by Euripides
ELEC. [alone] O Nature, what a great evil art thou among men, and the safeguard of those who possess thee, with virtue! For see, how she has shorn off the extremities of her hair, in order to preserve her beauty; but she is the same woman she always was. May the Gods detest thee, for that thou hast destroyed me, and this man, and the whole state of Greece: oh wretch that I am! But my dear friends that accompany me in my lamentations are again present; perhaps they will disturb the sleeper from his slumber, and will melt my eyes in tears when I behold my brother raving.
ELECTRA, CHORUS.
ELEC. O most dear woman, proceed with a gentle foot, make no noise, let there be heard no sound. For your friendliness is very kind, but to awake him will be a calamity to me. Hush, hush — gently advance the tread of thy sandal, make no noise, let there be heard no sound. Move onward from that place — onward from before the couch.
CHOR. Behold, I obey.
ELEC. St! st! Speak to me, my friend, as the breathing of the soft reed pipe.
CHOR. See, I utter a voice low as an under note.
ELEC. Ay, thus come hither, come hither, approach quietly — go quietly: tell me, for what purpose, I pray, are ye come? For he has fallen on his couch, and been sleeping some time.
CHOR. How is he? Give us an account of him, my friend.
ELEC. What fortune can I say of him? and what his calamities? still indeed he breathes, but sighs at short intervals.
CHOR. What sayest thou? Oh, the unhappy man!
ELEC. You will kill him if you move his eyelids, now that he is taking the sweetest enjoyment of sleep.
CHOR. Unfortunate on account of these most angry deeds from heaven! oh! wretched on account of thy sufferings!
ELEC. Alas! alas! Apollo himself unjust, then spoke unjust things, when at the tripod of Themis he commanded the unhallowed, inauspicious murder of my mother.
CHOR. Dost thou see? he moves his body in the robes that cover him.
ELEC. You by your cries, O wretch, have disturbed him from his sleep.
CHOR. I indeed think he is sleeping yet.
ELEC. Will you not depart from us? will you not bend your footsteps back from the house, ceasing this noise?
CHOR. He sleeps.
ELEC. Thou sayest well.
CHOR. Venerable, venerable Night, thou that dispensest sleep to languid mortals, come from Erebus; come, come, borne on thy wings to the house of Agamemnon; for by our griefs and by our sufferings we are quite undone, undone.
ELEC. Ye were making a noise.
CHOR. No. (Note [A].)
ELEC. Silently, silently repressing the high notes of your voice, apart from his couch, you will enable him to have the tranquil enjoyment of sleep.
CHOR. Tell us; what end to his miseries awaits him?
ELEC. Death, death; what else can? for he has no appetite for food.
CHOR. Death then is manifestly before him.
ELEC. Phœbus offered us as victims, when he commanded the dreadful, abhorred murder of our mother, that slew our father.
CHOR. With justice indeed, but not well.
ELEC. Thou hast died, thou hast died, O mother, O thou that didst bring me forth, but hast killed the father, and the children of thy blood. We perish, we perish, even as two corses. For thou art among the dead, and the greatest part of my life is passed in groans, and wailings, and nightly tears; marriageless, childless, behold, how like a miserable wretch do I drag out my existence forever!
CHOR. O virgin Electra, approach near, and look that thy brother has not died unobserved by thee; for by this excessive quiet he doth not please me.
ORESTES, ELECTRA, CHORUS.
ORES. O precious balm of sleep, thou that relievest my malady, how pleasant didst thou come to me in the time of need! O divine oblivion of my sufferings, how wise thou art, and the goddess to be supplicated by all in distress! — whence, in heaven’s name, came I hither? and how brought? for I remember not things past, bereaved, as I am, of my senses.
ELEC. My dearest brother, how didst thou delight me when thou didst fall asleep! wilt thou I touch thee, and raise thy body up?
ORES. Raise me then, raise me, and wipe the clotted foam from off my wretched mouth, and from my eyes.
ELEC. Behold, the task is sweet, and I refuse not to administer to a brother’s limbs with a sister’s hand.
ORES. Lay thy side by my side, and remove the squalid hair from my face, for I see but imperfectly with my eyes.
