But when hope once again lifts and strengthens me, it puts away my distress and dawns brightly on me.
ElectraTo what could we more fittingly appeal than to those very miseries we have endured from the woman herself who bore us?She may fawn upon us, but they are past all soothing. For like a fierce-hearted wolf the temper we have acquired from our mother is implacable.
ChorusOn my breast I beatAt the time of Agamemnon’s murder, when the women wailed with the extravagance of professional Asiatic mourners. Here they repeat those signs of mourning. an ArianAria was a district of Persia. For Eranians
(Old-Persian ariya) the Greeks used Ἄριοι; at least Herodotus says this was an ancient name of the Medes. dirge in just the same fashion as a CissianCissia formed part of Susiana. wailing woman.With clenched fists, raining blows thick and fast, my outstretched hands could be seen descending from above, from far above, now on this side, now on that, till my battered and wretched head resounded with the strokes.
ElectraAway with you, cruel and utterly brazen mother! You dared to give your husband a most cruel burial: unmourned, without lamentation, a king unattended by his people.
OrestesAh me, your words spell utter dishonor.Yet with the help of the gods, and with the help of my own hands, will she not atone for the dishonor she did my father? Let me only take her life, then let me die!
ChorusYes, and I would have you know he was brutally mangled.An allusion to the savage custom by which the extremities of the murdered man were cut off, then hung about his neck and tied together under the arm-pits (μασχάλαι). At least one object of this arm-pitting
was to disable the spirit of the dead from taking vengeance on the murderer.And even as she buried him in this way, she acted with intent to make the manner of his death a burden on your life past all power to bear. You hear the story of the ignominious outrage done to your father.
ElectraMy father was murdered just as you say. But all the while I was kept sequestered, despised, accounted a worthless thing. Kennelled in my room as if I were a vicious cur, I gave free vent to my streaming tears, which came more readily than laughter, as in my concealment I poured out my lament in plentiful weeping.Hear my tale and inscribe it on your heart.
ChorusYes, let it sink deep into your ears, but keep inside a quiet steadfastness of soul. So far things are so. But you yourself be eager to resolve what is to follow.You must enter the contest with inflexible wrath.
OrestesFather, I call on you; side with your loved ones!
ElectraAnd I in tears join my voice to his.
ChorusAnd let all our company blend our voices to echo the prayer. Hear! Come to the light!Side with us against the foe!
OrestesAres will encounter Ares; Right will encounter Right.