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.

  1. Oh, oh, tear my face; as a clear-sounding swan beside the river’s streams calls to its dearest father, dying in the crafty snares of the
  2. net, so I lament you, my unhappy father,
Electra
  1. washed by the very last bath, in the most piteous bed of death. Oh, me,
  2. your bitter cleaving by the axe, father, the bitter plans of the way from Troy! Your wife welcomed you with no victor’s garlands or crowns, but with a two-edged sword,
  3. making you the mournful victim of Aigisthus, she got a treacherous bed-fellow.
Chorus
  1. O Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, I have come to your rustic courtyard. A milk-drinker from Mycenae has come, he has come,
  2. a mountain walker; he reports that the Argives are proclaiming a sacrifice for the third day from now, and that all maidens are to go to Hera’s temple.
Electra
  1. My unhappy heart beats fast, friends, but not at adornment or gold; nor will I set up choruses with the maidens of Argos
  2. and beat my foot in the mazes of the dance. By tears I pass the night; tears are my unhappy care day by day. See if my filthy hair,