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.
- I shall prepare my mother’s slaughter!
- And as for the other matter, fortune will ordain well.
- Let this man here help us with both.
- I will; but how will you find a way to kill your mother?
- Go to Clytemnestra, old man, and say this: report that I have given birth to a male child.
- That you have given birth some time ago, or quite recently?
- Ten days ago, in which a woman who has given birth stays pure.
- And how does this grant us the slaughter of your mother?
- She will come, when she hears of my childbirth pangs.
- How is that? Do you think she cares for you, child?
- Yes; and she will weep, surely, over my child’s low rank.
- Perhaps; bring your story back again to the turning-point.
- Well then, if she comes, it is clear that she will die.
- Yes, she will come right up to the door of your house.
- Won’t it then be a little thing for her to turn aside to Hades?
- May I die, once I have seen this!
- First of all, old man, guide my brother—
- To the place where Aegisthus is now sacrificing to the gods?
- Then, going to meet my mother, give her my message.
- So that the very words will seem to have been said by you.