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. But, stranger, I would not know him if I saw him.
Orestes
  1. No wonder, for you were both young when you were parted.
Electra
  1. There is only one of my friends who would recognize him.
Orestes
  1. The man who is said to have stolen him away from murder?
Electra
  1. Yes, the old man, my father’s old servant.
Orestes
  1. Did the dead man, your father, find burial?
Electra
  1. He found what he could, cast out of the house.
Orestes
  1. Alas, the things you have said! For perception of suffering, even another’s, gnaws at mortals. Speak, so that when I know, I may tell your brother the story, unpleasant, but necessary to hear. Pity is not present at all in clownishness,
  2. but in wise men. And indeed it is not without mischief for the wise to have overly profound thoughts.