ELEC. O wretched head, sordid with ringlets, how art thou disordered from long want of the bath!
ORES. Lay me on the couch again; when my fit of madness gives me a respite, I am feeble and weak in my limbs.
ELEC. Behold, the couch is pleasant to the sick man, an irksome thing to keep, but still a necessary one.
ORES. Again raise me upright — turn my body.
CHOR. Sick persons are hard to be pleased from their feebleness.
ELEC. Wilt thou set thy feet on the ground, putting forward thy long-discontinued step? In all things change is sweet.
ORES. Yes, by all means; for this has a semblance of health, but the semblance is good, though it be distant from the truth.
ELEC. Hear now therefore, O my brother, while yet the Furies suffer thee to have thy right faculties.
ORES. Wilt thou tell any news? and if good indeed, thou art conferring pleasure; but if it pertain at all to mischief — I have enough distress.
ELEC. Menelaus has arrived, the brother of thy father, but his ships are moored in the Nauplian bay.
ORES. How sayest? Is he come, a light in mine and thy sufferings, a man of kindred blood, and that hath received benefits from our father?
ELEC. He is come; take this a sure proof of my words, bringing with him Helen from the walls of Troy.
ORES. Had he been saved alone, he had been more blest. But if he brings his wife, he has arrived with a mighty evil.
ELEC. Tyndarus begat an offspring of daughters, a conspicuous mark for blame, and infamous throughout Greece.
ORES. Do thou then be unlike the bad, for it is in thy power. And not only say, but also hold these sentiments.
ELEC. Alas! my brother, thine eye rolls wildly; quick art thou changed to madness, so late in thy senses.
ORES. O mother, I implore thee, urge not on me those Furies gazing blood, horrid with snakes, for these, these are leaping around me.
ELEC. Remain, O wretched man, calmly on thy couch, for thou seest none of those things, which thou fanciest thou seest plainly.
ORES. O Phœbus, these dire Goddesses in the shape of dogs will kill me, these gorgon-visaged ministers of hell.
ELEC. I will not let thee go, but, putting my arm around thee, will stop thy starting into those unfortunate convulsions.
ORES. Loose me. Thou art one of my Furies, and seizest me by the middle, that thou mayest hurl me into Tartarus.
ELEC. Oh! wretched me! what assistance can I obtain, since we have on us the vengeful wrath of heaven!
ORES. Give me my bow of horn, the gift of Phœbus, with which Apollo said I should repel the Fiends, if they appalled me by their maddened raging.
ELEC. Shall any God be wounded by mortal hand? (Note [B].)
ORES. Yes. She shall, if she will not depart from my sight... Hear ye not — see ye not the winged shafts impelled from the distant-wounding bow? Ha! ha! Why tarry ye yet? Skim the high air with your wings, and impeach the oracles of Phœbus. — Ah! why am I thus disquieted, heaving my panting breath from my lungs? Whither, whither have I wandered from my couch? For from the waves again I see a calm. — Sister, why weepest, hiding thine eyes beneath thy vests, I am ashamed to have thee a partner in my sufferings, and to give a virgin trouble through my malady. Pine not away on account of my miseries: for thou indeed didst assent to this, but the shedding of my mother’s blood was accomplished by me: but I blame Apollo, who, after having instigated me to a most unholy act, with words indeed consoled me, but not with deeds. But I think that my father, had I, beholding him, asked him
if it were right for me to slay my mother, would have put forth many supplications, beseeching me by this beard not to impel my sword to the slaughter of her who bore me, if neither he thereby could be restored to life, and I thus wretched must go through such miseries. And now then unveil thyself, my sister, and cease from tears, even though we be very miserable: but when thou seest me desponding, do thou restrain my distraction, and that which preys upon my mind, and console me; but when thou groanest, it becomes my duty to come to thee, and suggest words of comfort. For these are the good offices friends ought to render each other. But go thou into the house, O unfortunate sister, and, stretched at full length, compose thy sleepless eyelids to sleep, and take refreshment, and pour the bath upon thy fair skin. For if thou forsakest me, or gettest any illness by continually sitting by me, we perish; for thee I have my only succor, by the rest, as thou seest, abandoned.
