The Greek Plays
Page 45
ELECTRA: (weeping) ottotoi ottotoi
You have brought up evil too great
to cover up or escape
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and that I can never forget.
ORESTES: I know that well. But when we have them
with us, then we can recall their deeds!
antistrophe
ELECTRA: The whole,
the whole of time should be here
to speak with justice,
for only now are my lips free.
ORESTES: I agree, and so protect that freedom.
ELECTRA: By doing what?
ORESTES: Wait till the right time to speak at length.
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ELECTRA: Who could opt for silence
once you appeared,
and I saw you
beyond thought, beyond hope.
ORESTES: You saw me, when the gods urged me to come
[…]*57
ELECTRA: The grace you speak of
is higher than past graces, if the god
sent you to our halls. I call it
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an act of god.
ORESTES: I’m reluctant to restrain your joy,
but I fear it’s carried you too far.
epode
ELECTRA: iō, after a long time
you made the journey that I longed for
and so came to me. Do not
—you see me and my many sorrows—
ORESTES: What should I not do?
ELEC.: Don’t rob me, do not take away my joy in seeing you.
ORESTES: If I saw another do this, I’d be angry.
ELECTRA: Will you let me?
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ORE.: Yes, of course.
ELECTRA: My dear, I’ve heard
a voice I never hoped to hear!
and yet I held my excitement silent
and listened in misery without a sound.
Now I have you, you’re here,
I see your dearest face
I could not forget it, even in my troubles.
ORESTES: Leave out what isn’t needed in the narrative.
Don’t tell me that our mother’s evil,
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that Aegisthus drains, pours out, throws away
and wastes the wealth of our ancestral home;
the speech would keep you from taking action.
Now tell me what will fit the present time.
Where should we go, where should we hide
to stop our enemies’ mockery by our presence?
Make sure our mother doesn’t find you out
from your happy face, when we two go into the house.
No, lament the disaster that was falsely told you,
And then, when we have triumphed
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We can rejoice and laugh in freedom!
ELECTRA: Yes, Brother, your wishes shall be mine
as well, since you have brought me
joy, and without you I had none.
I would not cause you pain just to win
a little pleasure for myself, for that
would not assist the god who’s with us.
You know what waits inside. How not?
You know why Aegisthus is not at home,
and our mother’s in the house. Don’t be afraid:
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she will not see my face radiant with smiles.
Long-standing hatred for her fills my mind.
and now I’ve seen you, I shall never stop
weeping with joy, how could I stop,
when just today I’ve seen you die
and come to life? You’ve worked a miracle!
Now, if my father came to life, I wouldn’t think
it strange; I would believe I saw him.
Since you have come to us on this day,
tell me what you desire. If I were alone,
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I’d have had two choices: to rescue myself
with honor or to perish with honor.
ORESTES: My advice is to keep quiet, since at the door
I hear someone inside coming.
ELECTRA: (to Orestes, Pylades, and their servants) Strangers, go inside,
since you are bringing them a gift that they
won’t thrust aside, but will not like to have.
(The Old Slave comes out of the house.)
OLD SLAVE: You total fools, you have no sense at all!
Do you place no value on your lives?
Don’t you have any inborn sense?
Don’t you know that you’re not just near,
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but on the brink of great disaster?
If I had not long since been standing by
these doorposts, we would have had your doings
inside the house sooner than your bodies.
But now I made myself look out for you.
And now say farewell to your long speeches,
and your unceasing cries of joy,
and go inside. Delay on such occasions
brings danger. It’s time; tell delay farewell.
ORESTES: When I go in—what is it like inside?
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OLD SLAVE: It’s fine. It helps that no one knows me.
ORESTES: You’ve told them, I suppose, that I am dead.
OLD SLAVE: Know that there you’re a man in Hades.
ORESTES: Are they pleased by that? What do they say?
OLD SLAVE: When they’re done, I can tell you. As it stands,
for them all’s good, even what isn’t good.
ELECTRA: Brother, who is this man? By the gods, tell me.
ORESTES: Don’t you know?
ELEC.: No, I’ve never seen him.
ORESTES: You don’t know that you once placed me in his arms?
ELECTRA: Who is it? What do you mean?
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ORE.: In his arms through your plans, I was brought to the plain of Phocis.
ELECTRA: Is this the man that long ago I found faithful,
the only one of many, when father was murdered?
ORESTES: This is he. Do not keep asking me more questions.
ELECTRA: Dearest light! You alone are the savior of the house
of Agamemnon. How did you come here? Are you the one
who saved him and me from our many sorrows?
Dearest hands, and the dearest feet
that serve you, how could you be here
so long, not let me know, but destroy me
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with your stories, while bringing me great joy?
Welcome, Father. For I think I see a father!
Welcome. Know that in one single day
I hated and loved you more than any man.
