Sophocles Electra 516

EL

Aegisthus

who within these gates

Always restrain'd thee, that thou might'st not shame

Thy friends: now free from his control, to me

Thou show'st no reverence; but thy froward tongue

Oft speaks of me as haughty, and unjust

In my commands, and insolent to thee,

And thine. My nature knows not insolence:

Nor speak I harshly to thee, but provoked

By thy repeated harshness, and reproach,

That by my hand thy father died. (Thy plea

This only made) By me thy father died;

I know it well, nor shall deny the deed;

For justice struck the blow, nor I alone;

And thee, if wisdom ruled thee, it behoved

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To aid me: for thy father, thus bewail'd,

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Alone of all the Grecians steel'd his heart

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To sacrifice thy sister to the gods:

He never felt, like me, a mother's throes.

I urge not that: but tell me for what cause

Or for whose sake he bade this victim bleed.

Say'st thou for Greece? No right had Greece to slay

My child. Or was it for his brother’s sake?

He slew my daughter: should not I repay/

Such deeds with just revenge? Had he no child?

Had he not two? And these with juster right

Had been devoted, as of parents born

Whose cause avenging Greece embark'd for Troy.

Or had th' infernal god more keen desire

To gorge him with my children, than with hers?

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Or was this barbarous father's love grown cool

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To children born of me, but warm to those

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Born to his brother? Was not this the part

Of an unfeeling father, to all sense 1.

Of goodness lost? I think so, though I speak

What to thy thoughts is adverse; so my child

That died would speak, could she her voice regain.

Hence for this deed no sorrow, no remorse

Hath ever touch'd my heart. To thee perchance

I seem to judge amiss: but weigh things well,

Let justice hold the beam, then blame thy friends.

Electra

Clytaemnestra

You run loose again, it seems, since Aegisthus is not here, who used always to keep you at least from coming out to the gates and shaming your family. But now, since he is absent, you pay

me no mind. And yet you have said of me often and to many listeners that I am a rash and unjust tyrant, who violently abuse you and yours. But it is not I who do violence; I only return the insults that I so often hear from you.
 

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Your father—this and nothing else is your constant pretext—was slain by me. Yes, by me. I know it well. I make no denial. Justice took hold of him, not I alone—Justice, whom you ought to have supported, if you had been in your right mind.

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For this father of yours whom you constantly bewail alone of all the Greeks had the heart to sacrifice your own blood, your sister, to the gods—he, who, when sowing his seed, felt none of the pains I did when I gave birth.
  Come, tell me now, why, or to please whom,

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did he sacrifice her? To please the Argives, you will say? No, they had no right to kill my daughter. Or, if indeed it was for the sake of his brother Menelaus that he killed my child, was he not to pay me the penalty for that? Did Menelaus not have two children,

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who should in fairness have died instead of my daughter, since the father and mother from whom they were sprung had caused that voyage? Did Hades have some greater desire to feast on my offspring than on hers? Or had all love of the children of my womb been

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abandoned by their accursed father, while love for the children of Menelaus filled him? Were these not the marks of a thoughtless and malicious parent? I think so, even if I differ from your judgment. So, too, would the dead girl speak, if she could find a voice. For myself, then, I view the past without

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dismay; but if you think my attitude criminal, see that your own judgment is just before you blame your neighbor.

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Electra

This time, at least, you cannot say that I first gave you cause for upset and thereby provoked such words from you. But, if you will permit me,

I would gladly declare the truth, on behalf of my dead father and my sister alike.

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Clytaemnestra

Certainly I permit you; and if you always addressed me in such a tone, you would not be difficult to listen to.

Electra

Then I will speak. You admit that you killed my father. What statement could be more shameful still than that,

whether you did it justly or not? But I will demonstrate to you that you did not justly kill him. No, the persuasion of that wicked man with whom you now sleep dragged you to it.
  Ask the huntress Artemis what wrong she punished when she stayed the frequent winds at Aulis;

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or I will tell you, since we may not learn from her. My father, as I have heard, was once hunting in the grove of the goddess, when his footfall flushed a dappled and antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to make a certain boast concerning its slaughter.

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Angered by this, Leto’s daughter detained the Greeks so that in requital for the beast’s life my father should sacrifice his own daughter. So it was that she was sacrificed, since the fleet had no other release, neither homeward nor to Troy .

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For that reason, under fierce constraint and with much resistance, at last he sacrificed her—but it was not for the sake of Menelaus.
  But suppose—for I will make your own plea—suppose that the motive of his deed was to benefit his brother. Should you have killed him because of that? Under what sort of law?

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See that by laying down such a law for men, you do not lay down trouble and remorse for yourself. For, if we are to take blood for blood, you surely would be the first to die, if you were to meet with justice.
  But consider whether this pretext is any excuse at all.

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For tell me, if you please, what crime it is that you requite by doing the most shameless deeds of all: sharing your bed with that blood-guilty one, with whom you first destroyed my father and now bear his children

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while you have cast out the earlier born, the pious offspring of a pious marriage? How can I commend these deeds? Or will you claim that this, too, is recompense for your daughter? No, it is a shameful plea, if you so plead, for there is nothing noble in marrying an enemy for a daughter’s sake.
 

