Euripides Electra 167

Chorus Leader

Helen, your mother’s sister, is the cause of many evils to the Hellenes and to your house.

Electra

Catching sight of Orestes and Pylades

Ah! Women, I have broken off my lament; strangers, who had their lair at the altar, are rising from ambush towards the household. Let us escape the villains by flight, you along the path and I to the house.

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Orestes

Stay, poor girl; do not fear my hand.

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Electra

O Phoebus Apollo! I beseech you to spare my life.

Orestes

May I kill others more hated than you!

Electra

Go away! Do not touch one whom you must not touch.

Orestes

There is no one I have a better right to touch.

Electra

Then why are you in ambush, with drawn sword, near my house?

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Orestes

Wait and hear, and you will soon say the same.

Electra

I am still; in any case, I am yours, since you are the stronger.

Orestes

I have come to bring you word from your brother.

Electra

Oh best of friends! Is he alive or dead?

Orestes

Alive; for I want to tell you the good news first.

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Electra

May you be happy, as a reward for your most welcome tidings.

Orestes

I give that blessing for us two to have in common.

Electra

Where does the unhappy one live, in his unhappy exile?

Orestes

He goes miserably about, not following the customs of any one city.

Electra

Surely he does not want for a living, day by day?

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Orestes

He has that, but an exile is a helpless man at best.

Electra

What is this message you have come bringing from him?

Orestes

If you are alive, and if so, how you are.

Electra

Well then, you see first of all how withered my body is.

Orestes

Yes, so wasted with sorrow that I sigh for it.

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Electra

And my head and hair, close shaven as if by a Scythian’s razor.

Orestes

Your brother and your dead father perhaps gnaw at your heart.

Electra

Alas! For what is dearer to me than they?

Orestes

Ah! What are you to your brother, do you think?

Electra

He is far away, not here to be my friend.

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Orestes

Why are you living here, far from the city?

Electra

I am married, stranger; a deadly match.

Orestes

I pity your brother. Is your husband a Mycenaean?

Electra

Not one to whom my father ever hoped to give me.

Orestes

Tell me so that I may hear and inform your brother.

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Electra

I live in his house, at a distance from the city.

Orestes

A ditch-digger or a herdsman is worthy of the house.

Electra

He is a man poor but noble, and respectful to me.

Orestes

What is this respect that your husband has?

Electra

He has never dared to touch me in bed.

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Orestes

Does he hold some form of religious chastity, or does he think you unworthy?

Electra

He did not think himself worthy to insult my family.

Orestes

And how was he not delighted to make such a marriage?

Electra

He thinks the person who gave me did not have that right, stranger.

Orestes

I understand; he fears that he may someday be punished by Orestes.

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Electra

He does fear that, but he is also a virtuous man.

Orestes

Ah! You have described a noble man, and he must be treated well.

Electra

Yes, if ever the one now absent comes home.

Orestes

But did your mother, who gave you birth, endure this?

Electra

Women love their husbands, stranger, not their children.

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Orestes

Why did Aegisthus insult you in this way?

Electra

He planned for me to bear powerless children, when he gave me to such a man.

Orestes

So that you might not bear sons to punish him, of course?

Electra

That was his plan; may he make amends to me for it!

Orestes

Does your mother’s husband know that you are a virgin?

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Electra

He does not know; we steal that from him by our silence.

Orestes

Are these women who hear our talk friends of yours ?

Electra

They will keep both your words and mine well hidden.

Orestes

What then could Orestes do in this matter if he comes to Argos ?

Electra

Do you ask this? You have said a shameful word; isn’t it the critical time now?

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Orestes

But if he does come, how might he kill his father’s murderers?

Electra

By daring such things as his enemies dared against my father.

Orestes

And would you dare, with him, to kill your mother?

Electra

Yes, with that same axe by which my father died.

Orestes

Am I to tell him this, and that your purpose is steadfast?

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Electra

Once I had shed my mother’s blood, I might die!

Orestes

Ah! Would that Orestes were near by, to hear that!

Electra

But, stranger, I would not know him if I saw him.

Orestes

No wonder, for you were both young when you were parted.

Electra

There is only one of my friends who would recognize him.

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Orestes

The man who is said to have stolen him away from murder?

Electra

Yes, the old man, my father’s old servant.

Orestes

Did the dead man, your father, find burial?

Electra

He found what he could, cast out of the house.

Orestes

Alas, the things you have said! For perception of suffering, even another’s, gnaws at mortals. Speak, so that when I know, I may tell your brother the story, unpleasant, but necessary to hear. Pity is not present at all in clownishness,

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but in wise men. And indeed it is not without mischief for the wise to have overly profound thoughts.

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Chorus Leader

And I have the same desire in my heart as this man. Being far from the town, I do not know the city’s scandals, and now I want to learn them.

