There is no reference in the play to the Erinyes who will come to pursue Orestes, or to the long journey Orestes must take to Delphi and then to Athens before he can be acquitted (see Aeschylus’ Eumenides). Perhaps Sophocles relied on a version of a story (mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey) that ended here, with Orestes offering a feast of reconciliation for the Argives and assuming the throne. But it’s more likely that his Athenian audience knew the version that had him pursued by Erinyes and put on trial, as recounted in Aeschylus’ Oresteia and many other depictions of Orestes’ visit to the oracle of Delphi. The Theater of Dionysus where they sat as they watched Electra was only a short distance from the Areopagus, the hill where Orestes was supposedly tried and acquitted, and where the Erinyes were worshipped as the Sacred Goddesses (Semnai Theai). So the original spectators could probably have mentally supplied this epilogue.
There is no evidence, either external or internal, for the date of Sophocles’ Electra, and it is not clear whether it was performed before or after Euripides’ play of the same name (also in this volume). In modern times, the play has been recast as an opera by Richard Strauss (1909).
ELECTRA
Translated by Mary Lefkowitz
Essentially this is a translation of the text in Sophoclis Fabulae, ed. Hugh Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990); I have also consulted Sophocles: Electra, ed. P. J. Finglass (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007).
CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
OLD SLAVE
ORESTES, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra
ELECTRA, Orestes’ sister
CHORUS of local young women
CHRYSOTHEMIS, sister of Electra and Orestes
CLYTEMNESTRA, mother of Electra and Orestes
AEGISTHUS, Clytemnestra’s husband and Agamemnon’s first cousin
Setting: The play takes place in front of the palace of Mycenae. Orestes enters, accompanied by his friend Pylades and an old slave; they stand before the palace and speak as if they could see from there the town of Argos.
OLD SLAVE: Son of Agamemnon, who once commanded
the army at Troy, here now before you
is the place you’ve always hoped to see.
This is the ancient Argos you have longed for:
the grove of Io, Inachus’ daughter, gadfly-driven,
and this, Orestes, is the Lycian marketplace,
sacred to the wolf-killer god;*1 here on your left
is Hera’s famous temple. We have reached the place
where you can say you see golden Mycenae;
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here is the house of Pelops, home of many deaths.
Long ago I took you from here after your father’s murder
from your closest kin, your sister’s hands.
I carried you and saved you and raised you
till you became a man, to avenge your father’s murder.
So now, Orestes, and Pylades, dearest friend,
we must plan quickly what we need to do.
Look: already the sun’s dazzling brightness
arouses the birds’ clear morning song;
the dark night of the stars has gone away.
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Before any man sets foot outside the house,
we must make plans. We have reached the point,
where there is no time for delay; no, we must act.
ORESTES: My dearest servant, everyone can see
how faithful you have been to me.
You’re like a noble horse who despite his age,
Never loses heart, not even in a crisis,
but pricks up his ears; that is how you
urge us on and stand in the front lines.
So I shall tell you what I think, and you
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pay keen attention to what I say,
and if I lose the track, then set me straight.
For when I went to the oracle at Delphi,
to learn by what means I could exact
justice from my father’s murderers
Phoebus*2 told me what you shall now hear:
“Without weapons or soldiers, but with the treachery
Of a righteous hand, you’ll steal your slaughter.”
Now since this is the oracle I heard,
when the right moment comes, you go
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into that palace, learn all that they are doing,
and then tell us exactly what you know.
They will not recognize or suspect you,
gray with old age and the long lapse of time.
Tell them a story, that you are a stranger,
sent by Phanoteus the Phocian, since he
is the most powerful of their allies.*3
Tell them (and for the purpose take an oath)
that Orestes is dead because of an accident;
that he was rolled from his wheeling chariot
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at the Pythian Games;*4 let that be your tale.
And we, as the god commanded, shall adorn
my father’s tomb, first with libations,
with locks of hair; then we shall come here again
holding in our arms a bronze-plated urn,
which (as you know) is hidden in the bushes,
to deceive them with a story, and bring them
welcome news that my body is destroyed,
consumed by flame and turned to ashes.
Why should this worry me? I’m dead in words,
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but in reality survive and may win glory!
No speech, I think, that brings reward is bad.