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But no, I can hardly even admonish you, when your every cry is that I slander my mother. I think, rather, that you are no less a mistress to me than a mother; so lowly is the life that I live,

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ever beset with miseries come from you and your consort. And your other child, the exile who scarcely escaped your hand, poor Orestes, wastes away his unhappy life. You have often accused me of rearing him to punish your crime,

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and I would have done so, if I could, you may be sure. As far as he is concerned, you can denounce me to all as disloyal, if you like, or loud-mouthed, or impudent. For if my nature is familiar with such wrongdoings, I hardly bring disgrace upon your nature.

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Chorus

I see her breathing fury; but whether justice is with her, her concern for this I see no longer.

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Clytaemnestra

And what manner of concern should I use against her, who has abused her mother like this at her mature age? Do you not think

that she would go forward to any deed without shame?

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Electra

Now be assured that I do feel shame for it, though I seem not to you. I know that my behavior is unsuited to my age and inappropriate. But then the enmity I get from you and your

behavior compel me with harsh necessity to do this; for reprehensible deeds are learned from reprehensible examples.

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Clytaemnestra

You shameless creature! Truly I and my speech and my deeds give you too much to talk about.

Electra

The words are yours, not mine; for yours

are the deeds, and they find their own expression.

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Clytaemnestra

Now by our mistress Artemis, you shall not escape the consequences of this audacity once Aegisthus returns.

Electra

You see? You are driven to rage and, even though you grant me free speech, you have no patience to listen.

Clytaemnestra

Will you not allow me to sacrifice without ominous shouting, when I have permitted you to say anything and everything you wished?

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Electra

I allow it; I exhort you to it: sacrifice! But do not blame my voice, for I would not say another word.

Clytaemnestra

Raise then, my attendant, the offerings

of many fruits, so that I may uplift my prayers for release from my present fears to this image of our King. Please, O Phoebus our defender, may you now listen to my prayer, though it is muffled; for I do not make my plea among friends, nor does it suit me to unfold it all

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to the light while she stands near me, lest by her malice and a cry of her clamorous tongue she sow reckless rumors through the whole city. Nevertheless, hear me thus, since in this way I will speak. That vision which I saw last night

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in ambiguous dreams—if its appearance was to my good, grant, Lycean king, that it be fulfilled; but if to my harm, then hurl it back upon those who would harm me. And if any are plotting to eject me by treachery from my present prosperity, do not permit them.

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Rather grant that living forever unharmed as I am I may govern the house of the sons of Atreus and their throne, sharing prosperous days with the friends who share them now, and with those of my children who feel no enmity or bitterness towards me.

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O Lycean Apollo, hear these prayers with favor, and grant them to us all just as we ask! As for all my other prayers, though I am silent, I judge that you, a god, must know them, since it is appropriate that Zeus’s children see all.

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Paedagogus

Foreign ladies, how might I know for certain if this be the palace of the king Aegisthus?

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Chorus

This is the palace, stranger; you yourself have guessed correctly.

Paedagogus

And am I on target when I surmise that this lady is his wife? She is indeed regal to look upon.

Chorus

Exactly right; this is she before you.

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Paedagogus

Greetings, royal lady! I bring happy news to you and to Aegisthus from a friend.

Clytaemnestra

I welcome your greeting; but I would like first to know who may have sent you.

Paedagogus

Phanoteus the Phocian provided me the weighty task.

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Clytaemnestra

And what is it, sir? Tell me. Coming from a friend you will bring, I know, a kindly message.

Paedagogus

Orestes is dead, to put it briefly.

Electra

Oh, miserable me! My ruin comes today!

Clytaemnestra

What, friend? What did you say? Do not listen to her!

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Paedagogus

I said, and say again, Orestes is dead.

Electra

This is my wretched end! I am no more!

Clytaemnestra

To Electra.

You, go about your business! But you, sir, tell me exactly in what manner he was destroyed.

Paedagogus

I was sent for that purpose, and will tell you all. Having gone to the shrine which is Greece ’s common glory in order to compete for Delphi ’s prizes and having heard the herald’s loud summons to the foot-race, the first contest,

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he entered the lists, a brilliant form, a wonder in the eyes of all there. When he had finished the race at the point where it began, he went out with the glorious honor of victory. To say the most with the least words, I do not know the man whose deeds and triumphs have matched his.

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But this one thing you must know: in all the contests that the judges announced, he carried away the prize, and men deemed him happy as often as the herald proclaimed him an Argive , by name Orestes, son of

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Agamemnon, who once marshalled Greece ’s famous expedition.
  So far Orestes fared as I described. But when a god sends harm, not even the strong man can escape. For on another day, when with the rising sun there was held the race of the swift-footed horses,

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he entered it along with many charioteers. One was an Achaean, one from Sparta ; two masters of yoked cars were Libyans; Orestes, driving Thessalian mares, came fifth among them; the sixth was from Aetolia ,

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with chestnut colts; a Magnesian was the seventh; the eighth, with white horses, was of Aenian stock; the ninth hailed from Athens , built of gods; there was a Boeotian too, making the tenth chariot. They took their stations where the appointed umpires

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placed them by lot and ranged the cars. Then at the sound of the bronze trumpet, they started. All shouted to their horses, and shook the reins in their hands; the whole course was filled with the clatter of rattling chariots; and the dust flew upward.

