by Sophocles
living in the house of Atreus,
ruling this kingdom, enjoying
the company of those living with me now.
Spare the offspring who don’t hate me.
Lose those who blame their pain on me.
Hear me, Wolfkiller Apollo. 750
Grant me all that I pray for.
Other matters that concern me,
must, since you are a god,
be on your mind, even if I
don’t mention them at all.
Surely a son of Zeus
sees everything there is.
The ELDER enters from stage left where he has quietly waited.
ELDER
Ladies, please help a stranger
who’d like to know if this palace
belongs to your ruler, Aegisthus. 760
KLYTEMNESTRA
It does, stranger. You’ve guessed right.
ELDER
And I imagine this lady is . . .
his wife? She looks like a queen.
LEADER
That she does. You’re in the presence.
ELDER
Greetings, my lady. I have sweet news
for you and Aegisthus. From a friend.
KLYTEMNESTRA
I’ll take that as a good omen.
But first, tell me who sent you.
ELDER
Phantíus the Phokaian.
On a vital matter. 770
KLYTEMNESTRA
How vital, sir? Let’s hear it. Since
it comes from a man we admire
I’m sure we’ll like his news.
ELDER
Orestes is dead. That’s my news.
ELEKTRA
I’m devastated. Today I die!
KLYTEMNESTRA
What, stranger? What!!
Don’t listen to that one.
ELDER
I’ll repeat what I said. Your son’s dead.
ELEKTRA
Then I am. I don’t exist.
KLYTEMNESTRA
(to ELEKTRA)
Then go bury yourself! Stranger, 780
tell me exactly how he died.
ELDER
That’s why I’m here. To tell it all.
Orestes had just come into the stadium—
intent on competing in the most high-stakes
athletic games in Greece, those at Delphi—
when he heard a man bellowing
that the sprint was about to start.
It’s always the games’ first event.
So Orestes steps to the starting line
on fire, impressing the onlookers. 790
He led the pack from start to finish,
walking off with the laurel crown.
I’ll skip most of it, there’s so much
to tell: nobody matched this man
in what he did and what he won.
In each event the marshals staged
he took the laurels every time—
sprints, middle distances, pentathlon.
People assumed he had uncanny luck.
Time after time the herald boomed out: 800
“Orestes the Argive, born
to Agamemnon, who marshaled
once the armed might of Greece!”
So far, so good. But when a god
takes you down, not even a great
strong man escapes. There came the day
for chariots to race at dawn.
He joined a crack field of drivers.
First on the track was an Achaean,
then a Spartan. Two expert drivers 810
up from Libya. Next Orestes
with mares from Thessaly,
the fifth team to join the parade.
The sixth entry, an Aetolian,
drove chestnut colts. A Magnesian
was seventh, and eighth to appear
came four white Aenian stallions.
The ninth team was from the godbuilt
city, Athens, and one last entry,
the tenth, was out of Boeotia. 820
All teams were settled into lanes
the race stewards had drawn by lot,
the trumpet blared, and they took off,
urging their horses on, shaking
their reins in their fists, the stadium
resounding with chariot racket,
each trailing a plume of dust, cutting
each other off in mass confusion,
slashing their horses’ backs without
mercy, each driver determined 830
to overtake the wheels, the snorting
horses of his competitors—
wet gusts of the horses’ foaming breath
drenching their backs and churning wheels.
Orestes cut the pillars close
at both ends of the race course—
as his wheels grazed by the posts
he slackened the outside horse’s reins,
pulling back hard on the inside left-
hand horse. Till now all chariots 840
had managed to avoid over-
turning, but the Aenian’s stiff-
mouthed three-year-olds bolted sideways,
swerving into the seventh team’s path,
butting heads with the Barkarian’s
stallions. Other sideswipes followed,
smashup on smashup, crash after
crash, clotting the entire track
with tangled wreckage of race cars.
Reacting quickly, the skittish 850
Athenian pulled his horses off
to one side and slowed, allowing
the surge of chariots to pass him.
Orestes too laid off the pace,
in last place, trusting his stretch run.
But when he saw the Athenian,
his only rival, still upright, he whistled
shrilly in the ears of his fast fillies
to give chase. The teams drew even,
first one man’s head edging in front, 860
then the other’s, as they raced on.
