Sophocles The Electra of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb.
Sir Richard Jebb Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1894 English Greek 1987 EM, Scott Ettinger and Roger Travis tagging Text scanned at U. Chicago in 1987. Basic SGML tagging by EM, Scott Ettinger and Roger Travis.
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Pierre Habel, John Gilbert ed.
This text was modernized by Pierre Habel, so as to remove archaisms. It was reviewed by John Gibert, and revisions were made accordingly.
7/90 Jane Chaplin ed.
Proofread text 9/19/90 EM ed.
Final check of cardbreaks, tags, and linenumbers.
8/91 John Gilbert ed.
Review and comment on modernization of translation.
8/91 EM ed.
Put in Gibert's revisions, and revise DTDs and recheck texts.
6/95 Lisa Cerrato ed.
Added missing speaker tags for cards which had none.
08-Feb-00 Anne Mahoney Markup reverting texts back to pre_cts_reorg tagged version moved more xml files around based on copyright status places/dates now actually tagged removed stray item tags Converted to XML added card 1s Updated texts to TEI P4 and Perseus P4 extensions; minor cleanup (esp. character encodings and typos.)
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use n attribute on sp element to carry over the speaker name when the speech is interrupted by a card break; this also requires that the card break at the end come after the close of the sp, not within bring up to P3 Paedagogus Son of him who once commanded our forces at Troy, son of Agamemnon!—now you may survey all that your heart has desired for so long. There is the ancient Argos of your yearning, that consecrated land from which the gad-fly drove the daughter of Inachus; there, Orestes, is the Lycean market place, named from the wolf-slaying god; there on the left is Hera's famous temple; and in this place to which we have come, know that you see Mycenae, the rich in gold, and here the house of Pelops' heirs, so often stained with bloodshed. Long ago from here, away from the murder of your father, I carried you for her whose blood is yours, your sister, and saved you and reared you up to manhood to be the avenger of your murdered father.
Now, therefore, Orestes, and you, best of allies, Pylades, our plan of action must be quickly laid; for look, already the sun's bright ray is stirring the birds' songs into clarity, and the kindly darkness of the stars is spent. Before, then, anyone comes out from the house, we must make our plans, since we are at the point where it is no longer opportune to hesitate, but it is the moment for action.
Orestes Orestes True friend and follower, how well you prove your loyalty to our house! Just as a thoroughbred mount, even if advanced in years, does not lose courage in danger, but pricks up his ears, so you speed us forward and follow in the first ranks. I will tell you, then, what I have determined. Listen closely to my words and correct me, if I miss the mark in any way.
When I went to the Pythian oracle to learn how I might avenge my father on his murderers, Phoebus gave me the commandment which you will now hear: that alone, and by stealth, without the aid of arms or large numbers, I should carry off my right hand's just slaughters. Accordingly, since I received this divine declaration, you must go into that house there when opportunity gives you entrance, and learn all that is happening, so that you may report to us out of sure knowledge. Your age and the lapse of time will prevent them from recognizing you; they will never suspect who you are with that silvered hair. Let your story be that you are a Phocian stranger sent by Phanoteus, since he is the greatest of their allies. Tell them, and affirm it with your oath, that Orestes has perished by a fatal chance, hurled at the Pythian games from his speeding chariot. Let that be the substance of your message.
Meanwhile, we will first crown my father's tomb as the god ordered with libations and the luxuriant tribute of a severed lock; then we will return here, bearing in our hands an urn of hammered bronze —now hidden, as you no doubt know, in the brushwood—so that we may gladden them with the false tidings that this body of mine exists no more, but has been consumed with fire and reduced to ashes. How does it hurt me, when by feigned death I find true life and win renown? No word is ill-omened, I trust, if it yields gain. For often before now I have seen clever men die in false report; then, when they return home, they are held in greater honor. And so for myself I trust that as a result of this rumor I, too, shall live, shining down like a star upon my enemies.
