Electra
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.
- did not keep the death-goddesses away from her house?
- Necessity’s fate led to what must be, and unwise speech from the mouth of Phoebus.
- But what Apollo, what sort of oracles, ordained for me to be my mother’s murderer?
- The deeds were shared, the fates were shared; one ancestral curse has ground down both.
- Ah, my sister, seeing you after a long time, at once I am robbed of your affection,
- and I must abandon you, abandoned by you.
- She has a husband and a home; she does not suffer pitiably, except that she leaves the city of the Argives.
- And what other unhappiness is greater
- than to leave the boundary of one’s native land?
- But I shall leave my father’s house, and at a stranger’s tribunal undergo trial for my mother’s murder.
- Have courage; you will go
- to the holy town of Pallas; only hold out.
- Clasp me to your breast, my dearest brother; for the curse of our mother’s blood is separating us from our father’s home.
- Throw your arms in close embrace about me. Lament as if I were dead, over my grave.
- Alas! You have said things terrible even for gods to hear. For in me and in the Olympians there is
- pity for much-suffering mortals.
- I shall no longer see you!
- Nor will I draw near your sight!
- These are my last words to you.
- Farewell, my city!