Till now Orestes had gone clean
through every circuit of the track,
rock solid in his well-built car,
but then, as he loosened the right rein
going into a turn, his left wheel
caught the post, breaking the axle
box open, throwing him over
the chariot rail, snared in the reins,
smashing the ground as his mares spooked 870
across the infield of the racetrack.
When the crowd saw that he’d been thrown
it gasped in pity for the brave lad
so suddenly, hideously doomed,
gouging earth, feet kicking at sky,
till the other charioteers,
fighting their runaway horses
to a standstill, cut him loose, so
soaked in blood no friend who knew him
whole would know his disfigured corpse. 880
They burned him on a pyre right there,
right then. Picked men from Phokis
are transporting what’s left of him
in a small urn—the sorry dust
and ashes of that mighty
physique. So that his home country
can see to his worthy burial.
CHORUS
(with emotional murmuring)
Our ancient rulers are wiped out—
their roots, their limbs, wiped out.
KLYTEMNESTRA
O Zeus! What has happened? 890
Can I say—it’s good news?
Or horrible—yet a blessing?
It’s so harsh—that a calamity
makes my life safe.
ELDER
Why does my news depress you, woman?
KLYTEMNESTRA
It is so very strange, birthing a child.
Even when a child betrays you,
you can’t make yourself hate him.
ELDER
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Then it seems I’ve come here for nothing.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Not for nothing. How can you say that 900
when you’ve brought proof he’s dead—
the boy who got his life from my
life, sucked my milk, yet he deserted me,
went into exile! He’s a stranger now.
Having left his homeland, he never
saw me again, but kept on blaming me
for killing his father. He swore
he’d do something terrible to me.
Those threats keep me awake, night
and day. Sleep never shuts my eyes. 1000
I’ve been forced to live out my life
thinking any moment I could die.
But now it’s gone, my fear of him,
and of this girl who’s worse—living
inside my house, leeching my lifeblood.
Now that her threats are dead, I’m at peace.
ELEKTRA
Yes, I’m finished. But free to grieve
the crash that killed you, Brother,
while your mother condemns you.
Orestes—aren’t I better off? 1010
KLYTEMNESTRA
No, you’re not. Yet. He’s better off.
ELEKTRA
Listen, Nemesis! How she respects the dead!
KLYTEMNESTRA
Nemesis heard both of us out!
She came to the right conclusion.
ELEKTRA
Go ahead, sneer. Your great moment.
KLYTEMNESTRA
Won’t you and Orestes shut me up?
ELEKTRA
We’re the ones shut up! How can we silence you?
KLYTEMNESTRA
(turning to ELDER)
We’d owe you a great deal, my man,
if you’ve finally put a stop
to that jarring clamor of hers. 1020
ELDER
Then may I leave? If all is well?
KLYTEMNESTRA
Certainly not! We haven’t shown
proper appreciation, to either you
or to our good friend who sent you.
Come inside. We’ll leave her out here
crying for herself and her dear departed.
KLYTEMNESTRA and the ELDER enter the palace.
ELEKTRA
What do you think of that? What a mother!
Heartbroken, grief-stricken—an
awesome display of maternal
feeling for a son’s ghastly death.
She tosses off a snide slur 1030
as she takes her leave. Makes me sick.
Orestes, your death kills me too.
You’ve stolen my last hope—
that you’d come back, avenge
your father and what’s left of me.
Now I have nobody. I’m alone.
As bereft of you as of Father.
I’ll go back to being enslaved
by people I despise. His murderers.
Aren’t things fine with me now? 1040
(stares at the great doors to the palace)
I won’t cross that threshold ever—
to live with them. I’ll rough it here
next to the gate. A dried-up crone,
I’ll have no friends. I won’t care
how I look. And if those
inside don’t like it, they can do me
a favor and kill me. Life now
will be torture. I don’t want it.
LEADER
Why no lightning from Zeus?
Where is the Sun, if he can look at this— 1050
and pretend it’s not happening?
ELEKTRA
(whispering, then quietly sobbing)
Yes! Where are They? Where?
LEADER
Daughter? Why the tears?
ELEKTRA
(now raises her hands at the heavens and screams)
Curse you!
LEADER
Don’t scream at Them!
ELEKTRA
You’ll kill me.
LEADER
For doing what?
ELEKTRA
If you tell me to keep on
hoping the dead in Hades
can still help me, you’ll crush
me further—when I’m 1060
already heartbroken.
