both frivolous, not worthy of Castor.
1065
She was carried off, willingly ruined; and you have destroyed the bravest man in Greece, putting forward the excuse that you killed a husband for the sake of a child; for they don’t know you so well as I do. You who, before your daughter’s death was decided,
1070
as soon as your husband had started from home, were adorning the golden locks of your hair at the mirror. A wife who decks herself out for beauty, when her husband is gone from home—strike her off the list as worthless.
1075
There is no need for her to show her pretty face out of doors, unless she is seeking some mischief. Of all the women in Hellas you were the only one I know to be joyful when Troy was fortunate, and with a clouded face when it was weaker, since you did not want Agamemnon to return from Troy.
1080
And yet it was in your power to be chaste, and rightly; you had a husband, no worse than Aegisthus, whom Hellas chose to be its commander; and when your sister Helen had done her work, it was possible for you to achieve great fame,
1085
for the bad gives a standard of comparison to the good and provides a spectacle. But if, as you say, my father killed your daughter, what is the wrong I and and my brother have done you? How was it that after you had killed your husband, you did not assign to us our father’s home,
1090
but you brought the goods belonging to another to bed, buying your marriage with wages? And how is it that your husband is not exiled in the place of your son, nor has he died in my place, although he has killed me, alive, twice as much as my sister? If murder, giving judgment, requites murder, your
1095
son Orestes and I must kill you to avenge our father. For if that was just, then so is this. Whoever marries a wicked woman, looking to wealth or noble birth, is a fool; for humble wives, if chaste, are better in the home than great ones.
1100
Chance is in the marriages of women; among mankind, I see some fall out well, others not.
1102
Child, it was always your nature to love your father. This is what happens: some children are for their fathers, others in turn love their mothers more than a father.
1105
I will forgive you; for I do not rejoice so very much at what I have done, child.
1109
You, a woman who has just given birth—why is your body so unwashed and meanly clad? Alas for my schemes!
1110
I drove on in anger against my husband more than I should have.
1111
You sigh too late, when you have no remedy. My father is dead; but why do you not recall that exile, your own wandering son?
1114
l am afraid; I am looking to my interests, not his.
1115
For he is angry, they say, over the murder of his father.
1116
And why do you cause your husband to be cruel to me?
1117
Such are his ways. You have a stubborn nature also.
1118
Yes, for I am in distress. Yet I will cease from my anger.
1119
And then he will no longer be harsh to you.
1120
He is proud; for he lives in my home.
1121
You see? Again you are rekindling new quarrels.
1122
I am silent; I fear him—as I fear him.
1123
Stop this talk! But why did you summon me, child?
1124
You have heard, I suppose, that I have given birth;
1125
in thanks for this, please sacrifice—for I do not know how—on the tenth day, as is the custom for the child. For I have no experience, being childless before.
1128
This is work for another, the one who delivered you.
1129
I was all alone in my labor and at the baby’s birth.
1130
Is this household situated with no friends as neighbors?
1131
No one is willing to have the poor as friends.
1132
But I will go to make the tenth-day sacrifice to the gods for the child; and when I have done you this favor, I will go to the field where my husband is sacrificing to the
1135
Nymphs. Take this team away, my attendants, and bring it to the stalls; and when you think that I have finished this sacrifice to the gods, be ready; for I must also please my husband.
1139
Go into a poor house; but please take care
1140
that my smoke-grimed walls do not smear your robes with soot. For you will make the sacrifice to the gods that you ought to make. Going in to the house. The basket is ready, and the knife sharpened, the same that killed the bull by whose side you will lie, struck down. Even in Hades’ house you will be the bride of the one
1145
whom you slept with in life. This is the favor I will give you, and you will give me retribution for my father. Exit Electra.
1147
Requital for evils; the breezes of the house shift and blow. At another time my leader, my own, fell murdered in the bath,
1150
and the roof and stone walls of the house cried aloud, while he said: O cruelty! My wife, why are you murdering me on my return to my dear country in the tenth year? . . .
1155
Retribution for straying love has flowed back and brings to judgment the one who killed her wretched husband, when he came at last to his home and to the towering Cyclopean walls; with her own hand she killed him with the sharp-edged weapon,
1160
holding the axe in her hands. Unhappy husband! whatever the curse that possessed that wretched woman. Like a lioness of the hills that ranges through the meadowland woods, she accomplished these things.
1165
O children, by the gods, do not kill your mother.
1166
Do you hear her cries within the house?
1167
O God! Ah me!
1168
I also wail for you, overpowered by your children. Truly the god deals out justice, whenever it befalls.
1170
You have suffered cruelly, unhappy one, yet you did unholy things to your husband.
1172
But here they come from the house, defiled in the newly shed blood of their mother, a triumphal rout, evidence of the pitiable sacrifice.
1175
There is no house more pitiable than the race of Tantalus, nor has there ever been.
1.1177
O Earth, and Zeus who sees all mortal acts, look at these loathsome bloody deeds, these two bodies

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0006.tlg012.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.