The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone
Page 23
Stupid! Here I’m rushing
to you with good news—
ignorant of the mess we’re in. 1170
Now that I’m here, I find
worse grief waiting to crush me.
ELEKTRA
So you have. But trust me.
You can lift this weight off.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
By raising the dead back to life?
ELEKTRA
I didn’t mean that. I’m not a fool.
CHRYSòTHEMIS
What would you have me do?
Something I really can do?
ELEKTRA
Yes. If you’ve got the nerve to join me.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
If it will help us, how can I refuse? 1180
ELEKTRA
Anything worthwhile . . . has risks.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
I’m with you, as far as I can be.
ELEKTRA
Then listen. Here’s my plan. Nobody
here will help us. You must know that.
We’re alone. Our men are in Hades.
I had hoped, while my brother lived,
he’d come back to avenge his father.
Now that he’s dead, I’m turning to
you—to help me kill father’s killer.
Aegisthus. I won’t keep 1190
anything from you. From now on.
How long are you willing to wait
doing nothing? Who else will do it?
Sure you can bitch you’ve been robbed
of Father’s wealth—that you’re too old
now for a wedding, for married love.
So don’t keep hoping you’ll enjoy
its benefits. Aegisthus isn’t
so thickheaded he’d let us have
sons who would be sure to kill him. 1200
But if you act on my plan, our dead
father in Hades will approve,
so will our brother. What’s more,
you’ll be a free woman, you’ll make
a good marriage, for true courage
is something everyone values.
And as for men talking about us,
don’t you see the fame we’ll win
if you will just listen to me?
Can you imagine any citizen, 1210
any stranger, who wouldn’t be
impressed? “Look at those two sisters,
they saved their father’s house—
brought down their dug-in enemies,
without a thought for their own lives!”
That’s what they’ll say about us.
Dead or alive, we’ll be famous.
Do it, sister. Work with your father,
help your brother and me, free us all
from any further suffering. 1220
A shameful life shames anyone
born to a family as noble as ours.
LEADER
In situations like this,
foresight’s a friend, of both
speaker and spoken to.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
(to CHORUS)
Right, and before she said a word,
women, if she had any sense,
she’d have remembered plots like hers
often go wrong. But she forgot about that.
(to ELEKTRA)
What are you trying to accomplish, 1230
making recklessness your weapon,
and calling on me to do the same?
Don’t you get it? You’re a woman,
not a man. You don’t have
the strength our enemies command.
Their power grows, ours wastes away.
Who could plot to kill such a man
without being themselves cut down?
You’ll make the trouble we’re in worse
should anybody overhear us. 1240
If we win fame then get killed, what
possible good does that do us?
I’m begging you, before we die,
forever wiping out our family,
control yourself. I guarantee
no one will know what you just said,
nobody’s going to get hurt.
You should learn to respect power
when you have none of it yourself.
LEADER
(sharply, to ELEKTRA)
Listen to her. Nothing’s more vital 1250
than thinking clearly—and thinking ahead.
ELEKTRA
(to CHRYSÒTHEMIS)
You’re so predictable. I knew
you’d hate what I have in mind.
I’ll act alone. I’m not quitting.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Too late! I wish you’d shown
this much spunk the day Father died.
Then you could have brought it all off.
ELEKTRA
I had the impulse, not the brains.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Then work on that. 1260
ELEKTRA
Is that why you won’t help me do something—
because you think that I’m naïve?
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
You are. Any attempt to kill him will fail.
ELEKTRA
I envy your cool self-control.
I hate your spinelessness.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
I’ll listen as coolly to your
praise as I do to your insults.
ELEKTRA
Don’t worry. You’ll hear no praise from me.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
The future lasts a long time. It will decide.
ELEKTRA
Go away. You’re no help at all. 1270
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
I could help. You’re incapable
of understanding how I could.
ELEKTRA
Go. Tell all this to your mother.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
No. I may hate you. But not like that.
ELEKTRA
Then admit your lack of respect!
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Lack of respect? I am
trying to save your life.
ELEKTRA
Do you expect me to follow
your idea of what’s just?
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Yes! When you get your sanity back, 1280
then you might show us the way.