Electra

I will speak, if I must—and one must speak to a friend—about my own and my father’s heavy misfortunes. Since you are setting the tale in motion, I entreat you, stranger, tell Orestes of our sorrows, mine and his. First of all, in what clothes I live like a beast in a stall,

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with what filth I am weighted down, under what roof I dwell, having lived in a royal home; I myself working hard on my clothes at the loom, or else I shall go barely clad and do without; always carrying water from the springs myself,

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with no share in the festival rites, no part in the dance. I turn away from married women, as a virgin; and I turn away from Castor, who sought me in marriage before he joined the gods, for I was his relative. But my mother, in the spoils of Troy ,

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is seated on her throne, and at her chair stand slaves from Asia , my father’s plunder, fastening their Trojan robes with golden brooches. And still my father’s blood has rotted black on the wall, while the one who killed him

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mounts the same chariot and goes forth; and is proud to hold in his blood-stained hands the scepter with which my father used to command the Hellenes. Agamemnon’s grave, dishonoured, has not yet ever received any libations, or branch of myrtle,

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but his altar is barren of ornament. That famous one, my mother’s husband, leaps on the grave, they say, when soaked in drink, and pelts my father’s marble monument with stones, and dares to say this to us:

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Where is your son Orestes? Is he here to defend the tomb for you nobly? Orestes is insulted in this way while absent. But, stranger, I beg you, report these things. There are many calling him to come—I am their interpreter—these hands, this tongue, my broken heart,

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my shorn head, and his own father. For it is shameful, if his father exterminated the Trojans but Orestes is unable to kill a man, one against one, being young and born from a more noble father.

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Chorus Leader

And look, I see him, I mean your husband,

on his way home, his day’s work done.

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Peasant

Entering and catching sight of strangers talking to Electra.

Oh! who are these strangers I see at my door? Why have they come here to my rustic gate? Do they want something from me? For it is shameful for a woman to be standing with young men.

Electra

Dearest, do not be suspicious of me; you shall hear the truth; for these strangers have come to me as messengers of news from Orestes. But, strangers, pardon him for what he said.

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Peasant

What do they say? The man is alive and sees the light of day?

Electra

He is, at least in their report, and I believe them.

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Peasant

Surely then he remembers something of your father’s wrongs and your own?

Electra

These are things to hope for; a man in exile is powerless.

Peasant

What message from Orestes have they come to declare?

Electra

He sent them as spies of my wrongs.

Peasant

Then they see a part of it, and perhaps you are telling them the rest.

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Electra

They know; they have all these things in abundance.

Peasant

Then shouldn’t you have opened the doors to them long before? Go into the house; for in return for your good tidings, you shall find as much hospitality as my house holds in store.

Servants, take their baggage within the house. Do not contradict me, since you are friends coming from a friend; for, even if I am poor, I will not display manners that are ill-bred.

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Orestes

By the gods! Is this the man who makes a fraud of your marriage,

because he does not want to shame Orestes?

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Electra

This is the one who is called my husband, unhappy as I am.

Orestes

Ah! There is no exact way to test a man’s worth; for human nature has confusion in it. For instance, I have seen before now the son of a noble father

worth nothing, and good children from evil parents; famine in a rich man’s spirit, and a mighty soul in a poor man’s body. How then does one rightly distinguish and judge these things? By wealth? A sorry test to use.

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Or by those who have nothing? But poverty has a disease, it teaches a man to be wicked in his need. But shall I turn to warfare? Who, facing the enemy’s spear, could be a witness as to who is brave? It is best to leave these matters alone, at random.

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For this man, neither important in Argos , nor puffed up by the good reputation of his family, but one of the many, has been found to be the best. Do not be foolish, you who wander about full of empty notions, but judge those noble among men by their company

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and by their habits. For such men rule well both states and homes; while those bodies that are empty of mind are only ornaments in the market-place. For the strong arm does not await the battle any better than the weak;

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this depends on natural courage. But, since Agamemnon’s son, both present and not present, for whose sake we have come, is worthy of it, let us accept a lodging in this house. Calling to his servants. We must go within this house, slaves. May a man poor

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but eager be a better host for me than a rich man! And so I am content with the reception into this man’s house, though I would have wanted your brother, in good fortune, to lead me to his fortunate home. Perhaps he may come; the oracles of Loxias are

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sure, but human prophecy I dismiss. Exeunt Orestes and Pylades.

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Chorus Leader

Now more than before, Electra, I feel the warmth of joy at my heart; for perhaps good fortune, advancing with difficulty, might come to a good resting-place.

Electra

O reckless man, why, knowing the poverty of your house,

did you welcome these strangers, greater than you?

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Peasant

What? If they are really as noble as they seem, won’t they be equally content among great and small?

Electra

Since you, one of the small, have now made this error, go to my father’s dear old servant,

who tends his flocks, an outcast from the city, by the river Tanaus which cuts a boundary between Argive land and the land of Sparta ; bid him come, since these men have arrived at my house, and provide something for the guests’ meal.

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He will be glad, and will offer prayers to the gods, when he hears that the child, whom he once saved, is alive. I cannot get anything from my mother or from my father’s house; for we would bring bitter news, if she, the hard-hearted, were to learn that Orestes is still alive.

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Peasant

I will take this message to the old man, if you wish; but go inside the house at once and make things ready there. Surely a woman, if she wants to, can find many additions to a meal. Really there is still enough in the house

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to cram them with food for one day at least. It is in such cases, whenever I fail in my intentions, that I see how wealth has great power, to give to strangers, and to expend in curing the body when it falls sick; but money for our daily food

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comes to little; for every man when full, rich or poor, gets an equal amount. Exeunt Electra and Peasant.

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