by Aeschylus
There is another way to read Euripides, which is to forget seriousness and see him as just having a good time in the theater, creating sensation and spectacle, throwing the pieces up in the air and letting them fall. To judge from some sentences in Poetics, this was Aristotle’s view. Still, Aristotle insists that whatever the ineptitudes of his stagecraft, Euripides is TRAGIKOTATOS, “the most tragic” of the Greek poets. A clown, but a dark clown. A child, but terrific. At the start of this introduction I quoted two lines of W. H. Auden that (although he is talking about Shakespeare) seem to capture exactly how it feels to read or watch Euripides’ Orestes. Here is the whole stanza:
The aged catch their breath,
For the nonchalant couple go
Waltzing across the tightrope
As if there were no death
Or hope of falling down;
The wounded cry as the clown
Doubles his meaning, and O
How the dear little children laugh
When the drums roll and the lovely
Lady is sawn in half.13
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
(in order of appearance)
ELEKTRA daughter of Klytaimestra and Agamemnon
HELEN wife of Menelaos
CHORUS of women of Argos
ORESTES son of Klytaimestra and Agamemnon
MENELAOS brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen
TYNDAREUS father of Klytaimestra and Helen
PYLADES Orestes’ friend, silent no more
MESSENGER
HERMIONE daughter of Helen
TROJAN SLAVE eunuch of Helen’s entourage
APOLLO god of light and law
SETTING: The action is set in Argos. Orestes lies on a bed in front of the house of Atreus, where he has recently murdered his mother, Klytaimestra, to avenge her murder of his father, Agamemnon. Elektra sits beside him.
ELEKTRA : Whatever dooms there are men die, whatever harms there are men have—Godsent: they blast, we bend.
Take Tantalos. It’s a known fact he was born of Zeus—lucky there (pardon my sarcasm)—now he lives crouched in fear.
They hung up a boulder over his head.
Payback. It’s a known fact, when the gods asked him to dinner he shot off his mouth.
So Tantalos begot Pelops, Pelops begot Atreus—you know all this don’t you? the strife, the crimes,
Atreus slicing Pelops’ children into soup—and Atreus (I’m skipping some details) begot
Agamemnon (a.k.a. the Glorious) as well as Menelaos, who married loathsome Helen.
Then Agamemnon found himself a wife (Klytaimestra) and here we are: their offspring—three girls one boy.
Orestes, Chrysothemis, Iphigeneia, Elektra (me).
As for our father, well, Klytaimestra disposed of him.
Trapped him in a rug and slit his throat.
Motive?
I’m an innocent girl. Let’s leave her motives blank.
But it seemed to Orestes and me there ought to be a law against a mother like that.
Turns out there is: Apollo.
Apollo had us kill her.
Orestes did it, I helped. Kudos were not universal.
Anyway, since then Orestes fell sick.
Here he lies like something melting away.
His mother’s blood comes quaking howling brassing bawling blacking down his mad little veins.
Yes gods are on his case now—those ghastly flashing goddesses I hesitate to name:
repeat after me, Eumenides!
Six days since our mother was slain and put in the purging fire.
Six days without food or bathing, Orestes huddles in his blankets.
There’s the odd sane moment he sits and weeps, then jumps out of bed to race up and down like a wild pony.
But the city of Argos declares us banned from hearth and fire and conversation, us matricides.
This day they will vote to stone us or not.
We have a hope:
Menelaos arrives today from Troy with his ships.
He sent Helen ahead, and he sent her by night, lest people see her walking in daylight—people whose sons died at Troy—and go at her with stones.
She’s in the house bemoaning her troubles.
Her one comfort now is her daughter Hermione, sent here by Menelaos when he sailed to Troy to be raised in our house.
This girl is Helen’s joy, her way of forgetting.
So I’m watching down the road for Menelaos.
If he doesn’t save us we’re done for.
An unlucky house is an impotent thing. Known fact.
[Enter HELEN from the house.]
HELEN : O child of Klytaimestra and Agamemnon, Elektra so long unwed,
you wretched girl, how are you?—you and your poor Orestes who’s turned out to be a mother killer, hasn’t he?
Yet talking to you does not pollute me.
I ascribe your crime to Apollo.
Still, I bewail Klytaimestra’s death. My sister.
For I sailed off to Troy, crazed by a god as you know, and never saw her again.
I am bereaved. I do lament.
