Sophocles Electra 282

CHRYSOTHEMIS

Enter CHRYSOTHEMIS .

What converse keeps thee now beyond the gates,

Dear sister? why this talk in the open day?

Wilt thou not learn after so long to cease

From vain indulgence of a bootless rage?

I know in my own breast that I am pained

By what thou griev’st at, and if I had power,

My censure of their deeds would soon be known.

But in misfortune I have chosen to sail

With lowered canvas, rather than provoke

With puny strokes invulnerable foes.

I would thou didst the like: though I must own

The right is on thy side, and not on mine.

But if I mean to dwell at liberty,

I must obey in all the stronger will.

EL

’Tis strange and pitiful, thy father’s child

Can leave him in oblivion and subserve

The mother. All thy schooling of me springs

From her suggestion, not of thine own wit.

Sure, either thou art senseless, or thy sense

Deserts thy friends. Treason or dulness then?

Choose!—You declared but now, if you had strength,

You would display your hatred of this pair.

Yet, when I plan full vengeance for my sire,

You aid me not, but turn me from the attempt.

What’s this but adding cowardice to evil?

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For tell me, or be patient till I show,

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What should I gain by ceasing this my moan?

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I live to vex them:—though my life be poor,

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Yet that suffices, for I honour him,

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My father,—if affection touch the dead.

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You say you hate them, but belie your word,

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Consorting with our father’s murderers.

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I then, were all the gifts in which you glory

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Laid at my feet, will never more obey

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This tyrant power. I leave you your rich board

And life of luxury. Ne’er be it mine to feed

On dainties that would poison my heart’s peace!

I care not for such honour as thou hast.

Nor wouldst thou care if thou wert wise. But now,

Having the noblest of all men for sire,

Be called thy mother’s offspring; so shall most

Discern thine infamy and traitorous mind

To thy dead father and thy dearest kin.

CH

Der Chor.

Electra

I am,

Were I not so I had not lived till now.

Chorus

Electra

I am ashamed, my friends, if deem'd by you

Indulging an excess of grief and tears;

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But they are wrung from me by bitter force;

Electra

Chorus

I came, my child, mindful of your interests no less than my own. But if what I say is wrong, let your way prevail; for united we will follow you.

Electra

I am ashamed, my friends, if you judge me

too intolerant with my many laments; but, since rough compulsion forces me to act this way, forgive me. How indeed could any woman of noble nature not act, when she sees her father’s sufferings as I see them day and night continually,

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and flourishing rather than fading? First, everything to do with the mother who bore me has become most hateful towards me; next, in my own home I live with my father’s murderers; they rule over me and from them

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equally I either have or do without.
  And then think what manner of days I pass, when I see Aegisthus sitting on my father’s throne; when I look on him wearing the very robes which my father wore and

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pouring libations at the hearth where he killed him; and when I see the chief outrage of them all, the murderer in my father’s bed at my wretched mother’s side, if I must call her mother, even though she shares her bed with that man.

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So hardened is she that she joins with this polluter, fearing no Erinys. No, as if laughing at her deeds, having found the day on which in the past she treacherously killed my father,

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she celebrates it with dance and song, and in monthly rites she sacrifices sheep to the gods who worked her deliverance.

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But I, as I joylessly witness it, cry out, waste away in the house and bewail the unholy feast named after my father,

in solitary weeping. For I cannot even grieve to the full extent which would please my heart, since this lady, who is in fact no lady, loudly reproaches me with such shameless taunts as these: Wicked and hateful girl, have you alone lost your father,and is no one else in the world grieving? May your death be harsh, and may the gods below never free you from your current mourning. Just so she abuses me, except when she gets word that Orestes is coming. Then, infuriated,

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she comes up to me and cries;— Have you not brought this upon me? Is this not your doing, since you stole Orestes from my hands and secretly sent him away? Yes—but rest assured that you will be justly punished. Like this she barks, and in agreement

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her glorious bridegroom by her side urges her on—that total impotent, that utter plague who fights his battles with the help of women. But my heart is broken by my suffering as I constantly wait for Orestes to come and end these troubles.
 