Indeed, I have often seen clever men who die
(falsely) in words and return home again,
are then more greatly honored than before.
And so I state that because of this story
I shall live and like a star shine on my enemies.
You, land of my fathers and you native gods,
welcome me with good fortune on this path.
You, my father’s house, I come with justice
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to cleanse you, on a mission from the gods.
No, do not cast me out, dishonored from this land;
let me regain my wealth and rescue my house.
Now I have said this, old man, you must see
to it that you go, and carefully pursue your task.
Pylades and I will now set off; opportunity
is man’s chief control in every enterprise.
(Electra’s voice is heard coming from the palace.)
ELECTRA: Oh, I am so miserable!
OLD SLAVE: My son, from behind the door I think
I hear a slave inside the house.
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ORESTES: No, that is Electra in her misery. Shall we
remain here and listen to her cries?
OLD SLAVE: No, we should not! We should only seek to do
what Apollo has ordained. Begin there;
pour out libations to your father. I believe
this will bring victory, and power to our deeds.
(The Old Slave leaves the stage; Orestes and Pylades depart in the opposite direction. Electra begins to chant in anapests.)
ELECTRA: O sacred light
and air that together share the earth,
how many dirges have you heard me sing;
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how many blows bloodying my breast,
when the day has left the dark night behind.
My wretched bed understands the cares
of my nights in this house of sadness,
how often I sing a dirge for my poor father.
Brutal Ares did not slaughter him
in a foreign land;
no, my mother and her bed-sharer Aegisthus
split his head open with a bloody axe
like woodmen cutting down an oak.
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And no one weeps for you, Father,
except for me, that you were killed
No, I shall not leave off
the dirges and miserable wailing,
as long as I see the shining banks
of the stars, and the light of day,
like the nightingale who killed her child,*5
lamenting I proclaim my sorrow to all,
loud wailing at my father’s doors.
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House of Hades and Persephone,
Hermes of the Underworld, powerful Curse,
and Erinyes, the gods’ reverend children,*6
you see those who have died in injustice;
you see when marriage beds are stolen;
come, help me, avenge
the murder of my father,
and send my brother to me.
For alone I am no longer strong enough
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to support the heavy burden of my grief.
(Electra remains onstage as the Chorus of Argive women enter the orchestra; they sing and Electra responds to them in song.)
strophe 1
CHORUS: My child, child of a mother hated by the gods,
Electra. What is this lamentation
that wears you away, unrelenting?
You mourn the man taken down long ago
without consent from the gods, by your treacherous mother,
Agamemnon, betrayed by deceit
and a coward’s hand.*7 I say the man who planned this
should die, if it is right for me to speak these words.
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ELECTRA: Noble women,
you have come to comfort me in my sorrows.
I know and understand this, it does not escape me.
But still I do not want to abandon my lamentation,
and not keep on weeping for my poor father.
Repay my steadfast friendship with kindness;
let me drift along as I have done,
aiai, I implore you.
antistrophe 1
CHORUS: But with lamentation and prayers
you will never bring back your father
from Hades’ lake, where all must go.
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No, by turning from moderation to grief
unremitting, you will destroy yourself in sorrows
that bring no release from evil.
Why cling to your misfortune, tell me?
ELECTRA: Only a fool could forget
the terrible death of a parent.
The lamenting bird grips my mind;
she always mourns “Itys, Itys,”
stunned by her sorrows, Zeus’ messenger.*8
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Niobe, for all your suffering, I think of you as a god
since in your tomb of stone
aiai, you weep eternally.*9
strophe 2
CHORUS: My child, you are not the only mortal
that has seen sorrow;
yet you suffer more than others in your house;
they have the same parents and connection in blood,
Chrysothemis is living, and Iphianassa,*10
and the son fortunate because he spent his childhood
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hidden from sorrows, and someday
the famous land of Mycenae
will welcome when he returns to his homeland
a noble father’s scion, guided by Zeus, Orestes.
ELECTRA: I wait for him, never tiring; I go on living
miserably, still without child or husband,
drenched in tears, clinging to an unending
fate of suffering. But he has forgotten
all he has lost, all he has learned. Every message
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that comes to me has proved to be deceptive.