ELEC. This can not be: with thee will I choose to die, with thee to live; for it is the same: for if then shouldst die, what can I do, a woman? how shall I be preserved, alone and destitute? without a brother, without a father, without a friend: but if it seemeth good to thee, these things it is my duty to do: but recline thy body on the bed, and do not to such a degree conceive to be real whatever frightens and startles thee from the couch, but keep quiet on the bed strewn for thee. For though thou be not ill, but only seem to be ill, still this even is an evil and a distress to mortals. (Note [C].)
CHORUS. Alas! alas! O swift-winged, raving Goddesses, who keep up the dance, not that of Bacchus, with tears and groans. You, dark Eumenides, you, that fly through the wide extended air, executing vengeance, executing slaughter, you do I supplicate, I supplicate: suffer the offspring of Agamemnon to forget his furious madness; alas! for his sufferings. What were they that eagerly grasping at, thou unhappy perishest, having received from the tripod the oracle which Phœbus spake, on that pavement, where are said to be the recesses in the midst of the globe! O Jupiter, what pity is there? what is this contention of slaughter that comes persecuting thee wretched, to whom some evil genius casts tear upon tear, transporting to thy house the blood of thy mother which drives thee frenzied! Thus I bewail, I bewail. Great prosperity is not lasting among mortals; but, as the sail of the swift bark, some deity having shaken him, hath sunk him in the voracious and destructive waves of tremendous evils, as in the waves of the ocean. For what other family ought I to reverence yet before that sprung from divine nuptials, sprung from Tantalus? — But lo! the king! the prince Menelaus, is coming! but he is very easily discernible from the elegance of his person, as king of the house of the Tantalidæ.
O thou that didst direct the army of a thousand vessels to Asia’s land, hail! but thou comest hither with good fortune, having obtained the object of thy wishes from the Gods.
MENELAUS, ORESTES, CHORUS.
MEN. O palace, in some respect indeed I behold thee with pleasure, coming from Troy, but in other respect I groan when I see thee. For never yet saw I any other house more completely encircled round with lamentable woes. For I was made acquainted with the misfortune that befell Agamemnon, [and his death, by what death he perished at the hands of his wife,] when I was landing my ships at Malea; but from the waves the prophet of the mariners declared unto me, the foreboding Glaucus the son of Nereus, an unerring God, who told me thus in evident form standing by me. “Menelaus, thy brother lieth dead, having fallen in his last bath, which his wife prepared.” But he filled both me and my sailors with many tears; but when I come to the Nauplian shore, my wife having already landed there, expecting to clasp in my friendly embraces Orestes the son of Agamemnon, and his mother, as being in prosperity, I heard from some fisherman the unhallowed murder of the daughter of Tyndarus. And now tell me, maidens, where is the son of Agamemnon, who dared these terrible deeds of evil? for he was an infant in Clytæmnestra’s arms at that time when I left the palace on my way to Troy, so that I should not know him, were I to see him.
ORES. I, Menelaus, am Orestes, whom thou seekest, I of my own accord will declare my evils. But first I touch thy knees in supplication, putting up prayers from my mouth, not using the sacred branch: save me. But thou art come in the very season of my sufferings.
MEN. O ye Gods, what do I behold! whom of the dead do I see!
ORES. Ay! well thou sayest the dead; for in my state of suffering I live not; but see the light.
MEN. Thou wretched man, how disordered thou art in thy squalid hair!
ORES. Not the appearance, but the deeds torment me.
MEN. But thou glarest dreadfully with thy shriveled eyeballs.
ORES. My body is vanished, but my name has not left me.
MEN. Alas, thy uncomeliness of form which has appeared to me beyond conception!
ORES. I am he, the murderer of my wretched mother.
MEN. I have heard; but spare a little the recital of thy woes.
ORES. I spare it; but in woes the deity is rich to me.
MEN. What dost thou suffer? What malady destroys thee?
ORES. The conviction that I am conscious of having perpetrated dreadful deeds.
