Sophocles Electra 7

Robert Potter (Translator)

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Electra
86
Thou holy light, thou air around the earth
Extended wide, how often hast thou heard
My strains of woe, how often heard me beat
My bleeding breast, when night before the dawn
Withdraws her darkening veil! For in her shades
The hated couches of this mournful house
90
Are conscious to my grief, while I lament
90
My father's ruin: him the god of war
Sunk not with wounds in a barbaric land;
My mother, and the partner of her bed,

Electra. Sophocles. Robert Potter (Translator). London. 1820.

Current edition Experimental

English (Robert Potter, 1788) (OCR draft) (English) (English (Robert Potter, 1788))

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (2)
Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879)) — 7 focus
ἀγορὰ Λύκειος· οὐξ δύξ ἀριστερᾶς δ᾽ ὅδε
Greek (F. Storr, 1912) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (F. Storr, 1912)) — 1-120 focus
Translations (4)
English (Lewis Campbell, 1906) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Lewis Campbell, 1906)) — 7 focus
EL
Enter ELECTRA . MONODY .
O purest light!
And air by earth alone
Measured and limitable, how oft have ye
Heard many a piercing moan,
Many a blow full on my bleeding breast,
When gloomy night
Hath slackened pace and yielded to the day!
And through the hours of rest,
Ah! well ’tis known
To my sad pillow in yon house of woe,
What vigil of scant joyance keeping,
Whiles all within are sleeping,
For my dear father without stint I groan,
Whom not in bloody fray
The War-god in the stranger-land
Received with hospitable hand,
But she that is my mother, and her groom,
As woodmen fell the oak,
Cleft through the skull with murdering stroke.
And o’er this gloom
No ray of pity, save from only me,
Goes forth on thee,
85
My father, who didst die
85
A cruel death of piteous agony.
85
But ne’er will I
85
Cease from my crying and sad mourning lay,
85
While I behold the sky,
85
Glancing with myriad fires, or this fair day.
85
But, like some brood-bereavèd nightingale,
85
With far-heard wail,
85
Here at my father’s door my voice shall sound.
85
O home beneath the ground!
85
Hades unseen, and dread Persephonè,
And darkling Hermes, and the Curse revered,
And ye, Erinyës, of mortals feared,
Daughters of Heaven, that ever see
Who die unjustly, who are wronged i’ the bed
Of those they wed,
Avenge our father’s murder on his foe!
Aid us, and send my brother to my side;
Alone I cannot longer bide
The oppressive strain of strength-o’ermastering woe.
German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review) (OCR draft) Experimental (German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review)) — 1 focus
O Sohn des Feldherrn, der in Troas einst gebot, 1
1
Des Agamemnon, endlich ist es dir vergönnt,
Zu schaun mit Augen, was zu schaun dich stets verlangt.
Dein graues Argos, deiner Sehnsucht Land, ist hier, 2
Der wuthgeschlagnen Inachid' uralter Hain;
5
Das dort, Orestes, ist der Markt des Lykiers,
Des wolferlegenden Gottes, und zur Liuken hier
Der Hera stolzer Tempel: wo wir hingelangt,
Schaust du Mykenä's Veste, reich an goldnem Schaz,
Und hier der Pelopsenkel unheilschwangres Haus,
10
Wo nach des Vaters grausem Tod ich ehedem
Von deiner Schwester dich empfing und weiter trug
Und rettet' und zu solcher Jugendblüte dich
Aufzog, dereinst zu rächen deines Vaters Mord.
Nun denn, Orestes, und o du, mein Pylades,
15
Der Freunde liebster, was zu thun, berathet schnell:
Denn schon erweckt der Sonne strahlenvoller Glanz
Der Vögel Morgenstimmen uns zu hellem Schall;
Die schwarze Nacht der Sterne schwand in's Dunkel hin.
Drum eh' ein Mann aus dieses Hauses Pforte tritt,
20
Beredet euch zusammen; denn wir stehen da,
Wo's nimmer gilt zu säumen, wo's der That bedarf.
English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759)) — 7 focus
Chorus
121
Thy tears can ne'er recall him
From the dark mansions of the common grave —
No, nor thy prayers ; they can but make thee wretched,
And sink thee deeper in calamity.
Why art thou then so fond of misery?
English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904)) — 1-120 focus

Commentary

Commentary (R. C. Jebb) (OCR draft) (Commentary (R. C. Jebb))

mvp-comment-48-1 A

θρῆνος ἀπὸ σκηνῆς
, or lyric lament delivered by an actor alone. as dist. from the joint
κομμός
of actor and Chorus (121 n.).

mvp-comment-48-2 Verses 86—102 form a

σύστημα
,=vv. 103—120 (
ἀντισύστημα
). If the text is sound, the correspondence is not exact, since the dimeter in v. 99 answers to a monometer in v. 116. These anapaests are, however, of the type usually known as ‘free’ or ‘melic,’ as having more of a lyric character than the regular anapaests of the marching-songs (like those of the Parodos in the Ajax): see W. Christ, Metrik, 2nd ed., § 288. And in such anapaests the symmetry of ‘systems’ is often not strict (cp. O. C. 117 n.).