He always longs to come,
but though he longs, he chooses not to appear.
antistrophe 2
CHORUS: Courage, my child,
courage! Great Zeus is in heaven;
he observes and rules everything.
Trust him with your too painful anger.
Do not be too harsh to your enemies and do not forget:
Time is a gentle god.
For even though he stays
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in the coastal pastures of Crisa,*11
Agamemnon’s son has not forgotten,
nor has the god who rules beside the river of Acheron.*12
ELECTRA: But most of my life has left me
without any hope. I have no more strength.
I waste away, without children;
no kind husband protects me,
but like some base household slave
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I serve in my father’s palace, like this,
in disgraceful clothing,
and the tables I stand at are bare.*13
CHORUS: There was a terrible cry when your father returned,
terrible as he lay there,
when the blow of the bronze blade
came to meet him.
Deceit was the planner, passion the killer.
The brutal god or mortal who did this,
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brought to birth a brutal scene.
ELECTRA: When it came, that day of all days
was the most hateful to me.
That night, the appalling anguish
of that unspeakable feast!
My father saw
the shameful death brought by two hands,
the hands that betrayed me,
that destroyed my life.
May the great god on Olympus
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repay them with pain and punishment!
May the doers of this deed
never enjoy their luxury!
strophe 3
CHORUS: Take care not to say more!
Don’t you understand that your present condition
dates from that day? So you are falling
into your own ruin, savagely.
You will come to own still more misery,
in your angry heart, giving birth
to conflicts. Don’t fight with the powerful;
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endure your hardship.
ELECTRA: To cruelty I must respond cruelly. I know,
my wrath does not escape me.
But in the midst of cruelty
I cannot restrain my madness,
as long as life sustains me.
Who could suppose, dear friends,
I might heed a kind word,
or timely advice.
Leave me alone, leave me, advisers.
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This must be called insoluble.
I shall never cease from my sorrows,
nor reckon up my lamentations.
epode
CHORUS: But I offer you good advice,
like a mother you trust,
not to add madness to madness.
ELECTRA: What limit is there to my misery, tell me?
How can it be right to neglect the dead?
What person would find that natural?
I would not want to have their respect,
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I could not enjoy any good thing
I might have, if I clipped the wings
of shrill dirges for my forebears.
If a dead man is earth or nothing at all
and will lie there in misery,
and they never pay back
the penalty for their crimes,
reverence would be doomed
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and piety among all mortals.
CHORUS: My child, I have come both on your behalf
And on mine. If what I say is wrong,
I’ll yield, and follow along with you.
ELECTRA: Friends, I am ashamed if I seem to you
to be overcome by my many sorrows.
But a compulsion forces me to do this;
forgive me. For how could any woman of noble birth
observe her father’s pain and not do what I’ve done?
Every da
y and night I watch his pain
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growing, and never withering away.
First, I hate what my mother has done,
though she gave birth to me. Then, I live
in the same house with my father’s murderers.
They are my masters, and it is up to them
whether I receive or waste away without.
What kind of days do you think I spend
when I see Aegisthus seated
on my father’s throne, I see him wearing
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the same clothes as my father, pouring libations
on the same hearth where he murdered him,
and when I see the worst outrage of all
my father’s murderer in his bed,
with my wretched mother, if I can call her
mother, since she sleeps beside that man.
She is so foul that she cohabits with a polluted
murderer, with no fear of the Erinys’ vengeance.*14
It’s as if she is proud of what she has done,
and celebrates the day on which she killed
my father through her treachery; on that day
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she puts on choral dances and sacrifices cattle
every single month to her Guardian gods.
I look on disconsolate within the house,
I weep, refuse to eat, and wail about
the wretched festival named for my father,
alone by myself, since I am not allowed,
to weep as much as my heart desires.
Supposedly she is noble, but that woman
shouts and taunts me with bad names,
“You filthy creature, hated by the gods,
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are you the only person in the world
who’s lost a father? I wish you dead and hope
the gods below compel you to weep forever.”
So she insults me, but if she hears someone say
Orestes is coming, then she cries out in rage
and stands beside me screaming: “This is your fault,
this is your work! You are the one who stole
Orestes from my arms and hid him away.
I tell you, you’ll be punished for this crime.”
She barks like this, and her illustrious husband
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stands at her side and gives her courage,
The Greek Plays Page 41
