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Electra
Ah! brother, your eye is growing wild, and in a moment you are turning mad again, when you were just now sane.
Ah! brother, your eye is growing wild, and in a moment you are turning mad again, when you were just now sane.
Orestes
starting up wildly
Mother, I implore you! Do not shake at me those maidens with their bloodshot eyes and snaky hair. Here they are, close by, to leap on me!
255
Mother, I implore you! Do not shake at me those maidens with their bloodshot eyes and snaky hair. Here they are, close by, to leap on me!
255
Electra
Lie still, poor sufferer, on your couch; your eye sees nothing, you only imagine that you recognize them.
Lie still, poor sufferer, on your couch; your eye sees nothing, you only imagine that you recognize them.
Orestes
O Phoebus! they will kill me, the hounds of hell, death’s priestesses with glaring eyes, the dreadful goddesses.
260
O Phoebus! they will kill me, the hounds of hell, death’s priestesses with glaring eyes, the dreadful goddesses.
260
Electra
I will not let you go; but with arms twined round you, I will prevent your piteous leaping.
I will not let you go; but with arms twined round you, I will prevent your piteous leaping.
Orestes
Let me go! you are one of my Furies,
and are gripping me by the waist to hurl me into Tartarus!
265
Let me go! you are one of my Furies,
and are gripping me by the waist to hurl me into Tartarus!
265
Electra
Alas for me! What aid can I find, when we have Heaven’s forces set against us?
Alas for me! What aid can I find, when we have Heaven’s forces set against us?
Orestes
Give me my horn-tipped bow, Apollo’s gift, with which he told me to ward off the goddesses,
if ever they sought to scare me with wild transports of madness.
270
A mortal hand will wound one of them, unless she departs from my sight. Don’t you hear me? Don’t you see the feathered arrows springing out from my far-shooting bow? What!
Do you linger still? Mount the sky on your wings, and blame those oracles of Phoebus.
275
Ah! why am I raving, gasping? Where, oh! where have I leapt, from my couch? Once more the storm is past, I see a calm.
Give me my horn-tipped bow, Apollo’s gift, with which he told me to ward off the goddesses,
if ever they sought to scare me with wild transports of madness.
270
A mortal hand will wound one of them, unless she departs from my sight. Don’t you hear me? Don’t you see the feathered arrows springing out from my far-shooting bow? What!
Do you linger still? Mount the sky on your wings, and blame those oracles of Phoebus.
275
Ah! why am I raving, gasping? Where, oh! where have I leapt, from my couch? Once more the storm is past, I see a calm.
Orestes. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1891.
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Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.