The Greek Plays
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to care for. But Electra stayed at home
—her father’s home. When she began to flower,
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the best of Greece were eager for her hand.
But since Aegisthus didn’t want her having
a child that might avenge dead Agamemnon,
he kept her home and wouldn’t marry her
to any nobleman. Fear haunted him,
that she’d have babies with a lord in secret.
He planned to kill her; but her savage mother
was kind enough to save her from Aegisthus.
Her husband’s murder was excusable,
but killing children might, she feared, look bad.
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Aegisthus had to come up with a plan.
He promised money to whatever man
could kill Orestes—exiled from our land—
and gave Electra as a wife to me.
I’m from Mycenean ancestry;*6
no faulting me as far as that’s concerned:
my blood is blue, but I am very poor.
In such a case, nobility is useless.
He hoped reducing her to such a husband
would help reduce his fear, since if a man
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of status had her, he’d have woken up
the sleeping murder of dead Agamemnon;
then Justice would descend upon Aegisthus.
But I—and Aphrodite is my witness!—
have never touched her. Yes, she’s still a virgin.
I won’t abuse a rich man’s child; I’d feel
ashamed: I’m just not worthy of her class.
I’m sorry for my so-called brother-in-law,*7
Orestes. If he ever comes to Argos,
poor man! He’ll see his sister’s dreadful marriage.
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People may say I’m stupid, since I took
a virgin to my house, and didn’t touch her.
But those who think such things should know the truth:
their values are corrupt, and they are, too!
(Enter Electra, carrying a water pitcher.)*8
ELECTRA: Black Night! The nurse of all the golden stars!
By night I’ll take this pitcher on my head
down to the river streams to fetch the water,
and to the vastness of the sky I’ll weep
for my dead father—not because I mind
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my poverty, but just to show the gods
Aegisthus’ wickedness. My monstrous mother
threw me from home to please him—her new husband.*9
She’s had new babies with him now—Orestes
and I will lose all status in our house!
PEASANT: Poor girl, you don’t need to work so hard
for me, when you were raised for better things.
ELECTRA: You’re a good friend to me, a godlike friend,
who didn’t take advantage of my trouble.
Humans are very lucky when they find
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healing in ruin: just as I found you.
So I should help you in your work, and lighten
your load as best I can, to make things easier
for you, and not because you told me to.
You have enough to do outside; the house
is up to me. It’s nice for a man to find
everything neat when he comes home from work.
PEASANT: Well, it’s your choice; go on then. After all,
the springs are not too far. And when day comes,
I’ll take the oxen out to sow the furrows.
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No point in prayer if you just sit there idle;
the only way to get your bread is work.
(Electra goes off to get the water. Enter Orestes and Pylades, wearing traveling clothes.)
ORESTES: Ah, Pylades! My best, most loyal friend,
linked by both hospitality and blood.*10
The only one who still respected me,
stuck by me when Aegisthus made me suffer.
He killed my father, with my monstrous mother.
I’ve been away, a visit to the god;*11
no one in Argos knows I’ve got back here,
to pay my father’s killers death for death.
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Last night I went to see my father’s grave,
and wept for him, and gave a lock of hair,*12
and killed a sheep, and poured blood on the fire,
in secret from the powers that be—those tyrants!
And I’m not setting foot inside the walls,
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just coming to the borders of the land.
Two reasons: first, so I can get out fast,
if anybody sees me; secondly,
I’m looking for my sister, since they say
she’s married now and living with a husband.
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We’ll team up: she will help me kill those two,
and help me understand what’s going on
behind the walls.
Now white Dawn’s face is up:
let’s shift our footsteps from the beaten track,
so that a plowman, or a household slave
may tell us if my sister lives round here.
I need to find her!
(He sees Electra approaching.)
But look now, here comes
a servant girl, whose hair is closely cropped,
carrying river water on her head,
a heavy load. Let’s sit and listen here,
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to this slave-girl, to see if we can hear
something about our quest, dear Pylades.
(Orestes and Pylades withdraw behind an altar but remain onstage.)
strophe 1
ELECTRA: (singing)*13 Faster, push your feet to dance; it’s time!
Onward, onward with your cries of grief.
Ah, ah, ah!
Agamemnon was my father,
Clytemnestra bore me,
that hateful child of Tyndareus.
My name among the citizens
is “Poor Electra.”
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Oh, what I’ve gone through! Nothing but pain.
Oh, what a horrible life!
Father, Agamemnon, you lie dead,
slaughtered by your wife,
and by Aegisthus.
mesode 1*14
Come on, wake up your tears!
It feels so good to cry.
antistrophe 1
Faster, push your feet to dance: it’s time!
