Electra

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 602 sections

1.1258
What must I do?
1.1259
When it is inopportune, do not want to speak too much.
1.1260
No, who could exchange due silence for speech, when you have appeared? For now my eyes have seen you, beyond all thought and hope!
1.1264
You saw me when the gods moved me to come.
1.1265
You have told me of a grace higher still than the first, if a god brought you to our house;
1.1270
I acknowledge in it the work of the divine.
1.1271
On the one hand I hesitate to curb your gladness, but on the other I fear that you may be overwhelmed by too much joy.
1273
O you who, after such a long time, saw fit to make your most happy journey and appear to me,
1275
do not, now that you have seen me in all my misery—
1276
What should I not do?—
1277
—Do not rob me of the comfort of your face; do not force me to forego it!
1278
I would be angry, indeed, if I saw another attempt it.
1279
You give your consent?
1280
Why would I not?
1281
My friends, I heard a voice that I could never have hoped to hear; nor could I have restrained my emotion in silence and without a cry, when I heard it.
1285
ah, me! But now I have you. You have appeared with that dear face, which I could never, even in misery, forget.
1288
Spare all superfluous words, and inform me neither of our mother’s wickedness,
1290
nor how Aegisthus drains the wealth of our father’s house—what part he pours on the ground and what he squanders at random. For the story would preclude you from the opportunity afforded by the moment. Instead tell me that which will suit our present circumstances: where, either openly or in ambush,
1295
we may put an end to our enemies’ laughter by means of my coming. Make sure that our mother does not discover you by your radiant face, when we two have gone into the house. Rather, make lament, as if for the feigned disaster. For when we succeed, then
1300
there will be opportunity to rejoice and exult in freedom.
1301
Brother, be assured that my conduct will be as pleases you, since all my joy derives from you, and is not my own. Nor would I consent
1305
to win a great good for myself at the cost of the slightest pain to you. For in doing so I would not honorably support the divine power that attends us now.But you know how matters stand here. I do not doubt it. You must have heard that Aegisthus is away from home, but that our mother is inside. And never fear that she
1310
will ever see my face lit up with smiles. My old hatred of her has been welded to my heart, and since I have seen you, for very joy I will never cease to weep. How indeed could I stop when I have seen you come home on this one day first as dead,
1315
and then in life? What you have done to me is inconceivable—so much so that, if my father were to return to me alive, I would no longer think it a portent, but would believe that I truly saw him. Therefore now that you have come to me by such a path, command me as your spirit bids you. For had I been alone,
1320
I would not have failed in one of two things: a noble salvation, or a noble destruction.
1322
Silence! I hear someone walking inside as if to come out.
1323a
Go in, strangers, especially since you bring a thing which no one
1325
could either turn away from these doors, or rejoice at receiving.
1326
Utterly foolish and senseless children! Are you weary of your lives, or is there no wit inborn in you, that you do not see how you stand not on the brink, but in the very midst
1330
of immense danger? Had I not long kept watch at these doors, your doings would have been in the house before your bodies. But as it was, I put myself the task of averting that.
1335
Be done now with your long speeches and this insatiable shouting for joy, and go inside. In dealings of this sort delay is harmful, but the time is ripe for being done.
1339
Then how will things inside stand when I enter?
1340
All is well. The fact is that no one will know you.
1341
You have reported me as dead, I presume?
1342
Know that here you are a man numbered with the shades.
1343
Do they rejoice, then, at the news? Or what do they say?
1344
I will tell when all is completed. Meanwhile,
1345
all is favorable for us on their part, even that which is not favorable.
1346
Who is this, brother? By the gods, tell me.
1347
Do you not know who he is?
1347a
No, nor can I imagine.
1348
Do you not know the man to whose hands you gave me once?
1349
What man? What do you mean?
1349a
I mean him, by whose hands and through your forethought
1350
I was secretly conveyed away to Phocian soil.
1351
Is this he in whom alone out of many I once found a true ally at the time of our father’s murder?
1353
This is he; question me no further.