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All of them in a confused throng kept plying their goads unsparingly, so that one of them might pass the wheel-hubs and the snorting steeds of his rivals; for both at their backs and at their rolling wheels the breath of the horses foamed and smattered.

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Orestes, driving close to the near edge of the turning-post, almost grazed it with his wheel each time and, giving rein to the trace-horse on the right, he checked the horse on the inner side. To this point, all the chariots still stood upright. But then the Aenian’s

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hard-mouthed colts carried him out of control as they passed out of the turn from the sixth into the seventh lap and dashed their foreheads against the rig of the Barcaean. Next, as a result of this one mishap, the cars kept smashing and colliding with each other, and the whole

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race-ground of Crisa swelled with shipwrecked chariots.

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Seeing this, the clever charioteer from Athens drew aside and paused, allowing the equestrian flood to pass in mid-crest. Orestes was driving last, keeping his horses

behind, as his trust was in the race’s end. But when he sees that the Athenian is alone left in, he sends a shrill cry ringing through the ears of his swift colts, and gives chase. Bringing yoke level with yoke the two of them raced, first one man, then the other,

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showing his head in front of the other’s chariot. Up to now the ill-fated Orestes had driven upright safely through every circuit, upright in his upright car. But then he slackened his left rein while the horse was turning and unwittingly struck the edge of the pillar,

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breaking the axle-box in two. He spilled forward over the chariot-rail and was caught in the trim reins, and as he fell to the ground, his colts were scattered into the middle of the course.
  But when the crowd saw that he had fallen

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from the chariot, a cry of pity went up for the young man who had done such deeds and was allotted such bad fortune—now dashed against the earth, now tossed with his feet to the sky until the charioteers with difficulty reigned in the gallop of his horses and

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freed him, so covered with blood that no friend who saw it would have known the pitiful corpse. Immediately they burned him on a pyre, and chosen men of Phocis now bring the sad dust of that mighty form in a small urn of bronze,

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so that he may find due burial in his fatherland.
  Such is my story—it is grievous even to hear, but for us witnesses who looked on, it was the greatest of sorrows that these eyes have seen.

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Chorus

Oh, sorrow! It seems now that all the stock of our ancient masters

has been leveled clean down to the roots.

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Clytaemnestra

O Zeus, how shall I name this news—fortunate? Or terrible, but beneficial? It is a bitter thing, when by my own misery I preserve my life.

Paedagogus

Why are you so despondent, lady, at my news?

Clytaemnestra

There is a terrible power in motherhood; a mother may be wronged, but she can feel no hate for those whom she bore.

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Paedagogus

Then it seems that we have come in vain.

Clytaemnestra

No, not in vain; how can you say in vain when you have brought me sure proofs of his death?

He sprang from my own life, yet deserting my breast and my nurture he became a fugitive, completely alien from me. And me, once he left this land, he saw no more; but, charging me with the murder of his father, he made terrible threats,

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so that neither by night nor by day could sweet sleep cover me, but the imminent moment made me live always as if I were about to die. Now, however, since today I am rid of terror of him and of this girl—that greater plague

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who shared my home while consuming undiluted my life-blood—now, I think, for all her threats, I shall pass my days in peace.

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Electra

Ah, what misery! Now, indeed, Orestes, I must mourn your misfortune, since even dead as you are

you are abused by this woman, your mother! Is it not just fine?

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Clytaemnestra

You certainly are not, but he is fine as he is.

Electra

Listen to her, Nemesis of the recently departed!

Clytaemnestra

She has heard who should be heard, and has ordained well.

Electra

Abuse us! Fortune is with you today.

Clytaemnestra

You and Orestes will not stop me, then, will you?

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Electra

It is we who are stopped; we cannot stop you.

Clytaemnestra

Your coming, sir, deserves large recompense, if you have stopped her clamorous tongue.

Paedagogus

Then I would take my leave, if all is well.

Clytaemnestra

Not so; your welcome would then be unworthy of me, and of my ally who sent you. No, come in. Leave her out here to shout out loud her misfortunes and those of her friends. Clytaemnestra and the Paedagogus enter the house.

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Electra

What do you think? Does it seem to you that she, poor woman, wept and wailed terribly,

like a grieving, anguished woman, over her son thus destroyed? No, she left us with a laugh! Ah, miserable me! Dearest Orestes, how your death has destroyed me! For your passing has torn from my heart

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the only hopes which still were mine: that you would live to return some day as the avenger of our father, and also of me in my misery. But now, where shall I turn? I am alone, cheated of you, as of my father. Hereafter I must be a slave again

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among those I most hate, my father’s murderers. Am I not in a fine way? But at least in the time remaining me I will never enter the house to dwell with them. No, lying down at these gates, without a friend, I shall wither away my days.

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Therefore, if anyone in the house be angry, let him kill me. It is a favor, if I die, but a pain, if I live. I desire life no more.

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