But you, O my fatherland and native gods of my soil, receive me with good fortune in this journey, and you also, house of my ancestors, since I come by divine mandate to cleanse you as justice demands. Do not dismiss me from this land in dishonor, but grant that I may rule over my possessions and restore my house!
I have said enough. Go now, old one, and take care to watch over your task. The two of us will depart; for so opportunity bids, chief ruler of every enterprise for men.
Within.
Electra ah, me, ah, joyless me!
Paedagogus Listen, my son; from the doors of the house, I think, came the sound of some serving girl moaning inside.
Orestes Can it be my joyless Electra? Shall we remain here and listen to her cries?
Paedagogus No, no; before all else, let us strive to obey the commands of Loxias and from them make a fair beginning by pouring libations to your father. For such actions bring victory within our grasp and give us mastery in all our doings. Exeunt Paedagogus on the spectators left, Orestes and Pylades on the right.
Enter Electra, from the house.
Electra O you pure sunlight, and you air, light's equal partner over earth, how often have you heard the chords of my laments and the thudding blows against this bloodied breast at the time of gloomy night's leaving off! My accursed bed in that house of suffering there knows well already how I observe my night-long rites—how often I bewail my miserable father, whom bloody Ares did not welcome with deadly gifts in a foreign land, but my mother and her bedfellow Aegisthus split his head with murderous axe, just as woodmen chop an oak. And for this crime no pitying cry bursts from any lips but mine, when you, Father, have died a death so cruel and so deserving of pity!
But never will I end from cries and bitter lamentation, while I look on the stars' glistening flashes or on this light of day. No, like the nightingale, slayer of her offspring, I will wail without ceasing, and cry aloud to all here at the doors of my father.
O House of Hades and Persephone! O Hermes of the shades! O potent Curse, and you fearsome daughters of the gods, the Erinyes, who take note when a life is unjustly taken, when a marriage-bed is thievishly dishonored, come, help me, bring vengeance for the murder of my father and send me my brother. I no longer have the strength to hold up alone against the load of grief that crushes me.
Chorus Ah, Electra, child of a most wretched mother, why are you always wasting away in this unsated mourning for Agamemnon, who long ago was godlessly ensnared in your false mother's wiles and betrayed by her corrupt hand? May the one who did that perish, if I may speak such a curse without breaking the gods' laws.
Electra Ah, noble-hearted girls, you have come to relieve me in my troubles. I know and feel it: it does not escape me. Still I cannot leave this task undone, nor abandon this mourning for my poor father. Ah, friends whose love responds to mine in every mood, allow me to rave as I am, oh, please, I beg you!
Chorus Chorus But never by weeping nor by prayer will you resurrect your father from the pool of Hades which receives all men. No, by grieving without end and beyond due limits you will find cureless misery and your own ruin; in these actions there is no deliverance from evils. Tell us, why do you pursue such suffering?
Electra Foolish is the child who forgets a parent's piteous death. No, closer to my heart is the mourner who eternally wails, “Itys, Itys,” that bird mad with grief, the messenger of Zeus. Ah, all-suffering Niobe, you I count divine, since you weep forever in your rocky tomb!
Chorus Not to you alone of mortals, my daughter, has sorrow come, though you face it with less restraint than those girls inside, Chrysothemis and Iphianassa, whose parents and blood you share. They still live, as he, too, lives, sorrowing in his secluded youth, yet happy in that this famous realm of the Mycenaeans shall one day receive him as a noble lord, if with the blessing of Zeus's escort he, Orestes, returns to this land.
Electra Yes, I await him with unwearied longing, as I walk my sad path from day to day childless and unwed, bathed in tears, bearing that endless doom of evils. But he forgets all that he has suffered and learned. What message comes to me that is not proven false? He constantly desires to be with us, but though he desires it, he does not choose to appear.