OLD SLAVE: Enough, I think. The story of the time between,
many nights and also days shall tell you
as they roll on, in detail, Electra.
(He turns to Orestes and Pylades.)
I say now to the pair of you who stand here,
now’s the time to act. Now Clytemnestra is alone.
Now there’s no man in the house. If you delay,
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remember that you’ll be fighting with these men
and others, more of them and more skilled.
ORESTES: This our task no longer needs long speeches,
Pylades. As soon as we can, we must go inside,
after we salute the seats of my ancestral gods,
all those who dwell before the palace gates.
(Orestes, Pylades, and the Old Slave enter the palace.)
ELECTRA: Lord Apollo, listen to these two with favor,
and to me as well. I have often stood before you
to offer what I had with an imploring hand.
Now, Lycian Apollo, with what I have
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I ask, I fall before you, I implore, show favor
to us and help us with our plans.
And show to humankind the price the gods
will
make them pay for their impiety!
strophe
CHORUS: See where Ares sets forth breathing
the blood of bitter strife.
Now they have come beneath the palace roof,
hounds in pursuit,
tracking down evil wrongdoing.
My heart’s dream will not be delayed
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or left hanging in the air.
antistrophe
The avenger of the dead is coming
with devious feet into the house,
the stores of his father’s ancient wealth,
holding in his hands blood new-sharpened!
Hermes leads him, he hides the plot
in darkness to the end, no more delay.
(Electra comes out of the palace.)
strophe
(sung in excited, syncopated iambics)
ELECTRA: Dear friends, the men are now finishing
their work. Wait for them in silence.
CHORUS: How? What are they doing?
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ELECTRA: She is adorning
the urn for burial; those two are standing near her.
CHORUS: Then why have you come out?
ELECTRA: To keep watch
so we’ll know when Aegisthus goes inside.
(Clytemnestra’s voice is heard from within the house.)
CLYTEMNESTRA: aiai, oh, my friends
have left; the house is full of killers.
ELECTRA: A cry from someone inside! My friends, do you hear?
CHORUS: I heard the dreadful cry
of a victim, terrifying.
CLYTEMNESTRA: Oh, misery! Aegisthus where could you be?
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ELECTRA: Yes, someone is crying out again.
CLYTEMNESTRA: My son, my son,
take pity on your mother!
ELECTRA: But you never
took pity on him or on his father!
CHORUS: Oh, city, oh, family, in misery
this house’s fate is dying, day by day!
CLYTEMNESTRA: ōmoi, I am struck!*58
ELECTRA: If you can, hit her twice as hard!
CLYTEMNESTRA: ōmoi, again!
ELECTRA: And for Aegisthus, too!
CHORUS: The curses of the dead are working.
Beneath the ground they are alive,
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for those who died long ago drink
their killers’ blood, as it flows back!
antistrophe
And here they are! From your bloody hand
drips an offering to Ares, but we cannot think it wrong!
ELECTRA: Orestes, how did it go?
ORESTES: All’s well inside
the house. Apollo’s prophecy was true!
ELECTRA: Is the poor woman dead?
ORESTES: Don’t be afraid
that your mother’s pride will again dishonor you!
[…
…
…]
CHORUS: Stop! For I can clearly see
Aegisthus.
[…]
ELECTRA: (to Orestes and Pylades) You two, go back inside!
ORESTES: Where do you see the man?
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ELEC.: He is coming toward us from the city outskirts, smiling. […]*59
CHORUS: Go back through the door as fast as you can,
now! What you did so well before, now again—
ORESTES: Never fear; we’ll do it.
ELEC.: Go now where you intend to go!
ORESTES: I’ve gone!
ELEC.: I’ll take care of matters here.
CHORUS: Say a few words
in his ear, gently
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that’s the best idea, hide that he’s heading
for a contest with Justice.
(Aegisthus enters.)
AEGISTHUS: Which of you knows where to find the Phocian strangers,
the men, they say, who’ve come to tell us that Orestes
lost his life in the shipwreck of the chariots?
(turning to Electra) You there, I mean you, yes, you! In the past
you were so fierce. I think you’re the one
who cares most, knows most, and will tell me.
ELECTRA: I know. How could I not? I can’t be set apart
from the fortune of those dearest to me.
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AEGISTHUS: Where would the strangers be? Tell me!
ELECTRA: Inside. They met with a kind hostess.
AEGISTHUS: And did they inform her that he was dead?
ELECTRA: Yes, they both said and proved it.
AEGISTHUS: Can I then learn what she has seen?
ELECTRA: You can, and it’s a not a pretty sight.
AEGISTHUS: For once, what you say makes me happy.
ELECTRA: You might be happy, if this is what you find.
