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.
- that he will get the better of Justice, until he comes to the end of the finish-line and makes the last turn in life.
- He did terrible things, and repaid them to you and Orestes; for Justice has great strength.
- Well then; you must carry the body of this man inside
- and hide it, slaves, so that when my mother comes, she may not see his corpse before her slaughter.
- Wait! Let us go into another matter.
- What? Those are not rescuers from Mycenae whom I see?
- No, but the mother who bore me.
- Then finely she walks to the middle of the net. —And here she comes, splendid in her chariot and dress.
- What are we going to do? Shall we kill our mother?
- Surely pity did not seize you, when you saw your mother?
- Ah! How can I kill her when she bore me and brought me up?
- As she killed your father and mine.
- O Phoebus, you prophesied a great folly—
- Where Apollo is a fool, who are the wise?
- You who declared I was to kill my mother, whom it is clearly wrong to kill.
- How can you be hurt by avenging your father?
- I shall stand trial as a matricide, though I was pure before.
- And by not defending your father, you will be impious.
- I, my mother—? To whom will I pay the penalty for her murder?
- And to whom, if you give up our father’s vengeance?