ELEKTRA
It’s depressing when someone so
well-spoken can go so wildly wrong.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
That’s a perfect description of you.
ELEKTRA
How so? You think I’m being unjust?
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Justice itself can sometimes wreak havoc.
ELEKTRA
I’m not willing to live by laws like that.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
If you’re dead set on doing this, you’ll
end up admitting I was right.
ELEKTRA
My mind’s made up. You don’t scare me. 1290
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Better think it through one more time.
ELEKTRA
There’s nothing more to think about.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
You haven’t understood a thing I’ve said.
ELEKTRA
I worked this out long ago. Not just now.
CHRYSÒTHEMIS
Well, if you call that sense,
keep on thinking like that.
When you find out how much trouble
you’re in, you’ll think better of what I said.
Exit CHRYSÒTHEMIS abruptly into the palace.
CHORUS
(singing)
When we see airborne birds
instinctively cherish the parents 1300
who fed them and raised them,
why don’t we ask why
we don’t treasure our parents,
our children, the same way?
When the lightning of Zeus
strikes targets chosen by Themis,
the goddess of Ju
stice,
agony’s on them in an instant.
You voices of the dead
who burrow under the earth, 1310
carry your heart-wrenching summons
to Agamemnon in Hades.
Tell him that he’s dishonored here,
that discord ravages his house,
that sisters, battling each other,
tear asunder the caring web
of their life together,
how Elektra, abandoned,
braves fierce seas of sorrow
mourning her father’s doom 1320
tirelessly, like a nightingale
scornful of death, prepared
to leave sunlight forever
if she could purge the twin
Furies—like the loyal daughter
she is—from her father’s palace.
No decent person
prefers to live a life
of squalor, blacken
her decency, amass 1330
a legacy of shame.
So you, my girl,
make grief a weapon!
You scorn disgrace,
fighting for, and winning,
two kinds of glory,
for wisdom, and for being
the best daughter alive.
In power and wealth may you
tower over your enemies 1340
as they now lord it over you.
Fate has beaten you down,
that I see. Yet here you are
winning fame where it counts,
driven by the great laws of our nature,
inspired by your reverence for Zeus.
Enter ORESTES and Pylades stage right with an Aide carrying a bronze urn.
ORESTES
Ladies—the directions we were given—
have they brought us to the right place?
LEADER
What place? What are you looking for?
ORESTES
I’m looking for where Aegisthus lives. 1350
LEADER
Well whoever told you to come here
told you right. That’s his house.
ORESTES
They’ve been expecting us. For some time.
Will someone tell those inside we’ve arrived?
LEADER
(indicating ELEKTRA)
This young woman. If it’s right
for close kin to announce you.
ORESTES
Go right in, girl, tell them men
from Phokis are looking for Aegisthus.
ELEKTRA
(reacting to the urn the Aide carries)
No! No! You’re not bringing us proof
the rumor that we’ve heard is true? 1360
ORESTES
I know nothing of any rumor.
Old Strophios sent me with news of Orestes.
ELEKTRA
What news? I’m afraid what I’ll hear!
ORESTES
(gestures to the urn carried by his Aide)
He’s dead. Look how small an urn he’s in.
There wasn’t much left to bring home.
ELEKTRA
(crying gently)
I’m heartsick to see, at last, my misery.
Which you hold there in your hands.
ORESTES
If you weep for Orestes’ suffering—
what there is of him is right here. 1370
ELEKTRA
Let me hold it in my hands, sir, please.
If this urn really holds him, I’ll weep
and keen for myself, our whole family.
Not only for these few ashes.
ORESTES
(to his Aide)
Come over here. Give it to her,
whoever she may be.
If she wants it that badly.
She’s not someone who hated him
but a friend, most likely blood kin.
ELEKTRA
(taking and holding the urn)
Dearest remains of you I loved 1380
best on Earth, Orestes, nothing
is left of you but this. So different
from what I hoped you’d become
when I sent you away. And this
is how you come home. My own hands
lift you like you’re nothing. Yet how
radiant was the boy I sent off!
I should have died before these hands
picked you up and packed you off
to a strange land, to keep you 1390
from being murdered. Better
you were killed the same day
your father was, and buried beside him.
Now, remote from your homeland
and your sister, you’ve died a grim death.