Onward, onward with your cries of grief.
Ah, ah, ah!
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Where is your city, where is your home,
where are you wandering, my poor brother?
You left behind in our father’s home
your poor sister,
to suffer the worst that could be.
If only you’d come home!
Set me free from my pain! Have pity on me!
And come for our father, remove the shame from his blood.
My own lost brother, make your way to shore
in Argos. O Zeus, Zeus!
(Enter Servant, whom Electra addresses.)
strophe 2
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Come take this pitcher from my head,
and set it down, so I can lift my voice
in a nocturnal song of grief for my dead father.
I’ll wail, I’ll sing, I’ll chant,
for your death, Father.*15
I’ll send my lamentations down below the earth.
I spend all day melted away with tears,
tearing my own throat open with my nails,
beating my hands upon my shaven head,
because you’re dead.
mesode 2
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O, O! I’ll rip out my hair!
As the swan moans
by the streams of the river,
and calls to the father it loved,
k
illed by treachery, caught in knotted nets,
so I mourn you,
my poor dear father.
antistrophe 2
Washed in your last terrible bath,
you lie there dead: what a way to die!
How horrible! That axe
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slashed through you, Father. O, so horrible!
What a return from Troy!
Your wife didn’t welcome you
with garlands of glory;*16
she defiled your body and prepared it
for Aegisthus with his two-edged sword to hack.
So she got that trickster for a husband.
(Enter Chorus of young women, inhabitants of the nearby countryside.)
strophe
CHORUS: Electra, Agamemnon’s daughter! I have come
to see you in your country cottage.
Someone came to visit—yes, he did! A Mycenean,
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a mountain man, the kind that just drinks milk.
He says in Argos they’ve announced
a sacrifice, two days from now,
and all unmarried girls
will go in procession to Hera.
ELECTRA: Friends, my heart is sad; it can’t take flight
for pretty things
or golden necklaces.
I can’t lead the dance
of Argive girls
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or twirl and stamp my feet.
All night I cry, and crying is all I do,
living in pain, day after day.
Look at my unwashed hair,
my dirty clothes.
Does this look right
for a princess,
King Agamemnon’s daughter?
Even Troy is shamed by how I look:
that city still remembers being conquered by my father.
antistrophe
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CHORUS: The goddess is mighty. Come now, I can lend you
fine woven clothes to wear,
and golden jewelry,
so fine and graceful.
Do you think you can neglect the gods
and still defeat your enemies? No, child:
your tears won’t work: you need to pray and worship,
so that the gods will bring your day of joy.
ELECTRA: No god is listening to my voice
in my misfortune. No god long ago
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heard, when they slaughtered my father.
Poor dead father!
Poor lost living brother!
who must be in another land—a wanderer,
living from job to job
and hearth to hearth,
despite his noble birth.
And as for me, I live in the house of a laborer,
wasting away my life,
an exile from my home, the home of my forefathers,
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up in the mountain crags.
My mother lives there, married to that other man,
sleeping there with him on blood-soaked sheets.
CHORUS:*17 Your mother’s sister Helen caused this trouble.*18
She hurt the Greeks and hurt your family.
ELECTRA: Ah, yes! But, girls, I’ll stop lamenting now.
(She sees Orestes and Pylades.)
Look! There were some strangers lurking here
behind the altar by my house. They’re coming!
Get away down the path, I’ll run inside.
They’re criminals, let’s get away from them!
(Electra and the Chorus members try to flee.)
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ORESTES: (grabbing Electra) Stop, wait! Poor girl! Don’t run! Come, let me hold you!
ELECTRA: Apollo! Save me! Please don’t let me die!
ORESTES: I’d rather kill the one I hate, not you!
ELECTRA: Away! Hands off a girl you shouldn’t touch!
ORESTES: I have a right to touch you—no one more.
ELECTRA: Why did you lurk beside my house with swords?
ORESTES: Wait and listen, then you’ll say I’m right.
ELECTRA: I’ll stay. You’ve got me anyway by force.
ORESTES: I’ve come to bring you news about your brother.
ELECTRA: My love! But is he still alive? Or dead?
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ORESTES: Alive. So that’s the good news. Start with that.
ELECTRA: Bless you! You deserve it! Such sweet news!
ORESTES: The gift’s for both of us, good luck for both.
ELECTRA: But he’s still lost, poor thing! So where is he?
ORESTES: He drifts from town to town. It’s worn him out.
ELECTRA: You mean he doesn’t have enough to eat?
ORESTES: He isn’t starving, but he’s weak from exile.
ELECTRA: What message did he send you with for me?