MEN. How sayest thou? Plainness, and not obscurity, is wisdom.
ORES. Sorrow is chiefly what destroys me, —
MEN. She is a dreadful goddess, but sorrow admits of cure.
ORES. And fits of madness in revenge for my mother’s blood.
MEN. But when didst first have the raging? what day was it then?
ORES. That day in which I heaped the tomb on my mother.
MEN. What? in the house, or sitting at the pyre?
ORES. As I was guarding by night lest any one should bear off her bones.
MEN. Was any one else present, who supported thy body?
ORES. Pylades, who perpetrated with me the vengeance and death of my mother.
MEN. But by what visions art thou thus afflicted?
ORES. I appear to behold three virgins like the night.
MEN. I know whom thou meanest, but am unwilling to name them.
ORES. Yes: for they are awful; but forbear from speaking such high polished words.
MEN. Do these drive thee to distraction on account of this kindred murder?
ORES. Alas me for the persecutions, with which wretched I am driven!
MEN. It is not strange that those who do strange deeds should suffer them.
ORES. But we have whereto we may transfer the criminality of the mischance.
MEN. Say not the death of thy father; for this is not wise.
ORES. Phœbus who commanded us to perpetrate the slaying of our mother.
MEN. Being more ignorant than to know equity, and justice.
ORES. We are servants of the Gods, whatever those Gods be.
MEN. And then does not Apollo assist thee in thy miseries?
ORES. He is always about to do it, but such are the Gods by nature.
MEN. But how long a time has thy mother’s breath gone from her?
ORES. This is the sixth day since; the funeral pyre is yet warm.
MEN. How quickly have the Goddesses come to demand of thee thy mother’s blood!
ORES. I am not wise, but a true friend to my friends.
MEN. But what then doth the revenge of thy father profit thee?
ORES. Nothing yet; but I consider what is in prospect in the same light as a thing not done.
MEN. But regarding the city how standest thou, having done these things?
ORES. We are hated to that degree, that no one speaks to us.
MEN. Nor hast thou washed thy blood from thy hands according to the laws?
ORES. How can I? for I am shut out from the houses, whithersoever I go.
MEN. Who of the citizens thus contend to drive thee from the land?
ORES. Œax, imputing to my father the hatred which arose on account of Troy.
MEN. I understand. The death of Palamede takes its vengeance on thee.
ORES. In which at least I had no share — but I perish by the three.
MEN. But who else
? Is it perchance one of the friends of Ægisthus?
ORES. They persecute me, whom now the city obeys.
MEN. But does the city suffer thee to wield Agamemnon’s sceptre?
ORES. How should they? who no longer suffer us to live.
MEN. Doing what, which thou canst tell me as a clear fact?
ORES. This very day sentence will be passed upon us.
MEN. To be exiled from this city? or to die? or not to die?
ORES. To die, by being stoned with stones by the citizens.
MEN. And dost thou not fly then, escaping beyond the boundaries of the country?
ORES. How can we? for we are surrounded on every side by brazen arms.
MEN. By private enemies, or by the hand of Argos?
ORES. By all the citizens, that I may die — the word is brief.
MEN. O unhappy man! thou art come to the extreme of misfortune.
ORES. On thee my hope builds her escape from evils, but, thyself happy, coming among the distressed, impart thy good fortune to thy friends, and be not the only man to retain a benefit thou hast received, but undertake also services in thy turn, paying their father’s kindness to those to whom thou oughtest. For those friends have the name, not the reality, who are not friends in adversity.
CHOR. And see the Spartan Tyndarus is toiling hither with his aged foot, in a black vest, and shorn, his locks cut off in mourning for his daughter.
ORES. I am undone, O Menelaus! Lo! Tyndarus is coming toward us, to come before whose presence, most of all men’s, shame covereth me, on account of what has been done. For he used to nurture me when I was little, and satiated me with many kisses, dandling in his arms Agamemnon’s boy, and Leda with him, honoring me no less than the twin-born of Jove. For which, O my wretched heart and soul, I have given no good return: what dark veil can I take for my countenance? what cloud can I place before me, that I may avoid the glances of the old man’s eyes?