ELEKTRA : Helen, why should I say what you see with your own eyes?
We’re a mess.
I sit without sleep keeping watch on a corpse—to judge from his breathing he’s all but dead—while you, miraculously happy wife of a miraculously happy husband, well, let’s say you’ve got us on a bad day.
HELEN : How long is he lying like this?
ELEKTRA : Since the murder.
HELEN : I pity the boy. I pity the mother.
ELEKTRA : Yes well, so it goes. He’s broken down.
HELEN : Listen dear, will you do me a favor?
ELEKTRA : I’m more or less occupied at the moment.
HELEN : Go to my sister’s grave for me—
ELEKTRA : To my mother’s grave? Why in the world?
HELEN :—and bring her offerings? Grave offerings?
ELEKTRA : Isn’t that your responsibility?
HELEN : But you know, I’m ashamed to show myself to the public eye.
ELEKTRA : Bit late for those scruples. You left the house brazenly enough once upon a time.
HELEN : True but unkind.
ELEKTRA : And what sort of shame is it you feel?
HELEN : The fathers of those who lie dead at Troy, them I have reason to fear.
ELEKTRA : No kidding.
HELEN : So you’ll do it?
ELEKTRA : I could not even look at my mother’s grave.
HELEN : But it gives such a bad impression for a servant to go.
ELEKTRA : Send Hermione.
HELEN : Oh quite unseemly. She’s just a girl.
ELEKTRA : Think of it as compensation. My mother gave her a home after all.
HELEN : Good point. I’ll send Hermione. Thanks.
Hermione! Come out here, child!
[Enter HERMIONE.]
HELEN : Take these offerings to Klytaimestra’s tomb—there’s honey mixed with milk and a dash of wine, some hair from my head.
Go stand at the grave and pour them and say:
“Your sister Helen sends these gifts.
She cannot approach your tomb herself, for fear of the Argive mob.”
Urge her to think kindly on me, on you, on my husband—and these two poor souls ruined by god.
Promise her whatever people give the dead I’ll give.
Now go. Be quick. Mind the way home.
[Exit HELEN into the house, HERMIONE by side entrance.]
ELEKTRA : Helen! What a masterpiece!
How is it some people manage to come out on top every time?
Did you see how she’d trimmed just the very tips of her hair, not to spoil its beauty? Same old Helen.
May the gods hate you! You wrecked me, you wrecked a whole generation of Greeks!
Ah, here come my friends to share my sorrows.
They might wake Orestes—how I dread to see him stirred into panic again!
De
ar ladies, go softly, don’t make any sound.
Your kindness is welcome but once he wakes up it’s agony.
CHORUS : Silently, silently, lighten the foot, hush the sound.
ELEKTRA : Steer clear of the bed, go this way round.
CHORUS : This way round.
ELEKTRA : Sh, sh, make your voice as a breath through a reed.
CHORUS : Softly indeed.
ELEKTRA : So softly proceed.
Now why have you come?
It’s a long while Orestes is lying undone.
CHORUS : How is he doing, if you can say?
ELEKTRA : He is breathing still but he groans all day.
CHORUS : Poor creature!
ELEKTRA : Don’t waken the sleeper!
CHORUS : Poor victim of acts sent by god!
ELEKTRA : Wrong were the acts, wrong was the god!
But if you murder your mother, what are the odds?
CHORUS : Look he is moving!
ELEKTRA : Can’t you stop shouting?
CHORUS : No, he’s still at rest.
ELEKTRA : Go home now, it’s best.
CHORUS : He sleeps on unaware.
ELEKTRA : Still let us take care.
O Lady Night!
you who give sleep to mortals when they are broken by toil come from the dark, come on your wings, for we are a substance beginning to spoil.
Agamemnon’s house is in despair.
Ah!—the sound—stay back from his bed,
stay away from his poor sleeping head!
Dear friends, I pray, beware!
CHORUS : Where does the end of his suffering lie?
ELEKTRA : Of course he’ll die.
As he takes no food, I see no other.
CHORUS : Clearly, no other.
ELEKTRA : Apollo made us sacrificial victims in his murder exchange of father for mother.
CHORUS : Justice, on the one hand.
ELEKTRA : Evil, on the other.
Mother, as you killed so you die.
But you’ve ruined us all.
You at least went off to be among the dead.
I live on here as corpse beside Orestes’ bed.