My grieving hands didn’t, as was my duty,
wash and dress your body, or scrape
the sad remnant from the ravenous fire.
No. Hands of strangers did this
for you, long gone brother, and now 1400
as ashes in an urn they bring you home.
My loving care, my bathing you
so long ago—seems a waste now.
You were never your mother’s child,
you were mine! No one in our house
nursed you but me, the one you called sister.
Now in one day that’s gone—
like a whirlwind you’ve sucked up
everything, taken it with you.
Father’s gone. You’ve killed me. 1410
Our enemies gloat. That unmothering
mother is mad with joy, the one
so many times in secret letters
you promised me you’d punish.
But your bad luck and mine
has sent you home to me
as this!
ELEKTRA sifts the ashes through her fingers.
Not the shape
of one I loved. The ashes of a ghost.
Dear lifeless dust!
When you raced on that terrible circuit, 1420
dear brother, see how you’ve killed me.
I was wrecked by your side. Now,
take me with you. To your new home.
I’ll join my nothingness to yours.
We’ll be there forever, together, below.
Up here, we share even our doom.
I’d like to die now. Don’t leave me
behind. The dead, I can see, feel no pain.
LEADER
Elektra! Think! Your father was mortal.
So was your brother. You shouldn’t 1430
grieve too much. We’re all going to die.
ORESTES
(breathes in and out a huge sigh)
What should I say?
When the right words won’t come?
I can’t use my own tongue.
ELEKTRA
What’s wrong with you? Why did you say that?
ORESTES
Are you the famous Elektra? The Elektra?
ELEKTRA
I am myself. In the pit of misery.
ORESTES
I’m sorry, truly, for this horrible misfortune.
ELEKTRA
Surely, stranger, you can’t be sorrowing for me.
ORESTES
Someone was abused. Atrociously. 1440
ELEKTRA
Nobody fits your grim words like me. Stranger.
ORESTES
What kind of life is this?
Ummarried. Despondent.
ELEKTRA
Why are you staring at me like that?
Why this concern at what you see?
ORESTES
I didn’t know I had so much to grieve for.
ELEKTRA
What’s been said to make that apparent?
ORESTES
I see your miseries. They ravage you.
ELEKTRA
You see very little of my misery.
ORESTES
What could be worse, that I don’t see? 1450
ELEKTRA
I live in the sa
me house with murderers.
ORESTES
Whose murderers? What are you getting at?
ELEKTRA
My father’s. They made me their slave. By force.
ORESTES
Who forces you to be a slave?
ELEKTRA
She’s called my mother. Doesn’t act like one.
ORESTES
How so? She beats you? Demeans you?
ELEKTRA
Beats, starves, demeans, everything.
ORESTES
No one has ever come to help you? Or stop her?
ELEKTRA
One would have. You gave me his ashes.
ORESTES
Poor woman. I’ve pitied you a long while. 1460
ELEKTRA
You are one of a kind. No one else has.
ORESTES
The only one who’s come. Who shares your pain.
ELEKTRA
You aren’t some distant relative?
ORESTES
I’d answer that, if I could trust these ladies.
ELEKTRA
They’re friends. You words are safe with them.
ORESTES
Give me the urn. I’ll tell you everything.
ELEKTRA
Don’t ask me to do that! For gods’ sake!
ORESTES
Do as I say. You won’t ever go wrong.
ELEKTRA
(clinging to the urn and gripping ORESTES’ chin with her free hand)
Do you love this? Then don’t steal him I love!
ORESTES
(placing a hand on the urn)
You can’t keep this. 1470
ELEKTRA
(speaking to the urn)
If I can’t bury you, Orestes,
I’ll be devastated.
ORESTES
Don’t talk like that. You tempt fate!
You have no right to grieve.
ELEKTRA
(outraged)
No right to grieve for my own brother?
ORESTES
It’s not a good thing for you to mourn him.
ELEKTRA
My dead brother thinks I’m not good enough!
ORESTES
(his hand is still on the urn)
He feels no disrespect for you. This isn’t yours.
ELEKTRA
It is, if these are his ashes.
ORESTES
They’re not. That’s just a story. 1480
ORESTES gently takes the urn from ELEKTRA and hands it to his Aide.