by Sophocles
Nothing’s left of the starry night.
Already you can hear the birds
singing up the dawn, loud and clear.
Before anyone leaves that house,
get it together. The moment’s arrived.
No time to dither. Time to act.
ORESTES
My best friend,
my mentor! You’ve always come through 30
for our family! Like an old thoroughbred
who doesn’t spook in a tight spot
you stick your ears out straight,
urging us on, charging
into the thick of it. You’re
always right there beside us.
Here’s what I think. Listen
closely. If anything I say
is off target, correct my aim.
I went to Delphi to ask Apollo— 40
through his Pythian oracle—
how best to avenge my father.
Kill his killers.
Apollo said: ALONE NO TROOPS
NO ARMOR BY STEALTH SLAUGHTER
WITH YOUR OWN RIGHTEOUS HAND.
That’s what the god told me.
(to the ELDER)
So you must infiltrate the palace.
Seize the first chance you’re given.
Find out what’s going on, so you
can bring us hard information. 50
You’re so old now. After all these years
they won’t know you, they won’t
suspect you, not with that gray hair.
Now here’s your story. You’re a stranger
from Phokis. Phantíus sent you.
He’s their most powerful ally.
Tell them—and flesh it out—the good
news that Orestes had the horrible
luck to be killed in a chariot race.
He was thrown from his racing car 60
at the Pythian games in Delphi.
Make that the gist of your account.
Meantime we will honor Father
exactly as the god told us to do.
We’ll pour milk mixed with honey
over his grave. Next we’ll shear off
and leave him thick hanks of our hair.
Then we’ll come back here, bearing
a bronze urn into the palace.
We’ve stashed it in the underbrush, 70
but I think you knew that.
We’re sure to pick up their spirits
with the false news that this living
body of mine has been consumed
by fire. Now it’s . . . nothing but ashes.
ORESTES pauses, takes in the ominous implication of his own words.
Why should this omen bother me—
by feigning my death I take back
my life! I make my name. I don’t
think unlucky words can curse you—
if they work to your advantage. 80
Haven’t I seen smart men
rumor themselves dead—
so when they do come home alive
the awe they inspire lasts a lifetime?
I’m counting on this bogus tale
to do the same for me. I’ll rise
from death, flush with life—flaming
like a starburst over my enemies!
ORESTES and his companions descend from their hilltop; as they do, the palace walls light up in the dawn. ORESTES turns from the now-looming palace to face the city, the surrounding countryside, and the audience. Over a small rise on stage right is a path leading to the nearby tomb of Agamemnon. Outside the palace is a statue of Apollo and smaller statues of the house of Pelops’ domestic deities. The palace façade has an oversize double door. A smaller entrance is on the far stage left.
Land of my fathers! My people’s gods! Welcome
me! And let my mission succeed. 90
And you, vast rooms my fathers built,
the gods have brought me home
to give you a righteous cleansing. Don’t
drive me disgraced from my homeland.
Return our family’s house to me.
Let me take power and rule what’s mine.
Enough talk. Now it’s up to you,
Graybeard. You do your job
and we’ll do ours. Now is the time.
In whatever men do, timing’s the key. 100
ELEKTRA
(within, in a low but resonant voice)
O what a rotten life!
ELDER
A servant? Behind that door.
Commiserating with herself.
ORESTES
Could that be Elektra? Shouldn’t we wait?
Hear why she moans?
ELDER
(forcefully)
NO! Before anything else
we must obey Apollo. Begin
those libations for your father.
They’ll bring victory within reach.
Make sure we control the situation.
The ELDER exits stage left toward the palace’s side entrance; ORESTES and Pylades move to the right, toward Agamemnon’s nearby tomb. Enter ELEKTRA from the house gates.
ELEKTRA
(singing)
Pure Sunlight! Air breathing 110
over the whole Earth!
How often have you heard
as darkness dies into day
me singing my sorrows,
pounding fists on my breasts
until blood breaks the skin?
And you, my rancid bed in that
palace of pain, you’ve heard
me, awake until dawn, crooning
mournful songs for my father, whom 120
Ares the bloodthirsty war god
never welcomed—when he fought
barbarians—to a brave death
and a hero’s grave. So my mother
and her bedmate, Aegisthus,
laid open his skull like loggers
splitting oak with an ax.