LEADER
I was thinking of Amphiaraos—whose wife,
bribed with a golden necklace,
convinced him to start the war
that got him killed—yet now
in the world below . . .
ELEKTRA
No! Don’t do this.
LEADER
. . . he still lords it there,
his mind robust as ever.
ELEKTRA
(lifting her fists and glaring again at the skies)
Aaagggh! 1070
LEADER
(also looking at the sky)
Aaagggh indeed. For that murderess—at least they killed . . .
ELEKTRA
. . . the killer!
LEADER
Her. Yes.
ELEKTRA
I know! I know that! Those bereaved
people had an avenger!
But who will my avenger be?
The only one I ever had
is dead, and lost to me.
LEADER
You. Your life. Defenseless.
ELEKTRA
I know that. Only too well. 1080
Month after month my life’s
a raging flood that keeps
churning up horror after horror.
LEADER
We watched while it happened.
ELEKTRA
Then stop trying to distract me,
when I . . .
LEADER
When you what?
ELEKTRA
. . . no longer have the slightest hope
my royal brother can save me.
LEADER
Everyone alive has a death date. 1090
ELEKTRA
To die like my doomed brother? Tangled in leather,
dragged under the bone-crushing hooves of horses?
LEADER
So cruel it’s beyond comprehension.
ELEKTRA
Beyond mine. So far from
my loving hands I couldn’t . . .
LEADER
But who could?
ELEKTRA
. . . ready his body for the fire,
bury him, cry over him.
Enter CHRYSÒTHEMIS, out of breath, from Agamemnon’s tomb.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
I’m so elated, sister—my feet flew— 1100
it isn’t ladylike, I know,
to race here so fast. But I’ve got
great news. Your past troubles,
your grieving? Over. Done with!
ELEKTRA
How could you have found a cure
for my suffering? I can’t imagine.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
(still speaking in bursts)
Orestes! Here. He’s alive.
As I am. Here. Now!
ELEKTRA
Are you out of your mind, girl?
Making fun of my pain? And yours? 1110
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
I swear by our father’s hearthstone.
I’m not joking. I’m telling you he’s here.
ELEKTRA
Oh my. You innocent. Where did you
get such a story? You believed it?
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
I believe it because my eyes saw it!
I didn’t get it from anyone.
ELEKTRA
You’re so naïve! Where’s your proof?
What did you see that has you red-faced,
as if you’d caught some deadly fever?
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
For god’s sake, listen, please. 1120
Hear me out. Then decide
how “naïve” I am, or not.
ELE
KTRA
Go ahead. Talk. If it makes you happy.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
All right, I’ll tell you everything I saw.
As I walked toward Father’s ancient
grave site, on top of the mound I saw
fresh milk running down it, his urn
decorated with all kinds of blossoms.
I was stunned. I looked to see
if anybody was around anywhere, 1130
but no. It was very quiet.
I got closer to the tomb. So help me,
there, on its edge, was a swatch of hair.
That instant my breath caught,
I flashed on the face I most loved—
I knew it was his hair,
a signal from Orestes that he’s back!
I cupped it in my hands, careful
not to say anything unlucky.
Right away my joystruck eyes 1140
teared up. I’m sure now, just as I
was then: that hair was his hair.
Who else would have, could have
left it? Except us. It wasn’t me.
How could it be you? You can’t leave
the house, not even for prayers,
without great risk. As for Mother,
she wouldn’t do such a thing.
She couldn’t have done it. We’d’ve known.
No, the hair left in tribute at the tomb 1150
could only be Orestes’ doing.
Look up, sister, show some spirit!
Nobody’s luck is always rotten.
Ours was horrific once. Maybe today
will show us it’s getting better.
ELEKTRA
While you spoke, all I could
feel was pity for you.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
What’s wrong? Why didn’t my news thrill you?
ELEKTRA
You’ve wandered clear out of this world.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
How could I mistake what I just saw?
ELEKTRA
Our brother’s dead. There’s no chance
he’ll come save us. Don’t hope he will. 1160
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Ohhh! Whoever told you that?
ELEKTRA
The man who saw him die.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Where is this person? My mind’s reeling.
ELEKTRA
Inside. Mother’s giving him a warm welcome.
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Then who put all those tributes on the tomb?
ELEKTRA
Someone who wanted to honor
Orestes, now that he’s dead.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