Chorus Chorus Courage, my daughter, courage; Zeus in the sky is still mighty, and he sees and rules all. Leave your oversharp anger to him; be neither excessively hostile to those you hate, nor forgetful of them, since Time is a god who brings ease. Neither the son of Agamemnon, who dwells by Crisa 's cattle-feeding shore nor the god who reigns beside Acheron is unmindful of you.
Electra But the best part of life has passed away leaving me in hopelessness, and I have no strength left. I waste away without children and have no loving husband to champion me, but like some despised foreign slave, I serve in the halls of my father, wrapped in shabby garments and standing to eat scanty meals.
Chorus Mournful was the voice heard at his return, and mournful the voice amidst your father's reclining banquet when the straight, swift blow of the bronze-jawed axe was sped against him. Deceit was the plotter, Lust the slayer, two dread parents of a dreadful phantom, whether it was god or mortal that did this deed.
Electra O that hated day, hated beyond all that have come to me; O that night, the terrible grief of that unutterable feast, the shameless death-strokes my father saw from their twin hands, hands which took my life captive by treachery, which cast me to ruin! May the great god of Olympus create for them sufferings in penalty, and may they never have enjoyment of their splendor since they have committed such crimes!
Chorus Chorus Be advised to say no more; do you not see by what actions under the present circumstances you plunge so shamefully into self-made miseries? You have far excelled in achieving misfortune, ever breeding wars in your hardhearted soul. But such strife should not be pushed into a conflict with the powerful.
Electra I have been forced to it, forced by a terrible compulsion. I know my own passion; it does not escape me; but, under such terrible compulsion, I will not restrain these disastrous cries of frenzy, so long as life is in me. Who indeed, my noble friends, who that keeps what is appropriate in mind, would think any word of comfort right for my ears? Let me be, let me be, my comforters! For these ills will be reckoned with those which have no cure; I will never know a respite from my pains, or the sum of this wailing.
Chorus It is nevertheless with goodwill, like a true-hearted mother, that I dissuade you from begetting misery upon miseries.
Electra But what limit has nature begot for my affliction? Tell me, how can it be right to neglect the dead? Has such a seed been sown in any mortal? May I never have such men's esteem; never, when I am close to prosperity, may I dwell in ease, hindering the wings of shrill lamentation so as to deprive my begetter of his honors!
For if the dead is to lie a wretch, merely dust and nothingness, while his slayers do not pay back to him blood for blood in penalty, then shame and reverence will vanish from all humanity.
Chorus I came, my child, mindful of your interests no less than my own. But if what I say is wrong, let your way prevail; for united we will follow you.
Electra I am ashamed, my friends, if you judge me too intolerant with my many laments; but, since rough compulsion forces me to act this way, forgive me. How indeed could any woman of noble nature not act, when she sees her father's sufferings as I see them day and night continually, and flourishing rather than fading? First, everything to do with the mother who bore me has become most hateful towards me; next, in my own home I live with my father's murderers; they rule over me and from them equally I either have or do without.
And then think what manner of days I pass, when I see Aegisthus sitting on my father's throne; when I look on him wearing the very robes which my father wore and pouring libations at the hearth where he killed him; and when I see the chief outrage of them all, the murderer in my father's bed at my wretched mother's side, if I must call her mother, even though she shares her bed with that man. So hardened is she that she joins with this polluter, fearing no Erinys. No, as if laughing at her deeds, having found the day on which in the past she treacherously killed my father, she celebrates it with dance and song, and in monthly rites she sacrifices sheep to the gods who worked her deliverance.