No anguish broke from anyone’s
lips but mine, Father, at your
repulsive, pitiful slaughter. 130
I won’t stop mourning you—
not so long as I see stars
brilliant in the night sky,
not while I can see, still,
day breaking over the land.
I’m like the nightingale
who killed her children,
crying to everyone, outside
what used to be my father’s door.
Hades! Persephone! Hermes! 140
And you, lethal Curses
I scream out loud!
You Curses who can kill!
And you Furies—
you daughters of Zeus,
who strike when you see
an innocent life taken,
or a cunning wife leading
a lover to her bed—
Furies, help me avenge 150
my father’s death!
Give me back my brother!
I lack the strength to keep my grief
from dragging me under. I need help.
Enter CHORUS of Mycenaean women from stage left, walking in small groups from town center. The following lines through line 250 are sung or acted as a duet.
LEADER
Elektra, why do you
go on like this? Why, child?
Yes, your mother’s atrocious. But
your grief never lets up—it goes
on and on, bemoaning Agamemnon.
It’s been such a long time 160
since your ungodly mother
connived with that evil
bastard to cut him down.
May his killer be killed—
if I’m allowed such a prayer.
ELEKTRA
You’re such considerate caring
women—coming here to coax me
out of my misery.
I know your concern, I feel it,
I’m not unaware—but 170
I can’t let go, I can’t
<
br /> quit doing this until I’m done.
I can’t stop mourning
my murdered father.
Friends,
you’re always gracious, no matter
what mood I’m in. This time
let me be. Let me rage.
LEADER
Grief and prayer
can’t bring your father
back from the swamp of Hades. 180
Someday we’ll all sink into it.
But you’re grieving yourself to death.
Yours is a grief that can’t be quenched.
How will you ever satisfy it?
It will kill you! Tell me, why
do you love misery so much?
ELEKTRA
Only a callous child forgets
a parent who died horribly.
I’m like the nightingale, forever
mourning its child—Littlewheel! 190
Littlewheel!—that grief-crazed bird
Zeus sends to tell us it’s spring.
And you too, Niobe, to me
you’re the goddess of sorrow
in your tomb, tears running
forever down your stone face.
LEADER
You’re not the only one who grieves . . . you just
take it much harder than your sisters inside,
Chrysòthemis and Iphianassa. They
go on living . . . as your young brother does. 200
He’s restless in seclusion, ready
for Zeus to start him trekking—
proud of his heritage, awaiting the day
Mycenae welcomes Orestes home!
ELEKTRA
I’m waiting for him too.
I haven’t given up,
getting through day after
daylong day, wishing he’d come,
doing all the chores a childless
unwed woman does, always 210
teary-eyed, hemmed in by my own
doom feeling, which never lets up.
My brother’s forgotten everything.
All he went through, all he witnessed.
Has he sent me one message
that hasn’t proven false?
Always aching to join me—but
for all the aching, never acts.
LEADER
Courage, child, and don’t lose hope.
Zeus still watches us from the skies, 220
His power is huge—he controls
all that we do down here.
Let him handle your bitter quarrel.
Be vigilant—your foes hate you—
but don’t let your own hatred
get ahead of itself. Time is a god
who eases us through the rough patches.
And Agamemnon’s son, grazing
his oxen, is far from indifferent.
And nothing ever gets by 230
the god who rules Acheron
in the world under our own.
ELEKTRA
Hopeless frustration
devoured my youth.
My strength’s gone. I dry up
in childless solitude
with no lover to protect me.
Like an immigrant
everyone scorns,
I slave in my father’s house, 240
wear rags, eat on my feet.
LEADER
On the day he came home
we heard a heartbreaking
scream—when your father lay feasting
and the bronze blade arced
a quick unswerving blow.
Guile set it up, but lust
did the killing:
a monster was born
from that monstrous coupling— 250
whether humans
were behind it, or a god.
ELEKTRA
It was a day more acrid
than any in my life.
And that night! The terrors
of that unspeakable banquet—
the hacking, no mercy shown
by the slashing hands of that pair.
The same treacherous hands that took
me prisoner and fed me death. 260
May great Zeus on Olympus
punish them, may their glitter
give them no pleasure—
after what they did.
LEADER
You’d better stop talking.