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For the perpetual imminence of his actions has eradicated every hope that I could conceive. In such a state of affairs, then, friends, there is no room for self-restraint or for reverence. Rather, in these dire straits there is much need to pursue a dire course.

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Chorus

Tell me, is Aegisthus nearby as you speak these words to us, or has he left the house?

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Electra

He is gone, to be sure. Do not think that I would have come to the doors, if he were nearby. He happens now to be in the country.

Chorus

Might I converse with you

more boldly, if this is so?

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Electra

He is not here, so question me. What is it you want?

Chorus

I ask you, then, what report can you give of your brother? Will he come soon, or is he delaying? I wish to know.

Electra

He says he will come, but although he promises he never does what he says.

Chorus

True, a man will hesitate on the verge of a great undertaking.

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Electra

And yet I saved him with no hesitation.

Chorus

Take heart: he is noble enough to stand by his friends.

Electra

I believe it; otherwise I would not have remained alive so long.

Chorus

Say no more now, since I see your sister

coming from the house, Chrysothemis, offspring of the same father and mother. In her hands are sepulchral offerings, such as are customary for those in the world below.

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Chrysothemis

What is this speech of yours, sister, which you have come forth yet again to speak at the public doors?

Will you not learn with any lapse of time to end your vain indulgence in futile anger? Yet this much I know—that I myself am saddened by our present circumstances; indeed so much so that, could I find the strength, I would bare my feelings towards them.

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But now, in these evil times I think it best to navigate with shortened sail so that I may not seem to be on the attack, when I am unable to cause harm. I wish that your own conduct were the same! Nevertheless, right is on the side which you favor, not on that which I advise. But if I am to live the life of the freeborn,

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those in power must be obeyed in all things.

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Electra

It is strange, indeed, that you, the daughter of our father from whom you grew, should forget him and instead show concern for your mother! All your admonitions to me have been taught by her; you speak no word of your own.

So now take your choice: be imprudent, or be prudent, but forgetful of your friends. You have just said that if could you find the strength, you would show your hatred of them; yet, when I am doing my utmost to avenge our father,

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you do not work with me, but seek to deflect your sister from her deed.
  Does this not add cowardice to our miseries? Therefore instruct me, or rather learn from me what gain there might be for me if I ended my lamentation. Am I not now alive? Miserably so, I know, but well enough for me.

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And I hurt them, and thereby affix an honorable tribute to the dead, in case those in that world can enjoy it and feel gratitude. But you, who tell me of your hatred, hate in word alone, while by your behavior you unite with the murderers of our father. I, however, would never yield to them, not even if

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one of them were to bring to me the gifts in which you now glory. Let yours be the richly-spread table and superabundant lifestyle. As for me, let my sustenance be only that I do not wound my own conscience—I do not covet such privilege as yours and

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neither would you, if you had self-control. But now, when you could be called the child of the noblest father among men, be called instead your mother’s daughter, for in this way your corruptness will be evident to the greatest number as you betray your dead father and your true friends.

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Chorus

Away with anger, for the gods’ sake! There is

advantage for both of you in what is urged, if you, Electra, would learn to implement her advice, and she, again, yours.

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Chrysothemis

For my part, friends, I am not at all unaccustomed to her insults, nor would I have mentioned this, if I had not heard that the greatest disaster is now rushing down on her,

one which will restrain her from her long mourning.

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Electra

Come then, name this terror! If you can tell me of anything worse than my present condition, I would resist no more.

Chrysothemis

I will tell you all that I know. If you will not cease from your mourning, they intend

to send you where you will never look upon the sun’s brilliance, but passing your life in a covered chamber beyond this land’s borders you will make hymns of your calamity. Think on this, and do not blame me later, when you suffer. Now is the time to think wisely.

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Electra

Have they in fact decided to do this to me?

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Chrysothemis

They certainly have, as soon as Aegisthus comes home.

Electra

Then for this, may he arrive quickly!

Chrysothemis

Troubled girl, what curse are you laying on yourself?