But I, as I joylessly witness it, cry out, waste away in the house and bewail the unholy feast named after my father, in solitary weeping. For I cannot even grieve to the full extent which would please my heart, since this lady, who is in fact no lady, loudly reproaches me with such shameless taunts as these: “Wicked and hateful girl, have you alone lost your father, and is no one else in the world grieving? May your death be harsh, and may the gods below never free you from your current mourning.” Just so she abuses me, except when she gets word that Orestes is coming. Then, infuriated, she comes up to me and cries;—“Have you not brought this upon me? Is this not your doing, since you stole Orestes from my hands and secretly sent him away? Yes—but rest assured that you will be justly punished.” Like this she barks, and in agreement her glorious bridegroom by her side urges her on—that total impotent, that utter plague who fights his battles with the help of women. But my heart is broken by my suffering as I constantly wait for Orestes to come and end these troubles.
For the perpetual imminence of his actions has eradicated every hope that I could conceive. In such a state of affairs, then, friends, there is no room for self-restraint or for reverence. Rather, in these dire straits there is much need to pursue a dire course.
Chorus Tell me, is Aegisthus nearby as you speak these words to us, or has he left the house?
Electra He is gone, to be sure. Do not think that I would have come to the doors, if he were nearby. He happens now to be in the country.
Chorus Might I converse with you more boldly, if this is so?
Electra He is not here, so question me. What is it you want?
Chorus I ask you, then, what report can you give of your brother? Will he come soon, or is he delaying? I wish to know.
Electra He says he will come, but although he promises he never does what he says.
Chorus True, a man will hesitate on the verge of a great undertaking.
Electra And yet I saved him with no hesitation.
Chorus Take heart: he is noble enough to stand by his friends.
Electra I believe it; otherwise I would not have remained alive so long.
Chorus Say no more now, since I see your sister coming from the house, Chrysothemis, offspring of the same father and mother. In her hands are sepulchral offerings, such as are customary for those in the world below.
Enter Chrysothemis, from the house.
Chrysothemis What is this speech of yours, sister, which you have come forth yet again to speak at the public doors? Will you not learn with any lapse of time to end your vain indulgence in futile anger? Yet this much I know—that I myself am saddened by our present circumstances; indeed so much so that, could I find the strength, I would bare my feelings towards them. But now, in these evil times I think it best to navigate with shortened sail so that I may not seem to be on the attack, when I am unable to cause harm. I wish that your own conduct were the same! Nevertheless, right is on the side which you favor, not on that which I advise. But if I am to live the life of the freeborn, those in power must be obeyed in all things.
Electra Electra It is strange, indeed, that you, the daughter of our father from whom you grew, should forget him and instead show concern for your mother! All your admonitions to me have been taught by her; you speak no word of your own. So now take your choice: be imprudent, or be prudent, but forgetful of your friends. You have just said that if could you find the strength, you would show your hatred of them; yet, when I am doing my utmost to avenge our father, you do not work with me, but seek to deflect your sister from her deed.
Does this not add cowardice to our miseries? Therefore instruct me, or rather learn from me what gain there might be for me if I ended my lamentation. Am I not now alive? Miserably so, I know, but well enough for me. And I hurt them, and thereby affix an honorable tribute to the dead, in case those in that world can enjoy it and feel gratitude. But you, who tell me of your hatred, hate in word alone, while by your behavior you unite with the murderers of our father. I, however, would never yield to them, not even if one of them were to bring to me the gifts in which you now glory. Let yours be the richly-spread table and superabundant lifestyle. As for me, let my sustenance be only that I do not wound my own conscience—I do not covet such privilege as yours and neither would you, if you had self-control. But now, when you could be called the child of the noblest father among men, be called instead your mother's daughter, for in this way your corruptness will be evident to the greatest number as you betray your dead father and your true friends.
Chorus Away with anger, for the gods' sake! There is advantage for both of you in what is urged, if you, Electra, would learn to implement her advice, and she, again, yours.
Chrysothemis For my part, friends, I am not at all unaccustomed to her insults, nor would I have mentioned this, if I had not heard that the greatest disaster is now rushing down on her, one which will restrain her from her long mourning.
Electra Come then, name this terror! If you can tell me of anything worse than my present condition, I would resist no more.
