Euripides Electra 880

Chorus

Hail, Queen of the land of Argos , child of Tyndareus,

and sister of those two noble sons of Zeus who dwell in the fiery heavens among the stars, whose honored office it is to save mortals in the high waves. Welcome, I give you worship equal to the blessed gods

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for your wealth and great prosperity. Now is the time to pay our court to your fortunes. Welcome, o queen.

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Clytemnestra

Come out of the wagon, Trojan maids, and take my hand, that I may step down from the chariot.

The homes of the gods are adorned with Phrygian spoils, but I have obtained these women, choice objects from the land of Troy , in return for the daughter whom I lost, a slight reward but an ornament to my house.

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Electra

And, mother—for I live as a slave

in this miserable house, cast out from my father’s home—may I not take that blessed hand of yours?

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Clytemnestra

These slaves are here; take no trouble on my account.

Electra

What? You sent me away from home, a captive; I was taken when my home was taken, like these,

all of us orphaned of a father.

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Clytemnestra

Well, your father laid such plots against those whom least of all he should have, his own family. I will tell you; although when a woman gets an evil reputation, her tongue is bitter.

In my opinion, not rightly; but it is correct for those who learn about the matter to hate, if it deserves hatred; if not, why hate at all? Now Tyndareus gave me to your father not so that I or any children I might bear should die.

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But that man went from the house, taking my child, with the persuasion of a marriage with Achilles, to Aulis which held the fleet; and there he stretched Iphigenia over the pyre, and cut her white cheek. And if, as a cure for the capture of the city,

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or as a benefit to his house, or to save his other children, he had killed one on behalf of many, I would have pardoned him. But, because Helen was lustful and the one who had her as a wife did not know how to punish the betrayer—for these reasons he destroyed my child.

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Well, although I was wronged, I would not have been angry at this, nor would I have killed my husband. But he came back to me with a girl, raving and possessed, and put her in his bed, and had two brides at once in the same house.

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A woman is a foolish thing, I don’t deny it; but, this granted, whenever a husband goes astray and rejects his own bed, the woman is likely to imitate her husband and find another love. And then in us the blame shines clearly,

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while the men, who caused this, are not badly spoken of. Now if Menelaus had been secretly snatched from his home, should I have killed Orestes to save Menelaus, my sister’s husband? How would your father have endured this? And so isn’t it right for him to die

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when he had killed what was mine, since I would have suffered at his hands? I killed him, I turned where indeed it was possible to go—to his enemies. For which one of your father’s friends would have joined me in his murder? Speak, if you want to say anything, and make your retort with frankness,

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in what way your father died unfairly.

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Chorus Leader

Justly spoken, but this justice is shameful. For a woman should yield to her husband in all things, if she has sense; anyone who does not agree does not come within the scope of what I say.

Electra

Remember, mother, those last words of yours, giving me frankness towards you.

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Clytemnestra

I say it again, and I do not deny it, child.

Electra

Then will you treat me badly, when you hear it?

Clytemnestra

No, no, I will give some pleasure to your heart.

Electra

I will speak, and this is the beginning of my preface: oh, mother, I wish that you had a better heart. For though your beauty, and Helen’s, is worthy to bring you praise, yet you two were born true sisters, both frivolous, not worthy of Castor.

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She was carried off, willingly ruined; and you have destroyed the bravest man in Greece , putting forward the excuse that you killed a husband for the sake of a child; for they don’t know you so well as I do. You who, before your daughter’s death was decided,

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as soon as your husband had started from home, were adorning the golden locks of your hair at the mirror. A wife who decks herself out for beauty, when her husband is gone from home—strike her off the list as worthless.

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There is no need for her to show her pretty face out of doors, unless she is seeking some mischief. Of all the women in Hellas you were the only one I know to be joyful when Troy was fortunate, and with a clouded face when it was weaker, since you did not want Agamemnon to return from Troy .

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And yet it was in your power to be chaste, and rightly; you had a husband, no worse than Aegisthus, whom Hellas chose to be its commander; and when your sister Helen had done her work, it was possible for you to achieve great fame,

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for the bad gives a standard of comparison to the good and provides a spectacle. But if, as you say, my father killed your daughter, what is the wrong I and and my brother have done you? How was it that after you had killed your husband, you did not assign to us our father’s home,

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but you brought the goods belonging to another to bed, buying your marriage with wages? And how is it that your husband is not exiled in the place of your son, nor has he died in my place, although he has killed me, alive, twice as much as my sister? If murder, giving judgment, requites murder, your

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son Orestes and I must kill you to avenge our father. For if that was just, then so is this. Whoever marries a wicked woman, looking to wealth or noble birth, is a fool; for humble wives, if chaste, are better in the home than great ones.

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Chorus Leader

Chance is in the marriages of women; among mankind, I see some fall out well, others not.

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Clytemnestra

Child, it was always your nature to love your father. This is what happens: some children are for their fathers, others in turn love their mothers more than a father.

I will forgive you; for I do not rejoice so very much at what I have done, child.

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You, a woman who has just given birth—why is your body so unwashed and meanly clad? Alas for my schemes!

I drove on in anger against my husband more than I should have.

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Electra

You sigh too late, when you have no remedy. My father is dead; but why do you not recall that exile, your own wandering son?

Clytemnestra

l am afraid; I am looking to my interests, not his.

For he is angry, they say, over the murder of his father.

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Electra

And why do you cause your husband to be cruel to me?

Clytemnestra

Such are his ways. You have a stubborn nature also.

Electra

Yes, for I am in distress. Yet I will cease from my anger.

Clytemnestra

And then he will no longer be harsh to you.

Electra

He is proud; for he lives in my home.

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Clytemnestra

You see? Again you are rekindling new quarrels.

Electra

I am silent; I fear him—as I fear him.

Clytemnestra

Stop this talk! But why did you summon me, child?

Electra

You have heard, I suppose, that I have given birth;

in thanks for this, please sacrifice—for I do not know how—on the tenth day, as is the custom for the child. For I have no experience, being childless before.

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Clytemnestra

This is work for another, the one who delivered you.

Electra

I was all alone in my labor and at the baby’s birth.

Clytemnestra

Is this household situated with no friends as neighbors?

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Electra

No one is willing to have the poor as friends.

Clytemnestra

But I will go to make the tenth-day sacrifice to the gods for the child; and when I have done you this favor, I will go to the field where my husband is sacrificing to the

Nymphs. Take this team away, my attendants, and bring it to the stalls; and when you think that I have finished this sacrifice to the gods, be ready; for I must also please my husband.

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Electra

Go into a poor house; but please take care

that my smoke-grimed walls do not smear your robes with soot. For you will make the sacrifice to the gods that you ought to make. Going in to the house. The basket is ready, and the knife sharpened, the same that killed the bull by whose side you will lie, struck down. Even in Hades’ house you will be the bride of the one

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whom you slept with in life. This is the favor I will give you, and you will give me retribution for my father. Exit Electra.

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