Electra

That he may come, if he plans to do any of what you said.

Chrysothemis

So that you may suffer? In what way? Where are your wits?

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Electra

So that I may fly as far as possible from you all.

Chrysothemis

Have you no care for the life you lead now?

Electra

oh, yes, my life is so wondrously fine.

Chrysothemis

It would be, if only you learned good sense.

Electra

Do not teach me to betray my friends.

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Chrysothemis

I do not, but to bend before the strong.

Electra

Keep your flattery to yourself; it is not in my character.

Chrysothemis

Regardless, it brings no honor to fall through senselessness.

Electra

I will fall, if need be, while honoring my father.

Chrysothemis

But our father, I know, pardons me for this.

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Electra

It is for cowards to commend such sentiments.

Chrysothemis

So you will not be persuaded to agree with me?

Electra

No, indeed; may I not yet be so devoid of intelligence.

Chrysothemis

Then I will move on to where I was sent.

Electra

And where is it that you go? For whom do you take these offerings to be burned?

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Chrysothemis

Mother sends me with funeral libations for our father.

Electra

What are you saying? For her deadliest enemy?

Chrysothemis

Whom she herself killed, no doubt you wanted to say this as well.

Electra

What friend persuaded her? Whose idea was it?

Chrysothemis

The cause, I think, was fear induced by some vision in the night.

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Electra

My father’s Gods! Stand with me now at last!

Chrysothemis

Do you find something heartening in this terror?

Electra

If you would tell me the vision, then I could answer.

Chrysothemis

I know no more than a small part of the story.

Electra

Tell me that, anyway; a small tale has often before now tripped men up, or set them upright.

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Chrysothemis

It is said that she saw the father of you and of me restored to the sunlight and to her company once more. Then he took the scepter—

once his own, but now carried by Aegisthus—and planted it at the hearth. From it branched upward a flourishing limb, by which the whole land of the Mycenaeans was overshadowed. Such was the tale that I heard told by one who was present

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when she revealed her dream to the Sun-god. More than this I do not know, except that she sent me by reason of this fear of hers. Now, I beg you by our ancestral gods, obey me, and do not fall in your senselessness!

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If you reject me now, it is in misery that you will next seek me out.

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Electra

Dear sister, let none of these offerings in your hands touch the tomb. For neither divine law nor piety allows you to dedicate funeral gifts or bring libations to our father from his hateful wife.

No! To the winds with them! Or cover them in a deep, dusty hole, where not one of them will ever come near our father’s resting place. Rather let these treasures be preserved for her below when she dies. Were she not by nature the most audacious

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of all women, she would never at all have tried to pour these ill-willed offerings to the man she killed. Consider whether you believe that the dead in his tomb will welcome this tribute with affection towards her, by whose hand he died dishonored and was mutilated

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like an enemy? She, who, as if to wash herself clean, wiped off the bloodstains on his head? Surely you do not believe that your bringing these things will absolve her of the murder?
  It is not possible. No, be rid of them. Give him instead a lock of your hair’s ends, cut from your own head,

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and from wretched me, too, give these gifts, poor as they are, though all I have. Take this hair, not glossy with unguents, and this girdle, decked with no rich ornament. Then fall down and pray that he himself may come in kindness to us from the world below, a helper against our enemies;

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and that young Orestes may live to set his foot upon our enemies in superior might, so that hereafter we may crown our father’s tomb with wealthier hands than those with which we honor him now.
  I think, yes, I think that he too had some part

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in sending her these appalling dreams. Still, sister, do yourself this service and help me, and him, too, that most beloved of all men, who rests in Hades’ domain, our shared father.

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Chorus

The girl’s advice is pious; you,

dear friend, will do what she says, if you are wise.

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Chrysothemis

I will. In regard to a just deed, it is unreasonable for two people to argue, but reasonable to jump to action. But, by the gods, my friends, when I attempt this task, let me have your silence,

since if my mother hears of it, I believe that this attempt which I will dare shall in the end cause me bitterness. Exit Chrysothemis on the spectators’ right.

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