Chrysothemis I will tell you all that I know. If you will not cease from your mourning, they intend to send you where you will never look upon the sun's brilliance, but passing your life in a covered chamber beyond this land's borders you will make hymns of your calamity. Think on this, and do not blame me later, when you suffer. Now is the time to think wisely.
Electra Have they in fact decided to do this to me?
Chrysothemis They certainly have, as soon as Aegisthus comes home.
Electra Then for this, may he arrive quickly!
Chrysothemis Troubled girl, what curse are you laying on yourself?
Electra That he may come, if he plans to do any of what you said.
Chrysothemis So that you may suffer? In what way? Where are your wits?
Electra So that I may fly as far as possible from you all.
Chrysothemis Have you no care for the life you lead now?
Electra oh, yes, my life is so wondrously fine.
Chrysothemis It would be, if only you learned good sense.
Electra Do not teach me to betray my friends.
Chrysothemis I do not, but to bend before the strong.
Electra Keep your flattery to yourself; it is not in my character.
Chrysothemis Regardless, it brings no honor to fall through senselessness.
Electra I will fall, if need be, while honoring my father.
Chrysothemis But our father, I know, pardons me for this.
Electra It is for cowards to commend such sentiments.
Chrysothemis So you will not be persuaded to agree with me?
Electra No, indeed; may I not yet be so devoid of intelligence.
Chrysothemis Then I will move on to where I was sent.
Electra And where is it that you go? For whom do you take these offerings to be burned?
Chrysothemis Mother sends me with funeral libations for our father.
Electra What are you saying? For her deadliest enemy?
Chrysothemis “Whom she herself killed,” no doubt you wanted to say this as well.
Electra What friend persuaded her? Whose idea was it?
Chrysothemis The cause, I think, was fear induced by some vision in the night.
Electra My father's Gods! Stand with me now at last!
Chrysothemis Do you find something heartening in this terror?
Electra If you would tell me the vision, then I could answer.
Chrysothemis I know no more than a small part of the story.
Electra Tell me that, anyway; a small tale has often before now tripped men up, or set them upright.
Chrysothemis It is said that she saw the father of you and of me restored to the sunlight and to her company once more. Then he took the scepter— once his own, but now carried by Aegisthus—and planted it at the hearth. From it branched upward a flourishing limb, by which the whole land of the Mycenaeans was overshadowed. Such was the tale that I heard told by one who was present when she revealed her dream to the Sun-god. More than this I do not know, except that she sent me by reason of this fear of hers. Now, I beg you by our ancestral gods, obey me, and do not fall in your senselessness! If you reject me now, it is in misery that you will next seek me out.
Electra Electra Dear sister, let none of these offerings in your hands touch the tomb. For neither divine law nor piety allows you to dedicate funeral gifts or bring libations to our father from his hateful wife. No! To the winds with them! Or cover them in a deep, dusty hole, where not one of them will ever come near our father's resting place. Rather let these treasures be preserved for her below when she dies. Were she not by nature the most audacious of all women, she would never at all have tried to pour these ill-willed offerings to the man she killed. Consider whether you believe that the dead in his tomb will welcome this tribute with affection towards her, by whose hand he died dishonored and was mutilated like an enemy? She, who, as if to wash herself clean, wiped off the bloodstains on his head? Surely you do not believe that your bringing these things will absolve her of the murder?
It is not possible. No, be rid of them. Give him instead a lock of your hair's ends, cut from your own head, and from wretched me, too, give these gifts, poor as they are, though all I have. Take this hair, not glossy with unguents, and this girdle, decked with no rich ornament. Then fall down and pray that he himself may come in kindness to us from the world below, a helper against our enemies; and that young Orestes may live to set his foot upon our enemies in superior might, so that hereafter we may crown our father's tomb with wealthier hands than those with which we honor him now.
I think, yes, I think that he too had some part in sending her these appalling dreams. Still, sister, do yourself this service and help me, and him, too, that most beloved of all men, who rests in Hades' domain, our shared father.