mvp-comment-48-3 ὦ φάος ἁγνὸν 1

mvp-comment-48-4 γῆς ἰσόμοιρ’ ἀήρ 2

mvp-comment-48-5 ἰσόμοιῤ 3 ἰσόμοιρος 4

mvp-comment-49-1 πολλὰς μὲν … ᾔσθου 5

mvp-comment-49-2 ἀντήρεις 6

mvp-comment-50-1 πληγὰς 7 πλαγὰς 8

mvp-comment-51-1 ὑπολειφθῇ 9 ᾔσθου 10

mvp-comment-52-1 τὰ … παννυχίδων 11 ξυνίσας’ 12 ὅσα … θρηνῶ 13

mvp-comment-52-2 ἤδη 14

mvp-comment-52-3 The MS. οἴκων 15 λέκτρων 16 μογερῶν 17

Commentary (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) (Commentary (Lewis Campbell, 1879)) focus

86-250. mvp-comment-59-1 In this long lament there are two principal movements, each of which admits of subdivision. First, the monody of Electra, consisting of two anapaestic systems, of which one (ll. 86-102) is retrospective, and the other (ll. 103-120) is prospective. Secondly, there is the commatic parodos :-the chorus on their entrance address Electra with lyric strains, to which she responds also in lyric measures. This movement consists of three strophes and antistrophes. In στρ. and ἀντ. α' (ll. 121-152), the chorus gently, but gloomily, expostulate with Electra, who is inconsolable. In στρ. and ἀντ. β΄ (ll. 153-192), they vainly try to cheer her. In στρ. and ἀντ. γ΄ (ll. 193- 232), they remind her of her past and present troubles, and exhort her not to add to them. All this is followed by a ῥῆσις of Electra (ll. 254-309) in reply to the coryphaeus, who, at l. 324, again speaks to call attention to Chrysothemis' approach.

86-250. mvp-comment-59-2 Metres. The anapaests in 86-120, although for the most part regular are in so far of the freer kind which belong to laments as to admit the spondaic paroemiacs near the commencement of each system in ll. 88, 9, 105, 6, which, with the opening half line, have a strange effect of heaviness and of struggle and pain. The two systems so nearly correspond, both in this respect and in the number of the lines, that one is tempted to believe that the half line that would complete the antistrophic effect has been lost somewhere between 113 and 117. But anapaestic systems are seldom exactly antistrophic, and the pause after the (dactylic) invocation in l. 115 may be intentional.

86-92. mvp-comment-60-1 Electra tells her sorrows to the daylight and to the air of Heaven, as she has told them all night long to her sleepless chamber. The holy light contrasts with the pollutions of the house of Pelops; the illimitable air,- which searches even to earth's remotest corners, and is common to Orestes and herself, both contrasts with the narrowness of her lot, and can alone contain the boundlessness of her grief.

87-90. mvp-comment-62-1 ὥς μοι .. αἱμασσομένων] ‘How many tones of my lamenting. how many blows that bruised my bleeding breast, have thrilled you!' στέρνων is objective genitive with πληγάς, but is to be resumed with ἀντήρεις, lit. 'planted firmly against.'

91. mvp-comment-63-1 ὑπολειφθῇ] 'Hath ceased,' lit. 'Has been outrun,' i.e. by the day. Cp. Αj. 672, 3, ἐξίσταται δὲ νυκτὸς αἰανὴς κύκλος | τῇ λευκοπώλῳ φέγγος ἡμέρᾳ φλέγειν.

92-93. mvp-comment-64-1 τὰ δὲ.. οἴκων] ‘And when night comes on, the detested chamber in this weary house knows too well what festive hours I pass.' There is a bitter irony that can hardly be rendered, in using the word παννυχίς, generally a festal celebration, of the sleepless nights of mourning. Cp. Ant. 152, 3, θεῶν δὲ ναοὺς χοροῖς | παννυχίοις πάντας ἐπέλθωμεν, and, for the general sense, cp. Od. 19. 518 foll. ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε Πανδαρέου κούρη, χλωρηΐς ᾿Αηδών, | καλὸν ἀείδῃσιν, ἔαρος νέον ἱσταμένοιο, | δενδρέων ἐν πετάλοισι καθεζομένη πυκινοῖσιν, | ἥ τε θαμὰ τρωπῶσα χέει πολυηχέα φωνήν, | παῖδ᾽ ὀλοφυρομένη Ἴτυλον φίλον, ὅν ποτε χαλκῷ | κτεῖνε δι᾽ ἀφραδίας, κοῦρον Ζήθοιο ἄνακτος· | ὣς καὶ ἐμοὶ δίχα θυμὸς ὀρώρεται ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα. See below, ll. 107, 148, 9. ἤδη contrasts παννυχίδων with what precedes.