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And whoever says I am a fool if I do not touch a young girl when I have her in my house, let him know that he measures soundness of mind by worthless standards of judgment, and he himself is a fool.
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And whoever says I am a fool if I do not touch a young girl when I have her in my house, let him know that he measures soundness of mind by worthless standards of judgment, and he himself is a fool.
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Electra
O black night, nurse of the golden stars,
in which I go to the river’s streams, bearing this pitcher resting on my head—not because I have come to such a point of necessity, but so that I may show to the gods Aegisthus’ insolence—and send forth laments into the wide sky, to my father.
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For the deadly daughter of Tyndareus, my mother, has cast me out of the house to please her husband; since she has borne other children in her union with Aegisthus, she considers Orestes and me secondary in the home.
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O black night, nurse of the golden stars,
in which I go to the river’s streams, bearing this pitcher resting on my head—not because I have come to such a point of necessity, but so that I may show to the gods Aegisthus’ insolence—and send forth laments into the wide sky, to my father.
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For the deadly daughter of Tyndareus, my mother, has cast me out of the house to please her husband; since she has borne other children in her union with Aegisthus, she considers Orestes and me secondary in the home.
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Peasant
Why, unhappy one, do you do this work, laboring for my sake,
though you were well brought up before, and do not stop, even when I tell you this?
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Why, unhappy one, do you do this work, laboring for my sake,
though you were well brought up before, and do not stop, even when I tell you this?
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Electra
I hold you equal to the gods in kindness, for in my distress you have not insulted me. It is a great allotment for mortals
to find a healer for ill fortune, such as I have in you. And so, even though unbidden, I ought to share your labors, relieving you of work as far as I have strength, so that you may bear it more easily. You have enough to do outside; I must keep the house
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in order. It is pleasant for the worker coming in from outside to find things within right.
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I hold you equal to the gods in kindness, for in my distress you have not insulted me. It is a great allotment for mortals
to find a healer for ill fortune, such as I have in you. And so, even though unbidden, I ought to share your labors, relieving you of work as far as I have strength, so that you may bear it more easily. You have enough to do outside; I must keep the house
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in order. It is pleasant for the worker coming in from outside to find things within right.
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Peasant
Go, then, if you wish; and in fact the springs are not far from my house. When it is day, I will drive the oxen to my lands and sow the fields.
For no idler, though he has the gods’ names always on his lips, can gather a livelihood without hard work.
Exeunt Peasant and Electra. Enter Orestes and Pylades.
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Go, then, if you wish; and in fact the springs are not far from my house. When it is day, I will drive the oxen to my lands and sow the fields.
For no idler, though he has the gods’ names always on his lips, can gather a livelihood without hard work.
Exeunt Peasant and Electra. Enter Orestes and Pylades.
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Electra. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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