AEGISTHUS: Open the doors, I say, and show
for all Mycenaeans and Argives to see,
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if in the past vain hopes for this man to come
held anyone aloft, they can see his corpse,
accept my bridle and learn sense
and avoid harsh punishment from me.
ELECTRA: I’ve done what you asked. For over time
I’ve learned reason, to serve the powerful.*60
AEGISTHUS: Zeus, I see a sign sent by divine envy.*61
If divine anger is present also, I do not say.
Turn back the covering from his face,
So I, too, can mourn my kinsman.
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ORESTES: You do it yourself; it is your task, not mine,
to look at this and to speak kind words.
AEGISTHUS: Your advice is good, and I shall take it.
Now summon Clytemnestra, if she’s at home.
ORESTES: She is near you. Don’t look elsewhere.
AEGISTHUS: Oh, no! What do I see?
ORE.: Are you afraid? Someone you don’t recognize?
AEGISTHUS: Who has laid the trap I’ve fallen into, miserably?
ORE.: Don’t you see that
though alive, you’ve been talking with the dead?
AEGISTHUS: Oh, no, I see what you’re saying. This must be
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Orestes with whom I have been speaking.
ORESTES: Such a great prophet! Why were you deceived so long?
AEGISTHUS: I am afraid, all is lost. But let me speak, even if briefly.
ELEC.: Don’t let him say more,
by the gods, my brother, no long speeches.
what does a man gain by delaying death?>
Kill him as soon as you can; kill him and put him
out for those who will soon come upon him,*62
out of our sight. For me that would be
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the only recompense for my past troubles.
ORESTES: You should go inside now. We are not talking
about speeches, but about your life!
AEGISTHUS: Why take me into the house. Why, if the deed is good,
must it be done in darkness? Why don’t you kill me here?
ORESTES: Don’t give me orders! Go inside where you killed
our father, so you can die in the same place.
AEGISTHUS: So it’s inevitable that this house must see
the present and future woes of Pelops’ family?
ORESTES: It shall see yours. Of that I’m a true prophet.
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AEGISTHUS: You possess a skill your father didn’t have.
ORESTES: You respond at length and travel slowly. Get going!
AEG.: Lead the way.
ORE.: You must go first.
AEGISTHUS: So I can’t get away?
ORE.: So you can’t die where you please.
I must take care to make this hard for you.
who wish to do what is outside the law.
Then there would not be
so much criminality.
CHORUS: (chanting) Scion of Atreus, you have suffered much
but through struggle have come to freedom,
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empowered by this attack.>*63
* * *
*1 Apollo; the Argives thought the title Lycian derived from the Greek word lykos (wolf), but the real origin of the term is not known.
*2 Apollo. The oracles were usually expressed in obscure or contradictory language, here “justice through treachery.”
*3 The old slave would be welcomed as a servant of their friend. The lie contains elements of truth: Orestes came to Mycenae from Phocis, where he was living with Strophius, Pylades’ father. Phanoteus was an enemy of Strophius.
*4 Contests held every two years at Apollo’s oracle in Delphi.
*5 Procne punished her husband, Tereus, for seducing her sister Philomela by killing her son Itys and serving him to Tereus for dinner; she was then turned into a nightingale. The story was the subject of Sophocles’ drama Tereus (now lost).
*6 The Erinyes (called the Furies in Latin) were deities who avenged blood crimes by pursuing the perpetrators.
*7 In this account of the myth, Aegisthus killed Agamemnon with Clytemnestra’s help.
*8 The nightingale was a harbinger of spring; on the myth of Itys, see note to line 107.
*9 All of Niobe’s children were killed by the gods Apollo and Artemis because she boasted that she had more children than their mother, the goddess Leto; Niobe was turned into a stone with streams of water running down her face.
*10 Here Sophocles follows the (now lost) epic Cypria for the names and number of Agamemnon’s children. A fourth daughter, Iphigenia, was sacrificed at Aulis.
*11 The valley below the sanctuary at Delphi.
*12 Hades.
*13 The servants get what is left after the family has eaten; Electra does not eat with the family.
*14 See note to line 112.
*15 Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
*16 Since dead wood cannot grow again, the leaves are miraculous (see Iliad 1.234–37); that it takes root beside the hearth indicates that Agamemnon’s descendants will rule again. Similarly, Astyages, king of the Medes, dreams that from his daughter’s genitals a vine grew that covered all of Asia, and so he tries to have his grandson killed (Herodotus 1.108).
*17 In drama, characters who feel isolated or oppressed, because they have no one else to talk to, address the gods of the sun or air or earth.
*18 Lines 428–30 do not seem to belong here: “Now by our family gods I implore you, / take my advice and don’t fail because of bad planning; / if you reject me, you will be living with evil again.”
*19 A murdered man’s hands and feet were cut off, strung together, and tied around his neck under his armpits in order to prevent him from avenging his death.