Chorus The girl's advice is pious; you, dear friend, will do what she says, if you are wise.
Chrysothemis I will. In regard to a just deed, it is unreasonable for two people to argue, but reasonable to jump to action. But, by the gods, my friends, when I attempt this task, let me have your silence, since if my mother hears of it, I believe that this attempt which I will dare shall in the end cause me bitterness. Exit Chrysothemis on the spectators' right.
Chorus Chorus If I am not a deranged prophet and one who lacks wise judgments, Justice, the sender of the omen, will come, winning the just victory of her hands' might. She will come in pursuit before long, my child. Courage is mine, since I heard just now of this sweet-blowing dream. Never does the lord of the Hellenes, your producer forget, nor does the axe of long ago forget, striking with bronze on its jaws, which in most shameless disgrace annihilated him.
Chorus She, too, will come, she of many hands and many feet who lurks in her terrible ambush, the bronze-shod Erinys. For an unwed, unbetrothed passion for a marriage polluted by murder seized the pair, though divine law forbade it to them. Therefore I am confident that the portent—a wonder which I will never blame—will draw near to the criminals and conspirators. To be sure, mortal prophecy from fearful dreams or divine signs exists no more, if this vision of the night does not find due fulfillment.
Chorus O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow, what disaster you have brought upon this land! For ever since Myrtilus sank to rest beneath the waves, hurled to utter destruction from his golden chariot in disgraceful outrage, from that time to this, outrage and its many sorrows were never yet gone from this house.
Enter Clytaemnestra, with attendants, from the house.
Clytaemnestra You run loose again, it seems, since Aegisthus is not here, who used always to keep you at least from coming out to the gates and shaming your family. But now, since he is absent, you pay me no mind. And yet you have said of me often and to many listeners that I am a rash and unjust tyrant, who violently abuse you and yours. But it is not I who do violence; I only return the insults that I so often hear from you.
Your father—this and nothing else is your constant pretext—was slain by me. Yes, by me. I know it well. I make no denial. Justice took hold of him, not I alone—Justice, whom you ought to have supported, if you had been in your right mind. For this father of yours whom you constantly bewail alone of all the Greeks had the heart to sacrifice your own blood, your sister, to the gods—he, who, when sowing his seed, felt none of the pains I did when I gave birth.
Come, tell me now, why, or to please whom, did he sacrifice her? To please the Argives, you will say? No, they had no right to kill my daughter. Or, if indeed it was for the sake of his brother Menelaus that he killed my child, was he not to pay me the penalty for that? Did Menelaus not have two children, who should in fairness have died instead of my daughter, since the father and mother from whom they were sprung had caused that voyage? Did Hades have some greater desire to feast on my offspring than on hers? Or had all love of the children of my womb been abandoned by their accursed father, while love for the children of Menelaus filled him? Were these not the marks of a thoughtless and malicious parent? I think so, even if I differ from your judgment. So, too, would the dead girl speak, if she could find a voice. For myself, then, I view the past without dismay; but if you think my attitude criminal, see that your own judgment is just before you blame your neighbor.
Electra This time, at least, you cannot say that I first gave you cause for upset and thereby provoked such words from you. But, if you will permit me, I would gladly declare the truth, on behalf of my dead father and my sister alike.
Clytaemnestra Certainly I permit you; and if you always addressed me in such a tone, you would not be difficult to listen to.
Electra Then I will speak. You admit that you killed my father. What statement could be more shameful still than that, whether you did it justly or not? But I will demonstrate to you that you did not justly kill him. No, the persuasion of that wicked man with whom you now sleep dragged you to it.
