Euripides Electra 1100

Chorus

Requital for evils; the breezes of the house shift and blow. At another time my leader, my own, fell murdered in the bath,

and the roof and stone walls of the house cried aloud, while he said: O cruelty! My wife, why are you murdering me on my return to my dear country in the tenth year? . . .

1150

Chorus

Retribution for straying love has flowed back and brings to judgment the one who killed her wretched husband, when he came at last to his home and to the towering Cyclopean walls; with her own hand she killed him with the sharp-edged weapon,

1155

holding the axe in her hands. Unhappy husband! whatever the curse that possessed that wretched woman. Like a lioness of the hills that ranges through the meadowland woods, she accomplished these things.

1160

Clytemnestra

O children, by the gods, do not kill your mother.

1165

Chorus

Do you hear her cries within the house?

Clytemnestra

O God! Ah me!

Chorus

I also wail for you, overpowered by your children. Truly the god deals out justice, whenever it befalls.

You have suffered cruelly, unhappy one, yet you did unholy things to your husband.

1170

Chorus Leader

But here they come from the house, defiled in the newly shed blood of their mother, a triumphal rout, evidence of the pitiable sacrifice.

There is no house more pitiable than the race of Tantalus, nor has there ever been.

1175

The two corpses are shown.

Orestes

O Earth, and Zeus who sees all mortal acts, look at these loathsome bloody deeds, these two bodies

lying on the earth at the blow from my hand, atonement for my suffering . . .

1180

Electra

Too many tears, my brother, and I am the cause. Unhappy, that I came to fiery rage against this woman, who was my mother!

Chorus

Alas for your fate; you gave birth to unbearable pain, and you suffered it, miserably and beyond, from your children. Yet you have rightly paid for their father’s murder.

1185

Orestes

Ah, Phoebus! you proclaimed in song unclear justice, but you have brought about clear woes, and granted me a bloody destiny far from the land of Hellas . To what other city can I go?

1190

What host, what pious man will look at me, who killed my mother?

1195

Electra

Ah me! Where can I go, to what dance, to what marriage? What husband will receive me

into the bridal bed?

1200

Chorus

Again, again your thought changes with the breeze; for now you think piously, though you did not before, and you did dreadful things,

my dear, to your unwilling brother.

1205

Orestes

Did you see how the unhappy one threw off her robe and showed her bosom in the slaughter, alas, hurling to the ground the limbs that gave me birth? And her hair, I—

Chorus

I know it well; you passed through agony, hearing the mournful wail of the mother that bore you.

1210

Orestes

She uttered this cry, putting her hand to my chin:

My child, I entreat you! And she clung to my cheeks, so that the sword fell from my hand.

1215

Chorus

The unhappy one! How did you endure to see the blood

of your mother, breathing her last before your eyes?

1220

Orestes

I threw my cloak over my eyes, and began the sacrifice by plunging the sword into my mother’s throat.

Electra

And I urged you on and

put my hand to the sword together with you.

1225

Chorus

You have done the most dreadful of deeds.

Orestes

Take and hide the limbs of our mother beneath a robe, and close the wounds. Turning to the corpse Ah! You gave birth to your own murderers.

Electra

Covering the corpse

There, I am putting this cloak over the one loved and not loved.

1230

Chorus

An end of great troubles for the house.