ORESTES: To see if you’re alive, and how you are.
ELECTRA: Just look at me! I’m all dried up and skinny.
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ORESTES: Wasted by grief. It makes me want to cry.
ELECTRA: You see I shaved my hair off with a blade.*19
ORESTES: Stung by your brother’s loss, and your dead father.
ELECTRA: Yes, oh, yes! They’re all the world to me.
ORESTES: And what do you think your brother feels for you?
ELECTRA: We love each other, but he’s far away.
ORESTES: Why are you living out here, far from town?
ELECTRA: I got married, stranger. It’s like death.
ORESTES: O, your poor brother!—to which Argive man?
ELECTRA: Not one my father hoped to give me to.
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ORESTES: Tell me who it is; I’ll tell your brother.
ELECTRA: This is my husband’s house, out in the sticks.
ORESTES: A farm-hand or a cowherd ought to live here!
ELECTRA: He’s poor but noble, treats me with respect.
ORESTES: How does this husband show respect for you?
ELECTRA: He’s never dared to touch me in my bed.
ORESTES: Out of religious scruple, or disgust?
ELECTRA: He doesn’t want to disrespect my forebears.
ORESTES: But why was he not happy with this marriage?
ELECTRA: He thinks the man who gave me had no right.
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ORESTES: He fears Orestes might come take revenge?
ELECTRA: Yes, that is part of it. Also, he’s good.
ORESTES: Ah!
He does sound good. He must be treated right.
ELECTRA: He will be—if the missing man comes home.
ORESTES: But did your mother really let this happen?
ELECTRA: Women love their men and not their children.
ORESTES: Why did Aegisthus do this wrong to you?
ELECTRA: To guarantee my children would be weak.
ORESTES: Not children who might rise to take revenge?
ELECTRA: That was his plan—and may he pay for it!
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ORESTES: Does your stepfather know you’re still a virgin?
ELECTRA: No. We’ve kept this secret from him, stranger.
ORESTES: So then, these women listening are friends?
ELECTRA: Yes, and they’ll keep your secrets just like mine.
ORESTES: What should Orestes do if he comes home?
ELECTRA: How can you ask? For shame! The time is now!
ORESTES: Well, then: how could he kill his father’s killers?
ELECTRA: With nerves of steel—like them against my father.*20
ORESTES: Could you bear it if he killed your mother?
ELECTRA: Yes! With the very axe that killed my father!
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ORESTES: Shall I tell him? Is your mind made up?
ELECTRA: Let me shed my mother’s blood, then die!
ORESTES: O!
I wish Orestes could be here to hear you!
ELECTRA: I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him.
ORESTES: Of course: you two got
separated young.
ELECTRA: There’s only one of all our friends would know him.
ORESTES: The one that rescued him from being killed?
ELECTRA: Yes, our father’s tutor, that old man.
ORESTES: And your dead father, has he got a tomb?
ELECTRA: It’s what it is. They shoved him from his home.
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ORESTES: That’s terrible!—We humans feel the pain
of suffering, even when it isn’t ours.
But tell me, so I can inform your brother,
news that he won’t like, but still must hear.
The ignorant are not capable of pity;
intelligent people are, though at a cost.
A clever mind can understand too much.
CHORUS: I long for just the same thing in my heart.
We’re stuck out here, don’t know what’s going on
inside the city, and I want to know.
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ELECTRA: You’re friends, and friends deserve the truth. I’ll tell you.
Things have been bad for me and for my father.
But stranger, since you asked me for my story,
I beg you, tell Orestes all my troubles.
My pains are his. Tell him what clothes I wear;
how I’m all caked with dirt; the peasant hut
I live in—no more palaces for me!
I have to labor, weaving wool for clothes,
or I’d have none, nothing to wear at all.*21
I have to carry water from the stream;
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I am deprived of festivals and dances;
I keep my distance from the married wives,
since I’m a virgin. Also I feel embarrassed
about my uncle Castor, who’s a god now,
but once my suitor.*22 Mother’s on the throne,
decked out spoils from Troy, with all the girls
from Asia, whom my father took by war,
their foreign dresses pinned with golden clasps.
My father’s blood is moldering in the house,
black blood!—while he, the one who murdered him
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rides in his victim’s chariot through the land,
and proudly brandishes, in blood-stained hands,
the scepter Father used to lead the troops.
The tomb of Agamemnon gets no honor;
no libations and no sprigs of myrtle;
his funeral mound is bare of offerings.
But he, this famous husband of my mother,
sodden with drink, leaps on the grave, they say,
and pelts my father’s monument with rocks,
and dares to talk against us, saying this:
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“Where is his son, Orestes? Is he here,