1354
O joyous day! O sole preserver of Agamemnon’s house,
1355
how did you come here? Are you indeed the man who saved my brother and myself from many sorrows? O dearest hands, O messenger whose feet were kindly servants! How could you be with me so long and remain unknown, without giving a ray of illumination,
1360
but instead afflicting me with stories, while possessed of sweetest reality? Welcome, Father, for it is a father that I seem to behold! Welcome, and know that in one day I have hated you and loved you as no man ever before!
1364
That is enough, I think. As for the recounting of intervening events,
1365
many are the circling nights and an equal number of days which will reveal them to you clearly, Electra.
1367
And this is my advice to you two, since you stand there: now is your opportunity to act, now Clytaemnestra is alone, now no man is inside. But if you pause,
1370
consider that you will have to fight both those inside and others mightier and better skilled.
1372
Pylades, in no way does our task call any longer for many words, but rather demands that we enter the house immediately, after first adoring the shrines of my father’s
1375
gods, the keepers of these gates. Orestes and Pylades enter the house, followed by the Paedagogus. Electra remains outside.
1376
King Apollo! Hear them with favor, and hear me besides, who so often have come before your altar with hands rich in such gifts as I could obtain! And now, O Lycean Apollo, with what means I have
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I pray to you, I supplicate you, I implore you, be our ready champion in these designs, and show what rewards the gods bestow on humans in return for their impiety! Exit Electra, into the house.
1.1384
Behold how Ares stalks onward,
1.1385
breathing bloody vengeance that is hard to oppose. Just now have the hunters of wicked crimes passed beneath that roof there, the hounds which none may flee. And so not long shall
1.1390
the vision of my soul hang in suspense.
1.1391
The champion of the spirits infernal is ushered on guileful feet into the house, the rich, ancestral palace of his father, and he bears keen-edged death in his hands.
1.1395
Maia’s son Hermes, who has shrouded the guile in darkness, leads him right to his goal and delays no longer.
2.1398
My dearest friends, in a moment the men will do the deed. But wait in silence.
2.1400
How do they fare? What are they doing now?
2.1401
She is decking the urn for burial; the two of them stand close to her.
2.1402
And why have you hurried out?
2.1402a
To guard against Aegisthus entering before we are aware.
2.1404
Oh! Oh! Our house
2.1405
is empty of friends and filled with murderers!
2.1406
Someone shouts inside. Do you not hear, friends?
2.1407
I heard, ah, me, sounds unfit to be heard, and I shudder!
2.1408
Ah, misery! Aegisthus, where, where are you?
2.1409
Look, once more someone cries out!
2.1410
My son, my son, have pity on your mother!
2.1411a
Why? You had none for him, nor for the father that begot him.
2.1413
Wretched city, wretched race, now the fate that has held you day by day perishes—it perishes!
2.1415
Oh, I am wounded!
2.1415a
Stab her doubly, if you can!
2.1416
Ah, wounded again!
2.1417
Would that Aegisthus, too, were wounded!
2.1418
The curses bring fulfillment: those who are buried live.
2.1420
For men long dead are draining their killers’ blood in a stream of requital.
2.1422
And now they are here! The red hand drips with sacrifice to Ares, and I cannot blame the deed.
2.1424
Orestes, what happened?
2.1424a
All is well within the house,
2.1425
if Apollo’s oracle spoke well.
2.1426
The miserable woman is dead?
2.1427
Have no more fear that your haughty mother will ever again trample on your rights.
2.1429
Quiet! For I see Aegisthus in plain sight.
2.1430
You, young men, get back inside!
2.1430a
Where do you see the man?
2.1431
He is at our mercy walking from the suburb, full of joy.
2.1433
Go with all speed to the vestibule, so that, just as your first task prospered, so this one again may prosper now.
2.1435
Have courage. We will accomplish it.
2.1436
Hurry, then, to wherever you wish.
2.1437
See, I am gone.
2.1438
Things here will be my concern. Exeunt Orestes and Pylades, into the house.
2.1439
It would be well to whisper into this man’s ear some few words of seeming gentleness,
2.1440
so that he may rush blindly upon his trial before Justice.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0011.tlg005.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.