Don’t you see? How you stir
up trouble for yourself? Your spirit’s
forever on the brink of war.
Don’t force it. Don’t provoke
fights you can’t win. 270
ELEKTRA
I’m forced to be outrageous
by the outrage all around me!
I know how passionate I am.
How could I not know?
But what drives me
is so extreme . . .
I can’t stop, not while I still
live and breathe. Let it go. Let me be!
Who in her right mind, dearhearts,
thinks words could console me? 280
There is no cure. I’ll never quit
grieving, or stifle what I sing.
LEADER
But can’t I speak as though I care,
like a mother! One you can trust?
Who tells you to stop reliving
old grievances time after time?
ELEKTRA
How do you measure misery?
Tell me this: how can it be right
for us to abandon our dead?
Is anyone ever born that cold-blooded? 290
I’ll never go along with that—
and never, even if lucky enough
to live once more in comfort,
never would I cling to self-
centered ease, or dishonor
my father by clipping
the wings of my shrill grief.
If we let the dead rot in dirt
and disregard, while those killers
pay none of their own blood 300
for the blood of their victims, all
respect for human beings, all respect
for law, will vanish from this Earth.
LEADER
I’m here for your sake, daughter,
but also for my own. If what
I’m saying doesn’t help, go your
own way. We’re with you still.
ELEKTRA
Sister, I’m ashamed if you think
I grieve too often and too much.
But the compulsion is so strong— 310
I must. So forgive me.
What woman from a great family
could hold back, watching her father’s
house suffer disaster? It’s still
happening! All day, all night long.
It never withers, but blooms and blooms!
It begins with the mother
who bore me and hates me.
I live by the sufferance
of father’s murderers. 320
They say if I eat. Or don’t.
Think what my days are like.
Aegisthus sits, propped up
on father’s throne in the great hall
—wearing my father’s clothes—
pouring libations on the same
hearthstone where he killed him.
Worse than that, the killer
sleeps in my father’s bed
with my mother, if that’s 330
the right word. Mother? Slut!
So shameless she lives with,
lays herself under, that
piece of pollution. She’s not
intimidated by the Furies—
she mocks her own depravity.
Now, waiting an eternity
for Orestes to come end this,
inside me I’m dying.
He’s always going to do it 340
but never does—it’s taken
all the hope out of me.
So how could I be calm
and rational? O
r god-fearing?
Sisters . . . I’m so immersed
in all this evil, how
could I not be evil too?
LEADER
What about Aegisthus? Suppose
he hears you talking like this?
Or has he gone somewhere? 350
ELEKTRA
Of course he’s gone.
If he were anywhere near here,
you think I could stroll out the door?
He’s off in the fields someplace.
LEADER
If that’s true, can we talk freely?
ELEKTRA
He’s not around! Ask your question.
What’s your pleasure?
LEADER
What about your brother?
You think he’ll come? Or keep
putting it off? I’d like to know. 360
ELEKTRA
Says he’ll come. Never does what he says.
LEADER
When a man’s about to take on
something overwhelming—
won’t he sometimes hold off a bit?
ELEKTRA
(coldly furious)
When I saved him, did I “hold off a bit”?
LEADER
Easy now. He’s a good man.
He won’t let his own people down.
ELEKTRA
Oh I trust him. I’d be
already dead if I didn’t.
LEADER
(whispering)
Shhh! Don’t talk. 370
I see Chrysòthemis—your real sister,
the one you share both parents with—
coming out of the house carrying
food and drink to offer the dead.
Enter CHRYSÒTHEMIS from the palace.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Making more trouble, sister?
Come out of the house on the street side,
have you, so you can rant in public?
What about?
Haven’t you learned yet not
to indulge in pointless fury? 380
Listen, I too hate the way
we’re made to live.
Had I the power, I’d let them know
I don’t love them either. But
in waters rough as these
I’m going to reef sail,
not make threats, when I can’t
possibly do them any harm.
I’d advise you to do the same.
Of course your rage is justified. 390
You do speak for justice. I don’t.
But if I want to live my life freely,
I’ve got to do everything our rulers
tell me to do. No exceptions.
ELEKTRA
Strange, isn’t it? That the daughter
of such a father should dishonor him
to humor a mother like ours.
She’s taught you how to bawl me out.
Not one syllable is your own!
It’s your choice: either act bravely— 400