Nights and tears and groaning, nothing else is mine.
No marriage, no house, no children, just time.
CHORUS : Elektra, here, your brother’s coming round. But I don’t like the look of him.
ORESTES : O beautiful motions of sleep how sweetly you came to me, O Lady Oblivion how kindly you clear away pain.
Where am I? How did I get here? I’ve no idea. My mind is gone.
ELEKTRA : Dear one. Bless your sleep.
Shall I touch you, help you?
ORESTES : Yes, oh yes. Wipe the foam from my mouth and my eyes.
ELEKTRA : To serve you is sweet. I am your sister.
ORESTES : Support my side. Move the hair off my face, I can barely see.
ELEKTRA : Your poor unwashed hair, it’s gone all wild.
ORESTES : Lay me back down. When the madness leaves I’m limp as a girl.
ELEKTRA : There you go, down on your sickbed again.
ORESTES : Set me back upright, swivel me round—there’s no pleasing the sick!
I hate being helpless.
ELEKTRA : Do you want to try putting your feet on the ground? It’s been so long.
But change is sweet.
ORESTES : Yes by all means. That will seem like good health.
And seeming is better than nothing.
ELEKTRA : Listen, dear brother, now while the Furies are letting you think straight.
ORESTES : You have some news? I hope it’s good. I have enough trouble.
ELEKTRA : Menelaos is here, he and his ships.
ORESTES : Come to save us? He certainly does owe a debt to our father.
ELEKTRA : Bringing Helen home from Troy.
ORESTES : Better if he’d come back alone. That woman is trouble.
ELEKTRA : All the women of that family are trouble.
ORESTES : Well, make up your mind to be different. You can, you know.
ELEKTRA : What’s wrong with your eyes? You’re slipping away again!
ORESTES : O Mother I beg you—don’t send the snakes! Don’t send the bloodyfaced women down on me!—ah they are here!
ELEKTRA : Stay quiet, poor mad one, there’s nothing there.
ORESTES : Apollo! Here they come like killer dogs, goddesses hot with the glow of hell!
ELEKTRA : I’ll hold on to you, I’ll keep you still. You’re going into convulsions.
ORESTES : Let me be! You Fury! You’re one of them! You grip my waist to hurl me into hell!
ELEKTRA : Misery! Who can help? We’re fighting the supernatural!
ORESTES : Give me the bow, Apollo’s gift.
He said to use it when these creatures come to ravage my mind.
I’ll shoot them down, gods or not.
Hear those arrows whiz through the air? Ah! Ah!
What are you waiting for, bloodsucking women, go! Away!
Apollo’s to blame, not me!
Oh.
Oh what.
Oh what am I doing. What am I doing raving like this.
I cannot breathe!
Where am I? How did I get out of bed?
Now again I see calm water, the storm sinks away.
Sister, why do you weep and hide your head?
You make me ashamed! I am an impossible burden, aren’t I.
Poor girl, don’t melt yourself for my sake.
It’s true you gave your approval but the deed was mine, the mother blood is mine. I blame Apollo.
He put me up to it. Now where is he?
And I wonder what my father would say if he were here.
Would he have tried to stop me killing her?
I think he would, I fear he would.
Uncover your head, dear one, stay your tears.
No doubt we are in a bad situation.
But if you give me comfort when I get hopeless I’ll do the same for you.
Now go into the house, take sleep, take food and wash yourself.
If you fall sick too we’re truly lost.
All we have is us.
ELEKTRA : All we have is impossible.
To live or die with you—it comes to the same thing for me anyway.
Without you what am I? Brotherless fatherless friendless.
All the same, I’ll do what you say—but you lie down and stay quiet. Don’t let the panic in.
Even imaginary demons can drive you to despair.
[Exit ELEKTRA into the house.]
CHORUS : AIAI!
O racing raging goddesses!
You dance a dance that is no dance screaming down the sky in search of justice, bowling down the sky in search of blood!
Eumenides! I pray you off, I pray you out! Let Agamemnon’s son forget the lunacy that drives him terribly about!
Alas for the deeds you did, boy, alas for the ruin you meet—all because Apollo barked out an oracle from his legendary Delphic seat!
O Zeus, what pity, what ordeal comes drumming the poor boy down so tears on tears combine for him and some avenger channels his mother’s blood into the house to drive him wild? I cry down grief, I cry down grief!