Ask the huntress Artemis what wrong she punished when she stayed the frequent winds at Aulis; or I will tell you, since we may not learn from her. My father, as I have heard, was once hunting in the grove of the goddess, when his footfall flushed a dappled and antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to make a certain boast concerning its slaughter. Angered by this, Leto's daughter detained the Greeks so that in requital for the beast's life my father should sacrifice his own daughter. So it was that she was sacrificed, since the fleet had no other release, neither homeward nor to Troy. For that reason, under fierce constraint and with much resistance, at last he sacrificed her—but it was not for the sake of Menelaus.
But suppose—for I will make your own plea—suppose that the motive of his deed was to benefit his brother. Should you have killed him because of that? Under what sort of law? See that by laying down such a law for men, you do not lay down trouble and remorse for yourself. For, if we are to take blood for blood, you surely would be the first to die, if you were to meet with justice.
But consider whether this pretext is any excuse at all. For tell me, if you please, what crime it is that you requite by doing the most shameless deeds of all: sharing your bed with that blood-guilty one, with whom you first destroyed my father and now bear his children while you have cast out the earlier born, the pious offspring of a pious marriage? How can I commend these deeds? Or will you claim that this, too, is recompense for your daughter? No, it is a shameful plea, if you so plead, for there is nothing noble in marrying an enemy for a daughter's sake.
But no, I can hardly even admonish you, when your every cry is that I slander my mother. I think, rather, that you are no less a mistress to me than a mother; so lowly is the life that I live, ever beset with miseries come from you and your consort. And your other child, the exile who scarcely escaped your hand, poor Orestes, wastes away his unhappy life. You have often accused me of rearing him to punish your crime, and I would have done so, if I could, you may be sure. As far as he is concerned, you can denounce me to all as disloyal, if you like, or loud-mouthed, or impudent. For if my nature is familiar with such wrongdoings, I hardly bring disgrace upon your nature.
Chorus I see her breathing fury; but whether justice is with her, her concern for this I see no longer.
Clytaemnestra And what manner of concern should I use against her, who has abused her mother like this at her mature age? Do you not think that she would go forward to any deed without shame?
Electra Now be assured that I do feel shame for it, though I seem not to you. I know that my behavior is unsuited to my age and inappropriate. But then the enmity I get from you and your behavior compel me with harsh necessity to do this; for reprehensible deeds are learned from reprehensible examples.
Clytaemnestra You shameless creature! Truly I and my speech and my deeds give you too much to talk about.
Electra The words are yours, not mine; for yours are the deeds, and they find their own expression.
Clytaemnestra Now by our mistress Artemis, you shall not escape the consequences of this audacity once Aegisthus returns.
Electra You see? You are driven to rage and, even though you grant me free speech, you have no patience to listen.
Clytaemnestra Will you not allow me to sacrifice without ominous shouting, when I have permitted you to say anything and everything you wished?
Electra I allow it; I exhort you to it: sacrifice! But do not blame my voice, for I would not say another word.
Clytaemnestra Raise then, my attendant, the offerings of many fruits, so that I may uplift my prayers for release from my present fears to this image of our King. Please, O Phoebus our defender, may you now listen to my prayer, though it is muffled; for I do not make my plea among friends, nor does it suit me to unfold it all to the light while she stands near me, lest by her malice and a cry of her clamorous tongue she sow reckless rumors through the whole city. Nevertheless, hear me thus, since in this way I will speak. That vision which I saw last night in ambiguous dreams—if its appearance was to my good, grant, Lycean king, that it be fulfilled; but if to my harm, then hurl it back upon those who would harm me. And if any are plotting to eject me by treachery from my present prosperity, do not permit them. Rather grant that living forever unharmed as I am I may govern the house of the sons of Atreus and their throne, sharing prosperous days with the friends who share them now, and with those of my children who feel no enmity or bitterness towards me. O Lycean Apollo, hear these prayers with favor, and grant them to us all just as we ask! As for all my other prayers, though I am silent, I judge that you, a god, must know them, since it is appropriate that Zeus's children see all.
Enter the Paedagogus from the left.
Paedagogus